Initiation

I was vacationing on Plum Island with my grandmother and my many aunts. It was the summer of my twelfth year, and little did I know it, but it was also my last vacation for many years. I had been playing all evening at the piano, an old baby grand that sat in the living room of my Grand aunt Rena's cottage. Around 9:00 pm I was bored enough to go to bed with out much argument. I headed for one of the single beds out on a porch that wrapped around the large two story house. The house sat only twenty feet from the bay at high tide and tiny five inch waves mumbled faintly in the dark. There was no moon that night and the melancholy moan of the waves lulled me to sleep quickly. I had the good fortune to see a shooting star as I drifted off to sleep. At least I thought I saw it. Like many dreams, it's hard to know when a dream begins and when a dream ends.

I remember looking for shooting stars and when I looked away from the sky I found myself walking in a cemetery with an open grave at my feet. It was a deep  pit and I knew I was about to fall in. As I fell, I saw at the bottom of the grave hundreds of venomous serpents, and I knew my death was sure before me. I had concluded resistance was useless and I surrendered to my fate. No sooner did I land on top of the snakes when several of them bit me. I expected pain, and I knew there was a chance for lots of pain ahead, but I was wrong. There was no pain. There was no pain at all, not even the sting of a sharp tooth. Every snake in the pit bit me painlessly, almost carefully to cause no pain. In an orderly fashion, they all bit me. Then they withdrew and watched me as I fell onto my side. I vomited. The stuff of my vomit was white and foamy, and I vomited for what seemed a life time. The amount was unbelievable. Gallons and gallons spewed out of my mouth, and the earth beneath me drank it up as quickly as it hit the dirt. Then it was over, and I sat up in the midst of the serpents feeling peaceful and clean. I knew something about me had changed. I was one with the serpents and they accepted me as one of them.

The next morning when I awoke, I remembered vividly only this one dream. It was imprinted so powerfully into my memory that now, being in my late fifties I still can see every detail.

I've meditated upon this dream often and it's meaning stays clear to me. The serpents choose me to be the recipient of their wisdom. The serpents would be my teachers and guides. The venom was my lessons and the vomit was my self righteousness. It looked pure and white but it was full of air and it puffed me up. I was bloated with it and I had to be purged of it before I could practice their teachings. I had to die so that I could live. This was my first initiation.

Sabazius Athame