The Art of Spellcasting, Part III

On Refraction, the third principle of oscillation of magic

Illustration to The Three Princesses in the Blue Mountain, by Kay Nielsen

Once, on a sweaty summer afternoon, I stuck a knife in the whirling spokes of a fan, bringing the wheel of time to a stop in my friend Dana Benis’s bedroom.

I was about five years old, still suspended in the elongated wave of childhood where an afternoon felt like what now, at 55, feels like a year. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I was bored. Maybe Dana dared me. All I know is one minute we were sitting on the floor in front of the fan, watching the blades spin into a blur, the next—I have no idea why a knife was at hand—It was a kitchen knife, nothing sharp, good for spreading butter on toast. Something we know how to use and were trusted with, even at five years old.

Did she hand me the knife? Did I ask for it? Those memories haven’t survived. What I do remember is the look that passed between us and how, without words, somehow acting for both of us, I reached my hand through space as if to free the spinning blades locked inside a metal cage and drove the knife in.

Time stopped. Voila.

Except it was not that graceful. Not graceful at all. Rather, time seized up like a choking man struck by lightning, clutching his throat to signify he needed more air.

And time lives in the air, following lines in many directions most of us don’t remember how to see. We limit ourselves by sticking to one or two tracks. Most of us don't stray far from the path set out for us.

Maybe that’s why I stuck the knife in. Even at five years old, I felt overwhelmed about having to choose only one of the spinning blades. May as well blow the whole fractal up.

As I remember, Mrs. Bemis didn’t see it that way. She came roaring into the bedroom like an ambulance to rescue us from the fan’s shriek. When she saw what we’d done (somehow I didn’t end up taking the entire blame), she pulled the plug on the fan and then laid into us like a dragon, smoke coming from her ears, nostrils flaring. I think we probably got spanked, but I don’t remember that either.

What I remember most is the moment before the knife.

What was that moment about? What is it about?

Today, I’m going to stick a knife in the wheel that’s begun to spun in this series on spell-casting by stopping the oscillation and examining the intention and purpose of the wheel’s spokes—the blades on a fan, the lines in a poem. Not the easiest mission for a whirling dervish like me, but one I know from my year’s of devotion to craft, is necessary in the construction of the poems I most value, works of art I liken to baskets woven tight enough to carry water.

Some poets, or artists of life, may have this ability as something innate, but I had to learn it, and in learning it, came to know not just my own structure housed by my own particular form, but some wider lessons on the nature of human existence within time itself. (For a more in depth of my usage of the terms structure and form in poetry see Part I of this series by clicking on this link.)

First, let me say, time is an experiment. According to the Mū doctrines as revealed by Ke’oni Hanalei, time is an experiment of the Draco star lineage. If you’d like to learn more about that I recommend Keoni’s workshop on this lineage which can be found HERE. It’s not my intent to go into the full scope of the star lineages and their experiments in this series. What’s important to remember from the teachings, however, is that time is an experiment. We are so bound up in time, it’s rare for us to step outside of it and realize it is not inevitable, and though I’m no scientist, I’m pretty sure scientists have proven the truth of this with equations far beyond my intellectual scope.

Is that why I stuck the knife in the fan? Could be, but I’m willing to live with not knowing, treasuring the memory of that look that passed between Dana Bemis and me right before my transgression. Memory is not going back in time, it’s stepping out of it. That’s what I learned when the knife went in, although the consequences (getting yelled at by a fire breathing dragon and I think spanked) obliterated the knowledge that has lain dormant 50 years waiting for me to travel back toward it on this line of words I’m typing out right here.

“Prose is the art of the sentence, poetry is the art of the line,” my beloved poetry teacher Fran Quinn says. In other words, where you break the line can make or break a poem.

“Poetry is emotion in motion,” is another golden nugget from Fran. How the line moves will elicit emotional reactions in your readers. These reasons can be varied. Maybe you want your readers to laugh, maybe you want them to cry. What you don’t want is for them to laugh when they’re supposed to be crying, and a misplaced line break can do that.

I struggled with this golden nugget in my five year apprenticeship with Fran. Why did I struggle? Because I was imitating other poets. It’s not that I couldn’t break a line effectively to move my readers. I had read so many poems by the time I started to write them, it was easy. What I couldn't do was break the line according to the rhythm of my own breath. I couldn't even hear that rhythm, but Fran could. Honestly, poetry lessons with him were better than therapy.

Over time, I accepted what he was saying in the ruthless (yet kind) way of a teacher who is totally devoted to his art. There was a falseness to my poems, especially when read out loud. I literally would howl in frustration in some of our sessions as he stopped me over and over again every time he caught a false note, a place where I betrayed my own rhythm by overlaying it with some other poet’s. I literally didn’t finish a poem for five years after whipping them out to acclaim for years before I began my apprenticeship.

