The Swan Blessing

Swan Blessing Story - Magic Unbound

The Goddess, Kimberly Webber
Tonight I share a Swan Blessing Story written by Kelly about how we can receive the gift of our own Ancestral Wisdom when we clear past life vows and promises. When Tony and I first met Kelly, an artist and sculptor, we were quickly aware that we were in the presence of someone who had walked a spiritual path in many lifetimes. After spending time with Kelly in circle and workshops I could feel her connection to ancient mystery schools and a deep affinity with the natural world. But as Kelly would strengthen her meditation practice and open energy centres, I sensed that there was always a threshold to deepening that Kelly held herself back from crossing and there were times when she would shut her power down. After reading Kelly's Swan Story you will completely understand how it is often the promises we make to ourselves that can be the most binding.
We were so pleased to see Kelly come forward to receive Swan Blessing and very touched to discover that she wanted to share her beautiful story. A very important element of Swan Blessing that Tony and I are only just understanding fully, is that one of the healings offered through the ceremony is an opening of self-expression. When the Swan Story is written for yourself, you experience another level of healing that is profound.

She came to me my familiar stranger and shared with me her emotions and memories. Her feelings reflected my own. The heavy ones that had lived so deeply within me for as long I could remember. I had taken them to be mine. I had taken them to be of this life, but they where not. They were the blonde haired girl's all along, and she was I. But that life has gone. She had lost her freedom to be herself when all her love was taken from her. This blonde haired girl had lived on the land amongst the natural people. These folk lived in small homes with lavish gardens and roaming wild life. Most of her days were spent running with the deer.

When I first encountered her she was outside with the women from the house chanting and sharing stories. I was drawn to her immediately. The youngest of the group, no more thirteen years. The wide-eyed, golden haired girl soaking up the lesson being offered by the wise women - with an awe of excitement.  This place was special, the Faerie played there. Together they worshipped the land healing plant, animal, and human alike.   People travelled far to see the natural people and be healed from both mental and physical ailments. No payment was exchanged. The risk of travel was enough and to arrive by the cover of night was they only request of the healers.

One night in a blink of an eye the blonde haired girl's life was turned to ash. By the men in black who travel the countryside, defusing the light in people’s hearts. On this night only one survived. The young girl was taken by the men and placed in a cold blue-stoned cell and robed in black. They tried to force her to use her abilities to heal their wounded men. Though she refused with conviction. As she laid in the darkness she bound her light and shielded her love, she would not share the magic of the land with those who were only out to destroy it.

Her magic was strong and her internal binding became physical. She herself was bound in rope by the men in black and left in the darkness - left to fade. Her sadness was deep, her conviction was strong and her intentions where true and clear. I could feel it. I had felt it before. I'd felt the bound girl inside, often a dull aching I could not quite place.  While connecting to this feeling I was transported to my sacred space. The space that I enter upon meditation and out of the water she emerged, that I of the past. She was now free I had become the one bound. Our eyes met, two of the same, she untied me from the rope she had once been bound in, and then she smiled.

And with that smile she whispered –

‘Thank you for coming back for me., now we are both free and in your world you don’t have to hide, you can dance under the moonlight without fear, you can use your magic, release our light and show others the way to theirs. Always remember the Faerie as they are still with you’.

Bless it be.

Thank you Julia and Tony, I have experienced so much healing from releasing this vow. I also feel that part of my soul experience has now become open to me within this life. You have both shared a truly amazing gift, the gift of remembering who we are and all we can be.

Kelly, 2013

We are so glad to see you reclaim your birthright Kelly, your own natural, wisdom passed down through those beautiful, chanting, storytelling wise women of your ancestral tribe. We can't wait to see how this new opening to all that you are channels into your sculpture, art and life. Love to you Kelly for sharing this past life dreaming, we hope that it's healing message resonates with many readers.

Rest Assured Your Love is Pure - Swan Blessing

Sir William Russell Flint Le Morte D'Arthur 1910

With every journey we make with The Swan Blessing, Swan's message of immortality and the purity of our Soul gets stronger. We carry so much pain, shame and guilt that is not ours, that is not true. To all of the beautiful sisters and brothers coming forward to release past life memories of the witch burnings, we are honoured to share this truth with you. Your love is pure.

Swan Blessing Story: The Enchantress Reclaimed

Ruth St. Denis 1910

Today I share a song of a Swan Blessing story by Lucille who reflects on the journey of the Enchantress Witch. In the rise of the Divine Feminine we are hearing our bodies call and sing again. The Swan invites you to know your own true beauty, to live on this incredible earth deeply, to FEEL again. This is Lucille's story, and I honour her for sharing it with us all. May it assist you on your own journey to release past lifetimes of shame, judgement and fear. Sister Swan you are Beauty!


