Mastery Year 1: Part 6: Post 1: Mabon

Happy belated Mabon.

It’s curious, we call our autumnal equinox party “Mabon,” but we never talk about who or what a mabon is. Where does the name come from? Why do we use it? Kit told a story once about a quest to find a man named Mabon, who was the only person able to kill a magical boar who needed to be killed as part of a long, multi-stage process without which one of King Arthur’s knights would have been unable to wed the woman he loved. But what that Mabon has to do with Fall, I do not know.

In any case, happy Autumn. The leaves have definitely begun to turn here, although we are still at least a week or two away from peak color, and the goldenrods and asters are in full flower in the fields—everything still has the look of fullness, of growth, although the insect song has changed radically—the cicadas are done for the year, as are some others I can’t name, all we have left in the thin, pulsing music of the crickets. They’ll go until frost.

I enjoyed the celebration. I always do. This year was a little different because for once I didn’t have to choose between the Gratitude Circle and the Thankyou Doll build, which normally happen at the same time, but this year Allen had to move the Circle up two hours because of an appointment he had with a therapy client that could not be scheduled at any other time. That put it opposite Greg’s Higan observance, which was unfortunate, because Karen normally attends the Circle and of course she helps with the Higan service. But the good news is that people who always attend the Thankyou Doll build—Charlie, Sarah, and most of the sprouts—were free to attend the Circle. Of course, Charlie didn’t come. I’d hoped he would, but Kit attends the Circle and they are still allergic to each other.

Anyway, the Gratitude Circle meets in the grassy area behind Chapel Hall, near the outdoor grill where we have Philosopher’s Stone Soup. It’s almost enclosed by the Hall on one side, the Main Greenhouse on another, and by a partial and broken ring of tall hickory trees. They’re only beginning to turn, and the place still looked very green and lush, with plenty of room in the middle for fifty or sixty people to stand in a ring, me and June included.

The way it works is that there is a big basket of balls of yarn, rejects from student spinners, and someone takes a ball, gives it to someone else, thanks them for something, and keeps the end of the yarn so that a strand of yarn connects thanker and thankee. The next person gives it to someone else, and on and on, until everyone is connected by a visible web of gratitude and yarn. Once the web starts filling in, it becomes impossible to cross the circle to give the ball of yarn away, so a child ferries it around, tying on new balls of yarn when the old ones finish. For three years Alexis had that honor, but I’ve heard that two years ago she gave it to Aidan, since she was getting too big to run under the yarn. Aidan is still little, but this year he decided he didn’t want to attend the Circle, so he passed it on to my nephew, Paul.

I’m proud to see a family member of mine getting involved in that way.

Allen always starts the Circle, since it’s his show, and he always thanks a member of his family first, in this case, Alexis, whom he adores. She handed it back to him, to thank him for getting the pet ferrets (whom she adores and actually had with her inside her shirt), so he had to find someone else to thank. To my surprise, he picked me.

“Thank you for becoming my friend,” he said. “And for coming back. We need you.”

“It’s good to be back,” I said. I could have thanked him in return, but there was someone else I had to hand the yarn to, first. That early in the proceedings, I didn’t have to use Paul as a go-between (and Allen hadn’t). I strode across the circle to my wife.

I handed her the yarn, and I kissed her. And I mean I really kissed her. Everyone else hooted and hollered, which of course was part of the point, and when I let her come up for air she said “woa!” and everybody laughed and hooted again.

So, who did June give her yarn to? She gave it to me, of course, and kissed me. And I mean she really kissed me. Grabbed my ears for leverage and everything (scratched one of them too, by accident, but I ignored that). More hooting and hollering. So, when she let me come up for air, I gave the yarn back to her and kissed her again.

“I could get used to this!” I said, to make everybody laugh.

“Get a room!” someone shouted. More laughter.

“We can’t until February, she’s a novice!” I shouted back.

“Screw February,” June said, with feeling, “I’m getting you alone tonight!” She spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear her, and triggered more laughter.

She made as if she were going to give me the yarn again, just for effect, then pushed me away, gently, and said “tonight.” That was for laughter, too of course, but it wasn’t only for laughter—she kept her promise.

I returned to my place in the ring, carefully trailing all three strands of yarn between us, and she gave the yarn to Kit and thanked her “for introducing me to the other kind of magic.” June is learning stage magic from Allen, but recently she’s started studying Wicca with Kit.

