Author Archives: Oldenwilde
Samhain XXX (2024)
30 years ago, when Coven Oldenwilde called Pagans & Witches to emerge from their broom closet & work magic downtown in front of the Courthouse, Jail, & City Hall, we didn’t imagine that babes at breast would now be bringing … Continue reading
Samhain 2023
Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023, 7 pm until … at the Oldenwilde Covenstead Where: 113 Clinton Ave., Asheville, NC 28806 (park across Clinton on curb or in school parking lot) Wear: Witchy black, white, or combo; anti-Covid mask (we can … Continue reading
Samhain 2022
The Rite ? Samhain MMXXII (2022), Coven Oldenwilde’s 28th annual Samhain Sabbat, featured a group Broom & Staff Dance, Lady Passion’s take on the Wolfshäger-Hexenbrut Witch Dance. Women wielded brooms, men staves; Rowan Greenleaf wore traditional mummer’s garb and kept … Continue reading
It’s In The Cards: How to Tarot Like a Pro
It’s In The Cards: How to Tarot Like a Pro by Lady Passion (Dixie Deerman; with contributions by *Diuvei/Steve Rasmussen) is the definitive guide to becoming adept at interpreting card meanings — the magical art of cartomancy. The High Priestess’s … Continue reading
Videos of Two Divination Classes
Watch the Zoom videos of “Roll the Bones” and “Cultivating Kwan Yin”, two classes on divination (with handouts) demonstrating Witch skills described in The Goodly Spellbook that Queen Lady Passion & *Diuvei presented at the 2021 Pagan Unity Festival in … Continue reading
Samhain 2020
“Preservation” What: Coven Oldenwilde’s 26th annual Samhain Sabbat When: Saturday Oct. 31st (Halloween), sunset UNTIL Where: The Covenstead at 113 Clinton Ave. (West) Asheville, NC, 28806 (corner of Clinton Ave. & Lane St.; park along curb across Clinton, or on … Continue reading
Save Asheville’s Tree Canopy
Although it sits in the midst of the cool Appalachian temperate rain forest, Asheville, North Carolina, has been losing nearly 100 acres of tree canopy a year to bad development practices since at least 2008, and the city’s land-surface temperature … Continue reading
The Myth of the Spell Fail
by Queen Lady Passion. Magic is everyone’s birthright, and a crack remedy when justice fails. As with all skills, the practice works by repeatedly following directions until technique becomes instinctual prowess — contempt for process the doom of every unrealized … Continue reading
Samhain 2019
Coven Oldenwilde’s 25th Samhain Sabbat Thursday, Oct. 31, 2019, 7 p.m. until… Asheville, N.C. Theme: “Witch Bling — Please the Gods in High Style!” Details: We welcome high-energy, devout teens and adults to dazzle the Gods in their Witchy finery, … Continue reading
Samhain 2018: Witches’ Broom & Brew
Who: For teen and adult Pagans/Wiccans. What: Revel with others of like mind on Witches’ New Year; imbibe, circle, and enjoy Craft camaraderie! Theme: Broom & Brew. Dress in Witch finery. Decorate your broom or staff on site (components provided), … Continue reading
New books! Rituals & Sabbats, Candle Magic
Lady Passion and *Diuvei’s two new Witchcraft books debut our much-anticipated series of in-depth follow-ups to our popular The Goodly Spellbook: Olde Spells For Modern Problems. Both Rituals & Sabbats and Candle Magic are now available at bookstores and Amazon.com. … Continue reading
Feeling Outraged About U.S. Politics?