So what does all this have to do with refraction, the third principle of oscillation in Heka, and what does it have to do with that spinning fan seizing up at the incision of a butter knife on a hot summer afternoon fifty years ago?

Perhaps it’s time to dive straight though the whirlpool and define refraction according to science and Heka. (You see how I resist it. It is so natural for me to whirl.)

As a property of light, Refraction is the change in direction of a wave passing through one medium to another caused by its change in speed. Refraction governs speed and direction.

Examples: rainbows, distortion of underwater objects, telescopes, prisms.

In Heka, which if you’ve forgotten or are new to this series, is Mū Hawaiian magic, refraction is the third principle of oscillation that maintains and administers a spell. Refraction governs momentum and how your spell is dispersed.

This series began with the first principle, Revelation, with an invitation to readers, poets or not, to find their innate structure. There are many somatic practices that can help with us, and I often wish we were together in person to explore those, but since we’re not I can only hope you find something that works for you. If anyone would like suggestions, feel free to message me privately.

Part II on Reflection, was about the necessity of exposure and vulnerability in a poem. Many poets, critics, or readers might disagree with me on that, and that’s just fine. My personal taste is for poems that move me on an emotional and visceral level, but there are excellent poems that remain in the intellect’s realm that are doing the important work of expanding consciousness in that way. To each reader his own, I say. In a world where language is being systematically debased, I think poems that function with intellectual precision are an important contribution, even if I don't love to read them.

Following the rope strung from Part I to II, we find another knot a bit further on the continuum in Part III, Refraction, where as poets, spell-casters, and human beings engaged with the experiment of time, we are given the opportunity to ascertain our particular momentum. And this momentum is particular. We are all oscillating at varying speeds. The important thing is to find your own and create with it, in awareness of how your voltage is being dispersed.

Questions for poets and witches from my notes on HEKA/Ho'okalakupua ~ Hawaiian Magic and Mysticism, a workshop with Ke’oni Hanalei:

What is your momentum?

Is it practical to you?

Is it really yours or are you imitating someone else, or maybe an entire culture?

How much momentum do you need to be effective?

Are you responsible for how your momentum is affecting others?

That last one was a doozy for me when I realized how irresponsible I was through passive aggressively throwing around my moods. While I’m not fully recovered from this habit, I am much more careful now that I’m aware of it. I do my best to contain the storms or remove myself if I can’t. This has proven a gift to myself as well as others. Twofold, I have relieved myself of the burden of guilt. I no longer choose to harm others through passive agression or unconscious internal tempests, and I listen to and respect myself more by saying no. Turns out saying no is an easy way to calm the storms before they even start!

Continuing on with the theme of refraction, as poets and magicians, it’s essential to know how the gathered energy of our innate structure combines with the offering of our vulnerability to move these qualities into the world through the vehicle of the poem or whatever contribution we choose, or that chooses us.

Some other questions to consider as you create that relate to refraction:

Do you believe in your creation?

Do you believe your creation is a valuable contribution?

How do you judge what’s valuable?

Are you committed to your contribution?

If you aren’t committed to it, your contribution will not have momentum. If you believe in it, even if no one else does, your poem or whatever you’re offering, will be gathered into the heart of mysterious currents and move outward on those, flowing to places you have not yet allowed yourself to imagine. If you believe, you will reach beyond yourself, and you will touch the world.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be famous, the world is far more than 15 minutes of acclaim, but the satisfaction of touching the world is far greater than you’d get from those 15 minutes, for in touching the world, you’ll be touched back and finally know you are not, and never have been, alone.

As Emily Dickinson famously said:

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”

For me, this is the truest indicator of momentum, and thus proof that the poem has enough speed to maintain its oscillation and have its desired effect on the reader. Notice I did not say my or your desired effect, but its. The poem has a life of its own. It’s my task—ours— one I consider a sacred duty and hope you do as well, to listen well enough until I know what it wants; and to take that knowing into my body, pass it through my bone’s marrow, allow my heart to circulate it through my arteries and veins and pass back through the mother drum, the primal pulse of Earth herself, in enough loops to synergize my individual intentions, my heart's prayers, with the needs of the world.

If I’m strong enough, if I’m tender enough, I can ride the lightning without being incinerated. Only then can I be the light pouring down in a forest clearing to touch the ground, spreading warmth to the deep roots who don't have direct access to the sun. Only then, can I be the white waves breaking and reforming like time, waves that won’t end when this experiment is over.

Kō aloha lā ea

Concentrate on love by way of the light