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Author Topic: Covens.  (Read 5196 times)

Afanasfreya

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Covens.
« on: November 17, 2017, 08:54:09 pm »
Hello! So I run a coven named Afanas Kuu Coven, or Immortal Moon Coven. I learned under a really spiritual high priestess. She took me under her wing after hearing my tragic story. I needed peace and she knew it. She became like the mother I'd always wanted and so I started teaching others what she taught me. When I was 18, she promoted me to high priestess because she thought it was time. Afanas started when I was 15, as just a nameless group of people like me who needed peace. I took them in and they found it for themselves. To me, my little group truly became immortal. Now I have the pleasure of teaching their kids when they're older. I say this to say that any good coven is a family. The members are all different, as are their paths that I refuse to dictate. I can only ever help them along. And as such, we do coven gifts. Everyone gets a big kit that helps them along the journey they have yet to walk, and I couldn't be more proud of them.
"Live life to the fullest, because only surviving isn't living at all. "

Jenett

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2017, 09:34:49 am »
Hello! So I run a coven named Afanas Kuu Coven, or Immortal Moon Coven. I learned under a really spiritual high priestess. She took me under her wing after hearing my tragic story. I needed peace and she knew it. She became like the mother I'd always wanted and so I started teaching others what she taught me. When I was 18, she promoted me to high priestess because she thought it was time. Afanas started when I was 15, as just a nameless group of people like me who needed peace. I took them in and they found it for themselves. To me, my little group truly became immortal. Now I have the pleasure of teaching their kids when they're older. I say this to say that any good coven is a family. The members are all different, as are their paths that I refuse to dictate. I can only ever help them along. And as such, we do coven gifts. Everyone gets a big kit that helps them along the journey they have yet to walk, and I couldn't be more proud of them.

I'm always fascinated by how differently people do things!

I'm a priestess, initiate, and witch (and high priestess, though I don't usually use the term outside of spaces where it's really relevant) in an initiatory tradition of religious witchcraft. I've done both coven work and group work that wasn't coven work in the past, within that tradition, and done a lot of talking to people in other kinds of groups. (I started my Pagan life in Minnesota, which is an extremely active Pagan community.)

Anyway, my tradition doesn't take people for training under 18, and generally not before early 20s. And I know a number of other traditions that strongly discourage people from taking on the responsibilities of being a high priestess until after their second Saturn Return astrologically (this begins around age 29.5, and takes another 2-3 years: depends on how retrogrades affect the timing, for people reading who don't know.)

How has it worked for you taking on that kind of responsibility at your age? Do you feel like it might be affecting some of your other options and choices? How do you balance that? What kinds of models for that have you had in your own communities?

I know for me, group work has been tricky, because I've moved twice for job reasons (I'm a librarian, which is also partly religious vocation/commitment for me, but there are challenges in finding jobs in the profession.) I've been back in Massachusetts, where I grew up, for 2.5 years now. I do periodic group work with friends, and I go to a local public ritual group for some of their full moons (their HPS is great, and like me, she's been around the larger community for a while, so she's got a great sense of what works and what doesn't, and things run pretty smoothly.)

But it's been hard figuring out how to do group work in my tradition - I've had a couple of prospective students, but they haven't worked out (in a couple of cases, for really good reasons: our initial training year is pretty intensive, and in two cases, people had really great changes in their professional lives that meant they knew they wouldn't be able to balance that well. I hope to hear from them down the road.)

I've got multiple chronic health issues, so I'm also really cautious about what I take on outside of work and necessary household/health tasks. Taking on students is a lot of time and energy commitment. So I provide material online, hang out in online forums, and do other writing, as well as the occasional local thing, and keep my eyes open for other possibilities if the right people connect. One of the things I've loved about the Cauldron for the many years I've been a part of it is the conversations and discussions of different perspectives, so helping that continue is a big part of my personal practice.

