My disillusionment with pagan circles

Three years ago I was in Glastonbury, England.  I had traveled there with 11 other women on an amazing spiritual pilgrimage that would teach me about beauty, sisterhood, love, evolution, magic, jealousy, selfishness, and loss. The women I traveled with were all members of a pagan spiritual community called the “Mothers of the New Time”, the women-only leader circle of Come As You Are Pagan Congregation / Coven (CAYA).  Just three months prior to our trip I had been initiated into this elite circle, an initiation I had been waiting for for years.  Prior to it, I had to go through another initiation into CAYA to become a Priestess in the Wildflower Tradition, and prior to that I had to be an “aspirant” in CAYA for a year.  I had worked so hard to be in this special circle, and felt so incredibly lucky and blessed to be going on this journey. 

The purpose of this trip to Glastonbury was to attend the annual Goddess Conference, a lively, magical, and most colorful event! We stayed at a beautiful English country house, surrounded by big green fields.  Some days, the neighboring cows would come say hello.  

The Conference ran for about a week, and we got there a few days before it started.  The first few days we spent visiting nearby sacred sites.  The first was the stones at Avebury, that day we ate at a little pub nearby and then walked around the park, sang to the stones and took many photos of fields and cemeteries and Yew trees.  It was raining and I hadn’t brought an appropriate raincoat, but I made do.  I’m glad I’d just bought new rain boots before the trip, as it rained daily.  

The second outing the next day was to the “Rude Man” in Cerne Abbas, which is a giant hill-side outline of a man with a big hard on.  We hiked up to the base and then up the left side towards the top of the man.  We then illicitly crossed the fence because Rabbit was determined to sit on the man’s dick as part of some fertility magic.  So there we were, muddy, a bunch of us sitting and singing on this ancient giant’s penis. After we had made it back down from there, we went to the neighboring town and visited a quaint old little graveyard that was so potent and beautiful.  We also went to a wishing spring and made wishes, and then we went to a cute little pub and I drank some whiskey that made my face red and blotchy - that had never happened before.  

I can’t remember if we went to the town of Bath before or after the conference, but that was another amazing day trip.  We had reserved a pool that was fed by Bath’s natural spring waters and had that to ourselves for an hour.  We drank champagne, ate cupcakes, and did some lovely water magic there.  Then we visited the old Roman baths and museum, and walked around the town.   

The nights are a bit of a blurr, but I recall that in the evenings after our activities we’d go back to the beautiful country house and eat random things and drink Guinness and cider.  There was a hot tub in the backyard, and although it wasn’t very hot and we couldn’t adjust the temperature, we still enjoyed it.  We weren’t supposed to have food or drinks near it, but I really wanted to drink my beer at it, which got me in trouble with Rabbit, she was always yelling at someone for not being good enough.  

We made it to Glastonbury a few days into the trip.  I can’t recall if we went to the conference first, or if we visited the Red Spring first, but that was a very magical event. The Red Spring is a spring that comes out of the hillside and has high iron content, so it stains stones red.  This spring is also known as the Chalice Well.  There is a super magical and beautiful park surrounding it.  We frolicked, took photos, and did Tarot readings there as part of a trade we had done for financial support.  

A few days later I would meet the incredible White Spring, that spring also flows out of the hillside, but this one doesn’t have a whole park built around it, instead it’s a magical realm all in its own world.   I actually won’t describe it much because it’s that sacred and amazing, and words won’t suffice.  I will just say it’s one of my favorite places on earth, and I believe it to be an incredibly potent portal.  I was able to go to the White Spring twice.  The first time was after hiking to the top of the Torr with my dear Heaven, after spending all day together.  The second time was sometime in the middle of the conference, that time with all of the women of our circle, we all submerged ourselves in the water 3 times and sang to the spring.  

The Conference itself was very joyous, the women attending were all Goddess-loving happy-colorful magic-makers.  There was an opening ritual, all kinds of classes, and some very magical rituals and events that we took part of.  The most amazing one was a ritual where about 20 priestesses were sitting in a circle, with veils over their faces, and the entire ritual was about going up to them and having divination told to us.  We could go up to as many as we wanted, and there were lines for many of them.  I only went up to one, we called her the “Red Woman”, and she had otherworldly energy that spoke deeply to many of us who sat with her.  She told me that I was spending my energy with the wrong tribe, that I needed to find another one.  She said I was a busy bee and was flapping my wings so hard, but needed to find another hive.  I think I already knew at that point that things were going to fall apart with this spiritual community, but didn’t know to what extent.  

