Rev Janet Callahan

Priestess and Author

Group ritual & regular practices

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Last Friday, I went to my first “group” full moon ritual (actually, my first group ritual of any sort) in over a year.

Between my initiation at Imbolc last year, and the directions my coven was heading at the time, I felt I needed a break to get my own house in order before continuing with that group, much less any group. I’ve done ritual by myself for nearly every full moon and new moon since, but a recent invitation to attend this ritual (and to keep attending if I so choose) was too good to pass up, especially coming nearly a year to the day after committing to a year away from group ritual.

The nice thing about this particular ritual was that it was hosted by my upline – the teachers of my now former high priestess. Most of the women there were people I’d circled with before – and because most of the group consisted of old friends, news of my pregnancy was met with hugs and smiles and love.  It was maybe the most truely Dianic ritual I’d been to for some time before my sabbatical. The two hostesses are older women – partners, grandmothers – and they’ve been at this a long, long time.

While solitary ritual has it’s place…group ritual is good too. Dianic rituals have a feel of bounded chaos, because you never really know what the woman standing next to you or across from you will decide to do; what particular flavor of energy she will call on or bring to the rite, what words or images she will evoke, and where they will take you. And while this ritual had no meditation…I didn’t miss it either. It had connections between people, and a joyful energy that sang through the group, raising both the good and bad of life up as signs that we still live. There was energy drawn for healing – healing for one of the hostesses who has some major complications from chronic illness, healing of stress and angst, and a lot of energy for me and the baby, which brought a lot of joy to all those present. It was a place where this pregnancy could be celebrated without diminishing the times I’ve sat in circle, surrounded by some of these same women, and wept over the journey of infertility – a very healing, very needed experience for me.

I should point out that pregnancy has been quite the spiritual experience for me thus far overall. Mindfulness of the current moment has been a big lesson here – pregnancy changes day by day, so no two days are the same, and it’s made me more attentive to the rest of life around me, and how it too must be savored right now, because the next minute is a different one to savor before it too is gone.

Pregnancy has also become a source of a deeper faith – I received what I was promised, which makes my trust just that much stronger, and I have a new understanding of my primary matron, Arianrhod. I once rejected her because she was just a fertility goddess, then I embraced the fact that she was so much more…and now I see it all from a different perspective, which both blends those two understandings, and invalidates them at the same time. Embracing her as “more” than a mother goddess invalidates that facet of her, just as dismissing her as “just” a fertility goddess invalidated the rest of her.

One of our hostesses drew down the moon, which is something I’d never actually seen done in a group setting, and never really attempted myself. But the experience…was fascinating, and wonderful, and I spent the whole ritual feeling the moon riding point on our journey. One interesting experience as part of drawing down the moon was *feeling* the moon filling me, filling my growing belly, taking that light and reflecting it through me, and incorporating itself into me. Having not done this while not pregnant, it’s hard to say how it would differ, but each part I played in the ritual had a similar effect – a connection I had not really felt before opened up to me. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention before, or maybe I just wasn’t reaching out and grabbing hold of that thread – or maybe it really wasn’t there before. But it’s definitely there now.

At any rate, I think I’m back on the bandwagon when it comes to women’s circles for the full moon, and plan to go circle with them as frequently as is practical. The drive isn’t any worse than any of the various incarnations of my previous coven. The connections are an important part of the energy involved, and community, in some form, is an important part of any spiritual practice. I will most likely still do new moons by myself – it’s a different energy, and one that strikes me as more suited to personal development and personal pursuits.

Check out my new energy work page, http://www.facebook.com/GoodVibrationsEnergyStudio

Group Stability Warning Signs

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I’ve got a workshop I do from time to time on why groups fail. One of the things I talk about is group stability. What makes a group hold together, and what makes it fall apart.

There are lots of articles and lists out there that tell you what sort of things to look out for when choosing a Pagan group to work with. The Coven Abuse Self Help Index (CASHI) and the Advanced Bonewits’ Cult Danger Evaluation Frame  are the two most frequently referenced.

One thing I’ve noticed a lot on this subject that doesn’t seem to be in either of those documents is that the leadership (be it rotating elected leaders, or a dedicated High Priest and/or High Priestess) need to follow the things they’ve said the group will do. That is, the group needs a mission statement that guides decisions and it needs leaders who do what they say they are going to do.  If not, you should consider avoiding the group, because otherwise you will be caught up in their drama

I really believe that groups need a statement of what they are and what they’re doing. Without that purpose, what’s the point of the group existing? Furthermore, the purpose needs to be the driving force behind the group’s choices – are you really doing what the group is meant to do, or are you pulling it off course.

