Gentle Readers,

One of the important things to realize about a vigil is that you can't it all yourself. Well, I'm sure it's possible, but it's a recipe for an unpleasant time so if only because no matter how perfectly planned you will still not be able to deal with everything on the day of (because you are supposed to be pondering).

With the established peerages, the vigilant often has a formal relationship with a member of the order who can take them through the process our at least offer advice. There are also years of tradition that can be drawn on for all of the ceremony.

With this there is no presidents for any of it. We have to build the ceremony from scratch. What we do may, (or may not) be the start of a tradition. I've never formally been anyone's student so that's a relationship I don't have to draw on. I also don't have a formal relationship with an active household. Ore an active relationship with a formal household.

What I do have is lots of friends. Friends who are throwing themselves into helping like piranhas in a feeding frenzy. I feel really lucky to have so many people willing and eager to help but asking fire that help is really hard. Not because I'm worried that I'll look like I'm weak our anything, I just hate imposing on people. I don't want people feeling obligated.

I might also be a little worried about being obligated back. Fortunately I can recognize the silliness of that thought and mostly let it go.

"Many of my friends espouse some kind of faith, and it's clear to me that they get some good out of it. My feeling is that religion and faith, like music or sports or drugs or creativity, is a way of making parts of your brain light up in a way that is pleasurable and that often encourages you to do good. I think that part of it is good.

"But just like all of those things, religion and faith make some people do bad things, as they find pathological ways of evoking the pleasurable sensation in their minds. I also think that the pleasurable sensation that attends the numinous state is a powerful conditioner of behavior, and that it can be exploited to get people to do terrible things (cf violent religious extremism), or merely things that are not good for them (deferring to religious authorities with bad ideas, giving money they can't afford to religious causes)."

--Cory Doctorow