Yes, since you have attended at least one SpiralHeart camp, we consider you a member of our community. If you would like to become more involved with SpiralHeart, shaping our community culture and making decisions about how camp will happen next year, we would love to see you attend some of our community meetings.
Community meetings are where we have discussions about and make decisions for upcoming camps and SpiralHeart as an organization via consensus process.In the past, our two-day-long every-other-monthly meetings were largely in-person with some people attending via Zoom, and we projected the Zoom meeting on a big screen at the large in-person gathering.
It was great for those of us who had time to invest a weekend and get to see our SpiralHeart community in-person. Some important things (like sharing a meal and just hanging out) were possible around the actual meeting time.
Since 2020, that balance has necessarily flipped so that the central format is the Zoom meeting, with some small gatherings joining in on the Zoom as feasible/needed.
Also, since Zoom meetings are less of a drain on resources (such as time and travel), we wanted to make them more accessible as far as the timing is concerned, so our schedule now consists of mainly day-long Sunday meetings alternating months with shorter evening weekday meetings.
September’s meeting retains the Saturday and Sunday timing due to its pretty fixed agenda: kicking off organizing for 2023’s camp.The first regularly-scheduled meeting of the camp year is on September 17 & 18, 2022.
We are looking at availability for a special August meeting to discuss the camp venue.
If you would like to see the agendas as they are assembled for the community meetings, the live-updated document can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dKxiNANnbTt1Q6HlY06bU-A3xk5n7_LyoVagy81bQMM/edit?usp=sharing
If you have never attended a community meeting before, please come! 😃 If you have, and it’s been awhile, please come back 😊 And, of course, those that consistently make time for these meetings are deeply appreciated. 💖
With appreciation,Jon
Spiralheart Community Meeting Anchor
We held a meeting on July 16, 2022 at SpiralHeart Witchcamp where we generated ideas for 2023 path and theme/story and gauged the enthusiasm around those ideas. If you want to offer a path or work up a theme or story submission, but haven’t settled on a starting point, this list could be your inspiration.
Calling all facilitators, leaders, teachers, ritualists!
Calling all storytellers, writers!
Calling campers who want to join the team
or submit a story/theme!!
SpiralHeart is looking for
Ritual Arc Team members,
Path Facilitators
and a story or theme for 2023!
The time has come to begin planning for SpiralHeart Camp 2023!
Submissions are due by Monday, August 15, 2022 at 11:59pm Eastern.
Selections will be made at the September 17-18, 2022 community meeting, which can be attended online via Zoom.
SpiralHeart camp will be July 10-17, 2023 at Buffalo Gap (Capon Bridge, WV, US), (tentative until venue contract signed).
What are we looking for?
1. Ritual Arc Team members
2. Prospective path leaders to apply as a team.
3. Co-facilitators to work with our guest mentors (learning to co-lead a path).
4. A story and/or theme
RAFT (Ritual Arc and Facilitation Teams)
Full details regarding the application or selection process for roles can be found here. If you would like to skip directly to the application form, click here.
Ideas for potential paths and story/themes will be generated by campers at an all-camp meeting during camp this July. We will make the list available electronically afterwards.
Scroll down for more information about how to submit a story and/or theme.
Any questions about the proposal or selection process may be directed to agenda@spiralheart.org.
We are here to help!
Do you have a story and/or theme proposal?
We’d love to hear it!
Story and theme proposals that have been submitted will be discussed at the September community meeting (Sep 17-18, 2022). On October 20, 2022, the RAFT (Ritual Arc and Facilitation Teams) for 2023 will select a story/theme for camp 2023 from three submissions selected at the September community meeting.
Full details regarding the submission and story selection process can be found here.
The form which accompanies your submission can be found here.
If you will be unable to attend the September meeting either virtually or in-person, consider supplementing your submission with more information about your process for developing your ideas for this submission. There are often questions brought up at the meeting about the proposal that need to be answered before selection.
Cultural Appropriation:
SpiralHeart seeks to embrace a diversity of cultures, and we have a clear recognition that the majority culture has exploited other cultures for their stories and traditions. Cultural appropriation is defined as: the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society (Oxford University Press, 2021).
As you consider stories or themes for Camp 2023, we encourage you to consider issues of cultural appropriation and take efforts to avoid submitting stories that take the risk of exploiting a non-dominant group. Some of the questions that you may ask yourself (or that others may ask during a community meeting) include:
- Are you a member of the group or culture whose story or theme you are proposing? Or is this story or theme part of your cultural legacy? If not, what relationship do you have with the group in question?
- Is this story or theme part of the tradition of a non-dominant group or culture?
- Has the group or culture expressly invited other groups to participate in their stories and practices?
- What universal themes or insights does this story bring to camp that would benefit the community?
Any questions about the proposal or selection process may be directed to agenda@spiralheart.org.
