Facilitators ’17

These amazing beings have stepped into the teaching circle for our 2017 camp. This is not a complete list and as always, things may change!

 

Aleph Ayin

I am a veteran, artist and earth tender. My magick is given to me from successfully negotiating past traumas, plant & animal allies, my other selves working throughout the multiverse and from my ancestors who constantly surround and protect me.

Devin

Greetings! I’m thrilled to be part of this year’s Free Camp.

I’m a transgender masculine person (he/him). Other words to describe
me are ecofeminist, poly, queer, ritualist, and dancer. I am in a
deeply committed relationship to the earth. I can often be found in a
daily practice of elemental connection between sky and earth with my
body. What is a day without touching, playing, and dancing with my
lover the earth below me.

As a young trans boy, I used to eat dirt when I was alone (this is the
truth!). I loved the taste and the crunchy gritty texture in my mouth.
Perhaps that explains a lot. I think something wild and uncultivated
has been growing inside me ever since.

Maybe because of my literally internalized love for the earth—and an
earth based spirituality—I soon developed a lifelong fascination and
joy for ritual. For years, I used to study rituals from all over the
world in school and ended up teaching ritual, and its many
incarnations in dance, theatre, and art. Then, I had enough of school,
or school had enough of me–it was a terrible break up–and I stumbled
out of that part of my life. Now, I bring my experiences with dance,
theatre, and ritual into my activist life, especially these days as an
organizer and steward of Jewitch Camp and Jewitch Collective.

I’ve been shaped by anarchist, feminist, queer, and antiracist
communities, especially in the past few years in Europe where I’ve
organized and facilitated events and workshops on art, dance and
radical politics in DIY, anti-capitalistic spaces. I have also been
strongly influenced by the Arab Spring’s revolutionary work and its
resistant legacy in community organizations, art, and activism in
North Africa and the Middle East. I’m particularly moved by the Arab
Spring’s legacy in Morocco, where I have spent time and met some
incredibly brilliant, talented and welcoming dancers (and circus
artists). As a seasoned spiritual queer activist warrior, I was
humbled there, learning anew what resistance can look like against
overwhelming corporate and state power.

Catkin

Catkin first attended Free Cascadia Witchcamp in 2010 and was delighted to discover that magic was familiar even though she had never practiced before. In the magic of Free Camp she rediscovered and developed that connection that had whispered in her ear even from a young age as she ran in the wilds of the coastal forests and beaches. New Moon Culture has been an important part of her magical journey and this year Catkin will co-facilitate New Moon Culture Ritual Path along with Michaela.

 

Hard Eyes

Hard Eyes approaches life with a sense of wonder and a deep respect for the magic of witness. Originally hailing from a remote island in the Tongass National Rainforest, Sheet’ká (Sitka, Alaska), Tlingit territory, she hops from grey harbor to grey harbor, unable to be apart from the water for long. She is an intuitive priestess and healer committed to love, authenticity and vulnerability. She works primarily as a rural queer, indigenous activist, organizer and advocate for queer, trans, sick and disabled, neurodivergent and racial justice struggles. Hard Eyes has been called to co-facilitate a path on self-care and magic for black, indigenous and people of color based on the needs and desires of the POC Affinity Group of FCWC 2016. This will be her second year at camp and first year organizing and facilitating. She currently lives in an old remodeled hotel in č̕xʷícən (Port Angeles, Washington),  Lower Elwha Klallam territory with her 15 year old cat and a few spirits.

Heathen Chinese

Heathen Chinese is a multi-tradition polytheist, animist, and spirit-worker of Chinese descent. He is an initiated and oathed warrior of the Matronae Veteranehae, a devotee of Guan Di (among many Others), and is slowly taking the requisite steps towards initiation in Santería. He lives in San Francisco. He writes at http://heathenchinese.wordpress.com.

Heather

Heather is a witch and contemplative queer who has been called to step slowly into leadership at camp by co-facilitating hearth in this, her third year at camp.  Like many of us, she is deep in a wheel of changing relationships to cooking and food.  She tries to bring the joy and the grief; the laughter, self-acceptance, and communion with others to the kitchen.  She’s feeling called to deepen together into our relationship with nourishment.

Indomela

Indomela : Healer, Amigx, Confidant
Pronouns:  that one/this one

Who is mainly self-taught, with training programs by a Wild Foods Educator, and an Herbal Midwife. They currently write for Seed BroadCast Journal, W.O.W. Hall, Garbanzo Gazette, and Utah Tar Sands Resistance. That one educates the public about, and protects nature from resource extraction. This one practices magick regularly using Pan-African Ritual styles. As well as the owner of Authentic Creations a business specializing in herbal remedies, workshops, educational illustrations and literature.

