It seems I've finally resurfaced -- as I noted some time ago, I've been retraining into a new career for the last two years, and I've finally finished the program.  Previously, my education was in the Humanities; now, I've trained into Social Service Work, which was the experience of a lifetime.  I graduated this past Friday afternoon with distinction -- a hard-won accomplishment of which I am very proud, having maintained not only an A average but consistent A or A+ marks in every single class over two years.

We live in a culture where we just don't talk much about initiation rituals.  Often, we think of them as something those other people do, those people who don't quite make sense to us.  That saddens me.  What is the process of education and graduation but an initiation?  We enter as neophytes, struggle and strive, experience an enormous transformation, and come out the other end renewed and celebrated.

As I prepared for the big day, I allowed myself some time to consider initiation as it applies in this context.  I've told anyone who'd listen that the SSW program was far more of a challenge for me than my university education, or even my graduate work.  Possibly because I tend to live in my head, university studies came easily to me.  I don't remember struggling with the work or with the workload.  Conversely, the last two years -- and especially this year -- have devoured my life in a way I never could have expected.

I remember reading, when I was far too young to fully comprehend it, that initiation has two components: the transformation and the celebration.  We hold initiation rituals to acknowledge the process of transformation undergone by the candidate at some point previous.  It's embarrassing how long it took me to turn that information into deep knowledge.  I never experienced that kind of transformation in the well-intentioned but horrifically ill-conceived circle my friends and I formed in our early twenties, and I certainly never experienced it in university.  I never walked through fire, never found myself falling or buried or drowning.  It may be accurate to call that circle an ordeal, even a transformative one, but it's not the kind of transformative ordeal that takes place in pursuit of a goal.  This community college program brought me to a deeper understanding of myths like the Descent of Inanna, sometimes leaving me with the distinct impression that I'd been stripped and hung on a hook to rot.  As rewarding and informative as it was, it was also hard.  I often felt hollow, and then something would come along to fill me up again.

And so it was that this past Friday, I got dressed up -- I even wore a white dress! -- had my hair braided into a pentacle in honour of the core that sustains me, put on the supplicant's robe, took part in the procession, crossed the stage to be recognized and decorated, and felt enormous pride at the accomplishments I had shared with these people who had become so enmeshed in my life.  I spent the last hours of the day in the company of loved ones who have offered their support in so many ways.  But for the absence of certain fellow-travelers and supportive loved ones, it was a perfect day, and an initiation I'll remember.  May all of our initiations bring us such joy!

About this time last week, I was on my way to the annual educational conference organized and hosted by the Ontario Multifaith Council, thanks to the intervention of my mother-in-law and my friend Brian.  There's a long story behind that, but let's shorten it to "I wasn't sure I'd be able to go, but people made sure it happened."  Since I became involved with my Regional Multifaith Committee a couple of years back, I've made it a priority to attend, even though I'm the token Pagan in the facility and I spend most of my downtime answering questions about what it is Pagans believe and do.  This year's conference was no different: the first evening, before I'd even checked in, the questions began.  I don't have any objection to educating people, but I'd have liked to have had a chance to put my suitcase down first!  All in all, though, I had a really wonderful time, and I'm getting to the point where I know people now, and look forward to seeing them.  I particularly enjoy talking to institutional (hospital, long-term care, corrections) chaplains, because they're somewhat more accustomed to working in a pluralistic environment than my fellow faith group representatives, and thus, tend to ask better questions.

This year's sessions were amazingly diverse and a real pleasure to attend.  The keynote speech was entitled From Meditation to Music to Mosaics: Spiritual Practices in the Context of Holistic Care, and focused on enabling spiritual development through creativity.  It was as great as it sounds!  I attended four presentations after that: Ethical Committees in Long-Term Care, Prevalence and Mental Health Care Needs of Inmates in Ontario Correctional Facilities: Implications for Policy and Practice, Losses and Lingers (related to dementia/Alzheimer's care), and Spiritual Care Practices to Nurture Spirituality, Health and Well-Being.  I had wanted to attend the evening program on the healing power of song, but I grabbed what I thought would be a quick nap and wound up  sleeping through it!

As I've told a whole lot of my colleagues, this conference is one of the very few opportunities I have, as a spiritual care provider, for professional development.  As a Pagan Priestess, there just aren't that many resources available to me, and fewer still that land within my financial and time budgets.  The educational conference is really beneficial to me, that way.  I can both learn and teach in a stimulating environment.  It energizes me.