What's your usual day or week like? How do you balance the different things? Make time for your own personal practice that isn't about students or group members? (The best HPSs I've known have all had their own take on this one!)
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Re: Covens.
« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2017, 09:40:01 am »
And I know a number of other traditions that strongly discourage people from taking on the responsibilities of being a high priestess until after their second Saturn Return astrologically (this begins around age 29.5, and takes another 2-3 years: depends on how retrogrades affect the timing, for people reading who don't know.)

Wouldn't that be the first Saturn Return, if also the second time Saturn was in that position in the chart?  Or is this one of those places where technical terminology doesn't actually make plain English sense?  (I always thought of the second Saturn Return as being the midlife crisis one.)
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #3 on: November 18, 2017, 09:45:05 am »
Wouldn't that be the first Saturn Return, if also the second time Saturn was in that position in the chart?  Or is this one of those places where technical terminology doesn't actually make plain English sense?  (I always thought of the second Saturn Return as being the midlife crisis one.)

That'd be me typing before my morning caffeine. (first is 29ish, 2nd is mid-50s, you're right.) Thanks for catching that so fast!
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Afanasfreya

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #4 on: November 18, 2017, 10:22:23 am »
I'm always fascinated by how differently people do things!

I'm a priestess, initiate, and witch (and high priestess, though I don't usually use the term outside of spaces where it's really relevant) in an initiatory tradition of religious witchcraft. I've done both coven work and group work that wasn't coven work in the past, within that tradition, and done a lot of talking to people in other kinds of groups. (I started my Pagan life in Minnesota, which is an extremely active Pagan community.)

Anyway, my tradition doesn't take people for training under 18, and generally not before early 20s. And I know a number of other traditions that strongly discourage people from taking on the responsibilities of being a high priestess until after their second Saturn Return astrologically (this begins around age 29.5, and takes another 2-3 years: depends on how retrogrades affect the timing, for people reading who don't know.)

How has it worked for you taking on that kind of responsibility at your age? Do you feel like it might be affecting some of your other options and choices? How do you balance that? What kinds of models for that have you had in your own communities?

I know for me, group work has been tricky, because I've moved twice for job reasons (I'm a librarian, which is also partly religious vocation/commitment for me, but there are challenges in finding jobs in the profession.) I've been back in Massachusetts, where I grew up, for 2.5 years now. I do periodic group work with friends, and I go to a local public ritual group for some of their full moons (their HPS is great, and like me, she's been around the larger community for a while, so she's got a great sense of what works and what doesn't, and things run pretty smoothly.)

But it's been hard figuring out how to do group work in my tradition - I've had a couple of prospective students, but they haven't worked out (in a couple of cases, for really good reasons: our initial training year is pretty intensive, and in two cases, people had really great changes in their professional lives that meant they knew they wouldn't be able to balance that well. I hope to hear from them down the road.)

I've got multiple chronic health issues, so I'm also really cautious about what I take on outside of work and necessary household/health tasks. Taking on students is a lot of time and energy commitment. So I provide material online, hang out in online forums, and do other writing, as well as the occasional local thing, and keep my eyes open for other possibilities if the right people connect. One of the things I've loved about the Cauldron for the many years I've been a part of it is the conversations and discussions of different perspectives, so helping that continue is a big part of my personal practice.

What's your usual day or week like? How do you balance the different things? Make time for your own personal practice that isn't about students or group members? (The best HPSs I've known have all had their own take on this one!)
For me, it was crazy at first. It doesn't take much out of me because of the way I set my coven up which isn't so traditional. I have pillars, I love to organize by elements they feel closest to, those pillars are four different people who tutor the others. They help me out, say I'm not around and they have a question, the people who have served as pillars can answer, or I do when I get back. On top of that, we have lessons every two days at 8 pm when all can attend. There are 29 people in the coven. I work my schedule around theirs and my work isn't one I necessarily have to focus on because I can cook with no problem, even when distracted. As for the time I take for my practices, I usually stay up till 11 pm and take the three hours after class to meditate, cast, ask questions myself, and find an answer. And the days between classes are for Capoeira. (Brazilian dance fighting.) As for the age thing, she got permission from her old mentor who observed me with my coven. Because I could handle it in their eyes, they went ahead and gave me the title which I normally don't use unless talking about my coven. I do sometimes wish they held off, but I couldn't imagine my life any other way at this point. I'm just happy to help whoever needs me.
"Live life to the fullest, because only surviving isn't living at all. "

