Queen of Swords

Enough time has passed, and I finally have enough personal space and time here at home, to enable me to post a bit about my initiation. I'm sure no one here will be surprised that I can't talk about all of it, but there are some things I can share.

The overall experience can be summed up in the Two of Swords card, and I was set up for it even before I left home.


I was about to embark on a 400+ mile drive, and while I wasn't actively worried about trouble on the road, I did want to have something with me in the car to back up any emphatic "no" that might be necessary. My chosen "companion" was a heavy-duty hunting knife given to me some fifteen years ago by a friend who deeply loved knives. It served as my athame for a while -- always to the dismay of any nice ladies who happened to be sharing the circle with me (it was "mean" and "scary") -- but I retired it after my ordination as a Grail Priestess, when I consecrated a double-sided dagger as my "glaive".

Despite my lists, packing turned out to be more complicated than I'd expected, and the morning of my departure was frustratingly disorganized. I was at the gas station a block from my house when I suddenly realized that the hunting knife was not on the seat beside me, as I had planned. I searched my purse, the floor, the back seat -- and even opened the trunk and went through my suitcase and tote -- but it wasn't there. I was already running late, but felt an extremely strong need to go back and find the knife.

Back to the house I went. I looked around the living room where I'd been doing my packing: on the desk, on the couch, under the couch, under the miscellaneous stuff on the floor. No knife. I went upstairs, checked my bedroom, my bed, under my bed, on my altars (even though I knew I had carried it downstairs). No hunting knife. However I did see my glaive. Must have knife 'said' the compulsion in my head.

Hmmmm. . . Was I brought back to the house to get this knife? If so, did any of my other tools need to come along as well? I looked at each in turn. All were quiet. No inner urging called me to pick them up. Okay.

I went back downstairs.

There was the hunting knife, sitting in plain view on the back of my couch.

I sighed.

Both knives.
Got it.

I put the dagger in the tote with my robe, cord, and blindfold, put the hunting knife in the front with me, and set off again with my iPod playing Fairies Stole My Keys.


(Lyrics can be found here: http://www.emeraldrose.com/consuite/fairiesstolemykeys.htm )

My daughter hasn't been able to find her keys all week -- even after my mother helped her do a thorough cleaning of her room (and there is no one who cleans more thoroughly than my mother!).

Today I asked my daughter to look again for her keys.

She went into her bedroom closet and found her keys sitting right on top of a stack of clothing. Right in plain sight. Where both she and my mother had been a dozen times the day before.

Yeah, we've got fairies. . . .