Twilight Covening 6: The Horse Whisperer
Continuing my posts about this year's Twilight Covening, here is post two, on the day we explored both Air and Fire, in addition to merging our spirits with that of the aspect of Horse.
Day two clan time was started on the nature of Air. The clan gathered down an "Inspiration Point" - as one of my clan mates called it - a rocky area that projects out a bit into the lake. It is one of my favorite areas at Twilight, and I've had many important and notable encounters at that locale. It was a beautiful and perfect morning to be there. We covered the swift, adaptable nature of air, about how it gives sound to our thoughts. We meditated and shared a bit about what air meant to us. I threw a judgy "flighty" into the conversation, even though I'm actually rather fond of air. Thereafter, our clan leader performed an air attunement on each of us, one at a time. This took a bit, which gave me some time to journal my experience a bit. When it was my turn, I went and sat in the chair facing the lake, and our clan leader did her work around me, which touched me like reiki often does. While she was doing this, I had my eyes closed and was drifting. My mind was filled with visions. At first, I was feeling blocked and untouchable, and I became conscious of my self-protection. I let out a long breath, and I let me feel the wind blowing off the lake and across my face, which cleared my mind, again and again. Into this clear mind, an image arose of a figure made of twigs, sitting at the end of a long pier jutting out into a lake. A fire rose up in the figure, higher and higher and, wind-swept, became a long curling tail, coming up from the core of the body. I became aware that the figure was nothing, just a construct that would be burned away and rebuilt, over and over. The life that infused it would be unharmed by this destruction, and would return once a new stick-man was built. The clan leader rang a chime to end the attunement, and I rode upon this and the brilliant white light that it filled my mind with.
After our attunement, we had our first shamanic journey of the weekend. Our clan leader had us lay on the ground, and then she provided some verbal guidance about how to find our way down inside ourselves, into the underworld through which we would be journeying. For those of you with no experience in this, it is not as complex or difficult as it might sound. It is somewhat similar to drifting in the place at the edge of sleep, before you have completely lost consciousness, but where your thoughts start to become more dream-like. You are still aware of yourself, your body, the sound of the drum that is played during the ritual, but you start to see, feel, or otherwise have experiences that you explore. We did it enough this weekend that I now feel qualified to lead this - except for the fact that I don't know if I could rhythmically play a drum for that long. Anyway, here is my experience.
There was a great spiral of green, and I moved into it; it became ring after ring of bright, spring green that I could feel myself travelling down through. I saw the rising head of a raven off to one side of my vision, adorned in golds and reds, with a fire-eye looking at me, and a crown of antlers upon his head. He was observing my progress down into the underworld. I flew of villages, cities, over a great tower, across farmlands and country-sides; there were side moments that interjected - the faces of friends, visions of day to day life, random movie scenes, a seagull flying. I was gliding in the escort of ravens; there was a green caldera, draped in vines, filled with jungle. The raven king waited there for me. When I settled near him and sat at the top edge of the caldera, he transformed, becoming a dusty, worn-looking raven who plopped down in my lap, and looked up to me, demanding to be pet and stroked. I pet him for a few moments, and then I told him that I was there for work - that I was seeking. He replied that I am always there for work, in a frustrated tone, and so he told me "Here, see my beautiful eye." One of his eyes was normal; the other was a burning fiery place, great and terrible. Looking into the eye, I saw the two of us. We were flying together, and he was both the drab raven, and the gold and red king-raven at the same time, trailing with fire. We rose across the landscape, with everything lighting and burning in our passing, forests, towns, cities, reduced to ash under a brilliant sunset sky. There was blowing fire; there were the sounds of hammers falling, forging weapons and tools; there were swirls of sparks into a black sky that became stars. We sailed up to where a great spire was above the whole of the landscape; he settled and I circled him; as my view moved around to where we had flown from, I could see cities rising up from the ashes behind us, brilliant glassy structures that caught the light of the setting sun. Beyond that was a harbor, and great ships were arriving at the newly growing city. He said "These great works, yet they all burn. They pass; they rise again." After a moment, his focus fell upon me. "Now, me. Look at my beauty" at which point, he seemed to be seeking my petting and tending again.
