Order as a Liberating Force

Establishing order in your life is a personal war, and the stakes are high.

~VAAV Date: Heaven ● Fire (Soul) ● Honor ● Order ● Observe

"Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time." ~Benjamin Franklin

The week of Order appears for the first time in the third week of the month of Honor on the VAAV calendar. Order, incidentally, is a recurring concept throughout antiquity to the present, represented as far back as one of the seven principles of Ma’at, to the Stoics adherence to a providentially ordered Divine Universe, to the above quote from Benjamin Franklin. This quote is a great reminder of the need to tame the chaotic, disorderly forces that we too often allow to dictate our thoughts, words, and actions.

Establishing order in our lives can be elusive. We live in a time where the human mind and psyche are bombarded with information at a level not experienced before in human history. These messages come at us from all directions by those seeking to capture and capitalize on our attention. Traditional and social media, with all its benefits, comes with a hefty cost on our sanity. Is it any wonder that the process of spending too much time on social media is often referred to as doom-scrolling?

Order as Character

Creating a sense of order in your life is, I believe, one of the hardest things to start, or restart after a prolonged lapse. It is easy to follow and blame the herd for when life goes wrong. But deciding to order your steps to any degree means understanding that you alone are responsible for your actions and their outcomes.

That means that to integrate order into your life, you must allow it to be a part of your character. You might get lucky and dodge the occasional bullet, but if you believe that you will get by living as the grasshopper in Aesop’s fables, you will one day have your rude awakening.

Order as the Road Less Traveled

Benjamin Franklin suffered from many of the same moral failings as we all do. His designed these 13 virtues as his way to remember to practice virtue, much in the same way Marcus Aurelius would journal iin what would become his Meditations. Unlike Meditations, these 13 virtues were designed to be quick and easy reminder to practice, especially on long transatlantic journeys back then. Thankfully, we have much of Franklin’s writings and advice to guide us if we wanted to adopt these virtues for ourself:

My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judg’d it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro’ the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arrang’d them with that view.

Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits, and the force of perpetual temptations.

This being acquir’d and establish’d, Silence would be more easy; and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improv’d in virtue, and considering that in conversation it was obtain’d rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling company, I gave Silence the second place.

Growing up, I remember struggling with my own sense of discipline and order. Back then, I wondered why didn’t anyone just write something down, anything, that could help serve as a guide. It wasn’t until the internet was made highly accessible to most that I then came across Franklin’s virtues.

Democratizing access to the internet, with all its pitfalls, ended up pointing to that road that I and so many young men needed to begin to improve ourselves. It has a road that I continue to travel upon, and I have never regretted. As a matter of fact, many of the things that I use to run after - physically, emotionally, and spiritually - became less of a distraction the more I ordered my life, resulting in the freedom from the chaos I was experiencing.

Order and Acceptance

Choosing to order any part of your life, no matter how small, usually comes after a lesson has been learned. How many times have we told ourselves in a particularly painful situation, “I’m not doing that again!” (be honest now…). But for that to happen, you have to choose to accept that whatever pleasure or profit that drove you to that circumstance is no longer worth more than the peace of mind or harmony you are seeking. It has to be your choice.

As with all things, there is a balance that must be struck when seeking to establish order. It can easily slip into becoming too rigid in your worldview, leading to denying yourself opportunities for further discovery and growth. It can also lead to a desire to control others based on your a desire that everyone else needs to live by your new standard. For those who have strayed too far from Order, we are reminded to design our lives as follows:

“Live con­templating the truth and order of the universe and promoting it as much as possible, being led in no respect by the irrational part of the soul.” ~Posidonius

Ordering the VAAV

There are thirteen spheres arranged along three large circles. These circles represent the 3 Domains or Principles of the VAAV.

On my post on “Planting a New Tree of Life”, I shared the diagram of the
Vir Arcana Arbor Vitae (VAAV) and an outline of the tree used to represent the Ma’at Matrix. I previously explained that the 13 spheres represented the Attributes, Strengths, and Virtues of the VAAV. But it wasn’t until I ordered them along the three large circles that it really began to take form.

The three large circles composing the tree, are represented by three Domains as per Plato’s “Theory of the Soul” discussed in “The Republic”. They are, from the top down:

1. LOGOS (Reason)

2. THUMOS (Will)

3. EROS (Appetites)

There is a deeper meaning when these same large circles are represented as Principles. These Principles are a synthesis of various esoteric teachings, including alchemy. Viewing them from the top down, they are:

1. Returning (Fruit), alchemically as Sulfur

2. Proceeding (Tree), alchemically as Mercury

3. Abiding (Root), alchemically as Salt

For the roots of the tree to be nourished, there must be Soil underneath it. Soil in this diagram represents the concept of Nurture. For a tree to multiply, its Fruit must contain the Seed within to carry out this process. Seed in this diagram represents the concept of Nature.

You will notice there are two vesica piscis images within the three circles. From the top down, these images represent:

1. Being, as Progress, symbolized by the Pentagram

2. Becoming, as Potential, symbolized by the Pentagon

When I started to order these circles and spheres around each other, I was reminded of a concept from a book titled, “The Inner Citadel” by Pierre Hadot. This concept, taken from Stoicism, imagines the Soul to be like a fortress within that nothing from the outside can disturb. But this requires training to achieve, and concepts like alchemy are a very useful practice in purifying the “Inner Citadel of the Soul”, represented by the image below.

The Inner Citadel of the Soul as presented in the VAAV

Happy to answer any questions you may have on this particular portion of the VAAV or any of its components. You can also leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on this system. Thank you. 𓁟

Thank you for your support in this endeavor. If you’d like to support me in this work, I would really appreciate a cup of coffee.