The Twelve Wild Swans

by Starhawk

  Next, ask yourself where you could look to find a little more. How about that woman who does the herb garden at the zoo? Wasn’t she wearing a Goddess pendant? How about the woman who teaches the yoga classes? How about the talkative man with the tattoos at the health-food store? How about those people who are restoring the pond and creek on Saturday mornings? If you open your mind, do you find a hint or clue of where you could look for a little more support? Keep watching your reflection.

  Have you seen your face change as you meditated on what you’re missing, on what you have, and on what you want?

  Now take your cup and fill it as much as you want. How thirsty are you? Drink the juice. Drink in your acceptance of what you may be missing, your awareness of the support you do have, and your insight about where you might find more help. Drink in your insights about yourself. If you are working in circle, fill each other’s cups, and toast each other. Celebrate yourselves and the work you have done so far. Only when you are ready, open the circle.

  The Pyre Breaks into Leaf and Bloom

  Rose has faced her fear, and so have we. The allies have arrived from far away, and she is not alone anymore. The shirts are cast over the swans, who change into men. The magic is complete; the transformation has occurred.

  And so it is for us, on the last night of the “Elements of Magic” classes, when the students create their own ritual. They are no longer novices and beginning students; they are the priestesses, the artists, the Witches. They do all the preparation and planning; they lead the meditations and raise the energy; they help one another and take responsibility for any little snags that may arise in the ritual. The teachers are always surprised and often delighted by the ritual work the newly fledged priestesses create. Here are three examples of final rituals created by new Witches for the last night of their “Elements of Magic” class.

  Everyone has brought some earth from their garden or compost pile and a green plant. The circle is cast, and we all put our earth together into a big pot. As we give our own earth to the center, we speak of what we have gained from the class, of the new friends and new skills, of the fun and the depth. When all the words and thoughts and feelings and earth are in the pot, we stir, blending, creating a new and fertile soil. Then each person takes a flowerpot and fills it with earth. We gift one another with the plants we have brought, and pot them up in the new soil. Now our new magical skills, and our love and connection for one another, will grow green in each of our homes and gardens. We finish with a spiral dance, and as the line dance coils into the center of the circle and then back out, it brings each person face-to-face with everyone else. We go slowly, singing songs of praise, and allowing each person to speak, exchanging appreciation for the energy and wisdom we each brought to class.

  Everyone is dressed to the hilt, in silks and velvets. And everyone is carrying the little doll of themselves that they made at the last class. Like a group of exuberant but serious little kids, we sit in a circle and make our dolls create a ritual. A silly doll leads the grounding; a lovely doll does a saltwater purification in a tiny doll bowl. A big, powerful doll casts the circle, and all the dolls do the invocations together. The dolls do some trace work and raise a doll-sized cone of power. Then all the dolls have a party and say how much they enjoyed the class and make plans to keep seeing each other to do magic.

  Everyone has brought a different herb or spice to the last class. We each put our spice into a central cauldron, speaking of why we picked that spice and what we hope for. With a stick long enough for everyone to get their hands on at the same time, we stir, and crush, and mix the spices. A strong and entirely new fragrance arises, giving out great powerful whiffs of a strange and exotic brew. We pass a ball of yarn around the outside of the circle, and we each hold it, symbolizing the circle we have all been part of during class. Then we pass a pair of scissors, and we each cut free our separate pieces of yarn. The class is over. But now, we each get a little square of cloth. We take herbs and spices from the central cauldron and put them into the cloth, tying it with the yarn to make a little spell bag that we can keep with us. Although the class is over, it has changed us and given us a new and powerful fragrance, made up of our combined energies, which we can use as we wish.

  And so, like Rose, we have reached the end of the story. We have practiced in the face of fear, calling on our allies. We have stepped out into our power. No longer the seeker and the novice, we now know how to create ritual for ourselves. We know how to practice the art and craft of magic, and we can use it as we wish to enrich and deepen and celebrate our soul lives. We have picked up the broken threads left by the grandmothers and become the weavers of a fresh and shining pattern, based on the old and full of the new.

