Twilight Covening 6: Running Free
This is my third post about this year's Twilight Covening. Already, I am so immersed in life that it feels like something that happened two months ago rather than the weekend before last. Hopefully, doing this work will help me get it back into my head.
The third day of Twilight Covening in Horse Clan was dedicated to water. Appropriately, when I awoke in the morning, it was raining. I headed up to breakfast. While there, I did my own tarot draw; Two of Wands, inverted. At this point, I'd drawn so many inverted cards that I checked my deck to make sure there wasn't something weird going on. Nope, they were totally randomly sorted, including the flip order. In any case, this card suggests a pleasant surprise is ahead, assuming that I can be emotionally open to it.
We started with a water attunement. Unlike the previous day's attunement, the folks who weren't currently being attunded were shaking rattles or playing a drum to help maintain the space. Part of the water attunement was the washing of the hands and, in some cases, the feet (for those who were interested). I had my turn on the rattle. I also helped hold the space while someone else was being attuned. When I was attuned myself, it was settling but not particular affecting. Likely, that has more to do with my relationship with water than anything else.
Next in our clan work on this day was an ancestor journey. This was a surprise detour; I didn't know that we were going to be doing that kind of work in this clan. However, it was using the same technique, the shamanic journey, just going into a different direction, so I saw how it fit. In any case, our clan leader told us to take a turn on the path we'd been taking, and to find our way down into the roots of a great tree, down below that, and finally to the shores of a dark river. This was an easy trip for me. I could see the disembodied entities and zombie-like beings roving this shore; they didn't pay particular attention to me, other than moving out of my path as I approached. The raven was there with me, sweeping out ahead and landing on the ghostly glass boat that was at the shore. I did not observe anyone managing the boat; after we were aboard, it just started going. The water was tarry black, and looked thick like blood. In it there were bodies, parts of bodies, and the suggestions of struggling figures beneath the thick surface. This was when our clan leader, who was still guiding us with words, suggested that we reach out with our mind and find a presence in this place, someone here in this river to which we felt a connection, maybe someone we knew who had passed away, or perhaps just seeking a familiar-feeling presence, someone who was passed but we might not have met in our life. Immediately, without the vaguest pause, my mother leapt to my mind; I could feel her right there, so close by. This certainty was immediately followed by a moment of panic, because my heart was like "NOPE! Not doing that", and I felt myself fluttering about, like a bird trapped in a cage, seeking any escape, but finding none. Raven was there with me, and I could feel how he pinned me to this place, to the ship. There was the river about us, and the feeling of a low cavern ceiling below. I felt trapped, but at the same time, I was trapped by me. I settled in and moved forward. We'd been directed to help the being we found out of the river. I reached in an drew up the remains. The body was in two states, unsettled between them, shifting back and forth. One state was nodes of white and blue light, interconnected by ghostly white webs. It looked something like the depiction of a constellation, save for that it was in motion. The other version was a shriveled, distorted form, a skeleton covered in sagging leather, with hands and feet that were spirals, twisted in on themselves, without fingers and toes. The face was a void of sucking blackness. The corpse form had a hedge of black wild hair rising from its head in a fashion like might be seen on a particularly horrifying troll doll. The shifting shape didn't seem to acknowledge that it had been pulled into the boat, or act in any way like it was conscious. It was warm, like a living thing, but otherwise there was nothing to make it seem as though there was a mind there. Yet, I could feel my mother in it; the sense of her was terrible. Even as brilliant as the bright nodes composing her body were, I knew how faded they were from what they had been, how much had been extinguished, intentionally destroyed by her choices. Here I could see what was left of her immortal essence and it was a tiny fraction of what it should have been. Worse than that, I could see that it was by her own hand that it had been destroyed. Her shallow, short-sighted whims as a mortal being had done something intentionally to burn away part of her that was made to last forever. There was an ache here that stretched far beyond the scope of me knowing her as my mother, to a much deeper place where I understood the nature of me, of all of us, in a way that has no correlation to our day to day life. It was the me that could look out over the expanse of all creation, where the motions and choices of my life were but a tiny sparkle in a vast field of stars. That part of me could see how wrong what had been done was; through it, I understood the horror of what I was seeing.
