Where I want to go

This entry is long overdue, I’m afraid…but I wanted to write it before tomorrow.  I hope to have another one to write after tomorrow.

I broke up with Eric, you’ll probably be pleased to hear.  It was unfortunate and even sad, but necessary, and I’m really glad that I decided to do it.  It didn’t go too badly, either.  We’re closer now than we used to be, by far, but it’ll take some time before things go back to normal.  Or settle into a new normal, I guess we don’t really have a normal anymore.  But it’s OK.  It’s good.  He told me by way of reassurance that, while he could see himself being truly in love with me a little down the road, we weren’t there yet…and I thought, yes, exactly, that’s why I had to do this now.  I told him to call me when he’s ready to find our friendship, and he hasn’t called yet, so I’m going to give him some time I guess…I miss him.  But when we had tap together on Thursday I didn’t look at him and feel panic.  It was good to have him in that class, not awkward, not unpleasant at all, I was glad he was there.  And also interestingly, the intensity of my attraction to Parker (the unattainable, as usual) has faded since I broke up with Eric.  I think, overall, that this was a good thing.

He said that he loved me more in that moment for doing this than he ever had before.  And we talked about this for an hour, and then we watched an episode of Family Guy and I went home.  I think it will be OK, in the end.  I said that I really did not want to lose him as being special in my life or being special myself in his, and he said no, of course not, how could we possibly lose that.  So it was…good.

I met with Adam’s mentor, Mary, on Friday night at Phoebe’s, to talk.  The first thing she asked me was, "OK, so why am I here?", and I found I didn’t even know the exact answer to that.  I blundered through a messy explanation of why I wanted to talk to her, and I think I gave completely the wrong impression because she spent the next little while encouraging me to look into Kabbalah.  (I’m not interested in Kabbalah.)  I felt like we were having two completely different conversations, where I was trying to say "teach me!" and she was trying to say "these are the other places you should look."  I don’t even know what it was that I said to clear that up, I don’t know where the conversation clicked into place, but for the first half hour or so I was so scared she was going to send me away.  But after a time, I did make it clear that I was serious, I had done some research, I knew that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that was why I needed to talk to her, because I didn’t know what I was doing, only that I had to do it.  And she asked me, "Where do you want to go?"  I took a moment to answer, because I didn’t know what to say, and she said, "See, you don’t even know, do you?" and I had to give her the only answer I had or she would leave.  So I said, "I know this is a non-answer, but it’s the only one I have, and that’s forward.  I want to go forward."  And she really looked at me, and smiled, and said, "It’s the best answer.  It’s the only answer."  And from there on we were OK.

She was amazing.  The conversation was amazing.  The way I put it to her at the time was, with everything she said, it was like another piece of me clicked into place.  She said that what she wanted me to do was to come with them to their place on Monday and just feel the space.  They have a place out in the woods that is theirs, it was just given to them, and in exchange for their using it they’ve agreed to maintain it.  So everyone is going out there on Monday to clean the place up.  And she told me, I want you to come, but I don’t want you to do any work.  We need to get you out of the city, away from the concreate (yes, yes, I thought, that is exactly what I’ve wanted so desperately for the last weeks, to get out into a forest where I can feel the world and the gods and how it all fits together).  So between Yom Kippur services tomorrow, I’m going to meet the group of Syracuse University Pagans and go with them to their space and feel the earth.  I want you to walk through the woods, she said, and I’ll do some grounding with you.  (I don’t know what this means.)  And Adam, who had been sitting with us also, asked if we’d be doing any magic, and she said no, because I’ll be fasting I can’t, we’ll just do simple things.  And also because of the fast, she wants Adam to walk with me as I wander, just in case, to which I am also looking forward.  She started talking about her house at some point, and said that the things in her house are very interesting, they will call to different people to touch them or warn people away — Adam said yes, there are things that I just need to touch, and other things that I look at and go, no, that’s not for me — and she was talking about how a girl who is living with her has been using a mirror in her house to do her hair and makeup and "they’re taking her stuff."  And I asked who "they" were, and Adam said, "I’ll let you field that one while I go get a drink," and he left.  And Mary asked me what I knew of the Fey.  Apparently she has a mirror in her house that is a portal to their land.  And I thought, here is a grown woman, probably almost my mother’s age, who is telling me that there is a door in her house to Fairyland.  She is telling me this seriously, perhaps as a test to see what I will do but most likely just to answer my question…and my friend Adam trusts her, my friend Adam knows what she is talking about and believes…it was like coming home.  It was ridiculous and I couldn’t believe it, that someone was telling me that these things are true, that the Fey do exist and they steal things out of her house…but it was also as though I had been waiting since childhood to meet this woman and listen to her tell me that I don’t have to pretend anymore that I don’t believe these things because they are true and there are at least two people in the world who will not think that I am insane.

