Celtic Clip Art Border by Gunther at Synergy.
'Accessing the Wild Magic.'
Wild magic, cunning craft, they might seem to be the same thing. Personally I believe that the wild magic is the energy generated in the shadows of all energetic swings and that it takes the development of a very personal perception with which, it seems, is given the ability to immerse oneself in this magic.
This for me is cunning craft.The multiplicity of small magics that if they are unable to move a mountain can certainly empower the practitioner to perceive that mountain in many new ways, thus removing the need to move it. Cunning crafter, charmer, hedge witch, cunning man, fairy doctor... in the tradition of my home island where as healers, charmers and advisers to the common people, generations of these folk doctors lived and worked with little interference from church and state. Often hereditary down many generations of the one family.
But enough of history: the wild magic lives in the moment, and it is in that moment that we touch and are touched by it.
And so into the moment.To work in the field of wild magic is in many ways to walk away from ritual. Away from the symbols and trappings of ritual and high magic, from the tools and symbols of coven craft, to step into the neoshamanic world of shadow and peripheral image. Coming from instinct, intuition and feelings, seeking not gods and goddesses but the manifest energies of nature and this living planetary being in all its shapes, forms and imaginings.
It might be noted here that I wear no metal, no silver, no gemstones, no crystals. Such tools and artifices as I use are entirely of natural materials. Fire always living, dancing flame enhanced with beeswax and pine resin. A libation of clear water in an earthen bowl. A staff of plain wood and a knife of volcanic glass. To some degree this is personal preference, but with good reasoning. Working entirely with the natural energy form, working with the life force of the planetary being, it feels needful to have only implements of compatible resonance, and here I come to a crisis of conscience in my craft. How can I allow in my life and in my craft that which is disrespectful and destructive to the life force of the planetary being? Here most of us make compromises, myself no less than others, but for my craft's sake, for the sake of the living energy of which I am part, I shall make less and less compromises as the work grows stronger in me, and so hopefully come to a deep and natural understanding of my craft. To touch this energy, to touch it honestly with an open mind and heart, without fear and with an empowered understanding.
Nature representing itself without the need to filter our understanding through symbols: to which end I offer some uncomfortable thoughts.
Crystals, mined by dynamite in third world countries, using indentured child labour. To be used as 'healing tools' by relatively wealthy westerners?
Silver. One ounce of metallic silver leaves close-on ten tons of zinc and lead and heavy metal poisoned tailings to pollute rivers and poison groundwater and to debase and destroy the lives of the people thereby effected.
But it looks 'witchy'?
Petroleum based candles, to give fire energy to a circle or working.The list is long indeed. None of this is intended as a put down, but in the context of wild magic, is I believe, an issue of major importance to the student of this form of craft.
Speaking personally, I have spent much of the last 8 years involved in a deep and continuous personal working intending to bring me to close communion with the living spirits of our land at Pook.
This has drawn me along many interesting and inspiring by-ways, and ever further away from ritual magic.
At this stage, it's quite possible that I only continue calling myself a witch out of habit though I don't have any other name that would serve.I find I am deeply touched by the response and support that I feel the spirits of this land have given me. Itıs very personal, a feeling of kinship and closeness of fellowship and co-responsibility.
That has very much changed the way I see many things.I truly believe that all the symbols and ritual trappings of more formal craft serve the practitioners thereof well and honestly, yet still I must admit to feeling uncomfortable with all but the must simple and personal form.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that it's possible by personal act of will to transform oneself into a living expression of the wild magic.
wishing all love, luck and wellbeing.
Yours in serviceBev. May, 2003.
