How did 13 Seasons come to be?
It all started with some friends seeking the Good Society.
​
​
Hi! We're Josh and Jamie Wagner, two humans who enjoy being married to one another and who have experienced some pretty profound life changes as we've learned about virtue and its seasons. It's made all the difference for us and our family.
​
​Our virtue journey began in 2018 when we began talking with our friends about the Good Society. We looked at societal problems like greed, pollution, political and corporate corruption, waste, discrimination, human
trafficking, etc. and we yearned for communities where people could live together peacefully for the benefit of all.
Our spiritual tradition told of ancient communities where people "were of one heart and one mind... and there was no poor among them." We yearned to live in a society like that but we didn't know what we could do about it. We discussed our yearnings with each other, with our friends, and with Heaven.
​
One of our friends shared his story with us which helped us understand how virtue could build the Good Society:
​
​
​
​
Our friend's story
​
​
​
​
Our friend was involved in an organization that rescued people from human trafficking. He knew that more people were being coerced into modern slavery each day than were being rescued from it. What could be done about that? Laws and punishments weren't helping. Human trafficking is already illegal.
He read the book Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery and learned that the titular figure helped end legalized slavery in the U.K. by systematically teaching virtue over several decades. He figured that if virtue could help people see the viciousness of slavery in Wilberforce's era, the same could be true for human trafficking today. Furthermore, virtue could promote all aspects of the Good Society.
But he wasn't sure how to define and teach virtue. He learned that Greek philosophers like Socrates and Plato used the word arete to describe excellence of character in all facets of life. Arete is translated to English as "virtue" or "excellence". That was a start but he wanted something more specific. He wanted something like Stephen Covey's famous seven habits that would break down virtue into its distinct parts. If virtue were a book, what would the chapters be?
​
​
13 Seasons for 13 Virtues
​
​
​
We and our friends discussed and prayed. Through a burst of exhilarating experiences that each built on one another, we discovered that virtue has thirteen parts. We even discovered that these parts can be represented visually and symbolically using the circles of Metatron's Cube, a popular symbol in sacred geometry.
​
We also learned that each of the 13 virtues correspond to certain dates of the year that we usually refer to as "virtue seasons". Our family began practicing the virtues in their designated seasons and inviting open minded friends and family to do so as well. We discovered through our experience that practicing virtue in its season feels like taking some kind of mega character growth serum. We don't totally understand it but we've experienced that it works.
​
Sharing Virtue
​
After discovering the virtues and their seasons together, we and our friends have all gone on to practice and teach virtue in our unique spheres. That friend who uses them as part of equine therapy and weekend retreats. Josh worked as a public school teacher during Covid and used the virtues to help his students survive and thrive during distance learning. Most profoundly, as we've focused on the virtues in their seasons with our children, we've all grown in profound ways.
​
People who visit our home and interact with our children often tell us that they sense something special about our family. They comment on how our children are so well adapted and fun to be around. They sometimes ask about our parenting techniques. Our honest answer is that we don't have family rules or discipline techniques anymore. We just honor the 13 seasons of virtue and everything else takes care of itself! And the great thing is that anyone can enjoy what we enjoy (and more!) as they live the principles that we've been living.
That's why we created this site in early 2023, about four and a half years after he began seriously seeking the Good Society with our friends. We want to share these principles with a larger audience and build an online community of people who can support one another in living them. We believe this will help build the Good Society.
Come and celebrate the 13 Seasons with us! An amazingly rewarding journey awaits!
​
​
​
​
​