At lunch, we had some time to talk about what we experienced in our shamanic journey. When I related my story, the clan leader called over another clan leader (from Two Ravens), and had me go over my vision again. They asked about my experience with ravens; I mentioned my encounter with the one in Utah, that walked ahead of me on the path, grumpily talking to me and not really wanting to fly away. Crows and ravens are present in my life routinely, and I've seen them in visions before. They felt that this suggested the possibility that Odin was reaching out to me. I've not got a lot of knowledge about Odin, but I do know about his time on the tree, the loss of his eye, and his two ravens. I can certainly see it, especially given the strange 1 burning eye that the raven of my vision had. Certainly something to contemplate. When I got home from the weekend, I went looking back through my various notes and posts; back at my last Twilight, I saw a gryphon that had an antler crown too. In one of my past shamanic journey experiences, I'd met a group gloriously adorned crow and raven people who showed me that I was one of them. In any case, now I have homework related to Odin.
Next, we drew a tarot related to our experience with air. The question: what is the message from air? What do I need to know about my journey? This would be card one of five from our work this weekend, unrelated to my own daily draws. I got the Moon, inverted. I've heard many explanations of this card inverted. Boiling them all down, the moon inverted suggests that I'm blocking myself from imagination and intuition, using logic and reason instead of opening myself to hopes, my feelings, and the messages coming in from the world around me. One notable interpretation: memories of your mother may be disturbing or upsetting you. Yep. More on that later in the story.
After lunch was fire-time. However, in this time, we did our first attempt at shape-changing. I didn't find that description accurate; in fact, it has always been a bit confusing to me when I've heard this before. In my experience with what we did, a more accurate description would be a spirit-sharing, where I and another join for a period of time, share feelings and experiences through each other perceptions, and each of us learn and understand the world better via the experience. Not unlike a shamanic journey, it was guided, in this case, by one of our clan mates, rather than by the clan leader herself. We lay on the ground and he guided us into a vision of meeting with the essence of Horse, whatever that was within us. It was slow going for me. Visualizing the horse was super easy. Sensing and touching the horse was also right there for me. However, the horse had a smoke-like shifting quality, changing shape and color, becoming many different horses all at once. I approached; I touched the nose and shoulder of the horse. I felt at ease, as did the horse. It became time to climb up on the horse; the horse was tall, so I had it kneel down so I could get up on its back, which it agreeably did. I rested my head upon its neck, and felt the warm rush of its body. However, then it was time for the two of us to join in senses and experiences. The horse seemed nervous about this, and I could feel it moving about and shaking its head with concern and distress. I spoke to it gently, stroked its neck, and settled my own nervousness, which it was no doubt picking up on. The merger started roughly, with us blending unevenly, and then shifting through various shapes, some with wings, spines, horns, and fins. When our guide suggested that we open our eyes, head out and explore the world in our new shape, I and my horse friend were not feeling ready. I did learn from the merger that my horse's name was, basically, "a colorful, orange-red part of a sun-set sky". When we finally did move forward, I felt like we were dumped out of a sack, roughly upon the ground; we lay there together for a while, uncertain as how to move, and unable to coordinate movement between us. Horse was perplexed with all the noise of words in my head, especially when we were looking at the clover and grasses on the ground. For a bit, it was content to just move our head and look at different plants, being confused and curious about the names for these things that sprung to mind. However, after a bit, we started working to figure out moving. In a way, it was a lot like helping a friend lift some heavy and awkwardly shaped piece of furniture to move it. There was a lot of "Do you have your end? I've got this over here; are you ok? Can you shift this just a little bit to the left." We managed to get up from the ground; my arms felt useless, and then other times like legs. Horse felt like it was rearing up and bouncing about on its hind legs, which was complicated and difficult. Yet, we got it together enough to walk without falling. We felt very curious about the near-by low tree branches. We managed our way over there, and then proceeded to blissfully enjoy the feeling of rubbing our face among the leaves and branches. For a short while, we were together, enjoying the day, and the scratching we were getting from the tree. Thereafter, our guide called us back. We wandered back over to where we had started, and went to lay down. Once we were settled, we were guided directly into our shamanic journey related to fire; however, horse wasn't done with me just yet, and since we didn't have any time to negotiate our separation, horse went along with me into the next trip.
