Dey. Sandip, CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons License, via Wikimedia Commons

A Season of Light Journeys

It’s December, marking a Season of Light: Christian Advent to Epiphany season (2025 years), Jewish Hanukkah (2226), Kawansa (60 years in 2026). Candles are featured in these celebrations, a small light in the surrounding darkness of the season. Solstice is the original marker, since the beginning of Earth time. Then the “western” calendar turns a New Year on January 1, 2026. The journey of 2025 closes soon.

This blog is about poet Jennifer Lighty’s invitation to my husband and me to be witnesses for the maiden voyage of the Coracle Part I, a series of Zoom gatherings her website described as a Journey of Safety and Belonging. There would be old fairy and folk tales “to discover and refine what is prohibiting you from experiencing the true inner safety that leads to an unshakeable sense of belonging.”

A coracle is a small, round, portable river boat. The word coracle in its widest sense means the container for a journey. It was not to be a class but a group of folks each taking an individual journey. There were weekly waystations where journey makers gathered to share with others moving through their journeys at the same time. Jennifer suggested tasks between meetings like drawing or taking a daily ritual walk in nature while reflecting on each story, the main character’s journey, and one’s current life.

First – Loving the Idea of a Coracle

I’ve always been attracted to the word Coracle, and I enjoyed researching with ClaudeAI to offer this specific information for you.

• The word “coracle” comes from the Welsh cwrwgl (or corwgl), which itself may derive from corwg or crwca, meaning something curved or rounded. The term entered English around the 16th century to describe distinctive Celtic vessels.
• Coracles are river-going. Ocean going boats were much larger and had a variety of fascinating different names. Despite their small size, they can carry one or two people along with fishing equipment or cargo.
• Construction: The traditional coracle consists of a framework of split willow or hazel rods woven together to form a basket or bow shaped structure ranging from about 3 to 6 feet in diameter. This frame is then covered with a waterproof skin—historically made from animal hides treated with pitch or tar, though modern versions often use canvas or even fiberglass.
• Propulsion: They sit high in the water, and are propelled by a single paddle used in a figure-eight motion from the front of the boat. The paddler faces forward, which differs from rowing.
• Portable: The boat’s light weight (often under 30 pounds) makes it easily portable—traditionally, a person would backpack the coracle when moving between fishing spots.
• The craft itself is far more ancient than the word, with evidence of coracle-like boats dating back thousands of years across the British Isles and elsewhere.

Reading this blog to my husband tonight, he adds “I’m thinking about the physics of the coracle which has no keel. The directionality of the coracle is determined by the skill of the paddler. If very skillful it will be no problem. But if the paddler stops paddling or there are heavy weather results in the river, the coracle will keep turning in a circle and go nowhere.” Coracle Part I journeymakers will be practicing their paddling skills.

Saying “Yes” to Being a Witness

We know Jennifer from sharing Robert Bly’s Great Mother New Father Conference. We three love mythology, poetry, stories, and thoughtful, caring conversations. We are storytellers with long experience in a variety of listener configurations—from birthday parties to classes/workshops to formal performances. Jennifer spent a month with us on our remote farm in Costa Rica where she developed an online poetry class. We trusted that Coracle Part 1 would be worthwhile and said “Yes, We Can.”

Jennifer lives part of each year on either Block Island or Hawai’i. We are familiar with these islands and a community on each one. Jen is an inhabitant not only of the islands but of their seas. She swims and does body healing in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. All three of us teach and she and I are authors. Her first book, Piko: A Return to the Dreaming is available at Bookshop.org. See also GoodReads.

Exploring How to be a Witness

We asked Jennifer what she wanted us to “do” as Witnesses. She didn’t know. In traditional cultures she knows a Witness is mentioned as being present in a storytelling. She had no text description of what they did besides being there. She was responding to an inner prompt to have a witness, and my husband and I were the Who. Together we all would explore.

We knew what it wasn’t—a good beginning. Being a Witness is NOT:

• Expert: this was about the individual participant journeys, known only to them.
• Observer: though we tried to see, hear, feel each participant fully and without judgement.
• Coach: though the skill of listening to ongoing threads in the sequence of conversations helps those threads emerge and flourish, and was a major part of being a Witness for the Coracle for us.
• Spiritual Guide: Jennifer’s role might be described as one but Witnesses are not in that role.

However, it was letting the Spirit guide us on what needed to be said. Other than an opening exploration of the ritual meanings of our names, we determined we would say nothing unless the pressure to say some truth felt essential to the process. Even if Jennifer politely asked if we had anything to say we would nod “no” unless an idea and words were pressing us to speak. By witnessing in this way what few comments we made proved useful to the participants.