One of the last organized events of the conference was a Masquerade Ball, we were all to dress up as a different Goddess.  I dressed up as the Morrigan.  That evening we were all dolled up and full of energy.  Iris and I had been flirting for days, and we were seemingly so very excited about each other that night.  Maybe Rabbit had already noticed that we had been flirting, maybe not, but she noticed that evening and scolded us and said to “stop that”.  Part of it was probably because I was an initiate, and not supposed to be having romantic or sexual connections with the high priestesses, or maybe Rabbit was just jealous because she wanted Iris, or me, or who knows.  Iris and I continued to have strong energy that trip, but I now wonder if it was genuine on her part.  

The last night that we stayed at the beautiful country house we had a big meeting/ritual.  It was mostly good, we were talking about our sacred songs and singing. But hard conversations were always seemingly part of our rituals, and at one point Iris spoke up about how she’d been dating a trans-woman and that triggered an explosion from Rabbit.  I have honestly blocked most of that traumatic conversation out of my memory.  Basically Rabbit said she was triggered by trans-women because of her experience with someone she’d dated, and she was trying to get Iris to end her relationship with Elena.  

Prior to this chat and for a while I had known there were issues with Rabbit and Iris.  I first learned about it when I visited Portland a few months prior, and Iris told me how pushed to her limits she felt.  I had many conversations also with Elena who told me how badly Rabbit treated Iris.  I hadn’t really seen this before,  as I assumed Rabbit and Iris were best friends and I knew they had been lovers before.  Anyway, whether it was because Rabbit was worried she’d lose Iris, or she really was triggered by trans-women, or she just didn’t like losing control over Iris, this relationship between Iris and Elena apparently became a threat to Rabbit.  

The yelling that last night at our English country home went on for what felt like hours.  Rabbit has a way with anger, she really knows how to get under people’s skin and go on and on about it.  At one point I spoke out in Iris’ defense, and Rabbit went off on me about how I act like a spoiled teenager, and how dare I speak up against her after she had coddled me so much.  I don’t recall what else she said, but I did not appreciate getting yelled at.  I told Rabbit in that conversation that she had an anger demon, and that did not go over well, but I really don’t remember what else she said.  There was a lot of crying.  At one point I left the room and went and cried by myself in my bedroom.  I came back after some time as they were singing some dumb ass song about forgiving each other or something.  And stupidly at the end of evening I even found myself apologizing to Rabbit for telling her she had an anger demon.  I remember I said “I’m sorry I said you had a demon, but you scared me”, and she replied something like “I’m from New York and that’s just how we talk”.  

That was our last night in the country house, we were up until nearly 3AM that night, and had to be up and out the door at like 5AM in order to make it to Stonehenge at sunrise.  That morning we had reserved a special tour of Stonehenge where we would be able to walk and be amongst the stones (not touch them, they have guards there to make sure no one does).  We sang Rabbit’s shaman song, a song that always felt pretty cultural appropriation-ey to me.  Still it was a beautiful song, and although we were all exhausted and raw and had tired eyes from crying and lack of sleep, we still sang and absorbed the powerful energy of Stonehenge.  The sunrise was amazing, and it felt like a dream being there, although my heart was in pain.  We went to a random diner type place for breakfast after, and I don’t think there was much talking from anyone. I don’t remember if it was before or after breakfast, but we also went to Woodhenge that morning and many of us passed out on the ground or leaning on the wood stumps.

We drove back to London that day, started the journey home. We got to the hotel in the afternoon, and didn’t go far from it.  I remember we tried to get dinner nearby, and I honestly don’t remember where we ended up eating.  By this time I was so exhausted and tired and emotionally messed up, that the last bit was a blur.  I flew out one day earlier than everyone else because they were all flying back on August 9, which was my 40th birthday.   I didn’t want to fly back on my 40th birthday.  I landed in SFO just after midnight of my actual birthday, and my dear husband picked me up and surprised me with a puppy, Leo - the tiny love of my life.  I was so glad to be home. 