We started talking about ley lines, lines of energy that run through the earth, and about how they are highly concentrated in the British Isles and also in this part of America.  I think it was about this point that Cassie came and joined us…she is one of the three Pagans in my year, and I knew she was Pagan, I’ve known since freshman year…I don’t remember if I heard it from Adam or from Max, the third one, but I’ve always known it.  I hadn’t told her that I was investigating this, because, well, I’m Jewish.  I’m the Jew in my department…if you have questions you come to me, if you think of Jews in the department you think of me.  I trusted Adam to take it in stride and probably not be surprised at all (in fact, when I first broached the topic with him, the first thing he said was "I thought this might be what you wanted to talk about"), but I didn’t trust Cassie to take it the same way.  But she saw me talking to Mary and asked if she could sit, and I invited her to join us, a

nd thought, well, if I’m going to do this I can’t keep it secret forever, certainly not from the other Pagans, so…  Anyway, we were talking about ley lines, and I asked Mary if I could learn to feel these more specifically.  And I think there was something about the way I phrased the question, more specifically, I am aware of them but not as I would like to be, that finally really clicked us together.  She and Cassie both laughed and said, absolutely, absolutely you can learn this.  And Mary said that we’d do some energy work on Monday as well.  And she looked at me and said, you have a very good feeling about you.  I said thank you, and she said it again, you have a very good feeling about you.  I felt like a freshman who has done good work and received a compliment from Craig, small but very content.  We talked a bit more, and then Adam came back and said that there were other friends of theirs on the other side of the restaurant, so Mary excused herself to go and greet them.  And Cassie and I both stood up to leave as well, and she came over to me and embraced me and gave me a kiss, and said "You are so amazing and I love you," and that was all and it was just right, just the right thing for her to have said, no word about why I hadn’t talked to her earlier or what about my own religion or how long have you known this or so you’re joining us then or anything like that, just acknowledgment that what I was doing was hard but that it was right, that we both knew it was right, and that she was there.  It was perfect.  And then I went home.

The hardest thing about this, I think, is that I am starting from the beginning.  I have had a thorough Jewish education.  When it comes to Judaism, I know what I am talking about.  Any question that a lay person will ask me, I can answer.  Of course I have my own questions that I can’t answer, I’m not claiming to know everything, but I have a fairly solid knowledge base of considerably more than the basics of Judaism.  I know nothing about Wicca.  I have read one book and talked to two people.  I know nothing.  That is what is so hard, is not knowing what it is that I am doing, not knowing the rituals, not knowing what to expect, how anything works, even the theories of most of it I do not know.  And Wicca is every bit as complicated as Judaism, and perhaps more practical — in Judaism, most of what you need really is knowledge, be it of Hebrew or the services or the holidays or the rules, of which there are many…  In Wicca, there are most of these things as well, plus practical knowledge, how to practice magic (perhaps it is spelled magick in this context, but I don’t feel I’ve earned the right to use that spelling yet, or something), how to connect with the gods, how to feel energy, and so forth.  Things that require not just memorization, but practice, that are skilled that must be developed.  That is scary to me, as well.  I am not, however, worried that I will not prove capable.  I’m sure I will prove capable, or almost sure.  I think that, if I were not going to prove capable, this would not feel so deeply, so intensely right.

I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday to buy my own copy of the book that Adam loaned me, so I can return his copy and still read it about five more times, and to see if there was anything else there that I should read.  What did I find?  They have more books on Wicca than they do on Judaism.  I didn’t know the first thing about where to begin.  There were two women there, about Mary’s age I’d say, also looking through the section, and I started talking to them after a while…they told me that the book I’d found, Adam’s book, was a very good one, and I said I’d read it already but I needed my own copy, and did they have any other recommendations, because I am at the very beginning.  They did make some recommendations, but I want to ask Mary or Adam about them before I actually buy them…I did buy one other book, which Katie’s friends and Scott Cunningham, the author of the book I have read, had recommended (I haven’t met him, he recommends it in his own book), but that was all.  And when I went to buy them, I noticed that the girl at the register was wearing a Celtic charm around her neck, and sure enough when she saw what I was buying she leaned over and whispered to me, "If you’re interested in Wicca, you should read The Solitary Witch, we have it in the back."  I am amazed at how many Wiccans I have come across since I started paying attention…there are so many more Neo-Pagans than I had thought.

So tomorrow, on Yom Kippur, day of fasting and atonement, I will go with my friend Adam J to meet the Pagan Circle and feel the earth.  It will be a very unusual Yom Kippur.  I am looking forward to it intensely.  I don’t know how I am going to tell Anna about all this…I don’t know if it will make her uncomfortable or if she’ll be fine with it.  I think I’m going to wait a bit on it, see what develops, before I try to talk to her, just as I’m waiting until after the Chag to tell my parents.  So far, no one has stopped talking to me or started preaching to me, but I’ve been very careful about whom I have told.

This is a huge change in my life.  Huge and important.  But when I look back at my life, it has been a long, long time coming.  And if this is when it is finally right for it to happen…  I could fight this if I chose.  I remember once, when we were little, Elisabeth loaned me a book about modern witchcraft.  And my parents found it in my room and made me give it back without reading.  I vividly remember my father telling me that I needed to be very careful with these things and these people, because they could suck me in without my realizing it.  Well, Dad, I realize this.  I am going into it myself, with eyes wide open, and with the knowledge that this is me, this has always been me.  Every word I read or hear on the subject is like an arrow directly to my most secret self, my most secret soul.  And the only place I want to go is forward.

–Stephanie