The Twelve Wild Swans

by Starhawk

  If she has been able to complete only part of her work, you may wish to suggest that she “bind” the scene until she can return. This might involve ropes or nets or marking the scene with her name or a personal symbol. Many modern Witches also get good results by visualizing a video remote control pointed at the scene and hitting Pause.

  Remind her to thank any helpful beings she may have encountered and to say good-bye. Encourage her to return on her path the same way she came, back to the center of her place of power. Ask her to thank and say good-bye to the directions in her place of power, and then reverse the induction. Both partners need to stretch, pat the surfaces of their bodies, and say their names to themselves, to make sure they are completely “back” from the Otherworld.

  After doing pairs trance, use the aura “brushdown” described in chapter 3 to completely cleanse and separate the energies of the people who have worked together. Share food and drink and some informal time before opening the circle.

  The Element Water

  Traditionally, the powers of water include trance and techniques that connect us to our psychic and intuitive abilities. As well as practicing trance journeying, many Witches learn some form of divination, whether it be palm reading, card reading, astrology, psychic reading, pendulum divination, or scrying in fire or water or crystal.

  The tool of water is the cup or chalice. When filled with liquid, the cup becomes a mirror when we gaze into it, a tool of self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and self-love. We can literally drink these in from our cups. The power of the wise in the west is “to dare.” If you tried the beginner’s trance described earlier, then you have put it to the test already. You dared!

  Take some time for yourself, and spend it with living water—the ocean, a lake, or a little creek. Make your next bath or shower a ritual for cleansing and healing. Dance in the rain; walk through the deep snow. Say, “By the waters of her living womb.”

  Remember, whenever we receive blessings from Mother Nature, we must give back. To give back to water, first find out where the water you drink comes from. What protects the quality of your personal drinking water? Where is your watershed? Is that land protected from logging, from skimobiles and motorboats leaking oil and gas in their exhaust? From runoff of pesticides and fertilizers? Make and keep a commitment to do one thing in your life to help and protect the water. You need to drink it every day, so it’s only fair!

  Like Rose and her brothers, we have woven a willow basket for ourselves and dared to take a long journey over water to another land. We have soared over the gray sea and begun a right relationship with the element water. Now our journey calls us onward, to the land of the Fata Morgana and her challenge.

  The Inner Path

  Rose has overcome the first obstacles on her voyage. She has broken the rule of silence and exposed the injustice of her family history by her questioning. She has chosen the wild, and she has accepted guidance. She has endured the anger that comes from past injustice and allowed its release. Now she must overcome her fear and step into the basket, to be carried away on a wild flight few mortals will ever experience.

  Old Mother Goose, when she wanted to wander,

  would ride through the air on a very fine gander.

  Can you imagine our ancestors, standing in a harvested fall field, leaning on their rakes and pitchforks, watching the great migration overhead, and listening to the wild cries of the birds heading south, the powerful song of the beating wings? Imagine how they must have felt, as the coldness and dark closed in on their villages, knowing that somewhere it was summer? Or in the spring, hearing the cries of the sky-darkening flocks and knowing they traveled to the glittering ice country, at the back of the north wind? Can you imagine their longing to lay down the round of chores and familiarity to follow? Can you imagine their fear, when, even in the next valley, people wore different clothes and spoke with a barely understandable accent?

  Our world has no secrets anymore; we can get on a plane and follow the geese or the swans and beat them there. We could hardly find a country in the world that did not seem familiar, with the same newspapers and fast food as on any street corner at home. We can only imagine what our ancestors meant when they told this tale of a journey across the dark and deadly sea, when the swans could fly a brave girl to the strange and distant land of the Fata Morgana. And yet we, too, can know the desire to fly away on powerful wings from the endless round of everyday things. The work of the Inner Path for this section of the story is to create our baskets, woven from strong and flexible trust and love in our circles, strong enough to carry us into the sky. Once we have woven our baskets, we can fly high, experiencing the ecstatic practice that is at the heart of Witchcraft.

  Seeking Ecstasy

  Witches share with mystics from every religious and cultural background a common insight into the nature of reality. The day-to-day world of apparently separate things—its tasks and worries, its striving, lonely, consciousness—is an illusion. Like a veil, it covers an infinitely complex, unified, and joyful dance of ever-becoming, ensouled creation. The god Shiva, dancing in the circle of flames, holds his hand up in a gesture that means “Fear not!” And this is excellent advice. With trancing and chanting, dancing and drumming, in lightly or deeply altered states of awareness, we can experience directly the wondrous, ecstatic dance of creation, the galaxy-creating explosion of passion that even now moves through our human bodies, our living bodies, which at every moment gleam with spirit light and move and flow with the dance of the universe. This passionate melting of our individual consciousness into the great dance, this direct experience of the joyful oneness of all things, is part of the personal and community practice of Witchcraft. Our developing ability to experience ecstatic states “at will” builds our self-confidence and personal power and reinforces our right place in a joyous world that is immanent deity. These experiences reinspire and reenergize us to return to the world, where we then can continue to love and work and, when necessary, fight to protect the web of life, the ones we love, and all the living.

