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Biannual update

It’s about that time, right? COVID-19 is still a thing, my kids are attending school remotely and I’m working remotely and we all have Zoom fatigue at this point. My January/February resolution to avoid buying in bulk and overstocking the pantry was exactly the wrong choice for 2020 and I went so hard in the other direction, it’s starting to look like we’re preppers.

On a personal note, my dad passed away in July (from ongoing heart problems, not COVID) and my mom, who is in the early stages of dementia/Alzheimer’s, is now living with us. (All their pantry items and bulk purchases have also come to my door as we begin clearning out their house.) Taking on the management of my parents’ house and finances and Dad’s final affairs and Mom’s ongoing needs is… a lot. Wiccan practice looks different for me right now. I don’t necessarily have the time or the mental energy to devote to reading stacks of books and thinking deep thoughts (and writing pages and pages about them), as I once did. Now it’s more like stolen moments, writing brief notes as I read here and there because I can’t keep ideas in my head, developing a small solo practice rather than planning and leading coven rituals.

In related news, MoonFire coven has been continuing to meet via Zoom, except for the briefest of visits last weekend: masks, socially distanced, outdoors when possible, the whole nine. It’s so good to see people’s faces. In-person gatherings are going to be all kinds of fraught at the end of this. I’m hearing that this is what most covens across several traditions are doing now: almost exclusively Zoom meetups (sometimes ritual, sometimes just conversation, sometimes group meditations and astral temple work), including meeting seekers. Some have met seekers on Zoom, some are asking seekers to wait. At least one coven has begun an online outer court.

Where my not-coven goes from here, I don’t know. Today I’ve revised the Resources page a bit to provide signposts for seekers, and I’m rethinking the hyperlocal focus I’ve had for the page. As I’ve explained, my major goal was to create the resources I wished I had 15+ years ago. Recently I’ve been wondering how useful that actually is to people who are not me, and I’ve been thinking about what other goals would be worthwhile.

And so it goes. Next month it will be 20 years since my very first Samhain ritual. Back then, I couldn’t have imagined the path from that moment to this one. Here’s to the next 20 years.

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A pandemic check-in

(This blog is good for updates about every six months, it seems.)

It’s been about six weeks since the world collapsed and the phrases “due to COVID-19” and “in these uncertain times” entered the lexicon. At work on March 11, at the end of the day, I gathered up anything that I might need to work from home for the foreseeable future, and I’ve been working remotely every day since. We’ve all gotten real familiar with Zoom, a tool my office had already been using. About two weeks ago, I remembered the Larabar in my desk — in a sealed container, to guard against mice — and wondered if I’d be back in my office before it went bad.

For the first couple weeks of quarantine, I took my kids’ temperatures daily. One of them had a fever, but it turned out to be a regular little-kid sort of fever with just a bit of a cough, and it cleared up quickly. We bought extra bottles of children’s cold and cough medicine, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen, but thankfully, haven’t needed them. Nor have we needed the big bottles of regular acetaminophen or NyQuil, the Vernors or saltines.

Not to mention my gratitude that we’re back in our own house for all this. The restoration company made an effort to get us here by Christmas; we moved back in on December 23, with most of our stuff arriving on December 26. In January, we unpacked. In February, we really settled in. By early March, there were only a few things we hadn’t gotten around to re-buying (although one of them was yeast).

Demophon, the store-enterer of our family, made sure we were also stocked up with Lysol, Clorox wipes, toilet paper when he found some, and the other quarantine necessities: Canned goods. Milk. Eggs. Flour. I began a sourdough starter but stuck it in the fridge when our quest for active dry yeast was successful (a 2-lb brick!). I began and abandoned a crochet project. I sprayed all the door handles and light switches with Lysol and washed everyone’s bedding. I started wiping down the counters more often (possibly because there’s more happening in the kitchen), using a cleanser with bleach after once-a-week grocery trips. I wipe down all our groceries before putting them away (even if I don’t really need to). I placed an order with King Arthur Flour, but not for flour; they were all out. The first week, I ordered a cookbook for my kids, and we’ve been cooking and baking from it: quesadillas, oven-baked chicken drumsticks, banana bread, brownies, cupcakes from a mix. Then I really got into the baking spirit and made beer bread, a no-yeast baking powder bread (turned out like a huge biscuit), cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip cookies, gingersnaps, gooey chocolate pudding cake, and pizza dough. If we can get a lot of eggs I’ll bake a whole loaf of bread just to use it for French toast.

