Ward and Wane
Forging the Trust-Bond with the Unseen Powers in the Land
* * *
You arrive at the hill, the field, or the wood, and so
this is called The Rite of Arriving, the Rite of the
Ward. You travel to your working place...leaving behind
what is familiar to you. This rite is for communing
with the Genius Loci, the Spirit of a place.
Each of us is ultimately a mystery, an immortal power
rooted in and inseparable from the Dark source Herself.
Each individual is deriving its sense and basis
of true “self” from Her, and even the will to be...and
places are no different. Here is the mystery within the
body of the Green Gown: beyond the Land-Mother is
the mysterious Queen of Fate. This is the ‘mystery in
the green’.
Every “place” is also a reflection of her, a part of
the Green Gown’s mantle. And every place is also
drenched with her awareness and life.
Thus, it has worked out, from the distant beginning,
the truth of Animism, first uttered from the lips of the
first wise- those primal shamans and seers...all things
are “alive”; all places and things have a “spirit”. This
we can see and experience. The secret is in the nature
of your essential being’s involvement with Nature
and with every hill and ford. You cannot separate the
human awareness, mind, and being from the chain of
forces that give rise to that which is.
After centuries of contact with men and animals, and
local flora, the spirit of the place builds a character,
its own being becomes involved with men, becomes
influenced by the minds and dreams and events that
saturate it, just as people’s personalities, feelings, and
thoughts are affected on a deep level by the spiritual
climate and powers that fill the places where they
dwell.
This “power of the place” often appears in mythology
as a woman, (the White Lady) or the warding
Clan or village Goddess that co-inhabits the land
that she appears on... these are manifestations of the
mystery in the Land itself; the Guardian of that place.
Sometimes, there is more than one. Other times, the
guardian is the presence of a very massive stretch of
land.
Sometimes this guardian can seem to be male, but
this is a matter of the seeing person’s own intuition.
One I have known called itself “spirit of this earth”,
and it seemed to cover nearly all of a Parish, and the
lands our river drained. It was powerful, patient and
inquisitive. In truth, I’ve never ‘spoken’ to a more
curious spirit in regards to who I was and what I was
doing. I saw it make a very Old oak tree totally collapse
and destroy two telephone poles, within an hour
after I asked it for some visible sign of its presence, to
convince myself that I wasn’t dreaming up my contact
with it, so be careful in your dealings.
The spirits of the Land are called the Hidden people,
the Strangers, or the Huldafolk. The powers in the
Land were the first Gods that men adored, when
ancient people were closer to the potencies of Nature,
and had awe and true respect for them. They lived by
their blessings of corn, health, and game. The heart
and soul of the Old Craft is about the sacramental
relationship of man to Nature, which is a divine
reality itself. The white powers still exist in the Land,
and they exist all about us. They can be dangerous to
men, sometimes for seemingly no reasons; others can
harm by causing accidents in a place, or nightmares,
or drive away intruders with unexplainable feelings of
dread.
Truly wicked or malicious Strangers are sometimes
called the “Red Men”; they are the giants of old
lore, the chaotic powers that strain against the worldorder.
The lesson is plain: not all places want people.
The Feeorin, or those hidden folk who dwell below
the land, (the post-mortem and pre-birth powers of
men and beasts) can emerge in natural places, and
often do, but do not confuse them with pure Land
Spirits. Sometimes, the overlap between them is enormous,
enough to make them seem one and the same.
In many ways, the Feeorin are such a part of the inner
reality of the Land that they are seen as Land spirits.
Sometimes a place is even warded by Feeorin. But the
manifest activity of the Feeorin in natural locations is
almost always tied to temporal cycles; the spirits of a
place are the non-human powers that manifest there
always. In the end, there are no real clear-cut rules for
the spiritual forces in the body of Nature; the boundaries
between the Land powers and the Feeorin are
always vague.
The following ritual is designed to help establish
contact with the Guardians of Places. If they are there
with any great awareness, and undisturbed, they usually
are all knowing and nearly all-powerful when it
comes to their areas, and tend to be very protective.