Our guide directed us to tend to the being we had drawn from the depths. I went to attempting to brush her hair, but it was like brushing a thorny hedge. It was filled with murk, decay, bones, and strings like rotting seaweed. It was unpleasant and ineffectual. I looked deeper, trying to find a way to this task, so I delved into what was there. Deep down inside, I found a fireplace, a comfortable room, soft chairs, and warmly colored rugs. At my feet was a small girl, looking up at me with dark eyes. Her hair was much more reasonable, though tangled. I worked the brush through it, bit by bit, and the snarls came undone and her hair became manageable. This translated up to the horrible thing that I'd drawn into the boat. For a brief moment, I felt its consciousness stir. It was aware that it was out of the river, and that someone was taking care of it. There was a sense that it settled and was somewhat soothed. In that, it stopped shifting shapes, and settled into to one form. It was a brittle, frail woman, looking very ancient, but distinctly human. Her hair was all grey, but it was loose and wavy, well tended. She didn't move on her own, or give any indication of noticing me. However, when we arrived on the far shore, she could be easily led, walking along slowly as I guided her to the shore. When I took my hand off of her, she didn't to seem particularly aware of her change in circumstance, but she was standing on the shore. Seeing no reaction, I walked back to the boat, and we moved away. As we drifted off, I noticed that her figure turned left and right, as if looking about a bit, but that was the only sign I got before she was lost from my view.
This adventure done, we moved on to our water shamanic journey. The question into which we were diving was "How do we fill ourselves with what we are seeking?" How do we heal from the scars of the transformation?" In this vision, I took a walk with raven through the burned-out remains of where I traveled. All that was behind me was ruins, my great works ash. I surmounted a hill and there was a series of meadows, and some bright sunshine. As I traveled through one meadow after another, past some cute little country cottages and tucked-away gardens, the loves of my life came out to greet me, one at a time. In each case, they spoke gently to me. Sometimes, they stroked my head for a moment, or they gave me a gentle hug. One anointed my head with water and gave me a brilliant smile, looking so proud of me. Not one of them seemed angry or upset at all the terrible destruction that was behind me. Each seemed pleased. However, they were there to bid me well on my journey. Each of them gave me some kind of gift for the road, often clothing. Raven kept me going when I lingered, and eventually we came to a steep winding path down to a harbor below. There Mary, one of my oldest friends and often spirit visitor, was waiting. She smiled at me, adjusted the clasp of my cloak, and helped me to get onto the boat that was waiting there. Raven settled among the rigging, where there were many other waiting birds, and the boat set sail, without any apparent crew. As we sailed, my view climbed higher and higher away from the boat, until I could see the land I was sailing away from, the sea that I was approaching and then the great continent beyond the sea; that land was easier 100 times larger than the island I had been on before; before leaving the island, I had been certain that the island was all there was to the world. When I landed on the far shore, I was greeted there by giant, beautiful, monstrous beings, glowing with brilliance and magic. They seemed somewhere between tolerant to amused by my arrival. Even the least of them was so much greater in wisdom and power than me. Yet, I knew they were my family and they welcomed me home.
After this experience, we drew our tarot for water. What is the message from water about my journey? I got the Six of Pentacles, Inverted. The message: there is great generosity towards me, right before me, but I may not be seeing it, or accepting of it, possibly out of pride or stubbornness. Yeah, the cosmos is sometimes heavy handed with me, but I probably require that level of directness.
The afternoon of Sunday was full of quiet time; first off, we didn't have anything scheduled until the major ritual of the evening. Second, our clan had taken on being silent for the rest of the day until the major ritual was over. It was to give us some time to pay attention, to focus on our perceptions and inner workings, rather than spending all our time chatting about lunch and the need for more coffee. The first thing that I noticed when I was around the folks from other clans was how much talking that we do. So much noise. So many voices and stories. When I was quiet, I could pick them out, and be more attentive to them. I and one of my clan mates stood together in line. I'd had time to speak to her several times through our clan times and previous lunches, so I knew that she was one of my people, from a cultural perspective. Her spiritual work was complex, and she shared deeply in the clan times. We spent the time in line gesturing at each other, not doing a terrible job of relating things with sign. It made me wonder how long it would take a clan to develop really good sign communication if they were silent together for days. My guess is that by the last day, they'd be able to carry on fairly lively conversations. One of the take-aways from this part though - throughout the afternoon as I tried to communicate only via gestures and facial expressions - it made me wonder how much we actually understand each other when we do use words. Often the person I was gesturing at would nod their understanding only to show a moment later they didn't understand what I was going on about at all.
