CHAPTER NINE

FEATHER MAGIC

Every feather is a fetish. It can become a sacred object. The use of fetishes and sacred objects has been employed by peoples from every part of the world. Their use is found in every religion, from the rosary and crucifix in Catholicism, to the feather fan of the Native Americans. The Tibetans used prayer bracelets and the Egyptians wore scarabs.

The word fetish comes from the Portuguese word “feitico” which first meant “charm.” It was a word that applied to relics, rosaries and images thought to possess magical qualities. Portuguese explorers applied the word to objects worshiped by the natives of West Africa. This concept has taken many expressions throughout history-in reverencing of sacred places, trees, relics, and such. The essential idea behind fetishism is that spiritual powers reside within material objects.

A fetish is an object often believed to have mystical or magical powers. In point of fact, it is simply a reminder of that energy you are aligning with. It may be a carving, a figurine, a part of an animal, a stone, or an image. It may simply be an inscription on a piece of paper. Crystals, scarabs, shells, fur, feathers, clay figures and such are some of the most common forms.

Fetishes and sacred objects often are used as talismans and amulets. To the Golden Dawn, a talisman is “a magical figure charged with the Force which it is intended to represent.”15 In general, though, there is a difference between a talisman and an amulet. A talisman can be viewed as any object made to serve a specific end-usually to bring good fortune in some area of life or to help in the achievement of a goal. It has a suggestive effect upon the mind. An amulet is not much different, other than that it is usually worn for protection and for health. Both are usually consecrated or “charged” through some ritual or meditative act. This can be accomplished as simply as by applying concentrated focus while constructing them.

Feathers, fetishes, and other sacred objects are often used as tools. They can be used to help us connect with the more ethereal energies of life. They can be links to the archetypes of the natural world, or they can be antennae to the spirit realm. They can be a physical expression of reverence and prayer, or they can be a tool for protection and healing.

FETISH EXERCISES

When working with feathers, prayer sticks, and other fetishes and sacred objects, as you will learn to do in this chapter and elsewhere in the book, it is important to remember that the power and energy is not in the object itself-although there are exceptions (i.e. crystals, etc.). The object is a means by which we give form and focus to a particular expression of energy. The object expresses our relationship to that energy or force. By creating a sacred object, you help to establish and invoke a powerful connection to that force on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels simultaneously.

Exercise #1: Understanding What Your Feather is Saying

Anyone who has observed birds in the wild will notice that they do a lot of preening. This preening cleans and rearranges the filaments of the feathers. It distributes along them a natural oil that helps coat and insulate. When you find or are gifted with feathers, you should do some preening of them also. This preening will help you to get in touch with the essence and energy of the feathers. It will help distribute the natural oils from your hands to the feather, aligning you with it and its energies.

Birds usually preen in two ways. They do a nibbling action from the base of the feather to its tip, pecking at each strand. Then there is a drawing activity that is much like a zipper effect. Both are essential to the overall cleaning and insulating of feathers.

Handle your feathers gently, but do your own form of preening. Examine the filaments and gently run your fingers along as many of them as you can. Brush the filaments of the feather forward gently along the stem. If they overlap, you will find that it is easy to straighten them out by doing this. Then run the feather softly through your fingers, drawing upward along the stem. You enhance your sense of touch and you begin to imprint your energy into the feather as well.

This handling also helps you to pay more attention to it. Note the colors, the patterns, any striping, bars, or dots. All can have significance. They can help you to define the energy and the manner it is most likely to manifest in your life. Every aspect of the feather is important.

Exercise #2: Breathing on Feathers

We have already discussed the significance of breath and air in relation to birds and feathers. Breath is also essential to activating the energy of the feather, whether to help attunement or for healing purposes. There are, of course, many ways of breathing life into the feathers, but we are going to focus on two. In exercise #2 you will learn to activate the energy of the feather by breathing on it. In exercise #3 you will learn to heal with feathers by breathing through them.

The breathing on of feathers should be done throughout the time that you are getting acquainted with your feathers as described in exercise #1. It should always be performed before using the feather in meditation, healing, shapeshifting, or in any other endeavor. Your breath becomes the activating principal. It triggers the life and energy of the feather, awakening the archetypal forces reflected by it.

For this to work most effectively, you must have done some background work on the feather and the bird it came from. You should be aware of the kind of energies it is most likely connected to. Those qualities of the bird that you wish to have activated and breathed into new life within you are even more important.

