ASHEVILLE'S 7TH ANNUAL
FREE PUBLIC SAMHAIN RITUAL

WITCHES' RIDE
a Pagan Pride Processional

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 8 - 10 PM
Pritchard Park, downtown Asheville, NC

All ages welcome

Meet Witches, Pagans & Cowans (Craft supporters) from throughout the Southeast!
Catch treats from the sidelines while viewing diverse magical folk!
Celebrate America's Pagan roots -- as evidenced by the Egyptian obelisk at the center of our nation's capital -- by encircling & energizing Asheville's own obelisk!
Circle beneath a Blue Moon with practitioners of the Olde Religion!
Get a free reading to find out what's in store for you in the New Year!

  • Assemble at 8 pm at Pritchard Park (Patton Ave. & College St.). Arrive early if you'd like to help.
    (We especially need bearers of torches, of banners, and of a beautiful litter for the Goddess.)
  • Meet & greet Others Of Like Mind until processional time.
  • At 8:30 p.m. gather with the group that best describes your magical practice: Covens, Circles/Study groups, Solitaries, or Cowans.
  • When all are duly assembled, we'll process East down Patton Avenue (the route is short & easy).
  • We'll surround the reflection pool and obelisk, reveling in our religious freedom on one of the Craft's most Holy Sabbats, and calling upon our ancestors who lived through war to guide us through perilous times.
  • We'll return to Pritchard Park via our previous route, where attendees are invited to provide free divination readings to one another.
  • We'll close circle around 10 pm.
  • For more information, call
    (828) 251-0343 or visit www.oldenwilde.org.
  • Press Release: "One Nation, Under Many Gods"

Dress in Witchy, Pagani, Fantasy, Fairy, Natural or Medieval garb

Create ambience with glow-sticks, lanterns, balloons & incense, etc.

Carry banners, flags, etc. in front of your coven/group

Delight & Mystify (throw treats & candies, play musical instruments, chant, sing or perform magical feats along the route, etc.)

Use your tools & talents to highlight the beauty, antiquity & validity of the Craft

Joyously proclaim YOUR Pagan/Wiccan pride!

 

(Pictures: Left, Vance Memorial in Asheville, NC, courtesy Delivery Dimensions.
Right, Washington Monument in Washington, DC, courtesy National Park Service.)

DIRECTIONS to Pritchard Park, downtown Asheville, NC, from each Quarter:

** Take Pattton Ave. toward downtown. Pritchard Park is a triangular park at the intersection of Patton and College Ave. You're getting close when you see the big freestanding clock on your left by Wick N Greene jewelers.

PARKING: Street parking is free after 6pm, but limited. We suggest you park in the city Parking Garage by Wall St. , a block or two before you reach Pritchard Park. Going along Patton, turn Left at the big clock by Wick N Greene, then take the second Right (just after Wall Street) into the Parking Garage. From there, you can walk up cobblestoned Wall Street to the big Flatiron sculpture, turn Right and then Right again to reach Pritchard Park. Or you can go back to Patton, turn left at the clock, and walk past Jack of the Wood (an excellent Pagani brew pub and grill that will be open that night) to the Park.

