So be it – A few thoughts on the idea of Calm Acceptance

By Sam Coles AOR
First published in OR Briefing 211, Spring 2259

This article started out life a few months ago in the form of a couple of lines I wrote to a friend, and recently, after further musing, I decided to write an article about the subject for the good folk of the OR.

Calm Acceptance and the ‘Game of Life’

I try to accept the course of events in my life, living as best as I can, but understanding that difficulty and struggle are not punishment or ‘ill-fate’, but are there to forge a stronger will, to improve us in all our aspects, and to put us onto the right path. I force myself to remember that all wisdom needs trial/suffering to underpin it. This isn’t being passive as I understand it, but is “the mark of a highly evolved individual”1. We must let life flow through us; we should not grab at it, try to restrain it or demand how it should be, but accept the good and bad as having equal importance in shaping and strengthening one’s essence.

I believe that when faced with a difficult situation, a situation that perhaps forces you to make a tough choice or take an unexplored, possibly dangerous path, it helps to remember the great primal truth of Orlog: the ‘game of life’. This ‘game of life’ has set out for us various problems, which appear to us in diverse form, for example from dealing with rude and inconsiderate neighbours, to building and fighting for Odin’s Nation. Now we can tackle these problems, ‘play the game of life’ if you will, in any way we wish, for we have free will, and there are often many different approaches to be taken on each individual problem. However, Orlog has also set out certain rules and a moral code for living, the former rules perhaps best defined as the ‘natural order of things’ that should be adhered to (‘skilful playing’) if the individual wishes to evolve. It is in this ‘skilful playing,’ i.e. overcoming struggle using honourable Odinic methods, which leads down the path to our enlightenment, our attainment of ‘Odin Consciousness’.

I’ve seen many folk expend so much energy complaining and bickering about the most petty and trivial of things, that afterwards they look and feel utterly drained and miserable. This pointless and wasteful conflict can in most part be avoided if one was to just think more carefully about what one says and does before taking action. I personally try very hard to practise this in my daily living: no complaining, no bickering, no slandering, no arrogance. Listening to some of the conversations in my place of work. The above kind of negativity comprises a considerable amount of them, which are mostly unnecessary and unprofessional. Calm Acceptance is the cure. If the storeroom is a mess, don’t run off and complain to your colleague. Clear it up yourself and make it known you have done so. If there is litter on your favourite forest path, don’t [just] curse the blood of the scum who dropped it. Pick it up before it affects someone else. These are just two obvious examples of calmly accepting a situation for what it is, and then taking positive action to sort it out, rather than fleeing from the problem and expecting someone else to do something about it. If nothing else, it makes you a better person. I try to remember this when I am faced with a negative situation, such as complaining or slandering, where it would be perhaps easier to join in this useless and indeed destructive behaviour; I must hold myself clear and above it, either staying silent or taking positive action. As young Thumper in the tale of Bambi was told by his elders, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” – a most wise and timeless piece of advice that cannot be repeated enough.

Calm Acceptance and the Spiritual Victory

Sometimes, if we are engaged in activities such as campaigning or litter picking, we can become demoralised when seem to have little apparent ‘success’. Yet, as has been recently discussed on the Forum and elsewhere, the difference we make, as perceived by the masses, or the extent of their recognition, is in many ways quite irrelevant. Taking the role of a wholehearted activist, no matter what your ‘success’, is what counts, i.e. no action is too small (for example just picking up and taking home that discarded can left on the trail we discussed earlier), and each positive action vibrates the web of Wyrd in a beneficial way.

And so in conclusion, I believe that Calm Acceptance is all part of being an Odinist. We are surrounded by ills and seemingly unconquerable obstacles, both in our personal lives and on a Midgard-wide scale, yet we do not throw up our hands or whine like wretches. We instead check our emotions and calmly accept our situation for what it is. Yes, it is unpleasant, but we will not advance as spiritual beings unless we acknowledge that this negative situation exists, and depending on it’s nature, we either toss it aside as trivial rubbish, or take it head on and initiate some positive action.

“A man is not judged on the trials he faces, but how he overcomes them.”

Sources, acknowledgements and influences

1.Heimgest DCG, the Great Moot 2008 and ‘Increased Hearing through Silence’

2. Eowyn OR’s work on the Guardians website.

3. ‘Odinism in the Modern World’, by Wulfstan OR

4. Asrad CG on staying positive and his article ‘Positive Energy’ from ORB 206.

5. My friend Peter

i Odinism in the Modern World, Wulfstan OR