“What, no kiss?” asked Kit, and everyone laughed, and June kissed her on the cheek. “Oo, I can see why he likes you!” she said, afterwards, as though that chaste peck had been something else, and the laughter kept going, while June giggled, embarrassed, into the back of her wrist. From then on, though, Paul had to take up his duty as Yarn Ferry (Yarn Fairy?) and kissing did not become a theme of the whole Circle.

Anywhere else but here, on campus, such kissing and joking would have been out of place, especially with children present, but there is a kind of innocence to sex here. It’s an innocence very carefully maintained; Kit would never have joked about kissing me, for example, because it would not have been a joke to me, and she knows it, and her respect for that boundary is absolute.

A year ago, I don’t think June would have joked that way, not with me in public, and certainly not with a woman. She has learned that innocence. She has become of this place.

After the Gratitude Circle, we went right over to the Thankyou Doll Build, which June found utterly charming. This year, the Doll was made mostly of parsnips, with stalks of Setaria grass as hair and a couple of bright orange, pre-maturely fallen sugar maple leaves as a skirt. Two blue potatoes served as breasts, very long green beans for arms, and the thin tip of a parsnip made for a very long nose.

“Those potatoes aren’t the same size,” remarked a young yearling named Brad, as though the disparity were a comical design flaw. And indeed, we had tried to find a matching pair and done the best with what we had.

“Someone hasn’t seen enough women,” muttered Charlie, busily affixing a pair of tiny, round chilies to the face with broken toothpicks. They would be eyes. He wasn’t joking.  Charlie is celibate, but he’s not sexless, and he has no patience for straight men who maintain unrealistic ideas about women’s bodies. Nobody laughed. Brad blushed.

Later, after we had woken the Thankyou Doll (Joyce Anne did the honors, being a few months younger than my other nephew, Chris. The twins, Janus and James were both there, so technically James was the youngest one present, but the twins are late talkers), and given it the traditional tour, we sat down to the Paleolithic Feast.

Charlie sat down next to me. 

“I heard you had quite the Gratitude Circle today,” he said.

I blushed.

“I’m not criticizing,” he added, responding to my blush.

I relaxed a little.

“I heard you talked to Allen.”

He meant, I think, the conversation I had with Allen a week or so ago about my status as a student.

“Welcome back,” he said.

Mastery Year 1: 6th Interlude

Hi,

Daniel-of-2017, here.

Mabon snuck up on me. Once again, not the holiday itself, but simply the fact that I would have to post about it. Poor organization on my part.

It's also Rosh Hashana. I wish I had a post available to honor the holiday with, but I don't actually remember any related stories from my time as a student. The few observant Jews at school generally left campus to see family and to attend services, so there was no on-campus holiday event. Some years I would miss it entirely, other years someone would say something and I'd remember, but none of those exchanges were interesting enough to write about or, really, remember.

And in 2007, the year the current posts are set, Rosh Hashana occurred several weeks earlier than the equinox, so it wasn't on anyone's mind during Mabon.

Really, I do wish I could acknowledge Jewish holidays more, but they were a very minor note at school.Obviously, our years were organized around the pagan holidays--the Wiccans, most of the unaffiliated pagans, and most of the heathens (those who follow Norse-derived practices) all used that calendar and comprised the vast majority of the student body, so it made sense to treat those holidays as the official ones of the school. The Christian and secular holidays occupied a distant second position. Some people celebrated Jewish or Buddhist holidays, or sometimes others, but those were always private celebrations. Even Greg, who could have led campus Buddhist celebrations, and often called attention to historical events, never drew attention to Buddhism. I don't know how it was decided which holidays to celebrate and which to ignore, but we didn't generally question it.

I said I'd talk about the eclipse. A group of us did, indeed, go see it. But, curiously, it isn't really something I want to get into. perhaps because each of us reacted differently and some of those reactions seem like they ought to remain private.

-best, D.

Mastery Year 1: Part 5: Post 7: At Some Point

"I'm sorry," I told Charlie. He was sitting on the steps on the porch of the Mansion, whittling something. I'd come up behind him.

"For what?" he asked, inspecting his whittling. He was putting a point on a long, thin, point of wood, though I could not think why.

"For acting like a kid scared you might get mad at me."

He grunted, like a single chuck of a chuckle, acknowledging, perhaps, that I'd understood him correctly. But he didn't look at me, only at his pointed stick. He seemed a little sad, somehow.

"Thank you," he said, and returned to his whittling. I sat down beside him on the steps, and we were both silent for a while, before he spoke again. "I was only ever a boogeyman for you. If you want to keep me in that role, that's your business."

"I don't know. I mean, I know it's only ever been my choice, but I like knowing that if I don't follow through you'll...care."

