Mastery Year 3: Part 8: Post 7: Brigid

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.

Mastery Year 3: Part 8: Post 6: The End of the Beginning or the Beginning of the End

Well, as promised, the schedule for the graduating candidates for the next few days has been released. They gave it to Raven G., and she gave it to the rest of us and explained what's going on. It's not the first information we got on the subject, either. We'd all heard--from Raven--back around Yule to be back on campus the week before Brigid. We also got our fingers measured for our rings then. Charlie was right: mind games are for novices.

The five of us who hope to receive our rings, Ebony, Veery, Raven G., Eddie, and I, have to each interview for jobs as masters. Passing the interview is a necessary step--the necessary step--to earning a ring, and it means we're qualified for a permanent position here, should one open up. It means we're masters. We knew all that before, of course. What we learned this week was that the interviews would be today and tomorrow. Usually the decision is made in the interview, by the interviewing committee, although they say they reserve the right to delay making a decision--they'll let us know, at the latest, tomorrow night.

Raven even had some advice for us--to come to the interview ready to make the case for our being hired, with any necessary documentation in hand, since we'd be expected to begin with a presentation, not simply given given questions to answer. There would be no black-out bags, no surprises, and no tricks. But, as Charlie warned me at Samhain, the interviews would be quite real. None of us had ever heard of anyone making it to the interview but not getting a ring, but Raven had been told to tell us that it Could happen.

My interview was this morning, one of the first two on the schedule.

Since I had to go over to Chapel Hall right after breakfast, I got all my things together before going downstairs for the day. June was sitting in bed, still in her pajamas, as I put on my uniform with exaggerated care. I wanted everything to be perfect, as though a crooked cowl or an improperly tied belt might be enough to make me bomb the interview and waste everything I'd done.

I took a long, ragged breath.

"Daniel?" June asked.

"I don't know that I want to do this," I told her. "I'm not sure I believe that I can or that I should. I don't feel like a master."

"You'll have to make up your mind," June told me.

"Yes," I said, but I didn't want to move. The truth is I didn't want to leave. I felt like I was dressing for my own funeral.

"Daniel, do you ever feel like shit?" my wife asked me. I turned to look at her, surprised and a little confused.

"Yes, I guess so."

"Are you ever actually shit? As in feces?"

"No."

"Well, then, seems to me your feelings have nothing to do with it. Not feeling like a master has nothing to do with your being one. Now, do you want that ring or not?"

I thought about it. I wanted to be sure.

"Yes."

"Then go."

So I went.

I left my room with the nerved-up confidence of a Man on a Mission, but I still had breakfast to get through, which took forever, especially as I arrived a little early for it. The Great Hall is unadorned, now, the austere lack-of-decoration that is the "look" of Brigid around here. The room was clean and very bright, with sun reflecting off the new snow outside and shining in at the windows, and with people starting to come back from the winter break, the place was crowded and noisy. I had nothing to say to anyone, though I made eye contact with Veery, who would interview at the same time as I but with a different committee. She wasn't talking, either, but she looked more cheerful than I felt.

Finally, the Time Arrived. I hefted my bag of documentation and headed over to Chapel Hall. The interview was in one of the offices on the ground floor there--the Chapel itself is on the second floor. I found my committee waiting for me: Charlie, Allen, Sharon, and Karen. They saw me poke my head in and beckoned me and greeted me warmly.

"I guess that's one question I forgot to ask," I said, taking my seat.

"Oh?" said Sharon.

"For my project getting to know the school. How do you decide who's on these committees?"

"I was wondering if you'd ask," said Allen, merrily.

"Don't worry; we won't dock you for the oversight," said Charlie.

"We're those who know you best and those who know you least," explained Sharon.

"That last would be me," put in Karen. It's true I've hardly had a a conversation with her the whole time I've been here.

"Hi, Karen," I said, a little embarrassed, and she waved her fingers at me in a girlish way.

Sharon cleared her throat.

"OK, I've got everything all prepared and planned out," I said, "except the beginning. How do I start?"

That made them laugh.

"Begin anywhere," Charlie said, "and proceed. Where you start is where the beginning is."

"Why are you here?" Allen offered as a hint.

"Well," I started, "I'm here because I want to earn my ring and I am, as far as I can tell, ready. And I'm here because I arrived ten years ago. I arrived because I wanted to learn to engage more deeply and more meaningfully with life, because I wanted community, and because I wanted wonder. And I got those things. Now, I'm in a position to help other people get those things. So, um, I'm here."

It was an awkward version of the speech I'd thought up earlier. It made the others smile a little. They've all been here, done this. I took a deep breath and I continued.

I explained the general course of my studies, starting with my novitiate--speaking mostly to Karen, who might genuinely not know my history--including how and why I'd chosen Charlie, how I've changed over the course of my studies, what I did during my Absence, what assignments Charlie has given me since I've been back, and what classes and workshops I've taught, noting those I've developed myself or with Rick.

I handed out copies of the syllabi and course plans for my various workshops and classes and the proposal I'd submitted to start offering tutoring in writing and in algebra and statistics. I also handed out copies of reviews I've gotten from students for the work, and records of how many students had signed up to work with me. I handed over copies of the testimonial I'd thought to have Steve write about my work with him, together with a report I'd written up about his progress when I turned his education back over to Charlie. I verbally summarized what I saw as my potential strengths as a master and what areas of school function I might be able to take on, if called to do so. I said I thought I might be able to take on landscaping, though I acknowledged Raven or Rick would be a better choice.

