A Staffing Vision by Joanne Mahler

Let me begin by telling you something about myself: I am a visionary. Petty grandiose, eh?

Several years ago I began to feel an internal shift. The archetypal crone energy that had been residing within me, leading and guiding me on my journey, began to make way for something different. Of course I resisted. I was comfortable in my witchy cronedom; in many ways I felt like I'd been born into it. Besides, how could I presume to call myself a visionary? This, despite the fact that I'd been having visions which had been helping me live me life for some time.

Then, one evening while sitting in sacred space during a Warrior-Monk meeting, I got it: like that Wise Woman who had come to me so many years before, a Visionary Woman presented herself and made me to understand that I could be a personal visionary for myself . . .for my own life. I didn't need to take on visioning for the world, or anybody else in it. I breathed that in . . . it felt comfortable. I could live with that. I owned it.

About a year ago, while involved in a course on West African spirituality and ritual, during an intense afternoon spent in ritual space around initiation, I lifted my arms to the cosmos and invoked a new name that would encompass the journey and the gifts I was claiming. Spirit delivered the name: VisionaryCrone. Obviously, I couldn't throw all that wisdom energy out the door completely. The next morning I had the most amazingly powerful vision I've ever had - it was of a ritual. When I completed the ritual some weeks later (witnessed by my local Warrior-Monk community) I stepped out of a years-long initiation I'd been in, thus allowing myself to experience the full range of my grief, as well as tasting the sweet freedom behind it.

Some time ago, for the first time, I started having snippets of a vision that involves more than just me. As you might surmise from the title of this article, it has to do with WW staffings. I can see it as clear as day. I feel it with all my senses. Unfortunately, I'm clueless about the logistics around how it might be carried out - economically and otherwise.

This is what I see: an additional tier of staff women whose job it is to do nothing but ground the container - providing another layer of safety and support for initiates and other staff. I envision the container as a big bowl, and these women spread-eagle around it, with their arms, legs, hearts and wombs woven through it like vines - securing it, holding it close, pulling it in like a master basket-weaver might . . . binding it with their sage energy. Of course, their presence would be invaluable during the Friday night check-in, Deep Descent and the Grief Process. But also, think how wonderful it would be to have them spread throughout the training site on Friday night when the women begin to arrive, setting the container from the very beginning of the weekend, joining the ancient ones in their wisdom siren songs . . .

During all of my staffings, I know I carried out my job assignments adequately. However, my true gift has always been holding the container - that is what I do best. I believe there are many other women who share this gift. Why not utilize what we have in abundance in a creative way - use the best that each of us has to offer? When I served on the MW staffing committee, I know we wanted to assign the best staff member available for any particular job slot. I see this no differently. Why waste the best "container-holder" doing something else?

Before I finish, I want to acknowledge that I don't know if I will ever be able to staff again, and I've been in a state of wonder around whether that reality created the opening for this vision. As some of you know, Dave and I were rudely separated from our MC at 70 mph, after a blow-out, 2 1/2 years ago. Though I seemed to be recovering my from various injuries afterwards, I subsequently had 2 major surgeries and now have an often debilitating nerve pain in my right butt and leg that interferes with a lot of activities that I used to consider normal - like walking, and standing for more than a few minutes at a time without resting. Staffing a weekend, at this time, is not in the realm of normal activities for me. It's been almost 3 years since I staffed, and I hold a lot of sadness - sometimes grief - around that. So my question to myself: is this simply a personal vision, after all? Creating something out of my own needs? The answer: no. I am in integrity, and I trust this.

So, my intention here is simply to share my vision. Thank you to those of you who chose to read this far . . . to see it with me . . to feel it. As I said earlier, I have no idea how the details could be worked out. I've always considered my intellect to be my weakest link - such things do not come easily to me; I can only hope that my large stores of heart and spirit fill in the gaps.

Blessings to us all, of our visions . . .

Joanne Mahler St. Louis, MO, U.S. (WWTW Delevan WI March 1992)