PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I became an Entered Apprentice in October, 1985; a Fellowcraft in December, 1985; and was raised to the sublime Degree of Master Mason in February, 1986.  In Spring of 1987, I was admitted to the fellowcraft team where I played any of the three murderers' parts (in June, 1991, I had to play first and third similtaneously, a somewhat awkward task, since first and third are required to talk to each other from different sides of the lodge room).  In 1988, I was admitted to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and in June, 1992, I was recruited to begin my progress through the officers; chairs, skupping the lowest two and starting at Junior Deacon, in which capacity I delivered the "charge" of the Fellowcraft (which was a speeh in the ritual about the candidate's opbligation for the privilege of being passed to it.

  In anticipation of eventually making it to the presiding chair, that of the Worshipful Master, I was required to sit for at least a year as either the Junior or Senior Warden.  I was also required to receieve at least two degrees in the Tork Rite of Freemasonry (corresponding to, but different than, the Scottish Rite).  These were the Mari Master Degree and the Viirtual Past Master Degree, both of which are administered part of the Royal Arch or Capitular Degrees administered by the York Rite.  Otherwise, even if I had sat a decade as one of the Wardens, I could not have been elected to the Worshipful Mastership.  I somewhat resented this, because I had already attained the Third, or Master Mason, Degree which is the spiritual center of each and every Masonic body that has ever constituted itself for the conferral of degrees.  

  Just as one cannot be raised a Master Mason until have been passed as a Fellowcraft, because thei Third Degree builgs on the previous two, so I could not have been a functional Worsdhipful Master without an understanding of the Capitular Degres of the York Rite.  It is a whole lot more than just wearing an additional lapel pin of filing one;s personal mark (which eventually inspired me to adopt the [*/+/^], which represents Starward, in the light of Revelation 22:16, to me).  I could not have asked to be elected as Worshipful Master only on the basis of speaking from my emotions, of telling the honest effusion in my then Masonic heart, or because I had attended the 200th anniversary presentation of Brother Wolfgang Mozart's Masonic opera, The Magic Flute which, for the first time in world history, was performed within a Masonic Temple.  (Not even Mozart saw what I saw, on that Friday night in December 2nd or 9th (I forget which) of 1991.  Not even that, along with the emotions in my heart, was sufficient for me to qualify for the highest chair in the lodge, without the Capitular Degrees.  I had to work hard to learn the meaning of the degrees, and the various rituals in each, in order to qualify for ascent into the chairs.  And even though the Third Degree is more spiritually sublime than all the others, even the 32nd degree of the Scottish Rote, the reception of those degrees was vitally important to a successful Mastership.  The Lodge, all of whom were better qualified than me, eas not interested in the honest emotions of my heart's effusions.  It was interested iin how much I brought to the Degrees and how much I had gained from them.  It was an easy and enjoyable task to clop a blindfolded candidate over the head with a rubber mallet as he came through the second part of the Third Degree, personifying Hiram Abiff.  It was something else altogether to qualify for the Chairs.  But I loved Freemasonry---I was a fanatric Mason---and I was willing to do anything within her precepts to advance her interests.  Even to learning, to doing my prep, and to gaining an awareness of the contents of Masonic Law and Masonic tradition in order to be accepted as a competent Master Mason, qualified to ascend through the chairs.

There is a metaphor for Poetry in this prose statement.

Starward