branches up, roots down

Witchcamp is spellwork. It’s also a week of teaching and training others in the art/craft of making magic. But how can you teach or train others in this art without it being unleashed as well? By casting a circle and working in sacred space for a series of days, a spell is inevitably cast. Also it needs to be factored in that as the years have rolled by, less people come to camp to learn magic, but to practice it in a community setting. Seasoned witches abound now at most witchcamps, and even the newbies have read more books than I had on my shelves for the first decade or so of being a witch. From the moment we all join hands in circle, a major magical working begins. Most camps clearly state the intent for the working in the beginning, but sometimes, even with a set intent, the magic takes another turn and something entirely different is brewed. I find this unfolding immensely interesting and I try to pay close attention to what is being mixed in the cauldron of our blended ...

At Samhain in 1999, I was part of thowing a magical benefit to send a group of Reclaiming witches to join in on disrupting the WTO in Seattle . The benefit we called “The Dinner With the Dead” and it was essentially a potluck held at the Martin de Porres soup kitchen. We created sacred space, shared food, and as we ate, toasted our dead and asked for their guidance and help. Help us they did. We raised a bundle of money, and we were part of shutting down the WTO. With a few friends, I repeated this magic for three more years, raising money for various magical actions. The last few years none of us had the heart or fire to put the dinner on, being disaffected and disillusioned by our local Reclaiming community. It was at one of the last dinners that on cleaning up I found out that the undercurrent of weirdness I was feeling was because the small circle of folks who put out the Reclaiming Quarterly had just decided that week to give me the axe as a regular columnist. I kn...

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in", says Michael Corleone in Godfather III. It's damn hard to leave a family, especially a Mafioso family, and Michael never succeeds. This is his story. And in some ways, it's my story too. His family was involved in organized crime. Mine disorganized religion. I can't seem to leave Reclaiming . Here I am in Seattle, in a big house with a gaggle of witches. We aren't a coven, but after this week we will have formed a magical bond, hopefully deep. We spent yesterday planning the night rituals for witchcamp. As I sit here, I can hear laughter and the soft chatter of people enjoying each other. It's going well. So far working together is easy and there is a good creative flow. Soon we will be packing up to drive up above Vancouver. Witchcamp begins tomorrow. Most likely I will be off line until after labor day. I'm thinking about why I continue to be pulled back in, and why too I sometimes want...