Holy crap, first time playing guitar in a rite with my stole as a spirit ally.  It’s like instead of running a faucet for the energy flow, running a whole river instead, and being able to navigate it without any inkling of gettign swept away in it.  It’s not drawing power fromt he stole, but rather through the stole.

I’ve been doing similar work with my initiate cords since initiation.  Workign with them as a sort of spirit ally.  But they are more an embodiment of the Current, rather than an individual entity.  The stole is a different ally, and new.  And when I’m working with my cords for personal or at least less public work, I’ve had similar things happen with the flow of energy being turned up like that.  I’m able to draw the Current through the cords.  But the difference with the stole is that it wants to work with and for the folk.  It is an embodiment of the folk and those responsibilities.  So when I bard in a rite, I’m focused on keeping the energy from the folk tuned in and focused: and the stole wants to help with that.  It’s like there is a resonance.  Which kind of makes sense actually, the the folk imbued it with a voice, and so it sang back.

The stole is a connection the other clergy by the way the oath binds us.  Words have power, and things that bind have power.  The stole is part of the Folk itself, just like we, each individual member of the clergy are.  Both us and the stole have been given voice by the folk and in return have oathed to serve them.  This is part of what makes the stole want to work with and for them.  The oath that bind us to the folk adds power.  The oath also binds us to other clergy in a lesser way I think.  That is more about a common goal.  But that combination also adds power.  It’s not as binding to other clergy though as say the Current is binding amongst the initiates.

The stole is charged by the Folk, and the clergy are an association of individuals focused on a goal: serving the folk, loving the land, and honoring the gods.  Initiates are people who have chosen each other and brought new streams into the Current themselves.  The focus for clergy should be on becoming a support network for each other as they focus on that common goal, specifically in serving the folk, as that is what the stole ally is specifically designed for, what it is specifically charged for.

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