workshop – Serendipities

The Morrigan’s Call Retreat 2023

This past weekend, I attended the Morrigan’s Call Retreat in person for the first time. (Blog followers with a keen memory may remember that I had a presentation slated for the 2020 retreat, but that one ended up being virtual, for good reason!) It was also the first time I’d ever really been to New England (at least I assume Manhattan doesn’t count?), and the first time I ever met Morgan Daimler in person, so it was a weekend of firsts in a lot of ways, for me.

I had two presentations, and I’ll be uploading the notes from those to my Patreon for supporters as soon as I manage to find the time to finish editing them (but my time is a bit constrained now that my child is out of school for the summer, so patience is appreciated!) Anyone who was at the retreat but didn’t make my workshop is also welcome to email me to ask for the handouts or notes for either “Working with Deities of Battle” or “When the Morrigan Goes Quiet”.

I hadn’t been sure how I was going to get to the retreat itself as I don’t drive, but I trusted in Na Morrigna and it worked out — one of my sorta-local friends was also going and we rode up together, which was a really nice way to start the weekend. (Getting stuck on the train between DC and Baltimore was less nice, but all’s well that ends well.) We arrived on Friday during orientation, but the nice folks at registration and the regulars we ran into at lunch all helped us get oriented properly. I also first ran into Morgan at lunch, and met the whole crew in one pass! I got unpacked and prepped for my first workshop, “Deities of Battle”, made my introductions to the local Fair Folk, and then wandered over to the pavilion.

Way more people showed up than I expected, and it turned out that I hadn’t brought enough handouts. Whoops! People were pretty accommodating, though, sharing with neighbors and taking pictures on their phones, and I handed out a lot of business cards for folks to email me afterwards. It seemed to go over pretty well – even when I took a Deep Dive into UPG with a side dish of Extreme Woo, including the discussion of the Otherworldly War I mentioned here previously. I was really nervous about its reception, but when I later walked in on a conversation on how to use some of the types of battle sorcery I’d mentioned against A Certain Florida Man currently playing at Governator, I knew I’d found my people. Na Morrigna might not pick political parties, but They do stand for sovereignty, and right relationship, and I find most devotees take a stand against oppression and bigotry. After dinner I went to the first ritual, despite feeling a bit like my energies were tapped out. (Shout out to a tylwyth teg ally of mine for helping me actually stay upright through that!) It was pretty good, but I was focused a little too much on staying upright to get much of anything out of it. And, to my extreme disgrace, my attempt to turn off my phone earlier had apparently not taken — it was still on the “shut down or restart?” screen when the alarm went off at the very end of the ritual. Not the best omen! At least it was a pretty tinkly musical alarm and not blaring beeps…

On Saturday, I went to Morgan Daimler’s workshop “Offerings 101” and then Sionnain McLean’s workshop on “Spiritual Self-Care” and thoroughly enjoyed both. Morgan’s was a little oriented towards beginners but also had some fun anecdotes and a few things I hadn’t thought of. I think Sionnain’s flowed nicely into mine, on the topic of fallow times, and there were certainly some common themes. That workshop I’ve done a couple times before, and it opened up nicely into a discussion and sharing session where attendees were addressing each other and it really felt like we were building community. After lunch I went to “Pagan Priest/ess Work” also by Morgan, and got some great advice and also a little bit of validation for my own path, which is more spirit-focused than human-community-focused, though I still do work for the human community around me. Then my friend Katie and I just… stayed. We talked to Morgan and Mel for probably the next two hours, missing the ritual and instead going in deeply into some personal practice stuff and also veering into the weeds on a fair few other topics! It was probably more what I needed — sitting still, for one, as my spoons still weren’t quite full.

There had been a Kindred Crow concert planned for that night, but with Caine in the hospital and Irene deep in grief, that was not to be. (I share the grief, but our friend was not so central to my life, nor I so central to hers, though I miss her sorely and will be at the memorial service tomorrow.) I did attend the bonfire circle that night, though, and so was there to witness and take part in a raising of energy for the members of Kindred Crow, and managed to capture a small clip of it to send on. I also managed to finally connect with the land deeply that evening, and received a profoundly personal message — including the awareness that I was about an hour too far west to be on the land of my indigenous ancestors.

