The Twelve Wild Swans

by Starhawk

  Take the time to write down your insights, memories, and feelings as they come up. As you work, begin to sort through these treasures of self-knowledge. There may be some thoughts and feelings that you know you would like to be free of. There may be some that you are uncomfortable with, or unsure about. And there may be some that you value highly and want to keep forever.

  Once you have found out what you think and feel, and have sorted through it, it’s time to do something about it. At your altar, solitary, or in circle with friends, create sacred space. Make salt water, and do a saltwater purification to release the thoughts, feelings, and values that you know you don’t want to keep carrying. We all have some of these. They may have remained unexamined for decades, and they may sound childish or stupid when you say them out loud. But it’s important to state them, or shout them, or weep them, as clearly as you can, into the salt water, and release them with sounds, gestures, emotion, as fully as you are able.

  Now take the thoughts and feelings and values that you aren’t sure about, and whisper them into a pebble or shell, or write them on a slip of paper, and put them in a special box or bowl or basket that you can cover, and place it on your altar for now. Ask the Goddess to work on them for you and clarify them for you. Plan to check your box or basket in a month or so, knowing that your feelings about the contents will have changed. For now, resolve to let them rest in capable hands and not to worry yourself about them.

  Now break out the art supplies, and make something beautiful and pleasing for yourself, a spell to celebrate the wonderful values you found within yourself. If you are working in circle, it’s fun to sing or hum a chant together while you do art projects and spells. You could make a collage, a diorama in a shoe box, a self-portrait, or a fancy diploma from the School of Hard Knocks. Use your imagination and please Younger Self. Include through images, and colors, and prayers, and writing, the thoughts, feelings, and values you found that you are proud of and that you want to keep forever. You may find yourself feeling unexpected gratitude toward long-forgotten teachers and elders or toward the treasures of mystic awareness and love hidden in the doctrines of a religion or tradition you have walked away from for other reasons.

  Thank the powers, and open the circle. Now dispose of the salt water mindfully, knowing that as the salt water makes its journey toward the sea, so you will feel the old, restricting thoughts and feelings waning in you. (Incidentally, salt water can kill plants and sterilize soil, so it’s usually best not to dump salt water into soil.) Place the box or basket of questions, and the art work you have made to honor your values, on your altar or on your circle’s altar.

  The Element Fire

  The image of Rose, confronted by her hurt, angry brothers, bearing the heat of their frustration and rage, brings us to the study of the element fire. Magical techniques traditionally associated with fire include sensing, projecting, and shielding energy, and healing. The tool of fire is the wand. The power of the wise in the south is “to will.”

  Witches (and modern physicists and mystics of all religious backgrounds) regard the physical world we know as a complex illusion, one that our minds create because we cannot directly perceive the incredible detail of the truth. Our human brains are organized to perceive the world as an assortment of separate and static objects, when it is actually more like a continuous web of energies in constant motion and harmony. We ourselves appear to be physical objects, bodies, but we are in fact a swirl or standing wave in an energy pattern that is connected to all creation.

  Our bodies, which may appear to be still, are surrounded and interpenetrated by an energy “body” somewhat larger than our physical body, one that is never still. Witches refer to this energy body as the aura. The Reclaiming tradition (drawing on the Feri tradition of magic) describes our energy body as cohabited by three souls: Talking Self, Younger Self, and Deep Self. The three souls are bound together for a lifetime with each other and with the physical body of the individual. The foundation of the health and the energy of an individual is the harmony of these three souls with each other and with the individual’s energy and physical bodies. A basic principle of magic is that changes in the energy body can create changes in the physical body, and vice versa.

  The idea that we have energy bodies, or that our bodies create energy fields larger than our physical bodies, is really common sense and widely understood. It’s expressed in ordinary language by phrases like “I need some space” or “You’re getting in my space.” Often these phrases are used when no one is really touching, to describe the physical discomfort of having someone else standing or moving into the area occupied by one’s energy body. Just remember the last time you were on a crowded bus or train with someone’s elbow almost touching your armpit and someone else almost snuggled up against your back.

  If you’ve ever seen a magnet in a field of iron filings, you’ve also “seen” an aura. As the iron filings respond to the force of the magnet, they create shapes and swirls following the lines of the electromagnetic force field created by the magnet. Our bodies, and the bodies of plants, animals, and minerals, are also generating mild electromagnetic force fields. These force fields aren’t going to move iron filings, but they are very real, and they can be perceived.

  Fire: Working “As If”

  Some people perceive energy visually, some kinetically, and some as sensory or even auditory impressions. When we pick up psychic or intuitive information from our environment, it tends to translate itself as though it were information being picked up by one of the physical senses. So some people hear voices or words in their heads, others “see” color or movement, others receive strong dreamlike images or story fragments or strong sensory impressions such as heat or cold or vibration. There is also a “bleed-through” of senses, where we seem to “see” with our fingertips, “hear” with our eyes, and so on.