"I could be a good craft-master," I said, "but my craft would primarily be writing."

And I handed over a copy of my book of poems, a copy of the literary journal I'd co-edited in grad school, and testimonials from students I had tutored. I also handed over a copy my report on how the school runs, explained that project, and made a few comments on what I'd learned from it and how I thought the school might possibly be improved--and changes I thought we should be on the look-out to avoid.

"Not that none of you know this stuff," I acknowledged. "The point is I noticed."

I talked on in a semi-organized and well-documented way in my properly-straightened and correctly-belted uniform for about twenty minutes, and then I kind of sputtered to a halt.

"I guess the only other thing I didn't plan out was the ending," I said. "Everything I've thought of sounds cheese, vote Daniel TODAY kind of thing." I blushed. They all laughed.

Then they asked me a few questions. Karen asked the most. Unlike the interview at the end of my novitiate--which was partially a pretext for my ritual kidnapping--they didn't have me tell them things they obviously already knew. The point was not to tell them what I had done and learned but why what I had done and learned qualified me to teach. They had asked for documentation not in order to make me prove myself, but simply because even Charlie and Allen had forgotten or not known relevant parts of my history and wanted to be able to look things up easily. My bringing my records were a courtesy to them, a way of making it easier for them to help me.

I think we were there about another twenty minutes, asking and answering and clarifying, passing papers and books back and forth, before Charlie looked up over his reading glasses and said "well? Do we need to discuss this privately?"

"I don't," replied Allen. "I've wanted him on board for years, now. What do you think, Karen? Are we being biased?"

"Not as far as I can tell," she said. "Neither of you are the type. And I've never heard anything negative about him."

"It might help to consider," ventured Sharon, "what else we would want to see from him? If he's not ready yet, what could he do to get ready?"

I held my breath.

"You always say that," grumbled Charlie.

"Always when it seems helpful," acknowledged Sharon.

"Well, I can't think of anything," said Allen. "He's done everything, or close, anyway."

"If we don't give it to him now," said Charlie, "he's just going to keep doing more of what he's been doing. My thinking is he should be a master while he's doing it."

My heart leaped a little, and Charlie glanced at me and smiled a little, as if he knew. Maybe he did.

"Karen?" asked Sharon.

"I'm good," she said.

"Well, then," said Sharon, who seemed to be in charge, "I believe we are in agreement. And the committee of the whole left us no concerns, so we are empowered in his case...."

"Congratulations," said Charlie and shook my hand.

I felt like whooping for joy, but instead I said nothing at all. I felt completely muddled up. We all stood up, and Sharon reminded me of the time to meet for the pre-commencement ceremony. I'm at liberty until then, apparently. I felt hollow and full at once.

I left, but the others didn't follow me. I don't know why. Maybe I'll ask? Asking why seems to be something I do, now.

Out in the hallway, I met Kit, who had been on Veery's committee, which had apparently finished up a little before mine. She looked like she had been waiting for me.

"Well?" she asked.

I stammered, vaguely.

"I know," she said. "When I passed mine I felt like weeping."

Mastery Year 3: Part 8: Post 3: Poetry and Prose

I'm back on campus now. June and I spent Christmas and New Years at her parents', then she went back to work and I spent a few days with my parents--and so did she, simply commuting to work from my parents' house, rather than from campus. We just got back to school this afternoon.

We're doing an odd thing, June and I, over the next few weeks; we're going apartment-hunting.

For all that I've been working for the past three years to become a master, there's no reason to believe there's going to be an opening. It's not that none of the Six are likely to retire--for one thing, Greg is semi-retired already, and while I think he may choose to stay on until he dies, he also could choose to retire wholly at any time--or a medical problem could force the issue. The non-teaching masters also come and go somewhat faster, or the Master's Group could decide to expand. But I am not qualified to replace Greg, there is no obvious place for me among the non-teaching masters, and no reason to expand the group. Realistically, I'd only get hired if Charlie retired, and that he will, quite obviously, never do. In any case, I'm sure Rick or Raven would be a better match for the role than I am. So I'm going to remain an ally--in more standard terms, an adjunct--for the time being. And allies don't get on-campus housing.

So, we're looking for something affordable within biking distance from campus, probably a mother-in-law apartment off the back of somebody's house. We're thinking about renter's insurance and transportation, furnished vs. unfurnished, accessibility to shopping. Shopping? I haven't bought a load of groceries for three years. All of it seems so banal, so mundane. So normal. It's bizarrely disappointing, but I suppose it has to be done.

And we're all going through it--Eddie, Raven, Ebony, Veery, and I, putting together the circumstances of our lives out in the real world. It's melancholy. I think all of us have thrown around the idea of all getting a house together, but it doesn't seem quite right somehow and we're not taking the idea seriously. There's no avoiding what comes next in this strange trip of ours--leaving, and, in a way, leaving for good.

But at the moment, there are no such errands to run, no practical steps on the hunting of houses to take. And I have no classes to take or to teach, no votes to secure, no madcap challenges from Charlie to tackle (except that one, and it is well in hand and needs no action today). There is nothing to do.

