Mastery Year 2: Part 8: Post 3: Getting Back to Charlie

So, I have an answer.

To the question of what more I have to do to become a master, I mean. The key ended up being what Ollie said, about whether I'd like to see someone like me hired--and the thing is, I wouldn't, not yet. I may have made the personal transformation necessary to be one of the Six, but I'm not in a position to take responsibility for helping to run the school, because I don't really know how the school runs. I don't really have a sense yet of how I could bring my unique skills and knowledge-base--I do know I have unique skills by now!--to the school in a way that might fit in with what everyone else is doing here.

But what I don't know, I can find out.

So, first I made a list of things I want to learn this year:

• What is the operational structure of the school? Who does what?
• What are the day-to-day operations of each "department"?
• What is the school's legal and financial status?
• What happens in an emergency?
• What is the history of the school?
• Who is actually in charge of making various "mysterious" events happen?
• What is the decision-making process? How is organizational policy set?
• What classes (as opposed to workshops, etc.) could I teach, other than Charlie's?
• What areas of mastery could I teach, and how would I teach them?
• What do people other than me find useful in a master?
• What areas of school function could I direct?

Then I made a list of tasks I want to complete over the year that should teach me the things I need to know:

• Interview each member of the Masters' Group and all of the regular allies about what they do.
• Interview Greg, and one or more of the original Six, if I can find any, about the school history. Supplement with interviews of the others.
• Interview each member of the Candidates' Group, especially those getting their rings this Brigid, about their process of gaining mastery and their relationships with their masters.
• Write up class descriptions and syllabi for one or more full classes I could teach and write up any necessary preparation plans--then execute the plans.
• Interview a selection of novices about what they like and don't like about their masters and what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of the school as a whole.
• Ask various community members of all categories what they see as needing to change or improve in the school, and what they see as important to remain the same.
• Document all of the above--write a report.

I did as Sharon whether any such reports already exist, though I suspect I'd get more out of writing one than by reading it, but she said there isn't. I don't know whether to be encouraged or discouraged that apparently nobody's ever sought mastery this way before.

Anyway, I turned in all of it to Charlie, through Sharon, and now I'm waiting to hear back. I'm sitting in the Great Hall, alone, watching the weak, winter sunlight shine off the decorations of the Yule tree and off the crusted, patchy snow outside. More snow is predicted for tonight, and the Great Hall smells of snow and, faintly, of the iron of the woodstove, which overheated earlier and is cooling now, ticking slowly as it goes. And I'm thinking why was all this so difficult? Why did it take me the better part of a month to do this, even after I spoke with Ollie and developed a good idea of what I needed to do?

I could say I was distracted and preoccupied by the holidays, but really there wasn't much for me to do to make the holidays happen. I've been less preoccupied, less busy, over the past month than I normally am by daily life.

The truth is that the reason I don't know all of this stuff already is that I've been fairly passive in my engagement with the community. I've done what I've been told, I've met expectations, and that's about it. A certain passivity is not only accepted but actually encouraged in the students, I've learned, because it keeps them from asking too many questions and makes maintaining the air of mystery (which has educational value) much easier. It's not like I've been doing anything wrong. But it's time to give up passivity now, to take responsibility for making this place work--to grow up, in other words.

And I don't entirely want to.