Last night, I dreamt of a witches' circle, of which I was the priestess. The gathering was small in the wood-paneled basement of my parents' house, and we each placed a small pebble of blue glass at our feet as we sat in meditation and prayer, before we rose and traced a wider circle with the movement of our bodies, turning and turning with linked hands.
Witch--which is odd, considering the term has never felt appropriate and I have come to feel very much the Druid. Indeed, there was some confusion about wording. At first, there were only a few intimate friends who looked to me to introduce them to a spiritual path that could transform their care of and concern for the world into a very real, very manifest form of worship. We met to invigorate peace and friendship. Many of them called themselves "witches" because they felt outcast and ostracized, but though it was a witches' circle (like none I have ever been a part of in my waking life), I was a priestess, not a witch. I was a Druid--or, beyond that, I was only me, but fully and completely. Then, there was a mother with her son, who accused us of having promised her a ship--not friend-ship or relation-ship, but a literal vehicle of escape and change, a thing with a deck and a sail and navigated according to the literal, well-charted stars. She had waited three days, she objected, and no ship had come. She stormed off, her son in tow.
As we sat in meditation, I held a small orb of lapis lazuli in my hand. The soul-depths of blue, the quick gasp of gold, the wisps of elusive cream across its cool surface--I began to spin it between my fingers. The others let out startled exclamations--how did I do such a thing, how was it possible? I chuckled at their astonishment--look, it's easy, I said, rolling the globe across the circle to another girl, there--it is already spinning, just as we all are, though we are sitting still... just scoop it up into the arch of your palm, remove yourself as an obstacle to its natural motion, and let it continue... But the girl fumbled and let it drop. She rolled it back to me again, and I lifted it with but a fingernail and rolled it along the curves of my body, bringing it back to rest again between my forefinger and thumb. I felt the rounded stone slip by my fingers like water--I felt the very ridges of my fingerprints ripple and undulate as if in tiny waves, urging on the turning of the delicate blue orb within the energies of the meditative circle, while my hand seemed yet steady and unmoving.
What could it mean?
The woman did not return, but her son did, with other young men, and with rocks. They began to beat at the door and above us we heard the shattering of glass as window after window exploded with the force of jagged rocks launched with maliciousness. See! a girl exclaimed--This is what the word 'witch' evokes--insanity, unreason... How could someone hate so much? She looked to me, but I had no answer. Another young man in our group was bounding up the steps, confronting the vandals, falling prey to the mob. Then they were everywhere, restraining and beating. Someone grabbed a girl by her long hair and dragged her, face down, along the gravel driveway. There was screaming and fear--but there was also the rounded current of our turning dance that seemed to lap outward from the broken circle. There were the smashed and jagged edges of the great windows, and outside there was the brilliant sun in an unmarred blue sky.
Who knows what such dreams mean? The articulation of fear, I would guess in this case. And somehow within it, the insistence that goodness cannot be so easily undone. But what I will remember is not the rioting destruction, but the palpable turning of so many bodies--bodies intent on smoothing out a channel through which peace might enter, bodies unaware and even skeptical of their own influence until it was shown to them in the gentle, unceasing turning of a precious orb no larger than a heart and no smaller than the sky.
Today's Ogham: Nion (Ash)
(transformation, possibility, destiny)
Temperance (XIV): Dressed in faded red, she perches perfectly balanced and at ease on the twisted limb of the old tree, suspended in air rippling, spiraling, tingling with the great powers that surround her. In her pale arms she cradles the pulsing sphere — wisps of energy, the tiny fey beings, drift and rise like steam, swirling and weaving, twining around each other as they climb until they blossom into full, solid forms. Watery blue, fiery gold, the great-talonned dragon and the frantic phoenix entwining, arching skyward, each with an orb of its own, pure color. The stony gargoyle makes offerings; the little songbird opens its wings wide, about to take flight. Her thoughts turn around them, seeking the power of their presence. She touches the sphere, undisturbed, her long fingers moving lovingly in contemplation — the perfect, pale-white glow of a halo exactly framed by the curve of her small, delicate wings, the light of it whispering to her, her thoughts turning around each other, dark and bright, water and fire, a sensual dance of power, duality, tension and life. The brown curls of her hair float as if caught up in a warm, rising current. She holds the churning forces of the world in her mind, between her hands, and every movement is poised here, utterly, in this moment, like a gulp of delicious air, like a quiet gasp in the center of a storm.