And so I sit at the table by the window in the Great Hall all alone, watching the sun turn the snowy world golden.

Mastery Year 1: Interlude 8

Hi, all, Daniel-of-2018, here.

So, later this week is Brigid, the day we traditionally started a new school year. I'll write the Brigid post next week, after the fact. In the here and now, I'm busily helping to prepare for our community's Brigid celebration the first full one we've held since the school closed.

What I mean by "full" is that all the students will assemble for the induction of new students. Yes, we have students again--twenty of them, five new this year. It's not like it used to be. Aside from not having a residential campus, we're not an accredited school, so rather than teaching a lot of courses ourselves, we direct students in meeting their requirements for us through other schools. That's part of why we have fewer students--we simply have less to offer.

As I may have mentioned, most of what we do now is give public workshops and talks. Only a small minority of our regular attendees realize we have something more and pass the entrance test, but some do. And so, we, as a community, are growing again.

Since the election, we have gotten very serious about maintaining a community where certain things are important, so that none of us get burnt out or complacent.

So, to wrap up the catching -up process I've spent this January on, I want to talk about the candidates' group.

Candidates, you may recall, were (and someday, will be again) those students who have graduated, completed Absence, and returned to become masters. Not all masters ever have a leadership role in the school, but only masters can. The mastery program isn't accredited, and indeed a lot of us spent our Absence getting masters' degrees elsewhere--I did, Rick did, Ollie did, Ebony did--you don't need a masters' degree to be a master, but you need to take mastery seriously. If the area of your mastery in healing, you need to go to med school, or its equivalent. You can't just be a master because you say so.

The candidates form a distinct group because there are only ever a few at a time, because they have so much in common, and because they all take two main classes together, Candidate's Seminar and Chaplain's Seminar, every semester. So we get pretty close.

Except that I never got especially close with Oak (though I liked and respected him) or Veronica, and Veery and I continued to have nothing to say to each other, despite having dated for several weeks, years earlier, and in fact I did not talk to any of the three, except in an incidental way ("please pass the salt") the entire year, outside of our shared classes.

Jasmine and I started to become friends, years ago, when we partnered to win to Ostar egg hunt, and I started teaching her about birds and she started teaching me about photography. But somehow our incipient friendship fizzled, and we drifted apart. When I returned for my candidacy (she had returned the year before), we picked up where we had left off, as I started attending her photography classes (as did Ebony) and, once I started teaching, she attended my classes in natural history and so forth. It was (and, to a lesser extent, remains) an exchange of skills, not a deep friendship, but we get along with.

And then there's Eddie, who returned in order to deepen his work with therapy dogs into some kind of spiritual practice and ministry.

It wasn't immediately clear to anyone--even his master, Joy--how he was supposed to accomplish that deepening. Usually, you develop competency in several areas as a novice, then as a candidate, pick one area to get really, really good. Developing that aspect of mastery--skill and the ability to teach--then serves as a focus for developing those other aspect of mastery that are harder to define. But Eddie was already very, very good at training and placing therapy dogs. He wanted more. But what?

He spent the first four or five months of his candidacy teaching workshops on campus and volunteering at area animal shelters. Then Joy started helping him design and market a series of classes for outside participants and their dogs, such as basic obedience, behavior correction, and agility training. During his Absence, Eddie had worked as a dog groomer and a vet tech (he's always done most of his work with therapy dogs for free), and Joy wanted him to have more professional options. She also helped him start the process of getting professional certification as a trainer, which isn't required but does help. But all of that was secondary to what he'd come back to do.

I think it was in early November--after Samhain--when Joy finally gave Eddie two directly relevant long-term assignments.

The first was to do a series of six-week studies on people who have diagnoses consistent with having therapy dogs or some other kind of service animal, like a seeing eye dog. The idea was a kind of sociological study of the need for service animals, though I think it was obvious from the beginning that the scholarly nature of the assignment was a cover--yes, he had to do the study, but Eddie was actually being assigned to get to know potential clients on a deeper, more personal level, and the idea of doing research simply gave him a socially appropriate context through which to get to know people.

At the beginning of the study the person had to be considering getting a service animal of some kind, but not have one yet. Eddie had to spend at least five days with each research target over the course of the study, had to conduct at least two formal interviews, and write a report. In payment for the person's willingness to be a research subject, Eddie also had to devote at least six days to doing some sort of service for the person that didn't directly involve dogs.

He found his first several participants by talking to local vets, animal shelters, and doctors and therapists for humans. His first "subject" was a middle-aged man who had gone blind as a complication of mismanaged diabetes. Eddie simply became the man's driver. By Brigid, Eddie had begun his second study, working with an artist who had debilitating anxiety. For her, he ran errands and did yard work, service that had nothing to do with her disability, she just appreciated the help.

Joy's other assignment for Eddie sounded harder--it was designed to sound impossible, actually.

He had to fully train at least one therapy dog who, in Eddie's expert opinion, initially seemed completely ill-suited to therapy work or actually wholly untrainable. That is, he had to go look for hopeless dogs, try to train them anyway, and succeed at least once, before earning his ring.

The tallness of the order, its sheer craziness, made him grin.

By Brigid, he had begun looking for hopeless dogs, but had not yet begun to train any.

