Witchcamp Paths 2025
The story for 2025 is Dionysus.
Dionysus Eleutherios is the liberator; he shows us how to use music and dance to free ourselves from the restraints of society. Dionysus Lyaeus is the loosener, he shows us the mysteries of the wild world. Dionysus Bromios is the roarer, his voice can lead us deeper into the mystery of life, death, and resurrection. Dionysus Agrios is the wild, he teaches us to use ecstasy as a way to connect with our own wild Divine selves. He is Dionysus Androgynous, he shows us the power of gender fluidity. After being cursed, Dionysus wanders in the wilds with his followers. During his wanderings he learns the power of the vine and of growing things. Eventually, he meets the great chthonic Goddess Cybele, who teaches him all her religious rites. He goes forward with her blessing to teach all those he meets how to use the vine, the dance, the song, and the wild to connect with their own ecstatic selves and be free of the bonds of patriarchy. His followers are the Maenads, who tear apart any signs of the patriarchy that tries to make them forget the truth of the wild and return to the status quo of the over-culture.
Path 1: With Ravyn Stanfield and Silen Silvertongue.
The Elements of Ecstatic Magic: Ravished by Dionysos
Elements of Magic for beginners: This is the core class in the Reclaiming tradition- For beginners and those wishing to hone their teaching skills.
“Nature has joined forces with us…
I have heard Earth turn at the tramp
Of dancing bacchantes and, my heart
Has leapt. At the sound of flutes, whole
Galaxies have fallen in my cupped hands
I have drunk the stars…”~From the Bacchae of Euripides, translation by Wole Soyinka
Ecstasy, ekstasis, could be defined as an emotional or religious frenzy, a trance-like state, an experience of mystic self-transcendence, a peak experience where we see the bigger picture. In this Path, we will explore the Elements as tools for embodied animist practice. We will merge with Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit, and work with these elements in devotion to Ecstasy. We will call upon Dionysos to ally with us in this work of divine frenzy, as we come home to ourselves again.
With the Elements as our guides, we will delve into the art and contours of Reclaiming magic and ritual. Together we will hone the skills of: circle casting, trance work, sensing energy, spellcraft, consensus process, and ritual creation. We will sing, drum, and vision into how we want to be in the world. We will work with the Elements and land as living beings, listening to the histories of colonization. We will ask ourselves what it is to practice magic on stolen land, to go beyond land acknowledgments to Indigenous solidarity. We will work with this awareness as a necessary step towards authentic presence in ecstatic states.
This Path will give you the tools needed to practice and participate in Reclaiming-style magic. We welcome witches both new and seasoned in our Tradition to court the Elements with embodied, devotional frenzy.
Path 2: With Sequoia and Gwydion
Witchcore: Crafting the Witch’s Monkey Wrench,
Dionysus is at once a godd who mends, offering pleasure and respite to their followers, and a godd who destroys, reaching out with ivy-vined fingers to tear apart the stone towers of empire. He’s also queer as fuck – and in an overculture where the personhood of trans and LGBQ+ bodies is a matter of public debate, pleasure for pleasure’s sake is no less than revolutionary.
A witch who cannot blast cannot bless. So in this path, we’re going to do both. Practicing within the lineage of practical witchcraft, we will weave spells meant to heal, to protect, to fare forth, to subvert, to destroy. We are witches, making, honing, and using our witch’s tools.
We are going to work with our witch fire, our witch eyes, and our witch power. We are going to work with wards, shielding, potions, powders, and incense. We are going to work with both right-handed and left-handed magic.
Path 3: With Stephen and Phoenix
Feral Foundation with the Iron Pentacle
What happens after the Tower falls, but before the Star shines in the sky? In a world where empire is breathing its last breaths, how do we find joy, ecstasy, peace, and how can we help others achieve liberation? In this path we will use the points of the Iron Pentacle to strengthen our power as witches and release our ecstatic selves. We will seek to discover where the wild madness comes from. We will step outside of societal norms and acknowledge that madness is magick - wild, ecstatic magick. And we will harness this in order to embrace otherness as witches and magick workers.
As we seek to find the tools of mad magick, we will turn to face our own birthrights of power in the Iron Pentacle, and embracing the power of untamed nature, unite them. We will unleash the gates of our skin and bones, pulling forth vines and stones of our own untamed nature.
Throughout the week we will learn the tool of the Iron Pentacle. We will craft from the woods, aspect, trance, make talismans of power, create thyrsi of the redwoods, sing, make music, and create ecstasy. We will learn how to enter into ecstatic states and then come back.
We will become the Maenads and celebrate Dionysus.
Sex - Dionysus Antheus - becoming the vines
Self - Dionysus Zagreus - group mind, maenads
Passion - Dionysus Agrios - madness ecstasy
Pride - Dionysus Lysius - sovereignty
Power - Dionysus Bromius - toppling the tower
Path 4: With Coyote and Dominic
Fill My Vessel: Born, Broken, and Reforged in Divine Ecstasy:
Surrender to the call of divinity and drink deeply—immerse yourself in a seductive exploration of creativity, transformation, and ritual art as we embrace the vessel as a sacred metaphor for the self. In this path, we will craft sacred vessels, magical tools to embody our journeys as creators, destroyers, and re-creators. From the feral wisdom of the Maenads to the divine theater of Dionysian ecstasy, this path invites participants to replenish their inner wells, shatter preconceived forms, and coalesce the remnants into something profoundly new. Through hands-on artistry and embodied practice, we honor the vessels not just as containers but as dynamic matrices of magic, power, and metamorphosis.
Participants will delve into the visceral process of crafting their vessels, using clay infused with symbolic materials to embody the essence of destruction and renewal. With each stroke, smash, or coil, we challenge ourselves to break the binary of creation and destruction, honoring the chaos and stillness that shapes our lives. Together, we will carve spaces in our vessels—and in our bodies—to hold sigils of intention, creating personalized containers for magic. Through trance, energy work, ecstatic movement, oracular art, and reflection, this path will guide us to drink deeply from the wells of inspiration, daring to empty and refill our vessels with the vibrant, wild pulse of life.
