The Twelve Wild Swans

by Starhawk

  “The work has changed a lot over the past decade,” David says. “Ten years ago, men were often much more reluctant to meet as a group of men. Women aren’t afraid of other women the way men are afraid of men. But what’s most important is for the leaders to model safety and respect. You set a tone for the group, by being confident, relaxed, content in yourself, and secure in your power as a man or as a woman.”

  From our work together, we’ve also learned the following guidelines:

  1. Allow enough time. The group needs time to bond, to experience being in sacred space together, to build trust. Ideally, we like to work for at least five sessions. Over a weekend, this would typically mean a Friday night session, sessions on Saturday morning, afternoon, and evening, and at least one session on Sunday morning.

  2. The energetic experience, not intellectual analysis, creates transformation. Insight emerges from experience. We don’t present feminist theory, nor do we discourse on differences between women and men. Instead, we let the group experience sacred space, together and also in separate women’s and men’s groups. Discussion and insight come toward the end, out of our reflections on the work we’ve done.

  3. The simplest forms and processes often evoke the most profound transformation. A simple chance to speak from the heart and be heard can be more transformative than the flashiest drum trance.

  On the first night of a workshop, we do introductions, explanations, and movement, using a combination of seriousness and humor to set a tone of safety. The following day, energy work makes interrelationships visible. We have at least one session where men and women meet separately. I might lead the women in a trance or healing work, drawing from many of the exercises in this book.

  “The trick in men’s space,” David says, “is to do the centering and breathing that really relaxes people. We always do a long check-in. I would start first, to model how long and how intimate each person’s story can be. We’re not all schooled in good communication skills. Sometimes I have to tell people not to talk across the circle or remind them to speak from their own experience. The check-ins can take a long time, up to an hour and a half or two hours of a three-hour session. But by the time they’re done, there’s a higher level of trust. Then we share energy with hands-on healing. Each man is given the opportunity to step into the center of the circle and ask for the kind of energy he wants. I always go first, to model how to relax, and I say, ‘You can sing my name, touch me anywhere, sing and hum, give me energy.’”

  In the evening, we gather back together, to feel what it’s like to reconnect after we have grounded ourselves in our power as women or as men. Often we ask the women to invoke the Goddess and the men to invoke the God. This simple task may bring up deep feelings. At times it becomes deeply moving to see men and women express their power together in calling deity. At other times it brings up fear, anger, or resentment. We welcome whatever happens, as all of it becomes important material we can later work with. The evening might culminate in a drum trance and/or a spiral dance and cone of power.

  In the morning, we create sacred space and then open the group to discussion. Now the real insights and issues arise and transformation occurs. This is always a risky moment for us. What happens if nobody brings anything up? And what happens if issues arise that we can’t resolve or at least move forward in some constructive way? We can’t plan this session ahead of time; we are forced to “wander in the wilderness” and respond spontaneously.

  We do, however, have our Witches’ bag of tricks ready—a set of processes and exercises to facilitate communication and transformation.

  Council with Witnesses and/or Questions

  One group is called into the center and asked to ground and center and anchor to their core worth. For example, the women may be called into the center to speak while the men witness. They are asked to say what they have always truly wished to say to men, while the men hold their own anchors and simply listen without responding.

  When the women have spoken, the men can be given time to ask questions. The questions are often deeply meaningful and touching, but some groups will use this opportunity to become defensive or subtly accusatory. If that begins to happen, stop the process and move on.

  Now switch places, and give the men a chance to speak while the women listen, and then let the women ask questions.

  This is a form that can be used for gender work and for other sorts of work around diversity: people of color and European Americans; old, middle-aged, and young people; people who have been in the group for years and newcomers. It creates a formal, ritualized structure that can allow people to express truths they might otherwise be reluctant to. But it works effectively only when a group has had time to build trust—or, at least, relationships. Sprung cold on a group that doesn’t know each other, it is likely to evoke superficialities.

  A variation might be to build on the Old Woman exercise given earlier and ask the listeners to imagine themselves as She Who Listens (or He Who Listens).

  Many Genders

  Donald has also explored the issue of gender. Like many queer men and women, he finds the two genders recognized by the dominant culture inadequate to describe his reality.

  “Gender is a construct,” he says. “It’s the way we build our lives around the core gifts we receive at birth or as young children, the way we choose to be, how we act in the world, how we physically respond. It’s not just about who you have sex with. Most of us go through life with our concepts around gender totally unexamined.”

  Historically, many cultures recognized more than two genders. When Donald teaches a class in magic, he has his students write a poem, song, or statement or create a dance or performance that describes their true gender without using the words man or woman, masculine or feminine.

  “The idea is that a Witch’s power is in her word,” he says. “If you don’t know the word for the gender you have, you lose power. And if the culture does not provide you with a word, you may have to invent one.”

