My beloveds, I want to speak to you of Holy Will, and how you are part of the design. The Swords of Holy Will are also under the province of Pride, the Fire that shapes the world. For nothing is born in the universe that is not first born as desire. When you came here, you desired to learn. Witches are strange creatures, restless and never satisfied. The Buddhists speak of this as Dukkha, a haunting dissatisfaction that drives one to seek enlightenment. For all that we do not wish to suffer, it is suffering that leads us to compassion and freedom. It is the same for you. You see, to be a Sword of Holy Will, you accept that you will suffer to learn. So you gave up being the scouring winds that cleanse the desert, or the currents ceaselessly stirring the ocean, and you were born. With your birth, you accepted your sword and began to learn.
You were forged so long ago, before even your memories of millennia began. Your times of being in the In-between have not erased it from your memory. It still calls to you like a song. These Swords are the shards of the Hir Holy Will, and you are one of them. Together, you create the universe, over and over. After all, this is why you were made.
The swords are a calling, some talent that you have that is crucial to the warp and weft of this world and others. You, your embodied life, is how the will of the Starry Swirl creates. Overseen by the Watchers, those ever-conscious keepers of purpose, you live lives that touch other lives. You are the means by which Gods achieve agency. You are in no way insignificant. We have all stood where you are now. You will say, “Grandmother, we do not know how to be this. We will fail.” And I am here to say, “Oh hell yeah! Oh, my shining one, you will most certainly fail, and that is how you will learn.” You are here to practice, to nurture the talents you are called to. I didn’t say it would be easy. In fact, it will be the thing that you do not believe yourself capable of doing. But do it you shall. All you must do is to be willing to learn, and to continue when you fail, even when it feels like there is nothing but darkness. In fact, that will drive you, just as dukkha drives one toward freedom. Learning to flow and move and create will alleviate not only your own suffering, but that of untold thousands. It is this reminder that we will hear whispered to us as we stand, that even a broken sword still cuts.
Your fuck ups are holy. Listen, I will tell you a secret. Because is there any other reason for you to be reading a Book of Shadows? And this is it. The Star Hirself is perfect, as are the Guardians and Gods. Perfection does not change. It is static and eternal. But in the physical world not one thing is perfect. Change is a law. It is the brilliance of the design that the Star made us, for we are imperfect, and it is that imperfection that introduces randomness into the plan. Our imperfection is how change happens, how the vastness of diversity occurs. And it is not just us, but the whole of the physical universe. It is all a dance between chaos and order, of dark and light, of destruction and creation, of energy and matter. Your imperfection is the holiest thing about you, beloved. It is the greatest gift that you have to offer. You are the motherfucking hand of creation. Sorry, but someone had to break it to you.
In my life I have watched numerous Swords at work. None can know the extent of the tasks others are called to. I am a Love Sword. Now mind you, this does not mean that I am an expert at love. Indeed, I have lots of failed loves and I am full of mistrust, but I know a lot about how to love. It is much harder to learn how to be loved. The difference is that I have worked my long life to learn what love is and how to enact it. Most humans think that love is an emotion, something we feel. But love is so much more than that. Love is the very fabric of the universe. By loving, a Love Sword builds. We are the holy architects. Each time a Love Sword lets their heart open there is a line that is established between lover and beloved. This is not about romantic love, but a willingness to be tethered to the whole. It is longing for communion and creating the opportunity for that to happen. Each time there is a line established, those lines grow and grow each time they are connected. Those lines become yarns. Those yarns become ropes. Those ropes become cables. Those cables are knitted into the gates of heaven.
What do Love Swords build? They build containers! We are the makers of pots and weavers of baskets. They create containers to hold groups and families and moments and events. Have you ever had such a dear memory that you feel like you go there as a place, not a time? That is because you are visiting a place. You belong in that basket, and your group or the spirits of the place you remember contained a Love Sword. They created a place in time, for all time. You may even remember these places in other lives. They do this by establishing relationships, and each time they do this, they lay down a path, part of the great network of lightning roads that can be traveled with just a thought. The lightning roads traverse great expanses in both time and space. The lace they weave is alive, and deeply intricate. Magic emerges from the interstices and enters the world. This is no small task. My dear Grey is a Love Sword, like me. And perhaps you are his student reading this and are a Love Sword, too. He is adept at social structure, at moving other hearts to where he needs them to go. He knows the hearts of others and the great plans. He is rather like a conductor leading a great symphony. Your cooperation is blessed, and if he is conducting, you won’t even know it is happening, for the most part.