PRESS RELEASE

Organizers say that this year's Free Public Samhain Rite will mark 7 years of progress in gaining local public understanding and recognition of the right of Witches, Pagans and other Earth-based religionists to practice their ancient, pre-Christian spirituality without fear of persecution.
"The first year, several of us started the Public Rite because we wanted to be able to wear our capes downtown!" explained Lady Passion, High Priestess of Coven Oldenwilde, who can be sometimes be seen gliding along the sidewalks of Asheville in a flowing black cloak. "We wanted to show people the beauty, antiquity and validity of the Craft. And we wanted to thank our beautiful, creative city for not forcing us from our homes or leaving burning crosses on our lawn, which unfortunately still happens to far too many Witches and Pagans in America."
The first Rite was the only one in which fundamentalist Christian protestors were a significant presence. A local Baptist preacher had organized the protests and bused his followers in to wave Bibles and sing hymns. "We just turned our backs on them and circled as if they weren't there. They seemed to realize how bigoted and foolish they appeared -- followers of one religion trying to deny another religion's freedom to worship," said *Diuvei, Coven Oldenwilde's High Priest.
Organizers don't expect protests this year, but are prepared for them nonetheless. Part of the purpose of the ritual this year is to remind Americans that the USA is not a Christian nation, but is dedicated instead to freedom and equality for all religions -- the message of the very First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
"That's not a cross in the center of the nation's capital," points out *Diuvei about the Washington Monument, the patriotic shrine on which Asheville's obelisk was modelled. "It's a Pagan Sun symbol built to ancient Egyptian proportions. George Washington, after all, was a Freemason who refused to take Christian communion, and never belonged to any church."
(For more background on the unconventional religious beliefs of America's Founders, see "One Nation, Under Many Gods", below.)
On returning to Pritchard Park, the Wiccans will mark what for them is an especially significant victory for religious liberty, by practicing divination and foretelling the future. Until two years ago, breaking out their tarot cards, runes, and pendulums in public could have gotten them arrested under North Carolina state law. When officials in Haywood and Buncombe counties forced several psychics to close down under an antiquated statute that forbids "any person to practice the arts of phrenology, palmistry, clairvoyance, fortune-telling, or any crafts of a similar kind," local Witches organized tarot-card-reading protests in front of the Haywood County Courthouse and at Pack Place. Backed in the courtroom by the ACLU, the Witches put an end to this unconstitutional ban on a spiritual practice that is historically central to most Earth-based religions.
But harassment and persecution of Witches and Pagans by the ignorant and the intolerant is still far too pervasive, the Witches say. They are especially vigilant now that the Bush administration is mounting its "crusade" against terrorism while the Taliban declares its "jihad" against America. As polytheists (worshippers of multiple Gods and Goddesses), Pagans have repeatedly been caught between such battling camps of monotheists during the past 2,000 years.
"Witches tend to be environmentalists and pacifists who naturally oppose war," explains Lady Passion, "because we view all life as sacred, and we practice the ethical principle 'An it harm none, do as you will'. Many of us are legal Conscientious Objectors to war."
Traditionally, Witches have been the seers and oracles of their communities. "And what we foresee in the nation's future doesn't bode well," sums up Passion.
That's why, say Passion and *Diuvei, the ritual will "call on the spirits of our ancestors who have survived in times of war, to help guard us from violence and promote peace."

One Nation, Under Many Gods

The Washington Monument, our capital's soaring Egyptian Sun-shrine, is proof in marble that the USA is a Pagan as well as a Christian-Jewish-Muslim-Buddhist-Atheist nation. It's no coincidence that most of America's public architecture -- our courthouses, capitol buildings, etc. -- is modelled on classical Pagan temples, and not on Gothic churches, like the public buildings of Great Britain (which is an officially Christian nation). Anyone who takes the trouble to actually read about America's history, instead of just preaching their opinions about it, will discover that most of the Founding Fathers were religious radicals who didn't even belong to a conventional church.
Thomas Jefferson cut up the Bible to his own liking, and shared gibes about the absurdity of orthodox Christian doctrines with his fellow Unitarian John Adams. Ben Franklin was a follower of Deism, an Enlightenment philosophy that is close to agnosticism. James Madison, the architect of the Constitution's separation of church and state, penned a famous protest against a Virginia state tax to support Christian clergy. George Washington was a Freemason -- a devout member of a mystical order that traces its spiritual roots to the Pagan magic of ancient Egypt. His fellow Masons began erecting the Washington Monument at a time in American history when their religion was being harshly persecuted by groups of conservative Christians who called themselves "Know-Nothings".

The following quotations from the writings of America's Founders provide plenty of proof that: "The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion":

· "All men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience."
-- James Madison, 1776

· "The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Moslems]."
-- U.S. Treaty with Tripoli, 1797 (signed after the new nation's first naval victory, won against pirates in the Mediterranean)

· "The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; ...
... it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much, soon to forget it."
-- James Madison, 1785.

· "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church ..."
-- Thomas Paine, 1793

· "The establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the motive which induced me to the field; the object is attained, and it now remains to be my earnest wish and prayer, that the citizens of the United States would make a wise and virtuous use of the blessings, placed before them."
-- George Washington, 1783

· "I am a good deal in want of a House Joiner and Bricklayer ... If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans, Jews or Christian of any Sect, or they may be Atheists."
-- George Washington, 1784

· At Washington's funeral in 1799, the mourners threw sprigs of acacia into his grave, to symbolize the rebirth of Osiris. During his lifetime, his contemporaries noted that the Father of Our Country refused to take Christian communion. A Philadelphia minister who knew George and Martha Washington well, Rt. Rev. William White, wrote in his 1832 memoirs: "I do not believe that any degree of recollection will bring to my mind any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in the Christian revelation."

· "I never will ... bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of enquiry into the religious opinions of others. On the contrary we are bound, you, I, and everyone, to make common cause, even with error itself, to maintain the common right of freedom of conscience."
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1803

· "That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true ..."
-- Abraham Lincoln, 1846 (nor is there any evidence that he ever joined one)

The above quotations are drawn from Gene Garman, "America's Real Religion: Separation of Religion and Government in the United States of America," 1994. See http://www.sunnetworks.net/~ggarman/index.html.

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Coven Oldenwilde's contact information:

E-MAIL: oldenwilde@aol.com
PHONE: (828) 251-0343

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This page last updated: 22 Oct. 2002