I come to your inbox today, dis-regulated, fearful, a little rundown and a lot unsure. My son was sick last week, and then I was sick, and the world is literally burning down. I don’t want to dwell there and write another newsletter on this theme to crowd your reading time. Instead, I feel called to write about the Seasons and the Birds with the intention of keeping the light shining towards different possibilities. In defiance ~Khiri
HAIL Swan, Beautiful, Majestic, Powerful, Loyal Swan! Remind me of my own inner grace and beauty. Share with me the wisdom of time and change. To reflect inward, as the water ripples out across time, on how to connect my mind to my heart, my inner landscape to my outer appearances, and my self love to the partnerships in my life. Be here now. Hail and Welcome!
SWAN- My bird ally for Imbolc and my personal symbol for Longing, Belonging, Strength and Grace.
After Litha, Imbolc is my favorite Sabbat. I adore having a reason to come together at midwinter with my community and feel the Quickening of the days. I love waking up in the morning and seeing the light and hearing the brave birds finding cold berries in the yard. Unlike Yule, where I know in my heart the Sun is returning, I revel in the embodiment of the light growing at Imbolc; of feeling the sun fall across my face in the morning. This heart knowing transforming into body feeling gives me courage to persevere until spring.
I went round and round about what bird I truly resonated with for my Imbolc Ally, and I kept returning to Swan. For some reason I had resistance to this bird being the messenger of Imbolc until I read two posts from the Literary Coven on Substack linking the Swan to the patroness of Imbolc, Brigid.
Brigid is the Celtic Goddess of the creative spark, holding a wide variety of domains including childbirth, fire (the forge and the hearth), sacred waters, poetry, healing, and unity. And if that wasn't enough to sway me Swan visited me personally in a vision during a meditation that I wrote about in my last newsletter.
Longing, love and will all feel intimately entwined. All three are strong themes of this season, amplified by St. Valentine's Day, which is just around the corner. They are also intrinsic to the symbolism of the Swan, with her swan song and connections to myths like the swan maidens, whose wings or skin can be stolen away by admirers.
I watched a thought provoking youtube video this weekend about the will to live and how our instincts for survival may be dulled by the civilized world we are surrounded by today. I also recently finished the book Church of Birds, which was recommended by Laura Perry, exploring the connection between birds and ancient societies. These two thoughts together had me longing for more connection to the birds in the sky. The movements of birds were integral to myth and daily life of our earliest ancestors, and so much of this has been lost.
Calling all Dream Carriers. This month in the Creative Coven on Patreon we are diving into the powerful beauty of dreams!
“Illuminating Inner Mythos” is the card for Dream Magick in the Beauty Oracle. There is limited space in the monthly Zine Club so secure your spot today and bring the Dream of the Beauty Oracle to life.
Perhaps if I was more in tune with the rhythms of migrations of geese and hummingbird and finches I would feel less dislocation this time of year. I've never noticed swans in the many bodies of water near my home, however two kinds of swans pass through Colorado on migration in winter, the Trumpeter and Tundra swans. I will have to keep my eyes and ears open to their passage over the remaining weeks of winter. Inspired by these musings I wrote a covenant to my self, a commitment and promise to my essence self for the remainder of the winter.
Marriage to the SoulSelf
Swans are known to mate for life and have become a common symbol of marital love, longevity, soul mates, and commitment. The intimate twining of two swans necks into a white heart is a powerful image of love However, if Swan has entered your life it can symbolize deepening the relationship to yourself and your own strengths, gifts, and friendships. Just as the story of the ugly duckling teaches us the power of inner beauty, swan can also teach us the importance of self love.
Write a covenant to your soul, Appreciating your essence:
I worked with sentence stems to craft my covenant, as I find the prompts take the pressure off of creating a masterpiece, and allow me to more easily drop into finding the words I wish to write. The covenant sentence stems I used were:
- My essence is….
- I appreciate my…
- I promise my soulself….
- I commit to….
- I will make this known in the world by….
and the covenant I crafted reads:
My essence is deep and shimmering, generously colorful magick, strong and hope-filled. My essence is most apparent when I am dancing.
I appreciate my ongoing commitment to better futures, to my family, to the journey of self-actualization, and to learning and loving the web of the cosmos which mirror the beauty of the natural world.
I promise my soulself to dance daily, to document this essence expression, in covenant with SWAN, embodying her strength, grace, will, beauty, and steadfast devotion.
I commit to seeking the words, the movement, the breathe, the places inside me and outside me that feed my spirit and strengthen my will. I commit to share these findings to build communities and build the world I see in my dreams.
I will make this known in the world by sharing this covenant, posted in plain view. Blessed Be ~Khiri
I invite you to write a soulself covenant with Swan, using the sentence stems provided, or in whatever fashion suits your creativity. I invite you to share your covenant in the chat so that we can witness each other in this season of coming together in the returning light.
For more contemplative Imbolc magick and offerings the Complete Issue of 52 Feathers Swan is available for Subscribers below.
In this issue:
- Marriage to the Soulself
- Swan in the Stars
- Grace & Beauty with Swan
