A succinct visual description of my religious practice.

My practice is a Mystery. Like most Mysteries, it comes from the gods.

This past March I started reaching out spiritually to Powers I felt suited me. I was raised Jewish and I value highly what that gave me, so I began by courting Lilith--a peculiar combination of goddess and demon--as an aspect or other side of the Shekhina, the Presence of God, She who bears the souls of the righteous dead on her wings, the Sabbath Bride, the Mother of all good and pure souls. It seemed right. I'd been reading Raphael Patai's The Hebrew Goddess, which discussed both the Shekhina and Lilith and mused upon their connection.

I wrote about my spiritual response to this book; I mused upon the connection myself. Then, anxious but inspired, I undertook a small but intensely personal photography project dedicated to Lilith. It involved nudity--potentially a daunting prospect for anybody, but especially demanding of a transgender person like myself.

Not long after that devotional project was done, I was preparing to take a shower--I stepped into the tub, and I got a firm nudge. Turn off the lights.

I turned off the lights.

For about five months now since that communication, my practice has been more or less stable. I've tried a few new things, some more successfully than others, but the core of it remains the same.

Every Friday, after sunset, I go to the mantle above the fireplace, where I have set up two candles (usually white, but I've tried red on a few occasions--there doesn't seem to be a noticeable difference in results). I sing the blessing for wine that I grew up with as a child, and I drink a small portion of red wine. Then I light the candles and sing the blessing for the Sabbath that I grew up with as a child. It took me a few tries to remember the tune, but I have it pretty well down now.

After that, I withdraw to my bedroom to relax and prepare. I may drink a little more wine; I definitely take some marijuana (which is legal where I live). I don't think the drugs are in and of themselves a required portion of the practice, but I personally need them to get into the right mindset.

I go into the bathroom and set incense to burn. I pour some red wine into an offering bowl. I set up an MP3 player of some sort to play music. When I'm ready, I mix some salt into the offering bowl, turn on the music, turn on the shower, turn out the lights, and step under the water.

For about half an hour to forty-five minutes, I meditate upon my gods, and I connect with them. I simply call it ritual. Above all else, the point is to achieve an ecstatic trance state and meet whatever Powers I've been working with lately.

It works quite consistently. There have, over the past five months, been a handful of times when I misjudged my dosage of entheogens and felt too ill to continue the ritual, but otherwise, I only failed to achieve the right altered state of consciousness once or twice. I suspect the key factor is that I have done this, without fail, every Friday night since early April, save for one week in late July when I was traveling.

Gifts from the gods set the stage for Mysteries, but consistency makes a practice.

It's not entirely a rigid structure. I sometimes add additional offerings to mark special occasions or invite other deities. Occasionally, in an attempt to boost the power and dedication of a given ritual, I'll use washable marker to draw sigils on my body. Often I shake some salt into the bathtub first.

In the time since I first began the ritual, I have worked not just with the duality of Lilith and the Shekhina and Her husband Hashem, but a variety of nearby deities. Ishtar, Set, and Dionysos were the first additions, but in recent months the latter has drawn me into the world of ancient Greek mystery religion to meet Ariadne-Persephone and Demeter, or at least facets of them.

But the Mystery of the darkness and the running water at the heart of the thing came from a Jewish Power, and you can see it in the structure: I work and live in the material world during the week, and then on Friday night I light candles, sing prayers, and greet Divinity.

This is not a reconstructed practice, nor is it Wiccan. It doesn't fit comfortably within the boxes some people assume modern neopaganism must have. But if Demeter could give the secrets of Eleusis to Triptolemus, why can't Lilith give me this thing?

Mysteries have to start somewhere.