My soul has memories. They have grown over the years. Burnings, vivid recall. Knowings of persecution, fear, judgement and hate. Triggered by images in movies, words of others, people and their looks of scorn. The word Bitch and the word Witch, only one letter separates them. I have oscillated between empowerment, true intuition and denial, depression and self loathing. Why am I this way? Why can I feel what you feel, even when I don’t want to? Why can I sense what you are thinking, even when I don’t care to? 

My Magic is movement, the beauty of my body. The form and the soft caress of my sway. I entice, inspire and engage the senses. I hypnotise you with my hips. My way is truly feminine, my undulations without shame. We dance, we love and we birth, all from the centre of our hips, the seat of our power, the lips of love. The gateway of desire, passion, life and power. 

Once a blessing, often a curse. They way of the enchantress Witch has been a hard way, our power when suppressed and denied, turns dark. It turns ugly and seeps out, from under the door like an angry thick  fog. Black magic, Sorcery. Hate is powerful, my emotions have caused great pain, unto others but most of all unto myself. 

The way of love and light is easy. The way out of the murk, the quick sand that threatens to eat you up is swift and painless. Those who judge me I now hold a mirror to, those who hate me, I now feel compassion for. Those who don’t want to know what I truly live for, can’t see my passion, desire and need for Magic, I let them go.  Those that come to me for healing, that feel called to be released from the shame of their bodies, from deep sensual wounds that have been carried for generations, I say come. Let me hold you, let me heal you, let me see you for the beauty and goodness that you truly are. Divine, Wonderous, Damp and Sexy. Woman.  

Trust your body! You’ll know when its right, because your Pussy will tinkle with delight.  She will bubble up when the flow is perfect, when you intuition says fly. Use her wisdom everyday, in everyway. 

Let’s take our power back, let’s turn the words around. 

Now I say,
I’m Bitchin, when I’m Witchin.
 

The Swan Blessing. What can I say? It was when I came home.

Thank you Lucille, beautiful woman! You can invite the enchantress into your own life through Lucille's classes 'Awaken Serpent', enjoy the many riches she has to offer through her website: www.itsladylucille.com.  And visit her brand new store Cobra Culture!

Swan Blessing Story - Vows of Chastity & Silence

Julia Margaret Cameron 1875
Here is the incredible Swan Blessing story of Kylie whose free-spirited nature was bound by vows of Chastity and Silence after being forced to take vows as a nun. For Kylie the greatest binding of all was her spirit's agreement to be resigned to this life, to not expect anything more. As a nun, she learnt to develop a deep inner world to deal with her circumstances. In releasing herself from her vows, Kylie learnt that this rich inner world could also be her experience of the outer world too. 

Undergoing the Swan Blessing was both a simple and natural thing to do.  I had had an immensely emotional week, I worried whether I really wanted to “go there”, to have to delve into my issues and problems. To be honest I had no idea what I was walking into.  I had already booked this time with Julia and Tony and didn’t want to cancel, I trusted the simplest yet sometimes the most challenging belief I have, which is to believe everything is happening as it should.  I have also worked with Tony and Julia for years and have always found their energy to be soothing, and working with them has only led me to feelings of calm and healing. 

I entered the room, I stepped into a circle, where Tony smudged me with a sage stick,  wafting its fragrance around me, removing the energies of my hectic week from me.  He then left the room, working from a distance to hold the sacred space that we were to work within but leaving Julia and I to work together.  There is no major moment or dramatic entry into my past life, there is simply a direction to look and see. It’s like watching a movie, it’s so simple.   Julia guided me to look into the Well and take me to the person I once was, for me to meet the person who once made a vow so strong and so sacred that it was still driving me to this very day.

She was young and beautiful and she knew the power of her looks,  a graceful maiden growing up in London from a relatively well to do family. She was always a loner, always dreaming by the docks, her favourite place to be.  She loved to watch the ships come in, see the men and dream of the places they would go and admire their swarthy looks  from afar.  What were they speaking of, their voices carrying on the wind with the dialects and words of foreign places.  She could never get too close though, her position demanded distance, as it seemed to demand distance for her from most of the world around her.  Her virtue was her most valuable asset and the architecture of her life was such that it would not be compromised. 