There. I think we are all caught up now.

Mastery Year 1: Part 8: Post 2: Introductions

Hello, I'm continuing playing catch-up, delivering an info dump on he people and stories I neglected over the past year. This week, I want to talk about the people I didn't introduce as "new characters," but should have, especially as I'll have reason to mention them next year.

When I returned, there were no students I recognized except Kayla, though some of the fourth-years remembered having seen me graduate at their first Brigid. Of course, the other fourth years saw me, too, but evidently I made no impression on them. Over the course of the year, I got to know the entire campus, at least well enough to say hi to, mostly because I had them in one or another of my workshops and classes. Some I got to know very well.

Two, besides June, were one-hit wonders, meaning they spent one the minimum year-and-a-day on campus. Of course June spent a lot of time with them, since they shared not only all the activities required for yearlings, but also all the activities required for graduating students. She became friends with them, so I did, too. But I appear to have missed the boat on telling their tales, as they disappeared into Absence at Brigid. Neither came back as candidates, by the way. One got back in touch a few years later, admitting she'd given up on becoming a candidate and wanted to visit. The other we never heard from again at all. It sometimes happened that way.

There were twenty other yearlings, half of whom were either in June's dorm or her therapy group, and another four were in my dorm, so we spent a fair amount of time with them, had breakfast with them often, and so forth. Some of the others I sought out deliberately, for one reason or another, or they sought me out.

Three, out of the yearling group, stick out especially strongly in memory.

There was Diana, an extraordinarily little woman of interesting contradictions. For starters, she was a Christian creationist and had a bachelor's degree in botany. She had started drifting away fro the strict pathways prescribed by her church, and had taken up the Tarot, and even some ceremonial magic. She seemed to be groping her way towards a vision of the cosmos similar to Joy's, in which the Trinity is gender-balanced, Jesus and Mary Magdalen are married, and angels assist humans in learning magic. But she wasn't quite there, yet. She felt a powerful spiritual connection to the natural world and sought out Charlie to help make sense of it. I've always felt a certain kinship with Charlie's other students.

There was True, another of Charlie's students, and an animist, but Charlie wasn't his spirit-master (no one was, he arrived, unusually, with his spiritual practice entirely intact). Instead, he chose to focus his studies on learning the art of chainsaw sculpture.

And there was Nutmeg--her real name was Megan--a Jewish pagan who accepted Greg as her spirit master, despite his being neither Jewish nor pagan. I got to know her because she became a friend of Ebony's (a self-identified "Jewitch") and thus, eventually, mine.

I made friends with a number of the senior students who were graduating, especially those fourth-years who remembered me, but again my widow for telling those stories has closed, since I won't have occasion to talk about them again in this narrative, and most drifted out of my acquaintance in subsequent years.

Some twenty were senior students who did not graduate but returned for 2008, and I more or less became friends with most of them, though for a few those friendships still lay in the future when the second year of my candidacy began, and there were a number of them with whom I seemed relatively close that first year, but when they returned from wherever they'd spent the winter, they had drifted away from me for reasons I never did understand. Finally, there were a very few I befriended over the year but then cut off personal contact with, for reasons I do understand but am not going to write about. I don't want to give the impression that our little community was entirely free of human foibles.

That leaves some five I am likely to refer to in this coming year:

Acorn, a committed Wiccan nonetheless studying Buddhist meditation with Greg,

Hawk, who was studying falconry with Joy and martial arts with Karen. Hawk has since come out as female, but my story will make little sense if I pretend I knew that was going to happen, so male pronouns it is, for now. "He" always seemed small and elfin, for a man, in a way other men "his" physical size did not. When I learned she'd come out, my only real surprise was that I'd never realized what was, in retrospect, obvious.

Samara, who we called (and still call) Sam, a young and outspoken Wiccan woman who was making ritual implements and religious art with Kit. She also studied the same subjects with Charlie and was the occasion of some flare-ups of the tension between them.

Edna, whom we all called Eddie, though to avoid confusion I'll probably call her Edna here, an intense little woman studying a range of topics all related to her black heritage--Voudou, with an outside master and with Joy's help, self-defense, with Karen, and political philosophy with Greg. Curiously, she chose philosophy as her healing modality, something I'm not sure anyone at the school had done before. No one has done it since.

Freydis, a Heathan woman dedicated to Odin, who worked mostly with Kit. She caused a bit of a fuss that year (her second) when she announced her intention to offer animals in sacrifice, something that is accepted (but not required) in modern Asatru but very much not in Wicca or New Age, which together dominate much of campus culture. People who are fully accepting of Charlie or Joy killing animals were all up in arms over Fredys wanting to do so, simply because of the word "sacrifice." There were some really interesting disccussions of the issue--and some amusing ones--before Freydis won, and Joy trained her in humane slaughter.

In our candidates' group there were, of course, no new students, but I haven't talked about Veronica, Veery, or Oak all year, and they were certainly there. I didn't have much to say about them, though. We seldom interacted outside of our two shared classes.

Ok, info dump over for the time being, but it occurs to me there is one more student whose presence on campus I hardly discussed; me.