That trip had started a chain reaction of events that all but destroyed that once vibrant and seemingly strong pagan community.  In the weeks and months and years following, most of what we had built fell apart.  

A few weeks after the Glastonbury trip, while I was at Burning Man, we got word through a text (that miraculously made it through despite bad reception) that Iris had quit the coven, quit her job as manager of The Sacred Well, and cut off her friendship to Rabbit. That was the beginning of the end, and I personally found myself a bit in the middle.  I had witnessed so much crazy yelling and emotional abuse, and yet there was a part of me that really loved Rabbit, even though I could see the insane, narcissistic, victim-role-addicted side of her.  She had been very kind to me, and we had shared many laughs; she had taught me how to be a strong priestess; she was supportive of me when I transitioned from a corporate job to working at “her” shop The Sacred Well.   I say “her” in quotes because I had found out while working there that she didn’t really own it, but had been one of the co-founders and was an unofficial intellectual owner of sorts. A couple months later, when she was fired from working there, she kept the name of the store, but none of the physical belongings. Anyway, I was torn because Rabbit and I were friends and housemates.  At times it almost felt like we were best friends and would always be so.  But while she was a good friend to me, I did see her yell and scream at many people, and I saw her manipulate people, and speak negatively about people behind their back. And while the yelling may have been effective at apparently keeping things in functioning order, it did a lot of damage to many folks.  

After Iris quit, many people came forward about the verbal, emotional, and even sexual abuse they had experienced by Rabbit, most or all of those testimonies went to the CAYA council.  To the coven it seemed like there was much information the council kept from the rest of the coven as they were trying to sort things out, and it felt like everyone was in a frenzy.  It was strange times, it was hard to know who to trust or who to tell what to.  It truly was a bit of a blurr. 

The end of my friendship with Rabbit occurred when I didn’t take her side in all of this and instead, during a CAYA retreat when we might have talked it over, I decided to travel up to Portland to see Iris.  At this point I will fully admit I was still enamored with Iris, and my trip up there was slightly in hopes of starting some sort of romantic or sexual relationship with her.  Alas, that was not what she was feeling at all, and let me know right away via words and body language. We still had a nice time, and I tried to be supportive of her in her raw state of having quit her life as she knew it.  Still, my stupid heart was disappointed, and I wondered what would have happened if I had chosen to go to that CAYA retreat instead of driven to Portland.  I heard later that during that retreat Rabbit told people I was in Portland hooking up with Iris.  For the record, no I did not hook up with Iris, then or any time after.  

In the fall of 2017 Rabbit left CAYA rather than owning up to her actions and defending herself against accusations.  She once again used her favorite victim-role tool to act like she was the innocent victim in all this.  And while she did lose a lot - a spiritual community she had helped build, a store she had helped build (even if she didn’t monetarily own it), sisterhood, and friends - I really think that if she had admitted her faults about being verbally, emotionally, and sexually abusive (or at least tried to prove us wrong and defend herself), she might have salvaged some of it.  Instead she went off to tell her new community about how horrible we all were and how poor innocent her had no fault.   I honestly think that if she doesn’t address these demons of anger and victim-mentality, she will have this same type of event occur again with a new group of people.   

My lesson in all this has been that Pagan communities are full of drama.  Having been part of religious communities of a Christian sort before, I can say those have a totally different type of drama, and not sure that I prefer one to the other these days.  More and more I just want to be a solitary practitioner, or have a tiny circle if at all.  

I started my walk with CAYA in 2013 and saw it through its end and new beginning in 2019.  I am still part of the new version of it, and still so happy to have the circle of women who now go by a different name, and are much smaller in number.  At my peak of involvement with CAYA, I devoted so many hours and energy to this work.  The aspirant and Wildflower Initiate years were full of learning and joy, I made some amazing friends, and have some beautiful memories.   And while those years seemed packed with too much to do, in all the work we did we felt like we were making such a difference in the world.  We felt so important.  I now see that it gave many of us a purpose, which ultimately is at the root of what gives meaning to life.