The kids have a big yard to play in, although they miss their friends and family. I was signed up to participate in an in-person Couch to 5K program that went virtual after Michigan’s governor declared a state of emergency, and although I was disappointed to miss out on a chance to run with other people, I clicked with the training program and my running has been going really well. It also means that I’m out of doors three days a week, running on paved trails, choosing the less popular routes and keeping 6 feet away from anyone else (the trails are busy on nice days but almost empty in bad weather).

I did not turn to witchcraft for comfort in the early days of the pandemic. Perhaps my knowledge of the effectiveness of Clorox and Lysol and plain old soap obviated a need for purification charms, and after we made it through the first 14 days or so without showing symptoms, all we needed to do was stay inside. I had been scheduled to lead MoonFire’s regular in-person Rite of the Vernal Equinox, but in perhaps more panic than I realized at the time, I left it to our HPS to convert it to a Facebook Live event instead. The only magick I did in the first month of quarantine was the kind you do to clean and sanitize everything as best you can, even things you didn’t think needed cleaning and sanitizing before. The kind you do to simmer chili and mix dough, in wild-eyed desperation to ensure that you can feed your family, despite the existence of sliced bread, Easy Mac, canned vegetables, a well-stocked freezer, and excellent French dip sandwiches at the local bar (now open for takeout only).

With the gym closed, my regular yoga class has been happening over Zoom, too, and my yoga teacher went all in for an amazing moon-based practice on the night of early April’s full moon. Something caught in me during that yoga practice, and the old mantra rose up: Remember who you are. The magick slowly flowed back. I snapped out of something just long enough to realize I’d been in it.

Make no mistake, I didn’t wake up and somehow become OK despite the state of things. I’m still stress-baking and spending more time on Twitter than is probably healthy. But I did remember that I have some small measure of power. I recognized that I was doomscrolling and started respecting the screen time limits I had set for myself. I spent a weekend curled up in my reading chair, snuggled in a soft blanket with a cup of coffee, catching up on Triumph of the Moon for Thorn Mooney’s Patreon book club. (And I finally joined the Discord.) I made a point of doing more active self-care — as a former freelancer, I’m a veteran of the remote working trenches and have passed through the braless-in-sweatpants phase, the never-changed-out-of-pajamas phase, and the shaving-is-tyranny phase and have risen from the depths into the comfy-matchy-activewear-outfits phase. I’ve been real attentive to showering and hair removal, recognizing that jeans and bras are indeed unnecessary but I feel better (and am less apt to sink into depression) when I’m clean, cute, and ready to (theoretically) leave the house at a moment’s notice. It’s also time to break out the fancy skincare samples, to use the good lotion, the good shower gel, the good shampoo and conditioner and hair masks. I added in nail polish and got used to seeing painted nails again. (This is maybe inconsistent with all the extra cleaning, since the nail polish chips off right away, but who’s going to see the chips?)

So I’m somewhere in between quarantine camps. I’m working remotely, so it’s not like I have hours of the day to fill, but no one in my family is sick right now, so I have enough leisure time to think about how to structure my day.

I’m now working on my evening routine: shining the sink (yes, really), setting up the coffeepot, and spending a few minutes performing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and picking up my meditation practice again. On Facebook, Lon Milo DuQuette is going live every day to read from The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed ben Clifford for the Fraternal Order of Sequestered Mystics; you can catch up on his page. He’s already read through My Life with the Spirits (those videos are also available). Rather than ordering new books, I’m working through my TBR pile. I’m drawing a Tarot card in the mornings and working on my shuffling. As the resident Zoom expert, I set up a coven meeting for Beltane, so we’ll at least see each other’s faces.

And so things go for now.

