06 March 2006

Group Trance

So, I had more advice for my new cohorts, and the more advice was, "group trance."

Cause there's nothing that'll either explode a group or cause it to cohere than group trance.

Hell, even just setting it up the first time gets a LOT of work done. Somebody won't want to do it, and nobody really thinks it'll work, and somebody else has trouble with trances in general, and several people will mostly want to drink coffee and TALK about group trance, but not really DO it, cause, hell, if it works, it's too scary, and if it doesn't work, it's too scary.

But oh, I do miss it. That's what I miss the most, not having a coven in the flesh these days (I've got several old friends I work with on the astral, or occasionally in three-dimensional space, but no coven where I live). I loved the way the group place shifted whether or not we were there; I loved the way my coveners were recognizable in trance, but not quite the same as they were "topside" -- one of them regularly knit in our group place, for instance, but wouldn't touch the stuff in real life.

I loved the way trances worked if there were just two or three of us, and how they worked if there were fifteen of us, and how they worked if we knew each other well, and how they worked if we didn't.

Sometimes we would have visitors and friends from other covens, for group trances at high holidays -- the living room would be littered with semi-comatose bodies of people and dogs. Once, in the long ago, a phone went off when many of us were in the middle of a Samhain trance. All the house phones were off; this was one that a visitor had brought in a coat pocket.

It was the first cell phone I'd ever seen -- when I did see it; it took us a while, naturally, to find it. About fifteen people, trying to discover a tiny ringing phone, all the while acting like they were on acid.

Woah, dude. A phone.

When we did finally locate the phone, the caller had given up. This was just as well.

And then we all lay down on the floor again and went back into trance.

Yep. Miss those days, sometimes.

Anyway. Yet another group of people is now loose on the world, having discovered that you can invent, and be invented by, trance work, several of you all together. Look out.

1 comment:

deborahoak said...

And then there is the way that one person can always bring in chickens, and one part of you is in trance just wondering when that chicken is going to show up!! It's a rainy day here and your post has me nostalgic for the knitting, the chickens and the way our voices all sound in trance. much love to you!