Knowledge as Initiation in the Pearl Pentacle with Ravyn Stanfield

hi I'm Jane Meredith and I'm here today to talk to Raven Stanfield who has got a beautiful essay in this magic of the Pearl Pentacle book in fact the final essay on the knowledge Point uh so my name's Jane Meredith my pronounce is she and her and I'm calling Raven today from Daran ganden gar lands which is west of Sydney in Australia thanks for coming on Raven thanks Jan Meredith um I'm Raven Stanfield my pronouns are she and they and I am calling from the land of the kalapuya cathl MoMA and many of the tribes

shared the language chinin well thanks so much for being here and thanks for writing your beautiful essay kind of end piece to this book and to start with I'd love to ask you what Pearl Pentacle means to you what it has meant to you what like resonance it has for you in your work or your body or your imagination what's the Pearl Pentacle mean to you well I think I'll start by saying um human Community is difficult and um I feel like the Pearl pentacle is a bit of a recipe that kind of holds maybe

our Collective heart in ways that if we're really struggling in relationship um what can we come back to what kind of values um can we agree on and maybe how can we find our way through um these difficulties that show up in communities we don't agree um or when we don't like each other's behavior um how so I guess I think about it more as um you know a guide book in a way a recipe for how the heck do we get along with each other and um stay in communities close to the Earth how

do we find our way back so of course I'm curious to ask has this worked for you well it's always a work in progress with um humans in relationships isn't it um but I would say you know with fascism having its day again uh in the world some places it's never left I think that our um abilities to build coalitions to figure out our ways through smaller conflicts so that we can build strong bases from which to really fight for the things that matter our planet um you know vulnerable folks that are affected most by

fascism and you know so many of the other things that are under threat right now um you know we need love law knowledge Liberty and wisdom yeah we we definitely do um now now in your essay which you know Foo and I did ask you specifically to write not just about knowledge the knowledge point but to write about initiation within that context of the knowledge Point uh and this is something that I really love about knowledge or the way that I hold it is that knowledge to me is something that once you've got it you

can't go back like you can't unknow it it it changes me forever to me knowledge is not just a piece of information but something that as I understand it as I learn it as I receive it I am Changed by that um um and I think of initiation very much that way so I'd love that if you could reflect to us about how this lands for you writing about or working with initiation specifically in that knowledge point of the Pearl Pentacle yeah it was an interesting challenge right it was sort of like oh it's not

just knowledge it's this particular kind of knowing that comes after you've been through something um so I think think about initiation as a symbolic or real death and rebirth you know a large transformative experience um that really takes us from some kind of Innocence some kind of uh before through a threshold to a very um different afterward and yes I think that knowing or knowledge often if not always uh comes with moving through that threshold over that threshold through that portal you know however we're thinking about an initiatory experience um I think if we're talking

about more traditional kinds of initiations you know First Nations or spiritual tradition initiations um they are very thoughtful um and often the knowledge that comes afterwards can be um receiving a new name for oneself or receiving information that is sacred to the people who are um initiating you that you didn't know before and you can only receive after initiation um so I think that's the kind of knowing that I think about um that comes through that initiation experience yeah I'm thinking as you're speaking also about the kind of rights of Passage you know where one

moves from one stage of life to the next and although of course we always remember and carry that earlier self within us like we are not any longer in that stage of life like if it's been a successful initiation if it's been convincing if we've been accepted and done it uh we are somewhere else we are someone else a different version of ourselves yeah and I think you know we can think about that in terms of something you know very common like a wedding or a Parenthood you know where you won't be the same on

the other end you have a different role you have different knowledge um than you did beforehand you you've written quite a personal essay which is what I love and probably what I asked for and pushed for uh and so I'm wondering like what initiations you might feel or or one initiation you might feel like you've received from the Pearl Pentacle itself maybe not in the knowledge point but but what's maybe an initiation that Pearl has offered you in your years of working with it yeah such a good question um you know I would really say

in some ways it hasn't been just one moment of you know stepping over one threshold but I would say coming to my work um as a Healer um you know some people don't like that word I really like the word heal means to make Co um so it really works for me and and whether it was studying to be an acupuncturist or studying to be a therapist or you know the different kinds of um relational work in mediation that I've learned to do in community there's really been something about um needing to face my own