Jude Elf

I’m Jude Elf and I live for paradigm shifts, lightbulb moments,ecstatic transformative ritual and deep personal magic. I delight in sharing my passion for connecting to the divine through music, dance, and song.

A life long activist, I love the alchemy of mixing magic with the work of the great turning, combining spell work, stewardship,

egalitarian group process, non-violent action, and emancipated sexuality.

I’m a song catcher, fire spinner, green witch and moon dancer, who teaches

magic, sacred sexuality, and offers support with rites of passage.

For almost 30 years I’ve worked with Kidsfest to facilitate large public rituals that gather the community to turn the wheel and honor the seasons. For over 20 years I have combined Reclaiming magic and Jewish teachings, traditions, rituals, and practices.  I help organize and teach at  Reclaiming Witchcamps  including, most recently, JeWitch Camp. I consider myself part of the #JewishResistance and find myself with others reclaiming feminist earth based Jewish magic and combing it with action. Inspired in part by recent and rich discussions of cultural appropriation, I’m excited to return to my roots and help bring this path to Free Camp.

I live at Milkweed Farm, in Northern Vermont where I delight in the fey and elements of nature and foment beautiful revolution through art and community.

Marjorie Ní Chobhthaigh

Marjorie Ni Chobhthaigh is a queer Irish polytheist devoted to the Morrígan and a folk witch.  She is an advocate for survivors of domestic violence, which informs much of her spiritual work, and runs an interfaith support group for survivors on Facebook called Macha’s Justice.

Mauvelous

Mauvelous or Mauve is a white, cis, queer, physically abled, neurodivergent, witch from unceded Indian Territory (Tulsa, OK). Where he’s from, the oil & gas industry has created frequent earthquakes and careers for some of Mauve’s birth family.  He brings a background working/playing in fast food, elder care, and expressive arts therapy.  He wonders how to do the least harm while he helps to gentrify West Oakland.

Michaela

Michaela is a tender hearted fierce femme witch, dedicated to the healing magic of love in action. Committed to the creation of a world where love is practiced as verb, a world without shame, a world where feeling & emotions are appreciated & valued as sacred gifts. A world beyond the replaying out of inherited generational trauma. A world beyond the cycles of oppression and their damaging effects. A world outside the chains of capitalism.

A world that celebrates the uniqueness of each of our expressions of authenticity. A world where connection and deep intimacy are alive and thrive. A world where the divine feminine is respected, honored as sacred as well as powerfully & deeply felt inside each of our hearts, bodies and lives.

Through engaging deeply with her own reemergence, re-mbering, empowerment & healing, Michaela aspires to help others stewart their own journeys of healing, self actualization, authenticity, and empowerment. Through engaging in the work of personal liberation, she believes collective liberation is possible. Some of her explorations into healing her relationship to femininity, can be found in the upcoming book, Queer Magic Anthology: Power Beyond Boundaries. She is excited to co-facilitate new moon culture ritual path this year, alongside Catkin.

Moss

Rose May Dance

I have been working with Reclaiming and WitchCamp’s since the 80s, and was part of the earliest camp. I call myself anarcha-pagan, and I’m a hypnotherapist, retired from research with Street injection drug users. I lived in San Francisco from 1975-2016, but now have moved to Richmond, CA with Bill.

Susala

….. new to Free Camp, so excited to learn with and from this community, and completely inspired and humbled by the task at this year’s camp to do “sacred magic ….. (together to question, listen, and work towards) healing and culture creation” that defies the overculture.

I’ve been weaving Reclaiming and eco-feminist Judaism together since the mid 1990s. In the last 3 years I’ve been involved in founding and stewarding JeWitch Camp and JeWitch Collective.

As an white Ashkenazi Queer aging Bay Area Jew born and raised in Atlanta who lives with disabilities, I care deeply about radical access, power differentials, and liberation. I love participating in creative non-violent direct political actions as part of a Jewish Resistance cell. Also enjoy being in the streets with other interfaith activists. We play and sing as we hold those in power accountable all the while maintaining an unwavering analysis of power and privilege as well as the ways all forms of oppression are interrelated.

Engaging in and building community rocks! I also adore creating subversive feminist liturgy & rituals that celebrate all genders and types of relationships as well as sensuality while weaving Reclaiming and Jewish traditions together. A highlight recently was collaborating with Devin and others to create a Seder drawing on the Song of Songs that celebrates Queer Sacred Sexuality.

Can’t wait to get to know y’all and to delve into JeWitch magick in our path.