Marei - book one. Part two: Initiation. Chapter 9

My training began in earnest now. Each morning began with an early ritual in the dark sky to greet the rising of the sun. The rest of my day was more or less as it had been when I was alone at the house; breakfast, chores, baking, sewing. But instead of my mid afternoon nap, most days Grandmother would hold a lesson.

For two weeks straight we worked on identifying the herbs that she had planted in the garden that surrounded the house. She taught me of the four corners and how they were used ritually to protect and call in specific spiritual ingredients. She took me again to the circle where I had the vision of Oak Man and taught me to identify the thirteen different trees that blossomed and grew over head. We spoke of the cycle of years, and she told me the unthinkable – that the Earth rotated around the sun, not vice versa as I had always believed. I was not certain that I truly believed this theory, but I had quickly learned that Grandmother never lied so I saw no reason not to take her at face value on this matter as well. We spoke more of my monthly blood and one hot summer afternoon dissected a rabbit to see her insides, unborn kits and all. But best of all, in the evenings when the chores were done and dinner cleaned up, she would teach me to read the books in her room.

At first it was frustrating and I did not understand how I would ever be able to make the ink marks have meaning, but little by little I began to recognize words and then piece them together to understand what was written on the thick, fibrous pages. Later – much later in my training – I learned how to crush my own ink and laboriously write my own thoughts on paper I made from the plants in the front yard.

As spring gave way to summer, we ventured down the hill to the ocean for the planting ritual. Several other people, including the Woodsman family, had ventured to the beach to dance circles around the tall May Pole in honor of the fertile fields. We had much to celebrate, but I and John the Little, were too young to participate in the raucous rituals that took place after dark. Together, we tended the central fire and took care not to look too far into the shadows, lest we see more than we had bargained for.

Grandmother and I had expanded the garden to almost twice the size it had been when I arrived and as the spring gave way to summer, and the frosts stopped showing white in the morning, the seeds that we had sewn sprouted and grew and we spent most of our mornings weeding and tending to the upcoming crops.

The chicks that I had allowed to hatch had grown into full sized chickens and at any given time you could find twenty of them pecking around the small pen we built to keep them out of the garden and away from the baby vegetables. Troll-bait, the unfortunately named goat, continued to milk well, though she was difficult to convince to stop eating the grains I had fed her during the winter.

At midsummer, when the light of day shone the longest it would shine all year, the same people who had met us on the beach for Beltane came up to Grandmother’s house for a full dawn ritual to greet the sun. No chores were done on that day, the entire day was devoted to celebration; flowers were picked, fresh vegetables and fruits were eaten, we danced and sang all day and well into the night, even though it was hours and hours before the darkness came. That night I had my first true taste of honey mead and it was so delicious that I soon found myself giggling and weaving from side to side as I walked. The stars were particularly beautiful that night and I must have fallen asleep looking at them for I woke up the following morning in the front yard, with a pounding head ache.

The true fruits – and vegetables – of our spring and early summer’s labors began to show as we started to harvest and store the plants for the upcoming winter. The days were still long and hot, but every move we made was to ensure that we would be neither cold nor hungry in the long dark winter on the other side of the year. As the anniversary of my arrival at the House on the Hill came closer, Grandmother pulled me aside.

“Marei, my granddaughter, you have been here for almost an entire turn of the year, though I have not been with you for all of those days and nights. You have asked many questions, and had the opportunity to learn as a student, in a traditional manner.” I nodded, for I had indeed asked many questions and was coming along nicely with my reading and writing.

“The traditional step for an initiate into the Mysteries is for that person to spend an entire cycle of days as a shadow, unable to speak, but able to bear witness to everything that their host body does. I do not know if we will have time to continue your training beyond this event in the traditional manner, but I feel that it is time for you to take this step, to know the world not as a participant who is able to interact, but as one who can only watch, and witness, and try to understand.

“I will be your host body for this venture for I do not want to foster you further, though there are several willing women who would take you on as a shadow for the year.”

“Grandmother, what will I do as a shadow? What do you mean that I will be unable to speak?”

“You will not physically be unable – you will be as able then as you are now. However, you will have taken a vow of silence and will not utter a sound for an entire turning of the wheel. To become my shadow, you will live as my true shadow does – with me. You will do what I do, eat what I eat, go where I go, sleep where I sleep. There is nothing that I will do during this year that you will not have the opportunity to watch. However, you will be unable to question – simply to observe what I do and form your own opinions as to why. At the end of your year of silence, you will be allowed to speak and to ask questions about anything you have seen that you did not understand. But be warned – I am under no obligation to explain my actions any further than what you have witnessed.”

