Starhawk and Hilary Valentine, renowned leaders in the Wicca movement, use the transformative fairy tale of The Twelve Wild Swans to teach an advanced class on magic. More significantly, this is an introduction to a mature level of Wicca called "reclaiming," a model of witchcraft that blends magic, personal growth, and activism. The book begins with the first chapter of the fairy tale, in which a foolish queen wishes to exchange her 12 sons for a daughter. An old woman "dressed all in black" overhears the queen and makes the wish come true, granting the queen a daughter but turning her sons into wild swans.
From here the coauthors launch into a back-and-forth structure of telling the story and then stopping to show how it applies to a witch's initiation and transformation. For example, we all must leave the castle in order to heal our past. We all must spend some time wandering in the wilderness before finding our true home, and we all must conquer some form of "wicked vows" before we can reach full maturity. These are wise leaders and strong guides, well worth following on this life-altering fairy tale. --Tara West
From Publishers Weekly
Starhawk (The Spiral Dance; Truth or Dare, etc.), founder of a new spirituality effort called the Reclaiming Movement, teams up with co-religionist Hilary Valentine for this training and instruction book in magical methods. Their spirituality embraces several popular modern categories, including Wicca, paganism and the goddess movement. The term reclaiming refers to the goddess movement's Eden story, which posits a prehistorical time when matriarchal societies lived in harmony with one another and nature through worship of a female earth goddess, a pristine state that was ended by the rise of patriarchal religions focused on a male sky god. The authors are reclaiming the goddess traditions they believe existed in that ancient paradise, and their book offers others the chance to join in. To suit the needs of their presentation, they have adapted an ancient fairy tale about brothers turned into swans, whose sister wove magic shirts to turn them back into men. The book combines storytelling, instructions for performing magic rituals and advice on how to use these rituals as a form of therapy. The authors adapt popular psychology for an occult audience by translating psycho-jargon into witchcraft terminology. Readers who embrace goddess theology may well find this work instructive, though its advanced magical training will be a bit daunting for beginners. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The Spiral Dance (1979) is probably the best-selling book on contemporary witchcraft. Starhawk has published widely since that pivotal work, but none of her books have had the enormous impact of her first. The Twelve Wild Swans , however, just may replicate the success of Spiral Dance , for it offers a how-to as well as a why-to for aspiring witches. Based on the work of the Reclaiming Tradition, the ecospiritual witchcraft in which Starhawk has been a formative force, the book extrapolates its spiritual training from the European myth named by its title. In that story, the brothers of a princess are magically transformed into swans. She labors in pain and silence to free them, managing to do so just before she would have been killed. Thus, she saves both herself and them. In the tale, Starhawk and Valentine locate the stages of an initiatory journey, which they illustrate with group and individual rituals. In addition, vignettes of self-transformation and social transformation that result from such magical work not only further illustrate but expand the meaning of the text. Engaging and profound, this book well may become a classic of contemporary spiritual literature. Patricia Monaghan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
The long-awaited continuation of the bestselling classic The Spiral Dance
About the Author
Starhawk is a Witch, peace activist, ecofeminist, and author of several books, including The Pagan Book of Living and Dying, The Fifth Sacred Thing, and Truth or Dare. She is the cofounder of the Bay Area Reclaiming Collective, and she teaches and lectures in the U.S., Canada, Central America, and Europe.
Twelve Wild Swans: A Journey to the Realm of Magic, Healing, and Action FROM THE PUBLISHER
A fairy tale about 12 wild swans is transformed by the authors into a set of instructions for an initiatory journey into the world of magic and witchcraft. Continuing the lessons and deepening the knowledge first set out in The Spiral Dance, this book is the first to provide advanced magical training. A sourcebook for circles, covens, and groups, this volume instructs on three levels—the craft of magical training, inner-spiritual development, and outer work in the greater world. It will be a required resource for all students, teachers, and leaders in the growing Goddess movement.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Starhawk (The Spiral Dance; Truth or Dare, etc.), founder of a new spirituality effort called the Reclaiming Movement, teams up with co-religionist Hilary Valentine for this training and instruction book in magical methods. Their spirituality embraces several popular modern categories, including Wicca, paganism and the goddess movement. The term reclaiming refers to the goddess movement's Eden story, which posits a prehistorical time when matriarchal societies lived in harmony with one another and nature through worship of a female earth goddess, a pristine state that was ended by the rise of patriarchal religions focused on a male sky god. The authors are reclaiming the goddess traditions they believe existed in that ancient paradise, and their book offers others the chance to join in. To suit the needs of their presentation, they have adapted an ancient fairy tale about brothers turned into swans, whose sister wove magic shirts to turn them back into men. The book combines storytelling, instructions for performing magic rituals and advice on how to use these rituals as a form of therapy. The authors adapt popular psychology for an occult audience by translating psycho-jargon into witchcraft terminology. Readers who embrace goddess theology may well find this work instructive, though its advanced magical training will be a bit daunting for beginners. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Starhawk, the beloved and controversial author of The Spiral Dance, has here co-written a kind of successor to that book that picks up the themes of the fairy tale cited in the title as a metaphor for initiation into the deeper mysteries of Starhawk's brand of witchcraft, including magical training, inner development, and interaction with the outside world. Engagingly written and presented with dozens of exercises for each aspect of the seeker's journey, it concludes with a pleasing final meditation on the meaning of the fairy tale with which the book began. This volume should be wildly and deservedly popular with neo-pagan readers and other seekers. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Art & Photography
Book Info
