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SYLVAN
WICCA /SHAMANISM
LESSON 1
Lesson One: Learning to Listen
My adult training began with simple steps, with exercises so basic, so
powerful, that
their magick was overlooked by eyes searching for something astounding
and
enchanted. But isn't that the way life works? We hope for trumpets and
fanfare, while
the moments that impact us most profoundly tiptoe in and whisper in our
ear.
Looking back, with more than a decade of dedicated practice under my
belt, it all makes
sense, but back then I thought the exercises that I was given to do were
designed to do
little more than prove my dedication to my teacher and her instruction.
"For seven days or seven nights," she began, "I want you to sit outdoors,
watching
the world around you. Do nothing but sit there. Don't do anything else
for fifteen
minutes or a half hour. Watch the world unfold around you. Give Her a
chance and
Nature will speak if you're only willing to listen."
So there I was, a country boy living in the big city. Sure, I lived in
the Pacific
Northwest, but didn't you have to DRIVE to get to Nature? I remember
looking around
my apartment complex, thinking, "Where in the world am I going to do
this?" There
were a group of trees in the distance, but they were in someone else's
yard. And the
grass behind our unit wasn't much to look at. All that was left were the
shrubs clustered
around the parking lot, looking neglected and very much in need of a
landscaper's
touch.
Sigh...
Like the devoted student, I decided that if that was the best I could do,
nothing was
going to stop me from doing it. Slipping into an old jacket, I waited in
front of the
apartment, carefully looking both ways to make sure no one was watching
before I
sprinted across the parking lot in a mad dash and slipped into the
shrubs.
"Okay, Nature. Talk to me."
Fifteen minutes is a long time to wait when you are raised in a media
culture. The
instruction that I'd received from teachers in my youth had lain
neglected for years. All
I had to guide me were books I curled up with for a few moments before
falling asleep at
night and the world I imagined that existed out there somewhere, if only
I could find it.
The first night I learned little more than it's really cold in Oregon in
late September. That
and the cars passing on the street beyond our apartment were really loud.
Every time
one went by I would turn and look, sure that it was one of my neighbors,
that they'd
catch me with their headlights and wonder what such a nice young man
could possibly
be doing, crouched in the bushes in the middle of the night. I was cold,
distracted, bored
to tears, and constantly looking to my watch, wondering if it was time
for me to go back
inside.
By the second day, things began to change -- and not for the better! I
kept looking at the
clock as I sat in front of the television, thinking, "Just another half
hour -- then I'll go out
and do my fifteen minutes." Oh, how I dreaded the thought of going
outside for another
evening in the bushes. But, I went. And I sat there, wondering what in
the world I was
supposed to be getting out of this whole experience.
The third evening slowly crept upon me and once more, I dashed across the
parking lot,
taking my assigned place in the shrubbery. I crouched down, leaning
against the sturdy
trunk I'd leaned against for two nights, peeking through the same hole in
the foliage
overhead, through which I'd watched the stars before.
And that was when it began to slowly make sense to me. It wasn't simply a
shrub
anymore. It was my shrub. It wasn't just a trunk, it was the trunk that
supported me. I
began to really look at the world around me and began to open my eyes to
a new reality.
Somehow, in the midst of the city, huddled in the bushes at the edge of
my parking lot, I
began to see magick. There was something enchanting in the way the light
reflected off
the sap that perched on the bark before my eyes. I began to hear the
sounds of birds
rustling near me, settling down for the night.
As the nights began to slowly pass, a whole new world slowly opened to
me. I realized
that I could feel the plant life around me - not by touch, but with
something else,
something that had always existed inside of me. As I sat there quietly,
the minutes slowly
ticking by, I realized that I could sense the world around me, that
everything - the earth
beneath me, the sky above, the plant life that surrounded me - had a very
distinct
sensation to it, like being close enough to a wood stove to sense its
heat without being
close enough for it to truly warm you.
Over the years, I realized that this was the first part of the lesson.
