Rev. Catharine Is Currently
On Medical Leave

The Making of a Priestess Part One

1991 We ran through the streets on Samhain (an ancestor-veneration holiday celebrated the same night as Hallowe’en). My dear friend Robert and I had painted our faces with black and white greasepaint and prayed to our ancestors to be with us. I immediately felt a sense of my great-grandmother. The one who was the first […]

Imbolc, Brigid, Fire, and Water

Today is Imbolc. Or Imbolc Eve, if you prefer. Some celebrate it on the first of February, some on the second. In any event, it is a Cross-Quarter Day, one of the holidays between the solstice and equinox, and a holy day I love. Why do I love it? In part because if it the […]

The Ethic of Commitment and the Magic Cord

Since I wrote about the omphalos, the navel of the world, in my last entry, something else has occurred to me. It is part of a teaching from the Wicca 101 class I offer, much of which comes from Stone Circle Wicca. The first tool I teach is not the athame, wand, cup, dish or […]

The Light and Dark of Candlemas

Bless you in the light of Candlemas. Bless you in the lighting of the candles. Bless you in the candlelit procession, illumination striking every corner. Bless you in the diminishing light, the shrinking beeswax. Bless you in the darkness. From a reworking of the Charge of the Star Goddess by Jonathan D. White 3* priest […]

UU Minister and Wiccan Priestess: Initiations

I am being ordained into the Unitarian Universalist ministry on April 19 of this year. If all goes well, the congregation of All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington, DC will confer ordination upon me, and many people will come from many parts of the United States (and possibly beyond) to witness and join in the […]

Are You At a Crossroads?

The event was Four Quarters Drum and Splash, a veritable feast of dancing, drumming, singing, and swimming, all over the US Independence Day weekend. I don’t remember the year, but it’s some time ago now. Ten years? Twelve? A long time ago. The ritual team had talked for a long time about this ceremony, main […]

The Beauty of the Stones: Part Two

My feet may yet be wanderin’ But my heart has found a home In the Center of Four Quarters In a Ring of Standing Stone. “The Center of Four Quarters” So what is the benefit of raising a Stone Circle in the middle of southern central Pennsylvania? For twenty years, hundreds of people have come […]

Stones Rising and Four Quarters: Part One

A memory. A memory with many words and images that will mean the most to those from Four Quarters, but that may paint a picture for others. At Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary, the high holydays are those around the raising of new Stones in the Stone Circle. I see rollers and ropes raise the Stones. […]

Altars, Altars Everywhere!

I am looking at the rickety wooden table to the left of my desk. It was given to me by Maria, my first lover, then roommate, then ex-roommate, now reconnected friend. Maria gave me this small, wooden table she painted sky blue. She gave it to me to be an altar, a place to center […]

What Am I Doing Here?–Part Two!

As I said in part one, if I learned liturgical ritual, feast days, and smells-and-bells from the Catholic Church, it was at Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary that I began to make those things my own. To feel them in my bones. To know that ritual was worth my blood, sweat, and tears. While I had […]