I was asked if I could attend to the dining hall fire. That didn't require any talking on my part, plus, I like fire. I dedicated myself to it. The wood was so green and wet; I would spend about 5 minutes building fire, and then get about 10 minutes of good fire, before I had to start working on it again. It was very fuel intensive. My clan buddy approached me at the fire and we "spoke" about it. She sat and helped me maintain it. She went and got me coffee. Looking at her, I could see that her heart was sore from our previous workings in clan time. I gestured to her about whether I could help move her energies along, and she got it and agreed. The work was easy; her bound-up intentions started to move again. The wash of pain hazing over her core began to fade a bit. I love it when the work just happens like that.
Many people stopped to thank me for my work at the fire. I indicated that I couldn't speak, and they stood and spoke with me anyway. I would gesture my response. It was interesting, and it definitely made me more attentive. Someone from the kitchen brought out an air compressor to help with the fire. It did cause it to flare up a whole lot, but the logs just wouldn't stay caught for good. After about an hour and a half at the fire, I let it go and went out for a walk.
The rain had stopped by this point, though it was a cloudy and misty day still. I went out to the trails behind the parking area again, determined to see if I could figure out the trails there. It was all just dead ends in pretty much every direction. A long time ago, there had been a trail system there, but it just had been allowed to go wild. Still, the quiet time in the forest was particularly nice. I went walking down to Bear Rock. On my way, the sun came out for just a bit, peaking through a hole in the clouds. The lake was beautiful, and the wind was strong but pleasant, the temps being so reasonable. I basked in the glory of a perfect fall day.
I headed back up toward the center of the site; I ran into Omly along the way, walking with one of her clan mates. When I saw her in the distance, I could feel the energy of our love arching about between us. When I saw her face, she had a brilliant smile on it, as I had on mine. She had a moon on her forehead, which seemed totally appropriate.
I headed back to the dining hall to catch up on my journaling for a while. Eventually, it was time to head off for the evening ritual. Gradually, folks gathered, and we headed over to the newest building to get ready. While we were waiting, a huge pile of poetry had been left for public reading. Folks took turns sharing, reading to the gathered. Some of the poems made me weep; some made me laugh. Omly sat next to me through the time we were waiting. I was still keeping silent, so I didn't choose to read. Her clan went off to the big ritual first. Mine was called about 30 minutes later.
Next up: The visioning ritual for this year's Twilight Covening.
The third day of Twilight Covening in Horse Clan was dedicated to water. Appropriately, when I awoke in the morning, it was raining. I headed up to breakfast. While there, I did my own tarot draw; Two of Wands, inverted. At this point, I'd drawn so many inverted cards that I checked my deck to make sure there wasn't something weird going on. Nope, they were totally randomly sorted, including the flip order. In any case, this card suggests a pleasant surprise is ahead, assuming that I can be emotionally open to it.
We started with a water attunement. Unlike the previous day's attunement, the folks who weren't currently being attunded were shaking rattles or playing a drum to help maintain the space. Part of the water attunement was the washing of the hands and, in some cases, the feet (for those who were interested). I had my turn on the rattle. I also helped hold the space while someone else was being attuned. When I was attuned myself, it was settling but not particular affecting. Likely, that has more to do with my relationship with water than anything else.