The exercise had been
specifically designed to teach me to open my eyes and see the world
around me as alive
and vibrant, not just as the backdrop for my busy life. Each night the
world opened a little
more to me. Some days it seemed as if the trees whispered wordlessly to
each other, just
beyond the reach of my hearing. When the weekend came, I sat in the sun,
watching the
sparrows trace patterns in the sky. It wasn't so much that each thing I
saw had a lesson to
teach me - I wasn't far enough along on my path to realize that yet. It
was that my
perception began to slowly change, that I began to see the world around
me as being
alive. And, because it was truly alive to me, each thing I saw had an
intrinsic value. As a
part of that weave of life, as an integral part of the world around me, I
realized that my life
had value too, and over the years I would learn to see the special gift
that each of us
holds that makes us magickal and unique.
Exercise One: Learning to Listen
For a period of seven consecutive days, sit outside and simply watch
the
world around you. You can be in your yard, on a bench in the park,
or off a
favorite hiking trail. Spend fifteen minutes to a half hour quietly
watching
nature. If thoughts drift through your mind, make note of them and
then let
them drift on. It's not unusual to have completely random moments
from
your daily life creep up and surprise you. Take a moment, honor
them, and
then let them go. You can think of them later when your finished
with the
time you've set aside for observation.
When you're done, thank the world around you. It doesn't have to be
elaborate. A simple, "Thank you," works fine if you don't feel moved
to say
more. Then go inside and write down what you saw, your thoughts and
experiences. If you have a hard time with the exercise, write that
down too.
One day you'll look back and marvel on how far you've come.
The hard part is that this exercise must be done for a period of
seven
consecutive days. It doesn't matter if you do it at night like I did
or in the
middle of the day. What's important is that you don't miss a single
day. If
you do miss one, you need to start over and you shouldn't continue
to
exercise two without completing this exercise as it's intended.
"Exercise One: Learning to Listen" will actually do a number of things
for you in addition
to helping you stop and notice the world you live in. First of all, it
will begin to slowly
reconnect you with the natural world around you. You'd be amazed how
disconnected we
get from the rest of life. Stop and think about the last time you felt
the energy of a tree. Or
the last time you simply stopped and enjoyed how wonderful the grass felt
pushing
between your toes. We can vividly remember the television shows we
watched last night
or the meeting we sat through at work last week, but we are normally
completely unaware
of the natural world around us.
The second thing this exercise will do is teach you how to "listen." I
refer to observation
as listening because we often begin to pick up on subtle information from
the world
around us that is no more defined than whispers just beyond the edge of
our hearing. Just
as we would stop and still ourselves, listening quietly to hear those
voices, we extend our
awareness in the same way through this exercise. This process, extending
our awareness
out from our bodies, is a fundamental technique in much of the magick and
ritual work that
I teach.
If you've never experienced the sensation, imagine that the essential
part of your being,
your soul or spirit, is a ball of soft white light just below the center
of your chest, right
about where your solar plexus is. Imagine that you can feel this ball of
light, that it is a
gentle, warm sensation. Slowly imagine that it spreads through your body,
filling you to
the top of your head, stretching from the tips of your fingers to the
bottom of your toes.
Now picture your awareness drifting into the light, until you aren't a
body feeling the
warmth, but rather the center of the warmth feeling the body around you.
As you begin to find yourself experiencing this sensation, imagine the
light stretching
beyond the boundaries of your body. Imagine it touching the things in the
room around
you, each piece of furniture. Picture what everything feels like. Take
your time and enjoy
the experience. When you're ready, open your eyes, but try to continue
feeling the world
around you, those things beyond the boundaries of your body. It may take
a little
practice; it may come to you naturally. But this is a technique that we
will use time and
again throughout this guide, a tool that is one of the cornerstones of my
practice.
What you'll begin to realize is that when you quiet yourself, you begin
to extend your
energy in the same way as the visualization above, although it is very
subtle. Just like you
began to "feel" the room around you, you can feel the energy of the place
you're in, the
presence of each living thing. It was this discovery that allowed me to
explore much of the
path that I call home.
The other thing that this exercise will do for you is make you pay
attention to the world
around you. And as you start to pay attention to what's going on in the
natural world,
you'll begin to notice certain things happening. The moon slowly wanes
from full to new
and then waxes to full roundness again. Each day, the sun rises a little
earlier or a little
later and sets at a slightly different time. Flowers begin to blossom,
leaves turn colors, and
the animals around you mate, raise young, and eventually forage for
winter or migrate to
warmer climes.
The First Cycle course is written by Graelan Wintertide
and is © 1999 All Rights Reserved