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #5 on: November 18, 2017, 03:49:43 pm »
Anyway, my tradition doesn't take people for training under 18, and generally not before early 20s.

My sister and I recently sat down and reminisced about our high school 'coven' and maaaaaaaan... I can see why that's a common rule. Wooo boy.

Bluerose31

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2017, 05:03:29 pm »
Hello! So I run a coven named Afanas Kuu Coven, or Immortal Moon Coven. I learned under a really spiritual high priestess. She took me under her wing after hearing my tragic story. I needed peace and she knew it. She became like the mother I'd always wanted and so I started teaching others what she taught me. When I was 18, she promoted me to high priestess because she thought it was time. Afanas started when I was 15, as just a nameless group of people like me who needed peace. I took them in and they found it for themselves. To me, my little group truly became immortal. Now I have the pleasure of teaching their kids when they're older. I say this to say that any good coven is a family. The members are all different, as are their paths that I refuse to dictate. I can only ever help them along. And as such, we do coven gifts. Everyone gets a big kit that helps them along the journey they have yet to walk, and I couldn't be more proud of them.
Sounds wonderful!

Afanasfreya

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #7 on: November 18, 2017, 07:19:36 pm »
Sounds wonderful!
It truly is. You can always message me about it if you'd like.
"Live life to the fullest, because only surviving isn't living at all. "

Bluerose31

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #8 on: November 18, 2017, 08:06:27 pm »
It truly is. You can always message me about it if you'd like.

Thank you so much :)

Morbid

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #9 on: November 18, 2017, 11:01:13 pm »
Hello! So I run a coven named Afanas Kuu Coven, or Immortal Moon Coven. I learned under a really spiritual high priestess. She took me under her wing after hearing my tragic story. I needed peace and she knew it. She became like the mother I'd always wanted and so I started teaching others what she taught me. When I was 18, she promoted me to high priestess because she thought it was time. Afanas started when I was 15, as just a nameless group of people like me who needed peace. I took them in and they found it for themselves. To me, my little group truly became immortal. Now I have the pleasure of teaching their kids when they're older. I say this to say that any good coven is a family. The members are all different, as are their paths that I refuse to dictate. I can only ever help them along. And as such, we do coven gifts. Everyone gets a big kit that helps them along the journey they have yet to walk, and I couldn't be more proud of them.

It's always interesting to me to see the inner workings so to speak of different covens and their traditions.  I don't really belong to a coven, I only have a circle more or less.  I think we're a lot less formal, I mean we don't even really have a high priestess.  Our age group is pretty spread out to be such a small group, we've got a couple 16/17/18 year olds, but then we also have a 79 year old.  Our teens are quite mature, at least in my opinion.  But I agree, anything like this that's operated right and has the right culture is family.  It just becomes part of your extended family.  For instance, I had a few members over for supper the other evening, and one is taking one of my kids to the mountains of bum frick frack no where this weekend.  If I didn't trust them, they wouldn't be anywhere near my family. 
For he who has truly lived never truly dies.

