Hearth & Horn

My new coven isn't going to work out; I guess that's ok and like, part of the process of looking.

This is the third Sabbat in a row that I've gone to Sacred Site By the Sea, having been vaguely told we're meeting there at some sort of time, and spending like...a whole day hanging around hoping they'll answer a text or give me a clear clock-precice time and a GPS grid reference of a place. After Lammas, I told my husband I really didn't want to do this again. At Mabon, I spent much of the day very, very grumpy. This time, I was kinda prepared and so not really as frustrated because if you have no expectations you won't be disappointed.

But it's frustrating because, these are my sacred days and I want to spend them in ritual and with the gods. Everything leading up to the ritual is the ritual: dressing, designing, waiting, travelling there, beginning to perform the steps of ritual in your mind. So when that lead up process is just...uncertainty as to what the ritual will contain, what images and moods you ought to be sinking into, which images you should begin working with; and then also when the lead up process is frustration and a sinking expectation that you're going to get stood up again...

Part of the problem is the formality of the coven. There's two kinda models of what a coven could be, and ours is a bunch of friends who hang out and do ritual together and then go to the pub. So participating in it feels like gatecrashing a party every time. Because our friend is used to his coven being a hang out space with his mates, it's not incongruous for him to invite us in: more mates! But for us, we don't know anyone - and no one seems much inclined to introduce us to anyone, or include is in conversations about...where and when we are meeting (much less what we are doing when we get there). So even when we find the coven, it just feels like being at a party no one really invited you to. And we get instructions like "if we are late we are probably at Sophie's house" - forgetting that we don't really know Sophie, and don't feel able to invite ourselves into her home .

Part of the problem is that the coven itself is at a kinda difficult moment in its life, and doesn't seem ready for new people. Everyone seems very, very self interested and inward looking: which is fair enough. Some of these people have known one another for decades, so a power struggle between friends is a Big Deal. All anyone wants to talk about is drama between people I've not met. It's not a good look, and it's not something I can participate in.

(Part of the problem is, we are there as Friends Of Tim. I'm not sure what side of the schism Tim is on, but by coming into that environment as Friends Of Tim we have been unavoidably enlisted on that side. So maybe all this stuff IS happening, but Tim isn't getting to hear about it either? And in any case, I suspect Tim's idea of us joining is lowkey something about bolstering his support within the group)

Part of rhe problem is - bevause rhe coven is more of a gang of old friends than a formal structure, and because those friends are all fighting, I am there as Friend Of Tim rather than Part of The Coven. And I can't really see any pathway, entry, Head of Training, enrolment, initiation, or anything which would be like a...formal entry to being part of the group, instead of someone hanging around. Especially as a trans person, this is super freakin stressful: trying to come out to this nebulous group of 25 - 50 people, one at a time - knowing that some of them probably don't want to circle with you. If there was a clear leadership, I could go to that person and people, talk to them and then have them help me set the tone (they could confirm whether or not I'm welcome, then take the lead on affirming my gender)

After three Sabbats, I still haven't been introduced to anyone who isn't our original friend; no one has voluntarily come over and taken an interest in who I am and why I'm there; I haven't managed to get basic information out of anyone, like, what (if any) training structure do you have;and I don't feel able to pin anyone down and say how annoyed I am about being stood up, and that I really need people to clarify an actual meeting time and place.

So - no.

My husband is a bit more upset than me, I think. After Lammas, I didn't want to bother. For various reasons, he feels a connection. And I guess I'm a little put out as well -because I want to believe in *joining* existing things rather than starting new ones, participating in what community there is instead of complaining that it won't come to you in the way you want it to.

But fundamentally, this isn't a group of people I like spending time with. It's awkward and uncomfortable - they're really hard to talk to as individuals, very keen to talk at you abour themselves and very difficult to draw into the kind of coversation which builds a relationship. As a group, it's impossible to work out where we fit in & if we are even welcome there. And...They can't give me a firm time and place for meeting, which is the deal breaker. I can endure a social situation which is just socially awkward, because we are entering someone else's social space and of course that takes time. But im not spending Yule bimbling about Sacred Site By The Sea hoping to bump into someone.

"Faith and desire is, however, no guarantee of ordination. Would-be candidates have first to convince a parish priest that they have the makings of a priest, then pass the scrutiny of a director of ordinands during months of interviews, before enduring a two-day selection conference where a committee endeavours to distinguish between pious enthusiasm and genuine vocation. Undischarged bankrupts are not considered, nor are hopefuls under 18 or over 57, in order to ensure adequate maturity and to justify the enormous training costs with the prospect of a reasonably long ministry.

Many who wish for ordination are deemed unsuitable whether in character, faith or ability; many more are advised to go away and prove themselves before being recommended for holy orders. Those that pass muster embark on a theological degree or diploma course – a non-residential course for married candidates over the age of the 35, residential study in one of the diminishing number of seminaries for those under 30, or the option of either for older single ordinands.

Pike was told to spend six months working in a parish before he could be recommended for training. “I had never done any pastoral work before,” he says. “I went to a deprived parish in Leicester on an estate surrounded by dual carriageways. Quite a few professionals visited it as social workers, speech therapists etc, but the clergy and pastoral assistants were the only professionals who lived there, and I realised that one of the privileges of being a priest is that you are accepted as part of the community – whatever kind of community it is – and there is an instinctively generous welcome into people’s lives.”

After three years studying theology at Mirfield College in Yorkshire, he was ordained at 26 and sent to be curate on an estate in the town of Hartlepool. While at Mirfield Pike had taken a BA in theology at Leeds University, but he says it was the discipline of communal life at the college that got him through the first daunting years of ministry, and he is disturbed by the increasing reliance on non-residential training and threats to traditional colleges."

Something like this. Something I can believe in. I would like a process like this.

The things that stand out to me are:

• An external wise force saying "yes, I agree that you are right for this"
• A training program of some sort
• Gaps in communities which one is welcomed into to fill

And of course, trust - trust that the external body ARE wise, and not swung by bribes, pretty faces, or favours; training programs which are meaningful, colleges which aren't cult abuse waiting to happen; and communities who would welcome a Village Witch into the fabric of their existence, an organising body who would give you a wage for your work.

I found some stuff on a Christian vocation, and it's talking about what we would call "discernment", but I can't see much there which would put a meaningful check on personal ego, or on intra-community bollocks, and I especially like when it says: "if the Vocations Director suggests we hold back for a bit, or if the Bishop decides not to accept us for priesthood at this point, this is not a rejection or a negative thing – it is the way that God is leading us to something else..." also you didn't put out when asked"

I think I have the advantages of self-awareness - perhaps too much self-awareness - about the moral weight of claiming authority. 

Perhaps this drives my desire to claim it "correctly", to have a clear pathway by which such a thing can be earned, so that I can reassure myself that I am doing it by the book, for the right reasons, and have stages at which I can "fail" if I am not worthy. A check on power.

And a desire for those around me to similarly have a meaningful check. So if I were to enter into this as a lay member, I could see some form of reassuring badge or certificate or initiatory stage which would confirm these things in another person.

As if that was enough, as if it could ever be enough, and work the way I wish it could

(even though numerous Christian groups have proved again, and again, and again, that this kind of formal process is meaningless and easy to cheat, and even acts as a cover for abuses of all kinds)

There were recently adverts for Pagan clergy for the prisons; to qualify, one had to be a Figure Of Good Standing In The Community. I think about this a lot.

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