  Weaving a Willow Basket

  But Rose is not a swan; she is a human girl. And we Witches are human also, regardless of how ecstatic we may become while trancing, chanting, and dancing. Rose can survive this journey across the sea only because she and her brothers weave a basket of willow wands, strong enough to safely carry a person who has no wings. We, too, must weave a basket to ride in. But instead of weaving it out of willow, we must weave it out of another plant that grows by water, out of our love and trust for the other people in our circles, and out of love and trust for ourselves and the Goddess.

  It is often said in our oral tradition that coveners are closer than family. In circles and covens, women and men share on the deepest levels their devotions and fears, their longings and visions, their dreams and intuitions. Witches who have tranced together for years sometimes reach a level of attunement with one another that is amazing to see. They literally know what the other is thinking, and sometimes even seem to an outsider to talk in their own language, jumping from thought to thought like twins or close siblings who can send each other off into gales of laughter with a word, or know just the right thing to say or do without any discussion. It is the truly lucky woman or man who can achieve this kind of intimacy in circle with a few close friends. It doesn’t always happen, and never without conflict along the way.

  But most of our rituals and classes don’t require this level of intimacy. There are many ways to deepen trust and affection in a group that may be together for only one ritual or may only occasionally work together. The most important of these, and one we generally use at the beginning of every Reclaiming class, is the round. This is the simplest and most basic stitch we use to weave our basket.

  Weaving the Basket Exercise: The Round

  The rules for a round are simple, but learning how to apply them is the study of a lifetime. Here are the rules for a round:

  1. One person talks at a time. We often pass
a rock, a stick, or some other special object, and only the person holding it may speak.

  2. Everyone else listens without interrupting.

  3. Each person gets one turn to talk.

  4. Each person has the right to pass.

  5. Everything said in the circle is held in confidentiality by those present. There will be no gossip or speculation by people who were not present.

  Sometimes the round is focused by a question, which everyone agrees on ahead of time. Sometimes it is a chance for us to share generally what is going on in our lives outside the circle and gain a little insight into one another’s process. In my circle for many years we would begin with a round and listen deeply to one another. When the round was over, we would begin to pull out common themes and threads from what we each had shared. From those common threads we wove a vision of what to do for our ritual that night.

  Opening up and sharing from the heart is a skill that requires practice. Each of us has our favorite ways to present ourselves, our masks, which we use without even being aware of them. A good exercise that we use to illuminate this for ourselves is to actually make masks. These can be as simple as paper plates on a stick, or as complex as plaster casts.

  Weaving the Basket Exercise: A Masked Tea Party

  You will need art supplies and good friends or a good mirror. Create sacred space, and light your candles. Allow yourself a few moments of meditation. Close your eyes and reflect back on several difficult or disturbing interactions you’ve had recently. How do you present yourself when you are under pressure or when you feel threatened? Can you see any patterns? Victim? Martyr? Genius? Saint? Tough guy? Baby? Mother? Pope? Villain?

  When you feel that you are sniffing on your own tracks, like a hound that can follow a tricky fox, then it’s time to open your eyes and grab those art supplies. Make yourself a mask that represents one of your favorite defensive postures. As you hum and work, try out some one-liners that your mask character might say: “I’m only saying this for your own good”; “But you don’t understand how hurt I am…”; “After all I’ve done for you…”; “When you’ve lived as long as I have…”

  If you are working with friends, put on the masks and use the one-liners to have a little tea party. It’s a strangely familiar feeling to talk with people who simply repeat the same thing over and over and never change their facial expression. It’s even more eerie to be one. If you are working alone, try it in the mirror. When you’ve had enough, take the mask off.

  Take a moment to really feel the sensation of being free of the mask. What would it be like to live this way, both free and vulnerable? If you enjoyed working with this exercise, you will find more like it in Starhawk’s book Truth or Dare.

  Weaving the Basket Exercise: The Mystery

  Each and every one of us is mystery. We will never know each other or our own selves at our deepest: whole, powerful, shape-shifting, divine. We can come closer and closer to complete knowledge and love of ourselves and others, but it will always remain a goal and a source of human longing, never completely attained in this life. One of the best ways to experience and acknowledge this mystery in ritual is by using veils.

  You will need a thin scarf or long veil and good friends or a good mirror. Create sacred space, and light your candles. Choose one person to go first, and veil her in the center of the circle; or if you are working alone with a mirror, veil yourself. Now make a statement about this person—for example, “You are a wife and mother” or “You are shy” or “You are an incredible artist.” Allow a moment of listening silence, or ring a bell and wait while the echoes die down. Now let the veiled person answer: “Perhaps, and I am so much more…” Keep making statements as long as you can think of more true things to say about this person. No statement can capture her whole nature. Allow your sense of wonder and awe to awaken toward your friends and toward yourself. Who will ever know any soul to the deep source of her beauty and strength?