1. Find a time in which you will not be disturbed.

2. Set the atmosphere with incense, sounds of nature music, or anything you find beneficial.

3. Set your feather(s) in front of you or upon your lap.

4. Begin slow, rhythmic breathing. Inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four, and then exhale for a count of four. Keep your breath slow and steady. Feel yourself relaxing more deeply with each breath.

5. Bring to your mind the image of the bird. Mentally review all of its qualities and characteristics. Remember that air and breath are also associated with mental activity.

6. Now visualize your bird in flight, free and strong within your mind. As you observe its flight in your own mind, see it radiating the qualities you have come to associate with it.

7. Now pick up your feather. (If you have more than one, do this part one at a time.) Hold it by its stem with both hands several inches in front of your mouth. Keep your eyes closed and imagine its wing movement while in flight. As you focus on this, allow your breathing to follow that same rhythm. As the wings move down, you inhale. As they move up, you exhale. (This may seem strange at first, but remember that birds breathe opposite of humans.)

8. With each breath out, exhale on the feather. Envision this as a means of both honoring the power of flight and also of uniting your life breath with the life breath of your bird totem. Continue this breathing for a minute or two. Visualize this as a breathing of new life into the feather and the archetypal forces behind it.

9 As you do this you should begin to feel a slight vibration in the step of the feather. It may be a tingling, a sense of increased pressure, a warmth or some such feeling. This feeling will encompass both hands, as the energy of the feather comes to life and affects the air around it.

10. As you hold the feather, try to imagine the energy surrounding the feather moving up your arms and into your body. You may feel it, see it, sense it, or simply imagine it. As you focus on it, it will occur. Remember, all energy follows thought, and birds rule the realm of thought. Take a few moments and visualize the energy of the bird awakening in you, with all of its corresponding abilities. Envision yourself using those energies and abilities successfully in the week ahead.

Take a few moments and repeat this exercise as often as you use the feather(s). It awakens and empowers them. The energies around the feathers will increase each time you do this. It has an accumulative effect. It will enable you to fly higher or just go deeper within yourself. It will make manifesting the energies of the bird in your life much easier Keep your mind on the qualities of the bird. Know that with each breath you are aligning more completely with it. The more concentrated your thoughts during the breathing, the more powerful the energy of the feather becomes. It develops a dynamic link between you and those divine forces reflected by it in Nature.

Exercise #3: Breathing Through the Feathers

This is a powerful technique for activating the healing energies of the feather and its corresponding bird archetype. It facilitates sending specific healing energies into areas of the body. In essence, with your breath, you send the energies of your bird totem into the body and energy system to elicit specific effects.

It is important to know the specific qualities of your feather and its bird for the healing to be most effective. Certain birds are more effective for working on some conditions of the body than others. For example, a turkey vulture feather is wonderful for cleansing the aura, the bowels and the entire digestive tract. A cardinal feather can be used to breath new vitality into blood conditions. It is especially effective with anemia problems. A study of your bird totem will help you to identify specifically which body systems and organs are most easily affected by it.

Also keep in mind that any feather can be used to align with the energies of any bird. Even if you do not have a vulture feather, you can still align with its energies and use the feather you do have to breath through for alleviation of digestion and such. Simply remember that as you breathe on the feather you do have to activate its energies; hold within your mind the image and qualities of the bird whose energies you wish to invoke. Your feather then will take on the qualities and energies of the bird you are focused upon. The steps for healing with this technique are:

1. Make sure the environment in which you will be working is clean and prepared. Make sure there are no interruptions or disturbances.

2. Perform a relaxation exercise prior to working on the individual. This is more effective if it includes rhythmic breathing.

3. Perform the “Breathing On” exercise previously described. This can be done before the person to be healed even arrives. Make sure you concentrate on the specific healing quality of the appropriate bird.

4. If the exact health problem can not be determined, or the appropriate bird can not be determined, simply see this technique as a means of breathing new life into the person. Simply focus on your totem helping you to activate a more vital breath in the person who has come for a treatment.

Healing by Breathing Through the Feather

Place the feather upon the troubled area. Then cup your mouth over the feather and breathe through it into the troubled area. Visualize your breathe activating and sending the archetypal energies associated with the feather into that part of the body. See it being healed and strengthened.

