Witches of America, page 30
Watching her now, I turn over in my head, yet again, the question of what Morpheus is really fighting for, whether all this talk of battle is true-life battle or simulated warfare, like a first-person shooter game. I can’t dismiss her as someone deluded—she’s too compelling for that. But if she’s not a soldier, a cop, a medic, an activist, then what kind of warrior is she? And I realize that, on the simplest level, hers is a fight against expectations. The people she’s encountered every day over the years, in mundane life, have seen only her surface self—driving from ranch to ranch in a half-busted truck, spending less at the dollar store, answering the phone at a Mission tattoo parlor—someone with a low-paying job, someone with little or no influence. What she’s fighting for is the part of her that rises above that, that exceeds those assumptions, those limitations, and transforms her into the person inside her head, the person she’s willing herself to be: a priestess with her own priesthood, the devotee of a war goddess, the product of her own perfect invention. This makes her essentially American, a fighter in the battle to reinvent herself.
In the center of the room, Morpheus and Thorn and Anaar seem to find each other at once. A space clears around them on the dance floor.
Rudy and I look at each other on the sidelines. “Oh boy,” she says. “Three incredibly powerful priestesses all in one spot.” We both watch with a look on our faces that says, “This is the good stuff,” as the three women stalk each other, weave their arms through the air, each in some combination of black leather, shit-kicker boots, and tattooed skin.
“What a funny place to land,” Rudy says to herself, thinking out loud—and I immediately know what she’s talking about. Them, us, all of this: how strange that any of this exists, and that we’re here taking part in it.
Morpheus continues weaving her arms around her fellow priestesses, crouching low, dipping her head back so that her red hair nearly brushes the floor. And when she raises her head back up, I imagine something: I picture it encased in glass. I see her white, white face made bony, blanched further still; I see jewels, made from her ashes, in place of her eyes; and a velvet band holds her hair to the skull, hair faded now, but so long it’s woven at the ends into elaborate braids. And in this image, she’s become a Catholic relic—like the Holy Head of Catherine of Siena in the Basilica San Domenico, wrapped in a nun’s wimple, the skin stretched drum-tight over her skull, the case framed with gold latticework and flanked by stone angels—now reimagined as the relic of a neighbor, the holy skull of an American. Think of the clarity required to transform your remains into sacred objects. At what point in your life do you begin to picture, in vivid Technicolor, your head encased as the centerpiece of a shrine? This is the Holy Head of Morpheus Ravenna, transported in a silver container from the fields of San Marcos, Texas, under protection of the Great Queen, in the year 20—, to the temple of the Coru Cathubodua in Berkeley, California …
Morpheus has that clarity. And maybe one day witches and Feri priestesses, like centuries of pilgrims, will come from all over the state—all over the country—to read the future through her bones.
19
Enter the Swamp
I wake up on the floor of the temple.
The first sense I have is of color: crimson everywhere, and one wall looming over me, jet black. I see crushed Moroccan cushions, eye level across the floor, and discover that I’m lying on my back. The temple is empty. Daylight seeps through the dark drapes and across the polished wood floors and the church pews that line the space.
I sit up and nearly hit my head on a low-lying, brass-topped table covered with the crumbled remains of ground lamb and chicken on the bone and phyllo dough. Everything smells like cinnamon and red wine. My body is shaking a little, still exhausted from three mostly sleepless nights, and three days and nights of sweating through my clothes and the constant threat of having the blood sucked through my skin by thousands of insects. (My hands alone are covered in twenty-two mosquito bites, beginning to swell.) I have been captured, roughed up, and claimed. I made many promises, and in exchange was given a secret sign and a secret grip—and a word: only two letters, but the key to everything.
On the other side of it all now, to tell the truth, I am feeling very good.
* * *
It started three weeks earlier. I became consumed with the swamp.
I learned that in southern Louisiana, the swamp houses snakes—mud snakes, ribbon snakes, king snakes, milk snakes, Texas rat snakes, copperheads—and gators—almost two million in the state, luxuriating in the dank, filthy black waters, occasionally pulling their long, low bodies up onto the muddy banks, only to belly-slide right back into the water. It’s also home to possums, armadillos, flying squirrels, muskrats, owls, coyotes, big-eared bats, and free-tailed bats. And then there are the nutrias: tremendous semiaquatic rodents with massive orange incisors. Their bodies alone are two feet long, and they can weigh in at twenty-two pounds. I imagine a twenty-two-pound swamp rat lurking under the silky dogwoods, hidden among the water willows and alligatorweed, like a monster in some Russian folktale.
Josh is well aware of the terrific tool of intimidation that nature has provided him with. After mass at Alombrados one night, he calls me and Lucas, two of the three Minerval candidates, to join him in the library to discuss how best to prepare for our upcoming initiation. Chris joins him, and soon others begin to gather around.
Josh starts off with recommendations for gear. “Knee-high boots, something good in water,” he says. “Because you’re going to be in the shit.”
“You want something that breathes, though,” Chris interjects, “so your feet don’t rot. I’ve got three words for you: Altama. Jungle. Boots.” (Altama, I find out, manufactured boots for American soldiers during the Vietnam War.)
