BCWC 2011 Paths
Mystical Alliance: Deep Seeing and Scribing the Spirit
with Rose May Dance and Linda Beet
The real teachers here are Thoth, Moon god, magician, and scribe, and Winged Isis, Queen of Heaven. Together we seekers all create the structure of our work. We join with our allies, old and new, in Nature’s Temple– lake, forest, and the vast heavens within and without. Here we polish our mystical practices. Like Thoth, we create language and arts to draw down Spirit and communicate with the divine. We trance journey on the wings of Isis.
A devotional path for those of us who love to pray and communicate with Spirit and Nature, where we use spoken and written language (or dance or art) in making magic for our selves and for our times. In this path we improve our psychic skills, learning spiritual self-care and working our boundaries. In our divination, we read not only cards, but also the shadows (and lights) around us. We are guided by the stars and rooted in the earth.
Seekers should be comfortable with a self-directed mystical process. This is experiential, not didactic learning.
Prerequisite: Elements of Magic.
The Body Cauldron: embodied wisdom, embodied prayer
with Rebecca and Birch
The body is the temple of the divine – a vessel for the energy of earth and spirit to move through when we dare to open to this mysterious power. Our bones are the bones of the ancestors, riverways flow in our blood. Within our sinew, muscle and flesh lay the memories of our lifelines and our deep, abiding connection with the nature that is both the air and our breath. Would you walk this path of ecstatic devotional embodied prayer and surrender your heart, your lungs and limbs to allow the Divine to rush through the vessel of your body? Would you open yourself to the ancient wisdom that moves through you and welcome yourself home to the temple of your own being?
In this path we will work with embodiment and our bodies’ wisdom – we will explore allowing our entire nervous system to be part of our thought processes, unifying and bringing balance between the brain and heart’s wisdom. We will be working with the concepts of our own godhood and perfection in the now as well as opening to our personal fountain of wisdom and bringing it into body prayer.
Using ecstatic dance, spontaneous movement, trance, expressive arts, yoga, breath work and meditation we will open to life force and its free flow. In this place of fluid mind and body we use our bodies to bring the creative ecstatic energies of Goddess to earth.
If you are deeply rooted in the Reclaiming tradition and willing to let go of logic and words and open to feeling, knowing and ecstasy then come dance between the worlds. Please be prepared to revel in your body and know that we will also revel in the elements as they present themselves. Would you do yoga in the damp forest? Meditate in a rainstorm? Dance and howl freely with the sky? I don’t know now but am confident I will KNOW when I need to.
It is not required but recommended you start exploring your body in movement at least 60 days before camp. This could be yoga, walking, dancing, swimming – what is important is you begin to move and feel your body. If it becomes sore how do you thank it and take care of it? When do you push the body forward and when do you allow it to decide to rest? Can you listen to the subtle ways it speaks to you? Begin this dance.
Dancing with Power
with Captain and Ravyn Stanfield
In the temple of Isis, we can ask power to dance and learn the names of the gods, which may in the end be our own names.
We believe that each of us embodies super powers, the capability of the Witch to change all of the worlds. We believe that it is time to become all that the planet needs us to become, out of love for our communities of humans, other beings and even our best Selves. We want to practice our ability to shine from our fabulous cores, releasing repetitive cycles of arrogance/shame and embracing the deepest Pride about our talents.
When will you dance with the power of the sun, the moon, the stars, of the rain and the seed, of love and living earth inside of you? When will you confront the insecurities that hook us into believing lies about our own power and projecting shadows about power onto others? Have you dreamed of being a super being in service to community, our planet and even your life’s purpose? Are you longing to spend a week in the temple of Isis, the healer who dared to become a goddess in order to save the earth? Are you willing to ask yourself where you might take more leadership in these interesting times of change? What is the responsibility that we accept when we choose (or are chosen by) this path?
In this path, we will seek our roots in “power with” each other and the web of life. We will examine our relationship with control and our human tendencies towards “power over” and sometimes even cruelty. We will begin to create support systems that can help our healthy “power from within” blossom. Together, we will face the common fears of exposure, failure and public embarrassment with fierce compassion. We will search for ways to express healthy power even in the face of the dominant culture, breathing into the possibility of promoting ourselves, employing ourselves/leading within our workplaces, earning a livelihood through our skills, making mistakes with grace and finding our own powerful message. Taking the hands of Isis and the Ancestors of the Craft, we will dance and sing, write and speak, tell stories of power with our bodies and make the potential of our healing leadership into an art and a tangible vision to follow us into the wide world.
We ask that you be familiar with Reclaiming culture and that you have taken Elements of Magic. We invite path participants to commit to attend all path sessions for the week.
Elements of Magic: Power of the Witch
With Willow and Ashtare
With the art of magic, we deepen our vision and focus our will, empowering ourselves to act in the world. Join us in a magical exploration of the Elemental realms as we dance, trance and open our hearts to the forces of Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Spirit. We come together to deepen our connection, awaken our power, live our purpose, and know our own magic. We call to Isis, goddess of magic, to guide us in weaving ecstatic rituals together to sink into the tools, correspondences, gifts, and challenges of each element; discovering and integrating our hidden love and lost power along the way. This path is for the witch who desires to discover or deepen their personal magic, is new to Reclaiming or Witchcamp, or is interested in teaching within the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft.
BCWC 2011 TEACHERS
Captain Snowdon
Captain is committed to deep elemental magic and activism grounded in our bodies. Finding homes in the queer, radical faerie, reclaiming, sacred sexuality, and genderqueer communities up and down the westcoast, Captain can often be found on or near bodies of water, dancing round fires, covered with mud running through the arbutus trees and singing out of tune. Currently, Captain’s magic manifests private practice Sexology and in running a gay men’s wellness program for the local AIDS organization, educating folks about sex and pleasure and writing poems that taunt and haunt. He lives in both Victoria and San Francisco but mostly in the ocean.