To myself I am always just Daniel. To my friends, also, I believe I remain ordinary, in the way that people one likes, cares, about, even admires can be ordinary. Yes, I suppose some of my friends admire me--they have said so, and I don't think they're lying, and I admire them, so why not? But to the new students, those who never knew me before and did not know me well, who and what was I?

It's hard to know for sure, of course, since I can only see me from the inside, but there were glimpses.

There was the day I was sitting at the base of a tree on the edge of the Formal Garden, and I heard the voices of a group of people going by behind me, heading towards the stairs into the Meditation Hall entrance. I turned to watch them and saw half a dozen yearlings (none of the ones I've named above), all walking together in a tight group ad talking about...me.

I debated alerting them to my presence, since obviously they would not have spoke so if they knew I was there, and I opened my mouth to warn them so I would not passively violate their privacy. Then I closed my mouth again. After all, I was in full view of all of them. Had they looked anywhere but at each other or their own feet they would have seen me, and that they didn't could hardly be seen as my fault.

Second, they had intruded on me far more than I'd intruded on them, walking along as they were, talking loudly enough that I could could clearly hear their words some fifty feet away. This was in early June, and their racket made the birds around us stop singing, except for one enterprising robin who sang rather angrily at them from the gutter of the Meditation Hall porch roof. A squirrel, who had been ignoring me, lashed its tail--it was obviously used to humans, and not overly concerned, but resented the intrusion. All of us were utterly ignored. A sudden rebellious anger in me insisted that if you ignore me and my solitude, you deserve to be eavesdropped upon.

What were they saying? Some confused, multivoiced chorus of the following:

"Daniel? He's kind of creepy, isn't he? I mean, he's so quiet, you can't tell what he's thinking. No, I've talked to him, he's a really nice guy. It's not that he's mean, or anything like that, it's just that it seems like he's always watching everything. He notices everything. That's the creepy part. I think it's cool. He's like some magic forest creature. Exactly, that's why you should sign up for some of his classes. I mean, if you find a magic forest creature, don't you want to ask it questions?"

And I smiled. My resolve to not reveal myself intensified. After all, I didn't want to disappoint them.

Mastery Year 1: Part 1: Post 3: Introductions

So, I told Charlie that, of course, I was ready to work with him again. I was surprised he asked--I'd have thought that my presence here is proof enough of that, and I'd have thought that my prior history with him is enough to prove I can take whatever he can dish out. But he's always done this--occasionally double-checking to see if I'm still on board or something. It's like he's self-conscious or something. I wouldn't have pegged him for the nervous sort, but perhaps he's more human than he lets on.

Anyway, with my reassurance given, he gave me a new assignment. We're supposed to meet for an hour or two every week so I can teach him everything I learned in graduate school. I must have looked pretty dumb-founded.

"You've spent all this time and money learning all of this stuff and I don't want you to forget it," he explained. "Teaching is the best form of learning, so you can start by teaching me."

"Charlie, it took me two and a half years to learn all that stuff. At an hour or two per week, we'll be doing this forever."

He laughed.

"Daniel, it may once have been true that I taught you everything you knew--though I doubt it--but I certainly never taught you everything I knew. Anyway, you'll find I'm a quick study."

I believe I turned red. Anyway, my face grew hot and I turned away. Of course, Charlie completed all the coursework of a master's in ecology years ago, and he's obviously kept up with a lot of it, and he's brilliant. Most of this will be review for him. I am so dumb.

We've met once now, for two hours. Mostly, we just got organized. We'll take my courses one at a time, and he anticipates that each will take two or three meetings. I should prepare to summarize each major concept of each class and I should prepare to explain each in detail, because he's going to ask questions and I'm not going to know when he'll ask questions because some of the questions will be deliberate tests. I've kept all my course notes, homework assignments, hand-outs, and books, so I'll go home this week and pick those up so I can use them as study materials--when I told him that, Charlie asked me to give him all my old homework assignments. He says he's not going to do most of them, but he will do some of them, and he won't tell me which he'll do until we get there. In the meantime, he's borrowed my laptop. It has the statistical software I used in class, and Charlie says it's new to him ("When I was in school, computers ran on punch cards...") and he wants to play.

This is going to be one massive assignment.

Otherwise, I don't really know what I'm doing, yet. I see the value in Charlie's request, both as a way for me to strengthen my understanding and as a way for him to find out what I'm up to, but it doesn't really get me into new material, so far as I can see. I don't see what it has to do with my becoming a master. And I haven't been told to do anything else. There is no set curriculum, no required credits, for mastery candidates. I've been kind of wandering around.

I have been exploring campus and I've noticed a few changes (besides the departures and arrivals I talked about last week). Most obviously, campus has finally joined the digital age. When I came here before, there was no policy on personal electronics, other than the bland suggestion that new students not bring computers and such when they first arrive, but very few of us had computers or cell phones. Few of us even had email accounts. There were a few computers available for student use, but we seldom used them, not even for school work. Most of our homework assignments could be hand-written.

In my last year or two, that had started to change. More incoming students had email and cell phones and expected to use both regularly. There were ongoing discussions about when and where it was polite to use these things--many of us felt that cell phone conversations were intrusive, somehow, but we couldn't figure out how or why--and there was some concern that yearlings might not acculturate properly if too many of them spent too much time digitally conversing with outsiders in the beginning. At the same time, the idea of interfering with yearlings' connections to family and friends seemed sinister.

