Last night was the coven’s full moon ritual. I was a bit nervous all day. I had a robe to sew up for a mate and had a potential sponsee to meet so I kept busy yesterday. The potential sponsee stood me up, it happens, but I got to a meeting and that’s all that matters.

I’m always nervous when someone’s paid me their hard earned cash to make them a garment. I want them to be really happy and I want it to fit. She loved it. Loved it. Danced around in it. It did look pretty durned nice I must say.  She was incredibly lovely in that robe.  That is almost, ALMOST, better payment than money.  It’s forest green linen with little green leaves embroidered around the neck, hood, and sleeves.  When she put it on it became twice as beautiful.

I arrived a little early (I tend to earlyness not tardiness). As the FNG* I do the set up so it’s good. My High Priestess was totally distraught. She said she’d not been able to get last week out of her head. I realized that my being busy all week and not calling her had been torture. I had no idea, I certainly didn’t mean too. The look in her eyes… I immediately went up and hugged her and said, “I love you and I know you love me. It’s all okay.” I meant every word. Ever since last Thursday I haven’t been able to stay mad about one thing more than a few seconds.

Why? Because I have a new mantra. When I met with my sponsor Monday night I told her about driving to the river (Ah! That’s the title I had in mind! I had to type “I Had This Great Title Last Night But Can’t Remember It” because I couldn’t well, as you can see, remember it). Ahem.  She’s Catholic and we talked about God Shots (God shots are when you hear spirit talking to you in some way like in that song).  We talked about what Mary is saying in the song when she says, “Let It Be.”  She is also saying, “Ssshhhh. There now.”

So the mantra is “Let It Be, Sssssshhhhhhh.”  Every negative thought that pops into my head is getting the mantra treatment and it’s working great.  It’s working so well in fact that I’ve decided that my brother will still get knitted socks for Yule.  I’ve been knitting him socks for 12 years.  I can’t stop now.  It doesn’t mean I changed my mind but it does mean that I love him unconditionally.  Which has always been true.  I didn’t stop loving him, I just stopped wanting to play the come here, go away bitch, I’m sorry you called me a bitch game any more.  I need distance nothing more.

Last night was awesome.  Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed.  For one thing, I don’t feel like the FNG any more, even though technically I am.  I wasn’t bored.  I wasn’t in doubt. I missed my peeps.  They put the fun back in dysFUNctional.  Seriously.  This is a Good Thing.  I love a bit of dysfunction and when it’s whacky fun with loving friends, it’s great. And these people? Are a ton of fun.  I don’t agree with them on everything and probably won’t even get close.  I no longer need that to be something different.  I’m grateful for every single one of them and feel privileged to be there.  I bet every new initiate goes through this at some point.

The tattoo was received very well.  My Daddy** especially loved it.  His first comment was how he loved the combination of Wicca and Martin Luther King.  That he had marched with King back in Kentucky or Florida or somewhere.   He learned a bit about me last night that he hadn’t known as MLK was a big part of my childhood (another story).  He said I’ve done some fine work this week and that the things I’ve told him I’ve added to my life are very good indeed.

Isn’t it amazing how things can go from the worst to the best over night?  How the nuggets of purest gold sparkle even in the dark?  And if you are looking (as opposed to squinching your eyes closed) you can see them even though it’s the darkest of the dark?  And if you dare to reach out and grab one, it saves your life.

There’s a woman who goes to my noon meetings.  She’s a bit of a, well, she’s mentally ill.   She does, however, have 34 years of sobriety and some of the best sayings that get me through came from her.  She says that it’s not “There but for the grace of God go I,” but “There but for the ACCEPTANCE of the grace of God go I.”   I agree.  God’s/Goddess’ grace is there for all.  It isn’t given to some and withheld from others as the first quote implies.  It’s there for all, we all have the grace of love, we all deserve it.  And if we are willing to ACCEPT that, to grasp that hand that is extended, we’re going to be just fine.

When I got my first tattoo it was as a marker and also part of the ritual of my self-dedication to Wicca and to the Path of the Goddess.  It was supposed to look like a faery arm band.  When I got sober I left Her path.  I was so spiritually confused I didn’t know which end was up and I was willing to even follow the Christian faith to get sobriety.  Which might puzzle some folks, “what’s wrong with that?” they ask. To me it was the ultimate sacrifice. I decided to start over again with what the Buddhist’s call Beginner’s Mind.  It took 5-6 years of daily devotions and reading and absorbing spiritual texts from every major path and many not so major paths to find my way back to Her.  It’s why, today, sometimes she’s Mother Mary or Mary Magdalene and why sometimes the God with her is Jesus.  And then there’s Hekate and the rest on the wall of gods…

Once you accept Her mark on you, it lives in your skin, there is no going back, no turning away. She is patient, She is gentle, but She is persistent and one way or the other you come back.  And I feel today as though this new tattoo has done something to me.  The day before I drove to the river, the day I drove to the river, I thought I knew what the image was going to be.  The day after driving to the river I hadn’t a clue.  Isn’t it good that the tattoo place is so busy they can’t take walk-ins?  Now that I’ve got love tattooed into me I feel as though something has shifted in me.

Will I get angry again?  Of couse.  Will I have moments of doubt and fear?  Of course. I’m human and all emotions are a healthy reaction to stimuli.  Will I move to love quicker than I did before?  Yes, I think so.  Even without the tattoo I go there faster than I used to.  But things seem to have sped up to lightening quick this week.  And that?  Is the best thing that’s happened to me in an incredibly long time.

*FNG = Navy Speak for Fucking New Guy or Evangeline speak for Farging New Girl

**Thin line to walk here.  But he is a coven member who plays that role with me, a loving teacher/father.