The Magickal Pen

Every spiritual path has a protocol for its participants to enter into a quiet and reflective state of consciousness.  For some, it is the offering up of a prayer or the discipline of a weekend or week-long retreat.  On the Wiccan path, The Witch’s Pyramid holds as one of its energies the intent – “To Be Silent”.

This space of silence is a necessary part for integration and assimilation of what progress has been made in moving forward on your path but it can often present itself as regressing or moving backwards.  The points of growth in our spiritual practice are often marked by feeling as though you have taken many steps backwards and sunk deeply into a well that none can see other than yourself. Cultivating and feeding the potential of this pivotal point takes great courage as you are now asked to face yourself and perhaps those qualities within yourself that are not of your highest nature.  Nonetheless, this space of silent growth is the well that we must descend into in order to claim what is our truth and master what is our challenge.

Emergence or the word emerging by definition means to bring forth something new and holding promise. So, how do we bring forth that newness when we emerge from the depths of true spiritual silence? How do we remain fully present in retaining some of the well waters we have drawn up with us.  How do we emerge fully present in the next steps towards bringing forth a new and promising way of being?

I have spoken before of the concept of the Dark Night of the Soul and the pervasive silence and aloneness that accompanies this experience.  That experience is one that is not frequently encountered. However, at a lesser level we are often dipping into the abyss of our own well waters of emotion each time we dig a little deeper into our own spiritual nature.  The practice of meditation, ritual, low and high magickal workings all require that we suspend for a time our outward noise and listen intently to what the spaces of silence offer in support of our work.

In the midst of the loudest and most deafening sound are spaces of pure silence.  Often the sounds that surround are the distractions of the world as we move through our daily activities.  When we feel the momentum of these growth spurts, and as we emerge from this reflective silence we are all to eager to share, to speak, to move again at such a rapid pace that we catapult ourselves beyond the necessary energy of integration of the information gained and the transformation that has occurred.

My suggestion is one of climbing up the ladder of this experience slowly and rung by rung towards the full light of the world above this well of great depths.  Savor, each moment of the continued silence as you emerge into the world filled with sound and distraction. Give pause when you reach the top to re-engage with the visual beauty of the world around and as you step back onto solid ground anchored in knowledge and wisdom that can only be gathered in the silence, offer up thanks to Deity, your guides and yourself.

As you return to your daily activities, spend more time listening and bring something new to the dialogue and interaction deeply drawing on what the silence has taught you.

In that space of deeper listening is held the promise of connection and greater understanding of those you interact with.

If we use the analogy of the butterfly and the cocoon it emerges from after a time of growth, transformation, silence and retreat from the outer stimuli of the world, we have only to look at the ephemeral beauty of what emerges to see the blue print of our ephemeral nature carried on gossamer wings far beyond the darkness of our well of silence.

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