Wild Swans and the Virtuous Silence
Winter has yet to break my patience, though it has certainly tried it. All around me are troubles, and among them are friends also wearing their crowns of sorrows and trials. My love for winter stems from my love of snow; a joy that I believe was born in me when I came into this world. As a child, I would seat myself in my father's work shed and spend a lot of time having discussions with a taxidermy'd snow goose. Its snowy white feathers were bright against the browned fields of turned alfalfa that surrounded my childhood home. I had a strange perception of death then, and I suppose it never truly abandoned me. It didn't matter that my snow goose buddy didn't have answers for me, I just needed someone to talk to in the silence and hold it there. (This was before my sisters were of coherent speaking age) Snow geese are probably thusly called because if you've ever seen a flock move in, thousands of them land together in fields and root around for food, and it looks as though you've been invaded by living snow drifts. It's breathtaking to see, a little nerve-wracking to hear, and the sounds of thousands of elegant wings bursting into simultaneous flight is not easily forgotten.
My little snow goose was full of memory. I remember inspecting the gunshot wound on the bird with a morbid fascination, and I hated it. I was just a kid, but running my hands over its feathers left me with mixed feelings; terror, happiness, pain, secrecy, melancholy, and regret. Happiness, I suspect, was because the bird was so soft, and I'd always wanted to touch one of the pretty field geese. The rest was like experiencing whatever the goose experienced to land it there. This has never changed in me; every deceased animal that I have come across or had found its way to me to cross over came with a slightly varying set of these emotions.
This memory was brought back to my recollection by the rediscovery of Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans. This was an old Danish story about a princess with eleven brothers, whose evil step-queen mother turns the boys into swans and sends the girl away to live with an old woman in the forest, presumably because the evil step-queen was selfish and wanted the castle to herself with the King. Eventually, the princess gets older and is brought back to the castle to be presented to her father, and step-queen disguises her beauty beneath layers of mud and sundry and the easily bamboozled King sends the girl away. In her travels, she discovers eleven swans who turn into people at night, and lo and behold, they're her brothers. From there, they carry her in a net over the sea (with a stop on a tiny rock that barely supported all of them in the midst of an angry storm) to a place that appeared to the princess Elisa to be Fata Morgana, or her idea of a fairy land. Then Elisa had a dream in which she prayed to the saints (because there is a heavy Christian overlay/purity theme in this story, but one I don't mind) to grant her the means and knowhow to break the spell her brothers are under. She was instructed to crush stinging nettles with her hands and feet until they became flax, and weave them into shirts for her brothers. The entire time, though, she should not utter a single word to anyone until she had completed her task, or her brothers would die. One day another King happened upon her, and entranced by her beauty, took her home to his kingdom and made her his wife. This king, unlike other pushy abducty kings, was kindly and generous to her, and created a room just like the cave he found her in and nettles to continue her task, though he knew not what it was. She toiled and burned her hands and feet, but once all of the nettles were used up, she didn't have enough to finish all of the shirts so she had to search for more in the graveyard where they grow. The Archbishop, being a night owl and a rather big dick, decided that cavorting about in graveyards at night with evil spirits about was clearly a sign of witch craft. The King wouldn't hear of it until tests were administered, and the results misinterpreted, and so poor Elisa was sentenced to burn for witchcraft. She still worked feverishly throughout the night, not uttering a single word to defend herself this entire time, and as she was being carted to the stake, she threw the shirts over her swan brothers who came to defend her and all but one was completely transformed (the eleventh brother still had a swan's wing since the sleeve could not be finished). She finally cried out and declared her innocence and the whole thing got cleared up.
There are always cautions woven into fairy tales, and the good ones have many layers. In this case, Elisa was essentially counter-spelling her evil stepmother, but in order for it to be successful (and not get thrown off track) she had to hold the purity of her silence. There is such power in silence, especially in spells of manifestation or creation. I treasured the innocent silence I once shared with a snow goose as a child; no judgment (except, I'm sure, by my parents. I doubt they even remember), no answers, but certainly sacred.
