Waking into Animal Presence

From Moonweb #13 by Circle Cithaeron

The goal of this ritual is to open your senses to the presence of animal wisdom in your day to day existence. Often we feel we must journey to wilderness to call on animal guides, and often we must so journey. But we share our habitat everyday with many species that we see so constantly that we begin to overlook their import in our lives beyond what we've labeled them-pet, livestock, pest. These labels represent a fragment of the animals' intersection with our lives and don't begin to acknowledge the significance of those lives outside of our own.

Bring with you into the ritual area a large number of small stones and a bowl filled with water large enough to hold the stones. Ground and center. If it is your tradition to cut a circle, do so now.

Return to the center of the circle and invoke the spirit guardians of the animal world into the bowl of water using the following rune or a similar one:

I invoke thee and call upon thee

O spirits of the animal world

Children of the Mother

By tooth and claw, I invoke thee

By blood and flesh, I invoke thee

By fur and feather, I invoke thee

By life and love I invoke thee

To attend this ritual

And bless our spell

Sprinkle some of the consecrated water over the stone pile. Take a single stone and think of one animal you've seen in the last moon. Consider all that you know of this being-what it eats, how it lives, where it makes its home, what things are important to it. Imagine how it sees its world. When you feel you've made a connection with this animal, ritually drop the stone into the bowl of consecrated water. Continue with another stone and another animal until you've placed a stone in the water for every animal you've come across in the last moon. Put aside your likes and dislikes for certain species and mentally connect with all the species briefly. When you feel you've remembered them all, take a moment to feel the energies of the animals you've connected with. Let this energy flow through your body with your blood, with your breath, with your body's energy. Let it mingle with your energy. Let the sound from this energy well up in your throat and give it voice. This sound is the song of the spirit animals. Sing this song to the spirits, asking that you may see their habits and hear their calls more clearly in the days to come. Consider what actions in your life might bring you closer to the animal spirits. When ready, anoint yourself with the consecrated water using the following runes or others:

Eyes: Sacred is my Vision that sees the universe through the eyes of wild beings.

Ears: Sacred are the Voices of wild beings that speak the Mystery.

Lips: Sacred is my Voice that speaks with wild nature.

Nose: Sacred are the wild Scents that speak without words.

Third Eye: Sacred are the Ancestor Spirits of the wild that teach us deeper understanding.

Meditate silently with the songs of the animal spirit guides. Listen and signs of animals or animal spirit guides around you. Keeping these signs spirit guardians of the animal world for attending as you close the circle.

Pathworking: The Loosing of Fenris

Close your eyes and breathe deeply. With each breath, feel the day's tensions slip away, draining out of your limbs until your body is relaxed. Allow your trance to deepen.

As you open your inner eyes, you find yourself standing at the edge of a lake. Waves lick at the rock-strewn shore in the moonlight, and the air carries with it the metallic smell of water-on-stone. At your feet, a stream of dark water flows down from the jagged peaks inland and mixes with the crystalline water of the lake. The wind howls down from the crags, a wild cry that both pierces you and compels you toward it. Drawn irresistibly, you scramble up the rocky slope following the black stream toward the source of the wind in the high mountain peaks. As you climb, you call on the silver light of the moon to strengthen you and warm you with its energy; even the bite of the wind doesn't slow you. Unaware of the passage of time, you find you have come to a sheer wall of rock split by a thin fissure through which the river of black water issues. Peering into the crack, through an opening just wide enough for you to pass through, you see only darkness. Out of that darkness comes a shriek that causes the stone under your feet to shudder. It is the unbridled voice of the wind that has brought you here. You feel your heart pound against your throat. You must enter the fissure, you know-the compulsion is strong-but the terror of the cry and the menace of the darkness hold you frozen. With great resolve, you finally step into the stream, squeezing between the lips of stone and feeling your way in the darkness. The water is warm around your feet, the walls slick, the air filled with a fetid odor; the wail of the wind brings you disturbing images. Still you move forward.

After what seems like hours, you stumble out of the tunnel into a rocky crater filled with fresh air and moonlight. In its center you see a gigantic wolf bound in shimmering threads. It is the wolf Fenris, the embodiment of all that is wild. The bindings cut the flesh of the enormous creature, and the blood flowing from these wounds creates the stream through which you have just waded. The air is still and silent. Suddenly the huge beast convulses and howls. No longer protected by thick walls of stone, you are pierced and penetrated by the sound that brings you to your knees. It is the anguish of the wild, of nature that has been bound and banished by fear and greed. A flood of images breaks over you-the last mastodon, hunted to extinction; primeval forests felled for human habitation and consumption; animals used against their will in medical experiments; suburban lawns holding the web of the wild at bay. The howl is incessant, whirling around you like a maelstrom, blinding your vision. So strong is the pain, the anguish, the rage-you cannot stand much more or you will lose your mind.

But you feel you can change this, overcome the fear and anger and bring a new vision to your relationship with wilderness. Quietly, almost unheard at first, an answering song rises from deep within you in counterpoint to the wolf's terrible cry. It blends and shifts with the wild howl, growing in strength as you transform the images of damage and despair to images of health and wholeness, understanding that this begins the healing process on a physical level as well. You see the forests returning-vital, healthy ecosystems reestablishing themselves. You see wild beings allowed to live with freedom and respect. As your song rises, you call again on the power of the moon and let it pour over the wolf. The bonds holding it dissolve one by one in the moonlight; you watch as the wounds close, the flow of blood stops. You are aware suddenly that your song and the howl have become one song. You let your voices drop to silence. In the still night, with sun-yellow eyes and a great, lolling tongue, Fenris considers you briefly. It bunches its powerful muscles and leaps, landing high above you on the rim of the rock bowl. Silhouetted against the stars, it raises its head to the sky and howls its freedom. You feel its exhilaration coursing through you as it bounds off into the night.

Left alone in the silver moonlight, you feel your eyelids grow heavy. Your work for this night is complete. Sit down and rest in the moonlit bowl. When you open your eyes again you will find yourself back in waking reality.

Circle Cithaeron is a teaching collective and scholar's circle following an eldrytch tradition of deep ecology and personal empowerment. Stamen is the gay men's group of Circle Cithaeron. They publish Moonweb, an occasional (about five times a year) mailing of synchronous rituals. Moonweb is free for the cost of postage: 2 U.S. domestic first class stamps or their equivalent for each issue that you would like to receive. Address inquiries (with a SASE) to: Cithaeron, P.O. Box 15461, Washington, DC 20003.