In any case, the question seems to have been resolved. Yearlings are not allowed to have their own electronics on campus until the beginning of the summer semester, but they are allowed to do whatever they want online on the campus machines (of which there are still only six) or by borrowing those of senior students. Otherwise, cell phone conversations may only be held inside a student's own room, except for emergencies, and WIFI only works well in the Office, the tiny computer lab, and the eastern half of the Great Hall. And it's not entirely reliable--I suspect by design.

So, there are still no rules limiting what you can do, only how you can do it and where you can do it. They're depending on inconvenience to keep people focused here, in the real world, but you can still keep in touch easily enough.

For me, the weirdest thing is seeing half a dozen people sitting with their laptops almost every time I go through the Great Hall. It does look wrong, somehow. I'm still not sure why. And sometimes I'm one of them. I'm on Facebook, these days.

We do have two classes, we being all the mastery candidates. We're allowed to take whatever else we want, but these two are required and we all take both of them every semester of our candidacy. The two classes meet on alternating weeks, so we've only had one of them yet--it's the orientation meeting they told us about.

The one we haven't had is called Chaplains' Seminar. Honestly, it sounds like the more interesting of the two. It's about being a priest/priestess and what that means, both in the abstract and for us individually. The other, the one we have had, is called Candidates' Seminar, and it seems to be mostly a group meeting where we can all check in and talk about how our studies are going. Curiously, I didn't know either existed when I was here before, though I don't think either is secret. I just wasn't paying much attention--and if I did hear someone talking about it, I probably ignored it. A "seminar," around here, is usually a mini-class with only two meetings. They come and they go. I don't know why the word is being used differently for these.

Usually, Allen will teach Candidates' Seminar, though they say that the others sometimes substitute. But this week, all Six of them showed up together, I guess because they all wanted to hear for themselves what we've been up to.

We went around, each of us introducing ourselves (that's tradition--I think we all knew each other as novices, but that's not always true, and anyway we hadn't all known each other well) and saying a few words about where we are in our process and, for us new arrivals, why we're here and what we've been up to:

Ollie went first, looking a little nervous and stiff.

"I'm Ollie, I'm--new--I guess. I'm working with Allen. While I was away, I was ordained as a Baptist preacher and I married Willa--some of you know her--and I received a master's degree and professional certification in Christian counseling. I've come back because I want to deepen my spiritual practice and because I want to learn to be a better counselor--I want to bring my whole self to my work, as Allen does."

Allen nodded in acknowledgement.

Rick, seated next to Ollie, went next.

"I'm Rick, also new. I've worked as a logger, completed the Appalachian Trail, and gotten a degree in forestry. I want to learn how to do some good in the world without letting you people bug me too badly. I'm working with Charlie."

Everyone laughed in response, but Rick didn't laugh. He wasn't joking.

"Jasimin, second-year mastery candidate, working with Karen. I'm looking at photography as a Zen art. Lately I'm been focusing--no pun intended--on visual observation, but we're talking about exploring a more journalistic approach. I don't expect to finish this year."

"Ebony, first-year mastery candidate, working with, well, I was working with Allen, but I think I want to work with Kit, too. I've gotten my teaching certification and I want to become a visual art teacher. I don't know how that works, yet."

There were appreciative nods all around. Ebony, remember, does not have working eyeballs, and it looked like some in the group hadn't known how visual she is anyway, how of course, she'd want to teach visual art.

"That's doable," commented, Kit, and Ebony smiled in her general direction. Her introduction was much smoother than Ollie's or Rick's--she was imitating Jasimin. I'm not sure why an experienced candidate didn't start the introductions. Maybe one would have, if Ollie hadn't jumped in.

"Eddie, first-year mastery candidate, working with Joy. I train and place therapy dogs. And I'm a pretty happy guy. I live a good life, now. But I want to integrate the two, so my work isn't just a job I like. And I want to get better at the placing part."

I had forgotten how little Eddie is. He fills a room with his personality, but he's not much bigger than Ebony or Jasimin. Sitting next to Oak, Eddie looked rather like a man who had been shrunk in the wash.

"Oak, second-year mastery candidate, working with Kit. I just wanna learn to be a better priest. I have no new news." He shrugged. "I don't think I'll finish this year."

"Veery, second-year, working with Allen. I've been a counselor for years. Allen got me into cognitive behavioral therapy, and we've been working on tying that into my spirituality as an animist. Now, I'm thinking I'd like to work in my singing, too. I'm nowhere near graduating."

Again, a friendly laugh. It's a little weird having her here--she's an ex-girlfriend of mine and I didn't know she'd come back. But I feel no special connection to her, now. She looks older than I remember. She's a lot older than me, something I never thought about before. No wonder she got frustrated with me, I must have seemed like a kid to her.

"Veronica, second-year candidate, working with Kit. I do botanical research, and I'm working on merging that with my pantheistic Christian spiritual practice. And I do expect to graduate this year."

"Sounds like you're like John Chapman," said Charlie, but I didn't understand his comment. Veronica did. She nodded.

"Andy, second-year mastery candidate, expecting to graduate this year. I'm working with Greg, mostly. I want my bicycle-repair business to be my Christian ministry. I don't mean, like, to convert people, necessarily. I mean to love people. With bicycles. I want to be a good person."

