Having an Apprentice

 As some of you may know, I have an apprentice. I outlined many of the things that I thought it would be important to teach someone learning The Craft earlier last year. And now, this year, I am actually doing it. It feels weird, after 24 years of only being a student, to finally be teaching someone else. And as I navigate that responsibility and honor, I thought showing some of our activities together this year might be interesting.

 In my tradition, we place an emphasis on establishing a clean relationship with our Fetch in order to work magic, communicate with other beings, and move between the worlds. So we have been doing lots of work on Solitude, Simplicity, and Silence in order to remove the distractions of everyday life to establish a connection and communication. My apprentice has a daily sitting practice and we sometimes go to the Shambhala Center to meditate in a group, too. He has been giving up "screen time" spending time in silence and alone, and avoiding commercial distractions.

We have been getting out into nature and learning about plants (for both healing and conjure) that grow here (Ohio is not the ancestral home of either of us- and some of the flora is unfamiliar, so as I teach him what I know, we also learn together!). We have been listening deeply- to plants, to animals, to the wind. He has been learning how to listen to plant allies and how to use that in cunning- both magical and medicinal.

I am asking him to get at least 8 hours of sleep a night and we have been doing dream work. He has been participating in rituals throughout the wheel of the year with us. Much of these rituals have been ancestor driven and he has been building altars and making offerings to the beloved and mighty dead and establishing a communication with them. This Lammas, we are visiting another initiate in West Virginia for a weekend. We will be hiking in the mountains, circling in the woods, wildcrafting, and doing a ritual to ready him to meet his Fetch.

We talked last night, my apprentice and I, about having him grow specific plants and commune with and tend to them (with the end in mind of creating specific formulas come harvest time). After he left and I went to bed, plants visited me in my dreams- plants that I do not work with yet but will be in the near future. I wrote down what I could remember and have begun research into these plants and how we can use their gifts.

I have found that teaching has helped me refine what my vision of The Craft is and what it is not. It has helped me define theology, hone my skills, and articulate a vision that positively hums with Old Fate Herself.

My apprentice has a lot to offer. He is a healer in his own right and gifted at energy work and manipulation. He is generous and laughs a lot. Working with him has been a blessing and a gift and I am happy to pass the Craft to him in this intimate way.