The Twelve Wild Swans

by Starhawk

  If we literally set out to weave a basket, we would need to know what that basket is supposed to do. Should it be wide and flat for collecting cut roses, or shaped to hold bread? Tightly woven to hold grain, or made with a loose weave to allow air to circulate?

  When we set out to plan a ritual, we first need to know what the ritual is meant to do. What is our intention?

  Beginning with our intention seems so logical that it should be unnecessary to mention it. However, I can’t tell you how many hundreds of times I’ve sat down with a group to plan a ritual, and only after hours of batting around ideas does it occur to us to ask, “Yes, but what are we actually doing this ritual for?”

  When the intention of the ritual is clear, the symbols, the actions, and the chants and invocations all have clear meaning and carry power. When the intention is unclear, the elements of the ritual may individually be beautiful and heartful, but unless they are linked to a central meaning, the power will not build, and participants will leave feeling the ritual as a whole is lacking.

  Review the meditation in the Outer Path in chapter 2 on finding a ritual intention. Intention is a noun, but a ritual intention is a verb, something the ritual is meant to do, a transformation that is meant to take place. A clear intention can be stated in one sentence, albeit with many clauses:

  “Our intention is to give Maureen healing.”

  “Our intention is to use the energies of the Samhain season, when the veil between the worlds is thin, to support each other in honoring our ancestors and mourning our beloved dead, and to plant the seeds of new things to be born.”

  “Our intention is to explore the blocks that disempower us, release them, connect to our sources of inner power, and celebrate.”

  “Our intention is to honor Marnie’s passage into Cronehood.”

  Once our intention is clear, we need to find the central imagery and symbols that can embody our purpose. We might use our magical tools to scry, candle gaze, meditate, or trance to find the right images. We might brainstorm, throwing forth every wild and crazy idea that comes to us, without judgment or criticism, and later synthesize our ideas or choose one image to work with. Allowing people to express ideas without judgment helps set an atmosphere in which creativity can flourish:

  “I see a circle of women all lined up in order of age.”

  “I see a labyrinth.”

  “I see Marnie sitting on a golden throne.”

  When we know what images we want to work with, the next question I find useful is, What’s the story? What is the transformation we want to enact? Who is the protagonist, and what challenges does she or he face? Who are we in the story? Knowing the story is like having a strong ball of twine that ties the ribs of the basket together.

  In Marnie’s Croning, for example, she is the protagonist, and the story, were we to tell it, might go something like this: “Marnie is making the passage into Cronehood and wisdom. She enters the labyrinth, to walk its winding way from youth to age. In the center, she receives power and blessings. When she emerges, she is enthroned and asked to speak her wisdom.”

  In our Winter Solstice ritual, the protagonist is the Goddess herself. We, the participants, are the support team for her labor. The story might go something like this:

  “Throughout the longest night of the year, Mother Night is in labor to bring forth the Sun Child. We cleanse and purify ourselves, letting go of all we need to release from the year before. Then we gather in our homes to feast and entertain her throughout her labor. We bake bread, which rises and swells like her pregnant belly, and knead into it our hopes and dreams to be brought to birth with the Sun Child. All night we keep vigil, and at dawn we climb a hill to watch the moment of birth as the new sun rises.”

  The story of a healing ritual might be as simple as: “We all gather in sacred space to draw healing power from the earth for Ron.”

  Or it might be more complex: “We, Susan’s friends and sisters, gather to support her as she goes deep within to search out the root of her illness, listen to its messages, release the blocks to her healing, and gather the power to kick the virus out of her system.”

  It’s helpful to keep the intention and the story clear and simple. If we’re taken on a trance journey and given a gift in each of the four directions, we’ll have forgotten the first one by the time we get the last. If we raise a cone of power to heal Ron, the clear-cut redwoods, and the greed in the hearts of CEOs of global corporations, we’ll end up with diffused energy that cannot focus power. Our rule of thumb is: one gift per trance; one intention per cone of power.

  The Tofu of Ritual

  The story will guide us in planning the heart of the ritual. We always begin by planning the central section—the “meat” or, if you prefer, the “tofu.” The work of the core section will then tell us what we need to invoke, what kind of circle we need to cast, and so on.

  To plan the tofu, I find it helpful to ask, “What is the simplest and most powerful way we can enact this story? What form of ritual is called for?” In Ron’s ritual, for example, the core might be placing him in the center of the circle, chanting his name, and visualizing golden light bathing him. For Susan, we might ask one person to lead her on a trance journey into her own body and let the images that arise direct what happens. For both rituals, we’d need a solid grounding that prepares us for channeling energy, a clear, strong circle, and we might want to invoke the elements in their healing aspects as well as a Goddess and possibly a God of healing. Before we devoke, we’d want food to share to help us ground, and we might want to plan a cleansing or brushdown for the healers to be sure we don’t pick up any negative energies.

  Making Sacred Space

  Once we have an idea about what the heart of the ritual work will be, we can plan the creation of sacred space, the grounding, casting, and invocations. In most of our public rituals, we ask volunteers either beforehand or on the spot to take these roles, so that the ritual reflects many voices and so that many people have an opportunity to be priestesses. Volunteers need to know the intention of the ritual and something of the flow, and coordination is important.