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Where I’ve been in 2019

Thursday’s news post has opened the gates a little. As I’ve said in some prior posts, I’m spending less time in thinking about things by my lonesome and more time in actually doing things with my coven, so there’s less to write about. However, my goal in maintaining this site at all is to be a signpost, a beacon for others. Regular updates are important to assuring seekers that I’m still here, information is still current, and contacting me to ask questions might be fruitful. I should make regular updates.

I mentioned in March’s post that my family had about one health crisis a month in the first part of the year. Since then, the hits have kept on coming.

In April, I interviewed for a new part-time job — a big deal, since I’d been a full-time freelancer and running my own business for six years at that point — and in May, I started that job (in East Lansing, more than an hour’s drive) and started pruning my business back to part-time. Since May, I’ve been driving to East Lansing about twice a week and working from home and running my business the rest of the time. (I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts.)

On a Sunday night in the first days of June, my family had a “small” house fire, caused by the vent fan in our bathroom. (All people, pets and, later, plants made it out of the house safely.) The fire department came quickly and showed some real skill and care in not only putting out the fire but saving the contents of the house, as much as possible. There was damage to the roof above the bathroom, and I thought this would be a small thing, quickly repaired. Instead the water and smoke damage was more extensive and our entire house was emptied — I’m grateful to be working with a restoration company that fully handled this — and each item evaluated for damage, then either deemed unsalvageable or cleaned and stored. Clothes, books, food, furniture, kids’ toys, everything. A complete new roof was put on, drywall in most of the house was torn down and replaced, lights and wiring were torn out and replaced, and we’ve just now chosen paint for all of the rooms. We’re hoping to move back in November, and from there we will continue to evaluate what was saved and what was lost.

The fire has been a blessing in disguise. My kids had been asking to move (neighbor kids moved away and I think mine wanted to know what the experience was like). Well, we’re sort of moving now. I’d been planning to KonMari the house, sorting through the kids’ toys and my craft closet and basement storage. Now it’s been halfway done for me. A number of honey-do projects around the house simply disappeared (such as replacing floor vents in the bedrooms or steam-cleaning carpet in the basement; the floor vents are all being replaced, as is the flooring in the bedrooms, and there’s no longer carpet in the basement), and we’ve taken the opportunity to rearrange rooms and how they’re used (not moving walls or anything). After a concurrent renovation, since the house is torn up anyway, we’ll regain the use of a basement bathroom. We’ll end up with a house that’s better for us in the long run.

In July, in the midst of all this, I successfully underwent the rite of elevation to the second degree in Chthonioi-Alexandrian Wicca. In some ways I am still digesting this. I waited so long for first-degree initiation that I was 250% ready for that ritual, to call myself an initiate and to carry myself through the world as an initiate. Second came more quickly — not undeserved (which my initiators emphasized), just without years of buildup and waiting, I think. So there are some elements of figuring out what I’m doing here, where I need to work on myself. Who I’m gonna be when I grow up. In the past few months, it’s felt more like stepping into the power that I’ve always had but wouldn’t acknowledge, or like I’m doing and saying the same things I always have but they now carry more weight, more authority.

August and September were filled with house-related tasks, hope that restoration would be done soon (it wasn’t), work (both in-house and freelance), and my kids going back to school. In August, my husband Demophon and I presented a Lammas main ritual at Detroit Pagan Pride Day, with about 30 people in attendance. In September, I came home from a run and slipped on the stairs in my socks, breaking my pinky toe. By now it’s mostly healed, but achy if I walk any long distance, and I haven’t been able to return to running yet. Also in September, we attended Grand Rapids Pagan Pride Day, but we weren’t facilitating any rituals this year and (partially because of my broken toe) I didn’t read Tarot. Not as much of a public appearance as prior years.

All through this, I’ve also been at Artes & Craft, attending or facilitating rituals, as well as participating in rituals with MoonFire. In another post, I’ll talk a little bit about solitary practices that I’m maintaining (with varying degrees of success).

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Yahoo Groups shutting down

I’m breaking my silence here with the news that Yahoo will be deleting all Groups content on December 14, 2019. According to a Yahoo support document, which also explains that files, photos, message digests, and message history (among other content) will be deleted, you won’t be able to upload additional content as of October 28 — that’s 11 days from now — and all groups will become private or restricted instead of public. Groups will still technically exist, but new members can only be added by invitation. And, of course, a group’s archives will no longer be available.