The next day, partly because of my intense experience leading to not-great sleep (and the suddenly chilly weather didn’t help) and partly just due to my energy expenditure, I spent most of the day just chatting with folks in the dining hall. I was a little disappointed at not feeling up to the ritual and workshops, but I wanted to be able to make it back to my friend’s house without fainting and that was already a tall ask. It was nice to connect with folks, though, and I managed to bond with people over my chronic illness, and over butterfly raising!

When we left, my friend graciously agreed to take me an hour east for me to greet the land my ancestors lived on when the first colonists arrived, and that was a complicated and powerful experience — one that I will probably be processing for a while. It is enough to say here: I was recognized, even as diluted and as distanced as I am. In so many ways, the Morrigan’s Call Retreat was a homecoming for me.

Sacred Space & Between the Worlds 2023: A Long-Awaited Conference

As I told several people over the course of the weekend, I’m pretty sure we’d bought these tickets in 2019. The last time we attended was in 2017, I believe – and I was pregnant at the time. When I heard that a Between the Worlds was planned, I felt an inexplicable but undeniable draw to be there, despite the difficulties of parenting a small child and dealing with worsening chronic illness symptoms. We decided we’d find a way, and we made plans to be in Hunt Valley in early 2020.

And then, well. The coronavirus had other ideas.

The conference was postponed, new dates were publicized… and then it was postponed again. And again.

And last weekend, when it finally happened, we were there. Not without issues: we had to bring one of our rabbits with to do twice-a-day nebulizer treatments, and on Thursday there was only one room with working air conditioning. Luckily more of the conference rooms did for the rest of the weekend, but our guest room did not, so we were happy the weather cooled down enough to allow for open windows to cool the room a bit. Other guests had issues too: we heard about water leaks, 5am fire alarms, rooms that hadn’t been cleaned properly. Diana Paxson had to cancel at the last minute due to a family emergency. Orion Foxwood was late to his first workshop, and Dr. Beverly Smith missed her first one, probably due to airport and traffic issues. And those are just the issues I know about!

But despite all of that, the repeated chorus of the weekend was that we were all so happy to be back, to be in community again, to be learning and growing and doing important ritual work. I saw many people I haven’t seen in a long while, and met a few new folks, too.

I came home with several pages of notes, a couple of new books, and memories of three important rituals, all important for different personal reasons. The first one was Gwendolyn Reece’s Ritual for “Dissipating the Glamour that Mistakes Outrage for Action”, which began with a short talk and discussion defining this illusion and how it functions to keep us from taking action against that which outrages us, so as to better identify our target. It was a successor to another ritual she led at a previous conference, on dispelling the glamour of cynicism as a trait of intelligent people, which is another illusion that prevents people from taking action and using what power they do have, however limited that may be. Gwendolyn also spoke again of her views on what she terms humanity’s initiatory challenge, which informs my own thinking about “Tower Time” / “The Storm” / the current “Great War” (which as Seo Helrune has pointed out is perhaps not the best term, but I don’t think anyone’s coined anything better for that particular aspect).

The second ritual was the Between the Worlds main ritual. Every main ritual at a Between the Worlds conference builds upon and continues the work of the previous rituals, and I believe it was this ritual that was tugging at me back in 2019. It is difficult to explain to people who haven’t experienced one, what it’s like to take part in an elaborate ritual organized by powerful magic workers, but the energy was palpable, and I got a little bit of personal insight in addition to flowing my own energies into the working itself. The ritual purpose, as explained by the organizers, was: “Together we travel to the crossroads and the center of all things. There we seek guidance and empowerment as we seek to mend the worlds within and without.”

The third ritual, and last chronologically, was the Universal Temple of Spirits ecstatic rite on Saturday evening, concurrent with the Gala which we opted to skip, in favor of the UToS rite. As I first heard the calling to serve Na Morrigna at a previous UToS rite, I wasn’t about to skip it! I had a heartfelt moment with Lugh when one of the attendees was possessed by him, and I supported two friends through their own possessory experiences, but the only other personal thing I got from the ritual was a sense that I should perhaps pursue training as support staff for this and similar rituals. UToS calls them Guardians, and they take care of those who are possessed, both during the experience (making sure they land gently when they fall, making sure the entities possessing them remember dietary restrictions and the like), and afterwards, providing much needed aftercare in the form of snacks and help processing the experience. One of the primary skills for this work is simply noticing when an attendee begins the transition of being possessed, and that’s a sense I have already somewhat developed, in my oracular seidr work and in other ecstatic contexts. What I don’t have is the physical strength to support their physical bodies, but I wonder if that lack is a true obstacle, in a group setting. As long as there are other people with that strength, I imagine teamwork can get the job done. There were several other clear possessions, including a time when Odin showed up in duplicate and then later, not to be outdone, Loki showed up multiply as well, and spent some time having a conversation with themselves, seemingly from several different points in mythic time. Odin and Fenris also conversed at one point, and the room stood still to listen as the Wolf asked for acknowledgement, and the Old Man agreed that he’d done an unkindness, and both seemed to speak of Ragnarok from a place outside it… but then, we were both within and without mythic time in that place. It was theologically complicated, but these situations echoed some of what Loki said at Mystic South last year, and made me wonder about how the gods evolve and change, and what new myths we might have as they continue to show up in our modern world.