Next in our clan work on this day was an ancestor journey. This was a surprise detour; I didn't know that we were going to be doing that kind of work in this clan. However, it was using the same technique, the shamanic journey, just going into a different direction, so I saw how it fit. In any case, our clan leader told us to take a turn on the path we'd been taking, and to find our way down into the roots of a great tree, down below that, and finally to the shores of a dark river. This was an easy trip for me. I could see the disembodied entities and zombie-like beings roving this shore; they didn't pay particular attention to me, other than moving out of my path as I approached. The raven was there with me, sweeping out ahead and landing on the ghostly glass boat that was at the shore. I did not observe anyone managing the boat; after we were aboard, it just started going. The water was tarry black, and looked thick like blood. In it there were bodies, parts of bodies, and the suggestions of struggling figures beneath the thick surface. This was when our clan leader, who was still guiding us with words, suggested that we reach out with our mind and find a presence in this place, someone here in this river to which we felt a connection, maybe someone we knew who had passed away, or perhaps just seeking a familiar-feeling presence, someone who was passed but we might not have met in our life. Immediately, without the vaguest pause, my mother leapt to my mind; I could feel her right there, so close by. This certainty was immediately followed by a moment of panic, because my heart was like "NOPE! Not doing that", and I felt myself fluttering about, like a bird trapped in a cage, seeking any escape, but finding none. Raven was there with me, and I could feel how he pinned me to this place, to the ship. There was the river about us, and the feeling of a low cavern ceiling below. I felt trapped, but at the same time, I was trapped by me. I settled in and moved forward. We'd been directed to help the being we found out of the river. I reached in an drew up the remains. The body was in two states, unsettled between them, shifting back and forth. One state was nodes of white and blue light, interconnected by ghostly white webs. It looked something like the depiction of a constellation, save for that it was in motion. The other version was a shriveled, distorted form, a skeleton covered in sagging leather, with hands and feet that were spirals, twisted in on themselves, without fingers and toes. The face was a void of sucking blackness. The corpse form had a hedge of black wild hair rising from its head in a fashion like might be seen on a particularly horrifying troll doll. The shifting shape didn't seem to acknowledge that it had been pulled into the boat, or act in any way like it was conscious. It was warm, like a living thing, but otherwise there was nothing to make it seem as though there was a mind there. Yet, I could feel my mother in it; the sense of her was terrible. Even as brilliant as the bright nodes composing her body were, I knew how faded they were from what they had been, how much had been extinguished, intentionally destroyed by her choices. Here I could see what was left of her immortal essence and it was a tiny fraction of what it should have been. Worse than that, I could see that it was by her own hand that it had been destroyed. Her shallow, short-sighted whims as a mortal being had done something intentionally to burn away part of her that was made to last forever. There was an ache here that stretched far beyond the scope of me knowing her as my mother, to a much deeper place where I understood the nature of me, of all of us, in a way that has no correlation to our day to day life. It was the me that could look out over the expanse of all creation, where the motions and choices of my life were but a tiny sparkle in a vast field of stars. That part of me could see how wrong what had been done was; through it, I understood the horror of what I was seeing.
Our guide directed us to tend to the being we had drawn from the depths. I went to attempting to brush her hair, but it was like brushing a thorny hedge. It was filled with murk, decay, bones, and strings like rotting seaweed. It was unpleasant and ineffectual. I looked deeper, trying to find a way to this task, so I delved into what was there. Deep down inside, I found a fireplace, a comfortable room, soft chairs, and warmly colored rugs. At my feet was a small girl, looking up at me with dark eyes. Her hair was much more reasonable, though tangled. I worked the brush through it, bit by bit, and the snarls came undone and her hair became manageable. This translated up to the horrible thing that I'd drawn into the boat. For a brief moment, I felt its consciousness stir. It was aware that it was out of the river, and that someone was taking care of it. There was a sense that it settled and was somewhat soothed. In that, it stopped shifting shapes, and settled into to one form. It was a brittle, frail woman, looking very ancient, but distinctly human. Her hair was all grey, but it was loose and wavy, well tended. She didn't move on her own, or give any indication of noticing me. However, when we arrived on the far shore, she could be easily led, walking along slowly as I guided her to the shore. When I took my hand off of her, she didn't to seem particularly aware of her change in circumstance, but she was standing on the shore. Seeing no reaction, I walked back to the boat, and we moved away. As we drifted off, I noticed that her figure turned left and right, as if looking about a bit, but that was the only sign I got before she was lost from my view.
This adventure done, we moved on to our water shamanic journey. The question into which we were diving was "How do we fill ourselves with what we are seeking?" How do we heal from the scars of the transformation?" In this vision, I took a walk with raven through the burned-out remains of where I traveled. All that was behind me was ruins, my great works ash. I surmounted a hill and there was a series of meadows, and some bright sunshine. As I traveled through one meadow after another, past some cute little country cottages and tucked-away gardens, the loves of my life came out to greet me, one at a time. In each case, they spoke gently to me. Sometimes, they stroked my head for a moment, or they gave me a gentle hug. One anointed my head with water and gave me a brilliant smile, looking so proud of me. Not one of them seemed angry or upset at all the terrible destruction that was behind me. Each seemed pleased. However, they were there to bid me well on my journey. Each of them gave me some kind of gift for the road, often clothing. Raven kept me going when I lingered, and eventually we came to a steep winding path down to a harbor below. There Mary, one of my oldest friends and often spirit visitor, was waiting. She smiled at me, adjusted the clasp of my cloak, and helped me to get onto the boat that was waiting there. Raven settled among the rigging, where there were many other waiting birds, and the boat set sail, without any apparent crew. As we sailed, my view climbed higher and higher away from the boat, until I could see the land I was sailing away from, the sea that I was approaching and then the great continent beyond the sea; that land was easier 100 times larger than the island I had been on before; before leaving the island, I had been certain that the island was all there was to the world. When I landed on the far shore, I was greeted there by giant, beautiful, monstrous beings, glowing with brilliance and magic. They seemed somewhere between tolerant to amused by my arrival. Even the least of them was so much greater in wisdom and power than me. Yet, I knew they were my family and they welcomed me home.
