Guarding the mysteries

I once circled with a witch who, with a fierce, quiet power, explained how important it was for her to be a guardian of the mysteries - not in the sense of keeping secrets from people, but in the sense of practicing, sustaining, and defending her faith.

The mysteries aren't mysteries because they're secrets; they're mysteries because they can't be grasped only with the intellect, which means they can't be merely reported. They have to be experienced, and the experience defies clinical description. You won't get it from someone telling you what happened. Really, you had to be there.

And so it was this past weekend, when hosting the graduation and ordination of the third- and fourth-year classes became an initiation for me and my class. Something deep within and around me has shifted and changed. I know that later words will come, words that can do some justice to the change. The shift will be integrated into the narrative of my life; I'll be able to tell the story. But it won't be the whole story. The whole story can only be inscribed in and by my life, my body, my actions, my ecology.