“Long sleeves,” Josh continues. “Really tough pants, like Carhartts. You’ll want to sleep in your clothes—that’s a good idea.”
He goes on: “Bring food for four days. Because I’m running the show, I say you can bring whatever—trail mix, MREs.” Lucas, seeing my confusion, explains that MREs are “meals ready to eat.”
“I hate those,” he says. “We had to live off those during Katrina.”
Josh says to pack “spiritual reading, something from our tradition,” and a small light for after dark. “You’ll have a lot of time to read.”
“Especially if it rains,” David chimes in. “And the way things have been going, it’s going to rain hard. Don’t worry—we’ve had people get initiated out there during a tropical storm.”
“No drugs, alcohol, or weapons!”
Lucas asks if we can bring something small, for hunting.
“Since I’m running the show, I say you can bring a Swiss Army knife. But nothing large enough that you’ll get into trouble if a ranger stops you. They’re always looking for poachers.”
Dan smiles broadly at that one. “They get one look at Alex, they won’t think y’all are any poachers.”
Though Mark is Minerval-level himself, he’s very thoughtful, and senior in years to everyone here save Dan, and he takes the opportunity to offer his own advice. “I’d say, use that time to really take a look at what’s around you. When I was out there, we were surrounded by armadillos. Just so many of them! And when we got back, I found out that for the Mayans it was the animal that walks the border between heaven and hell—which was so perfect for what we were out there to do. So keep an eye out. You may see something that you won’t understand until later.”
“Augury,” says Josh.
At last the lecture turns to the inevitable: “As far as the mosquitoes, they are not within my control.”
A chorus breaks out all around us:
“Oh my God, bring bug spray.”
“So much bug spray!”
“You’re going to reapply all the time, day and night.”
“All over yourself and your gear and all your shit.”
Coming in a close second to the mosquitoes are the spiders. At these, even Josh shivers. “Huge. Hairy. I was out there once and I was, like, ‘What are these delicate branches covering my face?’ And then I realized I was covered in spiders.”
Don’t forget the snakes, someone says.
Josh sighs. “Yeah, you’ll want boots that will resist pretty much any snakebite. Hell, if you don’t have a snakebite kit, you’ll want to head to the store and pick one up.”
After he’s gone on for some time, Sophia approaches and says gently, “You’re such a gabber, sweetie.” She suggests we all get dinner. Josh wraps it up like a coach.
“This is going to be a great experience! No matter what comes next.”
* * *
It rains throughout July. And rains and rains and rains. Four or five days a week are interrupted by thick peals of thunder, then a burst of tropical downpour that stops as suddenly as it began. The swamps are filling up.
Five days before the initiation, it’s still raining, and now there are flash-flood warnings.
David texts me: “You wouldn’t want the swamp to dry out now, would you?”
Then Andrew: “As you can see, I’ve arranged for more rain.”
And Sophia: “Submarines will be provided.”
They are taking pleasure in being assholes.
And it’s not only the natural threats that concern me, but the company. I speak with Andrew about our dynamic, this trio being sent out into the wilderness: a New York woman in her thirties and two young Southern guys with barely-there facial hair and baseball caps. “We’re like The Odd Couple with three people,” I say.
“Yeah, we’ve had some strange pairings,” he tells me—such as when he took his Minerval alongside Josh’s then girlfriend, who proved to be “a little crazy” (she’s a mortician now). “But your group—that’s the oddest we’ve had yet.”
The night before heading out, I’m nervous. I do things to prepare myself—if there is a way to prepare yourself for an experience about which you know both nothing and too much. I draw on my Feri training, taking a beer bath for cleansing (I’m hoping for some clarity) and protection (for these uncertain few days). When I climb out of the tub, I let my body air-dry, as the spell requires, and lie down on the bed. I ask to be watched over; I ask to be permeable, open to this initiation, open to a revelation—whatever form it might take. I am not sure whether I believe a revelation is still possible, or if at this point I’m conning myself. In light of my divorce from Karina, and my lingering doubts that I’ll ever metamorphose into a believer—a believer of anything—I think I’m viewing this journey into the swamp as a Hail Mary pass. Please! Bully me! Shove me ahead! Push me into belief!
On the morning of, I burn dragon’s-blood incense until my apartment smells like an Eastern Orthodox church. I pack little food for four days (avocados, a bag of almonds, some cereal bars): a strategy (I guess) for discipline, restraint, focus. I seal inside a Ziploc bag my notebook and pen, my phone, and a pamphlet-sized edition of The Book of the Law. I dress in my thickest jeans, cheap sneakers (those jungle boots were heavy), and a thick, long-sleeved hunter’s shirt, inside of which I fasten my mother’s evil eye for good measure. My layers are designed not to breathe in the heat, but to create a protective layer between myself and the wide-ranging world of insects and reptiles.
After driving an hour and a half from where he lives in rural Mississippi, Nick, the third Minerval candidate, picks me up in his truck, ready to go. He’s wearing a black cap from Rouses (the supermarket chain where he works behind the seafood counter); his jeans are a few sizes too big for his lanky frame, with big cutouts that show his knobby knees (the bugs will love him for this). We cross the train tracks and arrive at Alombrados, and Lucas is already there. He sits at the library round table, watching Josh pace back and forth, thoroughly jazzed up.