I meant that being his student, being a student, was my choice, not something imposed on me by anyone else. At the very beginning, he had offered to help me by pushing me harder than I could push myself. He'd said everyone needs a boogeyman. That's what I meant by him caring, that he'd get upset, or pretend to get upset, if I ever gave him less than my best. 

As I said the word 'care' he looked over at me, just for a moment.

"I do care," he said, inspecting his whittling again. "That's why if you're going to treat me like the enemy, you can go right to hell. Because I can't help you if your not honest with me about what you want."

"I don't want to do this giving advice thing."

"Ok, why not?"

"Because it's artificial," I said. "To ask for advice creates a bond, an opportunity, if that isn't there...I asked what if no one asks. Well, if no one asks, then I don't want to give advice. I don't want to be pressured to offer maybe unwanted advice. I don't want to advise other people for me--or even for you. I already know what my essay would say if I did that--I'd have to say I'd done something wrong."

Another chuck of sad, almost-laughter.

"If you already know all that," he said, "than you're a better young man than I was at your age."

I had no response to that, so I changed topics.

"What's that you're whittling?"

"A piece of scrap wood."

"No, I mean, why? What's the objective?"

"To make it look like a spear. Because I want to."

I watched him play at making a spear for a while.

"You ever wish late summer could last forever?" he said. And indeed the gardens had gone messy and top-heavy with blossoms and, beyond our view, on the other side of the hedge, those parts of the Flat Field and the pastures below it that had not been cropped close this year had become a sea of goldenrod and asters, attended by grasshoppers, mantises, and now the first of the monarch butterflies streaming south toward Mexico. In another few weeks, most of it will be fading.

And yet I could not say that fall had ever made me sad.

I spoke later with Allen, with whom I can be more articulate, since he demands articulate-ness, just as Charlie demands intellectual--and interpersonal--honesty. And of course, it's easier to talk about things with a neutral party.

"I was acting like a rebellious little kid," I explained, "and I can see why Charlie didn't like that, but I guess I like acting like a kid with somebody."

"Even though being treated like a kid pisses you off?"

"Well, yes, naturally."

Allen laughed at me.

"Daniel, you have encountered the central mystery of adolescence."

"At twenty-seven years of age?" I just had a birthday.

"Better late than never...no, seriously, adulthood is sort of a work in progress. The tendencies of childhood never entirely leave you."

"Adulthood is a choice."

"Every day."

"I just..." I didn't know how to put it, "I like having someone else in charge, someone who seems to know everything. I don't like it, but I like it. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," said Allen. "You know, I don't have anyone like that for me. Not anymore."

"And you know all the deliberate mysteries around here, too. You know how the stage magic works."

"I do."

"Does that ever bother you?"

He made a non-committal sort of shrug, declining to directly answer the question.

"Daniel, at some point, you've got to start making magic for others."

Mastery Year 1: Part 5: Post 5: Whatever He Wants

So, Charlie told me I have no right to treat him like a father who doesn't love me. Those were pretty much his exact words. What the hell? What does that even mean?

I got out of there, and he let me go. He usually does drop his little bombs of pronouncement and skeedadle, and I don't think either of us wanted to continue that conversation. But I did have to figure out some kind of response, and I couldn't do that alone, so I sought out Allen.

For once, we went for a walk together, instead of meeting for lunch or bumping into each other in the Great Hall as we normally do. Fall was in the air. It has been, intermittently, for a few weeks now, but I think it's finally here for good. The trees are still entirely green, though, and the air full of mosquitoes. We kept moving to avoid being bitten. Crickets sang in the grass all around us, grass that was thigh-high where we walked out beside and below the Edge of the World. I told him my tale.

"What does he even mean, like a father who doesn't love me?" I asked. "Does he want me to treat him like a father who does love me, or is he mad at me for treating him like a father in the first place? Which I don't even think I do." Some people might say I was overthinking it, but Allen wouldn't. To him, there's no such thing as too much thinking, only good thinking and poor thinking.

We were quiet for a bit as he did some of his own thinking.

"I expect he does love you," Allen said, after a bit. "I do. But whether he thinks of you as his son or not I don't know."

"Maybe his feelings aren't really relevant," I suggested. "Maybe that's just his way of describing my behavior."

"Maybe, though you did say he seemed angry. That suggests emotional investment on his part."

"It does, but it doesn't say anything about what that investment is."

"So, how do you feel?" he asked me, eyes twinkling because of course that's what a therapist would say.

"I don't know. Angry. Confused. Frightened. I guess."