Horse and I fell out of the sky, coming down in the midst of a vast, open, somewhat desolate and partly frozen landscape. Horse was familiar with this place, and leds me to where the people were. These people were squat, leathery skinned, and covered almost entirely in furs. They had horses, which are more like heavily-muscled shaggy furred ponies. The huts of the people were half in the ground, the tops being composed of furs, hides, and white sticks (or very large bones). There were drums there that reminded me of bodhran drums, upon which these people were painting complex images and patterns. I felt like this part of the journey had more to do with something about horse than me, so I asked about ravens, given my previous experience. Horse took me to a young boy who knew something about ravens. The child led me a place, a place far from the village, where there were bodies in a field, ravens picking at the corpses. The ravens noticed me there, and they took me up with them, which is the point where I became separated from horse. They flew me across the landscape, passing over frozen plains, then to more grassy plains, where we came to one destroyed village after another, where bodies were scattered about them. These people didn't look much different than the people that I'd first met, but it was clear that we'd flown away from the mostly frozen landscape into a more temperate region - even though there were still no trees to be seen.
After this, we immediately followed it up with exploring the question: What spark do I need to bring into being, what needs to be transformed? Back straight into visions: Raven walks with me as a man, a rather fancily dressed man with a top hat and glasses on a chain. He takes me along back alleys and side streets in a dense city. The city is partly in ruin, and there are hungry people laying about, living in poverty, even though, in the distance, I can see bright steeples and palaces. Raven is explaining how we have to tear down these ruined places to make room for whats to come. I'm anxious. Many people live in these places, and though I can see that many of them are sick, starving, or at the edge of death, it is the place they live. Raven is preparing the fire though, walking right by the suffering masses and scouting out a good spot to start a blaze. He tells me new things require cleansing; they require space. Something has to go to make room.
After this vision time, we did another card draw. Next up in my continuing series of reversed cards: Ten of Swords, inverted. The worst is over; you are injured, but an end to a time of torment and stress has arrived. It will not be an easy time, but good things will come. Ok, I like the sounds of that, after a fashion.
We had a lot of free time thereafter, in which there was some time for me to do a bit more walking; it was a lovely fall day, and I do enjoy getting out onto the trails. Unfortunately, trail maintenance has not been a focus in this area, so there were many, many dead ends. Later, I had dinner with my clan mates; I was feeling very connected by all the sharing of experiences we had done. Everyone seemed like they had something to bring to the discussion, and there was a lot of very open sharing. One of my clan mates in particular had been articulating very rich visions with a great deal of roughness and bloodiness. I appreciated the depth of her sharing in particular, as it made me feel more comfortable sharing the darkest parts of what I was experiencing.
In the evening, I went to the trance dance, which was done entirely differently than in past years. Notably, it was less trancy and more dancy. The woman who led it called it to us, taking us though each step in the dance very slowly; she would increase the complexity, then break it back down for us. This made it easier for nearly everyone to gradually get into the steps. She also invited folks to stay at whatever level they felt comfortable, and many did; the structure of the dance was unhindered by this, which I felt made it more open to folks of varying levels of mobility and dance skill. Along with the dance, there was a chant that steadily gained complexity. However, it was always in call, repeat style, so we didn't have to really remember it. For a long while, I was in my dance-wary head space, where I always am when I am learning a new dance. I was very focused on doing it right and keeping up. However, I gradually settled down and by the end, I was gliding along without problem. The trance did come, but it wasn't as deep as my previous experiences. That said, the energy level was so high and so positive, I felt great afterwards. Then again, I really like dancing.
Dream circle was Dream Circle. They had tea; they had chanting. You could put together a sleep packet if you wanted to do so. I wasn't so inclined. I enjoyed the mugwort tea and settling time. omly happen to be there when I arrived; she came and sat next to me, and we chanted and drank tea and relaxed. It was a very pleasant and easy way to end the day, appropriate for dream circle. My mind was remarkably quiet throughout - all the experiences of the day had cleared away all the noise. When I left and returned to my cabin, I slept very well. There were dreams, but again, I didn't recall them come morning.