American Pagans and Witches can be a formidable voting block and force of change to ensure a fair voting process and elect candidates that support our spiritual traditions of acting compassionately and preserving nature. Here are some ways we recommend. … Continue reading
Beltane Rite with a College Class
Update: A fall 2019 visit by Wofford students left them with unforgettable impressions. Queen Lady Passion and *Diuvei often host groups of college and university students who want to experience traditional Witchcraft. In this capacity Coven Oldenwilde hosted a circle … Continue reading
Anti-HB2 Spell
Wiccans and Pagans are among the targets of North Carolina Republican legislators’ bigoted House Bill 2. The law doesn’t just force everyone to use the restroom that matches the sex listed on their birth certificate — this sweeping attack on … Continue reading
Open letter to Lady Passion
Dear Queen Lady Passion, For 20 years of outdoor public Samhains, I was privileged to witness up close your always-astonishing versatility and skill reach new heights every October. I want to offer you in this open letter my thanks, praise, … Continue reading
CNN show films Asheville Witches
CNN’s new series United Shades of America filmed host Kamau Bell with Coven Oldenwilde leaping cauldron fire, joining Mill Dance and Cakes & Wine, interviewing Lady Passion & *Diuvei. See news article about CNN filming in Asheville: Asheville Citizen-Times, “CNN … Continue reading
Police videotaping revealed
[php] $thisSubdir=’gen_info’; $thisPage=’APD videos’;[/php] Actual police video of Samhain 1996 and activist video of police videotaping cannabis activists in Asheville City Council meeting, 1998, released here for the first time. See articles about our video release: Asheville Citizen-Times, “Wiccans release … Continue reading
Q&A with Witch Clergy Lady Passion and *Diuvei
Buy Latest Edition What’s New Celebrity Praise Description Reader Reviews Table of Contents Preface Sample Spells List prices: Paperback, $14.95 eBook, $7.99 Publisher: Sterling ISBN: 978-1-4549-1392-4 Release: Sept. 2, 2014 Order from Sterling (View larger.) New illustration example in The … Continue reading
New Edition of The Goodly Spellbook
“A decade after the debut of The Goodly Spellbook, magic is more needful than ever … Spellcraft is the remedy for our hardscrabble lives. Its timeless power helps us oppose oppression and enables us to thrive by giving us health, … Continue reading
Pagan Activist: Olde Ways to Create Change
Even as robots and mechanization have rendered many jobs obsolete (making the economic “recovery” more theoretical than reality-based), the average amount that economic trackers expect each American to spend this year on Yule gifts is in the seven hundred dollar … Continue reading
Asheville Women Fight “Big Power” to Save a Foothills Wilderness
An article by *Diuvei (Steve Rasmussen) is the Verve Magazine cover story for October 2013: The Box Creek Brockoviches When electricity came to Brackett Town in 1948, the men who wired the church in the onetime gold-mining village near the … Continue reading
Bele Chere 2013: Going Out With Style
For the third year in a row, Coven Oldenwilde manned a “beer bracelet” booth during Asheville’s annual street fair held on the last weekend in July. This year was heartrending since weeks before, City Council voted to discontinue the event … Continue reading
Whistleblowers Unite!
by Lady Passion Recent near-daily T.V. news reports have revealed the extremes that the U.S. government is willing go to in order to demonize domestic whistle-blowers — those who act as oversight to benefit citizens by exposing an organization’s wrongdoing. … Continue reading
Coven Oldenwilde’s Response to Internet Libel on Realpagan.net
It is a kingly thing, O Cyrus, to do well and to be evil spoken of. — Antisthenes, founder of the Cynic school of philosophy It isn’t easy being Gardnerian. As if we don’t catch enough flak from misinformed skeptics … Continue reading
Love is the Law: The Pagan Side of Marriage
ros is a cunning desperado who defies every moral authority’s attempt to straighten him out. Church-led campaigns to deny legal recognition to same-sex and cohabiting couples only enhance his daring — and expose the hypocrisy of religions that claim to … Continue reading
Bele Chere 2012: The Rule of Two
Slideshow of Coven Oldenwilde’s wristband booth and volunteers at Bele Chere 2012. First time’s beginners’ luck; second time’s a challenge. That’s the “Rule of Two” we wrote about in The Goodly Spellbook, and our second year running a nonprofit wristband … Continue reading
What Values do Pagan Spellbooks Teach?
Fundamentalist Christians here in Buncombe County, NC are upset because a local Pagan mother, Ginger Strivelli, is forcing the county public school district to stop distributing Gideon Bibles in elementary schools, after exposing the hypocrisy of school administrators in allowing … Continue reading
UNCA Interfaith Dialogue: “Is Religion Relevant?”
UPDATE: The event was lively and interesting, and the audience was SRO! Watch a video of it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewN2Pi8Xkgw&feature=share. Please join us at a free Interfaith Dialogue panel at UNC-Asheville Thursday Nov. 17, 2011, from 7:00-8:30 PM at the Highsmith … Continue reading
Karma will out
Here is Lady Passion’s statement emailed Sept. 25 to WLOS-TV on the destruction of the Merrimon Magnolia: “Many people who loved this tree and fought for the past two years to save it are outraged that land-owner and former City … Continue reading
Farewell to a beautiful tree
We pushed as hard as we could to save the Merrimon Magnolia, but sadly we were unsuccessful, as we’ve just learned from a TV news reporter. It was always a long shot, stymied at every turn by a lengthy history … Continue reading
Bele Chere 2011
Good company! Bele Chere is the Southeast’s biggest annual street festival, and for the first time ever the city of Asheville invited us Witches to help out. On Friday and Saturday, July 29 and 30, 2011, volunteers from Coven Oldenwilde … Continue reading
Press Release: Update on Merrimon Magnolia, Apr. 26, 2011
Watch our news interview on WLOS-TV 13 with Charu Kumarhia, 5pm or 6pm EDT Tues. April 26, or wlos.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Saving the Merrimon Magnolia and George Pack’s stone wall A large heritage magnolia on the former site of … Continue reading
Send a Postcard to Save the Merrimon Magnolia
Send a photo postcard to Harris Teeter CEO Frederick J. Morganthall and his wife Judy via cardstore.com. It costs less than $2 per postcard ($1.27 from Asheville). It’s easy. Here are the steps: 1) Download one of the images posted … Continue reading