  A very important part of learning how to open up to intuition and psychic information is to suspend the critical voice that discounts these impressions as silly. “Purple ants aren’t having a picnic in your lower belly. That’s ridiculous,” says the critical voice. But Rose May Dance, a Reclaiming Witch and teacher who has taught many students to perceive energy, says, “You have to be willing to work ‘as if.’” In other words, if we can learn to hold the possibility of many different forms of perception, maybe purple ants both are, and aren’t, having a picnic inside our bellies. On one level, of course, it’s not “real.” On another level, Younger Self is trying her hardest to talk to us in a sensory language that we only dimly understand. Why not try these exercises “as if” you could read auras and effect change on an energetic level?

  If you are willing to try practicing “as if,” the following exercises can help you begin to perceive your own and other people’s energy bodies. We will use several different perceptive modes—visual, sensory, kinetic—to try to open the “doors of perception.”

  Fire Exercise: The Candle

  At your altar, create sacred space. Light a candle and gaze at the flame. Imagine that as the flame surrounds the wick, so a living, dancing energy body surrounds your physical body. Dance with the candle flame, echo its movements, feel how alive you are. Say, “By the fire of her bright spirit.” Thank the powers, and open the circle.

  Fire Exercise: The Hairbrush

  This exercise works best if you can do it with a friend and alternate roles. In circle, you can take turns pairing with each other. It can also be done by yourself.

  You will need a hairbrush. Create sacred space. First just ease your fingers into your friend’s hair, and feel her scalp. Relax; slow yourself down until you can sense the life pulsing beneath your fingers. Begin to groom her hair and massage her scalp with your fingers, making sure it feels good to her, too. When you’re ready, begin using the hairbrush. Notice that you can still feel her life pulsing, even though you are no longer touching her directly. If it’s difficult to feel, simply relax and breathe more deeply. Reground if necessary. Chanting somet
hing simple together may help.

  When you can feel her energy clearly while brushing her hair, put the brush aside, and simply use your hands, open as if you were warming them at a fire, in the area around her head and neck and shoulders where you have been brushing. Can you still feel her energy body pulsing under your hands? Can you feel it changing and moving subtly like the candle flame? Can you feel hot spots and cool spots, tight zingy spots, and dead spots? Everyone experiences these sensations slightly differently. What matters right now is how you experience them. It’s OK if the sensations are very subtle. With practice you will notice them much more easily.

  Fire Exercise: Seeing Auras

  Every so often, I’ll meet someone who has always seen auras. Some people apparently see them quite easily, even involuntarily. Others have to work at it, but it is possible to learn to see auras by practicing. Here are some suggestions from Rose May Dance on how to learn to see auras.

  The ideal way to practice is in half-light or candlelight, with a friend. Very bright light can sometimes work also. Ask your friend to stand against a plain, white or light-colored wall, or if that’s not available, you can drape a plain, light colored sheet behind her.

  Try several different eye tricks to open your perception. First, rub up a little energy in your hands, and then cup your hands over your eyes, so that you have a completely dark, compressed interior vision. Squeeze your eyes tightly a few times. Most people will begin to see shapes and dots of etheric color floating and dancing in their inner vision. Now open your eyes and look at your friend standing against the white wall. Do you see a shape around her and somewhat larger than her physical body, transparent but visually dense and full of movement and etheric colors, similar to what you saw with your eyes closed?

  A second eye trick is to look at your friend and either blink very rapidly or stare without blinking at all. In either case you may begin to get a visual impression of her aura as if it were arising out of her skin. Or, without moving your head, look up at your friend, then quickly away, then up again, repeating several times. Her aura will spring into place.

  I had to work “as if” and practice seeing energy for years before it first clicked in and worked effortlessly. As a matter of fact, I had my first experience seeing auras involuntarily when I was ill with a high fever. Traditional shamanic training in some cultures opens “the doors of perception” with the use of hallu cinogenic plant medicines. Reclaiming tradition recommends psychic exercise and practice to achieve the same results.

  Fire Exercise: The Brushdown

  Brushing down a friend’s aura is a fun and helpful exercise for beginners learning how to work with energy. There’s nothing like getting your hair done, or your nails done, or your aura done, by a friend! Here is how Starhawk teaches a brushdown, a basic energy-body grooming.

  The brushdown is a basic psychic cleansing technique, useful whenever you’ve done deep work with someone. It can help us separate when we’ve merged too deeply, clear out anything we might have picked up, and release anything that might have been directed toward us in a tense situation. And it’s quick and simple: just chop, comb, and fluff! Have your friend stand in front of you. Using both hands, chop up her aura with quick motions. Be sure to get the area above her head, and don’t forget her back and her feet.

  Now comb out your friend’s aura, using your fingers as the teeth of the comb. Imagine pulling out any negative, slimy, sick energies, and flick them off either into the earth, into compost, or into a fire or running water.