  Weaving the Basket Exercise: She Who Listens

  Learning to reveal oneself fully in circle is the work of a lifetime, and so is learning to listen fully. It is impossible to go through life always listening to each person as though she were the Goddess herself, speaking from the deep source we can never fully know. But with practice we can learn to direct this kind of listening to people we really care about in sacred space. We each will have to unlearn our normal habits as listeners, which we use to distance ourselves from the person speaking and to protect ourselves. Some of the most common habits include thinking up what you’re going to say when it’s your turn, judging the person speaking, arguing with her in your mind, or spacing out and thinking about something else. Learning to listen well and to stay fully present is as difficult an art as any known to womankind.

  Weaving the Basket Exercise: Listening Exercise

  With a circle of friends, create sacred space and light your candles. Choose one person to lead a brief meditation, bringing everyone to dropped and open attention. Now begin a check-in round, where each person takes a turn. Focus on the experience of listening to your friends, with dropped and open attention. It’s normal for the listener to begin to lose focus and drift into reverie, judgment, reaction—a million forms of distraction.

  When you notice that you have lost your attention, you will usually find that you are experiencing your awareness up in your head again. Simply breathe deeply, and drop and open your attention again, gently returning it outward toward the person speaking. Try to listen deeply—to what is unsaid, to body language, and to emotion. If your circle is close, and everyone agrees on it beforehand, it can be very enlightening to share your reactions with each other, and especially the difference between your reactions from a dropped state of deep listening and your normal reactions.

  Weaving the Basket: Circle Safety

  These exercises are just the beginning of a lifetime of practice. It is difficult but well worth the effort to learn to fully open one’s heart to others and to listen deeply to friends. Because, although we may make rules of various kinds (confidentiality, right to pass, no put-downs, nonjudgmental listening, and so forth) to try to create safety in circles, the bottom line is that one size never fits all. The same rule that creates safety in one situation may make another situation impossible or unbearable. Particularly after the honeymoon is over, after the time for politeness has passed, when the core issues and deep attraction and repulsion between people begin to operate, it may simply be unrealistic to expect no negative attacks or to expect someone not to share part of what is going on with a partner or therapist or some other special person outside the circle.

  At the core, the safety of a circle comes from the creativity, compassion, intelligence, and sense of humor of the women and men in it. The safety of the circle comes from each member’s commitment to express herself fully and to listen to others deeply. We must rely on our own and each other’s deepening ability to respect all life, and each person, as part of an immanent deity. We must rely on each other’s intentions, skills, and efforts as we learn to love and understand ourselves and others.

  And of course, at times mistakes will be made, hard words will be spoken, feelings will be hurt. Just as in any love relationship, the safety of the circle relies on its members’ abilities to get angry and fight at times, passionately, honestly, flexibly, fairly. Not every circle will survive every fight. Just as in love, some people just don’t work well together, or sometimes they do for a year or twenty years, and then they change and it’s time to move on. This is never an easy or painless process, and it may not feel “safe” at all, but this is how we weave the basket of willow. We know from experience that this basket, homemade and imperfect though it may be, can safely carry a wingless creature on a breathtaking flight beyond the realm of night and day, beyond the gates of now and then.

  Weaving a Basket: A Spellworking

  Now it’s time to take a walk outside—alone or with your circle sisters. If you live in a city, find a park, hilltop, or ot
her slightly wild area. If you can get into the wild, bless your lucky stars. As you walk, meditate on your relationships with others. Whom could you learn to trust, or do you already trust, enough to carry you over the sea? When in doubt, allow the wisdom of nature to guide you or offer insight. If you dream of creating collaborative magic with others, what is the next step you can take to make your own dreams come true? If you already are working in circle, what can you do to weave your basket stronger? As you walk, gather bits and pieces of wild growing things. (Never take all of a wild plant, or the only one growing in a certain area.) Weave yourself a bit of basket out of natural, gathered plant material, and place it on your Rose altar as a magical commitment to “take flight.”

  Ecstasy: Dance, Trance, and Chants

  In the Elements Path, we learned the basic skill of trance journeying. In the trance state we sought there, the induction brought us to a super-relaxed, still, and dreamlike state while we were awake, in which the vivid sensory world of Younger Self could communicate with Talking Self. But we can also induce trance states through music and movement.

  In San Francisco at Winter Solstice, after we have jumped into the freezing ocean naked, we dance and drum together around a bonfire, singing songs for the laboring earth and to bring the new sun to birth. As the drums repeat their insistent heartbeat message, and the flames reveal the beautiful rhythms of our naked animal bodies, time shifts and blurs, and a deep sensory certainty opens that we are animal, divine, and human at once, powerful, connected, and that a passionate and a loving life is possible, one that goes far beyond the alienated culture that binds us. Rhythm, dancing, and chanting can connect us to a deep sensory and kinetic certainty of our soul-life.

  Beverly Frederick is a Reclaiming Witch and teacher who has worked for years to help bring the body wisdom of dance and rhythm into Reclaiming’s practice of ritual magic. Beverly has taught dance, acrobatics, and yoga for years, and she moves with the powerful, sinuous grace of her profession. An accomplished vocalist and musician, she knows how to help a circle of Witches start improvising and building beautiful rhythmic, wordless power through chanting. Here are some tips Beverly offers for Witches who want to start using chanting and movement in their circle work.