Our community's theme this year, as consensed at our January community meeting, is...
Our regional Witchcamp is getting ready to host the annual online camp, Spiral Convergence! You can [learn more about Spiral Convergence here - old page, no longer active for 2025]. Registration opens on Monday, March 24th.
Theme: Flowers of Resistance
We are happy to announce our 2025 theme which was decided at our January community meeting:
The Well of Community!
ORW 2025
Various key words we said in our group visioning: restorative, elements, circles, cauldron, community, wheel, hub, gathering, re-wild, rejuvenate, restore, return (to center), reunion, re-source, re-store, re-flect, re-new
One of our members wrote this lovely description:
The well of community is a place of gathering, where we come together to share resources and stories, rewild and restore ourselves, and strengthen our connection to each other and the world around us. It bridges the physical and spiritual realms, offering a space for renewal and unity.
The well is anchored in the earth, drawing water from the ground and symbolizing stability and grounding. Its open structure interacts with air, allowing the movement of fresh air to represent communication and balance. The well holds water, the essence of life, symbolizing emotional depth, adaptability, and connection. And even fire is reflected in the energy and effort required to build, maintain, and utilize the well.
Finally, the well embodies spirit, serving as a unifying force that brings together the elements and the community it sustains. It stands as a symbol of harmony, resilience, and shared purpose.
Blessed Be the Well of Community!
This theme came up in discussion in November 2022, and began showing up for several of us over the next month. So when we got to our community meeting in January, it was chosen as the community's theme!
This is, admittedly, being added after the fact. This photo was not yet taken at that time. This particular labyrinth did not yet exist. The labyrinth in this photo was created by one of our community members as part of a personal labyrinth practice this year, and was shared with us later. It is being added to this post later still, and is also now on our Instagram.
In addition to walking labyrinths, either pre-existing or made in the moment like this one on the beach, finger labyrinths are a common practice. You can draw or print a labyrinth on paper (or pull an image up on a screen) to trace with your finger. Some people also make small labyrinths from clay or other materials that can be traced with a finger, as well, for a more 3-dimensional experience that can also be done while remaining physically still.
This past weekend was Cleveland Pagan Pride Days, the big Cleveland area gathering that usually happens in late August every year. It started in 2009, and has happened every year except, of course, 2020 (due to the pandemic). I was actually a bit surprised that it continued this year, since the organization's other event, the Cleveland Witches Ball which usually takes place in October, was already cancelled due to the continued rise in cases of the Delta variant. Cleveland Pagan Pride Days (CLE PPD for short) is an outdoor event, but takes place in a small city park, and it is usually very crowded in all the small booths, with hundreds of people attending. There were certainly very crowded times, but there were also some more spacious moments, thankfully. I also noticed that most vendors arranged their booths with tables on the outside edges to keep browsing to the walkways, and not have people enter the small, tented areas. Many people did wear masks, or have them handy for more crowded instances. (I was working at a booth, so I didn't wear my mask while sitting at the booth with no one around, but I put it on any time I walked out into the event itself, into the crowds, to the bathrooms, and so on.)
I have a couple blog posts in the works, saved as drafts here, but I wanted to publish this as a quick note just to say hello, we're here, and to celebrate a little milestone!
It seems like a lot of people who were at CLE PPD on Sunday when I was working were people who had never been to the event before, and some who had never been to ANY Pagan Pride event before. Similarly, several people from our own growing Ohio Reclaiming Witchcraft community also decided to come out to meet up! Because of this, over the course of the weekend I was able to meet four more people from our little online community space, in person! I will leave names out of this public-facing blog post for privacy reasons, since this is visible to anyone on the internet. But two people came to visit me at work on Saturday, and two others met up with me on Sunday! We got to chat about future plans for this community, and possible ways to proceed with slowly getting people together, considering the continuing health and safety of everyone. Online rituals and meet-ups are certainly possible, and hopefully more simple to get started with for people's varying schedules.
An earlier post on this blog outlined a few other books which can be thought of as Introductory Reclaiming Books. Covering three books -- The Spiral Dance, The Twelve Wild Swans, and the Elements of Magic anthology to which Irisanya also contributed -- that post was written before this book came out!
This book, given its brevity, is definitely one anyone should pick up if they are looking for a brief introduction to Reclaiming as a tradition and community. Irisanya, who is a Reclaiming initiate, teacher, and priestexx, gives insight into how Reclaiming operates. Topics include the way consensus process is used, how tradition-wide decisions are made, how meetings are held, and how Witchcamps, cells, and working groups are organized.
There is a chapter about how we do ritual, but this is not a "how to be a Witch" book by any means! This is a look into how this tradition actually functions. If you're curious about the things that make Reclaiming different than other traditions, this book will give you a nice primer.
This book was also published before Reclaiming began the recent updates to the Principles of Unity! This is a living tradition and change can happen at any moment! So do bear in mind that the text of the POU as published in this book is now different as far as the fifth paragraph. The text of this book was, however, accurate as of the release date, which was in the summer of 2020. Discussions to update the POU did not begin until September 2020, and the changes were officially agreed upon and put into place in January 2021.
Check your local public library systems and library apps for copies of this book, too! You may want to read before buying, or borrow a friend's copy. Irisanya has also written other books in the Pagan Portals series, too, if you're interested. Visit Irisanya's website!
Blessings~
- Ember -
The Reclaiming Tradition's Principles of Unity have been updated! Discussions began online in September 2020 as the BIRCH council met to discuss alterations to the fifth paragraph of the POU. Changes were agreed upon and then proposed to the wider community by the DARC council - Decolonizing Actions in Reclaiming Communities - which is made up of BIPOC Witches (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) from Reclaiming community around the world. Then in January, BIRCH council again met online with representatives from various communities, to make a final decision.
This is the new version of the fifth paragraph as it was agreed upon officially on 30 January 2021! This reflects the changes proposed by DARC, which all communities had a chance to discuss between September's meetings and January's.
I am also now updating the Principles of Unity as they have been on our blog's "About" page, to reflect this new version. Hopefully this is the first of several much-desired updates for our documented agreed-upon values as a tradition. ⭐ You can read Reclaiming's blog about this update here.
One of the specific resources from that page is actually Reclaiming-specific, so we'll link it here separately. And that is, A statement from BIPOC within the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft on the subject of anti-racism practices.
![[The three referenced books laid out on a wooden surface.]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQvlzVnlciP6E_SdxjcxnjhSJdzhiFvcTouq1J1Zt6snqOxvfE73ctY3Dslqvral20eWGxIPJ6OnEE5zFg8WUvR6NX1Xd7lkV8oUih7_cv0wD3k7tX_veaEQMupLzcp6zuJzTbTCM1VlgU/s1600/reclaiming+books.jpg) |
| The Spiral Dance, The Twelve Wild Swans, and Elements of Magic -- Three books that give an introduction to different aspects of Reclaiming |