Elements, Directions, Guardians: Part 1

I recently saw a question-thread on Facebook asking witches about whether or not we work with the “Guardians of the Watchtowers”. This is a term I first heard - as a 33-year old witch who started practising when I was 11 years old - in the film The Craft. This concept was not a part of my high school ecstatic, spirit-led practice. While I certainly did cast Circles as a teen witch, if I called to spirits at the directions it was to the Elemental Spirits. I had a visceral and potent relationship with the Sylphs, Salamanders, Undines, and Gnomes. When I moved from Toowoomba to Brisbane I brought this with me into the initial rituals of the Wildwood. I never worked with or was drawn to the Kings of the Elementals - Paralda, Djinn, Niksa, Ghob respectively - that some Craft folk speak of. During my teens I also practised the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram in two forms: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn form that includes the vibration of Hebrew words and names and a version that substituted Greek words and Greek deities.

I know from a lot of reading, connection and conversation, and observation that invoking either Mighty Ones, Elemental Kings, or Lords of the Watchtowers may be a part of various Traditional Wiccan coven practices. Certainly these things are written of or spoken to by the likes of Gerald Gardner, Patricia Crowther, Alex and Maxine Sanders, and the Farrars. I have no experience whatsoever in initiatory Wicca, but I do have intimate initiatory experience in four forms of Witchcraft. Of these four forms of Witchcraft I would say that explicitly three of these do honour particular intelligences, being, or spirits via the roads of the Directions. There is a great deal about these spirits and the cosmographs through which they are illuminated that I will not be sharing on this blog, but I can at least speak to some of the broader concepts.

Reclaiming

One of the founding mothers of Reclaiming is the well-known witch, permaculture teacher, and activist Starhawk. In her first published non-fiction book - The Spiral Dance - originally published in 1979 Starhawk includes directional invocations to “Guardians of the Watchtowers” in the casting of the Circle:

Hail, Guardians of the Watchtowers of the East,
Powers of Air!
We invoke you and call you,
Golden Eagle of the Dawn,
Star-seeker,
Whirlwind,
Rising Sun,
Come!
By the air that is Her breath,
Send forth your light,
Be here now!

In over a decade of working within Reclaiming, of having experienced 20 WitchCamps, nearly 40 Core Classes, and countless meetings, rituals, and circles I have barely ever heard the words “Guardians of the Watchtowers” uttered. Occasionally someone in a class or a ritual pulls it out and I feel momentarily surprised and yet here - in one of the foundational texts of the movement/tradition that has become Reclaiming - the phrase can be found.

In Elements of Magic - the primary Core Class of the Reclaiming Tradition - the foundational tools and concepts of Reclaiming-style magic are passed and practised. We work with and through the Elements as we go, guided and changed by them. And when I say Elements, I mean the Elements of Life: the Earth, the Air, the Fire, the Water, and the mystery of Spirit. Sometimes these Elements are linked with directions and people may even turn to face those directions to acknowledge or “call” those Elemental powers.

In Reclaiming I hear the phrases “Hail and welcome” and “Hail and farewell”, though I personally no longer use this language. I do not believe it possible to welcome or farewell an Element. I am breathing, warmth is radiating through me, I am composed of water, I am muscle, fat, marrow, and bone… Spirit guides and receives this all. So instead I acknowledge, praise, honour, adore, and exalt the Elements of Life. A phrase that originally emerged from Reclaiming witches and pagans in the Blue Mountains in so-called Australia has rippled through much of the English-speaking parts of Reclaiming. So just as often as I hear Hail and Welcome or Hail and Farewell, I also hear Earth is sacred, Air is sacred, Fire is sacred, Water is sacred, Spirit is sacred.

When I cast a Circle in the Reclaiming style for the purposes of creating a container of magic, a lens of focus, and a compass between the worlds I am also reminding myself of what we as a community hold sacred and dear. My practice of Reclaiming magic is almost entirely communal, collective, and with other humans. I hear many voices over and over acknowledge and honour the Elements of Life. Sometimes it happens silently, or with gesture, or song, drama, dance, incantation, poetry, or some other kind of ritual theatre. These “invocations” vary from the exquisitely simple to the wondrously ornate. We are opening and directing our awareness to and with the Elements of Life themselves. We share power through and with them. Some Reclaiming witches - as we have wildly diverse practices and cosmologies - might call to specific Spirits or Guardians at the directions but this is often to do with solo or coven/circle practice.

Anderson Feri

In many lines* of the Feri Tradition/s we honour and work with the Guardians. For many initiates these relationships are among the most intimate and are sometimes erotic. These beings are our teachers, our primal siblings in the Art, and with the Guardians we can work and witness wonders.

There are either six or seven (seven if we include ourselves as the Guardian of the Centre who is the Witch) Guardians that we call to at specific directions, down particular roads, in order to aid our witchery and to connect us to the larger powers of the cosmos. These Spirits can be said to have Elemental aspects, but for most initiates these Beings are distinct unto themselves and beyond the scope even of this planet or our common understandings of dimensionality or reality.

We may work with the Guardians so that we may purposefully draw upon the strength of the Current and Egregore of the Tradition and to deepen into the/their mysteries.

Victor is quoted as saying,

The Guardians are four spirits that come and join your coven whenever you have a ceremony. They’re all around us. They are among the Gods, in the air, all about us. They each take the name of one of the four great Cosmic Gods. The Great Ones are therefore the Guardians of your coven. (The Heart of the Initiate, 2010)

Wildwood

In Wildwood practice the Elements - articulated as such - are acknowledged to lesser or greater extents. Depending on your teacher or their teacher - or their’s - the Elements may be emphasised and centred, or barely mentioned at all. If a Circle is cast in a Wildwood context we may conjure certain Spirits that we call the Guardians or the Guardian Beasts. Some of us will refer to them as the First Coven and Company. These are:

The Horned Owl - Air - who some of us connect to Genderlessness
The Cunning Fox - Fire - who some of us connect to Genderfulness
The King Stag - Water - who some of us connect to maleness
The Mother Bear - Earth - who some of us connect to femaleness
The Dreaming Cub - Earth or Spirit - who some of us connect to Mystery

As well as this the cosmology of our Compass work (and all that it means) is deeply tied to the spirit ecology of Black, White, Red, and Green/Grey/Blue Spirits/Kin - Four Great Families. Via the Compass the Red Kin may be acknowledged and adored via the East, the White Kin in the direction of the sun at midday, the Green/Grey/Blue in the West, and the Black Kin in the direction of darkness. We share this in common with several branches of Traditional Craft, though each House works with this lore a little differently.

As well as this many Wildwood witches work with a particular body of Angelic lore that does concern specifically named Spirits and particular directions.

*There is at least one line of Feri I am aware of that does not work with these Guardians, though they do work with particular Beings at the directions.