The Twelve Wild Swans

by Starhawk

  When you feel finished, thank the plant and express gratitude. Slowly pull your awareness out of the plant, leaving the same way you entered. Follow the green stream of awareness back into your own body, through your third eye. Allow the color of your attention to change from green back to whatever color is comfortable for you normally. Expand and open your attention, and return to your previous state of consciousness, feeling relaxed, awake, aware, and reenergized.

  Thank your wisdom self and your ancestresses. Say good-bye, and take off your scarf. Devoke and open the circle only when you are completely ready.

  It’s amazing how often people who try this exercise, even if they normally know next to nothing about plants, will come up with qualities and powers and even names for plants that correspond closely with traditional plant lore.

  A few years ago, Wilow and I had just finished teaching this meditation to a group of students. We had worked in the meager shade of a stand of live oaks on a blinding midsummer day on a dry California hillside. Under the oaks stood great granite boulders marked along their tops with the shallow mortar bowls where the ancestresses of the California first people had ground their acorns into meal. Around the boulders, caressing their bases, grew the soft streamers of poison oak.

  Wilow turned to me with the dark eyes of a messenger from another world. “I did the trance myself,” she said. “I tranced into the poison oak. They said they didn’t used to be so poisonous before the Europeans came in the Gold Rush.”

  I was curious, and later I did some research about poison oak. Sure enough, it turns out that Rhus (poison oak) was used by the native Californian peoples for making baskets, for seasoning food, and for medicinal uses. Poison oak, which had been an ally of the native people, got a new job with the Gold Rush—defending the oaks from the new European people. And Wilow, after a lifetime of learning from and working with plants, could see and hear this from the plant itself.

  Learning from Nettles

  While it may be empowering to reconnect with our green allies, why does Rose have to work with nettles, with their terrible fiery sting? Is the Fata Morgana a horrible, sadistic Goddess? Why would she offer Rose such a painful challenge? What can possibly be empowering about this part of the story? The answer to this question can be found only if we are willing to give up our alienated modern relationship to nature and move in closely and carefully to the nettles, with our minds open and our hands fearless.

  Most modern people, if they’ve ever had any contact with nettles, have had it by accident. I’ll never forget blundering into a big patch of nettles with my daughter, then a toddler, when we were out hiking one day. I ended up running back down the trail with her screaming in my arms, my hands on fire. A very successful interaction, from the point of view of the nettle patch. It got our attention, and got rid of us, before we had disturbed it at all.

  The hiking story is very different when we look at it from the point of view of the nettle patch, isn’t it? It’s a good day for our friend nettle when she successfully chases the humans away. There’s a lesson for us here.

  When we commit ourselves to a spiritual way of life based on Mother Nature, we must learn to honor and respect all parts of nature, not just those we find pleasant or appealing. Mother Nature predates humans by eons. She is not here for our comfort and convenience. Nature is both the honey and the bee sting, both the rose and the thorn.

  By contrast, our familiar Western patriarchal cultures place humans above nature and thus justify our desire to dominate and control nature. So if we like the corn but not the worm, we invent a poisonous pesticide with our clever, tool-adept human brains. We spray the corn and kill all the worms. Now we have lovely, perfect ears of corn and happy humans.

  But perhaps we’ve also killed all the predatory insects that used to feed on the corn worms and keep their numbers in balance. We’ve begun to build up toxins in the wild food chain, which is ultimately our own food chain. Next year, or in twenty years, we may have more corn worms than ever, but no wasps, or sparrows, or falcons. Our groundwater may test positive for carcinogens, and so may our corn, and so may our babies.

  By contrast, the worldview of Witches sees both corn and worm, both hiker and nettle, as holy. Corn worms, nettles, bees, and roses are each living things, part of the immanent Goddess herself, part of the web of life. Each creature is on its own path through life; each has the right and responsibility to defend itself, including the right to defend itself from us humans. By careful observation, by living with and loving both corn and worm, we try to find an artful balance that provides for our needs, without tearing the web of life itself to shreds. Because our tradition teaches respect for this balance, many Witches are involved with organic gardening, sustainable agriculture, habitat restoration, and other earth works.

  Practicing Magical Ethics

  But honoring all of life does not mean that we Witches never kill plant pests or uproot nettles that are growing in our path. Our needs and desires are holy, too. It is the nature of the bee to sting me if I disturb its hive, and it is my nature to want to eat the honey. In each case we must find a skillful, mindful balance that respects all parts of a complex interaction. We must respect each wild and holy creature, including ourselves, knowing that each action we take has consequences that tremble through the whole fabric of nature for generations to come.

  The Witch’s law says, “Harm none, and do as you will.” This is a simple saying, but incredibly difficult to apply. Do I do harm by smashing the snail eggs in my garden, or do I do harm by not smashing them? If I let them live, they will kill my seedlings. So which is the harm? The Witch’s worldview comes with tremendous responsibility to weigh each action in the wisest possible view of the whole. There is no room here for simpleminded innocence: “I would never kill a living thing”; or “Don’t cut down trees.” If the trees are the weedy eucalyptuses that Europeans brought from Australia and that now threaten the few wild islands of California native plants and animals, maybe we need to work hard to cut them down. So now perhaps we can look over the nettle patch again with a Witch’s eye. What is the Fata Morgana trying to teach Rose, trying to teach us?