  Transmuting our rage, healing ourselves, and learning to give and receive feedback and communicate honestly within our communities are important and political tasks. But they are not enough. Ultimately, we must change the conditions that have caused the pain.

  Reclaiming has strong roots in the political tradition of nonviolent direct action. We are committed to nonviolence because we believe that each of us is the Goddess. Nonviolence as a philosophy recognizes that within each person is a spark of the sacred. We may disagree with our opponents’ actions or beliefs, but we must honor that they, too, are part of the Goddess. We respect our opponents and communicate with them. Our goal is not to destroy them, but to change a situation.

  “I burned my draft card and went to prison,” David says, “because I wanted my hands to do the works of mercy and not the works of war. That was the Catholic worker formulation. Today I’d say that the law of Witchcraft is that everything that you put out returns to you threefold, and the law of Witchcraft is that I am the beloved son of Mother Earth and the cosmos and it is she and her partner who give me my life and my sustenance. So I won’t harm my sisters and brothers and myself, or the air, the fire, the water, or the earth. As a Witch, I honor the sacredness of all life, and I see injustice not as evil that has to be destroyed, but as imbalance.”

  Of course, there is much diversity within our community in our understanding of nonviolence. David, on one end of the spectrum, is a lifelong pacifist. Others in our community are war veterans, and a few are actively in the military. Some see activism as a “warrior” path, in the sense that being a warrior means being present, aware, and willing to put oneself physically on the line. Others dislike the term warrior.

  Nonviolence is a constant experiment, a challenge to think beyond the confines of domination and envision creative possibilities. It draws on our deepest imagination and demands all the powers and skills we have learned through our magical practice.

  Magic has been called “the art of changing co
nsciousness at will.” The same definition works for political activism. When we take action as Witches, we’re not working merely to change who has power within an unjust system; we are enacting a spell that challenges the structure of power itself and the consciousness that sustains it.

  When the Old Woman in our story tells the brothers to break their wicked vow, she changes their consciousness. She opens a new choice for them—a choice that was always there but that their preconceived ideas did not let them see. Political action can serve in the same way. When Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, the segregated area reserved for blacks in the pre–civil rights South, she opened up a whole range of choices that faced every person in the community, black or white: to continue to accept an unjust situation or to refuse to comply with it.

  The world today is still far from just, free, and healed. When we look around us, we may see our society caught in many unfortunate promises and wicked vows that never should have been made: the vow to protect property and profits at the expense of people and the environment; the vow to suppress those whose color, gender, speech, or sexual preference offends us; the vow to use force against those who threaten the powers that be.

  When the early suffragists marched, picketed the White House, and went to jail, they were acting as the Old Woman, saying, “Break your vow to keep women from equality and public power!” When Martin Luther King Jr. led civil rights marches, he was saying, “Break your vow to keep my people oppressed!” When many Reclaiming folks joined the blockade of the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, we were saying, “Take apart your unjust system that overrides our laws in the name of profit and benefits the rich at the expense of the poor!”

  The systems that support those vows may seem invulnerable, but they are not. When we become the Old Woman who appears out of some other dimension, we refuse to accept the terms and definitions of the systems in power. We come at them sideways, with a perspective they don’t expect, and bring to light what has been unspoken and unseen.

  Nonviolence does not mean nonconfrontational. “Nonviolence isn’t passive, it’s active,” Katrina says. “You need strong support to stand with your anger and not strike out.”

  All the work we’ve done on finding and being allies and honoring diversity comes together when we step forward and put our bodies on the line for something we believe in. Katrina describes a tense situation when she was defending a women’s health clinic from anti-abortionists.

  “We had a diverse coalition and a lot of disagreement about nonviolence. Not all of the groups were willing to renounce violence, but I defended their right to be with us as long as they would agree not to use violence in this action. In fact, I said that I had not renounced violence, either, but that for this action I would hold to nonviolence. When it came time for the worst part of the defense, at a clinic in suburban Maryland, anti-choice folks in army fatigues were coming up to us yelling and screaming. At one point there was this black woman screaming in my face that I was a traitor to my race because I was there, and I was so angry I was losing it. And guess who were the ones who helped me? It was the radical folks I’d defended who stood beside me and said, ‘No, she’s not a traitor to her race,’ and helped me keep from lashing out. Because they understood what I was feeling, and they had made an active commitment to nonviolence. They weren’t like some of the more conservative folks who would never be violent anyway; they had to work hard at it, as I did. It takes an active effort.”

  Nonviolent direct action may bring us into situations of enormous tension and danger. We may face the attacks of those threatened by our stand, or the violence of police gone out of control. And any type of political action, whether we’re blockading a bulldozer or running for a local office, can bring us into situations of conflict and stress. When our system is flooded with adrenaline, we can become filled with anger or fear. “Fight or flight” is the body’s response.