5. Have the individual take either a seated or standing position. Then cleanse the aura, sweeping it clean with a feather aura duster, as described in Exercise #4.

6. Now have the individual sit or lay down. He or she must be in a position in which you can place the feather directly upon the body. (This can be used with any feather other than owl feathers. When working with owl medicine, a touch of the feathers can push the problem deeper into the body, so owl feathers should not touch the body.)

7. Place the feather upon the area of the body needing help, and cup your hands on either side of it. Then lower your head so that your mouth is cupped over your hands, directly over the feather. Begin slow rhythmic breathing.

8. See yourself blowing, activating the energy of the feather, and breathing new life into the unbalanced part of the body. See yourself sending the archetypal force of the bird into the body to heal and strengthen the unbalanced condition. The warmth of the breath, the visualization, and the feather work together to give form and focus to those healing energies most needed by the individual.

9. See and feel winds blowing through the body and taking with it any ill health conditions, to be scattered, dissipated and eliminated by the Divine winds of the world. Continue this until you feel or think it is complete.

10. End this by cleansing the aura again, using the your feather aura duster.

There are, of course, many variations of this which can be used. Sound is a powerful additive to this exercise. Breathing and toning certain chants through the feather to the body will elicit powerful results. Remember that sound is part of the element of air. Breathe and tone the vowel sounds of the individual’s first name. This will make the healing more effective. The vowels and the first name are direct links to the primal energies of the individual.

You may also choose to begin by generally breathing into the body. Try placing the feather at the crown of the head, the chest, and the feet, and breathing through them in each of these positions before going to the specific problem area. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Trust your intuition in this process. Everyone you work on will be a little different. Remember that birds help us to use the intuitive faculties-with more creativity and flexibility.

Exercise #4: Cleansing the Aura with Feathers

One of the most common methods of using feathers is to cleanse or dust the aura. Most people today associate them with Native American and shamanic activities. Feathers used for this process are called by a variety of names, the two most common being an aura duster or a feather duster. They take a variety of forms, and on the following page, several of these are depicted.

Feathered Aura Dusters

Aura dusters can be made up of many feathers or even just a single feather itself. Turkey vulture feathers make excellent dusters for cleaning out the aura.

The human aura is the energy field that surrounds the human body in all directions. It is comprised of many forms of energy, but it has a strong electromagnetic aspect. This means we are constantly giving off and absorbing energy. Everything and everyone we encounter has the capability of affecting our energy. Unless we are aware of this exchange, we can accumulate a lot of “energy debris” in the course of the day. In many ways it is like static electricity that has accumulated and has a detrimental effect.16

Aura dusters are effective to use before and after any healing activity. They are also beneficial to use every day to sweep out the energy debris you have accumulated in the course of the day’s activities.

1. Because the aura extends in all directions, you want to perform the dusting in the front, back, sides, head and feet.

2. Do not touch the body with the feathers, but simply use a soft, sweeping motion about 2-3 inches out from the body.

3. Start at the head and move down. Visualize as you do that you are literally sweeping and dusting all negativity away from the body. Remember all energy follows thought, and birds and feathers are linked to the thought process.

4. Also sweep the front and the back, and do extra dusting at any area of the body you feel inspired. Go under the arms, and have the individual raise his or her feet and dust them. You may even envision it as if you are creating an ethereal wind to sweep over and cleanse that area of the body.

5. To enhance the effect, smudging can also be used. This is a Native American process of brushing the fragrance and smoke of incense over the body, to further cleanse and purify. Often a bowl is used to burn the incense, and as the smoke rises, it is brushed with the feather(s) over and around the entire body of the individual. It is a means of bathing in the purifying fragrance. Sage, cedar, and sweetgrass are common herbs used for this. Frankincense and myrrh are also effective cleansing fragrances that can be used.

Exercise #5: Feather and Fetish Pots

Fetish pots and “medicine bags” are often used to house feathers and fetish figurines. One of the easiest to make is through coils of clay. These can be decorated and painted. Using such bowls or pots is more empowering to the fetish than to have it just sitting out.

All bowls, cups, and cauldrons are symbols of the divine feminine energies of the universe. It is the energy of the womb from which new life issues forth. The circular shape is dynamic, for it has no beginning and no end. It represents all that is unmanifest, along with all of the possibilities. The feathers and fetishes, when placed within the bowl, begin to accumulate energy reserves. When taken out and then used, that energy reserve is activated. A fetish that sits out will dissipate its force and may have to be recharged more often.