 As we entered the meditation and I approached the Well, before I had met her, before I was taken to the docks of her youth,  I was guided by a beautiful maiden of Avalon.  She had taken me to the well and Avalon was where i felt my journey was to be.  As I was guided to turn my eyes and look to the well, I excitedly anticipated to see myself as a beautiful maiden of Avalon, amongst my sisters, in no way was i prepared for who I saw myself to be.  A nun, a very old nun with rheumy blue eyes, eyes that spoke whilst lips did not move.  She looked at me and spoke a thousand words through her eyes but never once moved her lips.  She was silent, forever silent, she had vowed silence and had lived it so long she no longer knew any different. 

 She took me through the streets of an old Medieval English town to a small church at the end of a street in an area of much poverty, grime and sickness.  She showed me her church and the Friar who worked with her, her eyes told me she had found acceptance of her life, that she regarded both herself and her life as unremarkable, as no one to be known or remembered, and probably no one who would be remembered, simply a servant of the church with a vow of silence.  As I connected to her I felt so little emotionally, I felt a shell of a person who was neither happy nor sad but merely existing.  Her mind was quiet, there was nothing left to say to herself after all this time. 

 As we delved deeper and I tried to find a connection in her, a fire, a passion,  we journeyed to the day she made her vows.  She knew she was still so beautiful in her nun’s gowns, she stood tall and proud, her rosary beads hanging around her slim waist and still knew of her power. She knew why she was here today and she owned the actions that had made her family send her here.  She felt no regret,  the docks had called and she had answered, and whilst she chose not to share with me the details of her encounter there, still her own personal haven, her own sacred memory,  it was enough to ensure she be banished from her family to serve out her days in the church undergoing a vow of silence that was to last her a lifetime. Not only was she to serve here for her shameful actions she was to be silenced so she could never shame her family with the true reasons for her vocation, with her true self. She simply held that silence with a knowing look, she had experienced a taste of freedom that she knew her life would never have afforded her, and she would pay the price for the rest of her life. 

 We looked at each other in the mirror, my blue eyes matching hers, this time I looked at her with love and together we tenderly removed the stiches from her mouth.  I sent her all the love I had, let her know she was someone, she was so remarkable and her life had made a difference.  She granted me the gift of her incredible strength and her  still mind, something I have never been able to achieve and something i needed so badly at this time in my life.  My own mind had been screaming at me, tormenting me on things I had to deal with, she helped me to move through.  Her life of silence, her life of servitude and anonymity just set me free or did i just set her free with my gifts of love, acceptance and acknowledgement of her greatness and incredible strength,  for that moment we became one and we were both free.
 
As now, weeks later  I now revisit this moment of unity, it is like we both spiralled to become one person.  She craved freedom and found it in her mind, she was a dreamer and so too am I.  She lived her glory in her mind, she vowed to keep her strength and her uniqueness to herself, she had no other frame of reference to live by, there  was no other choice she knew of and I realised I had been living the same.  What I have realised is, I don’t need to.
 

 I have choices, choices she could not even imagine yet have still had been living bound  to my own mind, still living as if I had no choice.  For all my life I have  taken my gifts and tried to bury them from view where I can live safely with them and not challenge the status quo of my world and the people in it.  The fear I experience at times to bring myself forth are just irrational, a real physical sinking in the pit of the stomach and total inability to push myself to the next level on so many things,  jack of all trades master of none.  Never to really excel, better to be amongst the crowd. The gift of the Swan Blessing to me has been the realignment of myself to this very day.  To take the gifts I have and remove the binds that have held me back.  I always felt like i had reached some wall in myself that made no sense and now i realise that it didn’t make sense because it  was built in  another time and I could not put the pieces together, now it all just makes sense.

Kylie, DJ, 2012

Kylie is a beloved sister & soul friend and has been an illuminating presence in our circles for many years. Mystic, healer, storyteller, Kylie heals through the sound waves. To be in her company is to be brought back to pure joy. As 'DJ Ma Bower' Kylie is spreading that joy and deep bliss to all the beautiful dancers and music lovers. Healers take many forms and the healing that takes place through sound is profound. She will be playing at some beautiful festivals this summer so when you hear the call to the temple from 'Ma Bower', when you can no longer resist the urge to dance on the earth again...let yourself return.  We already thought Kylie was out of this world, we can't wait to hear what is unleashed after her Swan Blessing!  

The Vow of Silence - A Swan Blessing Story

Untitled by Emmanuel Catarino Montoya

Thank you Talulah for sharing your Swan Blessing story here - a beautiful remembering and releasing of the mystic, the warrior, the chosen one who took a Vow of Silence so that the past would not be repeated. Oceans of love to you Talulah for the return of your beautiful voice and for a clear pathway to be The Chosen One again in this time of fearless love.