And then it was my turn.

"Daniel, first-year mastery student, working with Charlie, and...how do you all know what you're doing? I don't. I just wanted to come back, so I did. I want to be a master, but I don't know what that means."

There was a titter of laughter, not unfriendly.

"None of us really know," said Greg. "That's what they call Beginner's Mind."




 

Year 2: Part 8: Post 5: Fellow Students

Here I'm doing a list of students whom I mention frequently in the blog--there were actually about a hundred students on campus at any given time. I knew most of them, at least to say hi to, and while I wasn't friends with all of them, I was (and am) friends with more of them than appear as recurring "characters" in the blog.

In any case, here is a brief blurb on each of the students whom I have mentioned at least twice in the blog so far. I figure this way readers who have just joined the story can look up descriptions that I originally scattered across many posts. I've added some information I couldn't fit into the narrative, plus physical descriptions--so I don't have to repeat myself when I describe people, everyone on the list identified as white. Almost all students on campus were--that's who walked in our door. Maybe we should have tried to change that, I don't know.

(I have edited this piece to add "characters" who have joined the story since I first wrote it)

Andy 

Andy started the same year I did. He was in his mid-thirties at the time. He came to campus originally as a bicycle thief--he was a homeless drug addict who hoped that a bicycle might help him get back on his feet somehow. When he was "saved" as a Christian and got clean, he repented and returned the bike and at that time asked to join the school. We put him through a detox program and got him treated for chronic hypothermia and more or less helped him put his life back together. He ended up learning bicycle maintenance as a craft and now owns a bicycle repair shop.

He was unusual on campus in being Christian. He was outspoken and passionate about it, but he never seemed uncomfortable with the pagan school culture--on the contrary, he's always said that we embody Christ better than most Christian churches do. I don't know if that's true or not. There was always a childlike eagerness to Andy. There is still. He says it's because he spent so much of his early life high that he never grew up. I think it's because  he had a very difficult, painful life and he just got tired of pain and fear and doesn't want to have any more of it. He has no family left, except us. He's sort of average-looking, in terms of height and so forth, with dark hair, pale eyes, and bad skin. He looks older than he is.

Arther 

Arther also started my year, but graduated at the end of that year. He was in his late sixties at the time and had been a Wiccan High Priest for decades. He joined the school shortly after his High Priestess, his wife, died, because he didn't want to be alone. He already knew most of what the school had to teach and already had a college degree--more than one, I think. As a student he was white-haired and wrinkled but still physically robust. He is now in his eighties and his health is beginning to fail but he can still hold his own in an argument.


Aidan

Aidan was not a student thirteen years ago--he was a toddler. His mother is Kayla, who was only twelve when he was born. The circumstances of his conception are not my story to tell, but the man was an adult and is still in prison. He was adopted by his grandmother, Sadie, who was on staff, but Kayla has helped raise him. He's a teenager now and knows she is his real mother. He's a sweet kid, still pretty little, with thin features and dark hair.
 

Daniel 

Me, of course. There was another student in my year named Dan who was, like me, 19 when we started. Like me, he was a young 19. He and I never really got to be friends and I spent a lot of time worrying that people might confuse the two of us, since he was very good at putting his foot in his mouth, but he's basically a good guy. I haven't heard from him in a while.

As for me, I'm tall, skinny, kind of awkward-looking, honestly, with brown hair and eyes. I usually have a Van Dyke beard--that's a goatee plus mustache.  You can't tell, since I'm the narrator, but really I hardly ever talk. I like listening better. And people like to talk to me. I don't know why.                               

Ebony

Ebony started the year after I did and she is something like fifteen years older than I am. She is also--and some readers have guessed this--one of the women I dated on campus. I have decided not to talk about my romances in the blog posts because all of them were marred by my self-consciousness over still being a virgin. There is no way I could write about that in character as my 20-year-old self, so I haven't. Ebony was my second girlfriend on campus and we were together for a couple of months. We ended badly, but recovered our friendship. She is still closely involved in the community.

She is on the short side of average, pretty (of course), with thick, long, brown hair. Her eyes are brown but look black because the pupils dilate a lot. Physically speaking, she is almost totally blind and has been so since birth. Spiritually, she is not blind at all. She doesn't think of herself as blind and she identifies more strongly with sighted people than with blind people. She calls it "transability."

Eddie

Eddie started the year after I did, but we only became friends in my third year. The other reason I did not mention him at first is that it is difficult to tell his story with any degree of depth without mentioning that he is transgendered, something that he is not always open about (he can pass a cisgendered and usually prefers to). I do disguise identities for this blog, but I write as if I we simply my younger self telling you things, and my younger self would not have told you about Eddie's status. Finally, I spoke to Eddie himself about it and he gave me permission to write about him freely.

He is on the short side, for a guy, wiry and muscular, with short, light brown-brown hair, blue eyes, and a movie star-handsome, oval face. He is a complete flirt and very much a ladies man--I don't mean he's a player. He doesn't use people. Instead, he celebrates and glories in them. He also sings, dances, and raises and trains therapy and service dogs.