Day two clan time was started on the nature of Air. The clan gathered down an "Inspiration Point" - as one of my clan mates called it - a rocky area that projects out a bit into the lake. It is one of my favorite areas at Twilight, and I've had many important and notable encounters at that locale. It was a beautiful and perfect morning to be there. We covered the swift, adaptable nature of air, about how it gives sound to our thoughts. We meditated and shared a bit about what air meant to us. I threw a judgy "flighty" into the conversation, even though I'm actually rather fond of air. Thereafter, our clan leader performed an air attunement on each of us, one at a time. This took a bit, which gave me some time to journal my experience a bit. When it was my turn, I went and sat in the chair facing the lake, and our clan leader did her work around me, which touched me like reiki often does. While she was doing this, I had my eyes closed and was drifting. My mind was filled with visions. At first, I was feeling blocked and untouchable, and I became conscious of my self-protection. I let out a long breath, and I let me feel the wind blowing off the lake and across my face, which cleared my mind, again and again. Into this clear mind, an image arose of a figure made of twigs, sitting at the end of a long pier jutting out into a lake. A fire rose up in the figure, higher and higher and, wind-swept, became a long curling tail, coming up from the core of the body. I became aware that the figure was nothing, just a construct that would be burned away and rebuilt, over and over. The life that infused it would be unharmed by this destruction, and would return once a new stick-man was built. The clan leader rang a chime to end the attunement, and I rode upon this and the brilliant white light that it filled my mind with.
After our attunement, we had our first shamanic journey of the weekend. Our clan leader had us lay on the ground, and then she provided some verbal guidance about how to find our way down inside ourselves, into the underworld through which we would be journeying. For those of you with no experience in this, it is not as complex or difficult as it might sound. It is somewhat similar to drifting in the place at the edge of sleep, before you have completely lost consciousness, but where your thoughts start to become more dream-like. You are still aware of yourself, your body, the sound of the drum that is played during the ritual, but you start to see, feel, or otherwise have experiences that you explore. We did it enough this weekend that I now feel qualified to lead this - except for the fact that I don't know if I could rhythmically play a drum for that long. Anyway, here is my experience.
There was a great spiral of green, and I moved into it; it became ring after ring of bright, spring green that I could feel myself travelling down through. I saw the rising head of a raven off to one side of my vision, adorned in golds and reds, with a fire-eye looking at me, and a crown of antlers upon his head. He was observing my progress down into the underworld. I flew of villages, cities, over a great tower, across farmlands and country-sides; there were side moments that interjected - the faces of friends, visions of day to day life, random movie scenes, a seagull flying. I was gliding in the escort of ravens; there was a green caldera, draped in vines, filled with jungle. The raven king waited there for me. When I settled near him and sat at the top edge of the caldera, he transformed, becoming a dusty, worn-looking raven who plopped down in my lap, and looked up to me, demanding to be pet and stroked. I pet him for a few moments, and then I told him that I was there for work - that I was seeking. He replied that I am always there for work, in a frustrated tone, and so he told me "Here, see my beautiful eye." One of his eyes was normal; the other was a burning fiery place, great and terrible. Looking into the eye, I saw the two of us. We were flying together, and he was both the drab raven, and the gold and red king-raven at the same time, trailing with fire. We rose across the landscape, with everything lighting and burning in our passing, forests, towns, cities, reduced to ash under a brilliant sunset sky. There was blowing fire; there were the sounds of hammers falling, forging weapons and tools; there were swirls of sparks into a black sky that became stars. We sailed up to where a great spire was above the whole of the landscape; he settled and I circled him; as my view moved around to where we had flown from, I could see cities rising up from the ashes behind us, brilliant glassy structures that caught the light of the setting sun. Beyond that was a harbor, and great ships were arriving at the newly growing city. He said "These great works, yet they all burn. They pass; they rise again." After a moment, his focus fell upon me. "Now, me. Look at my beauty" at which point, he seemed to be seeking my petting and tending again.