We are here to help!
*The deadline for RAFT applications and story/theme submissions is August 15, 2022. The plan is to bundle the stories/themes and publish them widely by September 3, two weeks before the September 17-18 community meeting. RAFT applications will also be available for community members to review. After the bundle is published, no further applications or submissions will be accepted for September consideration. Before the bundle is published, anyone can submit late. The bundlers will do their best to include late submissions as long as accepting them does not delay publishing the bundle.
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Spiralheart Witchamp 2022: July 11-17
Theme: Revisiting Alice
Intention: The only way through is through.
We will gather at Buffalo Gap in WVA July 11-17, 2022 https://www.buffalogapretreat.com/ Lodging and food included in registration fee, via two sliding scales. One scale is $550-$1200, and another scale for BIPOC campers is $350-$1000. Scholarship money is available. More details at registration form.
Our Covid policies for camp 2022 can be found here.
For registration or camp specific questions please email the registrars at registrar@spiralheart.org
Previous events
SpiralHeart (online) Summer Convergence 2021: July 12–Aug 15
Theme: Unpacking our legacy: who did we say we would be?
Intention: We illuminate the shadows of our Ancestors, we discern the needs of our Descendants.
We commit to the work of fighting racism, fighting anti-Semitism, and crafting a legacy in service to our values.
Past, Present, and Future are linked through the legacies held in our bodies, cultures, and minds: some of these legacies empower, and others enshrine lasting harm. Some do both. We gather to move, to shake, to listen, to feel the vibrations in our connections. We move forward together. We confront the disowned, the shadows in our ancestry.
Please join us!
Reclaiming community members with a desire to share your insight or skill, please complete the Convergence Offering Form. Offerings can be: facilitating an online path; working on poems, stories, or essays; healing circles; priestexing an online ritual or series of rituals; performing songs; teaching chants or how to create them; discussing magic, politics, show tunes, or a subject of your choice; hosting a bardic circle; or creating a collaborative spell; anything fun or useful for our Reclaiming communities!
WINTER CONVERGENCE 2021
Winter ConVergence registration is open! Limited time slots for offerings still open!
ConVergence theme – Breaking thru Fear: Covid Calls Us to Justice
Winter ConVergence runs online from January 15 – January 31, 2021
Details on some of our offerings: http://egg-in-the-hollow.com/21converge/
Registration fees are on a sliding scale registration fee of $40-$300. No one turned away due to lack of funds. Scholarships are available. The REGISTRATION FORM can be found here!
We continue to accept accepting offerings from priestexes, healers, facilitators, musicians, teachers, writers, ritualists, community gatherers — and anyone interested in magic, healing, music, poetry, or prose. If you’re a Reclaiming community member you can facilitate an online path, publish a poem or story or essay, offer healing online, priestess an online ritual or series of rituals, perform songs, teach chant-writing, discuss magic or politics or show tunes with other witches, host a bardic circle, create a collaborative spell — anything fun or useful for our Reclaiming communities! Please submit offerings through the Winter ConVergence Offering Form.
PAST EVENT, SPIRAL CONVERGENCE 2020:
In Person Summer Camp Delayed: Our hearts, minds, and efforts go out to our community and our beloveds as all of us experience the journey of this global pandemic. Spiralheart community has decided that we can’t, in good faith, gather 80+ people in close quarters for a week—especially considering those in our community who are at high risk. At the April 2020 Community Meeting, Spiralheart instead opted to create a distance offering this year. Our condolences to all touched by loss due to Covid-19.
Distance offerings, called SpiralConVergence as a whole, will run online from July 13 until August 16. Registration for holding distance offerings will open soon. General registration will open shortly after. We are asking folks to pay a sliding scale from US$40-500. Donations are also encouraged, as we are still trying to support the people that supported us. We aim to donate to Buffalo Gap so that we can hold Lilith year there in 2021, among other recipients. Please reach out if you’re interested in further information.
This isn’t going to be like the camp we are all used to, but we are the same community that has been spinning magic since 1993. It is with heavy hearts that we can’t engage in person, but we hope that you’ll discover with us the advantages to one year of distance offerings—like how we will be able to connect with people who would not normally be able to attend at our camp sites. We can re-imagine accessibility and we also have a real chance to ask how we can bring the magic home with us to make changes in our local environment.
Why do you keep calling them “distance offerings”? Isn’t it all online?
It doesn’t have to be. Phones, snail mail, carrier pigeon, fax machines: however people feel like showing up, we want to make room for. That being said, we do have a small hoard of video conferencing rooms ready and waiting for you. We also have tech witches who will do what they can to help if you seek out assistance!
Where can I keep up with this?
Right here! This is the website this year, and hopefully for a few years to come. We also have Facebook, email list, and Instagram. We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an unaffiliated Discord server.
Spiralheart Witchcamp 