I haven't written in here for a while. That's actually okay. I post less in the summer anyway, and then, this is a page that is meant to reflect the growth of my practice and sometimes it's more important to sit back and learn, to be quiet and observe and let things form. This is the fifth week of Extraordinary Time. This Sunday was the Sunday that marked eighteen years in the Craft. I've been examining where I've come from and where I want to go, what's important and what needs to be put away, and of late I've been looking at the degree system and initiation. On YouTube, Ayla, from Australia, a Wiccan, spoke of her life as a first degree witch and all the work that went into each degree, the spiritual and psychic things that were opened in each and how each took a year and a day. She spoke of her progression so far, as a member of the outer court. She did Outer Court twice, and spent three years in it, and then after this she was Crafted and only after these two stages was she brought into her First Degree. On the other hand, Nick of Dorset Wild Life Coven, which is Old Craft, speaks of only one initiation.70's He talked about being initiated as an Alexandrian in the early seventies, and having gone through their degrees. He talked about how, in his time, in contrast to the year and a day waiting period between each degree, and he and most witches who lived in the 60s and 70s went through this in a matter of months. But what Nick said was that, in the end, only one initiation is necessary, that between you and your gods and no witch can truly initiate you but you. Both of these witches told very different stories about initiation and yet both acknowledged the validity of other peoples' path and the subjectivity of their own.
I am reminded that people who get very furious about knowing the truth and what they are doing being the truth are those who, unfortunately have never experienced truth. Not only Christians or upholders of traditional religion, but even pagans and witches, are told a thing and told it is true and get very upset if someone disagrees because they do not have the strength of actual experience. Not being able to say, this is true for me. I have experienced it for myself, and I don't know what you will experience, most people are shaken by disagreements. They need other people to believe in their world, precisely because it has not yet become their world.
When I first came to the Craft, the Internet wasn't what it is, and neither was my knowledge of it. So things were not open to me the way they are open now. I didn't know anything. When Ayla and this Nick talk of their journey I need to see how mine aligns. I don't need my path to be the same as theirs. There is no uniform witch path, but I want to know how theirs informs mine. I didn't know words like Outer Court and Crafted or even much understand the concept of degrees when I first took a bath with salts and candles and chose a different way. What I know is I had reached a point where the world and the knowledge I was handed were not enough, and I knew there were other paths to walk. I knew the word for that walking was witch. I remember the excitement of going to old shops in town looking for incense, for my first robe, purchasing candles, not really knowing what I was doing, but that I had to do it. I took the weekend after the Fourth of July to Emancipate myself and dedicate to a path I knew little about. I stumbled a great deal. There were many, many, many many dead ends. I found myself with strange people in stranger places and often nothing seemed to be happening at all. There were no covens to go to, so I went to churches till I couldn't deal with them anymore. I had a complicated dance with religion in general until I finally decided I needed to pursue it alone, and away from any formal communities, which is why I am solitary. I can't say that was my Outer Court, but it was my long Crafting. It was years before I ever went through a process like degrees, and there is a reason for that. In a coven someone can say this person is ready, but the only person to police a solitary is the solitary, and I had to make very sure I was ready and worthy of studying and initiating through degrees. There have been so many fools who call themselves witches because they went to a spiral dance at a Unitarian church, picked up a Llewellyn Press book at Barnes and Nobles, or bought some black clothes and a deck or Tarot cards. I did not wish to fool myself.
The card this week that symbolizes the Sunday of Dedication is the Magician. I rarely draw it but drew it this week. He stands as Master of all four elements and I once believed that this was the end game for me, for witches. Now I am coming to understand the Magician is not us, but the Teacher, the God, the Master of Magics that some called Odin, or Enki or Hermes. He is Pan, the Bucca, the Witch's Devil or even Christ. The Magician presides in the midst of all ritual and all of our seeking, and in Alchemy he is the Holy Child. The Magician is the personification of the Four Elements. He is the Magic. The Magician is in fact, the Magical Path. It is not my job to master everything to perfection, but to walk this Way.
I need the path of several degrees, frankly, because I need to always be dying and rising. I need to be starting over again. A lot. Once does not work for me. This Monday, after the Initiation Anniversary I went to Lake Michigan where the water was milky blue and the heat and fire of the sun beat on me while air blue on me. My feet sang into the sand and pebbles as I went under the waters. A wave took me and I tumbled around in a circle inside of it. I need to be reborn. A lot.
The need for Initiation does not go away. It is in every path, and like the Fool, we never know what we're doing. It's a grace if we make it out alive, and receiving a degree isn't quite the same as being initiated. Nick or the Dorset Coven speaks of initiation saying it may entail be being buried in the earth, or walking through fire. That is is usually done in the nude because its hard to be born in a suit or a billowy robe. He says the experience is and should be "uncomfortable". This is a revelation because I have been having a most uncomfortable time and though I was doing something wrong. For some reason I equated rebirth wirth refreshment, even fun, even self assurance. The English witch reminds me that rebirth is putting down, it is death. It is resurrection. And that's always a little messy.
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