  Working in Balance with Nettles

  For our ancestors who listened to and told this story, the task of making cloth out of nettles might have seemed laborious, but it would not have seemed punitive or sadistic. Nettles were widely used for fiber and homespun cloth before machine-made cloth and imported cotton became common. Most people wore homemade clothing and slept on homemade “linens” that had started out as flax or hemp or nettle or some other familiar plant. Creating cloth out of gathered plant material was the responsibility and one of the powers of adult women. Even in my mother’s time, education for girls included needlework.

  Nettles were also used medicinally and as wild food, and wise women and men continue to use them this way today. Wilow Fire, who harvests nettles, points out that if you avoid touching the underside of the leaves, you can avoid being stung. In Deb Soule’s excellent herbal The Roots of Healing, she gives an account of modern women in Nepal making cloth from nettles. She reports that the plant is harvested in September: “Then the bark from the main stalk is stripped, cooked in wood ash water, pounded in running water, spun into a fiber, and woven into durable, non-itchy cloth.” She adds, “Nettle was widely used for making cloth in many places throughout Europe until the beginning of the twentieth century.”

  While I have not worked with nettles, I can easily believe these accounts from my own experience. In the course of many years as a professional gardener, I have worked with roses and many other thorny and stinging plants. As I became more adept at handling roses, I discarded my gloves. Mindfulness and skill are much more helpful than gloves in staying safe among roses. The gloves actually hindered me and made me careless. My experience with blackberry brambles is that there are parts of the plant, especially the soft tips and the woody bases of each cane, that you can safely grasp without being hurt by the chemical weap
onry in the thorns and in the tiny, stinging leaf and stem hairs.

  So what the Fata Morgana is asking of Rose is not some sick, weird self-sacrifice. She is in fact asking Rose to act like an adult woman, to master (or mistress) the skill and labor, power and knowledge, that go with adult womanhood. She must learn to work in a skillful way with a plant that is a strict taskmistress. Loss of concentration, or careless hurry, would be immediately “stung” back into mindfulness.

  Accepting the challenge of the nettles is like accepting the challenge to master any difficult spiritual practice. Many of these require tolerating a sometimes painful discipline. Becoming a martial artist or a Yoga or Zen meditator, or committing to a psychotherapy process or an abstinence program, requires tolerating some bumps, bruises, and stings. These are sought not as ends in themselves, but as part of a rigorous project of deepening self-knowledge and empowerment. The bruised ego, the stung self-image of the person committed to learning about herself, is as much a part of the final product as the sting is part of the honey and the thorn is part of the rose.

  Spellcasting

  Rose says yes to the challenge of the nettles. The shirts she must weave, however, are far more than just pieces of clothing. They are a powerful spell, born of her passionate desire for justice, woven in silence and solitude between the worlds, to bring her brothers back from their wild enchantment. The weaving of these shirts will restore justice and bring balance back into a family torn and wounded by her mother’s wicked wish.

  How does a spell like this work? How can we, as beginners in a spiritual practice based on Mother Nature, learn how to use spells?

  Let’s try following Rose’s steps for spellcasting through the story. First, she became clear on her intention: to transform her brothers back into men. She followed guidance, gathered her allies, and took a “long journey over water.” Here she found a translation of Talking Self’s intention into the language of Younger Self. To turn swans into men, she must “make” each of them human arms, shoulders, chests, flanks, and necks. This she can do as she shapes each shirt. Her dream has revealed the concrete, sensual language to engage Younger Self in the project.

  So, to cast her spell, Rose must work with her hands to align the intentions of Talking Self and Younger Self. This opens a door for the immense power of Deep Self to work between the worlds and create the longed-for change. When we cast spells, we cannot manipulate or force the divine powers that move the stars to do our will. But when we state our impassioned need in Younger Self’s own sensual, concrete language, we invite whatever change is possible to rush in, and what is possible is usually much more than we could consciously imagine or hope for. So, lucky and curious and unexpected and funny help arrives. Spells never go unanswered, although the answers may not be what we consciously expected. Spells are the three-dimensional, sensual prayers of a Witch who has aligned the wills of her Talking Self and Younger Self and who now asks Deep Self’s assistance.

  When we create spells, we change ourselves first and foremost, and we are never the same again. If I work a spell of healing for a friend, I make myself a healer and draw healing to myself even before the spell has any effect on my friend. This is the basis of the Law of Threefold Return. It’s like a simple and direct karma postal service: whatever energy a Witch sends out in a spell returns to her three times—or, as my first teacher, Raven Moonshadow, used to say, “once, but three times as hard.” So, not just because of moral scruples, but out of concern for our own health and happiness, we never make spells with an intent to do harm, unless we are willing to be harmed three times as much.