One of the hardest lessons to learn is when to hold your silence, and when to speak. I am of the opinion that it is one of the most powerful things you can do for your practice. Once something has been committed to words, power is lost despite your best efforts. This is why good poetry is hard to come by, though every inspired writer fancies themselves a poet. I have difficulty writing things down, such as spells or meditations, and I always intentionally omit some things unless I am positive that I can share what I am sharing. In the case of omission, it is never done if the omission might cause harm. Druids didn't write things down, I suspect, for similar reasons. Silence is absolutely sacred, and easily exemplified through the beauty and purity of a winter's snowfall. There, you will find me breathless and contentedly at peace.
My little snow goose was full of memory. I remember inspecting the gunshot wound on the bird with a morbid fascination, and I hated it. I was just a kid, but running my hands over its feathers left me with mixed feelings; terror, happiness, pain, secrecy, melancholy, and regret. Happiness, I suspect, was because the bird was so soft, and I'd always wanted to touch one of the pretty field geese. The rest was like experiencing whatever the goose experienced to land it there. This has never changed in me; every deceased animal that I have come across or had found its way to me to cross over came with a slightly varying set of these emotions.
This memory was brought back to my recollection by the rediscovery of Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans. This was an old Danish story about a princess with eleven brothers, whose evil step-queen mother turns the boys into swans and sends the girl away to live with an old woman in the forest, presumably because the evil step-queen was selfish and wanted the castle to herself with the King. Eventually, the princess gets older and is brought back to the castle to be presented to her father, and step-queen disguises her beauty beneath layers of mud and sundry and the easily bamboozled King sends the girl away. In her travels, she discovers eleven swans who turn into people at night, and lo and behold, they're her brothers. From there, they carry her in a net over the sea (with a stop on a tiny rock that barely supported all of them in the midst of an angry storm) to a place that appeared to the princess Elisa to be Fata Morgana, or her idea of a fairy land. Then Elisa had a dream in which she prayed to the saints (because there is a heavy Christian overlay/purity theme in this story, but one I don't mind) to grant her the means and knowhow to break the spell her brothers are under. She was instructed to crush stinging nettles with her hands and feet until they became flax, and weave them into shirts for her brothers. The entire time, though, she should not utter a single word to anyone until she had completed her task, or her brothers would die. One day another King happened upon her, and entranced by her beauty, took her home to his kingdom and made her his wife. This king, unlike other pushy abducty kings, was kindly and generous to her, and created a room just like the cave he found her in and nettles to continue her task, though he knew not what it was. She toiled and burned her hands and feet, but once all of the nettles were used up, she didn't have enough to finish all of the shirts so she had to search for more in the graveyard where they grow. The Archbishop, being a night owl and a rather big dick, decided that cavorting about in graveyards at night with evil spirits about was clearly a sign of witch craft. The King wouldn't hear of it until tests were administered, and the results misinterpreted, and so poor Elisa was sentenced to burn for witchcraft. She still worked feverishly throughout the night, not uttering a single word to defend herself this entire time, and as she was being carted to the stake, she threw the shirts over her swan brothers who came to defend her and all but one was completely transformed (the eleventh brother still had a swan's wing since the sleeve could not be finished). She finally cried out and declared her innocence and the whole thing got cleared up.
There are always cautions woven into fairy tales, and the good ones have many layers. In this case, Elisa was essentially counter-spelling her evil stepmother, but in order for it to be successful (and not get thrown off track) she had to hold the purity of her silence. There is such power in silence, especially in spells of manifestation or creation. I treasured the innocent silence I once shared with a snow goose as a child; no judgment (except, I'm sure, by my parents. I doubt they even remember), no answers, but certainly sacred.
One of the hardest lessons to learn is when to hold your silence, and when to speak. I am of the opinion that it is one of the most powerful things you can do for your practice. Once something has been committed to words, power is lost despite your best efforts. This is why good poetry is hard to come by, though every inspired writer fancies themselves a poet. I have difficulty writing things down, such as spells or meditations, and I always intentionally omit some things unless I am positive that I can share what I am sharing. In the case of omission, it is never done if the omission might cause harm. Druids didn't write things down, I suspect, for similar reasons. Silence is absolutely sacred, and easily exemplified through the beauty and purity of a winter's snowfall. There, you will find me breathless and contentedly at peace.
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