The day dawns when everything changes: Brigid.
I woke the morning before Brigid--what would be the morning of Brigid except that our holidays begin with the evening, as do those of Jews--feeling very odd. The sunlight was very bright in my room, I'd slept late, but June was sleeping still later, so I lay there alone beside her in a kind of well-lit, exalted terror, without thinking much of anything, aware only of the Total Now.
The Total Now, of course, doesn't last very long. You think "ah, here is the Total Now," and then, just like that, it isn't. Thoughts, and thoughts about thoughts, creep in. I'm not enlightened. I'm not even all that different from the doofus who came to this school so many years ago, with no clear plan but a vague desire to belong to a place that looked like a scene from Harry Potter. And yet much has shifted since then, and I knew without doubt that I'd earned the ring I'd be getting later that day. It was simply the enormity of a day longed for, worked for, daydreamed about for so long finally arriving that weirded me out.
As you may have noticed, I can talk myself into a state very easily.
June woke up. I can't tell you how I knew she woke up, as she didn't move, but I did know, as so I said "Today is The Day."
"So is every other day," she reminded me. "Have we missed breakfast? Is there coffee?"
We hadn't missed breakfast completely, but it was well in progress by the time we got down to it and some people were already trickling out, finished, which was just as well because the morning before Brigid is always very crowded--almost the entire campus has returned from winter break, but we're still eating in the Great Hall, all of us except the masters and, of course, the graduating novices. They, the ones graduating, are all in the utter, timeless blackness of the individual cells of The Ordeal, a fact which nobody ever notices until their own Ordeal begins. Once one knows about the Ordeal, the sudden absence of twenty or so people for three days is obvious, but those who don't know to look never see. I've often wondered whether that curious obliviousness is cured by training for mastery, if our ability to see things that were once invisible--and, for some of us, to become invisible ourselves--translates into an ability to see what we're actually seeing instead of only what we're looking for. Perhaps it doesn't, but as they don't play such mind games with candidates I don't really know. Anyway, breakfast was crowded.
After breakfast, June and I went for a very long walk together. It hasn't snowed in over a week, and there's been some melting, so there were plenty of trampled paths almost everywhere we wanted to go, and even elsewhere, up in the woods, the snow was not deep. The air temperature hovered around freezing, warm for this time of year. The sun flitted between quickly-moving, fleecy clouds.
Do you know, I can't think of a time anyone here has ever remarked on whether Punxsutawney Phill has seen his shadow?
We got back to the Mansion around two and had lunch. Then I left June to her own devices for the rest of the day, took a shower, and put on my uniform. By three I was waiting in the Great Hall with the other graduating candidates, as instructed.
"We're supposed to go up, now," said Raven, "as long as no one can see us go."
No one else was in the Great Hall at the moment, so we climbed the stairs, up one flight, two flights, three flights, and then, after looking around one more time to assure ourselves of having no witnesses, we climbed the fourth flight up to the Masters' floor and Raven knocked on the door.
Allen answered, and bowed us inside.
I hadn't been up there since my first year, when I was on the janitorial team. The others had never been on that team, so they had never been up there at all. It looked about as I remembered it--quiet, simple, and somewhat cramped, but every object a work of art, and most of them gifts from students over the years. The interior lights were off, and only a little indirect sunlight drifted into the hallway from one or two open suit doors. No one seemed to be about. Allen gestured for silence and directed us into a side room I'd never seen before. It had always been closed when I'd come up to clean.
The room had no windows. It was entirely interior. Inside it were narrow shelves along the walls of evidently symbolic knick-knacks, tall, heavy vases set on the floor filled with dry plant stems and other items, a small round table, much candle-light, and the Six.
A seventh master stood around the table also, a woman I didn't know, an ally
We hadn't been coached on the contents of the ritual, only its purpose, so we all stood in a clump by the door and waited to be told what to do. Allen closed the door behind us and went to join the others, all six of them standing in a ring around the table, but a step or two back from it.
"Here is where we make masters," said Kit. "Enter the Circle, if you wish."
We all stepped between the masters and made a smaller ring around the table within theirs. On the table lay various ritual implements and symbolic objects, several of the candles lighting the room, five brown cloth belts each rolled in a tight spiral, and a small bowl containing five green rings. I couldn't take my eyes from that bowl until Kit again began to speak. Then I looked at her.
"Identify yourselves vocally--who are you?" she asked.
We each said our names.
"You know who we are," she said, but then said her name anyway, and each of the others said theirs. The ally named herself as Mia. Ebony now knew not only who was in the room but where each person stood in relation to her, just as we knew. Details can be important in rituals, but they are only important if you know what they are.
"What do you want?" Kit asked.
"Our rings," we chorused in clumsy, unrehearsed unison.
"We have them for you," she acknowledged, "but there are things that must be said and done first." She then made a speech about the reason for the ritual and the meaning of the ring and the purposes of the school, all of which we had known already--just as they had known our names already--but the speech served a second purpose; Kit wove into it a detailed description of how the room looked. Ebony smiled.
"If you take these rings," Kit continued, "you must first swear to uphold the values of our community, the welfare of the school, and the welfare of the students, to the best of your ability forever. This step is not one you take for yourselves but for others. You can use what we gave you freely and anywhere, but if you accept the ring it will be because you wish to serve the community and its students. Do you swear?"
I think we all paused a little, just to be sure--it does not do to take major vows by rote--but we all swore. Then Mia spoke up.
