The Twelve Wild Swans Read online

  The Twelve Wild Swans

  A Journey to the Realm of Magic, Healing, and Action

  Rituals, Exercises, and Magical Training in the Reclaiming Tradition

  Starhawk and Hilary Valentine

  To the teachers, students, and organizers of Reclaiming, and to our loving and supportive partners, Michael and David

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Exercises

  Introduction

  THE TWELVE WILD SWANS

  CHAPTER ONE: LEAVING THE CASTLE

  The Elements Path: Air

  The Inner Path: Questioning, and a Doorway out of the Castle

  The Outer Path: Core Worth and Heritage

  CHAPTER TWO: WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS

  The Elements Path: Evolving

  The Inner Path: Generosity and Guidance

  The Outer Path: Spontaneity and Balance

  CHAPTER THREE: THE WICKED VOW

  The Elements Path: Fire

  The Inner Path: Anger and Clearing

  The Outer Path: Injustice and Revenge

  CHAPTER FOUR: CARRIED AWAY

  The Elements Path: Water

  The Inner Path: Weaving the Basket, Ecstasy

  The Outer Path: Ritual Structure and Forms

  CHAPTER FIVE: THE CHALLENGE

  The Elements Path: Earth

  The Inner Path: Nettles

  The Outer Path: The Uses of Silence

  CHAPTER SIX: HOLDING CENTER

  The Elements Path: Spirit

  The Inner Path: Core and Boundaries

  The Outer Path: Modes of Awareness

  CHAPTER SEVEN: THE TRANSFORMATION

  The Elements Path: Transformation

  The Inner Path: Facing Death

  The Outer Path: Fear and Vision

  Bibliography

  Index

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise

  Other Works

  Resources

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Exercises

  CHAPTER ONE

  Elements

  Tree of Life Grounding

  Saltwater Purification

  Preparing to Cast a Circle

  Casting Your First Circle

  Invoking the Elements of Life

  Devoking

  Air:

  Basic Breath Meditation

  Many Different Breaths

  Visualization

  Inner

  A Mysterious or Disturbing Dream

  Using Divination

  Physical Sensation, Gesture, or Symptom

  Asking the Old Nurse

  Walking Away from the Old Castle

  Outer

  Anchoring to Core Worth

  Inflated/Deflated Self

  Naming Our Ancestors

  Ancestor Altar

  Telling Ancestor Stories

  Heritage Ritual

  Center Invocation and Exercise

  The Treasure Cave of the Ancestors: Trance

  CHAPTER TWO

  Elements

  A Witch’s Walk

  A Special Outdoors Spot

  Finding the Old Woman

  Creating a Home Altar

  Invoking Deity

  Inner

  A Rose

  In-drinking

  Self-Blessing

  Asymmetry

  A Valentine

  Sensation and Self-Comforting

  A Mirror

  Recognizing the Teacher in the Beggar Woman

  A Food Offering

  Asking the Old Woman

  Outer

  Wide Vision

  Dropped and Open Attention

  Spontaneous Ritual Sequence: Spontaneous Ritual 1

  Identifying/Clarifying Ritual Intention

  Spontaneous Ritual 2

  Guidance Meditation

  Offering Guidance/Anchor Exercise

  Telling Our Money Stories

  Money/Breath Exercise

  Moving with Energy

  Symphony of Sounds: Building an Energy Base

  Following an Energy

  Finding the Song of the Moment

  Sacred Voice

  Voice Practice

  Leading Trance/Trance Induction

  CHAPTER THREE

  Elements

  Anger Ritual

  Breaking the Wicked Vow, Affirming the Wonderful Ones

  Fire:

  The Candle

  The Hairbrush

  Seeing Auras

  The Brushdown

  Aura Car Wash

  Healing

  Healing with a Partner

  Shielding

  Inner

  Trance to the Salt Shore

  Chakra Cleansing

  An Anger Observatory

  Breaking the Wicked Vow

  Creating a Personal Anger Ritual

  Outer

  Remembering Our Allies

  Love Bathing

  Revenge and Impact Meditation

  Subtle Forms of Revenge

  Meeting Your Shadow Self

  Meditation on Opposites

  Shadow Beliefs

  “I” Statements

  Four Steps in Fighting Oppression

  She Who Listens

  Diversity Walk

  Creating a Welcoming Space

  Rage Ritual

  Working with Gender Issues

  Council with Witnesses and/or Questions

  Many Genders

  Don’t Panic

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Elements

  Rainbow Induction

  Trance to a Place of Personal Power

  Trance to the Well of Healing

  Trance into a Mysterious Dream

  Inner

  The Round

  A Masked Tea Party

  The Mystery

  She Who Listens

  Listening Exercise

  Weaving the Basket

  The Weave

  Group Chanting

  Adding Movement

  Moving Through

  Trance into a Tarot Card

  Trance into a Natural Process

  Trance into a Fairy Story

  Outer

  Basic Ritual Structure

  Ritual Creation

  The Tofu of Ritual

  Making Sacred Space

  Drumming and Dancing in the Directions

  Energy Observation

  Energy Tending

  Moving Energy

  Drum Trance

  Quest/Pilgrimage/Treasure Hunt

  Portals

  Ritual Drama

  Mummer’s Plays

  The Perfect Act

  Praising and Invoking

  Weaving the Basket: Safety in Ritual

  Support Roles:

  Tenders

  Deep Witnesses

  Wranglers

  Graces

  Dragons

  Crows

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Elements

  Meeting an Herbal Ally

  Practicing Magical Ethics

  Spellcasting

  Choosing Your Own Herbal Ally

  Earth Meditation

  Inner

  Pomegranate’s Life-Purpose Exercise

  Trance to the Fata Morgana to Receive a Challenge

  Answering a Challenge

  Nettle Magic: Nourishment

  Nettle Magic: Strong Fiber of Soul

  Cynthia’s Sewing Meditation

  A Nettle Doll

  Choosing Silence

  Practicing Silence

  Outer

  The Sacred Task

  The Feeling of
Doom

  Warning Signals

  The Person with the Pickup Truck

  Finding a Source of Strength

  Resting in the Goddess

  Checking for Numbness

  A Walk Through Town

  Privilege Inventory

  Power and Differential Exercise

  Power and Speech Exercise

  Shadow-Self Role-Plays

  Stepping into Authority

  CHAPTER SIX

  Elements

  Center: The Great Wheel

  Center: The Cone of Power

  Center: The Cauldron of Changes

  Gwydion’s Opening to Deity Exercise

  Calling Deity of Many Ancestries

  Inner

  Companion-Self Trance

  Anchoring

  Core Worth: Through Physical Sensation

  Core Worth Spell: An Apple

  Trance: The Crone’s Three Gifts

  Outer

  Mirror

  Five Modes of Awareness

  I Notice/I Imagine

  A Walk in the Physical World

  Creating a Shield

  Shielding Practice

  Anchoring Practice

  Tunnel of Torture

  Constructive Critique

  Critique Practice

  Wand Meditation

  Passion/Compassion Meditation

  Boundary Exercise

  Precious Object Exchange

  Jealousy Ritual

  Gratitude Meditation

  Creating a Glamour

  Character Play

  Aspecting

  Pass-the-Cloak Aspecting

  Bringing Someone Back

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Elements

  Creating Your Own Ritual

  Once in a Month

  The Waxing Year

  The Waning Year

  The Thresholds

  Asking Your Fear Its Name

  The Glass Half Full

  Inner

  Death Meditation: The Seamstress

  Death Meditation: The Candle

  Death Meditation: The Allies

  Drum Trance: In the Orchard of Immortality

  Outer

  Overcoming Fear

  Fear Ritual for Groups

  Fire Meditation

  Weaving in the Dungeon

  Shared Intent Meditation

  Vision Meditation

  The Healing Ritual

  Victory Ritual

  The One-Winged Brother

  Introduction

  Embarking

  Once upon a time, there was an island, a misty, secluded spot only half in this world, where priestesses, heroes, heras, and mages would go to be trained in magic. Called Avalon, Mona, the Isle of Women, its hidden groves would shelter the wise as they learned the language of birds and the speech of nature, the arts of sensing and shaping unseen energies, of moving at will through the spectrum of consciousness, of bending reality and shifting fate. The teachings of this place would be conveyed not through courses and tests but through transformative personal journeys that would change initiates as they faced challenges and grew in spiritual depth, integrity, and strength.

  Avalon no longer exists in today’s world. The teachings of Witches and mages were for centuries condemned as heresy or ridiculed as superstition. Ancient knowledge was lost, forgotten, or superseded by the teachings of science and technology. Deep forests that were gateways to the Otherworld have been clear-cut; oracular caves have been replaced by Internet search engines.

  Yet magic has reawakened in today’s high-tech world. The last half of the twentieth century saw a renewal of the ancient spiritual traditions of the Great Goddess. Women and men who sought new models of spiritual empowerment and craved an earth-honoring spirituality respectful of nature created new constellations of religious movements. Earth-based spirituality, feminist spirituality, Paganism, Gaia theory, Wicca, Witchcraft—hundreds of new/old traditions have arisen that reflect a diversity of approaches to the same basic understanding: that this earth—indeed, this cosmos—is a living being and that the interwoven web of life is sacred.

  All magic arises from this basic understanding that everything is interconnected and interdependent. Magic has been defined by Western occultist Dion Fortune as “the art of changing consciousness at will.” Ritual, meditation, trance, prayer—indeed, all the techniques outlined in this book—are the tools of that art.

  Over the last decades, those of us involved in the Goddess movement have learned much about magic through the process of creating and exploring ritual. And we have created our own Avalons: places and structures for teaching and training others, drawing on our experiments and the wisdom of our life experiences.