“Why is this the next step? How does this serve me as an initiate?”

“To truly understand your role as a player in the story of life, you must shed your mortal ego and be as the gods – witnesses to the freedom and folly of human existence. You will have no sense of free will, you will mold yourself to my life style and schedule so that you may truly appreciate what a gift it is to have free will when it is restored to you. As druids, we must completely understand the fine line that we walk between our will and the will of the deities – and we must be able to know the difference between them unerringly.

“To be a druid is to give up your own motivations and to ride the waves of the winds of change as a bird rides the currents of air. This is the first step in giving up your own plans for your future and trusting in someone or something else to show you the way. It is a practice for setting your self aside in favor of something more – something bigger than you. And I feel that you will need this training more than almost anything else I have to offer you, if you are to thrive in your life, not just survive it.”

“When does it begin?” I was nervous now – I did not know if I could manage to contain myself and my questions. Though I was brimming with curiosity about the intimate daily practices of my Grandmother I questioned whether I would be strong enough to see all that she did – there were still parts of rituals that I had not been allowed to attend due to my age and inexperience.
“You will begin your silence at the next new moon and continue it until after the first harvest festival next year, when a special ritual will be performed to welcome you into your womanhood and into your sacred body.”

I must have looked skeptical, because she crossed the common room where we had been working separately and put her arms around my shoulders. “Marei, you still have a choice. You will always have the choice to refuse any training that I have to offer.”
I smiled into her eyes and hugged her in return. “I cannot refuse, as I was shown when my training started. I will do as you say, for I trust you to know how to proceed.” Her smile in answer let me know that I had indeed made the right decision.

The morning of the new moon dawned gray and dreary, covered in thick clouds with a heavy fog obscuring all but the most immediate of the front yard. I had been so excited and nervous about the upcoming ritual that I did not sleep well the night before so for once I was awake before Grandmother, and set about tending the fire and starting the water to boil.

A few minutes after I had the fire ablaze, she pushed aside the curtain to her room and, stretching, joined me in the common room. The air was damp, misty and electric with a subdued power, like the air before a thunder storm. The summer had passed and though the nights were starting to chill, there was no reason I could discern for the chills that suddenly racked my small frame from head to toe.

Grandmother noticed and laughed. “The power of the day is touching you already. That is a good sign.” She crossed the room to place her hands on my still shaking shoulders. At her warm touch, the chills were soothed and finally stopped. “This is your last day to speak for a year, do you have any questions that I can answer for you?”

I shook my head, rubbing my arms to keep warm. Try as I might there were no questions to be had, or at least none that I could convince to form from the swirling eddy that made up my chaotic thoughts for the day. I knew already that I would be visiting what Grandmother called “the cauldron” and that there I would be washed clean of all the extraneous possibilities that this lifetime held for me – only the true path the magick would take would be left for me to follow. I knew also that this was both dangerous and difficult to endure and that several initiates had died in their attempt to be washed clean by the cauldron’s waters. But I also understood that the ritual itself could not be described before it was experienced lest it lose all the power of surprise. So though I was bursting at the seams with wanting to know every tiny detail of what I could expect from the test, I knew that even if I asked, I would not be answered. Better not to ask.

I attempted a smile, but it came out half hearted and must have looked ridiculous because my Grandmother laughed again and took the oatmeal spoon from my hand. “Sit down, before you burn our breakfast,” she laughed as she turned and stirred the bubbling oats.

We ate in silence and when done, Grandmother piled the dishes on the table and brought a blanket and pouch out of her room. She gestured for me to follow her as she slipped on her boots and cloak and headed outside. Nervously I scanned the room, almost hoping that I would see something inside that I could take with me, something that would shine in the early morning haze that would lead me to success. I could not shake the ominous echo in my head that some people did not survive the cauldron to spend their year in silence. With another shiver, I too slipped into my boots – still the same ones that Finn had given me almost a year ago – and went outside as I shrugged on my cloak against the early morning chill.

Grandmother had already started down the trail, but not towards the well, down the main trail that I had climbed to reach the house. Hurriedly I chased after her, in some places almost running to catch up. She followed the wide grass and rock trail for almost an hour until the House on the Hill was entirely hidden from sight by the forest that surrounded it. Only then did she turn sharply to the left onto a narrow but well worn path of carefully placed stones in the earth.