I attended several non-ritual workshops, and of those I think my favorite was Ann Gróa’s talk on snakes, serpents, and dragons in historical Nordic thought. I have a snake name-spirit in my indigenous spiritual tradition, and I always like to learn more about the understanding of snakes in all the cultures connected to my personal practices. It’s a very personal thing for me, but at home, a lot of my practice becomes syncretic, as I celebrate things like the equinoxes in a variety of traditions. The autumn equinox in particular is sometimes a week of celebrations: an Álfar blót, the Pleiades cycle Way-Opening, an Ojibwe name-feast, and Rosh Hashanah with my in-laws. It’s a balancing act, to be sure. But the workshop was very enlightening, and I came away with a ream of notes – and a handout that came with a bibliography!

It was slightly surreal being back in that hotel. There was a time that I knew the layout well, knew the names of the rooms, but this year I kept forgetting and had to keep checking the map on the back of the program. Last time I was there, I was pregnant – and this week I’m planning a sixth birthday party. I’m not sure that going back will fit in my budget for next year, but I hope it will. And if not, I will surely be there at the next Between the Worlds joint conference, whenever that will be.

Mystic South 2022: Reflections

Earlier this month, I attended Mystic South, a pagan conference, for the first time since the summer of 2019. This was my first Mystic South – and also my first pagan gathering – since the pandemic began. To paraphrase John Beckett, I really needed that. My reasons for skipping things until now should be familiar to many of you, but the last hold out was really vaccines for the littlest ones. I knew it was going to be race to see whether my kid turned 5 first or if the under-5 vaccine came out first, and in the end his birthday came first. The kid stayed with his grandparents for the weekend, but Scott and I, vaccinated and boosted, drove down from Virginia for what ended up being a very necessary immersion in community. We saw plenty of folks we knew from previous years and other events, and I finally got to meet Daniela Simina in person, which was such a delight!

Friday morning started with my solo workshop, bright and early, but despite the hour it was fairly well attended! I facilitated a discussion on navigating fallow times (those periods in our lives when, by choice or by happenstance, we lose contact with spirits and our spirituality and magical practices wane), and I think most folks left having a better idea of their next steps as they try to revitalize and reinvigorate their practices, or support their home communities. [Patreon supporters at all levels will get access to my notes as soon as I update and upload those!]

I also attended David Salisbury’s class, “Shades of the Dead: Encountering humaniod spirits through the lens of witchcraft and modern pagan mysticism”. It seemed like a good idea, as I find my practice drawn more and more into work with the Dead, to get a little bit of perspective from someone else doing parallel work. I came away with a lot of good notes and some thoughts about ways to improve and expand my own practices.

After that I attended JD Walker’s class “A Witch’s Guide to Wildcrafting”, which I liked so much I went and bought the book! One can never have enough herbalism books, after all, and this particular one is really well suited to the urban or suburban landscape, including plants like boxwood and ivy.

That afternoon, I attended Daniela Simina’s presentation, “Goddesses to Fairy Queens in Irish and Romanian Traditions”, based on her paper (which is available on Academia). This is also the topic of her upcoming book, Where Fairies Meet: Parallels between Irish and Romanian Fairy Traditions. It’s part of the Pagan Portals series, and will be available through Moon Books in May 2023. I was fortunate enough to read an advance copy, and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in living fairy faith traditions!

