katerinfg asked for "Laurely thoughts that might be helpful to someone on the path."

Perhaps the most standard Laurel-y advice is "Do what you love and don't worry about becoming a Laurel." I hate this advice, but it's so common that it must be useful to somebody.

The most benign interpretation of the advice is "If thinking about Laurel politics is stressing you out, maybe you should try making something instead." The advantage of this re-interpretation is that it remains useful after one becomes a Laurel, when Laurel politics become more stressful, because people tell you it is your duty to care about them. The disadvantage is that a natural extrapolation is "Maybe you should try making something that has nothing to do with the SCA at all," which may lead to happiness (I've been enjoying this strategy myself, of late) but doesn't exactly increase the glory of the Society.

The least benign interpretation is "You shouldn't be interested in becoming a Laurel, only in loving art." The problem is that saying so doesn't stop people from wanting praise, acclamation, and the respect of the people around them. Instead, it just encourages people to lie about their motivations (to themselves and others). If you have never encountered someone freaking out about why they didn't win a competition while simultaneously insisting they're only in it for the love of their art, you haven't been involved with very many SCA competitions. We'd be better off creating more local norms for decorum (like, don't be a jerk if you get bad scores in an art contest), accepting that some people are ambitious, and trying to channel those ambitions toward good.

The thing that drives me up the wall about this advice personally, though, is that it implicitly assumes that "what you love" is obvious. I am someone who likes a lot of things, and whose baseline level of intellectual intensity is pretty high. But because I am someone who likes a lot of things, it's easy for me to imagine that I could be happy doing something completely different: I commit at the 65% level very fast, and at the 95% level very rarely. The things I love are actually patterns or ways of approaching things: I care about learning new things, about formal structures like grammar and mathematics, about repetitive or meditative ways of making things, about iterating toward something better. Sometimes I tell people that my Laurel is in research and languages (learning stuff and one kind of formal structure!), but really I just did enough more or less related things until enough people on the Laurel council thought it was cool.

That's my version of the standard advice: Laurels are human. Even if you're doing everything right, it will take them a while to notice. Do things you think are interesting, ask yourself whether they're medieval things, let other people know about your questions, and try not to stress too much about the timeline.

I told gwacie:

We could play the reasie game. What do you want to hear about first? Ceremony? Food? Clothes? People? Wise advice?

She replied:

Start with the vigil :) Did you do a formal vigil? With a tent and things?

The question itself makes for an interesting bit of inter-kingdom anthropology: if I hadn't talked to sue_n_julia, I might not know what you mean about the tent. Vigils in An Tir are pretty free-form: usually there's a spread of food and the opportunity to talk to the person on vigil, sometimes in private, sometimes in a big group, but there's no real standard, and no requirement to keep non-peers from hearing the secret knowledge. "Formal" to me means "research vigils for knighthood and do the rituals involving a formal bath and clothing of a certain color". Since I was basing my ceremony on the Golden Fleece ceremony, and members of knightly orders were already knights, I didn't feel the need for the ritual bath. Instead, I made lots and lots of food.

( food, people, advice )

It's now confirmed: my Laurel ceremony will be at June Faire, which runs May 30-June 1 in Port Gamble, WA, a ferry ride from Seattle. If you've never been to an SCA event and are at all curious, you should come to this one: it's a demo in the daytime, so there's lots of stuff geared toward new people and the general public, and in the evening there will be a party. If you're already in the SCA, then you know you should come.

As of final court at Kingdom Arts & Sciences, I'm on vigil for membership in the Order of the Laurel (the SCA's highest arts and sciences honour, if you're not familiar with this stuff). glasseye and I had already checked out of the hotel, so aelfgyfu had to lure us to court ("It's just in fifteen minutes! We're only waiting for Her Majesty to make a phone call, no, you probably don't want to walk past her right now . . .") and thrust a tunic at me.

Now I have to plan a ceremony. I'm thinking I will research actual induction ceremonies for fifteenth-century knightly orders. Things to do:

• Talk to Their Majesties and choose a date for the ceremony between now and July Coronation. (June Faire?)
  
• Write a poem for Their Majesties.
  
• Get my hands on a copy of the statutes of the Order of the Golden Fleece (Boulton says they discuss the induction of a new member at some length), and translate the relevant sections.
  
• Think about clothing. (Some women wore the regalia of the Order of the Garter; can I find a picture?) Anyone want to help me sew a mantle?
  
• Scroll? (As a "copy of the statutes of the Order"?)
  
• Talk to glasseye about "admission fee" (part of admission to the Orders of the Garter, Golden Fleece, etc.)
  
• Party!