Josh is in fine, high-energy form, spiffed up for the occasion in black pants and black cowboy boots, a dark buttoned-down shirt and vest, his hair slicked back. He has the air of an emcee ready to kick off the evening’s program, and, as he’s reminded us a few times already, this is his show.
He goes over the rules and guidelines. Our cell phones are only to be turned on after sundown, and we may not bring any other electronics.
“Of course,” he adds, “if you get really injured, like if you break your finger … Actually, don’t call me if you break your finger.” He turns to Nick. “Nick can set it.”
“I’ll try,” Nick says, with a good-natured shrug.
Sophia announces she’s ready to go. It’s time.
The three of us load up the trunk of their old four-door and pile into the backseat, Nick’s massive pack stretched out across our laps. A sharp animal tooth hangs on a chain from the rearview mirror. Josh starts the car and heads toward the highway. We don’t get more than a few blocks before it starts to pour slapstick buckets of rain.
“It’ll clear up,” Sophia says, and she pops in a CD of Ukrainian music.
After about an hour’s ride, we turn off the main road and down a long drive. Thin black trees and tangles of green rise up on either side. Josh turns onto a narrower road, then over a blackwater canal, and finally pulls into an empty lot. We step out of the car and onto the last stretch of pavement at the edge of the swamp.
A dirt path ahead leads straight into the belly of it, and Josh tells us where we’re allowed to camp, deep enough so that only our initiators can find us. He reminds us of what we’re expected to do: walk. Walk all day. Wander the swamp from dawn until dusk, then pull our gear out of hiding, repitch our tent, and disappear inside. Each day, at first light, we’re to strike camp and do it all over again. We are not to leave the swamp. It is unclear whether or not we will be followed or observed, and this feeling will stay with us throughout the weekend.
Then Josh and Sophia get back into their car and drive away. Our circumstance is now entirely our problem.
Some people have the capacity to throw themselves into a situation with self-awareness and, at the same time, without reservation: that’s what I’m doing now. I am submitting to this moment in the hope of learning something radical and new, and in this way maybe, just maybe, become freer. On an instinctive level, I’ve always been conscious of this paradox, the tension between the desire to live without restraint and the submission necessary to gain that freedom—submission, perhaps, to your most frightening fascinations and impulses. In Thelema, they call this the First Paradox of Philosophy. As Crowley described it:
Thou strivest ever; even in thy yielding thou strivest to yield—and lo! Thou yieldest not.
Go thou unto the outermost places and subdue all things.
Subdue thy fear and thy disgust. Then—yield!
Yield—finally, yield! Push yourself into the outermost places; immerse yourself there. Adjust the straps on your pack, turn, and march into the swamp.
* * *
We pick a camping spot in a clearing tucked behind a stand of trees, not too close to two encroaching bodies of swamp water. We’ve borrowed a six-person tent from Jay’s brother, punctured in only a few places, and now we spread out the canvas, hammer in the stakes, feed the poles through the frame—until it starts to rain.
We slip inside before getting too wet and settle in, lying down with our packs under our heads. This is when we realize that we’ve pitched camp directly on top of a gnarly group of tree roots that protrude from the dirt with complete defiance. For lack of another clearing in the Alombrados-approved zone, we decide to make do. This will cost us plenty of sleep and several precisely located black-and-blues over the coming nights.
As it continues to rain and the light starts to die, there is nothing to do but talk a little, try to read, speculate about what’s to come. I feel the sweat settling deep into my pores and the tree roots settling deep into my back, and I begin to realize what we’re in for. Every hour, every half hour, will drag itself out painfully as we pace ourselves in the smothering wet heat, rationing out the five bottles of bug spray between us.
We mark the passing of time with Liber Resh vel Helios, a Thelemite ritual done four times a day to mark your relationship to the sun as it orbits the earth. We perform this first at sunset—it reminds me of Muslims’ five daily prayers, at certain hours and facing a certain direction (toward Mecca). Facing west, we strike the prescribed Egyptian-style pose and repeat each line after Nick, who has it all memorized:
“Hail unto Thee who art Tum in Thy setting, even unto Thee who art Tum in Thy joy, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Down-going of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Day!”
Then we each give the “sign of silence”—one finger held to the lips—and we’re done.
We gather cross-legged in the tent and eat what we’ve brought. I slice up my allotted half an avocado; Lucas is subsisting on beef jerky; and Nick chooses from a duffel stuffed with canned foods: tonight, creamy soup, whose unheated contents he shovels into his mouth with nachos. Then it’s time to sleep—a tall order in the pitch-black night of the Louisiana swamp. We are wrapped in layers and layers of sound: the throbbing call-and-response of owls, the frogs that sound like bleating goats, the armies of insects whose voices swell in volume as the night deepens. Between the alien noises and the heat and the roots digging into my side, I can hardly rest. I am surprised that I do not scream when a creature, some unidentified four-legged animal, brushes against the side of the tent just inches from my face.
