In my previous work, ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Meditations on Mapping the Wiccan qualities onto the wheel of the year’, I outlined the scheme linking the Qualities to the sabbats and described their progression in a dynamic cycle. I stated that it was not possible to work the WoV in reverse, and not possible to use the opposites of the qualities either, as they do not make for progression. There is, however, a different form of variation which can be made to work for the duration of one cycle, although it does not lead to a renewal of the cycle at its termination, for reasons which will become apparent. This variation is made by considering whether the root of the Quality of the sabbat is expressed as a connection of the God with the rest of the world (or the king with the community) or if there is no such connection and the round is being worked for the sole selfish ends of the God/king without reference to the world/community. The sabbats/connected qualities/disconnected qualities are as follows:
Sabbat Connected
Quality Disconnected Quality
Yule
Compassion
Indulgence
Imbolc
Humility
Indifference
Ostara
Mirth
Mockery
Beltane
Beauty
Narcissism
Litha
Power
Tyranny
Lammas
Honour
Conceit
Autumn
Reverence
Idolatry
Samhain
Strength
Brutality
The connected and disconnected Qualities can appear to be
quite similar on the surface in some cases, but they lead to the opposite
outcome. The connected Qualities are essential for the healthy development of
the interconnected community served by the Gods. The disconnected qualities are
perversions of these, compromised to the service of the individual embodying
the God role, and inimical to the greater good. The disconnected wheel proceeds
as follows:
Yule/Indulgence:
The motivation of Compassion should lead to the formation
of a fresh cycle of the God’s rule, addressing and correcting the problems of
the prior cycle. Unwillingness to do this leads instead to the decay of
compassion to indulgence. Rather than being an active quality seeking to
improve on previous practices and correct the flaws of the previous rule,
Indulgence is oblivious to the flaws and instead turns a blind eye to the
injustices of that rule. Both qualities address the issue of justice, but
whereas Compassion transcends justice, Indulgence suppresses it.
Imbolc/Indifference:
The Quality of Humility allows a proper formulation of the
situation which the God is moving into. It is, in a sense, passive, but it is
not static. There is an ongoing absorption of information and establishment of
context in preparation for active consideration. With Indifference there is no
novel consideration to be made. The details of the situation are instead
irrelevant, as there is no intention to change anything or to act in accordance
with new data. Rather than being informed by the truth of the situation, there
is a wall protecting the ongoing ignorance of the operator from any hint of a
need for things to change.
Ostara/Mockery:
The Quality of Mirth is an activation of the faculty of
perceiving value and discerning the good as a precondition for the pursuit of
that good and its enactment. Mockery is a perversion of that faculty in the
service of actively rejecting the fresh good, preferring to retain the old. Mockery
focuses on any and all perceived or imagined faults and inconsistencies in the
good in a hyper-critical rejection of any possibility of change to the status
quo.
Beltane/Narcissism:
The Quality of Beauty points to the path that needs to be
taken to establish the new paradigm of the reborn God. It is an embodiment of
that which is fittest to grant the necessary agency to found the new order. In
the case of the disconnected Quality, there is no new order to be established.
There is just the continuation of that which has gone before, and the image
which embodies that sort of stasis, the image of one’s highest ideal, is the
image of the self. There is no path beyond what is, no love higher than
self-obsession and a dread of change and anything which might lead to it.
Litha/Tyranny:
The Quality of Power is the capability to act in the
service of the world and the community which you embody and represent. It is
used to create and manage the sort of world and the sort of order which has
been mandated as an improvement on or the next step from the previous cycle.
The disconnected quality is Tyranny. There is no thought of service toward the
world or the community. Power is wielded for the sake of the wielder. No
general improvement in things is contemplated. The general good is instead
diminished as resources and activity are devoted to satisfying the personal and
private demands of the tyrant.
Lammas/Conceit:
The Quality of Honour is essential for the acceptance of
the need for sacrifice and the termination of the reign of the God-king. It is
a recognition of the true nature of One’s function and purpose and of the
proper limits of One’s authority and agency. The God incarnated for a purpose,
and when that purpose is achieved, He must relinquish His hold on the world.
The disconnected Quality recognises no such limitation. What should have been
Honour, a principled recognition of the appropriate limits of action becomes
Conceit, a limitless self-regard which will accept no restriction ever on what
has become rulership for its own sake, divorced from any concept of the common
good. The duty of sacrifice is eschewed, and the rule of the King becomes
predatory, consuming His own people.
Autumn Equinox/Idolatry: (Flattery).
The Quality of Reverence gives proper acknowledgement to
the accomplishments of the God after his passing. If this does not occur, the
disconnected Quality is Idolatry, honouring outward form of the virtues which
the King should have embodied but failed to do. This Idolatry is demanded by
authority, but the object of veneration is an empty shell. None may acknowledge
the truth lest the illusion be shattered. The mantle of virtue resting upon His
shoulders is a lie, but it must be maintained as part of the machinery of
Power.
Samhain/Brutality:
The ‘connected’ Quality of Strength is similar to Beauty
insofar as it is a Quality imposed on us from outside rather than displayed by
ourselves, but as with Narcissism, the disconnected Quality is one which is
displayed by us. The disconnected Quality of Samhain is brutality. Death’s
overwhelming Strength not only draws all things into its realm in the end, it
also offers reflection, healing and renewal. In order to fulfill the final
function of commencing a new cycle of the wheel, the Descent of the Goddess is
a necessary element. Beauty performs the same function in the Underworld as in
the manifest world. It points to the direction of renewed life and betterment
of that which has gone before. The new cycle is not the same as the old. The
experience gained provides new material from which to fashion the new paradigm
for the founding of the new order of things. Beauty opens the capacities of
Strength beyond what Strength alone can achieve. What happens in a round
informed by the ‘disconnected’ Qualities? Beauty cannot point to the external
good when the only good recognised is narcissistic self-regard. The elements of
the cycle which were deemed not useful to the selfish purposes of the
‘disconnected’ God remain rejected. They remain ‘damned’ in the underworld,
with no possibility of redemption and new creation. The system is locked in
stasis, and for all practical purposes, the wheel turns only once with no path
leading beyond. The Strength which should be wielded in the service of new
creation is instead locked into the perpetual persecution of whatever is
rejected, and is thus properly recast as Brutality. The disconnected Qualities
thus lead to a one-shot universe of the Christian sort, with eternal damnation
as the chief feature of the Underworld, rather than the healing and renewal in
preparation for new life which is the feature of the Summerlands of the craft.