After this experience, we drew our tarot for water. What is the message from water about my journey? I got the Six of Pentacles, Inverted. The message: there is great generosity towards me, right before me, but I may not be seeing it, or accepting of it, possibly out of pride or stubbornness. Yeah, the cosmos is sometimes heavy handed with me, but I probably require that level of directness.
The afternoon of Sunday was full of quiet time; first off, we didn't have anything scheduled until the major ritual of the evening. Second, our clan had taken on being silent for the rest of the day until the major ritual was over. It was to give us some time to pay attention, to focus on our perceptions and inner workings, rather than spending all our time chatting about lunch and the need for more coffee. The first thing that I noticed when I was around the folks from other clans was how much talking that we do. So much noise. So many voices and stories. When I was quiet, I could pick them out, and be more attentive to them. I and one of my clan mates stood together in line. I'd had time to speak to her several times through our clan times and previous lunches, so I knew that she was one of my people, from a cultural perspective. Her spiritual work was complex, and she shared deeply in the clan times. We spent the time in line gesturing at each other, not doing a terrible job of relating things with sign. It made me wonder how long it would take a clan to develop really good sign communication if they were silent together for days. My guess is that by the last day, they'd be able to carry on fairly lively conversations. One of the take-aways from this part though - throughout the afternoon as I tried to communicate only via gestures and facial expressions - it made me wonder how much we actually understand each other when we do use words. Often the person I was gesturing at would nod their understanding only to show a moment later they didn't understand what I was going on about at all.
I was asked if I could attend to the dining hall fire. That didn't require any talking on my part, plus, I like fire. I dedicated myself to it. The wood was so green and wet; I would spend about 5 minutes building fire, and then get about 10 minutes of good fire, before I had to start working on it again. It was very fuel intensive. My clan buddy approached me at the fire and we "spoke" about it. She sat and helped me maintain it. She went and got me coffee. Looking at her, I could see that her heart was sore from our previous workings in clan time. I gestured to her about whether I could help move her energies along, and she got it and agreed. The work was easy; her bound-up intentions started to move again. The wash of pain hazing over her core began to fade a bit. I love it when the work just happens like that.
Many people stopped to thank me for my work at the fire. I indicated that I couldn't speak, and they stood and spoke with me anyway. I would gesture my response. It was interesting, and it definitely made me more attentive. Someone from the kitchen brought out an air compressor to help with the fire. It did cause it to flare up a whole lot, but the logs just wouldn't stay caught for good. After about an hour and a half at the fire, I let it go and went out for a walk.
The rain had stopped by this point, though it was a cloudy and misty day still. I went out to the trails behind the parking area again, determined to see if I could figure out the trails there. It was all just dead ends in pretty much every direction. A long time ago, there had been a trail system there, but it just had been allowed to go wild. Still, the quiet time in the forest was particularly nice. I went walking down to Bear Rock. On my way, the sun came out for just a bit, peaking through a hole in the clouds. The lake was beautiful, and the wind was strong but pleasant, the temps being so reasonable. I basked in the glory of a perfect fall day.
I headed back up toward the center of the site; I ran into Omly along the way, walking with one of her clan mates. When I saw her in the distance, I could feel the energy of our love arching about between us. When I saw her face, she had a brilliant smile on it, as I had on mine. She had a moon on her forehead, which seemed totally appropriate.
I headed back to the dining hall to catch up on my journaling for a while. Eventually, it was time to head off for the evening ritual. Gradually, folks gathered, and we headed over to the newest building to get ready. While we were waiting, a huge pile of poetry had been left for public reading. Folks took turns sharing, reading to the gathered. Some of the poems made me weep; some made me laugh. Omly sat next to me through the time we were waiting. I was still keeping silent, so I didn't choose to read. Her clan went off to the big ritual first. Mine was called about 30 minutes later.
Next up: The visioning ritual for this year's Twilight Covening.