A Wailing Circle “is about gathering together in a Circle to uncover the Truth and renew Life by picking the flesh from the bones. A Wailing is about getting to our own bones, what is real and solid for each of us underneath.”
The above are the words of Vulture, the Guardian Spirit of the Wailing Circle. This Vulture Medicine describes perfectly what we do in a Wailing Circle.
Vulture Medicine is about Death, Transformation, and Rebirth.
For the healing of loss, despair, grief, trauma, fear, and more, it is necessary to go deep within, to go underground, to go to where our emotions can be excavated, felt, expressed, honored, and then composted and transformed into new life.
It is important to do this together, in a circle of humans willing to be raw and real.
Last Saturday, February 8th, was the 6th iteration of what the Wailing Circle is becoming at Braided Root Waters Healing Sanctuary. It was purposefully held in the wake of the most recent (personally, nationally, and globally devastating) inauguration.
Inspired by my 2025 Tarot card from “the Bad Bitches Tarot,” the surprising intention that arose for me for this Wailing Circle was to clear the path to being a “Sassy Outspoken Bitch;” (a bitch in its reclaimed definition being an independent, confident, strong, outspoken woman/ person).
(photo caption: to me the image of this woman embodies and exudes a no-nonsense confidence, strength, and speaks-her-mind-ness)
Symbolic death, transformation, and rebirth brings to us knowledge of ourselves. In a Wailing Circle we reclaim that knowledge. We reach into the depths of ourselves, to bring up and out what is hidden- to heal, to grow, to transform.
In the Wailing Circle I found Betti Raging Lion-Horse hidden within my Solar Plexus, Sacral Chakra, and intestines. She carries a whip to beat the patriarchy away from Women’s Bodies.
She is ready to come out, to speak her mind, and to make a difference! She also wants to play, dance, and have fun! She is connected to and immensely supported by the experimenting I’ve been doing with drag.
(photo caption: On the right is my partner Amanda’s drawing of me as Betti Raging Lion-Horse, inspired by me in drag on the left. Although I’m not cross-dressing, I am allowing myself to get creative and flamboyant with makeup and sexy clothes that I would heretofore not be caught dead in. Although it’s been confined to my own living room so far, I’m going to push my edges even more by taking me in drag out to the local club that hosts a drag night.)
Expressing deeply embedded and locked away emotion in community in the sacred container of a Wailing Circle or a Despair Circle is immensely healing. I have an online Queer Despair and Resilience Circle in the works! Let me know if you would like to weep and roar together there…
Blessings and Courage,
Betti