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[anewbrother]

One thing that I love about Lodge is that we sing. We aren't all great and talented, but we all at least give it a shot. There is one absolutely beautiful bass who I am always surprised is an administrator in real life, because he should have been on stage harassing Don Giovanni from the afterlife, and a countertenor who actually is a musician in real life, and then other than that.

But basically, I went from a very rough and ropey contralto, to a very rough and ropey bass, after a year or so in the middle where I could barely speak 100 words a day without my throat hurting, never mind sing. Plan in centuries- Any setback will be temporary.

i am SO sick of the fearmongering around T and how it will affect your singing voice. i have been singing since i was a kid. i mean i have been singing as long as i could talk, i was once in an all girls choir, i was the youngest person in my churches choir when i was, like, 8. i never had much confidence in my voice because i sounded like a girl, which led me to singing less, which led me to sounding worse. before i started T i was SO worried that it would ruin my beautiful feminine singing voice.

but the difference is like night and day. i sound SO much better than i did pre-T. i can sing without hating myself. i sound like a man and i can sing

and yea maybe i’m no longer and 8 year old soprano. but i can sing and listen to myself and not want to die and isn’t that fucking wonderful?

[anewbrother]

Freemasonry themed vintage postcard

[anewbrother]

Discovered that John Brown was raised (Hudson Lodge 68) on the 11th of May 1824, exactly two hundred years and three days before I was initiated, in the same session of the year.

That makes me very happy.

[anewbrother]

Trans inclusive Round Table and trans inclusive Freemasons (And, the trans inclusive Freemasons also have their own Knights Templar, where you get to be a Sir and to carry a sword), the world is going good places! ❤️

Doorbell rang so my dad went off to get it, and when he came back and I asked who it was he just said "Ugh 😒 Just some Round Table nonsense" & I'm like "?????? Round Table as in King Arthur's Round Table??" "Yeah :/" The goddamn Knights Templar were at our front door and you just sent them away???

[anewbrother]

Am starting to really get into the rhythm of our practise nights now - We are rehearsing a 2nd Degree, which means that me and the other EA (The one who it is going to actually be for) have to sit out for a middle chunk of the process, which means that we go downstairs and sit and chat for a while alone, before rejoining the rest of the Lodge to close and then to have drinks.

And it feels like this is a brilliant innovation of Freemasonry too: So, the Brothers who you are close to in age-within-masonry - that do their degrees at roughly the same time as you and then eventually that you will go through the chairs with - are the ones who you'll likely be closest to for the longest times. I'm really close to a half-dozen or so of the more senior Brothers, all Past Masters, but they're although still a fraternal relationship, it's more like an uncle-type of relationship, or older-cousin type of relationship: They have a lot to teach me, and a lot more life experience, and I am primarily keeping my two ears open and my one gob shut when it comes to Masonic things. But me and the other EAs and candidates are much more of a sibling relationship. The more advanced EAs still have to sit out of the same things as I do, and there are things that the FCs still have to sit out of too, and that time when we're sat together builds up our bond, because it makes us talk to each other (Not that we would avoid each other otherwise! But because in a Lodge of a dozen people, you can easily just not have time to meet and talk to everyone, in the short time you have!)

Enumerating again: Right now there is one FC, two EAs ahead of me, then me, then one balloted, one about to be balloted, and two others who haven't been interviewed yet, and one who did their first informal meet and greet at the Lodge today. Our litter of cubs is pretty much going to double the size of the Lodge if we're all active.

Today again, me and the other EA, Brother Sine Nomine, under the approval of two of the other brothers, got a chance to dig in the library and pick out books to read - not ritual books, just interesting ones about history and thoughts. I got The Unwritten Laws Of Freemasonry (which I'll probably review here and is a great look at the social norms and customs of UGLE lodges in the 1920s) and Manly P Hall's Freemasonry Of The Ancient Egyptians (which is a fantastic bong rip of a book) and he got two esoteric books also from the turn of the century- So I suspect that next week we'll swap and then compare notes.

I am really pleased to get a chance to read all these amazing things (as well as everything else, there are 150 years' worth of signature books and Lodge minutes in there! That's exciting!) And my seconder seemed really pleased that he had two new people who wanted to get into Ars Quatuor Coronati and masonic learning rather than joining the Chivalric Order of the Knife and Fork (his words, not mine!). I was also given two charity stewards' jewels from the 1950s and 60s, and a related Royal Arch Companion's jewel, which were mouldering in a sadly wet cupboard, with the sentiment that, as they belonged to Freemasonry and I belonged to Freemasonry, they may as well be mine, and that caring for the belongings of our departed Brothers is a kind of care that is valuable in itself. So, I've taken them, and his name, and will keep them together, and find some way to display them respectfully.

But then also, I love that there isn't really any friction between the Chivalric Knife And Fork and the feral bookworms. Two of the absolute pillars of our lodge are a guy who is in about a dozen orders and is at the Lodge for *something* nine days a week, and the other is purely a Light Blue, comes in on a Tuesday night and leaves for his tea afterwards and then doesn't think about Masonry again until he's getting on the bus on the next Tuesday evening.