This is relevant because Amber & Jet, which was once a great resource for seekers (and one I link on the Resources page) is still on Yahoo Groups. A&J has existed for 20 years now, and although the days of hundreds of A&J messages sent per month were a solid decade ago, the archives yielded wisdom for seekers willing to deal with Yahoo’s terrible search features. (They were barely usable even then. The better solution was to sign up for the list with a Gmail address, read messages as they come in for a few years, then use Gmail’s search features to find messages in your email archive. Alas.) Teresa and Eddie, the owners of the A&J list, are downloading the archives and looking for somewhere to move the list; in a post this morning, Eddie assured list members that he would not let the information gathered on the list over the years be “vaporized” on a whim.

So, where the hell is everyone these days? That’s a question I’ve been somewhat lazily asking for the past five years or so. I don’t know that there’s any similarly central location. Plenty of folks have moved to Facebook, although there are also folks who refuse to have anything to do with Facebook. (Let’s just say it’s not the place to be if you have any concern about being outed as a witch. Facebook does not respect that boundary and will show your racist, bigoted uncle that you’ve RSVP’d yes to next weekend’s Full Moon event or suggest that your Christian friends add you even if you’re posting under a Pagan pseudonym, to take two real-life examples.)

The thing to do is, likely, find BTW folks on whatever platform you’re already on. If you’re not on Facebook or not joining Pagan groups there, check out #witchesofinstagram and #wiccansofinstagram (and similar hashtags on Instagram), groups.io (which may be absorbing a number of groups from Yahoo), and r/TraditionalWicca on Reddit, which may end up more active now and has seen several blogs and resources posted in the past week. I’m honestly not sure about Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Discord, MeWe, or the state of the Pagan blogosphere beyond Patheos Pagan, but you can likely follow some breadcrumbs in these resources to find something worthwhile.

If you are on Facebook, you have some more seeker-friendly options, listed from very general to Michigan-specific:

When you request to join, be sure to answer any questions that may be part of the joining process; you don’t have to write a heartfelt essay, but do be sincere and represent yourself honestly. Once you’re a member, in all of these groups except Tarot Nerds, you can post that you’re a seeker (include your location) and someone might be willing to connect you with whatever BTW folks might be nearby. Again, however, the answer may be that the closest groups to you are several hours’ drive away — for example, the Gardnerian group has a list of covens willing to talk to seekers; some states have 5–10 listed, and some states have none at all.

[Here I had mentioned the Michigan listings on Witchvox, but as of early 2020, Witchvox has also shut down. Witchvox was of a similar vintage as Yahoo Groups and did not verify or even weed out old listings, but there were listings for covens and groups that still existed and welcomed seekers. Mandragora Magika has stepped up to provide some coven/group listings.] Pagan Pride Day season has passed, but events are held annually in August and September in Detroit, Lansing, and Grand Rapids. Each PPD event has open rituals to attend and vendors to shop at and chat with.

Again, my Resources page has some more info for seekers; I’ll be adding some of these resources to that page. More news on A&J as it develops. (And, hey, maybe some more regular posting from me. I’m starting to get the itch again.)

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Spring tidying and catch-up

I’ve definitely been feeling the rising tides of spring. Serious housecleaning started last fall, when we adopted a kitten who was likely to get into all sorts of small hiding places if I didn’t clean and move things to reduce the number of hiding places. It continued in November and December, when the plan to have family over for holiday dinners created an intense need for the house to look absolutely perfect. (I have kids, so it doesn’t ever reach perfection, but you have to try.)

So things were ticking along nicely when we had a series of family health crises: in January, my dad was hospitalized for about two weeks with heart problems (he’s now recovering well at home); in February, my husband’s grandmother had cancer for the sixth and final time; in March, my mother-in-law slipped and fell on some ice in her driveway, breaking her knee (she’s also recovering at home). Each event has been a pretty damn big deal.

The past few months have been instructive for me in caring for people I love, for maintaining family connections and support networks, and also for not immediately rushing to solve everything and do all the heavy lifting myself. (I was really glad I was starting from a mostly clean house, though, instead of coming home and freaking out about the mess.)

