Update 7/18/19: My club still uses the flag but we’re now called Cabal Fang Temple, and we’re a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational charity. Visit our website or purchase our 12-week personal growth program at Smashwords, Amazon, B&N, or wherever fine e-books are sold.
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Original post:
There are four initiations in the martial art of Cabal Fang. We call them trials. The first one comes about 90 days after starting. The fourth and final one, our equivalent to the Black Belt exam, comes after about 3 or 4 years of practice.
I always find myself gathering together the same basic tools at the last minute. We have someone facing a trial tomorrow evening and, in rather atypical fashion, I decided on Saturday to go ahead and put everything together. Then it hit me — why not make a little kit and have it ready to go?
I took an old suitcase that I inherited from my paternal grandmother and used Dupli-Color vinyl paint to change it from powder blue to black. Call me self-conscious if you must, but the idea of strutting into a martial arts club meeting with a ladies’ powder blue, 1960s-era suitcase straight out of Breakfast at Tiffany’s didn’t appeal to me in the slightest.
The kit contains:
- Gold altar cloth with green fringe (green, gold, and brown are the colors of our order)
- Three green altar candles
- Seven tea light candles with copper pots to mark off the initiate’s circle
- Pitcher for dousing the initiate
- Green towel to dry initiate
- Anointing oil
- Brass dish and incense cones
- Multi-purpose lighter
This isn’t everything we need for every trial, just the core items that are used most often. What a load off my mind not having to worry about doing something stupid like forgetting the anointing oil like I did last time.
Robert Mitchell Jr. 