The Twelve Wild Swans

by Starhawk

  That work, however, is sustained by a sense of joy. “I do also manage to have fun,” she says, laughing. “There’s not a week goes by that I don’t get my picture in the paper for something. I said I was going to quit smoking, and I got in the paper. I hang out with the skateboarders as well as the tea ladies.”

  Before taking on the healing of the world, we might pause for a moment and consider what is necessary for healing individuals. “Healers are part of a continuum centered on whomever or whatever we’re healing,” Reya says. “All kinds of exercises that increase self-awareness, that help us center and ground, can help build the ability to endure and tolerate, and help us learn the rhythm of healing, which has everything to do with pacing, timing, and remembering to be ‘right sized.’ A daily meditation or sitting practice is crucial, especially the kind of practice that highlights connection with our own state of being. After sitting, you might realize, ‘Oops, I’m feeling kind of fragile today,’ or you might notice that your throat is kind of sore, and just that knowledge may help you pace yourself differently than you would if you were feeling perfect.”

  Reya has an exercise she uses to check for numbness and loss of feeling, both warning signs of overextension.

  Checking for Numbness

  To check for numbness, stop what you’re doing and breathe. Run your attention around your body; simply doing that may allow you to identify numb areas.

  Alone, you can hold one hand above an area of the body. Start with your back, shoulders, or arms, and work the whole body. If you’re doing this with a partner, one will be the tester (the hand) and the other will be the receiver. The receiver sees if she can sense the heat from the hand. Slowly move the hand closer to the body until the receiver can feel either the heat or the hand itself.

  Sometimes we’re so numb we can’t even sense when the hand makes contact with our skin. Move to another part of the body, testing for lifelessness everywhere, even your head, the soles of your feet, and so forth. Once you know which areas are numb and lifeless, ask yourself what you need in order to bring that part back. Are you thirsty? Hungry? Hot or cold? Do you need to get up and stretch or move around? Do you need some fresh air? Get someone to scratch or briskly rub your back. That really gets the circulation going again.

  Over time, notice whether there are patterns to your numbness, particular places on your body that first lose feeling. Consider whether they correspond to emotional or energetic deadening or health problems.

  After you complete this exercise, you might want to give your partner some energy in the numb area or some hands-on healing.

  While Rose completes her tasks, she must remain silent. Silence, for women and other target groups, has often been a component of our oppression, a way to keep us isolated and disempowered. But Rose’s silence is of another order, the silence of the shaman engaged upon a magical task, the silence of the healer.

  A healer must be able to keep silent. Otherwise, how can we trust her with our secrets and our pain? The silence, the confidentiality offered by our doctor or our therapist, is not the silence of disempowerment, but the containment of power. And some things can be learned only in silence. As long as I’m talking, I can’t hear the intricate chorus of the birds and learn to know their language. If I move noisily through the woods, wildlife flees and I will never see the deer or the bobcat. If I cannot keep silence and listen, I will never truly hear another’s pain or vulnerability or appreciate their gifts.

  Silence, space, the quiet pause in which we can hear our true inner voice, become even more important when we undertake great tasks that move us out into the world. “To make the shirts of soul renewal, we must stop and take time for soul making,” Cynthia says. “When we do, our own soul is the first one that is unraveled and remade.”

  “Entering into the Silence is not about being silent. It is about waiting. Listening. It is an acknowledgment that there may be something greater than the self worth listening to,” says Gweneth Dwyn, who has studied at Cynthia and Patricia’s Mystery School and who now teaches at Witchcamp. “Entering into the silence is a powerful tool of personal empowerment because it is a proactive act. It is within the act of being engaged with silence that discernment can begin to happen—discernment about what we are called to do apart from all that there is to do, about self-care as distinct from self-absorption, about when to discern and when to act.”

  Silence, for a healer, a leader, is also a question of power. As leaders, it is extremely important that we show respect for others in all that we do. The more power we have in a group, the greater the impact of our words and decisions. A thoughtless criticism can wound; a rebuke in a meeting can become a public humiliation.

  Because our Reclaiming community has such a strong ethic of nonhierarchy and egalitarianism, we often have a hard time recognizing differences in power and status that do exist. In fact, to see clearly how we impact a group, we must recognize that there is more than one type of power operating in the world.

  Power-over, or structural power, is the power we face every day, in our school systems, in our jobs, in the structure of our government, and in the police power of the state. It underlies hierarchical systems and might also be called domination or control. There are, however, times when power-over is necessary and benign, and it can be exercised with restraint, respect, and accountability. Parents have power over children; no sane parent would want to empower a two-year-old with the ability to control all her resources or make all her decisions. When David fainted and a heart attack was suspected, I did not want the power to decide whether he should be helicoptered to the hospital from our remote location. I wanted somebody else to be in charge and to make that decision for us.

