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What was your "defining moment" that drew you to knighthood/chivalry?
Joshua Santana:
--- Quote ---Forming an Order of chivalry is a wonderful way to improve the lives of everyone involved!
--- End quote ---
Indeed Sir Edward.
I have posted here early but there is other moments of chivalry that is worth mentioning here.
I must remind that ever since March 7 of 2010, I have lived through a three year journey of constant improvement and at times falling down by mistakes only to learn and get back up afterwards.
I recall in early 2012, this was in the later part of my relationship with the dame (as seen on facebook). I remember that I was enjoying the relationship but yet I felt I was loosing myself to becoming something that I didn't recognize. I was becoming disrespectful to my parents and family. I was slowly turning back to my olde perfectionist habits. Upon this realization I decided to turn back to my Christian Faith and to following the Code of Chivalry.
When I began to practice my reclaiming of my beliefs, they were challenged by the dame. In addition I landed a new job and worked full time. This eliminated any chances of seeing her for a month. She never appreciated that nor my habit of following my parents' decisions (since I do not have the resources to leave their house). This was not the first time my beliefs were challenged. They were challenged in several classes and by several people.
Eventually I began to regain my chivalric self, but with a terrible price. Restoring and regaining my Honor with my God and Family. Trying to help a dame with some issues (will not be mentioned) as best I can, proved to be quite a moral dilemma.
This lead to a heated argument between me and her. Her argument was summed in "i should be my own individual with your family" or "You need to stop listening to your parents". I got mad and viewed it as her way of dissing me. In the end, I chose God and Family over my lats girlfriend. This was my way of living by Honor and my parents appreciated it greatly.
Another moment I recall is when I began to tell my fellow co-workers at my job about me living by the Code of Chivalry and showing pictures of me from NHSC. There was a waitress that I knew from High School and she invited me to a drink on my Birthday (I worked on my Birthday which was fun). However I told her that I don't drink. My reason is that relations in my Family (via my Father's side and Mother's side) died from alcoholism. My parents are the only two people to stop this drinking tradition. I heard my parents talk about this issue and they warned me not to drink. I made a promise to them to not drink because of their accounts of relatives and grand parents dying from drinking alcohol. I told this to my co-workers and they understood and respected my choice not to drink. I recall leaving my job with a feeling that said "well done".
Sir Brian:
Well done indeed Joshua. I commend your resolve and courage to hold to your beliefs and your vows. If you cannot stand before the scrutinizing gaze of that man in your mirror than where can you stand? ;)
Lord Dane:
--- Quote from: Sir Brian on 2012-11-08, 18:53:32 ---Well done indeed Joshua. I commend your resolve and courage to hold to your beliefs and your vows. If you cannot stand before the scrutinizing gaze of that man in your mirror than where can you stand? ;)
--- End quote ---
Huzzah for Joshua!! Now while he stands for principle, I'm going to indulge in temptation by sitting down & enjoying several cold apple Hard-Ciders. Ahhhhhhh!!!!!! :) Sir Brian, time to kick back at the tavern!!!
Joshua Santana:
I thank you Milord Dane and do enjoy your Cider while I drink the Wine of Wisdom. ;)
--- Quote ---Well done indeed Joshua. I commend your resolve and courage to hold to your beliefs and your vows. If you cannot stand before the scrutinizing gaze of that man in your mirror than where can you stand?
--- End quote ---
My thanks to you Sir Brian, very true indeed.
Corvus:
You know, just when I think I have read pretty much everything on this forum I discover something I missed earlier.
This is a very cool thread. If no one minds terribly I would like to add my own tale.
I have walked the road of the Warrior since I was very young. Even when I was small I was always playing at being the knight or the Viking or the western 'good guy' like Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger or Zorro. I took up martial arts as a lad too, and made achievements for myself in Judo, Karate and Kung fu before I was very far into my teens.