My dear Angus is a Beauty Sword. It is with her that I build the great cables of the lightning roads. These seem rarer, and in all my time, I have only known a handful of Beauty Swords. Their work is to bring beauty into the world. They must be seen. The mysterious thing about this is that, to a one, that is the very last thing they want. Beauty Swords long to be left to themselves and their art, to draw out the sacred parts of others, to sing to their souls and remind them of the long ribbon of time. In some ways, they need Love Swords to create a basket around them, for history has been risky for them. Powerful people want to collect them. Those who revel in their beauty want to consume them. Their gifts have made them irresistible, and this has made them warriors, who always must be defending their freedom and boundaries. Powerful people have always been threatened by Beauty Swords because their voices and visions have never been under control of government and church. Beauty Swords hold the gift of patterning. Be it terror or ecstasy, they can only create what is true. Art is truth. And artists they are, but the medium they work in can be anything. Even things unseen. I have also noticed that they avoid each other like the plague. I have never understood why. Perhaps the pain of being recognized by another like them can only be a reminder of their glory. And for so many of us, to be haunted by our own greatness is far more frightening than our imperfection.
My dearest Serafina, my first student, is a Sword of Desire. Her talent is to turn desire into reality. In many ways, it is born of love and beauty, in that this brings the underlying structure and pattern into the dense world. Swords of Desire stand at a crucial point in the wheel of creation. They move desire from the spiritual state into the physical. They have the ability to imbue the song with heft and weight and seeming solidity. Of course, everything is energy, but they have the ability to make things dense, and this allows their use not just by Swords of Desire, but by everyone. It is true that the swords of desire usually act on behalf of community. It is not just for them. They are not capitalists, although they tend to be excellent at working in any economic system. They are hedonists, sensualists, and this is a blessing. I know that the greatest religions in the world have preached a gospel of hate about them, but in the end, religion can never win. Because of all the Swords, the Swords of Desire dare to be human in its most elegant form. Because our power as human springs from the very thing that has been vilified by those seeking control. Our bodies. It is the very density of our bodies that makes us so powerful. It is also what makes us mortal. We live short lives, but we can move energy to matter through our wills. Although we all can do this, it is the Swords of Desire who can do it most expediently, and with unflagging determination. They carry desire within their frames almost as a burden, it burns them and drives them forward. Their own dukkha is a craving for what should be. And yet, they are the first to jump to fan the flames, to luxuriate in pleasure, to feel magic as they can feel their own heartbeat, because the Swords of Desire remind us that this is what makes us human. And indeed, what makes us free. The Swords of Desire are the cogs of the future, always pushing it toward progress. It is not unusual that they are born into marginalized groups with historical exclusion from the benefits others enjoy. Remember that being a Sword does not mean you are good at something, only that you have been given a calling and a commensurate talent. A Sword of Desire knows that if they achieve a dream, it changes the world permanently. They fight for legacy. Their plans span lifetimes.
I have known my share of Freedom Swords. Always born into some kind of limitations, their task is to free themselves, and then to free others. My dearest Roland is a Freedom Sword, born into a world that judges any desire that is different from the status quo, he is perhaps miraculous in how much he has learned about what he wants and longs for. And trust me, it is all taboo. Because, why not? He has found the more and more he pursues his own path, the more he becomes a beacon for others who suddenly realize they could do the same. The truth is, and he would shudder to hear me say it, that he is by every breath granting permission to do the impossible to anyone who needs it in the moment. He is completely cognizant of his burden, too. It is always done with kindness, even if he is making fun of you. But once you meet him, you have to own that you create your own prison. He’s kind mostly because he remembers what that cell feels like.
Is every witch a sword? I do not know. But I do know that some seem to not hold them, mostly because they are already happy with what they have been given. I can’t imagine that those with the most privilege are willing to flap hard enough to fly when they can fly first class. They seem to bend their power toward maintenance of the status quo and live off the dreams that others have birthed into the world. That isn’t our job. If you’re reading this, this isn’t you. You are the change, and you will find yourself vilified for it. You will be called divisive and destructive and chaotic. Some of those will even be correct. The Gods ask those with power and privilege for tribute, ask them to do something they do not know how to do, and those people can’t imagine that they can possibly do more. You don’t have to worry about that, love. You have been born to work those muscles so that you can fly. And I know that your teacher has stood in your place, perhaps are even named here as those most esteemed examples. They have already made a place for you to come to learn this. And you have already decided to learn your craft, which is why you are reading this. So step into your destiny and pick up that sword, the thing you believe you cannot do and yet crave and long to do it. You’re going to drop it on your toe, just like every witch before you. Even me. Eventually, you learn, and your toe will thank you.
So, we dance across time and space, beloved, driven by the gift of our own mistakes. And one day you might open this book and show your student a sigil painted in my own blood. I might look at you in wonder, to see my first name written there, the name the void calls me by, and I will look into your eyes and remember that I am Moon to My Sun, child of the Fallen. And that I shall ever remain. I am a basket weaver, like my grandmother. When I am done, those brass-voiced angels will tell me I have done well and then hand me more willows. You didn’t think we get to be done, did you? That is for the pampered children of colonizers. We are never done. That is why they fear us. We built this world, as we have always done. As we have always done. In glorious imperfection.
Seyewailo 