Watching My Son Grow: Story and Narrative

A delightful thing has happened in the last few months: Rowan has both become a storyteller and also now appreciates a good story. He is only 17 months old and has a limited vocabulary (of words we understand, anyway!), so his stories consist of dogs, birds, balls, bubbles, houses, food, juice, water, going to sleep, and milk. But what an extraordinary thing! I am blown away by the intellectual connections he is making and the knowledge he is amassing.

Last month, when putting my son to bed, I decided to tell him a story of my own making. Little did I know then that the story would be asked for again and again and become his favorite, one that he also asks his daddy to tell. The story, which has several variations, is called "The House of Balls" and it is all about a special house, just for Rowan, that has unlimited balls of every color, pattern and size. (FYI, balls are Rowan's favorite toy- hands down.)

Each room has a different theme: one is a huge ball pit, another is a dance room with many many disco balls on the ceiling. The green room has green balls, the red room has red and so on. The roof outside has a bubble machine that blows bubbles into the yard 24/7, and has dogs that love to play fetch. He has a book room where someone is always available to tell him a story.

To amuse myself, I placed a bowling alley in the basement, croquet, petanque, and bocci ball courts in the yard.  (He has no idea what these things are- perhaps he will love them later.) His favorite part of the story is where he goes outside to the dog run and throws the ball for the dog, who fetches and drops the ball at his feet, so he can throw it again. At specific words he does sign: "dog", "ball", and he even points to his feet! It is freaking adorable. At bedtime, I'll tell him to lay his head on the pillow so he can have a story, which he does eagerly. Then he signs "please" and "ball"- meaning, "Please tell me about the House of Balls".

He also loves to tell stories, to himself and to us. He narrates what just happened to us. If he pulls out his scooter and it falls over, he comes over and babbles at us, interspersed with actual words and signs until we decipher out loud what he is telling us: "Yes, I saw that your scooter fell over. Can you pick it up? Do you want help?" But usually he is not requesting help at all- he is just sharing his experiences with us the best he can. He is more than pleased when we tell him in full sentences what happened and show him that we understand.

I have also caught him using his toys to act out scenarios (feeding his ball popper toy, making Puck his doll talk, or talking in babble to his worm or fox). He often will "read" books to himself, pointing at the pictures and narrating them with babble. His imagination is firing on all cylinders and I wish I knew what was going on in there!

I am looking forward to him learning new sounds and words and signs so we are better able to communicate and tell stories to one another. Magically, this is super important. I am teaching him that there is no objectivity, no Truth with a capital T. I am teaching that all of life is story, and he has his versions and others have theirs. All have value. No one's story is more important than his, and vice versa. He is a note in the amazing, multi-textured song of creation.

Tangible Witchcraft: Purification of the Body/Self

Like all witchcraft and indigenous traditions, Feri has rites of cleansing and purification. Not because we believe that humans are filthy or sinful- but rather, the socialization that we undergo to become adults adds "complexes" to the black heart of innocence that we had as children, but have now buried. We purify to reach that original state trhat we have lost.

Most Feri witches I know have taken a template that they learned from their teacher for a rite like kala* and personalized it into their own personal practice. I am no different in this regard.

I mainly do kala in the shower (convenient, no?), along with other rites of purification and refinement as part of a larger toilette for the body and soul. What does a soul scrubbing look like?

1. Shower (cleaning the physical body). I cleanse the body in preparation for the day as well as the spiritual cleansing about to take place.

2. Energetic Shower (which is an etheric and auric cleansing, using the Iron and Pearl Pentacles): bringing up red hot iron energy from the earth and bringing down white hot pearl energy from the stars. They meet and fill my still point and then my physical body, then my energy bodies until I pulse and thrum with it.)

3. Kala: lately I have been using sound to vibrate the water and infuse it with cleansing power- before I used breath and physicality (laying on of hands). I like to mix it up.

4. Refinement: After I cleanse my selves, I like to refine my skin and hair- not just for beauty's sake, but also for casting a spell on myself. I use oil for skin and hair (I am a dry person, so after a shower I need moisture and using an oil that has specific magickal and energetic properties is perfect for this.) Lately, I have been doing work that involves thinking before acting. I am a do-er (I like to take action!), and while most of my actions have helped me in my life or built awesome things, impulsive acts don't always stem from wisdom. So I am working on waiting, assessing, and then acting.

5. Mouth Tending: As I brush my teeth and tongue, I think about cleansing the mouth for the power of what the Buddhists call "right speech".** I imagine removing not just tartar and bacteria, but removing the intent to harm or speaking with a lack of intent.

6. Adornment: After getting dressed, I like to take a minute and think about what adornments I wish to wear and for what purpose. I use hair accessories that are beautiful and symbolic as well as keeping my hair out of the baby's grasp. All of my jewelry has meaning. My makeup and scents all have a purpose. When I "do myself up" there is usually a significance to what I select and why. Each on of my rings, for example, has a specific meaning assigned to it. Some of my necklaces are portable spells. I take Pride in my Self and how it looks and I work magick on myself regularly.

 What do you do for cleansing and purification?

---

*Kala is a rite of integration and cleansing where a witch takes what troubles her, externalizes it, drops it in water, cleans the water, then re-ingests the water, (converted troubles and all). Know that saying, "That which does not kill me makes me stronger?" That's exactly what kala is- we have lived through a trouble, examined it, gotten to know it inside and out, made our peace with it as being a part of us, infused it with mana (life force) and taken it back in. When done right, it's like doing a shot of kick-ass.

Unlike some witchcraft and magickal traditions which use a banishing to try and purify the Self, Feri believes that trying to cut away parts of you (even the undesirable ones that are tied up in knots) permanently is giving away your power (and isn't actually possible anyway). So we reintegrate that which befuddles, confuses, vexes, and troubles us. While the rite varies from person to person, the rite always includes water and often mana (the energy/life force that surrounds us and every living thing).

**Right speech, explained in negative terms, means avoiding four types of harmful speech: lies (words spoken with the intent of misrepresenting the truth); divisive speech (spoken with the intent of creating rifts between people); harsh speech (spoken with the intent of hurting another person's feelings); and idle chatter (spoken with no purposeful intent at all).