At lunch, we had some time to talk about what we experienced in our shamanic journey. When I related my story, the clan leader called over another clan leader (from Two Ravens), and had me go over my vision again. They asked about my experience with ravens; I mentioned my encounter with the one in Utah, that walked ahead of me on the path, grumpily talking to me and not really wanting to fly away. Crows and ravens are present in my life routinely, and I've seen them in visions before. They felt that this suggested the possibility that Odin was reaching out to me. I've not got a lot of knowledge about Odin, but I do know about his time on the tree, the loss of his eye, and his two ravens. I can certainly see it, especially given the strange 1 burning eye that the raven of my vision had. Certainly something to contemplate. When I got home from the weekend, I went looking back through my various notes and posts; back at my last Twilight, I saw a gryphon that had an antler crown too. In one of my past shamanic journey experiences, I'd met a group gloriously adorned crow and raven people who showed me that I was one of them. In any case, now I have homework related to Odin.
Next, we drew a tarot related to our experience with air. The question: what is the message from air? What do I need to know about my journey? This would be card one of five from our work this weekend, unrelated to my own daily draws. I got the Moon, inverted. I've heard many explanations of this card inverted. Boiling them all down, the moon inverted suggests that I'm blocking myself from imagination and intuition, using logic and reason instead of opening myself to hopes, my feelings, and the messages coming in from the world around me. One notable interpretation: memories of your mother may be disturbing or upsetting you. Yep. More on that later in the story.
After lunch was fire-time. However, in this time, we did our first attempt at shape-changing. I didn't find that description accurate; in fact, it has always been a bit confusing to me when I've heard this before. In my experience with what we did, a more accurate description would be a spirit-sharing, where I and another join for a period of time, share feelings and experiences through each other perceptions, and each of us learn and understand the world better via the experience. Not unlike a shamanic journey, it was guided, in this case, by one of our clan mates, rather than by the clan leader herself. We lay on the ground and he guided us into a vision of meeting with the essence of Horse, whatever that was within us. It was slow going for me. Visualizing the horse was super easy. Sensing and touching the horse was also right there for me. However, the horse had a smoke-like shifting quality, changing shape and color, becoming many different horses all at once. I approached; I touched the nose and shoulder of the horse. I felt at ease, as did the horse. It became time to climb up on the horse; the horse was tall, so I had it kneel down so I could get up on its back, which it agreeably did. I rested my head upon its neck, and felt the warm rush of its body. However, then it was time for the two of us to join in senses and experiences. The horse seemed nervous about this, and I could feel it moving about and shaking its head with concern and distress. I spoke to it gently, stroked its neck, and settled my own nervousness, which it was no doubt picking up on. The merger started roughly, with us blending unevenly, and then shifting through various shapes, some with wings, spines, horns, and fins. When our guide suggested that we open our eyes, head out and explore the world in our new shape, I and my horse friend were not feeling ready. I did learn from the merger that my horse's name was, basically, "a colorful, orange-red part of a sun-set sky". When we finally did move forward, I felt like we were dumped out of a sack, roughly upon the ground; we lay there together for a while, uncertain as how to move, and unable to coordinate movement between us. Horse was perplexed with all the noise of words in my head, especially when we were looking at the clover and grasses on the ground. For a bit, it was content to just move our head and look at different plants, being confused and curious about the names for these things that sprung to mind. However, after a bit, we started working to figure out moving. In a way, it was a lot like helping a friend lift some heavy and awkwardly shaped piece of furniture to move it. There was a lot of "Do you have your end? I've got this over here; are you ok? Can you shift this just a little bit to the left." We managed to get up from the ground; my arms felt useless, and then other times like legs. Horse felt like it was rearing up and bouncing about on its hind legs, which was complicated and difficult. Yet, we got it together enough to walk without falling. We felt very curious about the near-by low tree branches. We managed our way over there, and then proceeded to blissfully enjoy the feeling of rubbing our face among the leaves and branches. For a short while, we were together, enjoying the day, and the scratching we were getting from the tree. Thereafter, our guide called us back. We wandered back over to where we had started, and went to lay down. Once we were settled, we were guided directly into our shamanic journey related to fire; however, horse wasn't done with me just yet, and since we didn't have any time to negotiate our separation, horse went along with me into the next trip.
