Gerald Gardner Q. How many Gardnerian witches does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. That's a secret.
Margot Adler Author of the influential survey of contemporary Wicca Drawing Down the Moon.
Historical Links
Butser Ancient Farm Peter Reynolds runs a recreated Celtic farm, with ancient styles of sheep. The Irish in The Circle Cast would have lived more or less like this..
Camlann Eve I perpetrated a one-night live-action
role-playing game set in King Arthur's tent on the eve of the battle of Camlann. It was fun. It was a bit geeky. Who will win the battle?
Starhawk is one of the Big Witches in the modern Wicca movement, and Reclaiming is her San Francisco coven / community.
The video looks kind of cool and kind of silly. To some extent I guess you have to be there. To some extent, any public ritual looks a little silly. There's a big difference between working real magic in your coven and working a public ritual. In your coven, it's all about where you are spiritually. I remember our high priestess drawing down the Moon once, and I could swear she really had invoked something or someone ancient into herself.
In a public ritual, the leaders have to project what they're doing so the people in back can see it. Which means they can't really go to the same spiritual places they would in a private ritual. It's theatre; and after all, theatre started as ritual.
It's rare to find someone who is a truly spiritual person and a great showman. Myself, I've always envied people who could really take themselves somewhere else in a ritual. I can write a good ritual, and I absolutely know what it should feel like, but I can never really turn off my thinking brain, and that gets in the way.
But the Spiral Dance always raises power. And it looks like Starhawk is a great showman in addition to being an influential spiritual thinker. I bet there's a lot of power flowing around the circle tonight.