The bowls also have an inner and an outer expression—the unmanifest and the manifest. The bowl becomes a gateway through which the archetypal force behind the feather fetish enters and gathers. It leaves and is activated when the fetish is withdrawn and used.

The bowl is tied to the symbol and energies of the cornucopia. The original cornucopia was from the horn of the goat of Amaltheia who became the constellation of Capricorn. It is a symbol of infinite supply. It serves to remind us that we can use the fetish pot to multiply and increase the energies that are symbolized by and manifest through the fetish itself.

The bowl is the Great Mother. It is the symbol of the universe. It is the symbol of all forms of energy expression in the universe. When you place a fetish into a fetish pot or bowl, be it a simple feather or the figurine of an animal totem, the energies associated with that fetish begin to accumulate so they can eventually take form and expression more powerfully in your life.

Using fetishes and fetish pots is a way of honoring and attuning to your animal totems. Animal envoys no longer serve and guide humans the way they used to, but there is still within us the unconscious memory of them. This memory is often awakened in people who are out in the wild. It can awaken in storms and it often awakens in dreams. If we wish to begin the process of more conscious reawakening that ancient relationship with the animal world, we can use the fetish pot and the fetish to assist us:

1. Use a clay pot or make one. Using one of natural materials, such as clay, facilitates and symbolizes our connection to Mother Earth.

2. Once you have chosen your bowl, you may leave it plain or decorate in the manner that is sacred to you. You may wish to have inscriptions or other symbols on the outside, or even on the inside of the bowl. The inscriptions should reflect the energies of the totem. For a fetish bowl for feathers, you may wish to decorate it outside and inside with pictures of wings, etc.

Sample Fetish Pots With a Prayer Stick

These fetish pots are filled with quartz crystal points. They strengthen the energy of the fetish and provide a support base for prayer sticks.

3. I recommend that for all work with animal totems you use the fetish pot only for specific kinds of fetishes. If you have religious fetishes, have a separate bowl for them. Keep one bowl, though, as an animal spirit fetish bowl and keep another as a fetish bowl for your bird totems.

4. You may also wish to place various stones and crystals at the bottom of the bowl. This will further amplify the energies symbolized by your fetish. It will also remind you that the fetish grounds the spiritual force behind it into your life.

5. Smudge or cleanse your totem fetish. Meditate with it. Even perform the previous exercises to help bless and charge it. It is important to visualize, imagine, and feel the energy of the animal as you do this. Know that each time you hold your fetish it is an awakening call to the energy of your animal spirit. Remember that the fetish gives form and focus to the archetypal force behind it.

6. Keep your totem fetish in the bowl until you need to use it. You may also choose to keep it covered with a dark cloth, reflecting the womb of life in which the energies of your totem become fertile. As you uncover the fetish bowl and draw out your totem fetish, do so with reverence. Remember that this is symbolic of the womb of life, and each time you bring forth your fetish, you draw its energies out of the unmanifest into the manifested world. Refer to Exercise #8 for specific ways of enhancing the effects of feather fetishes in pots or bowls.

7. When finished with the work of the fetish, replace it back within your animal spirit fetish bowl, until time to bring it forth once more.

Exercise #6: Prayer Sticks

One of the most powerful and magical ways of using feathers is with prayer sticks, staffs and wands. Sticks, staffs, and wands have long been used as tools and symbols of higher forms of communication. A stick, staff, or wand is an antennae. They direct, receive, and channel energies. They are used to draw forth and give expression to the feminine life force, for healing, protection and creation.

“This man wandered through the darkness until he began to think; then he knew himself and that he was a man; he knew that he was there for some purpose. He put his hand over his heart and drew forth a large stick. He used the stick to help him through the darkness, and when he was weary he rested upon it.”17

The stick, staff, and/or wand is the second half of the creative principle. It is the assertive, masculine aspect. Almost any staff or prayer stick can be considered a magical wand. The stick or wand is the Father. It is what brings forth those things desired out of the unmanifest. Such tools help us to magnify and select the creative process.

Prayer Sticks, Staffs, and Wands

Above are three examples of prayers sticks and staffs: (left to right) a Journey Staff with Hawk feathers, a Faerie Realm Prayer Stick made of Holly and a Griffin feather,18 and a more traditional prayer stick. This latter prayer stick, made from a forked branch, has feathers from an oriole. One fork of the branch is painted black, the other orange-the colors of the oriole. A forked branch is used because the oriole will build its hanging nest from a forked branch of a tree.