  In Reclaiming, we attempt to structure our groups and organizations to minimize power-over. Where it exists—for example, when we delegate to a spokescouncil the power to set a budget and spend our resources—it must be open, accountable, and temporary.

  Power from within is our creative power, the power of spirit, imagination, courage, and will. Power from within is unlimited. If I have the power to write, it does not take that power away from you. In fact, you might learn something from my writing that will spark your own creativity. Empowerment is another word we use for power from within.

  We teach from a model of empowered learning, in which we acknowledge that all of our students bring rich experience and their own wisdom to the work. Teaching is not just transferring knowledge and information; rather, it is about creating and sharing experiences, reflecting together on them, and arriving at insights. Our classes are interactive rituals designed to acknowledge and celebrate power from within.

  Power-over and power from within are relatively easy to understand. But there is a third, more slippery concept of power. In my book Truth or Dare, I called it power-with. Since then, many people have begun using the term power-with to refer to collective power from within, the power a group can have when acting together, the power of solidarity.

  That power is extremely important, but the type of power I want to look at is something different. Perhaps we should call it simply influence, status, or even authority, in the sense of the word that comes from author. Literally, authors have authority, the “last word” on the subject. So, too, someone who is perceived as having more experience or skill may be deferred to. Power-with identifies the differing level of impact we as individuals have in a group when our formal power is equal.

  Power-with may be hard to recognize or acknowledge. We are uncomfortable with the very concept of status, because in the larger society it, too, often becomes linked to power-over as privilege. Privilege is the automatic assumption that some people’s contributions are more valuable than others. Unlike true authority, it is not earned through experience or trial and error; rather, it is conferred by the control certain groups of people hold over common resources and confirmed by prejudices and assumptions that we may hold consciously or unconsciously. In fact, we are rarely conscious of the privile
ge we hold, and we are rarely aware of using it. The thoughtless exercise of privilege becomes oppression.

  A Walk Through Town

  The following meditation can help us become aware of what privilege feels like.

  Breathe deeply, and imagine that you are about to take a stroll through town. As you walk down the street, notice that people similar to you in race and general appearance are the norm. The shop windows display goods that appeal to you and serve your needs and interests. The billboards display people like you as icons of attractiveness and success.

  You pass a movie theater and notice that the lead character of the film is a person like you. Down the street is a place of worship, and as you walk by you notice that it is designed for the ceremonies you practice.

  You turn a corner and feel lost for a moment, so you ask directions from a police officer who is a person similar to you and who treats you with courtesy and respect. Now you come to the town hall, where a meeting is in progress. You notice that it is presided over by someone like you and that people like you are making comments and being listened to with respect. You have no doubt that if you have something to say, you will be heard.

  Now breathe deeply, let go of your vision, and prepare to take a walk through another town. As you walk down the street, notice that people very different from you are the norm here. The shop windows display goods that don’t meet your needs or address your interests. The billboards display people very different from you as icons of attractiveness and success.

  You pass a movie theater and notice that none of the characters in the film are similar to you. Down the street is a place of worship, but it is not designed for or open to your rituals or practices.

  You turn a corner and feel lost for a moment. You start to approach a police officer but quickly turn away as you see the look of suspicion on the officer’s face. But you don’t escape before the officer, who is of a different race and gender, approaches and begins to interrogate you. Finally you escape and duck into the town hall, where a meeting is in progress, presided over by someone very unlike yourself. The people making comments are also not like you, and when someone similar to you speaks, that person is quickly passed over. You have something to say, but do you believe that you will be heard?

  Breathe deeply, let go of the town, and return to ordinary space and time.

  In a group, discuss your reactions to this meditation. Does your daily experience resemble one of the towns? Aspects of both? Did the experience push you off your core sense of worth?

  Alone, write about these questions in your journal.

  Privilege Inventory

  Katrina uses the following exercise to help groups identify privilege and learn to be allies of target groups.

  Take an inventory of the types of privilege you hold. These might include race, color, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, education, class, and economic privilege, among others. Some of these can work differently in different situations; for example, sometimes elders are deferred to in our society, while in other situations youth is glorified.

  When an issue, disagreement, or conflict arises in a group, determine which privileges are operating. If you hold the privileged position, breathe deeply, think of Rose, and keep silent. Check yourself, and allow the voices of the nonprivileged to be fully heard.

  Sometimes the privilege operating is not what we’d expect. Katrina tells the story of the morning she was shoveling snow with her friend Russ, who grew up in Texas and had never before attempted to clear a sidewalk after a snowfall. Nine years older than Russ, Katrina grew up in Washington, D.C., and had shoveled many a walkway. “I was determined to teach Russ the right way to do it,” Katrina remembers. “We were getting into an argument when I stopped and thought to myself, ‘What’s the privilege that’s operating here?’”

