Campsight Coven
Campsight began as a camping Circle over a decade ago. High Priestess O'Gaea and High Priest Canyondancer took their first degrees at Samhain in 1986, and in 1987 were among the founders and charter members of the Tucson Area Wiccan Network. After several years of un-named reclamation and development in Circle, in 1989 the Adventure Tradition was articulated and adopted by Campsight as its official perspective and practice.
Named for our conviction that the rules we follow when we're camping are good rules for living our mundane lives, Campsight spends as many Sabbats in the woods as possible. Our celebrations and magics rely primarily on Anglo-Norman-Celtic sources and themes; we approach our lives in a spirit of adventure, living mythically wherever we are. We require that our members enjoy camping and be available for at least two Sabbat camping trips in every cycle.
Our energies are directed to reintegrating the mundane and the magical rather than toward elaborate magic. We work robed or in street clothes, usually barefoot, and usually at the covenstead when we are not at camp. We do candle magics and spells, often working with natural objects or small personal charms.
Campsight is "out of the broom closet" and while we do not require members to be high-profile publicly, we don't give much energy to the maintenance of great secrecy. We do, of course, respect everyone's privacy and necessary confidentially; but we also tend to take a lot of pictures for our personal scrapbooks and the coven's records, and we often video tape our rituals, especially at camp.
We do as much as we can to educate the public. This work includes public speaking and the composition and distribution of fliers and pamphlets about various aspects of the Craft. We also encourage our members to broad study of topics beyond Wicca, and part of our personal and public work involves re/integration of that "mundane" information with the wonder of the world. We are not as much interested in recreating an historically exact medieval practice of the Craft as in bringing to our modern life a sense of magic.
We value our community connections, too, Wiccan and cowan. We believe that Witches need to be active as citizens as well as in Circle; socio-political discussions and activity are common among us. We are also active in TAWN -- and until this year when personal circumstances made it impossible, O'Gaea and Canyondancer were Board members. Campsight presented the open Mabon ritual at TAWN's Fall Festival in 1995, and our Mabon celebration is always at the Fall Festival. Campsight members are encouraged to join TAWN and attend its monthly meetings, and to support the local community in other ways as well. (For instance, Campsight recommends that new or prospective members take Rick Johnson's "Introduction to Wicca" class through the Open University when he offers it.)
If you like to camp (or want to learn), if your schedule and transportation permits you to attend three-to-five day campouts a few times a year and Moons on weekend evenings, and if the Adventure Tradition (see below) sounds like home to you, please feel free to get in touch. We may not be available at TAWN meetings for a few more months, but you can contact us at our e-mail address: Ashleen@juno.com.
CAMPSIGHT'S HPS and HP
O'Gaea was elevated to Third Degree by eclectic priestesses in the local community at Litha in 1990, and Canyondancer was persuaded to take Third Degree in the Spring of 1992. O'Gaea and Canyondancer have spoken publicly about the Craft for many years and have been featured in local newspaper articles and on local radio and television programs. They have presented workshops at a variety of Gatherings, on subjects including family Wicca, getting along with law enforcement, death thealogy and camping as sacred.
In the Winter of 1992, O'Gaea's -The Family Wicca Book- was published by Llewellyn, and her chapter on Arizona was included in -Sacred Sites,- edited for Llewellyn by Frank Joseph. In 1994, O'Gaea's chapter, 'The Second Gate,' was included in -Witchcraft and Shamanism,- the third volume of Llewellyn's -Witchcraft Today- series, edited by Chas. Clifton. In 1996 the fourth book in the series, -Living Between Two Worlds,- included O'Gaea's chapter, 'Griffins and Grocery Stores.' Strong and sometimes silent, Canyondancer is a house-husband par excellence, and a master camper, and co-author with O'Gaea of some yet unpublished books, including a sequel to -Family Wicca.-
O'Gaea and Canyondancer have been married for 25 years this June, have lived in Tucson for most of that time, and have one grown son, one wonderful dog, Barleycorn, and one dreadful beast of a cat, Mikey. Currently in the process of moving house and covenstead, they are temporarily semi-insane ;-) but not dysfunctional or unapproachable.
THE ADVENTURE TRADITION
Adventure is not the same sort of Tradition as Gardnerian or Dianic; Adventure is an attitude, an orientation to life, and a mode of interpreting experience. Adventure is defined (and recognized) by innovation, variation, synthesis and reinterpretation. It is the nature of Adventure not to decree, but to -set out from- doctrine, convention and ease, and to make camp in the woods beyond. (The coven tends to favor the Chiricahua Mountains in Southeastern Arizona.)
One underlayment of Adventure Wicca is the Anglo-Saxons' Web of Wyrd. Adventure's perspective also relies on quantum physics: what's round the next bend could be anything until you get there and it is what you find. Adventure holds to the Rede (An ye harm none, do as ye will) and the Threefold Law (what you give to the world comes back to you three-fold -- "three-fold" meaning more multi- dimensionally than literally three times). Adventure depends on pure hearts to save the world, and likes its magic to stand to reason. And Adventure is an initiatory Tradition.
The religion of Wicca establishes Adventure's thealogy, but the Adventure Tradition does not specifically govern the details of ritual or spell-work. Adventure's Circles don't stray -too- far from the common working standard (which for all modern Wiccans is loosely Gardnerian). Adventure Wicca's sources for image, ritual and metaphor are mostly drawn from Wicca's Anglo-Celtic heritage, including ancient Celtic lore and stories, Arthurian legends and Robin Hood's Saxon and Norman traditions ... and even Bilbo's, along with modern Pagan writing and the inspirations of those who practice Adventure.
Adventure Wicca celebrates difference and distinction as well as drawing on the energy of unity. There is no one but themselves to tell Adventure coveners how to dress in Circle, whether to allow children or animals in, when to eat, how to orient the altar or what goes on it -- and an Adventure coven may or may not proceed the same way in every Circle. In how a Circle's cast and called, what pantheon is honored, how the covener or solitaire relates to the wider community, the way administrative matters are handles, how magic is done and how Guardians are confronted can differ widely from one Adventure coven to another.
Adventure's specialty, though, -is- the confrontation of Guardians and the integration into ourselves of the power our Guardians hold in trust for us; and by Guardians, we mean our "unresolved issues," our "hang-ups," our "baggage." Adventure is enthusiastic about this inner work because we know that anything which we do not find within, we shall surely never find without, and also that nothing we find within ourselves can separate us from God\dess and that anything we find can be transformed according to our will. Thus, Adventure's motto is "Enter the forest where the trees are thickest."
Finally, the Adventure Tradition rejects the idea that there is anyplace to go, any state of being to achieve, that is beyond the Web, outside the Worlds (as distinct from -between- them). It is never an Adventurer's goal to escape the expedition, and it is the Adventurer's strongest faith and greatest delight that, as one of Tolkien's songs puts it, "the road goes ever on and on."
All hail, brave heart, and blessed be. For more information, please contact us at our HPs' e-mail address, Ashleen@juno.com.
Bright Blessings from Ashleen O'Gaea, author of The Family Wicca Book.
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