Edain McCoy’s Inside a Witches’ Coven (Llewellyn, 1997) is a must-read for anyone who is looking for a coven or study circle or is trying to form one. McCoy provides an extensive list of questions to take into consideration when looking for an intimate community of witches with whom to practice. She also provides a basic description of terms and scenarios of the different kinds of covens and groups and several suggestions for how to go about networking.In addition to providing a groundwork for the searching solitary, McCoy also dedicates several chapters to what should be considered when forming a coven or study group, including suggestions for resolving conflicts.McCoy also spends time discussing what to look for in a teacher — and what to look out for.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who searching for a connection to the Pagan community. I have met some wonderful, friendly, open, and supportive people in the Bay Area, but like many others, I’ve also had my share of negative experiences.
There are so many Traditions, paths, and breeds of covens out there, you’re sure to find a community that best suits your needs, especially if you use a little common sense and read through Edain McCoy’s book.
Elizabeth Hand's Waking the Moon
Elizabeth Hand’s Waking the Moon is an odd combination of feminist angst and witchery, and I think her point may be lost on the gung-ho separatist feminist, which is, there are two sexes and for the community of humanity to live in harmony, those two sexes must also be in harmony.
Hand uses an interesting narrative shift from first person narrator to third person omniscient, that is to say, I didn’t like it. However, other aspects of Hand’s novel are compelling, specifically her ability to place her reader in the center of her image. Hand’s writing is tangible: you feel the sun on your brow, you see the dense forest in front of you, and you smell the viscous blood in the air.
The main reason I chose this particular book from the shelves of Dark Carnival is because at the heart of her novel, Hand places all patriarchal responsibility on the Italian Benidanti, the Good-doers. In Streghe lore, the Benidanti fight with the Malindanti (yes, you guessed it, the “Evil” or “Bad”-doers). If the Benindanti prevail, the balance between light and dark remain. If the Malindanti are the victors, the world is plunged into mayhem and darkness.
Hand takes full responsibility for her poetic license in terms of the Benidanti, however, she refers to the “real” Benidanti as being “benign.” While I realize she means, simply, is that the Benidanti are not responsible for the suppression of the Moon Goddess or Women’s Mysteries in general as she depeicts them in her novel, her statement does some what indicate that the Benandanti are ineffectual, which, as any Streghe will tell you, is just not so.
I recommend Hand’s novel. It’s a good read with a message in which I firmly believe; a message that many female pagans have a hard time realizing: the suppression of either sex, men over women or women over men, is a suppression of half of the human race, leaving both sexes in want of freedom and balance. That recognizing the female divinity as some how superior to the male divinity does the same disservice as patriarchal religions which insist that the male divinity is supreme.
