Friday, February 10, 2017

Initiation into the Fraternity Realm

Must fills the air, intoxicating you with its fumes. Candles flicker in the breeze which swirls past your legs in small amounts as the wind outside tries to make its way into the cellar doors. The raggy potato sack over your head itches your nose as you try to see who or what is making the murmuring noise around you. Deep red robes encapsulate those around you. Quickly the bags are ripped from the heads of you and your peers, you may have lost a hair or two in the process. The strangers before you begin to speak audibly as they call to their brothers near and far to hear them with this plea, to never turn against one another, to never disobey the laws, to never share these secrets with the rest of the world. This is the pledge, and now you must sacrifice yourself and your blood to become part of the community as well. Each subject present proceeds to cut the palm of their hand with a shredded knife and squeeze whatever amount of blood they can from their veins to fill the goblet. It is passed around and you must all drink. Now, you are a member of this sacred community for life! HAZAH!
It sounds like something out of a medieval fable, doesn’t it? Well from a very young age, this is the image we are encompassed with when pertaining to fraternities and brotherhoods formed in college. That and the skimpy girls in bikinis and costumes barely there to please guys. But this is not at all what they do. I kind of wish they did though.
I have officially begun the induction period into a fraternity of my own, my own experience of a pinning ceremony and that of others which have recounted their tales to me; vary from this original persona of sacred ceremonies. You are blind folded, you are taken to an undisclosed location, but you are not forced to do things like cut yourself and drink everyone’s blood, the subjects before you are not strange to your eyes nor do they dress in amines apparel. You simply agree to some standards and receive a little acknowledgement that you are part of the family.

Perhaps there will be more enticing events when the official official induction takes place in five weeks!

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