I left home the first time when I was only 13. I lived in a tough neighborhood to begin with and my situation was made even tougher when I wandered into an area we call the Downtown East Side. This part of town is a veritable danger zone - full of gangsters, drug dealers, pimps, you name it they are there.
Anyway there I lived with a bunch of other young rascals for some time. Things could have gone pretty bad for me down there with all the bad influences and all, yet there was always something inside me that kept me from getting too mixed up in the petty crimes that a lot of my friends were doing. One night my fortunes changed when, as I was getting roughed up near Chinatown by two cops I was 'rescued' by two Chinese monks from a local monastery. They passed me on to a kindly gentleman who, although local people thought of him as a sorcerer, had spent a good number of years helping street youth. He gave me shelter and food and after awhile even helped me reconnect with my family and return home. I learned a lot from old Mr. Woo in a very short time and while I was with him he rekindled in me some of the gentlemanly ways I had been taught as a much younger lad.
So I credit Mr. Woo with being the first one to help me get a step up as a troubled youth. I went back to school and cleaned up my act considerably.
A few years later, as I was beginning to look into my dual heritage (I believe I mentioned that I am part Celt and part Native American in my intro) I made the acquaintance of some of my Native relations who I had never known before. One of these was my Grandfather from that side of the fence, so to speak. We got along famously and he took it upon himself to teach me all he could about the path he walked, which was that of the Warrior but also of the Medicine Man. It was through Grandpa that I really learned who and what I was and how to serve the balance in nature. In the short years I was granted with him, I learned so much that in retrospect it makes my head spin thinking about it. It was because of my Grandpa that I came to understand what it was to be a man and about what the sacred responsibilities of men are - to their fellow man and also to the sacred Earth. When I was around 20 I was prepared for and given my coming-of age ritual: 30 days in mountain wilderness with only a small backpack of supplies a knife and a blanket.
When I returned from my ordeal I was given a party and honored by my Grandpa and a good number of my other relations. I had been transformed from a boy into a man and more than that, I had become the Warrior I had always sought to be. My Grandfather encouraged me strongly to go back to school and so I did. I began attending college and would eventually, because of his confidence and encouragement, eventually find myself studying anthropology and psychology at the University of BC.
Time passed and one day my Grandpa asked for my presence at his home. When I arrived we went fishing and as we fished he told me that he had been diagnosed with a particularly nasty form of cancer... and that he had been told it was terminal.
My world came crashing down around my ears. Grandpa told me that he would never see the inside of a hospital - that he would never die in a hospital bed. He was a Warrior and would die like one.
Months later he did as he said and disappeared into the northern Canadian wilderness, walking his last ceremony, and was never seen again. To add to this tragedy, my blood-brother, Russell had been killed in an accident earlier that year and following my Grandfather's long walk my uncle Emmett who had been my Grandfather's best friend and bro for over sixty years also passed away.
I fell into a deep gloom and became very withdrawn at this loss. I wandered into the mountains at the beginning of winter thinking that I would simply allow myself to got to sleep in the snow somewhere and never wake up.
Yet it was during this time I experienced a powerful Vision as I sat in a cold camp above the snow line. It was my Grandfather directing me to not waste the gifts I had been given. He ordered me to bring honor to our ways and to get back down to the bottom of the mountain. He told me that I would find a new teacher waiting to help me further my learning.
So I did as I was told and returned to the trailhead. There I found a good friend of my Grandfather's waiting for me in his truck. I was astonished by this as I had told no one of my plans or where I was going.
My Grandfather's friend, Ari did as I had been foretold: He took me under his wing and helped me walk the next step in my journey and it was he who finally brought me into the Order that I serve today. I don't know if I would be the man I am today had it not been for him and the new road he showed me.
I guess the moral of the story is that the road of the Warrior is not easy: It is like hiking up a twisting, uphill trail with a heavy pack and obstacles blocking the way at every turn. There are many challenges and the way we respond to these will determine what kind of man we become in the end.
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