  Don’t Panic

  Effective nonviolence depends on our ability to remain calm under tension, to continue to choose to communicate even when we are being threatened. “Don’t Panic!” —the helpful words engraved on the cover of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—are also good advice for activists—or priestesses, for that matter. Magic can teach us how to not panic, in three words: breathe, ground, and anchor.

  BREATHE: The deep belly breath we use in grounding will help keep you calm in an emergency. Again, practice regularly until you find yourself automatically shifting to your belly breath under stress.

  GROUND: Again, the more regularly we practice the grounding techniques described in this book, the more reliably we can quickly ground in a tense situation.

  ANCHOR: Speak and act from your core, anchored state. Whether you’re testifying at a public hearing, resolving a difference of viewpoints in a meeting, or attempting to calm a riot cop gone out of control, you are most effective if you can ground and speak from your core worth. Use the anchoring exercises in the Outer Path in chapter 1. Practice them regularly, in safe and calm situations, and you will be able to quickly anchor in a crisis.

  All the work of this chapter—calling in our allies, relinquishing revenge, learning to listen, channeling our rage, and understanding the views and visions of those different from us—is preparation for nonviolent action. The same skills and qualities that allow us to serve our communities as priestesses, teachers, and organizers allow us to serve the world as the Old Woman who will stand forth and demand that a wicked pattern be broken.

  We have reached the sea and found our brothers. We’ve learned to stand our ground in the face of rage, to call our allies to help us, and to become allies ourselves of all who are willing to break the wicked vows that keep others chained. We’ve looked at our own shadows and relinquished our desires for revenge.

  Now we’re ready to be carried away into a deeper realm of magic.

  FOUR

  Carried Away

  Comments on the Story

  The brothers weave a basket to carry Rose with them in their journey across the sea, a journey that can be made only on the two longest days of the year—those that flank Midsummer Night. Resting one night on a tiny island in the sea, they fly to the magic land ruled by the dark fairy, the Fata Morgana.

  The brothers, who are time incarnate, are bound by time. Only at the hinge point of the year, the summer solstice, can they pass between the worlds and travel the great distance from the magical realm to the land of their birth. To learn magic is to learn the art of timing. The power of a ritual, or of any creative work, lies in giving just enough and not too much. We must catch the energy, the impulse, and follow it all the way to its end, but not beat it to death. We must also know how to edit, what to cut, when to let go.

  The brothers are shamans, Witches. Not only can they fly to the realm of magic; they can carry Rose there. To create a ritual is to weave a basket, a container, in which we can be carried away to realms of magic and ecstasy. The container must be strong enough to hold us. The higher we hope to fly, the more tightly woven it must be.

  Up until now, Rose has followed her call, her intuition, her river. Now she must simply let go and allow herself to be carried away. In any initiation, there comes a moment when the initiate must give over control. In any creative process, there comes a moment when the work takes over, the characters come alive and take on a will of their own. In ritual, the true moments of ecstasy occur when we let the power move us. But for those moments to happen, the basket needs to be woven, the container needs to be strong.

  The work of this section of the story is to dance the balance between risks and boundaries, between containing our power and letting it loose, between holding to a strong intention and letting ourselves be carried away.

  The Elements Path

  Rose’s brothers weave a basket of willow wands to carry her over the sea to the magical land of the Fata Morgana. The journey can be made only on the longest day of the year, Midsummer Day. Only then do they hav
e enough winged daylight hours to reach a tiny rock in the middle of the ocean where they can huddle in human form until the short night is over. They will be able to complete the journey on the next day, which is almost as long.

  Like Rose, we must be willing to be carried to strange and wonderful lands in order to learn how to create a satisfying spiritual practice based on Mother Nature. Like Rose, we must be willing to take a “long journey over water.”

  In Western mystery tradition, the “long journey over water” refers to using meditation techniques that give us access to other forms of consciousness besides that of Talking Self. Stilling our bodies and conscious minds with deep breathing and relaxation, we can reach a state that we call trance in the Reclaiming tradition. In this super-relaxed but alert state, we find that our spirits can “travel” while our bodies rest, and we can directly experience the world of Younger Self, with its powerful sensation and dreamlike imagery. We can go to the land east of the sun and west of the moon where time shifts so that past and future become accessible and where intuitive guidance from Deep Self is close at hand. Here our demons walk the earth where we can find and face them and sometimes even befriend them. The work of the Elements Path for this section of the story is to learn basic trance techniques and practice some beginner’s trances.

  Trance: The Story of Jaybird’s Dream

  Jaybird was a woman who was feeling stuck in her troubled relationships with her mother and sister. One night she dreamed that she was back in the house where she grew up, with all her mother’s precious and unusual art objects collected from around the world. Her sister was there, too, and the young women were supposed to take care of the house.