  Finally, shake off your hands, and then fluff your friend’s aura with a motion somewhat like back-combing a beehive hairdo. When you’re done, shake out your hands and notice how shiny clean her energy looks.

  You can do a brushdown for yourself, too. I often do one in the shower at the end of the day to cleanse psychically as well as physically, or I do it quickly in the bathroom in the midst of a tense meeting.

  Fire Exercise: Aura Car Wash

  In a group, form two lines. The first two or three pairs will chop, the next will comb, and the last will fluff. One by one, each person walks down the center to be cleansed, and then joins a line. As the lines move up, change tasks as needed.

  Starhawk tells this story about the “aura car wash” in jail.

  “My favorite aura car wash took place in jail. I was in a cell block with twenty women who had all been arrested after protesting the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999. We’d been held for five days and were finally waiting to be released—exhausted, tired, and impatient as the process was taking long hours. One woman had begun leading us all in massage when we heard the guard’s voice over the loudspeaker: ‘Ladies! We are in jail!’ she admonished us. We had, in fact, noticed this already. ‘In jail, we keep our hands to ourselves. We don’t touch each other!’

  “As we’d been exchanging massages for five days, we were somewhat surprised to hear this information. A few of the women were starting to argue, so I suggested an aura car wash. When we were about halfway through, we heard the same authoritarian voice crackling over the loudspeaker: ‘Ladies!’ it announced. ‘Aura cleansing is all right! Just no touching!’”

  Fire Exercise: Healing

  Healing is another important part of energy work. For beginners, the best place to start experimenting with healing work is on oneself. The energy that we use for healing is not our personal energy; it does not come out of our own bodies. We connect with the great energy of the natural world and allow it to move through us; in this way we can use tremendous energy in healing with out depleting ourselves personally. So the beginning of any healing work is a thorough grounding.

  In sacred space, use the “Tree of Life” meditation to establish a strong connection to the energies of the earth and the sky. When you feel them moving through you, hold your hands out comfortably in front of you, palms up. Feel how the earth and sky energy that is pouring through you fills up your hands, pooling, spiraling, and overflowing. Now clap your hands together, and rub them as if you were trying to get warmer. Can you feel a little ball of energy beginning to glow between your hands? It may take a few tries. When you can feel it, blow on it, as you would on a bed of coals to start a fire, and keep rubbing until you feel a nice, warm ball of earth and sky energy glowing between your hands.

  Now take what you’ve made and put it into your own body, into some part of you that could use a little extra healing energy. Feel it moving into your physical body and glowing there, doing what is needed for that part of your body, softening or strengthening, warming or cooling, cleansing or toning.

  Fire Exercise: Healing with a Partner

  When we do healing work on someone else, or receive healing, we are also working with the energy of the natural world, not our own personal energy. With a partner, begin by deciding which of you will first be the receiver and which the healer. We will do this exercise twice, switching roles.

  In healing, we can simplify the work into two stages: first we take some thing out; then we put something in. It’s very important that the two partners explore the receiver’s images about her body and her health, and work together to develop one or two strong images to work with. For example, “I feel as though there is a cold fog in my chest and lungs. I want to move the cold fog out and put a tiny glowing yellow sun in my chest to dry up my cold.”

  Begin by doing a “Tree of Life” meditation. Follow this with an aura-sensing exercise, so that both partners have a chance to explore and sense one another’s auras, awakening their intuition. Now the healer can begin to “comb,” pulling handfuls of cold fog out of your partner’s aura. Let your hands do the work, “playing” at pulling out stuck energies and shaking out your hands, shaking off the unhealthy energies. Shake these off into a bowl of salt water, or into a candle flame. Or you create a strong image for yourself of running water draining into a hole in the floor, or a very hot fire, or the transforming, consuming darkness of earth. Literally throw the handfuls of fog into one of t
hese, and shake off your hands as if you were shaking water off them. See the unhealthy energy disappearing into the power of the element.

  When you and your partner feel that you have created some movement in the fog and some free space in her chest, you may be ready to put the tiny yellow sun energy into her chest. Whenever you create space, or an opening, in healing work, be sure to fill it with something the receiver wants. Otherwise the next strong influence the person runs into may fill the empty space.

  The healer can begin sending energy into the receiver through the agreed upon image—in this case, the tiny sun. If you want to move to touching the receiver’s body, be sure to ask her permission, and keep checking to make sure your touch is welcome and feels good. No one should attempt physical manipulations or more than light massage unless they are trained in those areas. But you might, in this example, want to lay your hands on her chest, one in front and one in back, and strongly visualize the energy flowing through your hands and into the tiny sun in her chest. Keep communicating about the image, the sensations, and the timing. In this kind of healing work, the receiver needs to be in charge; she is the authority on herself.

  The session does not need to be lengthy. A short time of truly focused energy exchange is more helpful than a long time with the concentration of the partners wavering. When you feel ready, bring the session to a close, and do an aura brushdown on each other to fully separate your two energy bodies. Switch, and let the other person become the healer.