Initiation & Introductions…

Well, it’s 10:15am on Friday as I start writing this. I’m late again; this is only the second time I’ve been so late, but it is the second in as many weeks.

Unlike last week, I had no plan ready to just flesh out, so here’s an even less structured post than normal…

Initiation is the bit where you are formally added to a group, or so I’m told. I’m not sure that I was ever really initiated into anything. The closest was probably a ceremony I was sent by the Order of the Mithril Star with instructions for how to initiate yourself. I think it mentioned bathrobes and hoods made of towels. (I think it was meant to be symbolic, rather than asking you to invest money in clothing for a group who existed mostly over the internet.)

Even my brief stint as a Wiccan ended before the initiation and I moved on, another of the craft’s ‘undecideds’ who had seen enough to say it was not for him. Oh, I have a great respect for Wicca (though less for some of its members, making it a little like Christianity in that way) and I am sure it works for some people, just not me…

When I joined my current druid grove, there was no formal introduction. We were shown where to stand and handed a script, then we were part of it. It’s more like a bunch of friends who meet up at the pub; you don’t have a formal initiation into a bunch of drinking buddies, you just turn up often enough that people get used to you.

The true milestones for me were never the moments when I joined a group of people, no matter how much it meant to me at the time.

The gods introducing themselves, that would be the special moment…

I spent years with the knowledge of a presence with me. She (and it was definitely she to me) was always there, as far as I could tell, but at a respectful distance and making no attempt to say hello that I could discern. My attempts to identify her were fairly fruitless, though I got closer over time.

And then, one day, she did come forward. I asked for her help, she gave it. It was the start (or rekindling, but that’s a topic for much later) of a relationship with the Morrigan that persists to this day. She’s been there, watching and making herself visible, for a while, but it was that moment which defined my faith. I’ll come back to her later, but suffice to say that the circumstances of that initial pledge defined the nature of our relationship.

She was not the first ‘power’ to introduce herself, I’d had dealings with others, but she was the first to form an enduring bond. She was also the first to take on that kind of role, the first where it wasn’t a casual relationship of convenience, the first with that kind of status in the supernatural world.

The second true higher power was Odin. Wandering about the snow, half blind and freezing, I found the one-eyed wanderer. He’s not a patron of mine, but he said hello for reasons I cannot really fathom as we passed. I suppose it’s a little like being introduced to the king of a foreign land and having him shake your hand, then moving on; you wonder what he was doing there, you know that you are not one of his subjects, but you leave with a very positive opinion of him.

It’s hard to explain a meeting with the divine, the quiet subtexts of words that were never spoken and the wealth of ideas that can be expressed without conscious communication by nothing more than a smile, but I left with a much better idea of who he was. I left with an idea that I understand how such a man could be Loki’s brother, no matter how torn and conflicted the feelings he might have.

In some ways, I suppose my faith has always been about my relationship with the divine and not the earthly groups who gather to worship them. No amount of chanting and incense, no bestowing of titles and responsibilities, will ever compare to a meeting with a higher power. I probably sound quite arrogant and egotistical, but it’s hard for human priests to compare with the gods they try to speak for…