Questions to Bring to Your Elder Before You Begin

Almost everyone who arrives at this tradition arrives with a question, and almost everyone tries to answer it alone first. This guide exists to prevent the second half of that sentence.

None of it replaces an elder. What follows is what to bring to one — the ground you should have covered before you ask someone to take responsibility for your path.

1. Who is your elder?

Have you asked someone to be your godparent, or are you still looking? Almost nothing else on this list matters until that is settled. A godparent is not a teacher you hire; they are the person who answers for you in ceremony and who carries the consequences of your preparation. That is why the question comes first, and why no article — and certainly no shop — can answer it for you.

2. Why are you beginning?

Be honest with yourself before you are honest with anyone else. A difficulty you want resolved, a calling you have felt for years, and plain curiosity are three different starting points, and each is answered differently. An elder who knows which one you bring will give you a different first step than one who does not.

3. What does your house ask of you first?

Requirements differ by house and by lineage. Some ask for a period of study; some begin with a reading; some ask that you simply attend and observe for a season. Ask what is expected before any ceremony, not after, so you are never agreeing to something you have not understood.

4. What can be read before anything is done?

Many houses begin with a consultation, and some will not. Ask whether a reading comes first and, if so, who is qualified to give it in your house. This is also the moment to ask what you may and may not do on your own — the answer is usually narrower than people expect.

5. Which pieces are yours to buy?

This is the question most people skip, and the one that costs them. Some tools are received in ceremony and should never be bought in advance; others are ordinary goods you may own today. Ask which is which before you spend anything. A shop that tells you it does not matter is not advising you — it is selling to you.

6. How should you approach an elder?

Ask how they prefer to be approached, what you should bring when you visit, and whether there is a customary offering. Coming empty-handed to a first meeting is, in most houses, a small discourtesy that is remembered.

7. What is the timeline?

Weeks, months, a year, or longer? Knowing the answer stops you from forcing a pace the tradition does not keep — and it stops you from reading a slow answer as a refusal.

8. What are you not ready to hear?

Some answers close doors until the time is right. Ask your elder what you should wait on, and accept that the answer may be “not yet” for a while.

What a shop can and cannot do for you

We make and sell the pieces people need — handmade, with traditional materials, shipped unconsecrated and unblessed. What we cannot do is tell you which ceremony is yours, when to take it, or who should give it. Those belong to your elder. If a store ever tells you otherwise, treat it as a warning.

When you are ready to buy, buy the pieces your elder has named, and nothing else. Everything on this site can wait until then.