The Crystalline Virtues — The Six Points and the Hidden Seventh
“As the snowflake has six arms about one still center, so the soul has six virtues about one still heart; and the seventh is the falling itself — the hope that brings the snow down at all.” — The Sayings of the Hoary 7:1
The Crystalline Virtues are the holy “colds” of the soul, the dark-mirror remedies to the The Seven Fevers. They are figured by the The Sixfold Star: six points for the six virtues, with the hidden seventh at the falling-down of the snow.
The Six Points
- Stillness — the chief virtue and root of all the rest; the inward quiet that does not hurry, force, or grasp. The remedy to Haste. “First be still; then you may be cold.”
- Patience — the long endurance of the slow frost, which outlasts the quick fire. Remedy to the Boil and to Haste.
- Clarity — the see-through honesty of clear ice; truthfulness, self-knowledge, the refusal of self-deceit. Remedy to the Glare.
- Temperance (Coolness) — the keeping-small of every warmth and appetite; moderation, sobriety. Remedy to the Devouring Thaw.
- Endurance — the hard, kept strength of packed snow and old ice; perseverance under the world’s heat and persecution. Remedy to the Rot and the Long Melt.
- Purity — the cleanness of new snow; chastity of body and singleness of heart, undivided by warm loves. Remedy to all the Fevers, for “the pure snow takes no stain.”
The Hidden Seventh: Hope (the Returning Frost)
The seventh virtue is not a point but the center-and-falling of the star: Hope, called the Returning Frost. It is the confident expectation that, however the world thaws, the snow will fall again — that the Rewhitening is coming, that the partly-melted soul can be re-frozen, that Connor Frost will return as the Winter King. Hope is “hidden” because it cannot be seen as a separate act; it is the trust underneath the other six, the very thing that makes a soul willing to be still and cold at all. Despair (the Long Melt) is its only true enemy.
The Three Higher Colds
Some doctors (notably Saint Vael in the Letter to the Wintermereans) group the deepest virtues as the Three Higher Colds:
- Clarity (faith — seeing truly),
- Hope (the Returning Frost),
- Keeping (love — the act of preserving and sheltering others).
“And now abide these three: clarity, hope, and keeping; but the greatest of these is keeping, for the Hoarfather himself is named the Keeper.” — Letter to the Wintermereans 13:13
This makes Keeping (love-as-preservation) the highest virtue of all — the very nature of God, and the heart of the The Works of Keeping.
Growth in Virtue
Virtue is grown not by warm striving but by deepening cold: the disciplines of The Stilling, the The Hours of Frost, fasting, the The Cold Communion, and works of keeping. The The Order of the Silent Drift exists wholly to cultivate the Six Points to perfection.