  This book is an invitation to the isle of magic. In it we have attempted to document some of the exercises, processes, and training materials that our community has developed over the past twenty years and to put them in a form that can lead learners through a transformational journey. While many resources exist that give an introduction to magic, this book moves beyond beginning work to include advanced techniques for both individuals and groups.

  The community we speak of is called Reclaiming. We are part of the larger movement, called feminist spirituality, that critiques the patterns of domination embedded in patriarchal religions and reenvisions a spirituality that can liberate women and men. For us, that new vision is rooted in the Goddess, the earth being who embodies the cycles of birth, growth, death, decay, and renewal in nature and in our human lives.

  We are Pagans: we practice an earth-based spirituality rooted in respect for nature. We are Witches: our roots are in the initiatory Goddess traditions that arose in Europe and the Middle East, although our practice is strongly shaped by the multicultural traditions of this land. We make a powerful, personal commitment to the Goddess as we understand her, and we are willing to identify with the victims of the Witch persecutions and to work to counter the negative stereotypes associated with the word Witch. We are feminists: we believe that neither women nor men can be truly free until the unequal power relations between genders are broken down. Our analysis of power extends to the relations between races, classes, between humans and the earth; we see all forms of domination as interconnected and destructive.

  Feminist spirituality, Goddess religion, Paganism, earth-based spirituality, and Witchcraft are like circles that overlap in many areas and retain some distinct differences. There are Pagans who don’t define themselves as Witches, and Witches who don’t define themselves as feminists. There are feminists in Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist traditions who don’t identify with the Goddess. Our self-definition affects our practice and teaching of magic. We teach and work in a nonhierarchical structure, and we use our awakened abilities within an ethical framework that acknowledges the interconnectedness of all beings.

  At the core of the Reclaiming tradition is the insight that spiritual practice, personal healing, and political activism are the three legs of the cauldron in which wisdom and magic are brewed. If we truly experience all life as interconnected, then we must be concerned with what happens to the rain forests of Brazil and the topsoil of Iowa, to the child suffering in a sweatshop in Asia as well as the homeless child on our city streets. And that concern needs to be expressed not just through prayer and meditation, as powerful as they might be, but through concrete action in the world.

  To act effectively, whether that means offering service in our communities or working for political change, we need the personal strength that comes when we have learned to know ourselves. Healing ourselves is part of healing the earth.

  Activism and service are sustained by our deep connection to the greater cycles and powers around us. Magic and ritual help us create communities of support and find inspiration and strength when we most need it. In November 1999, I, Starhawk, was in jail for five days for protesting the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. Most of the strong, beautiful, and empowered women in my ce
ll block were under twenty-five. In one of our discussions, Lucy, a trainer and organizer who at thirty-one was an “old lady” in the group, remarked that the average “life span” of an activist was three years before burnout. So why was I there, at forty-eight, a little fat and creaky from sitting on concrete floors and mixing it up with the cops? Because for the more than thirty years that I’ve been active politically, I’ve had rituals to sustain me, close friends to support me and participate with me, and a deep, personal connection to the great powers of love and freedom that inspire us to work for change.

  The Reclaiming tradition was born out of the convergence of magic and activism. Twenty years ago, when my first book, The Spiral Dance, was published, a group of us who had connected around the bridging of politics and spirituality created a ritual to celebrate Halloween that incorporated art, music, and dance on a scale new to us. We went on to help organize an antinuclear march that brought ritual, street theater, art, and music to a political protest. My women’s coven began teaching classes together, and because we felt we had worked through a number of power issues successfully, we co-taught to model a shared flow of power. A small nucleus of community developed from those classes, and in 1981 many of us participated in the blockade at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, built on an earthquake fault in central California. When we returned home, we formed the Reclaiming Collective.

  The blockade left an indelible imprint on the development of our community. We learned a decentralized model of power, in which small, covenlike groups called affinity groups made decisions by consensus. Larger strategies and major decisions were coordinated by spokescouncils made up of representatives from the smaller groups. Real care was taken to listen to each person’s voice and hear each person’s concerns. Most of all, we learned that power does not have to be vested in one charismatic leader, that it can truly be spread throughout the larger group.

  Our understanding of power and our approach to teaching are expressed in the Reclaiming Principles of Unity:

  Reclaiming Principles of Unity

  “My law is love unto all beings…”

  The Charge of the Goddess

  The values of the Reclaiming tradition stem from our understanding that the earth is alive and all of life is sacred and interconnected. We see the Goddess as immanent in the earth’s cycles of birth, growth, death, decay, and regeneration. Our practice arises from a deep spiritual commitment to the earth, to healing, and to the linking of magic with political action.

  Each of us embodies the divine. Our ultimate spiritual authority is within, and we need no other person to interpret the sacred to us. We foster the questioning attitude and honor intellectual, spiritual, and creative freedom.