Monday, March 1, 2010

*Twinkle*


I am part of the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft. I have been on the outskirts of this group for many, many years. In the past my only level of involvement was to attend public rituals and flirt with the idea of taking classes. In the past year all of that changed and I find myself getting more and more immersed in the community known as Reclaiming, which is a beautiful and amazing thing.


There is a process in Reclaiming that is really quite awesome. It is known as 'twinkle'. Here is what twinkle means: twin-kle - verb: to show you are in agreement or understanding of another persons point of view or position. i.e. "I twinkle that."


To twinkle is to put your hands in front of you palms down and wiggle your fingers in the direction of the speaker. This developed because active listening is a very important part of the Reclaiming community. You don't want to continually comment when another person is speaking, but often there is a need to show that you understand, or are in agreement. To twinkle is actually using the ASL sign for 'applause'.


So why am I telling you all of this....well, good question! Now that I spend so much time around Reclaiming people, in Reclaiming classes and so forth, I find myself 'twinkling' a lot! So much so that I have to consciously remember to NOT twinkle when I am with non-magical folks. I cannot even begin to explain how many times I have wanted to twinkle someone in the check out line at the grocery store, or at a restaurant, or at the kids school! So I have decided instead of trying to modify my behavior for the rest of the world, I am just going to start twinkling when I feel called to twinkle! If someone asks me what the heck I am doing, I will explain....and hopefully twinkling will become a world wide phenomena.....How awesome would it be if everyone you encountered was engaged in active listening? What a different world this would be.