Year 2: Eighth Interlude

Hi, all!

Daniel-of-2015 here, for the last time before March. Starting with Monday's post, I'm returning to regular, narrative posts, twice per week. I hope to do illustrations again, too.

Thirteen years ago next week, I started my third year at the school--and passed the halfway point of my time there. I didn't appreciate that at the time, that, in some sense, I was on my way out from then on. Instead, I just thought of myself as there. I'd gotten into the rhythm of living at the school, and while I knew intellectually that I'd leave someday, emotionally that day seemed very remote. Like that point in a long run when you're all loosened up and you're neither fresh nor tired, but just running along--into the zen of it, as some friends of mine say (although I believe Greg would shake his head if he heard it).

In the here-and-now, we also have news. As I said in September, Aidan has passed the entrance test for the school--he knows the school exists and wants to attend. Obviously, the presents a complication in that the school currently exists as a community, not as an educational institution. But if we want to keep existing, we're going to have to develop a way to accept new members, anyway--that is the question we face. Do we want to be a social group, held together by habit and nostalgia, biding our time until we all disperse? Or do we want to be a living community, with a future as well as a past?

We seem to have chosen the latter.

Aiden is nowhere near college age, of course; he's turning fourteen on Brigid. In a way, that makes things easier, though--his age means that the fact we aren't a college anymore matters less. That he is homeschooled is also an advantage. In essence, we're adapting our original curriculum to create an outline for his high school. The whole point of the curriculum was to become an adult who is both scientifically literate and well-developed as a person--and competent in some version of the occult basics. There is no reason why an eighteen-year-old can't be a scientifically literate, well-rounded occultist, and that is what Aidan will be in four years. Our job, as adults in his life, is to help him get there.

So, on Brigid we're going to have a ceremony welcoming him in. It will not be the same as our Brigid assembly at school--it will not begin a new school year, it will not be a graduation ceremony, and we won't have to place Aidan in a dorm.

But I will put on my uniform and I will process in with my fellow masters and I will help carry the light for others.