A Special Word From the Goddess For Third Level Practitioners  
     Let me take you back through our relationship as craft partners.  You will most likely fall into possession of these words with understanding in the crone aspect of your craft life, which is the longest aspect.
     You will remember our courtship, long ago when magick was new for you and I was the exciting, coy, intriguing maiden.  I beckoned to you many times and as I caught your attention, I led you on a lively chase, teasing and playing all the while.  I touched you in ways that excited you and showed you the promise within me.  I made you desire me with a white hot fire.  We laughed and we courted.  You told me that you loved me.  You wanted to know more about me, so I began to softly whisper into your ears the ways of magick.  Together we could have it all.  We could accomplish anything.  Our future lay before us on a glistening rainbow of fairy dust and we embraced the promise of what would be.
     Some time later, I became your loving, nurturing mother.  You saw me in your Earth and Moon and your magick became more mellow with less drama and theatrics; less urgency and more relaxed.  We had the comfort of familiarity.  I began to infiltrate your every day life rather than your circle time alone and you began to see all things and all people in a different light.  Your life changed as time moved on.  Somewhere along the line, the suppressed memory of your prebirth promise to me began to stretch itself and then floated to the surface of your conscious mind.  Though you are probably unsure of when the thoughts actually began to occur to you, slowly you began to sense that you were different, not just from maintream status quo, but even different from your craft peers.  At first, you brushed aside your burgeoning knowledge as ego and felt even a flush of shame that you would dare to think such grand thoughts, but then the feeling would no longer be ignored and the knowledge became undeniable:  You are my special child.  You began to understand that you would not pass through life as no more than a sweet little Wiccan with lovely energies.  You knew that you would be a general for me; that you would sit at my side rather than at my feet adoring me.  You would not simply stand in the masses praising my name.  You are a true extension of me and you hold my very essence when you command ritual.  You were not merely saying words written on paper or glowing with the energy of the circle, you became me and when you drew down the moon or the sun, you felt my essence walk into your skin and you felt my words leave your lips.  The wand and the sword felt easy in your hand like an old friend even while more seasoned leaders faltered.  Each time you spoke my name or cast light to a circle in my glory, you became Arthur slipping Excaliber from the stone.  You knew what you were to be to me, yet I stood by while you batted your eyes coyly and humbly shuffled your feet, thinking what an egomaniac you were for daring to feel special.  I nurtured you through all of this.  I forgave your “aw shucks” mentality while hummingly, I began to clear away the debris of your mundane life that would ultimately become an inconvenience to you and an obstacle to what we must accomplish once you regained your senses.  As your mother, I embraced you when you fell over your own toys and hurt yourself.  I kissed away your tears and loved you and nurtured you and all the while, I waited for you to stop puttering around, trying to “find yourself in the scheme of things.”  I kept you safe from yourself while you spread your wings and tried flying through life without a net for a time.
     Welcome to third level, my dear.  When you crossed the third threshold, you fell headlong into the crone aspect of our time together.  Ninety and seven of my every hundred children will never truly experience third level for most would not be able to bear it.  I am no longer the pure virginal white of the maiden and if your loins burn with lust for me, I will laugh in your face.  I am not your mother any longer and responsibilities have passed from me to you to a large degree.  I won’t kiss your boo boos any longer for we have work to do.  I do still love you, though on occasion you will swear it is not so as you fight the lessons of the crone.  What you are feeling is not a lessening of love, but a shifting of love, for you are no longer my blessed, favorite child.  Remember what you have been taught:  When one progresses past the third threshold, one is accountable only to Deity.  You are no longer my child, but have become my dearly loved and respected friend, confidant and peer.  Though I can offer you assistance and advice, I am not here with the purpose of nurturing or repairing you.  That must now come from within yourself.  We are companions in service to the Universe and as peers, we will sometimes become frustrated with one another’s moods and decisions and will occasionally take one another to task, for this is the way of all productive partnerships and is the only way to foster growth.  Make no mistake, I still hold controlling interest in our venture and I will not hesitate to thrust my 52% bargaining status in your face and refuse to give an inch if and when the situation calls for it.  But as many times and more, I will hear your words and work cooperatively with your ideas and plans.  But hear me now, when I do resist and exercise my authority, it is always for the greatest good, even if it is not your greatest good that is at stake.  Know that we are all concentrically bound to the lessons of others and not everything is about you.  At those times, we will all work together more efficiently if you will acquiesce and allow me free rein to handle things as I deem fit.  Despite your status as my peer, you do not always know best.  My vision is far more panoramic that is yours and I am able to view obstacles and clear paths from a much better prospective that can you from the mortal vantage point.
