The Twelve Wild Swans

by Starhawk

  The Elements Path

  Rose grew up alone in her parents’ castle, but she sensed that some secret was being kept from her. She longed for something without knowing what she was missing. No one told her that before her birth she had already lost her twelve brothers.

  These feelings are only too familiar to women and men today. As our lives become more hectic and hurried, more fragmented and isolated, we long for something without knowing what it is. We may feel that something is being kept from us, something that should be our birthright, but we have little idea of what it could be.

  Like Rose, we need to find the determination and courage to ask over and over about this elusive feeling. Something is missing! We need to trust our deep sense that something is not right. Here is a bit of the story of what happened before we were born.

  Before We Were Born

  For thousands of years, until the very recent past, our ancestors lived in a constant deep intimacy with nature. Every moment of their daily lives involved the animals and plants that provided their food, the weather, and the seasons. They were deeply connected to each other, too, in villages and tribes where a few families depended on one another for generation after generation with little change.

  Although languages and customs have varied widely from region to region, there are certain parts of life that all nature-based human cultures share. All over the world, people have felt that nature herself was a great Goddess. She was the source of our birth, our sustainer in life, provider of food, water, warmth, and shelter. Her dark arms stretched out to welcome us home at death. She showed herself to us in the beauty and wonder but also the hardship and terrors of the life of nature and our human lives. She was the triple Goddess of life, death, and rebirth.

  Her delight was the sex and fertility of humans and animals, blossom and bee. She was our mother, and also the mother of the animals and plants. She was the mother of the elements, too—the great rocks and winter storms, rainbows, little creeks, manure piles, and skeletons. Thus we were relatives of all creation, living always in a great, interconnected web of life.

  The elders and the wise women and men of the ancestral villages had special spiritual responsibilities. It was their job to keep peace between the people and the local spirits that held the power of weather patterns and plant and animal lives. The harmony between the visible and invisible worlds needed care and attention. Respect had to be offered to the food plants and to hunted and domestic animals. The cycles of sun and moon had to be observed and celebrated. The natural cycles of human life were also honored, with ceremonies for births, puberty, marriage, elderhood, and death.

  The midwives and healers, the smiths, the poets and storytellers all had their roles to play in keeping the balance between the people and Mother Nature. When something slipped out of alignment, it had to be bent and woven back into the flow and harmony of nature. Knowledge of how to do that bending and weaving was the province of the wise—the art and craft of magic. Wicca, Witchcraft, Witch. These words come from the same roots as wicker, as in wicker furniture, which is made of willow twigs woven and bent together into a pattern.

  This ancient nature-based way of life was already coming to an end in Europe when written history began. We will never know exactly what brought about the changeover to the monotheistic Sky Father religions. But God became male, and He now ruled from a distant place. Evil was said to come into the world through women, and women no longer held spiritual authority. Nature herself became something to be conquered and controlled rather than revered. Human nature was described as sinful, and sex as shameful. The sounds of axes were heard in the sacred groves.

  In some places the new and old coexisted for a time. Elements of the old nature religion were simply adopted into the new ways and renamed. For example, Brigid, the triple Goddess of Ireland, goddess of forge, poetry, and healing, became Saint Brigid. The old winter solstice rituals for the sun’s birth became Christmas, the Son’s birth. The practitioners of the old ways came to be called pagan (from the plain) or heathen (from the heath). But eventually all over Europe the old ways were driven into secrecy in the woods and caves. Finally they became illegal, and the last of the old practitioners who could be found were burned, drowned, or hanged in inquisitions and witch-hunts.

  The native European nature-based religions and the people who lived by them met the same fate as other native peoples all over the world. Their nature-based village ways, and the spiritual practices that went with them, were finally destroyed and forgotten. All that remained were nursery rhymes and fairy stories, May baskets, Yule logs, “The Farmer in the Dell,” and “Hi-Ho the Derry-O.”

  There was an old woman tossed up in a basket

  Seventeen times as high as the moon.

  And where she was going, I couldn’t but ask it,

  For in her hand she carried a broom.

  “Old woman, old woman, old woman,” quoth I,

  “Oh whither, oh whither, oh whither so high?”

  “To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.”

  “May I go with you?” “Yes, bye and bye.”

  —MOTHER GOOSE

  Finding Our Lost Brothers

  In Rose’s story, she lost her twelve brothers before she was even born, through no fault of her own. We, too, have suffered a terrible loss long before we were born, a loss that leaves us lonely and uneasy in our castles. As our species has utterly dominated every animal and plant species, we’ve also lost our sense of interconnectedness and intimacy with nature. As we’ve dammed every river, paved over every meadow, and built highways through every mountain pass, we’ve lost our sense of belonging to this earth and our right place on it. We’ve lost the free flow of our passion, our sense of magic and awe. The wise women of old whose job it was to keep peace between us and the nature spirits are long gone. We can’t name our sickness, nor do we know what our medicine could be.