Horse and I fell out of the sky, coming down in the midst of a vast, open, somewhat desolate and partly frozen landscape. Horse was familiar with this place, and leds me to where the people were. These people were squat, leathery skinned, and covered almost entirely in furs. They had horses, which are more like heavily-muscled shaggy furred ponies. The huts of the people were half in the ground, the tops being composed of furs, hides, and white sticks (or very large bones). There were drums there that reminded me of bodhran drums, upon which these people were painting complex images and patterns. I felt like this part of the journey had more to do with something about horse than me, so I asked about ravens, given my previous experience. Horse took me to a young boy who knew something about ravens. The child led me a place, a place far from the village, where there were bodies in a field, ravens picking at the corpses. The ravens noticed me there, and they took me up with them, which is the point where I became separated from horse. They flew me across the landscape, passing over frozen plains, then to more grassy plains, where we came to one destroyed village after another, where bodies were scattered about them. These people didn't look much different than the people that I'd first met, but it was clear that we'd flown away from the mostly frozen landscape into a more temperate region - even though there were still no trees to be seen.
After this, we immediately followed it up with exploring the question: What spark do I need to bring into being, what needs to be transformed? Back straight into visions: Raven walks with me as a man, a rather fancily dressed man with a top hat and glasses on a chain. He takes me along back alleys and side streets in a dense city. The city is partly in ruin, and there are hungry people laying about, living in poverty, even though, in the distance, I can see bright steeples and palaces. Raven is explaining how we have to tear down these ruined places to make room for whats to come. I'm anxious. Many people live in these places, and though I can see that many of them are sick, starving, or at the edge of death, it is the place they live. Raven is preparing the fire though, walking right by the suffering masses and scouting out a good spot to start a blaze. He tells me new things require cleansing; they require space. Something has to go to make room.
After this vision time, we did another card draw. Next up in my continuing series of reversed cards: Ten of Swords, inverted. The worst is over; you are injured, but an end to a time of torment and stress has arrived. It will not be an easy time, but good things will come. Ok, I like the sounds of that, after a fashion.
We had a lot of free time thereafter, in which there was some time for me to do a bit more walking; it was a lovely fall day, and I do enjoy getting out onto the trails. Unfortunately, trail maintenance has not been a focus in this area, so there were many, many dead ends. Later, I had dinner with my clan mates; I was feeling very connected by all the sharing of experiences we had done. Everyone seemed like they had something to bring to the discussion, and there was a lot of very open sharing. One of my clan mates in particular had been articulating very rich visions with a great deal of roughness and bloodiness. I appreciated the depth of her sharing in particular, as it made me feel more comfortable sharing the darkest parts of what I was experiencing.
In the evening, I went to the trance dance, which was done entirely differently than in past years. Notably, it was less trancy and more dancy. The woman who led it called it to us, taking us though each step in the dance very slowly; she would increase the complexity, then break it back down for us. This made it easier for nearly everyone to gradually get into the steps. She also invited folks to stay at whatever level they felt comfortable, and many did; the structure of the dance was unhindered by this, which I felt made it more open to folks of varying levels of mobility and dance skill. Along with the dance, there was a chant that steadily gained complexity. However, it was always in call, repeat style, so we didn't have to really remember it. For a long while, I was in my dance-wary head space, where I always am when I am learning a new dance. I was very focused on doing it right and keeping up. However, I gradually settled down and by the end, I was gliding along without problem. The trance did come, but it wasn't as deep as my previous experiences. That said, the energy level was so high and so positive, I felt great afterwards. Then again, I really like dancing.
Dream circle was Dream Circle. They had tea; they had chanting. You could put together a sleep packet if you wanted to do so. I wasn't so inclined. I enjoyed the mugwort tea and settling time. omly happen to be there when I arrived; she came and sat next to me, and we chanted and drank tea and relaxed. It was a very pleasant and easy way to end the day, appropriate for dream circle. My mind was remarkably quiet throughout - all the experiences of the day had cleared away all the noise. When I left and returned to my cabin, I slept very well. There were dreams, but again, I didn't recall them come morning.