Pathworking
Assume a comfortable position, either
seated or lying down. Breathe deeply from the solar plexus, and tell yourself,
"my toes are relaxing and my fingers are relaxing. My ankles are relaxing
and my wrists are relaxing. Completely relaxed, flowing like water."
Continue this process over your entire
body, feeling the relaxation creep up over you. When you are completely
relaxed, go on to the next step, the Spiral Staircase.
Envision a spiral staircase which you
are to descend, spiraling down, deeper and deeper, past the number One.
In your mind's eye, SEE that number one. Spiral down, deeper and deeper,
past the number Two. And so on, all the way down to number Ten and the
bottom of the staircase. You are now in trance, conscious of both the
outside world and the inner one, but detaching your attention from the
outside world and paying attention to the inner.
When you reach the bottom of the spiral
staircase, envision a door. Go to this door, open it, and walk through,
shutting it behind you. You are now in your Safe Space.
The Safe Space is that place in your mind
where you start your explorations; it is a terminal from which to voyage
out in many different directions, a library for you to look up information
carried in your subconscious mind, an inner temple for you to perform
your own private rituals, a storehouse, a laboratory, a control room,
a place which cannot be invaded, where nothing bad can happen to you,
where you do your most important work, which is yours alone. You may wish
to spend a lot of time in this place, furnishing and exploring; perhaps
reenacting dreams or scenes from your life (the more threatening ones
can be run on a TV monitor and changed to the way you want them), or any
of the myriad private things you do alone. But in pathworking you make
doors in this room which lead to many different realities.
To begin your explorations, make a door
in the wall to the East, in the form of a pentacle of blue flame which
is big enough to step through. Step through it. Greet the East, and set
out to explore the element of Air, the element of the Mind. Stay as long
as you like, and when you meet entities out there, ask their names. Bring
something back with you to place on the altar in your Safe Space. When
you come back, thank the East, step through the pentacle of blue flame
and cause it to vanish. Then thank your Safe Space for being there and
bid it farewell, knowing that you may return any time you wish, and that
the gift you got from the East is there waiting for you.
Return up the spiral staircase, becoming
more awake and more aware with each step, spiraling upward past the numbers
from Ten to One. When you reach One, open your eyes, feeling perfectly
refreshed and renewed and ready to share the experiences of your pathworking
with the others present, if any. If you are planning to do many pathworkings,
especially alone, it might be useful to make a taped trance-induction,
with the addition of some soothing music. This is especially useful if
the issue of control is a big one for you--it is better to go into trance
under the sound of your own voice than another's.
Do a pathworking on each of the four directions
in turn, East, South, West, and North. Then you will be familiar enough
with the Powers of each direction that you will know to whom you are talking
when you invoke the Guardians; in addition, as you bring back gifts from
each trip to your Safe Space, you will simultaneously be constructing
your inner temple.
The pathworking on the Center will put
you in tune with the forces of Transformation, and should be followed
by pathworkings on the Goddess and the God. It is quite feasible to do
one pathworking for each, but I find it more effective to divide the Goddess
into Maiden, Mother, and Crone aspects, and the God into the Light God
of the Sun and the Dark God of the Midnight Sun.
After these ten pathworkings have been
completed, you may wish to seek your own personal totem animals and/or
spirit guides, to find your witchname, to solve particular problems that
have been bothering you, to interpret dreams, or just to explore the worlds
in search of enlightenment and inspirations. You can go anywhere in time
and space, from Elfland and Tir-nan-og to the depths of your own fears.
Just remember to come back up the staircase as slowly and gradually as
you went down.
Bon voyage, and Blessed be!
(Parenthetical note: I recently
received an e-mail from someone who claims to own the term "pathworking"
and told me to stop using it. Excuuuuuse me, but Witches have been using
that term for a long time now, and I personally have used it in the sense
described above for over twenty years. And I intend to go on doing so, despite
any flak from johnny-come-latelies who have decided that the Craft is a
nice way to earn a living. Public domain, folks...)