He smiled, quickly and briefly, because I'd said I didn't know and then I did know. I still don't know what goes on with me most of the time, but it's like when I said (truthfully) that I didn't know, I heard his voice in my head taking me through the process of figuring it out and I came at the answer without even any perceptible pause in my speech. He understood, I think, hence that quick smile.

"What thoughts go with that 'frightened'?" he asked. Notice he didn't ask why I was frightened. He tends not to. He says the stories we make up to explain our emotions are seldom more than that--stories--but they can be important to voice.

"I don't know, it's just...he's angry with me and I don't know what to do. That's it, I guess. I can't and I must. I can't imagine not having an answer for him."

"An answer? What's the question?"

"It's not so much a question," I said, "it's that he clearly wants something from me and I don't know what he wants. I don't even know where to start."

"So, what's your question?" He stopped in his walking and looked at me, faintly amused, until the mosquitoes made him start walking again.

"What does he want from me?"

"I don't know," Allen said. "Are you sure he wants something specific?"

"I guess. He said I was doing something wrong, so doesn't that imply something right he'd rather I do?"

"It's odd for you not to be able to figure out how to answer him, though. After four and a half years as his student? You usually figure it out, don't you?"

"Yes, I always have...If only I knew what treating someone like a father who doesn't love me means!"

He stopped, a moment, as though struck by a sudden thought.

"Why don't you ask your father?" he said.

"My father? Why"

"Because you know he does love you."

It was my turn to stop, because suddenly that made sense to me. But the mosquitoes got me going again.

"Allen?"

"Hm?"

"Is it weird being friends with me?"

"Not especially. A lot of my friends are a lot weirder than you."

"No, I mean because I'm also your student. And I was a teenager when we met."

"We're all students here. To the extent that I can learn from you, we're equals."

"When did that happen?"

"The day we met. I'd be a pretty sorry teacher if I couldn't learn from my students."

And so our conversation continued. And so, this past weekend, I did something I've never done before--made a cell-phone call on campus. I own a cell-phone now. There's a rule (added while I was in Absence) against yearlings having cellphones or other electronics on campus, but it doesn't apply to me. It's just that calling out always seems like a strange thing to do, here. But I did it.

I called my dad.

He was surprised to hear from me by phone, of course, but had time to talk.

"Dad, what does a kid whose father loves him do?"

"What? Why are you asking me?"

"Because you love me and I'm your kid. I figured you'd know."

He remained confused for a bit and I had to explain it further, but finally he had an answer for me.

"What does the son of a loving father do? From what I can see, he does whatever he wants."

Mastery Year 1: Part 5: Post 4: What the?

A week ago, Charlie told me to find three yearlings and give them advice--and then write him an essay on whether I should have given them advice or not. Honestly, the assignment kind of bends my brain, because obviously the point is for me to realize I shouldn't have given them the advice...so why set me up? Why make me do something I shouldn't do? Don't I make enough mistakes on my own?

But I wanted to do what Charlie told me to do. Maybe there was something to the assignment I hadn't thought of. There usually is. I trust Charlie, and, more than that, doing what he tells me is kinda what I do. It's how we connect. I don't want to lose that. Sounds strange, I know, but true.

So, I decided to focus on the first part of the assignment, take it one step at a time, and find somebody to advise.

And I couldn't find anybody. It's actually not that unusual for me to help people out, especially yearlings. People talk to me. Sometimes I give information, or suggest a course of action, though more usually I just listen and they figure it out on their own, but it's not like I've never occupied that role before. But I don't approach them. They approach me. And this past week, nobody has. Not for the whole week.

I told Charlie.

"So? I didn't give you a time limit," he said.

"But what if nobody does? What if nobody needs my advice? Ever?"

"And what if snakes fly out of my ears? People need advice. Find them. 'What if' is not my problem. Or yours, Daniel."

I had no response to that. I hadn't a clue how to do what he was asking. That's never stopped me from doing it before, but....

"You don't want to do this one, do you?"

I didn't answer.

"Are you going to give this one a shot or not?"

"Yes, of course I will, Charlie," I told him. Because of course I do everything he tells me to do.

He stared at me for a few seconds.

"Oh, no," he said, after a bit, "Oh, no. Don't you start blowing smoke up my ass now."

"What?"

"You're lying to me. You're going to try to weasel out of this one. You think it's impossible."

"What? No, I...." I didn't know how to respond. I'd seen Charlie growl before, I'd even seen him yell, but I had never really believed he was angry. Like, it was all just a show he put on for educational purposes. But now he was angry, actually angry. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

"You have no right," he breathed, "to treat me like a father who doesn't love you."