0.
I walked through the stacks of Barnes & Noble, not particularly looking for anything. I was content to simply stroll around and let my eyes pick out interesting titles to peruse. I wandered past Philosophy and took a left at the end of the stacks into New Age. The shelves were filled with books on astrology, tarot, UFOs, and ghosts. None of it was particularly interesting to me, but before I made it to the end of the shelf, a front-facing book caught my attention. To Ride a Silver Broomstick: New Generation Witchcraft by Silver RavenWolf had a purple cover that featured a drawing of a beautiful, auburn-haired young woman in a black dress sitting side-saddle on a broom while flying past a full moon. I was less intrigued by the title than I was by the artwork. I wished I looked like the well-proportioned representation of the woman on the cover. At fifteen, I was overweight and easily discouraged, and while I knew that nothing on the cover of a book was going to change that, a girl could still dream. I flipped the book open to the first pages and began to read. I had never heard of Wicca before, but Silver wrote about it as if it could change your life. And the more I read about the Goddess and the four elements and nature, the more I thought it might change mine.
I took the book to the front of the store and bought it. It was the beginning of a journey that would change my life forever.
I.
Four years later, my blood ran cold as the point of the athame settled at the hollow of my throat. I stood blindfolded and bound, wearing nothing but a red sheet. My arms were tied behind my back, and one of my legs was fettered with a thick rope that coiled around one ankle but wasn’t tied to the other, leaving me neither fully bound nor fully free. That state of vulnerability made my senses all the more alert to the smell of frankincense in the air and the sharp prick of the athame below my larynx. My pre-initiation meditation hadn’t prepared me for this. Had I willingly walked into a den of crazed cultists? Was I about to be sacrificed to a bloodthirsty god? I had been studying Wicca with the priestess of Circle Fey for more than a year, but how well did I really know her? I had been taught that initiation made you both part of a coven and part of the lineage of Wiccan practitioners past and present. But what did that really mean? For an infinite moment, I was consumed by fear of what might happen to me.
“You stand at the threshold between the world of mortals and the realm of the gods,” I heard Rune’s voice say, her voice calm and authoritative. I remembered her long dark hair, rounded body, and piercing eyes even though I couldn’t see her through the blindfold. “Do you have the courage to continue?” she continued. “Better it be for you to rush upon my weapon and perish than to enter the circle with fear in your heart.”
For a moment, I stood mute and panicked. No one knew I was here at Rune’s house. I could easily be murdered and no one would know to look for me. What would happen to me if I said no? Then, suddenly, as if someone had dumped a crisp, clear bucket of water over my head, a rush of realization came over me. The words of the Wiccan Rede were ‘Harm None.’ Rune wasn’t going to hurt me if I decided not to continue into the circle. This was my graceful point of exit in case I had gotten last-minute cold feet about formally converting to the Craft. Or, at least, that was my working theory as to why I would be challenged with a blade that I had been taught was only to be used for directing magical energy. Perhaps that was the key after all: trusting in what I had been taught and who had done the teaching.
“Do you have the password?” Rune asked after another moment.
“I have two passwords,” I replied, recalling the ceremonial words. “Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.”
The knife-point disappeared and I mentally congratulated myself, thinking that would be the end of it. But just as I was about to take a half-fettered step inside the circle, my sponsor in the rite shoved me forward and I lost my footing. I tried hopelessly to flail for balance, impossible with my arms bound, but Rune wrapped her arms around me and kept my sheet-clad self self from falling into a heap on the wooden floor of the temple.
“Those who bring two passwords are doubly welcome,” my priestess told me in a warm tone. I found it far more reassuring than I would later admit to, though I didn’t know if it was the words or the fact that she’d kept me from falling on my face that I appreciated more. “I give you the third password,” she continued, “a kiss.” Then she kissed me on the cheek. “This is the way all are first brought into the circle.”
It was reassuring to know that getting the sanity scared out of you for a few moments was all part of the process. Hands unbound and unblindfolded me, and as my sight returned to me, I beheld the temple for the first time. The main altar was in the center of the circle, its statues of Isis and Anubis and the ritual tools of wand, pentacle, and cup arranged in their proper places. I saw the four smaller altars in each of the cardinal directions, one for each of the classical elements, each with a representation of said element: incense in the East, a candle in the South, a bowl of water in the West, and a large crystal in the North. I saw Lady Rune and her priest dressed in matching black robes and my sponsor in a red dress. The low ceiling lent a protective atmosphere to the indoor space, and the hardwood floor was cool against my bare feet in the warm room.
I floated slightly above my body as the three of them presented me to the four quarters of the circle, brought before the altar, purified me with scourge and oil, and administered the oath: to always come to the aid of my brothers and sisters in the Craft and to keep secret all that I learned from now on. Afterward, when the rite was complete and the circle ceremonially dissolved, I came back to myself. I felt different, but I couldn’t identify why. Maybe being in initiate meant facing the unknown and not coming out the other side with all the answers.
II.
Ten years later, I watched from the edge of the circle while the would-be initiate stood blindfolded but not bound, clutching a staff in one hand and a small basket of supplies in the other. The test was challenging, though different from the one I had been given years ago. James, a tall, stocky man with close-cropped blond hair and a mild Australian accent, had collected all the things he thought he needed then made his way from the back door to the outdoor circle to erect the temple on his own. The priestess and priest were there to watch his progress, and I was there as well to witness the rite, both to judge his performance and to and aid him if he got himself into trouble. He was blindfolded, after all. In that state, it was easy to wander out of bounds and into barbed-wire fencing, wood piles, or shrubbery. My job was to gently direct him in case he got disoriented.
