A homily for the New Moon on November 2, 2024.
Dearly Beloved,
Happy New Moon in double Scorpio! And so close to Samhain in the Northern Hemisphere and Beltane in the Southern Hemisphere that we have the energies of each mixing with, clarifying, and augmenting the other! This is a very beautiful moment, full of power. Given this moment of endings and new beginnings both solar and lunar and this juxtaposition of death in the north and fertility in the south, I am moved to speak on that most important of notions in the spiritual life, the notion that cuts to the heart of what it means to be a mage, the notion that gives structure to our teachings and meaning to our lives.
I am moved to speak of initiation.
As pagans, we live in spiral time. With each New Moon, we mark the end of one lunar cycle and the beginning of the next, and with each Samhain, we mark the end of one solar cycle and the beginning of the next. We move forward, yes, but we also eternally return, and through this spiral force that moves us forward but ever in circles, the godds and spirits that interact to create the world reveal themselves through time, through the cycles of nature. The Divine may be eternal, but we are temporal, thus our ways of interacting with the Divine are necessarily temporal as well.
And in keeping with the Hermetic axiom of “as above, so below” (paraphrased from the second verse of “The Emerald Tablet”), our spiritual lives follow the same patterns as the Moon and the Sun. Like them, our lives move in a spiral force. Like them, we die and are reborn, again and again. Like them, we are transformed, again and again. We are initiated, and nothing will ever be the same.
First, you come to a moment of dissatisfaction, a moment where you know that something must change, that you must change, that the way you have existed up until now simply won’t work anymore. You must go on a journey. You must learn a new secret, a new way to be. Like the serpents which adorn the staff of Hermes, the serpent which has always been a symbol of magick and transformation, you have become too big. Your skin has become too tight, and you must shed the old to make way for the new.
This dissatisfaction is followed by searching, hunting, looking for spiritual sustenance in the world around you. It is in this time that you may find teachers, friends, and colleagues in our Work. All of these may be able to help you, for community and fellowship is a blessing. But in the end you are forced into the next stage. The spiritual sustenance you need cannot be found in this world. In order to find a new way to be, you must become a new creature, and to become a new creature, you must die and be reborn. You must go down into the dark, because the dark has secrets to teach you. You must be tested. And finally, you must come back into the light, tender and new, and bring the mysteries that the darkness taught you back to your life and to your communities.
Initiations may be marked by being brought into an organization like a tradition, order, lodge, church, or coven, or they may be experienced alone. They may be conducted ritually or take place through the events of your life. They may involve only you or involve others (sometimes known as “officers of initiation). What is crucial is that you are transformed, that you become something and someone new, because only that new person can pass through the crucible of the Underworld and come out the other side.
Once transformed, you return to your old, normal life, but as a new person. You see through new eyes. New things seem obvious and others that once seemed obvious become obscure. Sometimes you will look back at your previous selves and not recognize yourself in them. Sometimes you will regret your new vision, your new way of being. Sometimes you will wish you could unsee what you have seen and unknow what you have come to know. Sometimes you will feel your new self as a weight, a burden to bear. Other times you will relish in your newfound existence and the perspective that goes with it. But in any case, you will be more than what you were before. Different.
And nothing will ever be the same.
So let us turn to the cycles of the Moon and Sun in reverence, for in their rhythms we feel the movements of our own souls. Let us go down, again and again, into the Underworld, and come out, again and again, into the light. Let us become new creatures, better creatures, transformed and brought into new ways of being, again and again, according to the spiral force of nature.
Let us be initiated.
Happy New Moon.
In love,
Soror Alice
Art: Hilma Af Klint, “Group X, No. 2, Altarpiece”, 1915