  The Inner Path

  Although Rose has been thrown into the dungeon, she continues sewing and does not speak. She holds true to her life purpose, even in the extremity of deprivation and fear. She’s bound to the stake, and now she’s done all she can. She’s hit the limit of mortal life, the moment of surrender, when there is simply nothing else she can do for herself. In this chapter of the Inner Path, we will work with our own feelings about death and with our own allies.

  Because in this extreme moment, the forces of the wild appear. They are Rose’s allies between the worlds, and they are the ones who save her when there is nothing left that she can do for herself. She reaps in a moment the just rewards of all her efforts: her courage in seeking the wild to begin with, her generosity to the Old Woman, her ability to endure her brothers’ anger, her fearless flight, her prolonged discipline. The great swan wings beat out the fire, the Old Woman has saved Rose’s babies, the wood of the pyre itself—magic wood from the World Tree—rises out of the ashes of its own fiery death to break into leaf and bloom. In the exact moment when Rose’s case seems most hopeless and all seems lost and she falls as if dead, instead all is found, all is gained. Suddenly, after quite a difficult and lonely life, Rose is surrounded by those who love her: twelve restored brothers, her husband and children, and her mentor, teacher, and guide, the Old Woman. Through her efforts, her family line runs now in unbroken love from past to future.

  We are like Rose, too, although on the outside our changes may not look so dramatic. We have followed her every step of the way. We have broken out of our “old castle,” learning to listen to the voice of Younger Self in our dreams, sensations, and divinations. We have walked out into the wildwood of self-love, and accepted guidance. We have faced the salt shore of grief, bitterness, and anger that bound us to past injustice, and we have woven a basket of trust so that we could take flight. We have accepted the tough challenge of our life purpose and have gone to the green and silent world of the hermit for strength. We have learned how to stay centered in the weather of the human world through love and scorn.

  Our changes may have been subtle. We ourselves may be the only ones who know any change at all has taken place. But determined and persistent practice of the meditations, altar work, purifications, and spells described in this path will bring results, and even a scorched branch can burst into bloom.

  Remember, the fairy stories do not recommend a spiritual way of life; they assume a spiritual way of life. Specifically, they assume the principles of earth-based spirituality, of an immanent nature Goddess. By following the story, we have learned respect for the voice of our intuitive, wild self, and respect for all life. We have practiced willingness to be part of the whole web of nature, and felt the passion for justice that comes when we know that what happens to the web of nature also happens to us. We have developed our ability to rely on the great forces of nature, on the green world of plants, on the luminous spirit world, and on the laws of our own human nature, where what goes around, comes around. And now for Rose and for us, what has gone around has come around, and there are rewards for courage, vision, compassion, inner strength, and the passion for justice. But first, Rose must face her fear of death.

  Many women and men who have survived a life-th
reatening crisis, an accident or illness, or who have recently lost a loved one report feeling a new vividness of each moment of life, a new gratitude for each day. Sometimes, an experience like this will provide the impetus to make sweeping life changes or important new decisions. The perspective of near-death can change lifelong values or open a long-defended heart. However, there is no need to wait for an accident or illness to provide this perspective. The wise of many religious backgrounds have always sought this perspective in meditation. These are some meditations you can try, at your home altar or in circle with your friends.

  Death Meditation: The Seamstress

  On what might be the last night of Rose’s life, she has been thrown into the dungeon under sentence of death. She is still sewing and sewing, working on the last shirt. Create sacred space at your altar, and light a candle. Take a scrap of cloth, a needle, and some thread, and begin to sew little stitches, allowing the rhythm of your stitching to bring you into a light meditative state.

