Enchanted Meetings

It is always a pleasure to spend time among brother Freemasons. Last night, my lodge hosted a Rabbie Burns night; a celebration of the Scottish Poet, and by extension a celebration of all things Scotland. The brethren of my lodge organized and hosted a warm and cheerful event, with delicious catering, artful readings of Burns’ poetry, cordial toasts, and an engaging speech on the Immortal Memory, well seasoned with bits of humor, splashes of poetry, and insight into the life of Caledonia’s bard. I had a good time, and left feeling the warmth of brotherhood glowing in me that often sparks to life among the brethren. And, as is also often the case, it left me thinking too. Thinking about poetry, about culture, about Freemasonry, and about enchantment.

I was initiated as a Freemason nearly ten years ago, a pivotal step in a much longer journey in search of what I now recognize as enchantment. Back then, enchantment was a thing I knew mostly by the hollow feeling of its absence – not in myself, but in the often silent response from the world to my calls out to it for meaning, for beauty, for something beyond the flat and colorless ordinary. But the world was not always mute in response to my call. I would, now and again, be rewarded in my search by something; a shock of red leaves burst from a branch against blue sky, or the smell of the ocean, or some commonplace miracle whispering encouragement in the language of the birds. I understood none of this as an answer to the call of my heart. Thankfully, my heart is wiser than I am, and it pushed me onward. It pushed me, eventually, to and through the door of my lodge, in a creaky old beautiful building whose fixtures and decorations seemed to glow with magic. I did not know it at the time, but this was just reflected light, radiating from mere things because of their long history of proximity to the truly magical. It was in that building that I was initiated, passed, and raised, and where I attended my very first Burns night, in the downstairs banquet room whose decor was really more “haunted school auditorium” than banquet hall, but which the brethren had polished up admirably for the evening.

It really was striking how the old banquet room transformed for that early Burns night. The paint was still old and cracked in places, the linoleum tile still dirty and outdated, and fluorescent lights above still hummed and cast sickly office light throughout the room. But louder than their buzz was the hum of conversation between brethren and guests, and covering the weary floor were chairs and tables and two hundred feet stepping and scuffing the floor, adding to its storied wear. To this, add some modest decoration – linens and flowers, tartans and tablecloths – and the space was reborn. The room did not make the banquet, the banquet made the room. And then, just as last night, came the poetry, the toasts, the speeches, the culture of our lodge, of Freemasonry, and the great Colossus Rabbie Burns standing astride this meeting of worlds as a Poet, a cultural hero of Scotland, and, of course, as a Freemason. As we closed the night in a chain of clasped hands singing Auld Lang Syne, the room was en-chant-ed, full of song, of story, and of connection. We did the same at the end of the night last night. It was magic, and not simply “like” magic.

What is enchantment? I still don’t really know. I have come to see its trace in art, in culture, in ritual, and in song, but to really see enchantment you must look past the lie that those things are merely decorative. That lie is the core of disenchantment, a hollow privation in which grows a swamp of negations and absences; colonialism and empire, extractive capitalism, reductive scientism. Each of these is a void, characterized most of all by what they deny – dignity, connection, and meaning. The vehicles of enchantment are admitted but only as decoration, as mere distractions or some hopeless existential defiance against their inevitability. Enchantment is to grasp hold of the reality behind art, culture, and ritual, to see them as central, as having metaphysical force and ontological weight. Once we return to their reality, they can breathe life into our souls, bring us into communion with one another, and spark magic. The world was never mute to my cries for meaning; I just was not listening to the response, or more accurately, I could not hear it. I expected and was listening for re-enchantment to respond as the language of disenchantment described it, and I could not hear the language of enchantment… except sometimes, in the shock of red and the language of birds. I thought that those were merely decorations, even as they made my spirit stir. This stirring of the spirit is what I have always been searching for.

In the renewed lodge building, set with a subtle elegance and modern design, we celebrated Rabbie Burns together; brethren, family, and friends. In these bonds of connection, in the art, music, dance, and poetry, in the ritual and the repetition that is “culture” there is a living and breathing magic. It is rooted in old things, in the human spark, in the ancient awe of the stars, and in the ancestral mouth to ear transmission reaching back to time immemorial. It is carried along in rituals and celebrations, in Freemasonry, and Burns nights, and weddings and funerals and the rest. This link, between culture and magic, will come as no surprise to many I am sure, especially those with less exposure to the miseducation of disenchantment. But it is new to me, and surprising. It is part of the inspiration for restarting this blog, to try and add my voice to the flow of culture here and now, and the work of reenchantment. I still feel halting and fumbling with it, with ideas that are not fully formed but demand expression anyway.

Last night in the verses of Rabbie Burns, i heard an opportunity to be stirred by his songs of the many ways the world stirred his spirit. I want to be stirred, and to help others feel the same. In the fellowship of Freemasons there is an opportunity to connect in friendship, in laughter, and understanding, and live for a bit as full human beings, persons, rather than employees, or subjects, or customers. After all, “a man’s a man fa a’ that.”