If you have ever been alone in the woods somewhere,
and for no reason experienced a feeling of dread that
made you leave, or want to leave, you may have just
been ‘kicked out’ of the area by a guardian or the local
powers.
In our practice, we will not do rituals of
any kind in an area without first going to a large Tree
(preferably oak or thorn: The tree acts as an interface
between the above-land world and the unseen dimension
below and within the land) in that area, with a
wooden bowl of milk, and offering the milk, as well
as making a watch fire (described in the Witching Way of the Hollow Hill).
We say to the Guardian(s):
“To the Hidden Ones (or hidden powers) of this
Land, Who watch from Below:
To the Ward of this
place, We make this offering and give you honor
and good faith;
From you we make bidding to join
in the adoration Of the Old Ways of our blood
herein.
You know us by our oaths, and what we
love- let us seek wisdom here.”
The Red Meal can be used, utilizing just the milk, for
this purpose. For the next while, we wait and watch
for any sign of the Guardian’s acceptance/refusal.
Watch animals carefully, for local animals, especially
birds, are often linked with the Wanes, and act as outgrowths
of their power.
Listen for winds, listen for any sudden noises or
strange sights. No sign is a good sign, in case you
see nothing. But your chances of seeing “nothing” in
a natural area is not good; all places are full of motion
and life. More than anything, you must feel the
presence in the place. ‘Feeling’ the place will speak
volumes, but you must have no expectations one way
or the other as to what you will experience. Go open
and free. Sometimes, people will like to do a Compass
Round and take the Left-way road at a place, to
meet the powers therein; that is a more complex way,
but just as powerful, if not more so.
Be aware that Guardians are not always just the spirit
of the natural place: The departed powers of people
can become guardians, if they choose or are compelled
to merge with a location, as can animals, who
in the past were sometimes ritually killed or buried
for the purpose (this is especially true for houses and
villages) Other spirits and powers can become guardians
for many reasons. I suggest you look into Stewart’s
“Underworld Initiation” for the best insights into
the concept of Guardianship.
A Note on Guardians
Why are they “guarding” a place? “Guardianship”
doesn’t mean that a spirit or power is standing there
like a sentinel. “Guardianship” indicates a state of
being in which a being, either living or dead, whether
it be a human, animal, or deity, is “merged” with the
inner reality of that place, becoming a innerworldy
mediator, ensuring that the proper transfer of power is
maintained in an area (the transfer of power from life
to death, from form to form, from world to world) and
that nothing wrongly or radically disrupts it.
They also are ensuring that the form of the area only
changes naturally, or in accordance with respect, and
that the environment and those who are dependent on
the environment stay intact as well.
Finally, there is a duty of guardianship that ensures
that defacement of the area and irreverent behavior or
occurrences do not take place within. The guardians
or Wards, as they are called, can cause “accidents” to
occur, can cause fires, or saturate places with feelings
of dread; these are their usual tools of defense.
Also, those who disrupt the unified power of areas
with maliciousness can find themselves trapped in a
sequence of events leading to their own misfortune- a
self-created sequence of powers that compels them to
be merged with the disrupted forces before and after
their own bodily deaths; they could find themselves
transformed into a power or spirit, bound to ward a
place till the power flows harmoniously again.
All of life is a great cause-and-effect participation, a
weave of many types of power exchange, countless
changes and interlinked events. Never forget that the
existence before, within, and beyond what we call
“life” is exactly the same, though expressed on other
levels of awareness. Consequence, in the greatest
sense, is something that must always be considered by
the wise.
There were times in the distant past, when certain
people or families were appointed guardians of special
locations or holy places. We in the present day
can still join in this tradition by adopting places and
making sure that they remain undefiled and clean, and
treating them with reverence.
With time, and with the acceptance of that place’s
guardians, they can become powerful locations for the
practices of the old faith. But be warned: this is not
an undertaking to go into lightly. When you devote
yourself to an area, it isn’t supposed to be just for a
couple of months or even years. Try to make it a lifetime
commitment, or even an after-life commitment,
because the powers you involve yourself with may
require that. At that point, you will begin to grasp at
the seriousness of guardianship.
