Practicing the Entered Apprentice degree last night was a real treat. I will be taking the part of the Junior Steward during the degree, which seems like an excellent place to start. As far as I can tell, there are no speaking parts. One thing that is so amazing to me is how seriously my lodge brethren are taking the work. The head of the degree team is a Past Master who moved up here from a California lodge, and he is very strict about our movements and actions during the ritual. This will hopefully give us the appearance of a well-oiled ritual machine, and be extremely impressive to those observing the degree. There is a lot of memory work involved, and a lot of additional ritual work that I never even knew existed! It's great to see and I'm excited about the opportunity to learn more of it.

In light of my recent Masonic activities, I thought I would share an article titled "MASTERing the Art of Learning Ritual". I also have some other links to share. First, is the Regular Grand Lodge of Yugoslavia of AF&AM, which is a small but growing Grand Lodge with a very nice looking web page. Next is 4Masonry.com, which looks to be a good collection of online resources for Masons. They also have a free e-mail system. Check them out!

Finally, I have collected two links about Table Lodges. The first link comes from Indiana Masons Online and contains a diagram of a table lodge and some suggested toasts and activities. The second link is provided to us by The Electric Lodge No. 495 in the Grand Lodge of Canada in the Province of Ontario. It describes some of the peculiarities and history behind the Table Lodge, and makes for some good reading. Enjoy!