  And yet, in this generation, the Goddess is arising. In dreams, through ancient symbols and stories, she speaks to us. Through the symptoms in our bodies and in our families she speaks of what is out of balance. She will tell us the name of our illness and the name of our medicine. But like Rose, we have to ask the right questions over and over. Like Rose, we have to listen to the answers and then take responsibility to act.

  In the Elements Path, we will pick up the broken threads left by the great-grandmothers. We will learn how to begin an active practice that honors Mother Nature and invites healing into our lives. We will learn how to create sacred space, how to rely on Mother Nature, and how to begin a right relationship with the elements of air, fire, water, and earth.

  Why Do We Create Sacred Space?

  Magic has been defined as the art of changing consciousness at will. When we create sacred space—which includes grounding, purifying, casting a circle, and invoking the elements—we are intentionally entering an altered consciousness. But why would we want to change consciousness?

  Talking Self/Younger Self

  In our daily lives most of us use one kind of consciousness almost exclusively. We drive the car, answer the phone, write checks with a logical, verbal, task-oriented, “grown-up” part of ourselves that in Reclaiming tradition we call Talking Self. When we fall asleep, Talking Self falls asleep, too. But we are still conscious in some way, and sometimes we can remember a dream world of vivid sensation, powerful emotion, and a logic wholly unlike that of waking life, a dream world inhabited by Younger Self.

  We can observe the working of Younger Self’s logic in small children, too. From a two-year-old’s point of view, the statement “First we have to go to the bank; then we can get ice cream” makes no sense whatsoever. Passion, hunger, will, and ice cream create their own world in which the word after simply doesn’t make any sense. Ice cream is now.

  Artists, too, are aware that creative impulses come from somewhere outside Talking Self. While painting an ominous canvas with a livid orange moon showing the shadow of teeth, the artist knows perfectly well that the
“real” moon doesn’t have teeth. But in the artistic vision, which feels like a true vision of another world, the moon is orange and it does have teeth.

  Some mystics have searched for access to these other realms with hallucinogenic drugs. Witches everywhere will assure you that these realms can be reached at will, with training and practice. This is what we mean by “the art of changing consciousness at will.”

  In Reclaiming tradition we honor these other forms of consciousness, which find outlet in artistic impulses, daydreams, “accidents,” physical health and energy, and many other nonverbal expressions. So magic is the art of communicating with Younger Self intentionally in ritual, while awake, rather than waiting for a nightmare, accident, or illness to force us to pay attention. Younger Self may have known for years that a certain job wasn’t right for us, but Talking Self may not know until carpal tunnel syndrome sets in.

  Deep Self

  Connecting with Younger Self may seem like a good idea for general mental and physical health, but it is actually much more. For in Reclaiming tradition, the way to Deep Self lies through Younger Self. Deep Self is the part of us that is directly connected to, or even part of, the Goddess. To our normal everyday consciousness, divine power is a distant theory—maybe something we should care about but terribly vague, perhaps old-fashioned, and usually theoretical.

  But to Younger Self, divine power is as real as french fries or the tooth fairy. It just is a wondrous, sensual fact of living that we can observe anytime by watching a child absorbed in chasing fireflies on a summer night, by remembering a mysterious or vivid dream, or by getting the chills at an unexpected twist in a fairy tale. In these moments, a sense of awe and present power may make the hair on our necks stand up and a trembling sensation run down our spines or the backs of our legs. Deep Self can be directly felt by Younger Self but not by Talking Self.

  So in order to recapture the simple, reliable presence of a divine power that can heal any hurt and bring a sad and sick world to rights, we have to learn to release the narrowness and prejudice of Talking Self, who has long believed that magic isn’t real.

  In the Elements Path we will learn to create sacred space using magic that appeals to Younger Self. We will also study the elements of air, fire, water, and earth one by one and learn some of the magical techniques that correspond to each of them. We will learn to rely on Mother Nature for guidance and to develop our relationship with the Goddess. We will return to the center of our circles with many new skills, prepared to begin creating our own rituals, prepared to pick up the broken threads left by the grandmothers.

  Like Rose, we have asked difficult questions. We have found that our uneasy intuition was correct, that something is wrong in the castle. We have found our purpose: to restore justice in our worlds by walking away into the wild, away from the world of Talking Self into the vivid, concrete, magical world of Younger Self. We will make ourselves a doorway out of our old mode of consciousness by creating sacred space.

  How Do We Create Sacred Space?

  When we create sacred space together before each ritual, or alone at our home altars, we practice a discipline that trains Talking Self to let go of being sensible and logical for a while. We follow the same basic structure each time we want to walk out the door of ordinary consciousness to travel between the worlds.

  First, we ground and purify ourselves. Then we cast a circle around ourselves, defining the difference between ordinary time and space and the sacred space we are creating. We invoke the powers of the elements, air, fire, water, and earth, we invoke the center and we invoke the divine powers, calling them to join us in our sacred space.