  The invocations create the texture of the ritual and set the pace and tone. There are an infinite number of ways to invoke. At times you might simply stand in the center of the circle, take a deep breath, feel that hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach, that fear of making a fool of yourself, let it go, open your mouth, and let something come out.

  At other times you might carefully craft a poem, song, or dance. A spoken invocation sometimes comes as close as we get in our tradition to a sermon: a reflection on the deeper meaning of the element, a call to participants to change. At our big Spiral Dance, which draws close to two thousand people, we’ve had directions invoked by trapeze artists, rope dancers, stilt walkers, and fire jugglers.

  If the tofu of the ritual involves a lot of movement and wild dance, the invocations might be thoughtful and reflective. But if the heart of the ritual body centers on quiet talk or stillness, the invocations can provide a chance for movement. One of our favorite ways of incorporating movement into an invocation was pioneered by Beverly and Suzanne:

  Drumming and Dancing in the Directions

  Drummers are chosen before the ritual begins. They may agree on different rhythms for each direction or may choose one person for each direction to lead off with a beat.

  Dancers may also be chosen to stand in the center and lead a simple movement. Participants may follow or improvise freely. The central dancers open each invocation with a few words—for example, “Let’s turn to the east, and call the air.”

  The drummers begin their beat, everyone dances, and when the energy begins to wane, dancers cue the drummers by raising their hands high and then dropping to the ground. Drums may roll to a peak or fade out. The lead dancer for that direction says a simple phrase—in this case, “Welcome, East! Welcome, Air!” And we move on, around the circle.

  A ritual that works is an orchestration of
energy. It may move from moments of profound stillness to wild ecstatic dancing, from quiet meditation to howling around a fire, but the underlying pattern and flow of energy must support the intention of the ritual. All the skills we’ve learned in other paths around identifying and channeling our own energies now come into play on a larger scale.

  Energy Observation

  To priestess a ritual, we must first become aware of the energies in a group. When you are in a ritual, or in a meeting at work, a concert, a performance, or a demonstration, ground and anchor yourself. From your core state, observe what is happening as a flow of energy. When is the energy moving? When is it stuck? If it were a river, would it be clear and free running or muddy and full of sludge?

  What happens to shift the energy? What do the priestesses, the facilitators, the performers do that creates a change in the flow? Are they conscious or unconscious of their impact? How does their state of being impact the energy?

  In a ritual, consciously move to different parts of the circle. How does the energy feel in the center? On the edges? Does it have different qualities in different quarters?

  After the event is over, draw or diagram the energy flow. If you are working with a group of observers, compare notes. Did you experience the same shifts and variations? What have you learned from this experience?

  Energy Tending

  When you have practiced observing the energy, explore the ways you can affect it. To move energy, we use our bodies, our breath, our voices, and our ability to visualize.

  TEND THE EDGES: In a ritual, position yourself around the outer edge. Use your energy-moving skills to help keep the edges coherent and focused and to keep the energy moving strongly, not dribbling away.

  WORK THE CENTER: Move into the center, and use your voice, body, and vision to help the energy rise to a cone in a smooth and focused way. Hold the central image clearly in your mind, and focus your will on the intention of the magic.

  When you’ve explored tending individually, make an agreement with two or three others to consciously tend and focus together, and see what power a group can have.

  In Reclaiming, all of us who have some level of experience in ritual naturally co-priestess: we work the energy together. We take responsibility for tending the edges, holding the intention, and raising the cone in the center. We consult during the ritual, whispering to each other, “This chant has gone on long enough—let’s change it.” We often keep eye contact with others in the center and stay in subtle communication.

  Moving Energy

  Priestessing a ritual is like surfing: you can move with the water, changing direction and steering with art and skill, but you can’t fight the waves. In a ritual, you must sense, reflect, and guide the energy, but you cannot control it. As priestesses, we always want to hold our intention for the ritual clearly, but we must often let go of our picture of just how that intention is supposed to be realized.

  We might imagine a slow, quiet meditation and find that the group is raucously laughing. We might start a chant and find that it builds into power long before we imagined it would. Or we might plan for ecstatic dancing and find the group simply bobbing in place, bored.

  When the energy of a ritual refuses to go according to your plan, take a moment to reground and anchor. With a breath, consciously let go of your expectations, of your ego investment in a particular outcome, of any voices that tell you that you, the great priestess, should be able to pull this off better. Ask, “How can I use the energy that’s actually happening to move the group toward the work of this ritual?” If the energy simply won’t rise, drop into it instead of fighting, letting the meditation be slow and thoughtful rather than wild. If the energy is high, let it run its course before trying to move it into a deeper, quiet place. If the energy hits a plateau and won’t peak, and people around the edges are beginning to tire and drop out, try bringing the energy down to a quiet place from which to build it up again.

  The most effective way to shift an energy is to first join with it. When you counter an energy from outside, you meet resistance. But if you entrain, you can gradually move it in a new direction.