  If this were the last day of your life, what would be the eleven completed shirts in your workbasket? If this were the last day of your life, what would be the twelfth shirt, which you are still working on? Allow yourself to rest in the certainty that every life, including your own, includes jobs well done and challenges well met. Allow yourself to rest in the certainty that no life completes every task and lives up to every goal. When you are ready, open the circle.

  Death Meditation: The Candle

  Create sacred space, and at your altar, light a candle. Watch how the flame shape-shifts, dancing and flickering. Say, “By the fire of Her bright spirit.” Know that your life is like the candle flame and that your shape has already shifted many times: baby, child, teenager, adult. Know that you are, even now, shifting and changing, that the “I” is no more static than the candle flame.

  Just as the flame relies on the wick and the wax, our lives dance on deep sources unknown to us. If the flame is put out, it can be relit. Know that death will be one more shape-shift in the dance. Put out the candle. Rest in the not-knowing, the mystery of death. When you are ready, open the circle.

  Death Meditation: The Allies

  When Rose is bound to the stake, the great forces of nature and spirit appear to help her. The twelve wild swans beat down the flames; the Old Woman appears for the last time; the wood of the pyre breaks into leaf and bloom. In sacred space, bind your hands loosely together with soft twine or yarn. Allow yourself to know that there are things in your life that you cannot do for yourself—that, like all others, you rely on help from the natural and the spirit world.

  Imagine your moment of need; call out for help. Who appears to help you from the animal world? From the spirit world? From the plant world? Thank those who appear to help you, and vow to protect them in turn. Loosen your bonds, and return to normal consciousness. If you are working in circle, you can experience how much easier it is to loosen someone else’s bonds than to loosen your own. We each need a little help sometimes. Open the circle only when you are ready.

  These three meditations, on death and on the allies, are not meant to be done only once. They are the basis of a lifetime of practice with these truths, which always appear when we, like Rose, face the final threshold.

  In the Inner Path we have gained confidence in our ability to change consciousness at will. We have practiced many altered states. We’ve journeyed into the violet-black depths of the world of dream and trance. We experienced the ecstasy of our dancing, drumming, fire-lit bodies in the ritual circle. We’ve become the relaxed, superalert animal who walks open-eyed in the green world of nature. Each of these states brings us, in its own way, to a direct experience of the central mystery—that we are not alone and separate in this universe, that our lives and our awareness in all its forms are one with the rhythms of the great dance of universal energies. When we have experienced this basic mystical insight not once, but many times, and have come to rely on it even when we are not directly experiencing it, then we have a point of view from which we no longer fear death. We know from our own experience that our soul-life is boundless. Although we may not be able to explain or understand this experience, we are aware beyond words that our soul is infinite, divine, and immortal.

  We offer this drum trance from Reclaiming tradition, which tells the story of immortality in a way that appeals to Younger Self. This trance was originally developed by a Reclaiming coven for a women’s ritual about choice. There was an important electoral initiative on abortion rights coming up on the November ballot that year, and when we traveled between the worlds at Samhain (Halloween), we included our longing for freedom of choice in the intention of our ritual.

  This drum trance will also allow us to accept the help of another of our allies between the worlds, the Old Woman. When the Crone appears in this drum trance, stirring the brew of her cauldron, remember that the Old Woman has guided Rose and has guided us from before our births and at every threshold and crossroads of our tales. Take the time to create sacred space, prepare yourself for trance, and enjoy.

  Drum Trance: In the Orchard of Immortality

  Take a deep breath. Feel your breath flow in and out of your body. Breathe down to your toes and out to your fingertips. Feel the life flowing through your body and how the energy moves with your breath. Feel how your body holds your history, all that you know and have experienced, and how that history shapes your energy and your breath. Breathe deeply, and acknowledge the places where you carry wounds and the places within you where you carry power.