vulnerabilities um sometimes false um and you know really look at myself my Shadows um go through my own healing process to be able to stand on the other side and hold that space for other people um and you know while it's it's been both really beautiful and then sometimes full of grief because healing experiences are not always um delightful while you're in them but I would say you know the Pearl Pentacle really helped guide me in a lot of those moments of you know like what does deep deep love ask of me um what does

it mean to follow laws that are really meaningful um to me to us in community as opposed to laws that seem arbitrary or um oppressive um that don't make sense to us in community um so I would say you know and again the knowledge and the wisdom um and the the unbinding the Liberty I think that we're cre created through many of those um tiny initiations inside that big process you know I think their Pearl Pentacle was definitely a guide for me whether conscious or unconscious yeah I mean and that's a beautiful piece of this

work and doing this type of magic over many years I guess is that it becomes part of like our our backbone our substrata something that we're bringing even when we're not like consciously oh let me bring the Pearl Pentacle here uh it's just kind of coming with us and within us yeah and I think um look it feels like you know love is something in our dominant culture that's very um flowery and um romantic and and um you know kind of uh sugary and I think the the love that we're talking about in the Pro

Pentacle um because it's based in iron is um is strong and um really asks us I think to be open um open to it flowing through us and uh sometimes a bit Fierce um in in you know really asking ourselves to choose love in the things that we're doing and in you know trying to hold that you know in relationship to other people and I think it goes far beyond a romantic attraction you know it's about friendship it's about Community it's about our deep Devotion to the planet and many different kinds of love I think

it's the force of the cosmos right abely so it's so interesting that we've uh begun this talking about knowledge and and we've moved into talking about love because the fourth question that I plan to ask you which I'm still going to ask you is well here we are talking about love and when you run the Pearl Pentacle the way that we have run it in this book which is one of several ways to run it which is through through the pentacle uh with knowledge in this particular position then knowledge is the Gateway back to love

to love as the start point but also presumably as a deeper level the next level of pearl the next kind of layer over the grit that is forming that is starting that started this Pearl inspired this Pearl um to start forming so yeah I'd love you to offer any Reflections you have on that knowledge and or initiation being the Gateway through or back to this more robust love that you're speaking of yeah I think in some many ways and and I talked about this a little bit in the essay but um I feel like in

a lot of movies or um fantasy books there's um and and certainly in true initiation Traditions there's this way that you go through initiation and you learn the secrets um and often there is a way of learning the secret name of something right and so I think you know when I was a child and and probably even now you know it's just like oh what's the secret name of the wind or what's the secret name of this tree or what's my secret name um and and it's such a um it's just such a delightful like

Whimsical Concept in so many ways to want to know the secret names of things and people um but in some ways for me it's like but that is love right to know something well enough to be able to discover every layer of it even perhaps the secret name at its core that maybe is only for you or maybe is only for those that you know whatever you're interacting with wants to have and in so many ways it's like if you know me at that core deep Central level then that is love and being willing to

know ourselves and others and the world in that way I think can only come from that Curiosity that love brings yeah it's really love as action and as a verb and as a happening um rather than this kind of concept which as you said is sometimes a little flowery and ethereal how it's presented to us I'm just going to read out because I love it the opening paragraph of your essay that you've contributed here and I'm really I'm doing this I mean I hope you enjoy it Raven but really I'm doing this for you uh

watching or listening to this so that you can like be drawn in hopefully into uh the Intrigue and exploration of uh what is within this essay and in within this whole book I want you to imagine you are in the forest when they come to take you you have studied you have memorized you have prepared you know something will happen next but the only instructions they gave you were to come to the edge of the forest and wait you lift your chin and stare into the darkness defiant in case anyone is watching you inside you

shiver what will this initiation be like how will it change me thanks for writing that Raven thanks for reading to me I love to be oh well anytime thanks so much for showing up is there anything else that you would like to add about the Pearl Pentacle the book how exciting it is to have it in your hands anything else well all of it I mean I think um like we were saying earlier it's so uh delightful to be a contributor and to a contribut a pieace and then to see where it fits in um

the entire Pearl Matrix um of love and um all the rest is just really delightful so thanks for um creating this beautiful work great thanks for talking with me ab and everybody everybody watching uh we'd love you of course to read the book um find the book and and let us know how you go with it okay thanks Raven