Afanasfreya

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #10 on: November 18, 2017, 11:11:00 pm »
It's always interesting to me to see the inner workings so to speak of different covens and their traditions.  I don't really belong to a coven, I only have a circle more or less.  I think we're a lot less formal, I mean we don't even really have a high priestess.  Our age group is pretty spread out to be such a small group, we've got a couple 16/17/18 year olds, but then we also have a 79 year old.  Our teens are quite mature, at least in my opinion.  But I agree, anything like this that's operated right and has the right culture is family.  It just becomes part of your extended family.  For instance, I had a few members over for supper the other evening, and one is taking one of my kids to the mountains of bum frick frack no where this weekend.  If I didn't trust them, they wouldn't be anywhere near my family.
Yes!!! Exactly! I love seeing circles and covens like this! And it's actually rare. But the way I see it is, it shouldn't be a chore. You don't tell your family to screw off, not when they have different views, unless they're abusive, so why do it to a coven? The door is always open because it's a family. They are my real family, sure, I have blood family but bonds like what I've built with my coven are forever as well. And it takes trust, it takes honesty. It takes loyalty, it takes respect of yourself and others. You're never gonna see eye to eye on everything, but the truth of the matter is that their paths are not yours to dictate. Only to help along when they need it. I understood this well by the time I was 18.
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Re: Covens.
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2017, 02:08:00 am »
Yes!!! Exactly! I love seeing circles and covens like this! And it's actually rare. But the way I see it is, it shouldn't be a chore. You don't tell your family to screw off, not when they have different views, unless they're abusive, so why do it to a coven? The door is always open because it's a family. They are my real family, sure, I have blood family but bonds like what I've built with my coven are forever as well. And it takes trust, it takes honesty. It takes loyalty, it takes respect of yourself and others. You're never gonna see eye to eye on everything, but the truth of the matter is that their paths are not yours to dictate. Only to help along when they need it. I understood this well by the time I was 18.

Well some of my blood family I do quite frequently tell to screw off, but I get your point and completely agree.
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Afanasfreya

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #12 on: November 19, 2017, 08:35:55 am »
Well some of my blood family I do quite frequently tell to screw off, but I get your point and completely agree.
Unfortunately, I get that. There are a couple members of my family I've thought about it once or twice with, not everything is ideal. But yeah, feel free to chat me up anytime.
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Re: Covens.
« Reply #13 on: November 19, 2017, 10:33:52 am »
Wow, that seems pretty challenging logistically! How does it work out?

On top of that, we have lessons every two days at 8 pm when all can attend.

Every two days? Wow! None of the group work I've done would work well that way - people had different job schedules (most of my working life, I've started work between 7 and 8am, so evening stuff that runs after 9pm is really hard - the kind of thing I can do one evening a week, but that's about it.) And it seems like it'd be a really hard schedule for anyone who has kids at home - that's a lot of time away, right around bedtime!

And then there's travel time - all of my group work has been in places where it was pretty common to have a 20-30 minute one-way trip to get to the covenstead unless you lived there, just because of the nature of living in a metro area. That can add up to a lot of gas pretty quickly too.

The training circle I trained with had classes twice a month (about 3 hours one time, and 5 hours the other) on Saturday or Sunday, plus full moon rituals (about 3 hours every month) and Sabbats (about 5 hours most times, 8 times a year). Plus we had things to work on at home - meditation practice, practicing specific ritual classes, reading and assignments.

Initiates in the group normally had another meeting for more complex learning or ritual work once a month, and the group leadership (five or six people in the training circle) met once or twice a month as well, depending on what was going on, how much planning needed to happen for different things, if there was a problem we needed to get together and talk through. So call that another 3 hours two or three times a month.
 
Plus things like writing rituals or class material to teach, or taking part in larger community events or projects (something that was basically a requirement for anyone working towards becoming a HPS or HP - 3rd degree, in our tradition - or even people working toward 2nd degree.)

For Dedicants (people learning the tradition) it added up to about 3-5 hours in person most weeks plus 15-20 minutes work at home daily and another 3-5 hours on assignments, reading, or other projects. But the time in person was one large chunk, which people usually found easier to schedule, and the work at home could be done when it made sense for their other commitments - work, family, education, whatever.