The stones looked as if they had been laid in their pattern ages ago; they were well worn by time, feet and weather and intricate lace like patterns of moss had crept up to cushion them from the earth below and beside them. The path did not look as if it was often walked, however it had been carefully and recently tended from the look of the occasional trimmed tree branch that would have blocked the way if someone hadn’t thoughtfully had it removed. I wondered if John Woodsman was responsible for caring for this trail as I knew Grandmother had not been absent from the House recently for a length of time enough to have come here and trimmed the branches as well. The length of the trail alone would have made it an all day project and who ever had trimmed the branches had also removed the trimmings; there were no tell tale piles of brush to indicate the passing of a woods keeper.

The path continued straight for as long as it took to get from the House to the well and then curved sharply to the left and went down hill. At this point the carefully laid stone path became a set of carefully laid stone steps leading down the hill. The trail curved in on itself to the right and continued it’s steep slope down hill. Through the thinning tree cover as the trail zigged and zagged its way down the slope of the hill, I was catching glimpses of the ocean and I could hear the waves pounding against the sides of the tall white cliffs we were skirting.

The smell of sea water was strong in the air and I knew instinctively that the tide had turned and was even now beginning to rise to its height. As we continued to slant down and towards the sound of the crashing surf I began to feel a sense of peace settle into me. The waves and the ocean were soothing and the electricity that was in the air seemed more at home here than it had atop the hill; I breathed in deeply and felt as if I was breathing in the power of the ocean itself. I too could be constant, tempestuous, tidal, never ending. I gulped great mouthfuls of the damp, briny air until I almost felt giddy and light headed with the consumption.

As we rounded the last bend to the left, sloping ever nearer the edge of the sea, the trees parted and I could see a great slag of rock, white as the cliffs, that jutted out into the sea. Here the waves had tossed great boulders and small rocks, pieces of broken ship that it had devoured and seashells; hundreds of seashells smashed to pieces against the collection of stones and the face of the cliff. On the side of the cliff, about my height off the ground, was a small dark opening into the side of the earth. It was to this black aperture that Grandmother went, climbing over some rocks, jumping down from others but single mindedly pursuing the cavernous maw in the side of the cliff.

For a few moments I just stood on the first rock and watched her as she went to the cave. A nameless feeling of utter dread had overcome my previous giddiness and I knew without a doubt that this cave was the caldron. Power and mystery emanated from the hole in such amounts that my soul quaked and again I was overcome with shivers. I breathed in deeply again, trying to remind myself of the feeling of greatness I had shared just moments before with the ocean and managed to stop the shivering and move forward to follow Grandmother to where she was waiting beside the cave.

When I reached her, she was rummaging in the pouch she had brought with her and triumphantly pulled out a candle and a small tinder box. Wedging the candle into a small fissure on the inside of the cave mouth she quickly and efficiently sparked a tiny flame on the wick with the flint and steel. When she turned to look at me, her face was a stark mask, devoid of all expression.

“Marei, daughter of the unknown, brought to us from across the sea, do you here wish to be washed in the cauldron?”

“I do so wish to be washed in the cauldron, Grandmother.”

“Do you accept that if you return from its bowels, you will no longer be the same person who stands here before me?”

“I not only accept that, but hope for it, Grandmother.”

“Have you been made aware that for some, the only cleansing the cauldron can offer is death?”

“I have been made aware and I will accept the judgement and lessons of the cauldron.”

“Inside the womb of the Earth you will now sit, and wait for the cleansing. You cannot return until the tide has turned and you must then make your own way back to the House on the Hill. Only the Gods and Goddesses can offer you any assistance. I leave you this candle, as a babe in its mother’s womb is left the spark of the divine while it grows for comfort. But like the babe waiting to be born, this candle will die and you will be left alone to your own devices and you must then be cleansed by the cauldron’s waters and be reborn, or die. It will be known if you do not complete your cleansing and you will not be allowed to continue your training in the mysteries of magick and the divine.”

I nodded my understanding and wordlessly, Grandmother knelt and offered me her knee to use as a step into the gaping darkness. I pulled myself into the opening, which was just barely big enough for me to crawl on all fours and after another fortifying breath of ocean air, I crawled into the tunnel and into the cauldron.