Joanna

Joanna was another student in my year, and 11 years my senior. I would not have said we got along--she made fun of me a lot--but we kept finding ourselves spending time together. Eventually we became friends when I learned to ignore her teasing. I always thought she was gorgeous, which might be why I put up with her, but she honestly didn't mean anything bad by it. I think she expected me to tease her back, but I've never been able to. I get kind of tongue-tied around her. Still.

She's on the tall side of medium, with thick blonde hair and hazel-blue eyes. Her features are strong, straight, and covered with pale freckles.


Kayla 

Kayla was, as I said, only twelve when she gave birth to Aidan. She hadn't even realized she was pregnant. The masters decided that enrolling her as a student would give her an opportunity to connect with supportive adult women who could identify with some of her experiences better than kids her own age could. But academically she remained a home-schooled kid for many years. She was a bit pudgy before Aidan was born (that, plus his being premature helped hide the pregnancy) but thinned out afterwards. She's of average height but thinly built, with a narrow face and long, blonde hair.

Nora 

Nora was another early-starter--she was sixteen when she joined the school as a student, and the masters gave her a six-year plan and required that she get her GED before she could finish. She fought with her mother a lot, and for the first year or two was deliberately rebellious--her hair is black, but she kept bleaching and dying it various colors, like purple, pink, and green. She ended up getting into Kit's version of Goddess-based feminism and also bee-keeping. From bee-keeping she expanded herself into making scented candles and massage oil. She has a strong, almost chiseled-looking face, with high cheekbones and a pointed chin.

Ollie

Ollie was my "buddy," the older student assigned to help me out when I first arrived. We ended up as good friends, although our courses of study were very different. He studied reason and philosophy as a spiritual path, with Allen. Ollie has always been gentlemanly to the point of delicacy; I never heard him use coarse language or make sexual jokes, even in all-male company. He's a Baptist preacher and, like Andy, found something in the pagan community of campus that augmented his Christianity. Unlike Andy, he has always been painfully self-conscious of his status as a member of a minority at the school. To his own surprise as much as anyone's, he fell in love with (and has since married) a woman who glories in her paganism. He is tall and slim and brown-haired, like me, but his face is oval and clean-shaven.

The Ravens 

By a weird coincidence, seven of the women who started with me all called themselves "Raven." Their interests were different enough that they were rarely all together, so it was less confusing than you'd think it is, but I made the mistake of not giving them nicknames for the blog so it's been difficult to really present them as separate people with distinct characters. Three studied magic with Allen, but one became Zen Buddhist, another became a totemic animist, and the third never talked with me about her religion. Three more studied Wicca or magic with Kit, and the seventh was, like me, mostly Charlie's student--though she focused her studies with him on horticulture.

Rick

Rick was, in a way, my closest friend on campus and he is the one of my fellow students with whom I have kept most consistently in touch. I qualify that with "in a way" because Rick himself does not really like human beings and does not quite feel like one of us. He likes some individuals and I do think he likes me, but he usually prefers to be alone. There were basic things about him that I didn't learn until years later because he simply didn't think to mention it. For example, he's gay. He wasn't closeted, he just didn't want to date within the fishbowl of the campus community where everyone soon knows everything. But I've never been one to talk much about my thoughts and feelings, either.

Rick and I get along because we give each other space and because our studies were always so closely intertwined. Like me, he studied with Charlie, and while he studied outdoor survival skills and I focused on spirituality, on a deeper level our studies were much the same. He is tall, slim, with short, black hair, and black, bushy eyebrows and a round face with high, taught cheekbones. He does not look quite human.

Steve Bees

Steve Bees arrived in my third year. There was already a man named Steve on campus (I have mentioned him, but we never got to know each other well), so after the new Steve stepped on a yellow-jacket nest his first spring, people started referring to him as "Steve--you know, the one with the bees?" and eventually it stuck.

He is medium-tall, with pale eyes and curly, black hair--or, rather, it was black when he arrived, in his mid-twenties. Much of it's grey now, as is the beard he grows occasionally, and it makes him look older than he really is. He is another of the school's Christians, a Quaker, though it was Greg's Buddhism that led Steve to embody his faith's commitment to social justice and Charlie's animism that made him a true contemplative. He is unusually able to learn from (even contribute to) other traditions while remaining rooted in his own. He is also a truly gifted singer. I have seen him dressed in novice-white, in the brown of a candidate and then a master, and in a series of mundane but expensive-looking suits (he is a lawyer, now). But when I think of him, in my mind's eye he is always wearing jeans and a t-shirt and he is always smiling.
 
Veery 

Veery started my second year and graduated in my third year. She could sing beautifully, loved watching and learning about birds ("veery" is a kind of bird) and studied psychology with Allen. She was short and stocky, with a cute plump face and beautiful auburn hair. She was the first person I dated on campus--we were together for a few weeks early in the summer of 2001. We didn't have a whole lot in common besides mutual physical attraction, and in the end we broke up because I wanted to have sex with her so badly that I had no idea how to ask her. And she got tired of my awkwardness on the subject. Our breakup wasn't acrimonious but we didn't become friends and I haven't heard from her in years.

Willa 

Willa was Ollie's girlfriend. She is now his wife. She's a self-described tantrika, meaning that sex is a big part of her spiritual practice. She was unapologetically promiscuous before getting together with Ollie--that their relationship worked out surprised everybody, but they seem very happy together. She's medium-tall, with long, light brown hair and large, expressive features.