   From the Mortal Vantage Point (A Message From the Person Who Channeled the Message From the Goddess)      When you were initiated to first level, you knew it was coming.  You could see it before you, as could your teachers and elders.  It arrived in a flurry of anticipation and breathless wonder, something of an occult prom night compared to what the future would hold.  You were likely taken to task by the elders of the circle and by Deity, then presented to the Guardians of the Watchtowers and to the Pagan community as Witch.  Your magickal life as Wiccan stretched before you through the rose tinted vision of the fairy’s heart.
     Second level was more elusive, more intense.  A year and a day seldom feel long enough to prepare, so often it is postponed.  Some take second level alone as a solitary practitioner, simply knowing that it is time.  After much work and many lessons, it is often the joint decision of oneself, one’s teacher and Deity.  You now command rituals.  You may be recognized as a respected elder within your circle or tradition.  Others look to you for guidance and answers, often through the fairy’s heart.  Eventually, after much testing and studying and “trying on” different Wiccan philosophies to see if they fit, your own tradition - probably a hybrid of many - began to emerge.  You began to stand on your own as an individual Pagan and, though remaining a part of the circle, your own path became clearer and your own belief system was intact.
     Third level may have come for you in the night.  For many, it will never come.  True third level comes only after you have walked through the life-fires of purification.  If you are to be peers with Deity, should you not first be cleansed of the remaining mundanity in your spiritual life?  Should you not be made ready?  Anyone who reaches this level and - spiritually speaking - gets the key to the executive washroom, must first traverse the Valley of the Shadow of Death and pass time with the Dark Lord.  This is the equivalent of the Christians' Judgment Day, the greatest difference being that we get to experience it during our incarnation rather than after.  You may not come into consort with Deity carrying excess baggage.  It must all be cleared away.  Deity will have begun the process for you during second level if you are meant to attain third.  By the time your tour in the Valley is over, you will have faced your greatest weaknesses and found, convexly, your greatest strengths.  Months and years will pass while you are suddenly being held accountable for your every action, your every thought, your every intent.  The seals are broken on your most inner core secrets and the scales of justice are brought to balance.  You are forced to face and reconcile your every fear and weakness.  Some come through this ordeal like a sword that has been forged in fire:  stronger, cleansed and ready for service.  They are a new person, down to the cellular level.  Others are driven mad and abandon the Craft altogether for a safer passage.  For all that survive, a part of the madness may stay with them forever.
     Third levels are a strange breed, it is true.  There is an odd paradox of peace and restlessness about them.  They glow with the inner calm of knowing who they are and where they are headed and why they are going there.  There is a comfortable ease in their relationship with the Craft, although the awe, the mysteries manifold and the joy remain intact.  Ecstasy, however, walks hand-in-glove with its mate, Agony, for once you have viewed the world through thrice-born eyes, your vision will never again readjust.  Your view of fellow humans is harsher, yet more gentle.  Your breathing is thick with meaning as you recognize and understand that all things happen for a purpose; that we are led to specific places and moments in time to convey even the briefest message.  All things appear perfectly random, at the mercy of our free will choices, yet you begin to understand that our free will choices are but simply masked as such and are in actuality cleverly disguised kismet.  Therefore, all our choices, no matter whether we have agonized over it or simply tossed it off the cuff, are the right choices.  You see that light is dark and dark is light, yet light remains light and dark remains dark and wonder of wonders!  You actually understand what it means!  But Goddess knows you could not explain it anyone!  You come to understand that each person is a complexity of light and dark and that concept expands to each situation being light and dark which dashes away your previous conceptions of good versus evil.  Once you yourself have passed through the dark, you understand that dark is not evil, it is just a place.  What is left is what you started with:  “As it harms none...”  All has value in life’s weave and there is no unnecessary life or incidental experience, just ones that are not understood or maybe even meant to be understood.  As the Goddess says, “It is not always about you.”