Next I attended Jim Dickinson’s workshop on Contacted Traditions, and learned a whole lot of very useful vocabulary and theoretical frameworks, which I’m sure I will be pondering for a while. Much of time was taken up talking about Indwelling (a merging of a human host and an Other, as a permanent and constant bond, unlike Overshadowing, which can be permanent but the presence isn’t constantly noticeable, and very unlike normal mediumship and channeling), and how a tradition with an Indwelling patron can use that contact to stay consistent and focused over longer periods of time. This really wasn’t a concept I was familiar with, especially not the historical examples shared, and it was very interesting overall. Jim’s stated reason for giving the workshop was that this is a tumultuous period, and historically that has attracted the attention of beings who would like to guide humanity’s growth, and he thinks we’re going to be seeing a lot more Contacted Traditions springing up, and hoped that this information, when shared, might give some context if people in our communities have experiences being contacted in this way.

Friday night I attended John Beckett’s ritual for Tower Time, which was a moving experience. The Storm is here, he told us; we just need to decide what we’re going to do. Attendees were asked to pick either The Hermit, The High Priestess, or the Knight of Swords (or maybe Wands? my notes are incomplete, whoops). I chose the High Priestess, which I’m sure comes as no great surprise to basically anyone who knows me! I was slightly surprised and entirely delighted to see that the card I picked (because there were printed cards for everyone) had artwork by Ashley Bryner of Firesighted! I knew she’d been working on a few tarot cards but I hadn’t known they were for this ritual!

Saturday started bright and early as well, with a workshop by Corey Hutcheson and Laine Fuller (of the New World Witchery podcast) on “Junk Drawer Magic” which was a fun little jaunt into one of my favorite kinds of folk magic – doing witchy shit with whatever you’ve got lying around. They presented a few types of example, and then had us all pair up and go through our pockets and purses. It was just as funny and educational as the podcast, and I’m glad I went!

After that I attended Beckett’s class on Pagan Monasticism, and, well, last week when registration opened, I signed up for the longer course. I recommend reading his blog post about it (and his review of the book that will be the textbook for his course), if you’re interested in the topic. The course starts August 4th.

I brought along a knitting project and sat on the floor for Craftivism: Global and Local by Debra Burris, and I really felt like I had found My People. From supporting Ukrainian knitting pattern authors, to the Shave Em to Save Em program, to the AIDS quilt, ways to support BLM and MMIW, to boycottting TERFs wherever they pop up, Debra led us through a discussion of a million ways crafts can be incorporated into activism work, and I left feeling inspired.

I attended Serendipity Wyrd’s rune ritual as the last thing Saturday before preparing for my own ritual, and I’m glad I did. It was a different cosmology than I am used to, but that didn’t really hamper my ability to get to where I needed to be – which was the Well, with the Norns. Their words were for me only, but I am really grateful to Serendipity for providing the framework for that experience. As my sacrifice for the knowledge I gained, I’ve pledged to finish my fox bone rune set – and do all the journeys to meet the spirits and co-create my own rune poems – before the last day of November.

My guild, the Potomac Oracular Seidr Guild Ondvegisulur, put on a seidr ritual on Saturday night. Three of us came, to sit as Seers, myself included. It was a pretty intense experience, but one that might require a whole other post to come. Suffice to say for now, that it was (as ever) an honor and a pleasure to serve my community in that way, and I hope people got the answers they were seeking.

Sunday morning I began with another of Jim Dickinson’s workshops, this one on Birthing Healthy Covens. I had come in with thoughts about some communities I am a part of, and left with a lot of notes that might someday be incorporated into something new. While it was coven-focused, most of the information could apply to any sort of pagan group, and there were a couple of lightbulb moments where I was almost embarrassed something fundamental hadn’t previously occurred to me. (“Do the foundational magic before you start the group”, he said, and “consider astrological timing” – what do you want your group’s birth chart to reflect?) But live and learn! I’ve been involved in groups, but I haven’t really been instrumental in getting one off the ground, and this class gave me a lot to think about, both in terms of new groups, and ways to improve existing ones.

The last workshop I made it to before I basically collapsed and we decided to head home, was by David Salisbury again, on Magical Activism. I was pleased to find out that the book this workshop was somewhat sourced from contained not just the ideas for protective/defensive workings that were the first half of the class, but also some more offensive/active style workings, like he mentioned in the second half of the class. I looked at the bookstore afterwards, but if there had been any books for sale they were already gone – so I bought one online instead!

There were so many more workshops I wish I’d been able to attend, but I between needing food, and rest, and prep time for my ritual, and having to pick just one from each block, I couldn’t make it to them all. Hopefully some of those folks will do some of those workshops again later, and I’ll be able to catch them then. I was so tired, y’all, I completely blew through all my spoons – but it was so, so, worth it.

Picture at the top is of me (right) and Daniela Simina (left).