City Witch: The Metro Web Community
By Christopher Penczak
When I look at the city from above, in a tall building, from a plane or simply on a map, I am always struck by how much of a web the interconnected pathways are. I see a web in the merging of streets. Even in many of the more order grid systems, like NYC, have areas where the regimented order breaks down. Still, there is pattern, and beauty in the pattern. The city is a mass of many webs and grids. Besides the streets and roads, the wires, lines and pipes connecting electric, communication and utility systems are web-like, and stretch out into the suburbs and beyond. We have literally created a web of wires. Such webs are alluded to in some native prophecies, but it remains to be seen if this work will helps us, like the spinning spider, or be our doom, like the trapped fly.
I’m fascinated with the web imagery because I have a spiritual connection to the spirit of Spider. Spider has been a great teacher, through both difficulties and ease. I look for my lessons in spider imagery. Past history has shown me its better for me to find them before they find me. So I wondered what this urban spider thinking meant for me. Unlike a lot of other insect and animal totems, spiders are find in the homes and offices of the urban dweller. But I knew it was more than that.
Spider Teachings
I started to reflect on the lessons of Spider. My first spidery lesson was about fear, learning to understand and accept that which is different from me. I can see such a lesson played out in the urban environment, where many different cultures and people mingle.
Its web is a symbol of patience. The spider spins it with intention, creating both home, and a means to eat, but must wait for it to manifest. The spider cannot make the prey come. The spider must create with intention, but detachment. The feast could be any number of insects. When living and working in the city, and now having some perspective having a lot of time out of that environment, I notice that many people, much like the spider, go through routines of frenzy activity punctuated by period of waiting, of feeling somewhat stuck. They live in a state of feast or famine. Some literally do so, particularly in the case of those involved in the arts and music. Most do so spiritually and energetically, stuck in a rut waiting until something enters their “web” their personal space and get things going and a new goal is set.
The web is a sign of communication. Many myths say the first letters were written in the spider’s web. The city is bustling over with written communication. Street and traffic signs are everywhere, guiding those seeking out new paths. Written advertisements, billboards and shops signs entice passers-by. Don’t forget the artistic, social and political expressions found in graffiti. The letters and messages of the modern world are written in the urban web.
The most important teaching of Spider, and the web, is interconnection of all life, and in fact, all things. The web is often considered the symbol of all life, as the web of life is the chain of energies, physical and subtle, than link us all. When one moves upon this web, the vibrations are felt throughout it, though most humans are not attuned to these subtle shifts in perception, but must learn to be to find balance and harmony in the coming age.
Interconnection
This interconnection is the particularly important lesson for the city witch or mage, as the metropolitan experience is a microcosm for the world, with many lands and cultures represented in a small space. Many city walkers, magical and mundane, strangely have the duel characteristics of both being able to rigidly block out a lot of energies and distractions that can be overwhelming to those of us with more delicate system while at the same time carry an intuitive knowing of the vibrations across the web. They take advantage of strange synchronicities and awareness that many others will miss. They have a hidden connection to their community and comrades, to find potential advantages and even simple good times, while learning to avoid pitfalls and dangers.
These occurrences seem to occur with more frequency in the urban environment than the suburbs or country dwelling. I work in the small town in which I was raised. I shop, dine and do many errands there, but very rarely do I see anybody I know from my past. But I can find myself in Boston or Manhattan, and more often than not, randomly run into long lost friends without warning.
Though the city is vast, it creates certain strands of the web where those of similar intent and vibration can gather together – be it a specific neighborhood district, shopping area or local scene. Like the magician says, “like attracts like” and those of a similar vibration will find themselves together. City dwellers create community webs within the city and stretching beyond as we become a more global society. From these strands we have the folk wisdom of the “six degrees of separation.” When you add friends, companions and acquaintances from the Internet, the reach of your community web becomes truly vast.
The Weaver
So for the city witch, what does this spider philosophy have to do with magick and spiritual development? I’m always challenging myself to see things in new ways, and use traditional wisdom as a foundation, but to take it to new places for myself. One of the major complaints many aspiring witches have about the urban world is feeling disconnected. They feel isolated from the source of their magical power, nature. They do not feel a part of the vast web of life because traditional lore uses the images of the bare earth, grass, trees and running water to create that connection. They are all wonderful ways to connect with life, and in some ways preferable. But again, when we are outside of that environment, we are still a part of the world, and we must find ways to connect.
