2007 Deputy Installation Address

From Sekhet-Maat Lodge

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

First off, I would like to thank Joseph and the exec for making my time as your treasurer a fun and educational time! I was a bit scared of becoming the treasurer in the beginning. It’s just one of those jobs in the O.T.O. that folks always say horrible things about. The Treasurer always gets the sympathy though, because apparently no one likes to ask for money. What I learned, however, is that being the treasurer is actually quite fun and enjoyable because you have the ability to really see changes in the lodge and they tend to happen quickly which becomes very fun and fulfilling and of course, challenging. I have also had the opportunity to see just how devoted many of you are to our goals and that is not only heartwarming, but has informed and inspired my own vision for the Lodge. Thank you all for every contribution you have made, big or small. They have made a difference.

So now I stand here as your Deputy and I hope that I may do the job justice. I have spent a good amount of time over the last month or so since I agreed to take this office thinking about what the job description really IS for the Deputy. After much thought and discussion with Joseph, I’ve come to the understanding that it’s my job to encourage, support and assist the Master in bringing to fruition his goals for the lodge. It is also incumbent of me to begin the process of defining and enacting my own goals as well, in preparation for taking over the helm myself someday.

Now I can assure you all that Joseph has many happy years of Mastership left in him and I very much look forward to spending that time working with him. Our personal history I think has always worried some, however he and I are very committed and firm in the belief that together, we balance, encourage and soothe each other well, which I think you will all agree, allows us to get many things done for the benefit of the Lodge.

Joseph and I have had a vision for this lodge since we were First degree. We wanted to see a community that was self sufficient, growing both in magickal ability and financial strength that was capable of promulgation of the Law of Liberty, within the bonds of fraternity. Our entry into the O.T.O. was, as it was, for many at that time, a bit rocky and not without a lot of strife and drama. In our then naïve state, we were blissfully unaware of much of it at the time and we’ve spent way too many hours since then defending our right to stand here today. But stand here we do, and we are not alone. We have a big and bountiful community of dedicated magicians to stand behind us and assist us in creating the Sekhet-Maat Lodge we all know and enjoy today.

Now, it must be incredibly obvious to you at this point that I have always been and will continue to be behind Joseph’s Vision of Financial stability; however, I have also always had my own personal vision within the Lodge, and it is just beginning to see fruition. This Vision centers on what I like to call Qi movement. I could call it Lodge Community Feng Shui if you prefer. In my studies I have learned Feng Shui literally means “wind-water” and is a practice of clearing ones mind and then causing placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony within the environment you are in. In my vision, this placement and harmony are the people, events and magickal energies or spaces, if you will of our Lodge. I enjoy nothing more than to see how the energies flow within our community, between each of us as Sisters and Brothers, through the ritual, through work and through our relationships with Thelema. The Huang Di Nei Jing, or Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine says in regards to Feng Shui and Qi movement, “The Qi that rides the wind stops at the boundary of water.” Once again we are met, as we will continue to be met, with the paradox of discipline and motion.

For our community to function properly and be in balance and harmony, we must recognize that the magickal energy of our community and its rituals needs to have boundaries, yet it must flow ceaselessly and endlessly toward our greater goals of the Great Work.

As I was writing this speech, I realized simply how astonished, amazed and incredibly proud of our community that has finally taken on the responsibility to care for itself. You have all “scaled the fence” and provided each other with a strong foundation, with boundaries and discipline with which to do your Will and for us together to act as true Soldiers of Freedom and do our Great Work.

This move you have all chosen, as a community to make, is huge. At the annual meeting I presented you with charts of numbers showing a more balanced financial situation, and impressive charts they were. I can tell you they are still impressive, two months later. But what I would like impress upon you, is that I think you have all began, as I have, to realize what those numbers really mean to us here. Now. I know as I talk with you all and share in your excitement about writing rituals, performing them, working initiations and doing mass, that all of us have experienced this year, a great general ‘at ease’. I will even go so far as to say, a lack of dis-ease. There is very little strife and drama. Heightened and energetic conversations about our future are bountiful within the Lodge, I see the veins of hospitality snaking their way through, returning once again. We are enjoying a great time in our Lodge history. However, I assure you, our work is far, far from finished. We must, as Joseph and I like to say, “Go much further, much faster!”