"When I peered into the water to see who was looking back at me, there were two faces staring up, two men. One was an ancient man, so old and thin his bones poked through his skin. The other was a young man, native American, he was very beautiful and so, so sad. I went with the old man first. We were walking through an ancient village, rough dwellings made of stone and cave like shelters. No one looked at him, he was an outcast. I walked with him, as him, I felt his incredible knowledge, and I felt how he received it, he was a channel for universal wisdom, and no one would hear him, ever.We went back to his childhood, he was around 13 years old. The son of the village leader, he was the next in line, the promised one.

His father was a cruel leader, his mother was beaten and tortured, he knew it was wrong and promised he would never be like his father. He spoke out against his father and his ways, speaking the wisdom he received. He was rejected by his father, his family and the whole community followed, he became the outcast, wandering alone.We went to the water and Brigid gave me a wand to cut through the thick smoke that bound me in this promise. I saw him released and floating free, and I felt that he had always had peace in his heart with the vow he made, he knew it was right, the whisperings of the universe had reminded him of this through his long and lonely life. 

Back at the water the young man waited for me. We went to his home, he was the leader of the tribe, a warrior that had a deep connection to spirit, he listened to his guides and heard what he needed to do and spoke this to his people. There was an ongoing battle with another tribe and he had a plan in how to triumph over the enemy. He spoke this to his brothers and they left to fight together. He was shocked and horrified when his brothers turned against him and attacked him, shooting arrows, not to kill him, but maim him terribly. He could not fight anymore, he could not lead anymore, he was useless and crippled. He vowed to never speak again. I saw him live a very sad, lonely life, helpless and defeated. We returned to Brigid, and this time she handed me a mallet to smash my way out of this stone vow I was imprisoned in. He floated up and away, released from pain and suffering.

I cried with relief to see him set free. These vows were so ancient, so many lifetimes ago, yet so familiar to me. I felt those vows within me even, though those lives were so alien and surprising. I have lived by these vows to some extent my whole life, in place I know to protect me from these things ever happening again. But now, with these promises lifted, I am free to trust my knowing, the intuition I have always heard, the messages I receive, and speak of them freely. To live by my new vow... I will be beauty and give of this beauty." 

Talulah, Sydney 2012. 

Here is a link to the wild and beautiful medicine of Talulah Gough who is a Doula, Shamanic Merwife, Medicine Drum-Maker and oh so much more. When I met Talulah I felt how much we were kin. Dear sister, an ocean of blessings on your magical and transformative work. : www.makingsacred.com 

A Swan Blessing Remembering

I have begun receiving recollections and stories from those who have experienced The Swan Blessing for our book: The Swan Blessing - Releasing the Ties That Bind. They are so very potent and beautiful. Here is Jane's memory of her journey with the Swan. 


I saw her, old, long scraggly hair, wrapped in tanned animal hide for protection, by the river, in the forest, alone, very alone, sad, resigned, quiet.She'd been banished from the village, or maybe she'd run away and been hiding, either way it was because she'd been found out or would have been and that meant she'd had to leave or die.  

I saw her, young, she was writing furiously, long feather quill, hiding somewhere in a corner of the attic of the dwelling, in the dark, a lone taper burning. She was scared, fearful of being seen, yet she wrote and she wrote, pausing only to hear more to write.The words were coming to her from others, words she couldn't see who spoke, yet the words came and she wrote them.The Grandmother who lived in her hut in the forest had told her that the voices and their words that she heard were important and that she must write them down and give them to her. She taught her to write and read and told her to keep it a secret, not to tell anyone and to keep on doing it.On the Grandmother's death bed, she made her promise, make a vow, to never let anyone else know about the words she heard and to not let anyone see her writing, otherwise she would be killed. She wrote and wrote and the words soothed her soul. She shared them with her mother and her sisters because the words spoke of a different way, a way where they would be honoured and respected, it was so different to how it was for them.... The vow she made to the Grandmother kept her scared, scared of being seen, scared of being found out and scared of what would happen should she be discovered and the vow kept the words secret, but the words wanted to be shared and read.....  

The vow she made stayed with her until another lifetime when she went to the Blacksmith's cottage and met a Witch who flew with Swan. The Witch helped her find a way to cut away the web that was the vow, that had stuck to her, that was stuck in and around and all over her. And Black Panther came then, to be with her, to protect her and guard her. She was safe now, the vow was released and the words could come freely and be shared.    

Jane, Sydney 2012