I’m in Maryland, where I’ve been meeting all day with the Spiralheart witch camp teaching team. It’s been an amazing day, with our planning going smoothly. Besides easily coming up with a great arc of rituals for the week, we’ve also shocked ourselves by our quick agreement to shift a major paradigm in witch camp culture. We not only decided that we all should get paid the same, we decided that really meant ALL of us, including the student teachers. The battle to let go of the pay scales has been a mighty one and a ridiculous one as well. I was the first voice raised to question why a bunch of anarchist witches who supposedly value non-hierarchical structures would want to create different levels of pay for teaching teams. That questioning has made teaching at my local witch camp untenable, but not surprisingly has taken up supporters throughout the wider Reclaiming community. It’s less money for those of us with long years teaching, but for me, it feels so much better. I’m a big believer in energy following intent. If we intend for it to be a team, and we put our money where our beliefs are, a team is created. And that feels good.
Today, that good feeling intensified with this surprising move to pay the student teachers. For years the idea of student teacher has been almost meaningless, as by the time someone usually gets picked to teach, they are seasoned priestesses. For over five years or so I’ve never been able keep in my head who is or isn’t a “real” teacher versus a student teacher, and in true Reclaiming style, sometimes it’s the “students” who are more accountable and in service to the camps then the full teachers.
So, here I am, planning a witch camp and reveling in the shifting paradigm of camp culture (learning today that my local camp is FINALLY becoming consensus based) while meanwhile, my fourteen year old son is at a fundamentalist Christian camp in the Southwest. How bizarre is that? My son spends several weeks out of every summer with my sister’s family in New Mexico. Her son is the same age as mine and living out in the country, they have a completely different lifestyle than ours. This year my sister suggested they go to a camp for the week, one which her kids went to last year. My nephew loved the food, the cook being also the chef at the Doubletree Inn, and the selling point was that it’s only $60 a week. I had big doubts about sending my son, given it being Christian camp, and the fact they had to take a bible and can’t wear swimsuits. Also, being asked whether I gave my permission to have my kid baptized really set my teeth on edge. My son told me I had a closed mind and was a big hypocrite, only being open to things if they went along with my beliefs. So I sent him. Let him see for himself why I wasn't so open hearted.
I couldn’t get to sleep last night, wondering and worrying about him at camp. Maybe he’s getting lots of attention by testifying about his life in the sinful city of San Francisco and maybe he was baptized today in the river. Maybe he’s not saying a thing, and just taking it all in. The bible study classes have got to be somewhat interesting for him, given that he has no familiarity with theses stories at all. Maybe he’ll come back saved, and his teenage rebellion will take the form of quoting scripture as opposed to piercings and strange haircuts. Whatever the case, I can’t wait to hear about it, and even as I write this, I know that he’s not going to gratify me with telling me much about it all. Especially because he knows I'll be dying to hear. He's going to act like it was no big deal, and there will be some eye-rolling as I try to talk to him. He's a teenager. He can't help it.
Tomorrow we all pack up and head out to our camp, located somewhere in West Virgina. The river at camp will be in the story we are doing, and clothing will of course be optional. Bible scripture won’t be quoted, but there will be plenty of pagan chanting and drumming. My guess is that there won't be the chicken fried steak my nephew is looking forward to, but there will be plenty of healthy vegetables and coffee in the morning.
Who can ever imagine what can happen in a lifetime?
2 comments:
you make me laugh! especially the chicken fried steak.......
Having attended such a camp back in the 80s, I can't help but be concerned for Casey but then, what can you do? He's right to want to find out for himself and you're right to let him. That said, the manoeuvrings and emotional manipulations which take place at evangelical festivals and other events are astonishingly sophisticated in psychological terms.
He may come away having been bored and stir-crazy after a glut of wholesome activities and preaching; he may not. Whatever, I hold him and you in my thoughts and pray he comes home with new knowledge. x
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