Sticks, staffs and wands have been used in many societies. Most people are familiar with the magic wand of the stage magician. This is but a prop, but a true wand serves a creative function in the process of transformation and manifestation. When used with fetishes and such, we are using it to connect with the Natural world and the spirits and energies of it.

Prayer sticks, staffs, and wands are most effective for working with spirit totems when made from natural elements. Wooden dowels are effective, but so are branches from various trees. Every tree has its own unique energy and keeping this in mind will help make your prayer stick more effective. (For information on some of the energies of trees, you may wish to consult one of my earlier works, The Magical Name.) Copper tubing, capped at both ends, can also make wonderful prayer sticks and wands. Copper is an element of the earth.

The copper and the wooden prayer sticks can be decorated to imbue them with greater significance. Different colored cloth and leather wraps can be made for them. Feathers of your totem can be attached so that the wand becomes a direct line to your totem. Wood sticks, staffs, and wands can be carved with symbols and such.

Crystals, shells, and stones can be attached. Remember that it is important to research your totem. And everything you attach to your stick, staff, or wand should reflect some aspect of that totem. For those who are working with the Native American tradition, the colors of the directions of the world can be painted on them. For example, some birds came to be associated with various directions. A vulture is a totem of the South, and a hawk is often considered a totem of the East. If your prayer stick, staff, or wand is to connect with a specific bird, you might want to paint it or wrap it in its appropriate color.

Different tribes and traditions used different colors for the directions. What is most important when using colors is that you find the significance for the specific color. Don’t just use it because it is in a chart somewhere. The more significance you can find for the color of your prayer stick, the better it will work for you. On my personal journey staff, described a little further on, I use a paint that I can wash off. On each pathworking journey I use colors, feathers, and symbols specific to that magical journey. At the end of my magical journey, as I wash off the paint, I imagine the washing as the final act in releasing my prayers and actions to be fulfilled.

Prayer sticks, staffs, and wands are extensions of your own energy and purpose in working with your animal totems. These tools are channels of energy, and as much care should be given them as to other fetishes and the fetish bowl. These tools are the symbols of the great fertilizing activity. Variations of them in art and totem activity also include scepters, thunderbolts, clubs, and the phallus.

The use of prayer sticks, staffs, and wands is most effective when used to connect with an animal totem that is a bird. Almost all people have some bird that is a totem for them. Discovering it and then using prayer sticks to communicate and work with it is a dynamic means of empowering your life. It can help you to truly understand the language of animals, and more importantly, get them to understand you.

The most effective prayer sticks, staffs, and wands are those which have feather fetishes attached to them. It is very beneficial if you can use a feather of your actual bird totem, but it is not essential. Every feather is a link to any member of the bird kingdom. It may take a little extra persistence, but they can still be used.

1. Prayer Sticks and Wands

To the Hopi and Pueblo Indians there were many ways of making offerings to Spirit. Corn meal could be cast to the various directions. Turquoise was often offered, and water contained within a shell was also a common offering. By far the most important tool for connecting with and making offering and petitions to the spirit world was the prayer stick.

Prayer sticks can be shorter than your fingers, or as long as your forearm. There are no set rules as to their length. To the Pueblo of Acoma there were 17 common types of prayer sticks, and the people would make offerings of 16-80 prayer sticks a year.19

The most common stick was that of a peeled willow branch. These were often painted and had carved notches and grooves. Once the painting and carving was completed, then the feather(s) would be attached. The feather(s) are either tied or stuck into one end of the stick. The colors, the notches, the feather, and the kind of stick all had significance and were combined into a prayer stick to serve as a petition to a spirit.

The stick is the message, and the feather the call to the spirit bird or totem to carry the message to the heavens. One end of the prayer stick is then planted in the earth. As the breeze catches the feather, it activates its energies and links the earth request with the heavens.

Ideally, the stick and the feather should be compatible. The qualities of the bird should harmonize with the qualities and energies of the stick. One of the easiest ways to determine this is to examine the kind of tree the bird usually builds its nest in. For example, grouse love oak forests and areas where wild grapes grow. If you had a grouse feather, you could use an oak stick or the stick from a wild grape bush. An oriole will build its hanging nest from a forked twig, so using a forked stick with the oriole feather would add to your ability to link with this totem. You could add to its effectiveness by painting one fork of the stick yellow or orange and the other black-the traditional colors of the oriole.

