Brownie Initiation

Twist me and turn me and show me the elf …

by Sandy Harris – Sunday, 27 March 2011, 01:56 PM

Brownie initiation – answer submitted in Liturgical Design, Spirng 2011, regarding rituals in childhood

slh

“Twist me and turn me and show me the elf …” What a magical phrase that is! Over 50 years since I said it in my first-ever initiation rite, it still brings a thrill. And on the sober, erudite reflection of a Crone, I recognize that it became in integral part of my self, my worldview, my operating instructions and background programming that remains. Other layers have been added, but this initiation is at or very near the core. I was 8 years old.

My thought takes two directions at the moment (so far): 1) first times; and 2) rites for kids.

The initiation I mentioned was my formal investiture as a Brownie, using the Brownie Story as the myth. The story was found in the Brownie Leader’s Handbook and can still be found online, http://www.scoutingweb.com/scoutingweb/SubPages/Browniestory.htm.

First times: All the reflective meditation and such that goes with these courses and with CPE has me very alert to chasing back to significant influences and turning points when they spring with sight, sound, and tingles into my awareness. My training in hypnotherapy discussed the Initial Sensitizing Experience (IDS) which is identified as the starting point of phobias, as in, “When was the first time you felt this way?”

Logic tells me that, when we experience something with high emotional value (positive or negative), our minds (without conscious assistance) compare that experience to all we know so far in search of the nearest match, then uses that match to evaluate the value or danger and begin formulating a response. For infants, every experience is new and has a high emotional value — it’s a threat until proven otherwise. Once processed for the first time, with its outcome, the next occurrence that matches starts a category, and subsequent experiences refine and extend the richness of detail. But that first time — when the experience only matches previous experiences in the most general of ways — when we truly have a first, all senses are open, all resources are on alert, and all irrelevancies are shut out. The outcome becomes the paradigm by which all subsequent examples of the category will be evaluated.

This first time phenomenon, to me, is why, for example, virginity is an issue. It is why initiation rites need some portions where the initiate has only love and trust to allow facing the experience rather than freezing or fleeing. It is why children raised in a safe and nurturing environment are more able to explore their widening world without undue anxiety.

Rites for children: issues of safety, love, trust, and previous experience are even more important that the newness of experience we would bring to a rite.

Rites for newborns are really rites of passage for the parents. Any dedication at that age, I think, should be the parents and the community dedicating themselves to the child in the name of the Gods, as opposed to dedicating the child to the Gods: this new human is his own person, not the property or self of anyone else to dedicate. Wiccaning (I loathe the term) seems to me to need a whole lot more thought than I suspect it is given.

Infant baptism, in the ancient Catholic dogma, had a particular magical purpose: in their belief (no longer, I’m told, promulgated in those terms) was that only a baptized child who died could go to Heaven; babies who died before baptism went to Limbo. That belief is so ingrained that, even though recent theology has blurred the issue, a Catholic mother whose about-to-be-born child is in danger of dying will ask for a Catholic priest to be present at the birth to administer the sacrament, and in an emergency, anyone can administer it validly with any available water and saying the right words — which delivery room nurses know. Vestiges of the belief remain with other Christians, many of whom will ask for baptism of dying infants (or even those stillborn, who the Catholic clergy will not baptize).

As a child grows, there can be many opportunities to participate in ritual — and the child may not realize that there is any difference between ritual reality and the world of everyday. For a child, it is all new. They walk amid and between all the worlds. Introducing small rites — saying grace, burying dead pets, planting seeds — provides gentle first times. Significant changes in their lives or in the lives of those near and dear provide more poignant, enduring ritual experiences, and parents should be alert to both the benefits and the dangers. Weddings are fun; funerals can be overwhelming — or illuminating and supporting. Parents are the guides.

With the school years, children begin living a significant part of each weekday outside their home, in a different world from the familiar, under the guidance and protection of others than Mom and Dad (unless homeschooled, I guess).

My investiture as a Brownie, in the third grade, was a rite of passage for me from random kid to person with a place and responsibilities, member of a formal group with expectations and a cool uniform. I might have been ready a year or two earlier, but 7 or 8 seems appropriate. We prepared for the event ahead of time so we knew what we were getting into. I really looked forward to being able to wear that uniform and the Brownie pin, to be that new somebody. I understood the Promise I would make and identified with the ethos. The mythos was a little vague, until the actual initiation.

The Leader read us the Brownie story, up to the point where the little girl, looking for a brownie to do the housework and help the overworked mother, went into the woods. Then each of us, one by one, was led into a darker room (the woods) where we found our way to a pool of water (a round mirror on the floor surrounded by green crepe paper). We were turned around three times while we said “Twist me and turn me and show me the elf. I looked in the water and saw…” and we looked down into the pool. “Myself”. The lights came on. My mother was there (surprise!) and she pinned the Brownie pin on me.

I don’t remember the details after that. It was a life-changing moment, and I’m crying as I relive it for the first time emotionally in decades.

Ritual has power. Goddess, let us always use it thoughtfully and respectfully. First times cannot be done over. Lady, keep us mindful and protective of the first times. Mom, thank you for all it has taken me 63 years to realize.