  Therefore, when creating a spell, it is very important to examine one’s motives thoroughly. When trying to get rid of a noisy neighbor or annoying coworker, a Witch may try to justify her spell by stating it in a roundabout positive way: “May so-and-so be offered the opportunity of a lifetime, health, wealth, love, everything good, far away in some distant city.” I’ve done this sort of thing myself. I’ve learned rarely to recommend it, and definitely not to beginners. There are too many ways for it to backfire.

  Instead, try the following. Work for yourself only, especially when you are starting out. But if you are tempted to work magic on someone else, first try this simple test. Imagine how you would feel if you found out that someone was casting this spell on you. Would you feel manipulated? Your privacy violated? In that case, don’t do it. Would you feel honored, well loved, and understood? Blessed? Lucky? Now you’re on the right track. If in doubt, ask the person’s permission. If you’re reluctant to directly ask their permission to do this spell on them, it’s probably not a good idea.

  Just as in the difficult decision, introduced earlier in this chapter, of whether or not to smash the snail eggs, spellcasting ethics can become quite complex. If you are working between the worlds for the arrest of a serial rapist in your community, you are not going to ask his permission! One word of comfort: we all learn best from our own mistakes, and we all make them. In regular life we make our mistakes, apologize, and make amends where possible; it is no different between the worlds. This is how we learn to be more cautious and wiser the next time.

  Basic Spellcasting

  Every Witch would probably explain spellcasting just a little differently. Here is one way.

  1. Develop a clear intention, strongly visualized. For example: “I want to be free of my bad habit of making unkind comments about people who are not present.” Remember, we start by practicing on ourselves. Strongly imagine yourself sweet tongued, making appreciative and supportive comments and meaning them. Imagine this in as much concrete detail as possible.

  2. Find a vigorous, sensory, concrete representation of the intent in the language of Younger Self. Use information from dreams, visions, and trance, and also advice from more experienced Witches. For example, to sweeten the tongue, bury a beef tongue from the butcher with bitter herbs under a large rock at midnight on a dark moon of winter. Do this somewhere where you are unlikely ever to return, and walk away without looking back. Then go home and put a drop of rose water on your own tongue.

  3. Do your spellcasting with your real hands and real materials in the real world. At some crucial point during the actual doing of the spell, allow yourself to move into an altered consciousness through chanting, movement, deep concentrated breathing, or whatever works best for you. Allow your emotion and energy to peak, directing them into a strongly held image of the outcome you desire.

  4. When you are finished, state loudly, in clear, simple, words, what you’ve done. The word spell, according to my dictionary, comes from the Middle English word spellen, “to read letter by letter,” which in turn is from an Indo-European root meaning “to speak loudly.” “No more mean talk for me. I’m done, I’m free. So mote it be.” If this rhymes, so much the better.

  5. Go about your business, don’t think about it too much, and don’t talk about it. It will take care of itself.

  The Element Earth

  The tool of earth is the pentacle. Many Witches use a plate or shallow bowl with a pentacle inscribed inside it. I use my pentacle to make food offerings on my altar, as a receptacle for fun and beautiful things I want to show the Goddess, and for questions and prayers I want to bring to Her. The power of the wise in the north is “to be silent.” The magical techniques that correspond to earth include spellcasting of all kinds and any workings for health, food, and money. Our physical bodies, our animal lives, and our mortality all belong in the north.

  Choosing Your Own Herbal Ally

  We already learned earlier in this chapter how to enter an herb in trance and explore its powers and properties. Now it is time for you to begin searching for your own herbal allies. This may involve some reading in books about herbs, but the most important way to research herbs is with your own senses. There may be an herb garden in your local park or botanical garden, where you can see the whole plant growing. You may find that many herbs, such as dandelion, burdock, and plantain, are the “weeds” yo
u’ve been seeing in your lawn, garden, or sidewalk cracks. You may find that the low hedge you walk by every day is rosemary.

  Choose an herb whose properties, smell, taste (taste only those plants that you can positively identify and that you know for sure are safe), and appearance appeal to Younger Self. Rose works with nettle because it has the power to break curses, to develop inner strength and will, and to nourish. Which herb will you choose? Whichever one is right for you, keep it with you daily. Drink its tea (if it’s safe and wholesome), or carry it on your person. Wear its fragrance. Remember, each plant has its own spirit power, which you can use as guide, as inspiration, as healer, as guardian. There is an enormous well of power here, free for the taking.

  Practical Food/Money Magic

  Just as it is important to know where our air, power, and water come from, whether they are clean, safe, and renewable, so it is important to ask the same questions about the food we eat. Few of us can completely separate ourselves economically from destructive and shortsighted farming practices, but we can do our best to be mindful, within our personal and budgetary limitations, about where our food comes from.

  For several years, I have set aside part of my food budget to buy a weekly basket of fresh-picked organic vegetables from a local organic farm. During the second year that I subscribed to this service, the farmer and his family bought an additional parcel of land, which had previously been conventionally farmed with pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and began the five-year project of converting that land to a certified organic farm. I like to think that the economic security the farmer got from the weekly subscribers helped make that land purchase possible.