Asheville's Third Annual Public Samhain Ritual

The Light Fight

In the third year, we experienced blatant institutional prejudice when top city officials refused to let us hold the Wiccan equivalent of a candlelight vigil.

Weary of downtown's noxious orange streetlights and disruptive sirens, and forbidden by Parks & Rec to circle in neighborhood parks, we settled on the hilltop Memorial Stadium. We planned an elaborate rite lit only by tiki torches, glowsticks, and ambient city light -- with Asheville bureaucrats' blessing. But when news of this reached top officials' ears, they rescinded our permission to turn off the stadium's glaring lights.

We explained our rationale to City Council, to no avail -- though the news media covered the boiling brouhaha. City officials then agreed to let us circle sans lights if we posted a $3 million insurance bond. So we put up our covenstead as collateral and secured such a policy. But when a city official placed a phone call to the insurer, the company revoked the insurance -- just two days before the rite. The patently discriminatory (and false) excuse the company gave the press was that it hadn't known the event was sponsored by Witches.

[For the record: The insurer was R. Stanford Webb Agency, and the city official who demanded we post a bond was Risk Manager John Miall. Miall publicly acknowledged notifying Webb that this was a Witch ritual, but we also heard that the abovementioned phone call was placed by City Manager Jim Westbrook. — *Diuvei, Oct. 2013.]

"What do I think about it?," Lady Passion smiled wanly for the TV news cameras. "Go ahead -- make 600 Witches very angry!"

The official bigotry was so plain for all to read in the newspapers and see on TV that we were widely supported by the cityfolk.

"I'm not afraid!"

The city manager -- the puller of most of the strings we were struggling against -- convinced himself that we planned to defy his authority and turn the lights off anyway. Shortly before the rite began, nine police cars drove into the stadium and parked directly inside the entrance, in an attempt to form an intimidating gauntlet that every attendee would have to pass. *Diuvei compelled them, however, to move away from the entrance to a less provocative corner of the stadium.

As Coven members Asherah and Wolfstone were admitting attendees, one masked person refused to be censed and spurged until they made it clear that he couldn't participate otherwise. The shiny black shoes they noticed he was wearing beneath his costume were identical to those worn by the uniformed cop in this picture.

When Lady Passion began the rite, she had everyone face the phalanx of police and boldly walk toward them. "I'm not afraid!", the High Priestess yelled repeatedly. "Are you afraid?," she challenged the crowd. "No!!!," the Witches answered forcefully, striding ever closer to the patrol cars. The lounging, sneering cops stiffened in surprise, and seemed genuinely afraid. Just when it seemed a foregone conclusion that the crowd would overwhelm them, Lady Passion turned her back on the officers, led the crowd away, and began the rite. The cops were visibly relieved, and local Pagans were viscerally empowered.

To this day, some folks who were there that night swear that the lights did indeed go out.

Costume Contest

One of the rite's many activities was a costume contest. You can get an idea of the wondrous array of costumes folks wore from this picture of a fantastic lizard armor made and worn by a homeless artist named Badger. (And he was only a runner-up!)

The winning woman and man were crowned Moon Queen and Dark King, and danced a beautiful waltz together in the center of hundreds of admiring attendees.

Cauldron Piñata

A big, spiral-emblazoned cauldron piñata made of papier-maché sat at the northern side of the circle, filled with about seven hundred pieces of magical jewelry that members of Coven Oldenwilde had made. (The cauldron's creator, Lady Passion, poses with it beside *Diuvei in this picture.) Tied to the cauldron was a silver crescent moon that was attached to a bent, springy pole.

One by one, ritual attendees reverently struck the top of the piñata with an ear of Indian corn -- until (as pre-arranged) Rowan Greenleaf burst open the cauldron of plenty with his staff. The crescent moon sprang upward into the sky, strewing the jewelry across the ground, and everyone immediately made a beeline for a pretty.

Years afterward, we still see passersby on the streets of Asheville wearing jewelry from the cauldron piñata.

Spiral Dance

For eight breathless minutes, Lady Passion led hundreds in the traditional Spiral Dance of Rebirth. Hand-in-hand we snaked from one end of the football field to the other, moving to the increasingly frenzied strains of the "Russian Dervish" tune from Riverdance. What sheer bliss that was!

This was the first year we used pre-recorded music, a sound system, and a volunteer DJ. Now, we rely every year on themed Pagani music recordings, which mute any Xtian street preacher who shows up and attempts to rant.

A New Tradition -- Free Divinations

Witches have always done divination to foretell the future on Samhain, the Celtic New Year. But when we offered free divinations after this rite to the hundreds who attended, we were amazed at how popular a feature it was. So we've done free divinations for rite participants ever since.

We didn't know then that by openly practicing this aspect of our religion, we were once again defying the powers-that-be -- but that's another story.

By the end of our third peaceful, ecstatic, and (as always) injury-free Samhain sabbat, we had defeated the city's bureaucratic bigots. Never again would they attempt to interfere so blatantly with Asheville's Annual Public Witch Ritual.