|
Standing in the Atlantic Ocean at Virginia Beach, (from left) Tiffany Click, Katie St. Amour and Dawn McCaslin, raise their hands to the sky
With only a fire for warmth and light on a cold evening, Katie, Tiffany and Dawn twirl sparklers in the air during one of their rituals.
Tiffany Click peels the skin off an apple as Katie St. Amour and Dawn McCaslin peek into the bowl. Called an apple divination, this ritual involves interpreting the shapes the peel makes in
The women gather around a table |
LOAKED IN darkness, the three women thread their way through the woods, relying on feel and routine to find the familiar stone-encircled fire pit.
Tiffany and Katie dug the pit themselves last winter, raking up a carpet of soggy leaves and chopping through tree roots first.
"We were she-women that day," Tiffany recalls, clearing a new coat of leaves from the depression.
Moments later, flames chew on the twigs in and around the pit. The fire lifts a few dead leaves into the air, where they flutter, trailing smoke.
All three women face the flames, a warm glow reflected on their cheeks.
Dawn breaks the silence.
"By the earth that is her body," she starts. The others chime in.
"By the air that is her breath. By the fire that is her bright spirit. By the living waters of her womb."
The temperatures have dropped into the low 30s on this November evening, and their breath escapes in foggy puffs.
A canopy of tall trees shelters this sacred space. Tonight, their words focus on rising above the harsh judgments of others, on embracing tolerance.
"Facing our formless foes, ugly and proud in their manipulative games to gain ever-increasing power, we name them and bring them into the light," says Dawn, who wrote the remarks herself.
"Hate. Fear. Ignorance. Bigotry. Xenophobia. Consumerism. Prejudice. Selfishness.
"We reach to our sides, wrapping fingers around heavy hilts and draw our swords. Though our armor is dented and dirty, and our shields have split or caved, we will not fall prey to this obscurity without a fight. "
They call themselves the Sisters of Bella Luna, a coven just for the three of them.
The swords, the armor, the shields are all metaphorical. Their first rule: Do no harm.
Instead, at weekly circles like this one, Tiffany Click, Dawn McCaslin and Katie St. Amour--whose spirituality falls under the pagan umbrella--invite goddesses to help them promote compassion, honesty and open-mindedness in others.
"The war has only begun," Dawn continues. "As the darkness thickens, we charge into the heart of our adversaries without a backward glance."
Finding their placeAs a child, Tiffany spent Sundays daydreaming in the pews of Episcopalian churches here and in Northern Virginia.
One of her childhood friends was Muslim. Tiffany, 30, recalls that when she was 12, she asked her mother if that friend would go to heaven.
"She said, 'I guess not,'" Tiffany recalled. "And that was a seminal moment for me. I just thought, 'This is crap.' There's no way there are only Christians in heaven."
As a teenager she stopped going to church. Once in her early 20s, a renewed interest in spirituality led her to visit other Christian congregations.
But she wasn't comfortable.
Simply put, she said, "I came to realize that I just didn't like all this Jesus stuff."
She wanted something more feminine, but when she Googled "women's religion," the sites that popped up talked about goddesses and witchcraft.
"Too freaky," she thought at first. "I remember thinking something was going to happen to me if I read this spell book. I was really scared. But I was curious."
She continued to study goddess theology, which encourages women to work with feminine deities while promoting equality, diversity and healing in the world.
"The more I educated myself, I learned this was not some scary levitation Satan [worship]," said Tiffany, who owns a custom cake business. "I eventually found my place and realized I was on the right path."
For Dawn, 26, the awakening was gradual as well. She grew up in San Diego, the daughter of a "die-hard atheist" father and a Lutheran mother.
Around the age of 11 or 12, she opted not to attend Lutheran Sunday school anymore.
"In junior high and high school, I kind of dabbled in all my friends' faiths," she said. "I was just kind of trying them all out and seeing how they were. None of them felt quite right."
Her junior year of high school, Dawn wandered into a new-age shop on the water in Encinitas and picked up a few books on paganism.
"It wasn't too serious. I was just trying stuff out to see if anything happened if I did stuff," she said.
When she moved to the Fredericksburg region in 2000, she attended a few meetings of the Pagan Awareness Network, or PAN, a local fellowship group.
In search of a like-minded community, Dawn met Tiffany.
Tiffany met Katie through the same group's list serve.
Of the three, Katie, a writer, had the most exposure to alternative religion.
A Long Island native, she was baptized Catholic, but Katie's family did some "church hopping," she said.
