Camp Information
Paths
At the beginning of WitchCamp, each camper chooses a Path to follow through a series of teacher-facilitated processes. Paths are a mix of individual and group work, often including discussions, trance, ritual, journaling, craft and other activities and magical techniques.
If it is your first time at CloudCatcher it is expected that you will take the Elements of Magic Path
(unless you have taken Elements of Magic in the community or at another camp)
Wandering the World Tree: An Elements of Magic
with Georgie & Kate Ash
What Wisdom do you seek? What Knowledge sings to you? What is beckoning you to CloudCatcher? To the World Tree? Are there secret spells you wish to utter? Are there deep waters you wish to explore? Are the Ravens calling to you? Is your desire to know greater than the hardship of discovery?
What do you want? And do you dare to ask for it?
Elements of Magic is an introduction to Reclaiming-style magic. Here you will learn the songs and poetry, the energetics and mysteries, the meat and potatoes, of Reclaiming craft. If you’ve never taken an Elements class before, we welcome you to join us at the base of the Tree, and climb into mystery alongside us. We will be playing with trance, invocation, movement, divination, energy raising, spellcrafting, connecting with Deity, and ritual creation… and we will be deepening into our embodiment of the five holy elements of life—Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit. The final path meeting will include a camper-created ritual.
This path is open to campers of all ages.
If the World Tree is calling you to sink your toes into the cool depths of the Earth…
Or Ratatoskr is whispering messages into your ears…
If the Well of Memory laps in the deep places of your dreams…
If Odin’s determination to Know is firing your own, this could be the path for you…
…whether this is your first Elements, your first Camp, your first step into mystery, or whether you’ve hung on this Tree a dozen times and are seeking to sink a layer deeper. We welcome you, we conjure you, we call you in.
Norse Community Magic with Ol’ One Eye and Two Reclaiming Wyrdos
with Kara Unndis & Lisa Valkyrie
The Old One is knocking at your door. A cold wind blows in, bringing in ancient songs and spirits of the far North with him. In this time travelling path, we will delve into Norse culture and magic - what was, was is, and what may yet come to pass. We will sing galdr, practice seidr, and cast the runes of the Elder Futhark. We will sing up our dead and honour them. We will sit on the mounds and listen. We will share stories of the wyrd.
And as we will explore their world view and relationship with community, we will also explore how it may or may not be so different from our own. As we work magic together, we will learn how participants play a key role in a successful ritual and indeed in a successful path. We will experiment with fine-tuning our energy sensing, directing, and raising skills through all components of ritual from the welcome to the grounding, invocations, and the body of magic. We will explore the ways we create and maintain our energetic containers. And along the way, we may find new kennings and ways of knowing ourselves and, like Odin, the gifts and magic that we bring and can offer up to community, in ritual and beyond.
Bring your curiosity, sense of humor, a water bottle, a journal, and runes (if you have them). All ages are welcome.
Elements of Magic is a prerequisite of this path.
Initiation: Sacrifice, Surrender & Self
with Dan & Fio
In the deep and wild lifetimes of humans, we encounter many thresholds of power and love. We are often transformed utterly by the events in our lives: by births, deaths, unions, separations, graduations, loss, love… We name and know these as possible Initiations. We name and know that sacrifice, surrender, and self are all mysteries of Initiation.
The All-Father, Raven Lord, the One-who-seeks-to-Know is hanging on a Tree, for nine nights they hang there - awaiting the wisdom of the worlds. This is one story. You may have many others. Our Gods and Mysterious Ones may invite and catalyse us into magical initiations. What is changed within us then continues to ripple out into the world that joins us all.
Through the skills of trance-journey, reflection, divination, aspecting, pledges, invocation, group-process, and discussion - we deepen into initiation. In this path we summon these stories and maps to help guide us through transformations and awakenings. We will be invited to share our stories of initiation (or what could be initiation) with one another to help us create maps acknowledging and honouring the thresholds and rites of passages we have already experienced. We will draw, write, bead (or something else!) maps that draw upon the Mysteries and Spirits in our lives, lending frame-works and containers of support to our work between the worlds.
Sacrifice - our effort, our dedication, our discipline, our commitment…
Surrender - our willingness, our letting go, our meeting with the mystery…
Self - a renewed sense of being in this Cosmos.
In this path we prepare and open ourselves to the possibilities of radical change. While we welcome babes in arms, we request that this path is an adult space, acknowledging the deep significance of these rites of passage.
Elements of Magic is a prerequisite of this path
The Craft of the Volva
with Pabs/Isidoros & Ravyn Stanfield
Perhaps the first volva was a giantess, or perhaps descended from Freyja who wanders the world of humans like a volva herself. Even the Wishfather consults an ancient volva for the oracular practice of seidr to learn the fate of the world. Then Odinn aims his spear, willing to go to battle with the Vanir just to learn the powerful art of seidr from Freyja.
The volur (wand-witches) travel between worlds and practice the ecstatic trance work of seidr. The volva remembers the time before now, the nine worlds, the witches within wood, the future, and our origin stories. This kind of witch has been burnt many times but they always rise from the cold ashes. What witcheries can we seek from these volur? What wisdom can we learn from their practices of ecstatic trance, genderfluidity, and galdrar (spell songs)? What if we change our fates -the runes carved for each of us on the world tree?
In this path, we will practice divination, oracular work, aspecting, and seidr. If you want to ride like a horse into trance states and shift your shape, this path is for you. If you want to commune with the dead and not yet born, this path is for you. If you want to learn to listen and speak with the voices of the divine, this path is for you. We will sing and drum and move, all of which can be done from a chair as well. Please be well practiced in going into and returning from trancelike states. We welcome all witches 14 years and up to this path. Please share Odinn’s concerns for the state of the world and approach this work with deep love.
Elements of Magic is a prerequisite of this path