Witchcamp Paths 2024

The story for 2024 The Morrigan

WHO IS The Morrigan TODAY?

As most of us today are not engaged in warfare to protect our food supply from cattle raids by neighboring tribes, Her relevance to modern folk has necessarily shifted with changes in culture. For many of us, Her primary role is as a Goddess of Sovereignty – teaching us to honor and to fight to protect our sovereignty, both personal and collective. She also continues to act as an ally for warriors in our time, including all those who put themselves on the line to fight for what they love and value. This includes military service people, martial artists and other physical fighters; but it also can include activists and advocates, and all manner of people who find themselves faced with choices that require a warrior’s courage and commitment to fulfill. The Morrígan also continues to have a hand in the journey of souls who die in war, both soldiers and civilians alike. And She has wisdom and power to share with all of us through Her message that every one of us is descended from heroes and warriors, somewhere in our ancestral lines, and that we each of us carry the heroic blood within us, waiting to rise up and carry us to greatness. When we dare to heed the Morrígan’s call and come to Her as kin, She will claim us as Her own and help us to find that heroic strength within us so that we may be of greater service to all that we love and value. A reading list and the actual story for the camp arc will be posted as soon as our teaching team have their first meeting.

Elements of Magic for beginners: This is the core class in the Reclaiming tradition-Breath, Blood, and Bone - The Path of Elements with The Morrigan: With Dominic Bodden and Phoenix La Fae

Our bodies are made up of the Elements of life: Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Spirit. These elements are all around us and within us. They are the magical scaffolding upon which the universe was made. The Morrigan is a Goddess of the Elements. She knows how to work with them, manipulate them, and harness their powers. With The Morrigan as our guide, we will explore the art of elemental magic.  

 Each element gives us tools that we will use to shapeshift and transform. Air is our voice and the sword of truth and clarity. Fire is the furnace of our passion and our energized wand. Water is the blood pulsing through our veins and the chalice of our desires. Earth is the bones under our flesh and the fertile soil for magical evolution. 

 This journey is for those who’ve heard The Morrigan’s call and dare to conjure the knowledge of the Witch. Together we will play, sing, dance, trance, create and cast spells, and open our Witch’s hearts to the power around us. We will align ourselves to The Phantom Queen to learn how to be the washer at the ford who bends the power of battle. 

 This path is for anyone new to California Witchcamp and for those who have been many times before. Elements of Magic draws on the power of The Morrigan, the traditions of Reclaiming, and our relationship to the elements to learn the anatomy of ritual and to fulfill a prophecy: 

To discover who we might become. To remember who we are. To know, to will, to dare, to keep silent, and to take it back into the world.

A Conspiracy of Ravens: Art, Magic, & Catharsis in the face of Empire: with Fio & Ravenna

In silence we begin our work. In surrender and stillness we find movement in the chaos. We bring all we have - the ravages of grief and the broken open heart, the furious presence of our wit and willingness - so that the magic may work. So that we may become like a conspiracy of ravens. We are dissolved and we are beginning again. We lose ourselves to gain perspective, insight, and the clear wisdom and knowing of the Morrigan. In the cracks of our holy hearts, the impossible is planted as a seed of expression, possibility, and service.  

In this path, we explore ritual skills through sacred theatre and creative expression. By immersing ourselves deeply into lineages of both art and magic rooted in mysticism and sorcery as political response, this path explores refinement, depth, critical discourse, experiential magic and artistic tasks as integral engagement with sacred leadership. 
This is the journey of theyou, and thenot you, a deepening into the mythic. Here at the crossroads and collision of empire and wonder, of intimacy and desolation, of massacre and belonging - the responsibility we have to keep collective catharsis alive is a mutual obligation. We will learn and discover ways of singing, dancing, moving, expressing together to speak from and to this moment.
We are challenged to bring our magical capacities and empathic skills to the mutilations of this time. We gather in the redwoods, on stolen land, between the worlds to remember - in the face of empire - who we really are and what we might become. And we will offer this through silence, stillness, song, dance, movement, theatre, poetry, and prayer to the web of life.
Elements of Magic is a prerequisite.

Daring to Face The Morrigan - The Ordeal of the Sovereign Warrior: With Yule and Honeycomb.

Global, national, local and personal conflicts rage around us. How do we center, ground, and source our bravery and strength to help shape our future? Do we have the will to endure the ordeal of personal transformation so that we can become more resilient and better impact change? How do we cultivate self-care to make our efforts sustainable? How do we fight together, as a powerful Will of Witches, as no great warrior stands alone?

We struggle with internal battles of desires, fears and doubts. But we are witches, and we hear The Morrigan calling on us to rise up, understand the complexities of conflict, and steel ourselves with wisdom, compassion, strength and resolve.

In this path we will become our true warrior selves. We will meet and work with our warrior ancestors, learn from them, and know what it means to stand tall on the battlefield. We will strengthen our bodies, minds, and spirits to be worthy warriors for The Morrigan.

What does it mean to be a Warrior Witch? Can you face the enemy bravely, with integrity and honor? We will walk the edges of life and death. We will endure tests that further our innate strengths and remind us of our witch’s power. The Morrigan will strip away all that is unnecessary, and build us anew, strengthened and fierce, ready to fight for ourselves, the land, and our community. We will hone our weapons, our witch’s tools. We will perfect our shapeshifting, our witch’s eye. We will learn to hold the balance of the power to curse and the power to heal. 

You have strength within yourself leagues beyond what you think. Are you willing to be cracked open to find it? Are you ready to face The Morrigan and find the warrior within you? Are you brave enough to discover who you truly are? Will you fight for your sovereignty? Will you fight for us all?

Raise your sword. Spread your wings. Fly with us.

The Night Tarot: Prophesying with Hags, Soothsayers and Edgewalkers: With Suzzane Sterling and Ember

Welcome to the path of prophecy! In this working, we dive deep into our powers as soothsayers and our hag courage to say the thing that must be said. Your journey into the night begins by connecting to your soul card:  Are you The High Priestess, The Magician, The Hermit? In this path, you will find out which of the nine soul cards is yours and how to embody its strength, your strength; its magic, your own. 

But this is just the first step on the hag’s path. Take another as you learn the deeper, ancient magic of your ancestor card. Is it The Wheel of Fortune, The Devil, Death, The Tower, The Moon?  Are you afraid of these cards? Where there is fear, there is power. These are the places where edgewalkers dwell, where hags and soothsayers gather and prophetic priestesses give voice to the forbidden truths. These are the tarot’s night cards and one of them belongs to you. What strange magic longs to sing through you? What kind of liberation is yours to hold and move and embody and crack open and set free? In this path, we go into the unknown. We embody the ugly, the rejected, the unsayable. We dance joy, cackle liberation and access our inner truths without being silenced by the story of normal. Our daily practice will cultivate chaos and other ways of knowing. We go beyond logic and awaken the irrefutable powers of our bodies and our voices. We return with the gift of earned wisdom. 

Come, be held. Move with us, wail with us as we queer the hag, set the soothsayer free with visioning, Aspecting, trance and living tarot. Open the portal of prophecy for collective spells of liberation as The Morrigan calls us to be bolder than we have ever been. Gaze into the depths of the night and realize you are the hag we have been waiting for.

Prerequisites: Elements of Magic. This is not Tarot 101 and also no previous tarot experience is required. All bodies are welcome. (But leave your minds behind.)