  An outsider driving by would have seen a white man arguing with an African-American woman. Surely the white man was the more privileged party. But Katrina recognized that the operative privilege at that moment was not race or gender, but age.

  “I shut up,” she said. “I went inside and let him shovel the walk, and you know, he did just fine. He might have been sore in the morning, but he learned.

  “This practice can help move us away from automatically thinking we’re always the victim. When we hold privilege, we shouldn’t always need someone else to point it out to us. When we learn to check ourselves, we can become true allies for others.”

  Differences of structural power and privilege always affect communication. The exact same words may have an entirely different meaning depending on who is speaking and in what context. Following are two more awareness exercises about power and communication:

  Power and Differential Exercise

  In the group, divide into pairs. In the first round, imagine that each of you is a three-year-old. Partner A says to partner B, “I don’t like that.” Partner B notices how she feels and responds, telling partner A what emotions, energies, thoughts, and bodily feelings are evoked. Then partner B says, “I don’t like that” to Partner A, who observes her own responses.

  Repeat the exercise with the following phrases:

  “You hurt me.”

  “I like you.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “You’re right.”

  In the second round, partner A is a child, and partner B is the parent. Again, partner A says one of the simple phrases, and partner B notices how she as the parent responds. Then Parent says the same phrase to Child. Notice, again, all the responses evoked and all the implications. Repeat for the entire set of phrases, and then switch roles.

  Repeat the same format with the following pairs:

  Student to teacher/teacher to student

  Prisoner to guard/guard to prisoner

  Worker to boss/boss to worker

  A pair of your choice, one that relates to your own experience

  What changes as the power differential shifts?

  Power and Speech Exercise

  Partner A, think of a situation in which you faced someone with more structural power or privilege than you. Maybe you’ll remember an incident from childhood or from school or work. Breathing deeply, go into your memory, and think of something you might have said in that situation. Try to distill it into one or two sentences. Say that phrase to your partner. Notice your inner dialogue, your energy, emotions, and bodily sensations.

  Partner B, notice how you respond on every level and what implications are hanging in the air. Now, from your position of superior power, say the same phrase back to A. Again, both of you, notice your responses and all the implied consequences.

  Switch positions, but work with the same roles in reverse and the same phrase.

  Take time to discuss what you noticed. What changed as your roles changed?

  Now return to your original roles, with B in the position of superior power. Ground, center, and anchor to your core state of being. In this state, A, consider what you might say to B in your situation. And B, from your core state, respond.

  What changes?

  Repeat the entire exercise with a situation and phrase from B’s life experience.

  Sometimes the worst abuses of our influence come about because we do not recognize that we have it. The behavior patterns that may have served us, well or poorly, when we were powerless can become destructive and abusive when we gain power. A voiceless victim who yells and screams is simply trying to be heard, but a person of status who yells at a newcomer will be intimidating and overpowering.

  Shadow-Self Role-Plays

  Remember the shadow selves we worked with in the Outer Path in chapter 3? Once again, introduce them and their characteristic phrases.

  Now go through the following sequence of role-plays. (One person should keep time, moving the group along after ten or fifteen minutes on each one.)

  You are a coven trying to decide whether to hold a public or private solstice ritual.<
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  You are a university department trying to decide whether to support an affirmative-action policy.

  You are a city council trying to decide whether to open a homeless shelter.

  You are the top executives of a major corporation trying to decide whether to clean up a toxic waste site.

  You are the Joint Chiefs of Staff trying to decide whether to bomb the Serbs in Kosovo.

  When you are done, consider the following questions:

  How did each person’s dysfunctionality affect the decision-making process?

  What changed as the stakes got higher and the group controlled more external power?

  Which dysfunctions tended to accrue more power in the world? Which might have precluded taking positions of power?

  In spite of all the ways that privilege can be abused, power-with or true authority can be a positive force when it is earned through experience, service, and integrity. A group increases its collective intelligence and effectiveness by listening to the voices of those who have skill, knowledge, or wisdom. We can learn only when we admit that others might know more about a subject than we do.

  I’ve seen true authority beautifully modeled by Keith Hennessy, a dancer, choreographer, and performance artist with an international reputation. At a workshop he gave one summer at California Witchcamp, he was suggesting a change in a movement to one young woman.

  “Of course, I’m not the authority on this,” he said, “but I am an authority, and that’s something that is earned. It means that I do have something to offer you here. But ultimately, only you are the authority on how your body should move.”

  True authority is an offering, not an excuse for control. And it is earned, as Keith earned his, by training, practice, discipline, experience, and learning from our mistakes. Rainy, a Reclaiming teacher and geographer who is a child of hippie parents, quotes her father as saying, “I have the authority here because I’m older and I’ve been around long enough to have made more mistakes than any of you.”