     Typically, third levels are set apart from the mainstream of activity in both the magickal and mundane life.  Whereas in first and second level we are encouraged to “be in the world and not of it,” as a third level, this mindset is thrust upon you.  It is no longer a life choice, it is a reality.  The third level literally becomes unable to “live the ordinary life in an ordinary way.”  Because movement between the realms becomes easier and the inner voice clearer, third levels sometimes appear spacey and disoriented.  Information comes to them unsolicited, both magickally and mundanely.  Channeling becomes an ongoing process and is reflected in the mundane life by information being drawn to you as though magnetized.  The casual remarks of others, reading the right passage of written word at the right moment and other simple events suddenly are chock full of complex meaning as they interconnect with other events in the weave of life.  Third levels often do not remember what they have said as they translate messages from Deity and often students and others are distressed when, days or even minutes later, third level does not remember what transpired during a channeled conversation.  When one is on level with Deity, one is more accessible by Deity to convey information and it may come through at any time.  It is not at all unusual to be having a very mundane conversation with a third level and suddenly see them space out for a moment, then jump back saying, “Wait!  I have to tell you (or someone not even in the room/house/state/country) this!”
 As previously mentioned, when third level becomes imminent, Deity begins to prepare the priest/ess’ mundane life for the demands of service in the capacity of third level.  Obstacles are systematically stripped away and complete life reconstruction is common.  Job changes or losses, divorce, relocations and other traumatic adjustments frequently occur during this preparatory time.  A chain of events is engaged that will ultimately strip the priest/ess down to the barest essence, their simplest self.  All pretenses are eliminated and the ego is almost cruelly torn down and rebuilt.  Like a person who has tasted death and returned to find life all the sweeter, the sense of self gradually returns, finding meaning and value in the simplest of things.  All of the basic responses are reprogrammed as parts of yourself that you always took for granted fall into evaluation and realignment.  Having felt your very depths, you are then made aware of how deep you actually are.  Valuable truths about yourself become etched upon your psyche and the empath chip is implanted within you.  You truly do begin to live the ordinary life in a very unordinary way.  By becoming more of an observer of the physical life, you become more of an active participant in the spiritual life.  As all things become packed with hidden meaning, it becomes a challenge not to dissect to death the simplest of events.  It is not until third level is reached that you truly learn and understand that all the knowledge, all the wisdom, all the academic learning of first and second levels are necessary, but are bullshit.  The lesson of third level is that you know nothing, yet you know all.  My dear friend and most valued priestess once beat on the ground and screamed to Deity, “I will not sacrifice all for nothing!”  We were both on the brink of third level and were watching as our lives seemingly fell apart around us.  Everything that we had built and hoped for as reasonable, mature adults was being blown away like castles made of sand.  I argued that balance demanded that we must give in order to receive; that without sacrifice we were rendered immobile.  She countered that Goddess would take care of Her children and not demand more than we could give.  In retrospect, many years later, it is clear to me that we were both right and both wrong.  Goddess will never demand more of us than we are able to give.  The trick is that until we reach the absolute rocky, craggy, stabbed-through-the-heart bottom of our depths...until we have cursed Her name and had sobs of agony wrack our body...until our absolute will or physical ability to continue in this life have fallen into serious question...until those things have happened, we have no idea whatsoever what we are able to give to the Goddess.  Only then does our true value to Deity, the Flow of the Universe and ourselves become known

Note: This information is provided courtesy of Katetian Press and is an outtake from the book Crossing the Third Threshold by Katrina Rasbold. For information on obtaining this book, you may write the author at Rasbold@hotmail.com