Remember that all feathers relate to spirit and the gods. They are symbols for the breath of life. Learning to breathe your intentions onto the feather is very important. While constructing your prayer stick, occasionally hold your feather over it and breathe gently through the feather and onto the stick. This helps activate its energy and implant it in the stick.

Most of us don’t have access to the quantity of feathers that those who live in the country may have, but even those in the city can find feathers. Take regular walks. Aside from its health benefits, as you walk pay attention to the ground. I rarely take walks or runs without coming back with some feathers I have found. We also don’t have the luxury of planting our prayer sticks. I recommend making some general, all-purpose prayer sticks that you can use over. You may have one for healing, one for protection, one for abundance, etc. One that I have seen is made of a combination of vulture feathers and the wood of a crabapple tree. This is very beneficial for purification.

You do not have to plant the prayer sticks outside. You may simply hold them and meditate with them in much the same manner as you would a wand. Wave it around. As the feather moves and dances, the energy comes alive. Spiral it up and down in front of you, and see and feel the energy rise. Feel the presence of your spirit totem arriving. Imagine and feel the energy of your petition being activated.

Rather than make them and plant them outside in the traditional manner, you can keep them and use them over again. Make sure that you smudge or cleanse them after each use, and then recharge them with your new, more specific intention. There are a number of very effective ways of doing this, but by far the most powerful and most effective means is to combine the use of the prayer stick with the use of the fetish pot as depicted on page 108.

A very ancient pagan ritual involves placing a knife into a cup, symbolizing the union of the Father and the Mother. This is the act of creation. Every time you place a prayer stick into the fetish pot or bowl, you are symbolically doing the same thing. Anytime the male and female unite, whether sexually or symbolically, there is a birth of new energy expressions. This energy expression is greatly determined by the focus of one’s thoughts and the manner in which the prayer stick is created.

The prayer stick and the fetish pot become an extension of your own energies. They amplify, empower, and ground. They represent the renewal of life, the union of the sun and the moon on earth so that the new can be born. The fetish pot and the prayer stick together are the symbols of birth and initiation. It is the joining of the scepter and crown. It is the marriage of opposites to bring new expression and harmony. This symbolic sacred marriage between god and goddess, sun and moon, heaven, and earth is reflected in the combination of prayer stick and fetish bowl. And this creates a new state, a new life and a new completeness.

One of my fetish bowls is filled with crystal points and pieces. Whenever I use a new or old prayer stick, I take it out and I plant it in the heart of that fetish pot of crystals.

2. The Staff

The staff is a symbol of the tree of life, the axis between heaven and earth. It is a tool to take messages skyward. It provides support, and it gives direction and intensity to energy. The staff is a symbol of the link to your most spiritual energies.

Magic and power have long been associated with staffs. In Biblical lore, the staff of Moses turned into a snake and swallowed the staff Isnakes of the Egyptian priests. The great magician and shapeshifter Merlin is often depicted with a staff. The staff provides support in our life journeys. It also reminds us to keep our own magic alive while journeying through life. Birds often decorated the tops of staffs, reflecting shamanic journeys.

A powerful application of the creative imagination is employed in a technique called pathworking. This is often used in the ancient Hebrew form of mysticism known as the Qabala. The paths depicted in the Qabalistic Tree of Life are symbolic pathways to various levels of the mind and the universe. They link different levels of the mind (called Sephiroth in traditional Qabalism) and the energies available to us at those levels. They can be used for astral travel and for skrying in the spirit. They employ powerful symbols in imaginative scenarios to invoke and manifest specific energies into your life.

In one of my previous works, Imagick: Qabalistic Pathworking for Imaginative Magicians, I describe how movement and playacting can be used in pathworking to open to deeper levels of the mind and the more dynamic energies of the universe. I have made and use a journey staff in my pathworking exercises, employing it within dance movements and in performing various scenarios to activate the energies within the Qabalistic Tree of Life.

It has become a powerful tool. It is a reminder that the Tree of Life and all of its energies are within me. On my pathworking staff, I will often paint the symbols and words of the path and the two Sephiroth in the Tree of Life that path connects. This gives even greater form and focus to the energies I am working to activate.

