Creating Circles and Ceremonies: Rituals for All ... - reading...

Rituals for All Seasons & Reasons IX
by Deborah Letter, while MG had pieced together her own “Shamanic Wicca” path out of
personal experiences and published materials. The three of us organized all our respective
training into a coherent amalgam, and formed the Coven of Ithil Duath to practice it. That
Winter and the following Spring, Morning Glory and I developed and
refined these materials and practices into an organized study course,
which we taught at Lane Community College under the title of
“Witchcraft, Shamanism, and Pagan Religions.”
HOME Coming
In 1977, Morning Glory and I moved to Coeden Brith, a 220acre
parcel owned by Alison Harlow on the 5,600-acre homesteading
community called Greenfield Ranch, near Ukiah, Northern
California. Coeden Brith (“speckled forest” in Welsh) was adjacent to
the 55-acre parcel recently acquired by legendary Pagan Bard Gwydion Pendderwen, which he
called Annwfn (the Welsh Underworld). The Holy Order of Mother Earth was conceived there
as a magickal monastic order of stewardship and ritual. HOME was officially chartered “as a
subsidiary organization” of the Church of All Worlds on September 21, 1978, “for the purpose
of establishing and maintaining a wilderness sanctuary and religious retreat/training center.”
The first appointed Directors were Alison, Morning Glory, and me.
When Morning Glory and I moved to Greenfield Ranch, other Pagan residents included
Bran and Moria Starbuck, Anodea Judith, Sequoia, and Molly. Shortly thereafter, Eldri Littlewolf
brought her green step-van (and several fruit trees) up to Coeden Brith from Berkeley. Mari
Shuisky rode her bicycle all the way up from San Francisco with her parrot, Rima, on her
shoulder. When my old friend Orion decided to leave St. Louis and join us, and Anna Korn
moved in with Gwydion, we had a foundation for a solid working magickal group—but one
composed of people from several distinctly different Traditions!
Gwydion, Eldri, and Alison were all Faerie Tradition—trained by Victor Anderson. Sequoia
was Feminist Dianic—trained by Z Budapest. Anna was also Dianic, but from a British
Tradition that included men, formed in Dallas, Texas, in the late 60s by Morgan McFarland
and Mark Roberts. Molly came out of Aiden Kelley’s New Reformed Orthodox Order of the
Golden Dawn (NROOGD). Bran and Moria embraced Mohsian Tradition, Morning Glory
practiced an eclectic Celtic/Shamanic brand of Wicca, Orion was pure Church of All Worlds, and
I was trained in Ceremonial Magick, Strega, and CAW—with a bit of Ozark “Druidic” Witchcraft,
Feraferia, and Egyptian (Church of the Eternal Source) thrown in for good measure.
With all these Pagans in the neighborhood trained in magick and ritual, we weren’t
about to miss out on Sabbats and Esbats just because we came from different magickal
backgrounds! We just began meeting and celebrating together, and during the eight years
that many of us lived communally in the Misty Mountains—through full Moons, rites of
passage, seasonal celebrations, and daily practice—we wove all these disparate strands
together into a unique practice that was rooted in our own daily and seasonal lives in the
Magick Land. This gave rise to a new magickal working tradition and shamanic path: the
“HOME Tradition.” The written course materials that M.G. and I had developed for our
classes in Eugene—particularly the “Tables of Correspondence”—provided the foundation
for our first personal Book of Lights and Shadows, which Morning Glory assembled.
A very important aspect of our evolving Tradition developed in the form of poetry,
songs, and chants—many composed by Gwydion, our first Bard (and the first Bard in the
Pagan community to record albums of his original performances). So we became a “Bardic
Tradition” in which entire rituals would be sung, chanted, or recited as poetry.
In time, other members of the Greenfield Ranch community came to join our HOME
Circles, such as Marylyn Motherbear and her wonderful family (which included LaSara
FireFox, an eventual two-time May Queen). We planted trees and gardens, raised unicorns