an entity. What I would want to know next is, who are these people? How do they
think? How do they live? What do they do? I know I'm nosy and picky when it
comes to my friends, even though I'd also describe myself as fairly open-minded...
Well, I'm Jenny, or more formally Jennifer Schumaker. I was born in 1974 in Terre
Haute, IN and I lived there until I was 19. At 19 I moved to Bloomington, IN where I
dropped out of school to get married. Two years later I moved back to Terre Haute to
go back to school, and two years after that I got divorced. In 2001 I married Don and
moved to PA, where we still reside with our two children.
While my family were several sorts of Christians and I was dragged down an aisle and
"saved" at age seven by my fundamentalist grandmother I self-identified as a witch from
about age nine. This did not go over well. I found my first occult book in my other
grandma's house, something that once belonged to my uncle. When Mom found it she
threw it out. Not long after my parents made me get baptised in order to join the First
Baptist Church of North Terre Haute. The pastor at the time was a nut, but when the
church threw him out my parents followed. After a few years of hearing the "word" I
decided I should at least pretend, so I convinced myself that it was all true. This didn't
last long, and by 17 I was an agnostic, even though my parents insisted I attend
Sunday service with them. Still, to make them happy, I was married by a different
pastor of the same church when I was 22. Lets see...pastor #2 was in prison at the time
for fraud, this was his son John who took over until he could get back on the "outside."
But enough about that! When I was in college I made a lot of different friends, and a
lot of different kinds of friends. Gay, straight, white, black, Hispanic, poor, rich, you
name it. IU is a big place, and people of every kind were there. Still, in my early 20s I
became convinced that all Wiccans were crazy people because I had never met a sane
one. It took a long while for me to figure out that the sane ones were just not as loud
as the crazy ones...
When I went back to school in my 20s I really started searching spiritually. I was in a
miserable marriage with a miserable person and his miserable mother, living closer to
my miserable parents again than I had in years. I realized I was miserable too, go
figure! First I looked at Cabala, and briefly some other ceremonial magicks, but it
didn't touch me. I started looking into old gods and Paganism, and I think I took the
test at beliefnet.com, and Wicca appealed. So I started researching. My first books were
"Spiral Dance" and "Drawing Down the Moon." I had just started to become Internet
savvy, so I looked online. There I found an online teaching coven and a very
pragmatic Tradition of Wicca and was accepted as a student. The more I studied the
more I re-attuned with my Self, and the more self-content and self-reliant I became.
When this happened my miserable husband became even more miserable, so I avoided
him even more than before. This led to our separation and divorce, which are
memorable and happy transformative events in my adult life. I had met my current
husband Don in the online coven. We struck up a friendship when I was separating
and met during my divorce. We were married not quite a year later.
Why is this all about me? Well, all of these things help shape my personal philosophy,
and that's important because, at least in 2006, I'm pretty much in charge of Star and
Spiral. My philosophy is the philosophy of Star and Spiral Coven until it can grow on
its own.
So--
Star and Spiral is a very family-oriented coven. Real Wiccans often have families and
jobs and those things must take precedence in our lives. We cannot drop everything
and show up for a naked drunken ritual tonight. Our children must be tended and we
must get up at 6 AM to have them off to daycare or school and drag our tired parental
butts to work. It is our commitment to have all meetings scheduled as far in advance
as humanly possible, and to change the meeting schedule as little as humanly possible.
Our families should have a place in our spiritual practice and DO. Our Sabbats are
family-friendly, with only casual rituals if any take place at all. Magic(k)al living and
celebration do not have to alienate non-Wiccan members of our families or give our
children cause to chat about the strange stuff we do with knives and candles.
Formal Wiccan training in Universal Eclectic Wicca is available to those who are
interested and accepted as students. We expect students to commit a little more time
than the casual members, but again, the meetings are scheduled in advance. If you
think this might be for you please see the pages for Laughter Circle Teaching Coven,
which is now part of Star and Spiral Coven.
It is the position of Star and Spiral Coven that Wicca is a religion. The purpose of the
Wiccan religion is attunement with the Divine. We believe that Wicca is a modern
religion, essentially invented by Gerald Gardner (with lots of help from Doreen Valiente
and others) circa 1945. We believe that Wicca and traditional witchcraft practice are not
one and the same. Members of Star and Spiral are not required to practice witchcraft.
We do practice magic(k), but we equate magic(k) with any action that is performed in
accordance with Will, as defined by Aleister Crowley. We believe that the gods are real,
and that there is an ultimate unknowable Divine Force that is genderless. We value
scholarship and learning and believe we should be educated regarding what is written
about our religion. We expect members to be able to think for themselves, and as a
UEW coven we see value in dissent, for "there is no learning without dissent." We do
not ask that everyone agree with these opinions, but we ask that people who want to
be members agree with these opinions. People who strongly disagree should look
elsewhere for a coven or start their own.
Star and Spiral is open and welcoming to those people over 18 and their families. We
do not care of you are straight, gay, bi, trans, or other, what color your skin is, how
you do your hair, what you do for a living, what your marital status might be, or
how much formal education you've had. We do care whether you are a seeker, and
whether you are an all-around good person in practice. What you feel you are on the
inside counts far less than how you behave on the outside. We ask that if you need
medical help, be it physical, mental, or both, that you seek it outside Star and Spiral
Coven. Very bluntly, we've seen needy people descend upon a group, suck the life out
of it, wreck it, and then move on and we don't intend to let that happen here. We aim
to support each other as an extended family and EVERYONE needs help sometimes, but
we should not have to sacrifice everything to carry anyone who is unwilling to do
what they can for themselves. This little poem sums it up nicely, perhaps you've seen it
before.
One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of the Goddess they were,
But mine were not along the shore.
But then some stranger prints appeared,
and I asked Her, "What have we here?
These prints are large and round and neat,
But much too big to be from feet."
"My child," She said in somber tones,
"For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait.
"You would not learn, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know,
So I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt.
"Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand."
--Author unknown
it'll reveal more about the philosophy behind Star and Spiral Coven.