In the meantime, I’ve taken over the writing and performance of regular public Full Moon rituals at Artes & Craft. Because of family stuff, I’ve only performed one of the three I’ve written so far, but they’ve all been well received. On Saturday, my husband (Demophon, who has stepped up to be my working partner) and I led the Vernal Equinox ritual, part of the Provider Cycle, a Chthonioi-specific bit of liturgy. I’m kinda still processing my experience of that, but the short version is that I feel like I’ve leveled up as a priestess, both for being able to pull off the ritual (attending to all the details, from baking cakes and buying flowers to coordinating ritual roles and blocking) and for the actual magickal experience that the doing of it gave me.

Which brings me to one of the reasons I’m writing here today. I’m busier than I ever have been, but because much of this work involves other people, I am far more hesitant to blog about it. I still think and process by writing about things, but I keep that writing private these days. Much has changed, in me personally and in the world at large, since I started this blog. I’m not really sure what the direction of it should be — except I do still want some sort of signpost out there, some way for seekers to find me.

I’ve done some site updates and added some dates to the Upcoming Events calendar. What happens next, I’m not sure, but I’ll say that my weekends are pretty well booked for much of 2019.

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A nine-month update

It’s been a bit! I said in my last post that the beginning of the year would be quiet, and that certainly seems to have been the case. This year I’ve been doing more than thinking, planning, or writing, which is a much-needed step in my own personal growth. I’m very Air-oriented and live in my head a lot of the time, and I occasionally need reminders that visualizing a spell or a ritual that should work is not the same as physically performing the spell or involving other people in doing the ritual. (I’m thinking of two instances this year in which I had grand plans that looked excellent on paper, but in reality, they didn’t end up happening the way I envisioned. This is fine, though! This is experience, and learning, and the accumulation of wisdom to do things differently next time.)

In the spring, from March through late May, I did a daily working for self-confidence that was centered on the solar plexus chakra. (In April I finished a year of daily meditation with the Insight app, and a lot of my meditations worked with chakras, so this was a natural extension of that.) This was a solid, well-timed working and did what I wanted it to do… except I didn’t plan a big finish or really any kind of ending, and it just sort of petered out. I’d like to revisit it in the waning year.

Since my intensive work with Tarot last year, I’ve acquired some skill, and I continue to read publicly on occasion (usually on a Saturday at Artes & Craft when my coven sister, the regular Tarot reader, isn’t available). I’ll be doing Tarot readings this coming Saturday at Artes & Craft’s booth at Grand Rapids Pagan Pride Day.

Other parts of my work in the past few months have not been glamorous: coordinating coven events, doing some of the cooking for those coven events, helping with setup beforehand or cleanup afterward. A covener died unexpectedly this summer, so there was much to do to honor her life and mark her passing (and Samhain is still to come).

And — I’m burying the lede here, yes — this month I was initiated and am now a first degree in Cththonioi-Alexandrian Wicca. *confetti toss* I’ve told the story of my seeking many times; altogether, it was about 13 years from my serious pursuit of BTW to initiation. (I’ll clarify that from the start of my seeking to finding Blue Star and beginning study was pretty fast, only about a year, although I moved cross-country in that year. But I wanted initiation, and there were other twists, turns, delays, and detours along my path to that goal.) I would say that I’m still adjusting — that’s a long time to say not yet, I’m not, not yet, not yet — but I have a whole lot on my plate right now, and it’s starting to feel like the gods are saying, “You’re here, excellent! Now it’s time to really get to work.”

On Saturday, MoonFire will be presenting a Dionysus ritual at GRPPD. On Sept. 22, the following Saturday, I will be leading a public Full Moon Esbat at Artes & Craft; the next day, Sunday, Sept. 23, I will be co-leading a public Harvest Home ritual, also at Artes & Craft. These are excellent opportunities to come talk to me in person, if that’s a thing you would like to do!

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The year ahead: building

It’s the season for Year Ahead Tarot spreads (if you didn’t do one at Samhain). Here’s one from The Wild Unknown, which is also a deck I got for Yule! I laid down the cards one space to the right, so they go around like the numbers on a clock face, and mine actually looked more like a diamond so it was easier to see which cards were reversed. But this is a pretty spread image that gives you the general idea.