  Now we’re going to go together to a special place, a place where we can walk through the history of our lives. Our breath can take us there. Let’s take three deep breaths together, breathing in and out. In and out. Beginning to sink deeper, to feel this world dissolve. In and out. Feeling the ground of another world under your feet, and how your body feels here, and the weight you carry here. And, breathing deeply, open your eyes and look around.

  You are in the apple orchard of the Goddess. And on your arm, you carry a basket. Feel its weight, how it hangs beside you. And around you are young trees, barely more than saplings, slender and supple and bending in the breeze. And as you walk among them, you begin to remember your childhood, all the things that happened to you, all the choices you made. Look around you. On the trees hang the fruits of those choices. Look. Whom did you choose as friends? Did you love school or hate it? Reach up; feel the fruit in your hand. Did you love your body? Did you run fast; did you feel you were strong? Were there choices not offered to you? Some of the fruit hangs heavy, round and sweet. Some is bitter, some shriveled on the branch and dry. Breathe deeply. Pick the fruit, and put it in your basket, the bitter and the sweet. And walk on.

  Walk on to where the trees grow thicker, a little older. And as you walk, you begin to remember your young womanhood, your young manhood. How did you feel when your breasts began to grow, when hair sprouted under your arms and above your sex? Were you joyful? Were you sad? Who honored you? Did you have a choice about who could see you? Touch you? Know the changes you were going through? See the fruit around you, hanging heavy on the branch. Reach up, feel it, touch it. Breathe deeply. Pick the fruit, and put it in your basket, the bitter and the sweet. And walk on.

  Walk on to where the trees begin to grow in their full maturity, their branches heavy and graceful as bowers. Whom did you choose to love as you grew? Were you loved in return? What fruit hangs around you, sweet or bitter or rotten on the branch? Was your love honored? Joyful? Was it the right kind of love to please your parents, your teachers? Pick the fruit, the bitter and the sweet, the fragrant and the rotting fruit. Were you hurt by love? Put it in your basket; feel it heavy on your arm. And walk on.

  Walk on to where the trees grow strong and fine, and around their feet are seedlings springing up. Breathe deeply. What are the choices you’ve made in your life about children? Did you, do you, want to bear children? Did you choose the time and the partner? And what choices did you have about how to make
that choice? Do you carry in your body scars or echoes of those choices? Did you get pregnant with or father a child you didn’t want? What choice did you make? Look, the fruit hangs heavy around us. Did you want children you couldn’t have? The sweet and the bitter hang heavy on the boughs. Did you bear or father children in health and in joy? Did you bear a child and give her to someone else to raise? Did you lose a child in the womb? In childbirth? Or after? Pick the fruit, the bitter and the sweet, fruit of our choices and the choices we didn’t have. Feel your basket grow heavy on your arm as you walk on.

  Walk on to where the trees grow gnarled and old, bent by the wind and the force of winter storms. Look around you. Here are the choices you have made, will make as you age. How will you choose to be in your body as it grows older? What choices will you make about the ending of your monthly flow? What choices in your life will you look back on and celebrate? Regret? What losses will you mourn? The trees still bear fruit around you, ripe and rotten. How will you choose to face death when it comes? Will you pluck it from the tree, a final ripening? Will it taste bitter to you? Will it taste sweet?

  Pick the fruit. Feel how heavy your basket hangs now. And walk on, until you come to a clearing in the orchard. And there she sits, the Old Woman, the Crone, stirring and stirring her cauldron. Take a deep breath, and look at her. Notice how she appears to you, for she looks different to each one of us. And look into her eyes, deep as the night skies where the galaxies swirl. Hear her voice.

  She says, “My child, give me your fruits, the fruits of the choices you regret, of your pain and regrets, the fruits of your losses and your grieving. Give them to my cauldron, where they can be transformed.”

  And you search through your basket. Breathe deeply; find the fruits of your regrets. Notice what they feel like, look like, smell like. And give them to the cauldron. Use your breath, use your body, use your voice; let yourself make sounds that carry that regret into the fire and transform it.