the last initiation

On Sunday there was a Reclaiming initiation at my home, up in the ritual room in the attic. Reclaiming is a tradition of witchcraft in which initiation affords you no status or special standing in the community. It is a personal journey, a private commitment to the gods and the guardians of the elements. It is a process in which you commit to the path of priestess and witch, letting go of the life that came before, and in the rite you symbolically die and are reborn.

Reclaiming is a child of Feri tradition wedded to the feminist spirituality movement of the 1970's. After close to thirty years, it has now grown up. It appears that some new children are in gestation.

As I did the intitiation, I knew that this was the last one for me in this form. Something is passing for me, and I am paying exquisite attention. So much of this form of initiation involves the letting go process, the surrendering and sitting in the dark. It usually leaves me drained and exhausted. So different from the last initiation I did, where I joined the Feri back and it ended with the honeyfire of the lifeforce coursing thru the room, coursing thru the initiate, coursing thru me. This was the point, the joy and ecstacy of being alive, the vow to be in service to life.

For me, Feri energy not grounded in Reclaiming's principles of unity tends to flow towards a kind of psychotic fierceness, and the magic of a Reclaiming initiation without the Feri aspect feels a bit like coming away from a feast with no nutrients. Even as write this, I know this is not truth for many, if not most. But it is truth for me. One of the best things for me about becoming a witch is that at this point I think/feel/sense that I have truly dropped monotheism, deeply knowing that there is no "one way" and that many truths can exist, even in conflict, at once. Hurray for paradox!

And what a paradox exists in this "tradition" that I have been such a part of crafting. It is non inititiatory, but a child of the purely initiatory Feri tradition, in which the core of the teachings, the wave and pulse of the current, isn't passed until initiation. Reclaiming aims to be for everybody, it's the great includer....while Feri is so clearly not for everybody, and sometimes I wonder if it actually suits anybody. It taps into what Reya has said is an strong amoral natural current within the earth, but so often when run thru us humans, becomes immoral. And if not immoral, certainly hard to get along with. As part of the coven Triskets, I am responsible for glamorizing and thus infusing the Feri current within Reclaiming. As my friend Lilith said, "it's a trainwreck". And with Thorn now teaching big workshops labeled Feri trainings, the clash between what it means to work the tools of Feri, which so many Reclaiming folks do, and becoming Feri, which is purely initiatory, gets closer.

As I did the initiation, I thought of my friend Reya, and how she is letting go of the current. And I envied her. This is not my work. I wish it was. My work appears to be to attempt to clean up the mess I have been so part of creating by now wedding Feri and Reclaiming in a different way, a different strain....creating a way to initiate into Feri which is in accordance with those luscious principles of unity, and in which the mysteries passed resonate with our belief that we are our own spiritual authority, where we not only hear the name we are called between the worlds, but we open to what we call those we work with between the worlds, the guardians, the mysterious ones. and where we speak from hearts that are not only black, but green with consciousness, pink with compassion. And to infuse that mighty lifeforce current, that ancient power, with the best of humanity. The best of humanity lies within the threefold law and the wiccan reade. The questioning attitude that is one of Reclaiming's principles of unity I am now employing with everything regarding Reclaiming Feri. Is it possible to be more transparent about the privacy involved in initiation and let go of the feeling of secrecy? Perhaps. One gift of the initiation was working with Rose, who pointed out to me that black, pink, and green can be found in watermelon tourmeline. I will be looking for heart made of this.

This was the last "Reclaiming" initiation I have done. I can't split myself into two parts anymore. Who knows what will come out of this, but I'm grateful for the clarity of the moment.