I won’t spend hundreds of words talking about my cards here, but there was a pretty strong Wands influence and a theme of power and authority. Which, since I don’t wield a whole lot of authority in other aspects of my life, made me think of this not-coven I’m building.

Honestly, it doesn’t look like this was the year it will come together. I didn’t see or intuitively sense any other people in the cards. And yet… what else have I been working on here?

So, this year, I might be talking more about building and creating. I might post more in general and find something to talk about at least once in the month. (The first half of the year might be pretty quiet, my cards say.) There might be more literal woodwork, as well; I’ve got a broom and a staff to work on, and yesterday I was talked out of building a bookcase because the temperature has been in the single digits and the garage is not only not heated, it has some gaps big enough to see daylight through. I’m also considering creating a fiery oil to dress candles with and encourage that Wands energy, which doesn’t come all that naturally to me.

We’ll see where 2018 takes us.

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An update on Saturday Night Witchcraft

I had little nibbles of interest but none rose to the level of “Let’s meet up, I’d like to attend,” so I’m suspending Saturday Night Witchcraft for now. I’ll still meet with anyone who’s interested, but I won’t plan to open my home on Saturdays, as I was doing.

Perhaps it’s not the right time. It could be that folks nearby aren’t ready to take the step of attending classes (or interested), or that people don’t trust the classes because I’m not an initiate yet (I am super self-conscious about teaching without being an actual initiate), or maybe it’s just the time of year (Saturdays in November and December tend to fill up quickly).

Or perhaps it’s the coffee-shop meetup requirement that’s putting people off. People might prefer to wander into a public class held at a store rather than commit to attending something held in the priestess’s home. (The counterpart Wicca 101 class at Artes & Craft has gone on as scheduled with several attendees.) However, I’m not going to budge on this, and my HPS and one of our coven’s Thirds have also advised me not to budge. It’s a safety thing, and for seekers, it’s also a very small test of commitment and follow-through.

Perhaps I didn’t advertise well enough. I did put up flyers (or ask to put them up) in what I thought were key locations, but I don’t know how many people saw them, or whether the shop customers or library patrons who saw them were interested in Wicca 101 classes. For me, this butts up against the whole “we don’t proselytize” thing, though. The flyers only say “hey, classes exist, here is info,” and while that’s not the same as proselytizing, it still makes me feel like I’m crossing a line by asking to post the flyers in public places.

So, I’ll leave the Witchvox listing up — as a seeker, Witchvox would have been one of my first stops, and the listing is getting views — and beyond that, we’ll see, I guess. To be continued.

[ETA: As of early 2020, RIP Witchvox. I am honestly not sure where to advertise now.]

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Wicca does not cost money: A position statement

First of all, I don’t think this is a controversial opinion. There used to be banner graphics posted on, like, coven Geocities pages that said “Trad Wicca does not cost money,” or some such. (I went to find one today but had no luck.) This debate appears to have been settled, and it might now be common knowledge that teachers of Wicca don’t charge their students beyond small fees to cover handouts, candles, or other consumable items used in the course of classes or rituals. That said, consider the following a position statement.

Traditional Wicca does not cost money. 

I’m making flyers for Saturday Night Witchcraft, and on them I was thinking about noting that it’s free to attend. However, I struggle with how much to emphasize that “free” here actually means that money will not be required of you at any step in order to learn Wicca. It’s not “free” as in multilevel-marketing “girl time party,” in which you don’t have to pay anything to get in the door but the entire purpose of the party is to sell you stuff. Neither is it “free” as in “here’s a taste, but I’m holding the good stuff back and you’ll have to pay to get it” — for example, I get mailings from a popular Tarot site that has just rolled out an expensive certification program, and while the free booklet I got for signing up for the mailing list was useful in my study of Tarot, the mailings since then have been nonstop advertisements for this certification program.

This is not what Saturday Night Witchcraft is about. When I say it’s free, I mean I don’t have anything to sell you.

You will not finish my free classes only to find out that the next level has a price. I didn’t pay to learn at any stage; my teachers freely gave me counsel, instruction, coaching, and friendship, as their teachers gave them, and this is what I will pass on. You will never have to pay me or anyone else in order to keep studying Wicca or to be initiated. If you’re considering studying with someone who does charge, think twice and do some research before paying, because this is not common or expected.