Decorate your staff the same way you would your prayer stick or wand. Attach appropriate feathers. If you are using the staff to represent your life’s journey, you may wish to attach feathers painted to represent feathers of birds that are migratory. You will want to have the feathers of your individual bird totem as well. Paint it with colors symbolic and significant to your purpose. You may wish to use some of the ancient alphabets and carve names and words important to you and your life goals.

You can have more than one staff. You may wish to have a healing staff, a journey staff, one of protection, and a staff to represent your life growth. Don’t be afraid to change and add to the staff. I mentioned earlier that I have a staff that I use for dancing my Qabalistic pathworkings. On this staff I use water soluble paints, so I can reuse it over and over again. I also attach different feathers-those which correspond to the energies I am trying to invoke. Don’t worry if you do not have the feathers to do this with. You can always paint the bird image or use generic feathers.

At some point, I have had all of the traditional symbols of the Qabalistic Tree of Life and its various paths painted upon my staff. In performing this activity, the staff has become my individual tree of life. Each time I use it, it becomes more charged, and it becomes easier to access the energies.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. You don’t have to dance with your staff. Simply holding it once it is prepared will activate the energies. Remember it is an antennae. It will channel and direct energies accordingly. It will lift your intentions and they will fly to the heavens to begin to manifest for you.

Exercise #7: Wearing Your Feathers

One of the easiest ways of activating the energies of your bird totem and aligning yourself with it is by wearing feathers. It is a direct way of honoring it. It also serves as a constant reminder to you of its play of energy within your life. It also serves to strengthen your thought processes throughout the day. There are many ways of wearing the feathers, and none is more correct than any other. What works for you is what you should keep in mind. The following list provides just a few of the many decorative and creative ways in which feathers can be worn by you. Experiment. Be creative. Feel how much lighter you are throughout the day when you are wearing feathers.

1. Tie them into the hair.

2. Attach them to bracelets.

3. Fasten them to buttons on your shirt or blouse.

4. Wear them on your ankles. (This is most effective with small pin feathers. Be sure not to allow them to dangle too much, or you may step on them. When performing various dances, I will often attach specific feathers to my ankles.

5. Make necklaces of them.

6. Fasten to belt loops.

7. Attach to purses and bags.

8. Fasten them to ear rings or fashion your own ear rings from feathers.

9. Pin them to clothing.

10. Attach them to personal articles you use or carry with you.

Exercise #8: Enhancing and Protecting Your Feathers

Feathers can be quite fragile, and it is important to handle them gently. There are ways to protect them and to strengthen their energies:

1. Wrapping feathers not being used in silk or cloth will help protect them, especially if they are not kept in a fetish pot. Some feathers I keep in a pot, while others I keep stored.

2. It is beneficial to the feathers to be stored with sprigs of sage. Sage helps keep them more vibrant and fends off deterioration. it keeps the feathers more vibrant.

3. Occasionally taking out all of your feathers and energizing them through the “Breathing On” exercise is essential for their life and vitality. Depending upon the quantity of feathers, you should do this at least several times a year, even if you are not using them. I try to do this at least four times a year around the equinoxes and solstices.

4. Occasionally smudge all of your feathers. A sage or sage combination smudge is beneficial. As the herb smokes, simply run the feather through it, turning it every which way. This keeps the feathers cleansed and more ready to be used.

5. Learn to use sound with your feathers. Sing with them. Hum, chant, and tone with them. Sound is part of the power of air. It is a dynamic means of strengthening the energy of the feather. Know that as you sing or chant, the feather helps carry its sounds forth, while also being honored by it. It always blesses.

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15. Regardie, Israel. How to Make and Use Talismans (Wellingborough: The Aquarian Press, 1981), p. 11. 99

16. For more specific information on the characteristics of the human aura, consult the author’s earlier work, How to See and Read the Aura (Llewellyn Publications).

17. Russell, Frank. “The Pima Indians,” in 26th Annual Report of the American Ethnology, 1904-1905 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1908), pp. 206-230.

18. Holly is protective to the fairies and elves, and the griffin is also their guardian. Whenever a griffin appears, it often leaves a gift of a feather. Such a feather came into my hands after such an appearance, and is described in my book Enchantment of the Faerie Realm.

19. Tyler, Hamilton A. Pueblo Birds and Myths (Flagstaff: Northland Publishing, 1990), p. 2-3.