"There is another vow you must make if you want the rings," she said, "but the Six can't ask it of you because it is to serve them, not as your masters, for we are all equals, but as your wards. They give their lives to this community, giving up the possibility of outside careers and achievements commensurate with their skills, and they are the only ones who make this sacrifice--even the non-teaching masters can put their work here on their resumes and leave at any time. Our job, yours and mine, is to make sure they never have cause to regret it. Should this school ever close, or should one of the Six have to leave us for any reason, we others who wear the Ring are responsible, individually and collectively, for making sure no one who has been of the Six will ever go hungry or suffer neglect. Do you swear?"
Again, after a pause, we all swore. I had expected the first vow, though I hadn't known the wording, but I had not thought about the second. It felt odd to make that vow, to imagine each of these people, as well as those few who had been of the Six but had left and were still alive, ill or infirm and in need, and what I might do to fulfill my vow. A quiet sense of responsibility settled on me--and a strange, new tenderness.
"We will each of us bless your rings," explained Kit, leaning forward to pick up the bowl. They passed it around the outer circle, each of the Six taking a moment to place a hand over the rings and concentrate before passing the bowl along.
"You're all of different ring sizes," Kit said, "so you shouldn't have any trouble finding the one that's yours. Take your rings, but don't put them on. Daniel, you're biggest, why don't you go first?"
I took the bowl and sorted through the rings, found the largest of them, and took it. Then I looked around, trying to sort out who was next-biggest. It would be Raven or Veery, I knew. Both Ebony and Eddie have little hands. Raven waved as though volunteering, to I handed her the bowl. It took her longer to find her ring--she had to lay them out in a row on the table--because she's closer in size to the others than I am. She put the other three back in the bowl still in a line and passed the bowl to Veery, who took it and passed it to Eddie, who laughed silently and took the smallest ring, then passed the bowl to Ebony who has slightly bigger hands than he does.
Looking at least of them in turn like that, I felt a tremendous pride to be doing this with such a remarkable group of people, as well as an amused awareness that I stood in a circle with not one but two of my ex-girlfriends. I thought about Joanna and wondered how she was doing. Well, I hope.
We each held our rings. Mine felt cool and smooth and surprisingly light in my hands.
"Bless your rings however you will--make them yours" Kit instructed, "and then hand your ring to the master who will present to you."
I handed mine across the table to Charlie, who took it without comment or overt expression, then nodded slightly. I nodded back, though I'm not sure why.
Raven handed hers to Charlie, and Veery handed hers to Allen. Eddie handed his to Joy, who smiled warmly at him. Ebony seemed a little lost--she has poor spatial awareness and had probably forgotten where in the circle Allen was.
"Put out your hand, Ebony," he said, and she did and he took her hand and so she gave him her ring.
"There," said Kit. "Now is when you change--your belts, I mean."
You may or may not remember, but the color of our clothing has significance, here. Novices where white uniforms with black cloaks, and everybody else wears brown uniforms with brown cloaks, except that the masters have brown cloth belts while the candidates (and other graduates without rings, when they visit) wear white belts.
Each of us reached out and took the belt in front of us, removed our white belts and tied the brown ones on. The belts are just like those you'd wear in a martial arts class, only perhaps a little narrower, and in martial arts classes when you switch belts you turn away from your teacher--or at least, that's what Karen had us do. Something about not changing your clothes in full view. Now, though, with our teachers surrounding us in a ring, there was no turning away. I felt a little self-conscious about that.
Now, for the first time, Greg spoke up, saying "come to Chapel Hall like normal, and sit in the front row. You'll come up on stage, as you recall--Charlie's students, then Allen's, then Joy's. If you have any questions about that, stay back and ask. Otherwise you're free to go, but you're between things right now, with brown belts but without your rings, and the ritual won't be closed until tonight. So I suggest you avoid mixing with the others or attempting anything psychologically strenuous. Good luck."
Allen spoke a kind of benediction over us, saying "Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." It sounds very Zen and ancient, but it's actually lyrics from a Leonard Cohen song.
We filed out. The masters came out after us. Kit extinguished the candles. Once we were out of the room, I caught Charlie.
"Which of us will go first?" I asked him. Raven heard and came over, also curious.
"Which of you wants to?" he asked. She and I looked at each other and shrugged.
"I can," I said.
"Good. You remember what to say?"
"Yes."
"OK. Raven, you want to say anything different, or does the standard work for you?"
There's a dialogue that people getting their rings go through, and the first one who does it every year must always do it the same way. The others can improvise. Raven chose not to improvise.
It was almost four by then. I occupied myself for two hours by wandering around the lesser-used parts of campus and up into the woods again. The temperature was dropping. The sky was growing a high, thickening haze.
At dusk I went to the Chapel and sat down in the front row. Eddie was already there. The others came in a few minutes later. We all sat together bit did not speak. The room filled up behind us.
The ceremony went as it had before. This post is already plenty long enough, so I won't give a full description. When it was time, Charlie stood at center stage and waited. I joined him.
"What do you seek?" he asked me.
"I seek my Mastery," I told him.
"Why do you seek it?"
"Because it is mine."
"Take then this ring from my hand. It is already yours. Congratulations." And he handed me my ring. I put it on. That was it, the heart of the matter. He shook my hand, the other heart of the matter, and I took my seat on the stage among the other masters and looked out at the audience, the students, and I let them look at me.
Everything changes every day. It is always today. It is always Brigid.
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