We now begin our phase of working towards our next level of development and to do this, we must realize fraternity, maturity and responsibility within our ranks and our work of which the seeds all of you have already sown in the last few years as you have held to your bonds and built a community that shares and includes our differences rather than pushes out and secludes them.

We have a fraternal family who has worked to get to know each other intimately and we include each other in each aspect of our work, despite differences in interests, financial status and ways of seeing the world and this convinces me that each and every one of us is capable of this next step.

Now, I finally feel that my work can truly begin and we can start to move this energy, subtly as magicians in the right directions to bring about a tensegrity, that is, a tensional integrity of energy within the lodge. This push and pull in balance will allow us to exceed our current state of harmony, bringing new goals into sight that we never before envisioned. Our magickal rituals now have a strong base of energy to work from, the difference in the potency and outcome of our group rituals these days is astonishing. They are becoming ever more powerful and effectual. Above all, we must continue to join each other in the uninterrupted consummation of our Eucharist within the Gnostic Mass, together, as harmonious Sisters and Brothers, inspired by our bonds of love.

How does all of this work out in the “real” world you say? Well, while all of this sounds lofty, I do indeed have some more malkuthian ideas on the plate; and working towards more openness with the lodge’s space for all brethren is first. I want the lodge doors to be open to all members to be able to spend time in the temple as magicians, musicians, and artists, using the library to study and devoting their time to improvement and cleanliness in the lodge. To that end, I’ll be emailing you all about a new lodge use policy that allows all members access to the combination as a benefit of membership for private or group use of the lodge. Yet it will still allow for the safety, security and cleanliness we all are well known for and continually aspire to improve. You should be enjoying the benefits not only of membership, but of a healthy community and having a place to share this, I believe is an essential step toward ownership. You all pay your dues; you deserve ownership of this temple. It is yours, work with it, mould it, and make magick in it.

Next, I have also already discussed with many of you my Goals Project for 2008, and how I will be working with each committee to strategically plan our goals, committee by committee to be in alignment not only with our own Lodge’s goals and mission, but also that of the new Strategic Goals of Grand Lodge, just published. If you haven’t read these Strategic Goals, please do, they can be found on the O.T.O. USA web site. It is important that we all not only work toward our own goals, but those of USGL and being informed is the first step.

Next up is a strong Outreach Committee. It is finally time for our body to reach out to the community around us, forming bonds of friendship and community with them and making our work known. Within the Goals Project, I will be forming this committee, making our goals and strategies and enacting them. Some of you have already stated your intention to join the committee; I encourage any of you who’ve been looking for a place to fit in or to volunteer your time to join as well. I think the work will be very fulfilling and fun.

Along with those things, I will also continue writing and directing original ritual, and I have many ideas incubating now whose time will come soon enough.

In closing, I would like to encourage you all to strive evermore to become strong and powerful magicians. Work hard, do your daily practice, devour your study guides and work these initiations as Initiator, Officer, stand in, or just come to help out as much as you possibly can, your labor will always be worth the knowledge and understanding you gain. Embody our Mysteries in every way you can so that you yourself may be a light to which your angel is drawn. Do your Will.

Also, I would like to offer myself to you in service, as someone who knows you all well and very much believes in each and every one of you and your work. I hope that I can be someone to always encourage you, and never, ever steal or stagnate the beauty that is your own Qi movement and energy within us.

Lastly, I would also ask that we all remember to do our work within the lodge as does our Father the sun, with perpetual radiance. Give your light to those who revolve around you and bring Joy to your Lodge work. Before you rush into the Lodge, before you even place your hand on that door knob, stop. Each and every time. Just Stop. Take a second to remember the purpose for which you are coming. Make every act in the lodge a magickal act. In doing so, we will continue to charge our temple so that it may be a motive force within our greater community, and those seeking a refuge from superstition, tyranny and oppression will find a place wherein they can begin the long journey to finding, and above all, doing, their Will.

Love is the law, love under will.

Soror Aletheia Mnemonicas