Her mother's family included a number of psychic healers. At the age of 3, Katie was reading Tarot cards. "Working with energy" was common in her home.
"At family get-togethers, the Ouija [board] was dragged out," said Katie, 31. "My childhood was just filled with Tarot and seances and healings."
The three began meeting regularly, exploring together their interest in a goddess-centered religion.
"We knew we had something special," said Tiffany. "We bonded instantly, and we knew we had to work with it."
Creating a kinder realityStanding around the fire, each woman calls to the goddesses she feels are best suited for the task at hand: Promoting peace, love and feminine strength while thwarting hatred and negativity.
Baubo, the goddess of laughter, is invoked this evening--and on many other occasions--for her ability to make friends out of enemies.
Other invitations are issued as well. To Diana, goddess of war and wisdom. Vesta, the goddess of flame and the hearth. Hecate, the goddess of transformation. And Persephone, the goddess of renewal.
When the women first began gathering nearly three years ago, they used textbooks to guide their circles.
Now, they just do what feels right.
"It's sort of like jazz improv," explained Tiffany. "There's sort of a structure, but we just feed off each other."
"We can sense each other's energy now," added Katie. "Then, whatever happens, happens, and we roll with it."
Sometimes, that means making pumpkin smoothies while chatting about their careers, their families, their children. While their husbands and partners don't practice the same theology, they support the women's efforts.
Once, they traveled overnight to Virginia Beach, gathering on the sand at sunrise.
"We just kind of did a little meditation and a little working to honor the earth and thank all the goddess energy that had helped us in the past year," said Dawn, who runs a healing and counseling program for chronically ill patients and members of the transgender community. "We felt like we needed to give back."
Over the course of another month, they created a friendship cake starter mix, combining sugar, dry yeast and various fruits before finally baking and sharing the concoction.
Bits of that leftover cake are sprinkled around the fire pit this evening, creating a protective circle in which they stand.
Each also holds a small decanter with the syrupy remains of that starter kit, a fermented mix of pineapple, peach chunks and maraschino cherries.
"We will not tread lightly towards our awaiting challenges, but instead we move forward proudly, pounding the earth with our uncompromising visions and dreams, never apologizing for our strength and power," Dawn continues.
"Sisters, we now return to the earth the fruit of our first endeavor."
Each woman removes the stopper from her bottle.
"We will always look back fondly at our time as radical maidens. But now is the time for us to leap into our new roles as passionate mother goddesses," she says. "Now, we are the creators of the reality we wish for the world."
A future apartThe women laugh when talking about their earliest gatherings.
Katie admits she was rather set in her ways, having followed a goddess theology for far longer than the others.
Meanwhile, Tiffany and Dawn, relative newcomers, wanted to experiment a little. They wanted to invite unfamiliar goddesses into the circle.
Katie was reluctant.
"Each deity has their own separate feel to them, their own separate energy," she explained. "You have to know what you're plugging into."
Eventually, she came around, reaching out to goddesses she hadn't tapped before.
"I'm more relaxed in a lot of aspects of my life," Katie said.
"She helped to teach us structure," said Dawn, "and we helped to teach her to just go with the flow."
In addition to their weekly meetings, usually on Tuesday nights, all three women attend the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Fredericksburg.
For Katie and Tiffany, it means exposing their kids to a mix of religions rather than one dogma.
"This way, they can really choose for themselves," said Tiffany.
The fellowship also preaches the kind of tolerance the Sisters of Bella Luna hope for.
"It's nice to go because you're not 'the weird one,'" said Dawn.
But change is coming for these women. Tiffany and her family are moving to the Gulf Coast of Florida at the end of this school year.
The three-member congregation is losing one of its own.
The stone-encircled fire pit in the wooded lot behind Tiffany's Spotsylvania County home will no longer host the Sisters of Bella Luna.
On this cold November night, the women know this. One at a time, they tip their bottles forward, spilling a bit of the syrupy mixture on the ground.
"For celebrating new friendships and old," says Dawn in a sort of toast.
"For accepting guidance and flowing in the direction that's best for ourselves, the universe and others," Katie says.
"For taking risks," says Tiffany.
The litany continues.
For change, deep within ourselves, in our hearts.
For a future filled with love and adventure, both with each other and without.
For our children, who are the future.
For us, so we can dance through our life changes, relishing each and every step and each turn that we take.
For the future of this space, a space started by us that will hopefully nurture a new family.
For the Sisters of Bella Luna, who will live on forever.
To reach EDIE GROSS: 540/374-5428 egross@freelancestar.com
