One of the glories of repetition is enchantment. We can enchant ourselves into another space and place with repetition. Mindless repetition, no. But eager, delighted repetition, inviting the change, welcoming it as you sense it begin to steal over you — that’s a very different thing. Things do, after all, “come true.” Bringing feeling into it enlivens the charm, animates it with a spark of our own energy. Who after all tires of the ocean, though one wave follows another?
Verbal magic is one of the first magics we learn. Perhaps you’ve heard a child repeat a word endlessly, exploring the taste of it in the mouth, the joy in the rhythm of it. Maybe with a tuneless little tune accompanying it. And maybe, if you’re blessed (and you are), you’ve caught yourself with just such a tune on your lips, engaged in some repetitive task, or doing “nothing,” which is often a chance to do a very great something, a spelling of oneself into an Else-where and Else-when, a door opening to wonder.
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Now feel the change when you read these next words. You’ve heard them, some version of them, maybe said them to yourself or another, even in jest. Bitter words we hear far too often. Loser. Nobody. Waste of space. And “Life’s a bitch and then you die.” Some variation of this very evil charm that drags on people’s vision of themselves and their world and steals away possibility. Verbal magic, alas (and also thank the powers), is very real.
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Now that you’ve had a small glimpse of the two magics contrasted (which is really the same magic, used for uplifting and destructive purposes), let me offer a restorative charm that deserves loving repetition. A charm for transforming the “I.” A spell to memorize, to whisper to oneself at need. A blessing to say over your children each night as they fall asleep. A charm to recite gazing into the eyes of an animal or human you love and who loves you. A charm to recite at dawn or sunset, the light looking into us and saying its silent word. A charm to remember what the ecstatic I is made of, a charm for the music that is the awen vibrating in us all:
I am the luck of every joy,
I am the light of the sun’s beams,
I am the door of lordly welcome,
I am the pole star of guidance,
I am the step of the deer on the height,
Mine is the step of the white-faced mare,
Mine is the grace of the swimming swan,
I am the jewel in each mystery.Nine waves around me,
Nine winds above me,
Nine paths within me,
Nine fires about me,
Nine wells beneath me,
Nine wisdoms given me,
Nine gifts bestowed on me,
Nine skills awoken within me,
Ninefold the blessing in either hand.*
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*adapted from Matthews, Caitlin. A Celtic Devotional. Gloucester, MA: Fair Winds Press, 2004, pgs. 138-139.
IMAGE: wave.
A Druid Way 