One example was Jennifer’s telling of Rapunzel. I heard a lecture at the Jung Society in Denver many years ago on the story of Rapunzel. The lecturer had researched the practices of oral but pre-writing tribal cultures in Nordic Europe. Among the practices was one for girls becoming young women. It was similar to the Greek practice of having young women serve the Virgin Hunter Goddess Artemis. Instead of living together on the Greek mountains, Nordic young women lived on platforms high in the trees of a forest. That forest, like the North American one prior to European settlers, stretched from the sea a long distance across the continent. The “platform” was similar to the Ewock Bright Tree Village on Endor.

Katalin Szegedi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In Rapunzel:

• the ritual cultural practice is turned into a wish by a woman for her neighbor’s Rampion which her husband is persuaded to steal. Rampion is an interesting plant and its presence in the story disguises but preserves some ancient wisdom.
• the neighbor is not a priestess but a witch.
• at the age the young woman would have gone into the forest, she goes with the witch because the parents agreed to it for not being punished for stealing the Rampion.
• the platform is converted into a tower.
• at certain times the young men would come riding by the platforms and any young woman of age who chose could go with the man of her choice. Rapunzel chooses the prince, but the witch interferes. Both the prince and Rapunzel (with their two children) go on separate long journeys until years later they find each other again.

The lecturer shared an interesting Jungian interpretation of the inner masculine and feminine. Unfortunately, they have not published this information, and chose to remain anonymous for this blog. ClaudeAI searched, and though it may have been my prompts were too vague, no information was forthcoming.

Because of the intense pressure that felt ancestral, I shared this information with the Coracle group. It proved to be important information for almost every member of the group throughout our time together..

Being a Fair Witness

A recent series in my blogs explored the question how we—who are inundated by information full of exaggeration and lies—can witness what is true? How can we be sure we tell the truth of what we experience? My position is that the idea of being safe in the world is a propaganda concept. This world isn’t designed to be “safe.” Mama bears and deer teach their offspring survival skills. The Coracle Part I paddlers were learning “the true inner safety that leads to an unshakeable sense of belonging.” I end the series with how we can be “Fair Witnesses” to our time.

I just re-read these blogs as I finish writing this one. I encourage you to do the same. They are helpful. I’ve posted their links at the end of this blog. Make a note to take one a day for a week or two—you’ll have a margin of days if your life becomes too busy.

Turning to the Light

Every day the earth turns towards and away from the light. We are among her diurnal creatures, but able to manage both the darkness and the light. The Christian season of Advent is a yearly Winter Solstice time journey that retells/reenacts how Joseph, the pregnant Mary, and the baby within her body’s coracle, are walking with the donkey towards their future. They are forced to go by order of the Roman Emperor, who wants a correct colony body count for taxes. 30+ years later Mary’s son will say “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” ( Matthew 22:21 and Luke 20:25).

Claude AI gave me the references, described the moment and offered an interpretation I loved:

Jesus says this in response to a question about paying taxes to Rome, using a denarius (Roman coin) to show that, because it has Caesar’s image, its tribute should be given to him. However, because humans bear the image of God, our entire lives should be given to Him.

What we as Witness Learned

So we served as witnesses for the Coracle Part 1. Did we do what our ancestor witnesses did? Or did we invent something new? How were we in this role experienced by the group? And—the most important question of all—why is what we learned important to you?

What we were witness to in the Coracle Part I were adventurers redefining their life journeys, and paddling along the Road Of Trials to the Return Home. As often is true, having companions to share the journey expanded and enriched the experience.

It is not necessary to paddle our coracles alone.

It is necessary to love the Light.

I declare my allegiance to the Light,
And to the darkness which embraces it.
Let me be an awake witness of the Night Journeys of others
Let me serve as a witness of the Dawn of the Coming Day.

You too are paddling your coracle along the river of your life, journey maker.

We are witnesses of the lives of our family and friends.
Embrace this time to be a witness and servant of the Light.

Closing Comments

As promised here are the links to two of my blogs that add to this discussion. I just re-read the series as I am writing this one, and I encourage you to do the same.
Ancestor Message: The False Goal of Safety
Becoming a Fair Witness to Truth
Safety Redux: Helping each Other Be Safer 

Your Turn:

It’s always your turn at the end of these blogs—email me or comment to the group below and share your wisdom about Being A Witness.

My next blog is titled Such Is Life: Following in the Footsteps of St.Paul where I will share what I learned while on pilgrimage in Türkiye and Greece this fall 2025.

~ Lola

This blog was composed by Lola Wilcox with the benefit of AI for Apple Air spellcheck and grammar, internet research for multiple components of the blog, and author verification of quotes/poems. Unless indicated otherwise, I am the author of the text.