To some, the Goddess in a vast and beautiful aspect, is the Weaver. I think of our image of the triple goddess, with roots in many different myths, as the Weaver. She creates, sustains and destroys. The image of the Fates or Norns, where one spins, one measures and one cuts the thread of our lives, as they are woven together into the tapestry of the world. I see all of live being a woven creation of this vast goddess. In my visions, I see the Goddess with three faces, but in a Hindu inspired images, many armed. As three are one, she has six arms, and two legs, making eight limbs, much like a spider goddess, weaving the world with her web. By focusing on your connection to her web, you are connected to her, and to all of creation.
By understanding that you are always a part of the web of life, you can make all magick more easily. Intellectually you can know this, but when you don’t feel it, because you are not connected to the web through nature, your magick can feel ineffectual. When you contemplate the web in a new, expanded way – including urban images, you feel a part of the network once again. Contemplate the web including phone lines and streets, and internet connection and your circle of friends reaching out across the world.
Much of our modern magick is not lightning bolts from the sky and fire from our fingertips. Though at times I admit it would be nice, that is more the magick of movies. Our real magick manifests through synchronicities. They seem like coincidences to many, but with repeated success you realize that magick, not luck, is at work. Magick takes the easiest route to manifest. We focus on the end result, but like the spider, are detached from how we get what we want, detached from what package it shows up in. Fly, moth or butterfly? Doesn’t matter as long as we eat. But we have to spin the web. We have to give the magick the opportunity to manifest on some channel. We cannot do a new job spell and then stay home and refuse to take calls or see people. If we network, interview and search, through our magick we can find exactly the kind of job we desire, but we have to wait in the web, not hind in our hole.
When you think of your interconnected web of friends, co-workers and acquaintances, and how there have already been synchronicities from seemingly chance meetings, you understand that you have many channels from which your magick can manifest. You are already part of the vast web. Your own web is interconnected with many other people. You just have to weave your magick with intention, and let the desire manifest. Magick often works through a shifting of resources. What is nectar to you is poison to another, so as one person in your web discards something, if it is something you need and want, the message will come to you. One person can leave a job they hate because it is ill suited for that person. But it might be perfect for you, and hearing about it through your network will give you the advantage to seek it out. The more you live with intention, the more you will manifest a magical life.
Ritual of the Web
This ritual meditation is designed to help you align to the very powerful forces already in your life. As you open to the urban web around you, you will find yourself more centered and secure and more magically alive. You will know the power to manifest your dreams exists all around you, no matter where you are.
Materials Needed:
* Flat Surface – A tray with no pattern on it will work well, particularly if you cannot clear the surface of your altar.
* Salt or Corn Meal
* 8 Items that represent areas of your life
* 1 Item that represents you
* 3 Candles, any colors you desire.
Start the ritual by clearing yourself and your space, getting centered and purified. Create sacred space in whatever way suits you. Clear your surface working space. Light your three candles, one for each aspect of the goddess. Collectively think of her as the weaver. If you have any other candles you would like to light, or incense, do so now. Put on any meditative ritual music you prefer.
In the center of your working surface, put the object that symbolizes you and your life. I like to use my pentacle ring, but you can use a photograph, stone, tarot card or anything you’d like. At the edge of the working surface, moving clockwise, put the eight symbols of the various aspects of your life. They can be a combination of social groups and locations. For example, you can use a business card for your work life, a family antique for home, a photo of your friends, a printed email from your online correspondence, a matchbook from your favorite bar, a take out menu from a neighborhood restaurant , a theater playbill or movie ticket and a leaf from a tree in the local park.
Take your bowl of salt or corn meal and focus your attention on it. I prefer to do this in salt, as salt is a great conductor of energy. Some traditions only use salt for protection, binding and neutralization spells, so if you feel that is the only use of salt in magick, then you can use corn meal, flower or even dirt.
Use the central symbol for you as the hub, and create eight spokes with your powdered substance, like the strands of a web coming out from the center, to each of your eight objects. You are weaving a web, and through it, creating a magical mandala. Feel how all these areas of life are connected to you, as the central point. Then starting in the center, create a clockwise spiral of powder, connecting each of the spokes over and over again, like a spider weaving the web. Realize this spiral goes out infinitely, connecting you to realms beyond.
Focus on the mandala of your life you have created. Close your eyes and contemplate on the weaver’s web. Feel yourself as both a part of creation and a weaver yourself. When you are done, return to normal consciousness and ground yourself.
In future version of this ritual, if you want to create a change or manifest something in your life, replace one of the eight spots with a symbol of what you want to manifest. When you contemplate the mandala, imagine yourself in the center of the web, pulling toward you what you want to create. Know that you are a part of the act of creation. Know that magick is all around you, in every environment. Feel your magick in the center of the web.
Special thanks to my friend Christopher Giroux for adding to my insight and understanding of Spider.