Linda Beet
Linda Beet lives with the knotted oaks near the rocky beaches of Victoria, practicing her teaching of many things magical and reading the shadows with her cards for those that ask. Long time Reclaiming witch, dedicated to the visionary spaces created at camp, her work currently focuses on relationship with the spirit world and the ecstasy of healing through sacred sexuality. (And snuggling with trees of course.) Seeking ways to negotiate the distances between the walking spirits and those beyond, she wants to further explore the skills of seeing deeply. Learning that to connect and communicate with our allies in all the worlds is a right, not a gift, along with the responsibility to manage the boundaries between us. Excited by the rising work of sacred sexuality at BCWC, a practice she has been slowly expanding into for years, she is inspired by what we create in those places of desire and how we unite light and shadow through the descent into body. Linda Beet is thrilled to be returning to Evans Lake, sinking back into the moss and the layers of remembering woven all round.
Ashtare
A creatrix of magic and passion, I have been in Van Reclaiming for 20+ years. A lesbian, Jew, single mom, working class and a Crone Amazon, I have learned some hard things in my life, but continue to love learning new things about people, places, concepts and magic. I feel great love of the Goddess in all her forms, all make me take notice. I love ritual, learning and teaching in a way that decimates hierarchy, and experience wonder when I see others take their power within magic space and their lives. Immersed in the wild, in the elements, and feeling ecstasy for the green earth, I work to bring this devotion to all my life practises. I am teaching for the first time at camp, and have been on the BCWC org cell for the last three years.
Rebecca
Rebecca is a mythmaker, templedancer, bone gatherer and a keeper of blood memory. In love with all things wild and free, she makes her magic by listening to and following the language of the waters, the green world, art, and the body in movement. Her actions spring forth from these wells of inspiration and she is dedicated to the work of healing the emotional/physical body, the community body and the earth body in order to support the continued emergence of a resistant and regenerative cultural web free from dependence on the life-denying ways of the current industrial growth society. Called by the stars to ‘speak for the earth in her own language’ her magic is guided by the ancestors, descendants and spirits of place and focuses on the tools of the arts, dance, poetry, prayer, wild magic, herbalism, permaculture, and nature awareness. She holds a master’s degree in expressive arts therapy and has a folk healing practice in Portland, Oregon.
Rose May Dance
b. 1948, Toledo, Ohio.
My eclectic spiritual practice is life-long, and I have worshiped the Goddess since 1979, in Reclaiming since 1981. I have been gifted with two initiations by Reclaiming, the second one a Feri initiation.
I partake in the rich spiritual life of the SF Bay Area, enjoying the fruits of many traditions including witchcraft. I am a mother of a teenaged child, and I am also a grandmother.
I live collectively in San Francisco with witches. My issues include direct action politics, open adoption, anarcho-feminist earth healing. My magic is in healing, in absolute cosmic wonder, in devotion to the Goddess, the guardians, nature spirits and the Earth. I have taught meditation, witchcraft, self-hypnosis, and related subjects since the 1980′s. I participate in several covens. My interests/skills include trance magic, nature worship, devotional practice, healing, ritual craft, and spiritual counseling. I am a gone mystic. I’ve taught in community and internationally since 1981, and at witchcamps since the beginning. Retired from a career in social research with injection drugs users, I practice Hypnotherapy in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Ravyn Stanfield
Ravyn Stanfield is a healer, writer and educator, dedicated to liberating the unique super powers within each of us. She is an aspiring alchemist, seeking to transform the heartbreak of living in our culture, and reveal the gold in all that seems worthless. She practices acupuncture in Portland, OR (www.forestspringacupuncture.com) with a focus on helping people survive cancer, restore all parts of the soul after traumatic experiences and fulfill their commitments to being embodied during these interesting times. She teaches workshops and retreats internationally. Her writing has been included in many publications , including the local anthology, Voicecatcher, and she is hard at work on her first book. She uses her background in the realms of social justice, traditional medicines, Jungian psychology, environmental activism and theatre arts to coax more of the extraordinary into the world through the cracks in Western civilization. She is an initiate in the Reclaiming and Feri traditions of witchcraft. Ravyn can’t wait to return to the deep love and teachings of BCWC for another year of the best magic you can get!
Willow “Firefly” Kelly
I am a faery-lovin’ experiential teacher of magic, music and mysterious musings. I love collaboratively creating strong containers that invite us all into a more direct, empowering, joyful experience of our individual magic and powers of transformation. I like to think of transformation as an art form; one that I can dance to. As I open to my own work as well as the magic of BCWC ‘11, I am teaching myself new definitions of the words love, forgiveness and compassion. I seek ever greater balance in my life as I develop and work with what I’m calling the Pentacle of Fire. The points are Love, Empower, Heal, Create, Transform, and back to Love. I believe that love is a force beyond imagining and it is a power I am awakening more fully in myself and the world around me. I look forward to diving more consciously and deeply into this magic with the fabulous, powerful, inspiring witches of BCWC.
Birch
Birch joined the greater Reclaiming community via Tejas Web (Texas Camp) in 1999. He is a yogi, gardener, activist and dancer living in the cool rainforest of the Pacific Northwest. He honors the ancient alliance with faerie, dabbles in magical technology, and explores the well of wisdom contained in our bodies. Through yoga, dance, and devotion he encourages the unlocking of our bodies deep wisdom, and the reclaiming of our divine nature and purpose.
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