Leaders who change the direction of the group without input of those that are supposed to have input are bad leaders. Frankly, changing the direction of the group without consulting most of the group, whether or not they are in the chain of command, is bad leadership.

Leaders need to lead. If they drop things in someone else’s lap (rather than delegating appropriately), they can’t complain about the way the job gets done later. If you’re teaching people to lead, teach by example, and by giving them small opportunities first, then bigger ones, rather than throwing them into the deep end of the pool and hoping they make it back out.

If a group has guidelines on advancement, they should be followed. Playing favorites isn’t a good way for a group to be stable, it just breeds resentment. Worse, initiating people just so they’ll stay in the group, even when they aren’t ready, does no one any favors – not the initiate, and not those already initiated into the group. If attendance is required, then it’s required, unless there are other provisions for make-ups. Without consistency here, the group has no assurances that its initiates are actually all at the same level, or all capable of the work presented for a given event.

I have no problem with occasional exceptions to the rules, when every decision is an exception, the rules are meaningless. If the rules are meaningless, why are there rules to begin with? And if there are no rules, what’s the point of the group? And isn’t that the whole point of group stability

Check out my new energy work page, http://www.facebook.com/GoodVibrationsEnergyStudio

Magickal Thinking

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There are a lot of definitions of magick out there, but most revolve around somehow using energy to make changes in the physical world.

The connotations of those definitions imply that it’s mental energy at work. That other forms of energy (money, elbow grease, etc) aren’t really magick. And I see how that follows the community as a whole, even those who don’t practice magick, and impacts the way they see the community as a whole.

They think to themselves, “this is a magickal community, and magick will solve all its problems and give us all the things we want.”

But, just as doing a prosperity spell and then sitting on the couch waiting for money to fall out of the sky will not get you a job, wishing and hoping for libraries and community centers and charities won’t get them without putting in some more physical types of energy.

Why is it that we hear all the time that you have to do the mundane stuff along with the magickal to get the best results, but we don’t apply it to our own communities?

I’m starting to think that it’s because we (as a community, on average) are thinking in this sort of fake-magickal style, rather than rationally, or even truly magickally. We want the benefits of a big community without putting in the mundane work to make it happen, rather than putting in the work, or putting in both the mundane efforts and the magickal efforts.

We want a library, where we can borrow books for free, and we want it to have every book we could possibly want (and none of those scary books that are too intense) and it should all just appear because we will it to be so. Where are the books going to come from? Well, someone will donate them. How will we pay for the building? Our Pagan businesses will sponsor it, or someone will donate money to cover the rest of us. (And how will the business be making enough profit to do that? Someone will shop there.)

I wish I knew this “someone” who makes things happen, and has money to spend…they sound like the kind of person I want to hang out with, the kind of person I want in my community.

Check out my new energy work page, http://www.facebook.com/GoodVibrationsEnergyStudio

Pagan Community Failures

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A recent post on a local Pagan Yahoo group, and the feedback that came from it underlines a lot of the problems with Pagan organizations in general, and the community as a whole.

The short story:

One person suggests combining a bunch of different groups into a one-stop-shop website. People say yes, great idea. The website gets started, and then no one helps or participates, and the original person is going broke maintaining it. The OP is also upset that no one is using the wonderful site she’s created.

There are a couple things here I ought to touch on, but here’s the big one: Money.
This particular person was willing to sacrifice to make this site happen, and expected others, in a community notorious for members who don’t pay their own way, to follow suit. Furthermore, she took on a large expense to do so.

A half hour or so of investigation (thanks to my spouse) suggests that her hosting plan, which includes the website software, is running her around $300 a month…a totally bogus number, since the software is priced at about $5000 and the web host the software developers are reselling through costs only $10/month. The software is nothing special, and in just over a year, she’ll have paid for an entire copy of the software.

In the end, the stress of trying to pay the bills won out, and she’s scaling back her vision for the site, because the site as-is was simply not maintainable.

This is true of a lot in the Pagan community. People say they want libraries and ritual space and shops, but they’re not willing to pay to rent the space, or to frequent the shops enough to keep them open.

It’s been a big contributor to recent changes in the Dianic coven I belong to – the whole shift from open group to closed group came about because of the number of people who wouldn’t even contribute food for after-ritual.

It was a contributor to the end of Prism Temple (hell, the OP mentioned above was one of those people who was disappointed when we quit, because she thought it was a great idea, but she never got around to contributing).

Here’s the thing:
There’s a difference between a low impact lifestyle, being poor, and being a leach.
Choosing to live on less, being frugal on purpose…that’s something I could see as a result of a Pagan worldview. Less impact on the land, choosing the job that you love even if it doesn’t pay all that much…these are things that are good. And most folks who do this are willing to find ways to participate and add to the communities they’re a part of – it may be time or food or something else instead of money, but they *choose* which things are important to them, and make those things happen.