(There was a bit under a year when I was working full time (and started at 7:30am), doing 2 graduate classes each semester, doing all the group leadership time, living in the covenstead so there was a bunch of additional cleaning and tidying necessary in advance of any class or ritual, and on the Twin Cities Pagan Pride board which had meetings once or twice a month. And the usual 'friend needs help, I'm going to help' things. I could not have kept up that schedule for much longer than I did!)

When I was doing small coven work after that, things were a little shorter (a lot of logistical stuff just goes faster when you've got fewer people) but we kept the same basic schedule - full moon, Sabbat, discussion evenings two times a month, teaching twice a month when that was relevant.

Quote
There are 29 people in the coven.

This is one of those places where terminology is fascinating - for me, coven has an implication of doing group mind work (where everyone can focus on the same goals, pretty intently, and has a reasonably similar amount of commitment to the group). Psychological research has indicated that's really hard to do with a group over about 15 people (in other words, it turns out that there's some actual 'how our brains work' reasons for why covens were traditionally 13 people)

I'm guessing with 29 people, that those are not big parts of your focus, and you're doing other things.

Can I ask what kinds of things you do together besides the general 'get together and learn things' you've mentioned? Do you do rituals? What kinds of things might be a ritual focus? What kinds of ritual techniques do you use in a typical ritual?

I've done plenty of ritual work with 20-30 people (for a chunk of my time in the training circle, we were around those numbers for some rituals) and it's a weird size sometimes - you can't do lots of 'each person individually does a thing' because it just takes a long time with more people (if each person takes a minute to do a thing, that's 30 minutes, right there, for that one thing.)

If you have two or three of those, plus the other parts of a ritual, you get into ritual lengths that can be challenging physically for people (in ways that don't support the ritual goals) and that get harder and harder to schedule or keep people focused through. It's not that it can't be done, of course, but it limits a number of options in my experience.

One of the things I talked about a lot with my teachers (and had about 5 years to observe, try things out, see how different things worked for me as my own life and commitments changed) was the issue of burnout, and what that means for group leadership, so they're always topics I'm interested in, and how those of us who are priestess and priests need to build a sustainable practice, not one that is full on all the time forever (because that's just not a realistic goal, in terms of time, energy, physical ability, and focus.)

Even for people who don't want to lead groups, just be part of them, burnout is important to think about if you're interested in group work, because it's also no fun - and possibly risky or damaging to you - to be part of a group with a leader who isn't carefully thinking about managing burnout. I've seen enough groups have major problems because someone burned out and made really poor choices to try and keep things going a little longer to know that.
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Afanasfreya

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Re: Covens.
« Reply #14 on: November 19, 2017, 10:48:15 am »
Wow, that seems pretty challenging logistically! How does it work out?

Every two days? Wow! None of the group work I've done would work well that way - people had different job schedules (most of my working life, I've started work between 7 and 8am, so evening stuff that runs after 9pm is really hard - the kind of thing I can do one evening a week, but that's about it.) And it seems like it'd be a really hard schedule for anyone who has kids at home - that's a lot of time away, right around bedtime!

And then there's travel time - all of my group work has been in places where it was pretty common to have a 20-30 minute one-way trip to get to the covenstead unless you lived there, just because of the nature of living in a metro area. That can add up to a lot of gas pretty quickly too.

The training circle I trained with had classes twice a month (about 3 hours one time, and 5 hours the other) on Saturday or Sunday, plus full moon rituals (about 3 hours every month) and Sabbats (about 5 hours most times, 8 times a year). Plus we had things to work on at home - meditation practice, practicing specific ritual classes, reading and assignments.

Initiates in the group normally had another meeting for more complex learning or ritual work once a month, and the group leadership (five or six people in the training circle) met once or twice a month as well, depending on what was going on, how much planning needed to happen for different things, if there was a problem we needed to get together and talk through. So call that another 3 hours two or three times a month.
 