  We do these basic spiritual exercises in a way that appeals to Younger Self. We ground by imagining being a tree. We purify by actually mixing salt and water to make our own little ocean to bathe in. We take a sharp knife and “cut” a circle around us, cutting away the veil of illusion that holds us in our ordinary consciousness. These vivid, sensual practices, which literally act out in the real world with physical objects the states of consciousness that we are trying to create, are at the heart of witchcraft. In this chapter, we will learn each of these skills, and then we will begin our study of the elements by considering the element air.

  Creating Sacred Space: Grounding

  The first step in creating sacred space is a meditation we call “grounding.” Witches and mystics of all religions share a common insight that all the energies of the universe are connected in a single, complex field. So the incredible explosive power of our sun, the great magnetic and gravitational fields of space, and the microscopic explosions along my nerve fibers that make me blink are all part of an enormous, complex dance. The “Tree of Life Meditation,” which we use in Reclaiming before rituals, is our way of connecting ourselves consciously with this great dance of energies.

  The grounding also serves the same purpose as a lightning rod. In lightning country, houses have lightning rods so that a sudden surge of power can pass harmlessly through the house and into the earth. The electrical systems in our houses are grounded, too, so that a power surge will pass through the house without starting a fire. Houses, and the people in them, can move enormous amounts of energy, as long as it keeps moving through them and doesn’t get stuck.

  The traditional grounding exercise that we use in Reclaiming before every ritual does much the same thing. It connects us to the enormous sources of energy in the universe and also makes sure there is a clear channel for energy to keep moving through us, from earth to sky and from sky to earth.

  Grounding Exercise: The Tree of Life

  Stand comfortably, and roll and shake out your hips and shoulders, your knees and neck, so that you are loose and relaxed. Allow your attention to draw together into a glowing point of awareness behind your eyes, inside your skull. Allow this point to drop through your body, through your throat … your heart … your solar plexus … your womb, or your pelvic cavity if you are a man … between your legs and down your legs and stream out into the floor or ground below your feet. Like roots, seeking the soil, easily down, down, down … through the foundation of the building (if indoors), through the topsoil into the earth … past the shards and bones of those who came here before us, past the water table, into the rock, down, down, down… Feel the pressure and heat of mother earth’s living body, feel the rock begin to move, soften, feel the magma power, the pulsing heart of Mother Earth, beating, warm, incredibly strong… Rest here a moment… Now begin on your breath to pull the earth’s energy back up toward your body, breathe up through the magma … breathe through the rock … the water table … past the bones of the ancient peoples, through the topsoil and into your feet … up your legs on a breath … into your pelvis, warm, surging up into your belly, breathing, filling your chest, down your arms and into your throat on a breath, becoming a hum, up into your head, opening all the spaces in your head with breath and a humming sound, up and out the top of your head, where your skull was open when you were born … reaching up like branches, like antlers into the sky reaching for the sun, the moon, and the starfire shining in the dark and behind the dark, connecting to the luminous, dark powers of the sky… Let the sky energy rain back down on your body, feel the energy of earth and sky flowing up and down you, rest in the certainty of as much energy as you’ll ever need… When you’ve had enough, kneel down and touch the ground, letting any extra energy flow back, keeping what you need for yourself … when you are ready, stand up, fully grounded and ready for magic…

  Creating Sacred Space: Purification

  After grounding, the next step in creating sacred space is to release any tension, worries, or distractions that might make it difficult to focus on the work at hand. Whether it’s something as simple as tension from bad traffic or a difficult workday or something as complex as an ongoing personal conflict with another circle member, we try to “turn over a new leaf” each time we begin ritual.

  Purification Exercise: Salt Water

  The gro
up chooses one of the participants to make the salt water. You can also do this alone, but it’s lots of fun with friends. You will need a clean bowl, a pitcher of fresh water, and a small container of salt. Pour some water into the bowl, enjoying the fresh sound of falling water. Hold your hands over the water, feeling its coolness. Bring to mind lovely, healing waters you have known, springs, creeks, wells. Say a few words to bring these images to the minds of your friends. Say, “Blessed be, creature of water.” Hold the container of salt in your hands for a moment, taste a bit of it on your tongue. Bring to mind the salty release of great sex, of a good cry. Imagine a great rain, washing down the continent and rinsing everything into the vast salty sea. Say a few words to bring these images to the minds of your friends. Say, “Blessed be, creature of earth.” Sprinkle and stir the salt into the water. I often use my hands, but traditionally witches use their athalmes, their special magical knives.

  Now set the bowl down in the center of the circle, and begin to release your troubles and tension into it. We often use our hands to stroke and pull the tension out of tight spots in our bodies, throwing handfuls of tight old energy into the bowl. We use our voices, starting with a breath or sigh, growing to a hum, and building to wails and roars, naming our troubles in a way that appeals to Younger Self like “yucky, yucky, icky traffic, get off, get off, get off me…” Sometimes others in a group will resonate and pick up on one person’s distress, like the time we all ended up chanting “money, money, money” and sticking our tongues out toward the bowl of salt water. Eventually the energy will die down, and the group will calm down together.