Being poor is something that is not necessarily a choice, but which can be influenced by choice. And again, for most folks who are truely poor, it’s a matter of priorities, but the first priority is meeting one’s basic needs: food, clothing, shelter. Truthfully, most of these folks *also* are more than willing to chip in to help make things happen that are important to them, are willing to find ways to get the things that are important to them.

Being a leach? That seems to be the biggest part of the community these days. It’s not that these folks couldn’t change something to have the money, but that they won’t. These are the folks that complain about the cost of the festival, spend next month’s rent on pretty new sparkly things, and then beg for gas money to get home. These are the folks that buy books online and candles at Walmart, and then get upset when the local Pagan shop that they never shop at closes. These are the people who complain about the same shop owners charging for meeting rooms, and then are upset when there’s no space to meet. These are the “I spent $30 on a prosperity kit and I’m still broke, what did I do wrong?” people.

So, what’s the solution?
I think that *any* Pagan organization, no matter what its purpose, needs to be founded on the idea that new content and activities will happen as someone steps forward to lead it, and as the money to pay for it becomes available. I think a small (but not too small) committed group has to head up any organization.

And I think that groups that start out expecting contributions need to enforce it – if you don’t contribute to the group, you don’t benefit from the group. Draw the types of people who contribute by eliminating those who don’t – you’ll have a stronger organization on the whole, and you’ll make a name by being the folks who don’t put up with bullshit.

Check out my new energy work page, http://www.facebook.com/GoodVibrationsEnergyStudio

The Problem with Pagan Umbrellas

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The way I see it, we need more “secular Pagan” organizations.

Let me clarify what I mean by that. We have all these groups that try to be “open to everyone” and yet still religious. And while that’s not a recipe for failure, it is a recipe for exclusion if it’s not handled carefully. I think there should be more Pagan groups that focus less on the next holiday, and more on the community aspects of being Pagan.

Let’s look at a hypothetical group, which We’ll call “All Pagan Paths Circle” (APPC) for some examples. APPC is one of those groups that purports to represent all Pagans in your area, and promotes itself as being open to all Pagans, be they Wiccan, Druid, Asatru, or something else. APPC has been around a few years, and has several dozen members.

APPC has some social outreach programs – they collect coats for a local shelter, they do park cleanups and that sort of thing. They have a monthly chat night. They have a teen group. They have a small library.

APPC runs a monthly full moon ritual (which is organized by a committee) and 8 Sabbat rituals (handled by another committee). At all the full moon rituals, the ritual format is to call quarters, cast the circle, and invoke the chosen God and Goddess for the rite, before moving on to other ritual activities. The 8 Sabbat rituals are much the same, (although they invove a much bigger party afterwards, and are really sort of mini-festivals), except that about once a year, a local ADF grove leads the ritual portion of the event.

For the Pagan whose faith doesn’t celebrate all those rituals, APPC doesn’t look very welcoming – it appears that they promote a specific way of being Pagan, which is not the way all Pagans operate.

Or how about APPC’s bylaws? I know of groups like APPC who have things in their bylaws like “An it harm none, do what you will.” That too speaks to a specific flavor of Pagan, and not all Pagans follow it – so how can someone like me, who is not that flavor of Pagan join a group whose very bylaws specify that members must follow their faith?

So, in most communities, someone like me has three choices:

  1. I (possibly) join a small ritual group of my faith (if I can find enough people to make it worthwhile)
  2. If I’m interested in doing more public things, I join a large group that doesn’t really meet my needs on the religious front, and just keep my mouth shut.
  3. I remain a solitary practitioner of my faith, and talk with my co-religionists online.

Now I know some of you will insist that it’s not like this. That such groups really are open to anyone. And that’s true: they’re open to me, I can join. But the question I’m posing here is why *should* I join? If all I want is community, and I have to join another religious group to get it, why not go to the Christian church down the street? At least it’s close to home, and besides, it likely has more resources.

So, where does the secular group fit in here?

A secular Pagan group starts with the idea that they’re not going to focus on ritual. They’re going to focus on the community as a whole. They’re not going to define “Pagan” (and in particular, they’re not going to try to define Pagan by starting with the definition of Wiccan).

They’re going to focus on communications and connections. They provide a point of contact for many groups. They focus on things like libraries, community service, and charity. They happen to be Pagan run, and Pagan focused. But they create a place where all those smaller ritual groups can connect, and a place where people can work together without needing to argue about who’s leading next month’s full moon ritual.

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