Granted, a certain amount of money will be involved as you study. You’ll have to pay for gas to get here, you’ll be expected to have your own set of tools someday, and you’ll probably want to buy books or jewelry or witchy clothes, too. But the key point here is anti-guru. You can buy (or make!) whatever tools you like from whatever source you prefer, not from a charismatic person with a catalog. You can borrow books from the library or from friends, or you can buy them from a local bookstore or from Amazon — your money goes wherever you direct it. Also, you should not have to choose between paying your electric bill and buying some shiny witchy thing. Keep the lights on; the witchy stuff is all optional.

As a side note: If you have plenty of money, buy whatever you want! Have custom tools and ritual robes made by the best artisans you can find. Drape yourself in jewelry and rare stones. Amass a staggering library. Fly to every festival and convention. But the fact of the matter is that you will still not be spending money in order to learn Wicca.

Instagram aside, we don’t judge who’s wisest or witchiest by their clothing, by how many crystals or Tarot decks or altar tools they own, by how big their library is, or by the number of events they can afford to attend. (Have you seen some of the items left behind by Gardner and other elders of Wicca? They’re simple, not flashy.) What matters is the power you can raise and wield skillfully in ritual — and that can be done with dollar-store tealights and a stick from your backyard. Spiral notebooks and a pen to write notes with. The rest is theater.

And you won’t have to pay your Wiccan teacher in order to learn it.

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Saturday Night Witchcraft: What to know

Pandemic update: No events are scheduled now, but the info below will still be useful when we can all safely meet again!

It’s common to have concerns about attending an event for the first time when it’s held at someone else’s home, especially if you have health concerns: What should you wear? Can you eat the food that’s put out? Should you bring meds you might need? Can you even get in the door?

Here are a few details that might help ease your mind (or just sate your curiosity), besides the what and when posted earlier.

Directions: The house is not difficult to find! It’s one turn off a main road, not down winding back roads or anything. Once you’ve contacted me and shown interest in coming, I’ll tell you at that coffee shop meeting how to get here and/or provide my address (Google Maps is your friend and mine). We have a wide driveway to provide plenty of parking, and the roads are usually well plowed in the winter.

Food and allergies: Feel free to bring something to drink and a dish to share, if you’d like. We will provide some drinks (water, tea, etc.) and appetizer-type food (which may expand to a full potluck meal, depending on how many people attend, but right now the plan is light snacky stuff). If you are veg*n and/or have food allergies, let me know ahead of time and I will make sure that ingredients or potential allergens are labeled and that there will be something there you can eat! You’re also welcome to bring food, either just for yourself or to share. (On her Seekers site, Jenett talks in more detail about how to decide what to bring.)

Clothing: Street wear is fine. Again, Jenett has excellent guidance on choosing what to wear to a Pagan event.

Kids: We have two elementary-age children who live here full-time, and they will likely be interested in the food but not the conversation and will be encouraged to play quietly in another room. If you have kids about the same age, you are welcome to bring them along and/or ask to meet at a playground first. (Or, the way I did it, attend a few times and then bring the kids once you feel safe doing so.)

Pet allergies: We do have cats, including one long-haired cat (who is shy and will likely hide while people are here, but her dander may still be an issue if you have cat allergies). New to the family is a large dog, a pitbull mix, who has so far been friendly to strangers and responsive to training. He will want to lick your face but does respect “no.”

Access: The main entrance has four stairs; there is also a ramp installed in the garage, but the entrance to the garage itself has a steep incline that may be difficult to navigate for wheelchair users. (Demophon, my husband, has used a wheelchair and sometimes uses a cane, so accessibility modifications were made with his ability level in mind.) There are also some thresholds at doorways. A spacious bathroom is on the main level of the house. Classes are seated; rituals involve standing, but chairs are available for those who need them. Both are scheduled from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

If I have left out anything that’s a concern for you, send me an email, or ask when we meet prior to class!

(Further reading for seekers: Check out Jenett’s tips for learning about a new group and the Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame.)

Updated July 2021