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The Fool The Fool was the significator
card of that Tarot reading. The significator is the card that indicates the
subject of the entire reading. The Fool is a very expressive card of the
Major Arcana. In many Tarot decks this card depicts a youth who, trusting in
divine protection, is about to step off a precipice into an abyss. In
divination, this card indicates the initiation of a new phase in a person’s
life. It also indicates that risks are required in such a beginning. In
hindsight, I now realize how accurately this card represented the beginning
of my police career. I hadn’t put that much
thought into it the first time that I had joined such an organization. Both
the maternal and paternal sides of my family have a military tradition. My
maternal line can be traced back through the Plantagenet kings to William the
Conqueror and Charlemagne. Generations of males in my family were in the
army, though my father was an exception. He had been a flight sergeant and a
flight engineer in 24 Squadron of the Royal Air Force. When I was twelve and
a half he enrolled me in 525 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Cadets. At first
the military seemed to be the career that I wanted. I had only been practicing
Wicca for a few years at the time that I joined the Canadian Armed Forces. I
hadn’t yet found anyone else to practice my Wiccan beliefs with at that
point. I had prowled the few Vancouver stores that offered metaphysical
books, looking for notices or information. I’d drawn a complete blank. I
remember standing in one such book store in Vancouver’s Kitsilano district
for two hours getting up the courage to ask someone in the store if they knew
of any Wiccans in the city. I was a young man with short hair trying to get
into the Air Force. The staff were probably looking at me then and saying to
themselves, “No way! He looks like a cop.” They told me that they didn’t know
of anyone. I combed through the few
books on Witchcraft available for any sort of contact information. In those
days there were only about a dozen books on Wicca available, and most of
those only through special orders. Apart from a few hard to get books by
Gerald Gardner and “The White Goddess” by Robert Graves, there wasn’t much to
be had. Wiccan authors such as the Farrars, Holzer, Buckland, Valiente, Leek,
Lady Sheba and the Frosts were just then writing their early books. These
books started appearing in the stores over the next few years. I had snatched
these books up as quickly as my limited resources allowed. One of these books
was Hans Holzer’s The Witchcraft Report. In it, Holzer mentioned a Wiccan named Roy Dymond, a registered masseur
in Stouffville, Ontario. I recall writing to Roy
Dymond just before I attended Royal Roads Military College in 1972. I wanted
to ask Roy’s advice: Should I let the Canadian military know that I was
Wiccan? Roy’s reply to me was not
encouraging. He wrote a short note back telling me that since I was on the
other end of the country from him, there wasn’t much that he could do for me.
Roy told me that a person announcing to the Canadian military that they were
a Witch would be received “in about the same way that the military would
accept the news that one of their members was gay: Very badly.” He advised me
to reconsider my choice of profession. I decided on a compromise. I entered
the military and kept my beliefs to myself. It was very discouraging. Dymond wasn’t far off the
mark. Upon entering Royal Roads I quickly discovered that all of us officer
cadets were required to attend Christian religious services on Sundays. Two
choices were available: Catholic or Protestant.
Officer cadets were quietly encouraged to enhance their chances of
advancement by joining the Officer’s Christian Union. Actually the Protestant
chaplain turned out to be an understanding soul. He explained to me that he was shackled by
regulations and procedures from National Defense HQ. He couldn’t excuse me
from this requirement to attend Christian services, but he didn’t mind me
reading a book in the back of the Protestant chapel during services. This is exactly what I did.
That is how I first learned what reaction I might expect from society. I
quickly learned that many of those seated around me in the chapel were far
less tolerant than the Protestant chaplain. People scowled and whispered
amongst themselves. Fellow officer cadets thrust Bibles and Hymnals in my
direction. Delegates of the Officer’s Christian Union visited me to express
their displeasure. Part of the reason for my later decision to leave the
Canadian Armed Forces to join the Vancouver Police Department was that I
hoped that the Vancouver PD was going to be an organization more open to
religious diversity than the Canadian Armed Forces was then. I still laugh when I recall that
expectation today. I don’t mean to suggest that
my fellow officer cadets were all like that. A small group began to hang
around with me at Royal Roads, calling themselves the “Officer’s Pagan
Union.” We didn’t share any particular beliefs. We simply agreed that we had to right to
have our own opinions. I’m happy to
report that this situation is gradually improving for Pagan members of the
Canadian Armed Forces. Recently the
Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia attended an outdoor handfasting
(Wiccan wedding) in North Vancouver for her aide: An army captain who is Wiccan. Having had these experiences,
I felt better prepared to face my new career as a police officer. Yet I
realized that I was entering unexplored territory. No police officer had been
public about their Wiccan beliefs before. No matter how much I had prepared
myself, I knew that I was bound to discover many unexpected implications to
my decision. I decided to proceed slowly and cautiously if I could. |
The Fool
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Dispatches:
Volume 2 No. 1 Imbolc/Feile
Bhride/Brigid//Barri/Iddis-Thing 2007 |