The Rite of Arriving
Just making some pesky little offering and pledging
to respect the work-site is not quite enough. It is
required that working group members (particularly
the leadership or people gifted at consciously experiencing
with extra-sensory reality) Spend time getting
to know the Guardians or Ward of their area. Once,
when I had to live in a city, I started this process
from my front yard, and finally made strong contact
at a city Park, so living in a city is no excuse not to
try. The Wane spirit here happens to have a city on
its ‘back’, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not there.
Remember, cities are natural places, too.
How do you spend time “getting to know” them?
Let me warn you: in many cases, we are not on our
ancestor’s ground. Be respectful. If you are in the US,
and you are of non-native American descent, then you
are probably standing on ground that your ancestors
took by force, or other less honorable methods.
The local spirits may reject you outright, or if you
are polite, they may accept you. It may take weeks
or months to get into good rapport with them. One
thing is for certain: Your effectiveness in ritual and
rite will be driven down low if the local guardians or
land spirits resist you. So get on their good side, if
possible. If you plan on working near ancient Native
American holy sites, be especially careful. I’d suggest
that you didn’t.
The Rite of Arriving can be done however you like,
so long as you have the following “ingredients”:
1.) A Libation of Milk or Ale, to be poured on the
ground or at the location.
2.) A watch fire. This can be a small built fire, or even
a candle. But, when you light it, you must light it with
will and intent...you must have the intention to light
it, as a sign that “I’m here, ready to talk, let this flame
illuminate me, make me visible, guide you to me,
keep us warm”. Lighting a fire with will and temperance
‘feeds the Wanes and raises the Feeorin’. This
signal-fire, when lit with intent, is the key to communing
with the powers of a land. When you light
any ritual fire, you have to do it with expectation of
power; you have to reverently light it, knowing that
by doing so you ARE creating a space and a beacon to
which powers can and will be attracted. You have to
feel that you are creating and coming into a mystical
place. Without this knowledge and acceptance, you
can consecrate no fire or anything else.
3.) An emotional link to the place and the guardian.
You have to desire the communion, desire to learn
about the place, to get otherworldly insight into the
place. You need the Desire to be accepted at that
place. The powers there act as mediators, and you
must desire to know the inner nature of the place, and
to experience it, and to demonstrate it, which is what
“ritual” at a natural location, (particularly a sacred
place) really is.
4.) Symbolic Nakedness. You must learn to become
symbolically “naked”, in other words, to have the
trust, simplicity, openness, and willingness to be
receptive and learn that a youthful child possesses.
Your self-assured, “educated” adult self cannot do
this. Become the ‘naked’ child again, confronting the
mystery of the wide world, and really listen.
5.) The Words of Power. These words are “Here I am;
grow forth, Hidden ones, and witness my art. Come to
the watchfire. I pray you teach me.” End your invocations
to the Guardians with those words, introduce
yourself by name, and your mother’s name. Again,
you can use the Left-way road to make contact; this
was the older way, and is still just as appropriate.
Never forget that the key to authentic, genuine experiences
when communing with these powers is to have
a good passivity in regards to what you will “see”;
harbor no expectations and stay clear and open to
what is there.
* * *
As far as the Rite of Arriving, That’s it. Other than
that, just make sure this rite is done alone, and at
night. Go to them. They won’t generally come to youuntil
they know you, that is.
And, one more piece of advice: All Land Spirits/
Guardians around the world have one thing in common,
and we happen to share this commonality… We
have the same mother and Queen. The true Queen
below and within, The Veiled one- She is Queen of
the Land powers as well as humans. If you love Her,
follow Her, respect Her, They will know it, and probably
react better to you. Also, The Guardians/Land
Spirits will all respond to her Name, and the Name of
Old Fate, and react to your using it. They know what
the real power is; they exist in it. It is hard to separate
the two from each other.
She is essentially “the supreme being” to them, as She
is to all things. One can easily see how closely related
“Land spirits” and the “Earth Mother” concept would
have to be. Many Land Powers are direct manifestations
of Her, especially the ones that appear as dark,
stately women, or women clad in white, or on horses.
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