Plus things like writing rituals or class material to teach, or taking part in larger community events or projects (something that was basically a requirement for anyone working towards becoming a HPS or HP - 3rd degree, in our tradition - or even people working toward 2nd degree.)

For Dedicants (people learning the tradition) it added up to about 3-5 hours in person most weeks plus 15-20 minutes work at home daily and another 3-5 hours on assignments, reading, or other projects. But the time in person was one large chunk, which people usually found easier to schedule, and the work at home could be done when it made sense for their other commitments - work, family, education, whatever.

(There was a bit under a year when I was working full time (and started at 7:30am), doing 2 graduate classes each semester, doing all the group leadership time, living in the covenstead so there was a bunch of additional cleaning and tidying necessary in advance of any class or ritual, and on the Twin Cities Pagan Pride board which had meetings once or twice a month. And the usual 'friend needs help, I'm going to help' things. I could not have kept up that schedule for much longer than I did!)

When I was doing small coven work after that, things were a little shorter (a lot of logistical stuff just goes faster when you've got fewer people) but we kept the same basic schedule - full moon, Sabbat, discussion evenings two times a month, teaching twice a month when that was relevant.

This is one of those places where terminology is fascinating - for me, coven has an implication of doing group mind work (where everyone can focus on the same goals, pretty intently, and has a reasonably similar amount of commitment to the group). Psychological research has indicated that's really hard to do with a group over about 15 people (in other words, it turns out that there's some actual 'how our brains work' reasons for why covens were traditionally 13 people)

I'm guessing with 29 people, that those are not big parts of your focus, and you're doing other things.

Can I ask what kinds of things you do together besides the general 'get together and learn things' you've mentioned? Do you do rituals? What kinds of things might be a ritual focus? What kinds of ritual techniques do you use in a typical ritual?

I've done plenty of ritual work with 20-30 people (for a chunk of my time in the training circle, we were around those numbers for some rituals) and it's a weird size sometimes - you can't do lots of 'each person individually does a thing' because it just takes a long time with more people (if each person takes a minute to do a thing, that's 30 minutes, right there, for that one thing.)

If you have two or three of those, plus the other parts of a ritual, you get into ritual lengths that can be challenging physically for people (in ways that don't support the ritual goals) and that get harder and harder to schedule or keep people focused through. It's not that it can't be done, of course, but it limits a number of options in my experience.

One of the things I talked about a lot with my teachers (and had about 5 years to observe, try things out, see how different things worked for me as my own life and commitments changed) was the issue of burnout, and what that means for group leadership, so they're always topics I'm interested in, and how those of us who are priestess and priests need to build a sustainable practice, not one that is full on all the time forever (because that's just not a realistic goal, in terms of time, energy, physical ability, and focus.)

Even for people who don't want to lead groups, just be part of them, burnout is important to think about if you're interested in group work, because it's also no fun - and possibly risky or damaging to you - to be part of a group with a leader who isn't carefully thinking about managing burnout. I've seen enough groups have major problems because someone burned out and made really poor choices to try and keep things going a little longer to know that.
It mostly works out because I have a personal relationship with all 29. Most of us live close by so it's easier on us all. As I mentioned, we aren't so traditional. I keep everyone from burning out by holding open discussions, plus, we go out and do things together. They all know each other very well too. As per rituals and group casting, they're usually tied to discussions and lessons. Sometimes we use books, sometimes we just meditate together. I try to instill humility in them as being humble has never hurt a single soul. Most of them are stay at home mothers to toddlers who are already in bed by that point. If someone can't make it to a meeting, I post it in a Facebook group we have, or I just text it to them. We've all known each other for years. Meet enough to where we still know each other, stay away enough to not burn out. Not to mention that we all counsel each other in hard times and we're just very close.
"Live life to the fullest, because only surviving isn't living at all. "

Tags: coven afanas 
 

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