[anewbrother]

Went visiting for the first time tonight, so my first ever time sitting in Lodge was not even at my own Lodge!

I can feel this web of connection spreading out from me and onto me like a money spider's ballooning line - It’s gently attaching me to other Lodges, other people, other routines, and all I would need to do to strengthen that line would be to keep repeating it.

The Lodge we were visiting was "notably elderly" according to my 70-year-old W.Bro Comrade who drove me up there, and "full of experience but thus also grey hair and sleepy heads" in the estimation of my 85-year-old W.Bro Friend, and in that group of largely very elderly Freemasons, I have never felt so much warmth and love. These lads had all known each other for fifty years at the absolute minimum, they all know each other's wives and kids and kids-in-law and grandkids and grandkids-in-law and great-grands too, and have nearly all lived here since all this was fields and the Masonic halls were rammed to the rafters every night, and now they have fifty mens' worth of devotion and care crammed into the half-dozen survivors.

I'm also so happy with how much this is deepening my local connections- I'm meeting people and they turn out to live on the street next to mine, or to go to the local pub that I start my walks from, or to be neighbours with my best friend, and we all know the same landmarks and the same people and it just makes me feel so much like part of something real.

Also now I want to learn the songs! W.Bro Friend has a lovely clean, warm countertenor that somehow manages to lead the chorus without being sharp at all, and although I don't have a good voice (a tin ear and a four note vocal range) I still want to be able to at least get the words in the right place and be able to join in. I haven't sang en masse since I was at school, and even just a verse of the national anthem felt good.

[anewbrother]

I am a freemason!

I don't want to spoil the surprise for anyone else who is going to do the same, but in short I had an amazing, emotional, beautiful night with a few dozen of my best new brothers, and the ones who couldn't make it phoned me today to ask me how it went and to congratulate me.

This was my first time meeting more of the people from my Lodge and also from a lot of the other local Lodges, and they are all just lovely guys (sidenote: Also so many beautiful singing voices! I am absolutely knocked flat by the world class baritone who led the rounds of tunes, but the fellows around me were no slouch at all either!)

And more than anything else, I am looking forward to watching the initiation of Brother Subsequent in a couple of months' time, so that I can see the same ceremony from the outside.

For now, I have so much to read and to think about and to prepare for! We're all going to go visiting another Lodge, our great-granddaughter, at another Hall next week, so my first time actually sitting in Lodge will be as a visitor.

[anewbrother]

how?? just how?

[anewbrother]

Here we go...

[anewbrother]

In another one of life's weird synchronicities, just as I was walking a friend home tonight and had paused as we passed our former Worshipful Master's grave in the village cemetery, my seconder (who is also a great friend and a really stand-up bloke full stop), rang me to have a natter and see how I was feeling in advance of The Big Tomorrow - And we hung on the phone for two hours, talking about cars we'd owned and which farm shops we rated.

I am a totally normal amount of emotional right now, nothing weird at all.

[anewbrother]

Here we go!

Spent this evening at the Hall mostly doing the physical preparation- Finding slipshod shoes that fit and a white garment, making sure I have people's right names for the toast. I am nervous - Mostly I'm nervous about eating in front of people, which feels like a silly thing to say, when food is the only familiar part of the evening.

It was so good tonight, seeing so many people all hyped about next week, and everyone seems like they are genuinely excited for not just a new Brother, but for getting to perform this ceremony too. As everyone has said: "This is your night, it's for you alone, and we all envy you for getting to experience it afresh."

But, here we go, here we go, here we fucking go!

[anewbrother]

Founders' jewel of Starlight Lodge 8621, London

Consecrated 1974

Erased 1996 due to decreased membership

This founders' jewel belonged to a steward

[anewbrother]

Founders' jewel of Acorn Lodge 8843, Surrey

Consecrated 1978

Erased 2005 due to decreased membership

[anewbrother]

Getting closer to my initiation and really hope it goes well.

Work has been a nightmare lately and coming to the Lodge and being able to put my phone down and not think about any of that nonsense for an hour or two has been a real reprieve and a boon. I don't know if the brothers know how much of an oasis they are for me, but they are.

[anewbrother]

Founders' jewel of Thorpe St Andrew Lodge 8010, Norfolk

Consecrated 1964

Still a live lodge, but I can't find their WM online.

[anewbrother]

Founders' jewel for Pendle Lodge 4703, Colne

This is also one where I will replace the ribbon, which has decayed and fallen off at some point in the intervening hundred years.

Consecrated 1924

Wm for 2024 W. Bro Mark Barlow

Since this is a living lodge and it's their centenary, I will try to get this back to them.

[anewbrother]

Founders' jewel of Marsden Lodge 3978, Marsden in the Pennines

The ribbon has been lost at some point, so I have bought new synthetic ribbon to replace it with (The original would have been watered silk grosgrain, which is silk grosgrain treated with a hot roller to produce a ripple texture)

Consecrated 1919

Erased 2005, merged with Pennine Valley Lodge to form Marsden And Pennine Valley 6183