Part of me felt relieved that I had only been thrown into the circle nearly naked and terrified for my initiation. But that had been another coven with another tradition. Somehow this trial seemed all the worse for the fact that I knew James was already making mistakes. His instructions had been clear: gather all the things you need to cast the circle. I knew from experience that the only thing one needed to do so was one’s own will. The rest was just props. Yet here James was, trying to light incense for the East. He succeeded after a few attempts, then tried to light a candle for the South. He gave up after six or seven tries and set the unlit candle on the stump that served as the quarter’s altar. Overall, he was bumbling along with a lot of stubbornness, a clear desire to get things right, and a little bit of eyesight where the blindfold met the bridge of his nose and left a gap that could be peered through.
He was making things far too difficult for himself. But that was his trial — just as mine had been to trust in the people who were teaching me the Craft.
I looked to Taz and Alex, the priestess and priest of our coven, Naofa Tintean, and tried to judge their thoughts by the amused yet focused looks on their faces. They had both completed this trial on their own, just to make sure that it could indeed be done. I knew from having worked with them for the last several years that they didn’t ever set a task for a student that they had not completed at least once themselves. I was the only one present who hadn’t faced this particular challenge. And I felt suddenly like a fraud. I hadn’t faced this trial. Who was I to tell anyone they weren’t doing it right?
That sense stayed with me throughout the rest of the evening. After the trial ended and the initiation date was set and the newly tested priest left for home, I asked Taz, a strong, fat priestess who limped on her right side from a bad car wreck in her twenties, and Alex, a butch two-spirit woman with short, curly black hair, why I hadn’t been given a similar challenge when I joined their coven. “You didn’t need it,” Taz replied with a tone that made me wonder whether she had anticipated answering this question. “You got your initiation from the School of Hard Knocks.”
I remembered all of the things I’d experienced since the time I’d first been thrust into the circle. I remembered the confusion of relaying the words of spirits who were trying to communicate with the living world. I remembered the phantom taste of blood in my mouth while helping to exorcise what could only be described as a demon from my friend and watching him flail as we rubbed powdered herbs onto his arms and legs. I remembered the satisfaction of guiding the disoriented spirits of the recently deceased into the next life. I remembered the words of my crone when she said that she had every faith in my abilities as a witch and proceeded to dose me with entheogens for a shamanic journey through the branches of the World Tree. I remembered the powerful presence of my Goddess in the operating room as I transitioned to motherhood via cesarean section.
I decided then that I would much rather have erected the temple blindfolded. At least that task didn’t carry with it the prospect of damage to body or psyche. I accepted Taz’s answer with a shrug, but a sense of doubt remained with me despite my rational acceptance of her point. I was no longer a newly-consecrated Wiccan, I thought to myself, but I wasn’t yet a priestess either. But maybe being an initiate meant discerning truth for oneself instead of relying on others for answers.
III.
Three years later, I stepped out of my shoes and gripped my staff for balance as I gave the sandals to my guide along the path to the underworld. After several more steps, she asked for my jewels. I took off the ring that I had worn for years as a symbol of my faith and gave it to her. Several more steps and she asked for my veil. I took the covering from off my head and gave it to her. This continued until I was clad only in a red sheet, though it felt like I was wearing nothing each time the cool pre-dawn breeze blew through the circle.
Finally, the blindfold was taken off and I saw Taz in her red and black initiation dress. “You’re finally here,” she said with a smile.
I found myself smiling back at her. “Took me long enough,” I replied with a chuckle. I had possessed all the knowledge and skills necessary for the second degree for the last three years. What had held me back was my tenuous mental health, sketchy living situation, and lack of a life plan. As Taz had told me more than once, a priestess had to have her own life in order before she could hope to help anyone else get their life in order. But I had moved home, completed my bachelor’s degree, been awarded a graduate assistantship, and would be starting my master’s degree in the fall, so I had more than demonstrated stability both in the physical and mental realms.
Alex, wearing a green tunic and loose black trousers, spoke to me of death, sacrifice, and safeguarding the innocent. She spoke of the crocodile and the lessons that could be learned from it. Finally, she asked, “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I answered with complete certainty. I had been waiting for his moment since the very beginning, when I had first picked up a book and learned what Wicca was. Though I had been acting as clergy in the community for some time, this ceremony would elevate me to true clergy status.
“Can you kneel?”
The question wasn’t whether I could kneel, it was whether I could get back up again if I did kneel. But I wasn’t about to not kneel for my vows. It meant too much to me. So, with pain and difficulty, I knelt before the altar, repeated my oath to serve the gods and guide the people, and signed my name in the book. A strange heat bloomed in my chest, warming me from the inside out. This was what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I was part of a community, not only with the people now with me in the circle but also with all those who had come before me in the Craft. But most importantly, I was in truth a priestess of the Goddess, a living example of service. Being an initiate had taught me that this milestone was both a culmination of achievement and the beginning of a new chapter in life, just as each new day was.
Taz and Alex got on either side of me and helped me to my feet. I looked to the east. The sun had risen over the fenceline. A new day had begun indeed.
Initiations was previously published in print in Quills & Pixels 2018, a peer-reviewed publication of the UALR Writers’ Network at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.