  Experiment. Know that the energy doesn’t have to be perfect for the ritual to work. Afterward, compare experiences and reflect on what you’ve learned.

  Even a few people working together can have a powerful impact on the energy of a much larger group. Many times in rallies and demonstrations, we’ve found that a few focused people can start a song, a chant, or even a spiral dance that moves the raw energy of a crowd into focused, directed power.

  Over the years, Reclaiming has created thousands of rituals, and several basic forms of large group ritual have evolved:

  Drum Trance

  Reclaiming’s style of drum trance evolved in the mid-1980s out of guided meditations after one of our cranky students kept asking, “Why do we always have to lie down to go into trance?” “Stand up, then,” we conceded, and a new form was born. When people were standing, they could move, dance, use their bodies to enact the images they saw in their mind’s eye. They were active cocreators rather than passive recipients. Meditation could flow organically into chanting, dancing, and raising power.

  At the same time, some of us were learning to drum. Eventually we learned the trick of drumming and talking at the same time. Now the drum could hold the base energy of the ritual, while the priestess’s voice could weave images, chants, and stories around the beat.

  At its best, a drum trance becomes an improvised prose poem where story, song, voice, and rhythm flow seamlessly into one another and transport participants into another world.

  A drum trance is impossible to reproduce on paper. Throughout this book, however, we include “scores” that are at least approximations.

  In creating a drum trance, we keep in mind that we are not writing a script to be memorized or read aloud. Reading and memorizing a trance is like weaving a basket out of rigid sticks that are dry and dead. Instead, we cocreate a landscape and decide on a flow of transformation. A drum trance begins with an induction that can be as simple as three breaths taken in common or as elaborate as any of the trance inductions suggested elsewhere. The leader sets a scene for us and usually takes us on a journey that may involve a challenge or opportunity. Chanting and singing can interweave with the spoken guidance.

  A drum trance can be led by more than one person, each sharing sections of the story. Or priestesses may speak as characters or aspects of the Goddess. If you can’t drum, or can’t drum and talk at the same time, one person can drum while another leads the meditation. You can build your skills toward leading a drum trance by leading trances or meditations for yourself, for a partner, or for a small group.

  In constructing a drum trance, it’s helpful to ask the following questions:

  What’s the induction?

  What’s the setting, the landscape?

  What work of transformation are we looking for?

  Where is the peak of power, and what is its focus?

  What is the resolution? How do we integrate the work?

  How do we return?

  The “One-Winged Brother” trance described in the Outer Path in chapter 7 is an example of a score for a drum trance.

  Quest/Pilgrimage/Treasure Hunt

  In this form of ritual, sacred space is created around a large area. Stations are set up that might represent different stops on a journey or different emotional or mythic states. Participants move through the space, literally making a physical journey that creates transformation. Priestesses may stay at the stations, holding the energy, asking questions, or offering something to those who come. Or they may wander as participants wander, offering their challenges in a mobile fashion.

  There’s a strong element of randomness and chance in this form of ritual, and a strong element of play and fun. (We sometimes call it the Spiritual Disneyland form.) The risks are that the energy can become scattered and that safety is harder to guarantee in a large space, especially in the
dark. People who have mobility problems may need special help and consideration in order to participate. Timing is harder to control, and participants may finish at widely different times.

  One of the most beautiful rituals I remember was a quest ritual at a Witchcamp in Missouri, at Diana’s Grove, where priestesses Cynthia and Patricia Storm have created a truly magical space on their hundred acres of Ozark land. The big barn, where we eat and socialize, is separated from the ritual grove by a half-mile walk along the edge of a wood that skirts a hillside field where a huge labyrinth is mown, covering several acres. When you reach the edge of the grove, the path ducks into the trees and crosses a small stream on stepping-stones between altars. Inside the trees is a grassy clearing with a fire pit in the center and altars marking the directions, a wooded hill behind, and stars above.

  That year, we were working with the Norse pantheon. For the ritual, we invited participants to go on a journey. The goal would be the fire pit at the big barn, where Thorn would create a warm hearth and offer meditations on compassion. The other nine of us on the team took on various roles: Norse Gods and Goddesses, demons, oracles. Most of us wandered among the journeyers, offering challenges and providing obstacles to be overcome.

  I was the guardian of the gate of the labyrinth. I stood veiled at its entrance, and as participants came up to me, I challenged them to find the question that lay in their true hearts before they entered. The mist had come down over the hills, and between the fog and the veil, people literally disappeared as soon as they got a few feet away. As time went on, more and more people entered the labyrinth, but no one came back out. I began to feel as if I were truly ushering people into another dimension. It was an hour or two before anyone emerged, and when they did, they seemed transformed.

  Much, much later, Idun and Loki walked up to the gate. Rationally I knew they were San and Paul, my fellow teachers, but in the mist they appeared shining and larger than life. They were following the last participants, and we decided to walk the labyrinth together. We could hear otherworldly voices floating over the hills as we wound our way in through the twists and turns. Finally, we reached the center, where Melusine at the heart of the labyrinth had all night long been offering a challenge to each person who came. We, too, faced our challenges, and as we wound our way out, we realized we were hearing the singing from the hearth fire.