The last couple of weeks (wow, already?) have passed in sort of a blur.  We got Pagan Pride Day off the ground, and it fluttered around in the raging gale.  The rituals, aided by the presence of a mighty pile of rhythm instruments from big ol' djembes to seeds in pill bottles, were absolutely gorgeous.  We got some pretty nifty media coverage (more on that in a bit).  We collected a small donation of canned goods to bring to our friendly local soup kitchen.  We made enough to cover the space rental for next year!  We had some discussions.  We had some vendors who didn't make very much, because it was cold, and we didn't have enough publicity, and did I mention it was COLD?  My feet were killing me by the end of the day, except for my toes, which I couldn't feel until I got up the next morning.

I wasn't entirely satisfied with the result of my (roughly) half-hour-long interview with the reporter from the Sault Star, and even less so with what came of CTV's visit with Jen and our guest-ritual-leader Bonnie while I was out getting lunch (sorry, no link available).  Both reports were generally positive, but failed to understand some fairly significant stuff.  For the Sault Star article, I'll shoulder the blame.  I've developed some skill in encountering members of the media (I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge SooToday.com's magnificent Carol Martin, who attended as a member of the community but was unable to report on us as she has before), but I'm not perfect, and I wasn't as explicit about some things as I could have been.  In fact, I think Carol sort of spoils us: being part of the Pagan community, she knows what questions to ask and how to frame them.  It's pretty specialized knowledge, really.

So how does this relate to Priestessing?  Aside from my being present to lead the rituals, that is.  I mean, don't get me wrong -- I grew up in the Anglican Church, so I'm given not only by nature but also by habit to put a lot of work into the theatrics of ritual, and I do feel most at home, in many ways, before the altar -- but there's so much more to Pagan Pride, and to Priestessing, than that.  Pagan Pride is about community outreach, helping those in need, building a positive public presence, and living faith a little more publicly than we typically do.  All of those...well, perhaps not the last, since I'm so far out of the broom closet that I can't even find it anymore...are so deeply important to the work I do.  Helping people find or create understanding is as much my job as leading ritual.  Being part of the Pagan Pride Project is a sacred responsibility to me, a duty I chose and would...no, not would, do...choose again.  I've said before, though probably not here, that I don't maintain a relationship with any particular deity, but rather that I serve a more amorphous kind of divinity through service to my community, both locally and globally.  Ultimately, I can actualize greater good and avoid harm best with this approach, and Pagan Pride is part of my quest for goodness and beauty.

For the second time in my adult life, I'm feeling the loss of someone who inspired me, to whom I felt a strong sense of kinship mixed with awe, without having developed the kind of substantial closeness that might have followed if that awe had been a bit smaller.  I want to note that this is a separate category from people to whom I was authentically close.  I don't know why I feel the need to make that distinction -- perhaps I just don't want to presume, or characterize my loss as equivalent to that experienced by the intimates of the deceased.

The first of these losses, a couple of years ago, was one of my mentors in the art and craft of theatre, who took me under his wing and nurtured my skills and my spirit.  The second, earlier this month, was Lady Serena Endura.  When I was in high school, Serena ran a little witchy bookshop, and it was there I bought my (now tattered) copy of Scott Cunningham's Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner.  Like any baby Pagan, I must have been terribly annoying and clueless, but she was very kind and welcoming.  I sat in that shop with her on many, many occasions, just chatting.  She formed my early impressions of what a Priestess and Witch -- the real thing, sans pointy hat -- were: authoritative, nurturing, and deeply connected to the world through her faith.  Her shop closed, of course, and I lost track of her, though I knew she ran a group just outside of town.  When I was planning my wedding, I found her again, and while there are many things I'd now change about the ceremony, her blessing meant and still means a lot to me.  We still have most of the container of sea salt -- pewter, with a pentacle on the lid -- that was her gift to us.

As I recently started to emerge from my Priestess-burnout, I was thinking about her almost constantly, never realizing how close she was to the veil.  I wish I'd had another opportunity to connect with her, to ask her to share some of her wisdom as one who'd been leading for so many years.  I feel as though I barely knew her, and yet I feel her absence from the world like an old friend.

The day I heard of her passing, a poem came to me once again, the same one that haunted my consciousness after Steve died.  To honour her, I'll share its last lines here: the poem is Tennyson's Ulysses.

Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.