‘He did say something about the first lesson,’ she thought, suddenly realising what was going on. The protective presence was there because she believed in it. Brida began to feel the fatigue of so many hours under tension. She began to relax again and, with each moment that passed, she felt more protected.
She had faith. And faith wouldn’t allow the forest to be peopled again with scorpions and snakes. Faith would keep her Guardian Angel awake and watching.
She leaned back against the rock again and, all unknowing, fell asleep.
It was light when she woke, and a beautiful sun was gilding everything around her. She felt a little cold, her clothes were grubby, but her soul was rejoicing. She had spent the whole night alone in a forest.
She looked everywhere for the Magus, knowing that she would not find him. He must be walking in the forest somewhere trying ‘to commune with God’, and perhaps wondering if the girl who’d come to see him the previous night had sufficient courage to learn the first lesson of the Tradition of the Sun.
‘I learned about the Dark Night,’ she said to the now silent forest. ‘I learned that the search for God is a Dark Night, that Faith is a Dark Night. And that’s hardly a surprise really, because for us each day is a dark night. None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, and yet still we go forwards. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.’
Or, who knows, perhaps because we just don’t see the mystery contained in the next second. Not that it mattered. What mattered was knowing that she had understood.
That every moment in life is an act of faith.
That you could choose to fill it with snakes and scorpions or with a strong protecting force.
That Faith cannot be explained. It was simply a Dark Night. And all she had to do was to accept it or not.
Brida looked at her watch and saw that it was getting late. She had to catch a bus, travel for three hours and think up some convincing excuse to give her boyfriend; he would never believe she had spent the whole night alone in a forest.
‘It’s a very difficult thing, the Tradition of the Sun!’ she shouted to the forest. ‘I have to be my own Teacher, and that isn’t what I was expecting!’
She looked at the village down below, mentally traced her path back through the woods and set off. First, though, she turned to the rock again. In a loud, joyous voice, she cried:
‘There’s one other thing. You’re a very interesting man.’
Leaning against the trunk of an old tree, the Magus watched the girl vanish into the woods. He had listened to her fears and heard her cries during the night. At one point, he had even been tempted to go over and embrace her, to shield her from her terror, saying that she didn’t need this kind of challenge.
Now he was pleased that he hadn’t, and he felt proud that the girl, in all her youthful confusion, was his Soulmate.
In the centre of Dublin there is a bookshop that specialises in occult studies. It has never advertised in newspapers or magazines; the people who go there do so on the recommendation of others, and the owner is glad to have such a select, specialist clientele.
Even so, the bookshop is always full. Brida had heard about it and finally managed to get the address from the person teaching the course on astral travel she was currently attending. She went there late one afternoon, after work, and was delighted with the place.
From then on, whenever she could, she would go there to look at the books, but she never bought any because they were all imported and very expensive. She would leaf through them, studying the designs and symbols in some of the books, and intuitively tuning in to the vibration of all that accumulated knowledge. She had grown more cautious since her experience with the Magus. Sometimes she would bemoan to herself the fact that she only managed to take part in things she could already understand. She sensed that she was missing out on something very important in life, and that if she carried on as she was, she would simply continue to repeat the same experiences over and over. And yet she didn’t have the courage to change. She needed to be constantly struggling to discover her path; now that she had experienced the Dark Night, she knew that she didn’t want to find her way through it. And although she was sometimes dissatisfied with herself, she felt unable to go beyond her own limitations.
Books were safer. The shelves contained reprints of treatises written hundreds of years ago; it was an area in which very few people dared to say anything new. And in the pages of these books, occult knowledge, distant and remote, seemed to smile at the efforts made by each generation to uncover it.
Apart from looking at the books, Brida had another important reason for going to the shop – to observe the other customers. Sometimes, she would pretend to be reading some respectable alchemical treatise, when she was, in fact, scrutinising the men and women, usually older than her, who frequented the shop and who knew what they wanted and always went to the right shelf. She tried to imagine what they must be like in private. Some looked very wise, capable of awakening forces and powers of which mere mortals knew nothing. Others appeared to be desperately trying to rediscover answers they had long ago forgotten, but without which life had no meaning.
She noticed, too, that the most regular customers always had a word with the owner. They talked about strange things, such as the phases of the moon, the properties of stones and the correct pronunciation of ritual words.
One afternoon, Brida got up sufficient courage to do the same. She was on her way back from work, on a day when everything had gone well. She thought she should make the most of that good luck.
‘I know that there are secret societies,’ she said. She thought this a good conversational opener. She ‘knew’ something.
But the owner merely looked up from his accounts and stared at her in amazement.
‘I was with the Magus in Folk,’ said Brida, rather put out now, and not knowing quite how to continue. ‘He explained to me about the Dark Night. He told me that the path of wisdom means not being afraid to make mistakes.’
She noticed that the owner was listening more intently now. If the Magus had bothered to teach her something, she must be special.
‘If you know that the Dark Night is the path, why do you need books?’ he said at last, and she knew that mentioning the Magus had not been a good idea.
‘Because that isn’t the way I want to learn,’ she said.
The owner looked more closely at the young woman standing before him. While she clearly had a Gift, it was nevertheless odd that the Magus of Folk should have devoted so much time to her. There must be something else. She could be lying, but then again she had spoken of the Dark Night.
‘You often come here,’ he said. ‘You arrive, read a few books, but never buy anything.’
‘They’re too expensive,’ said Brida, sensing that he wanted to continue the conversation. ‘But I’ve read other books and I’ve attended courses.’
She told him the names of her teachers, hoping to impress him still more.
Again things did not go quite as she expected. The owner interrupted her and went to serve another customer who wanted to know if the book he’d ordered had come in, an almanac containing the planetary positions for the next