How to Start a Goddess Raising Circle

Gather in, sister, friend, mother,
Moving us, here with each other,
Weaving our loving together.

The covens where witches traditionally gather (related to the word “convent”) bear witness to witchcraft’s roots in early matrifocal societies and matrilineal families. Patriarchal societies are fueled, at their deepest root, by a fiendishly simple maneuver: separating women from each other. This separation wounds and weakens us in multiple vicious ways. We lose clarity in our thinking, joy and comfort in our hearts—and above all, we lose the spiritual compass of experiencing Goddessery in each other.

There is no aspect of the witch’s path, the Goddess-loving path, more central or more revolutionary than bringing a group of women, consciously and intentionally, together — especially for a spiritual purpose that does not involve serving a monotheistic male God! This is why Jean Shinoda Bolen, in her little book Sacred Circles, proposes that the simple act of women meeting in intimate circles is the most effective first step to healing the world from all that ails it.

And why not? How else could we possibly start?

A witch’s way has time-honored forms of gathering built into it: the circle and the coven. (BTW if you’re wondering about the relationship I see between witches and Goddess worshippers, it’s like a Venn diagram with considerable overlap in the middle. I’ll write more about this another time or as soon as someone asks me!).

Here I’ll share my experiences in two different kinds of womencircles, a coven and a sacred circle, and my best tips for starting your own. . .

Coven

A coven is a powerful working group of women who are highly motivated to create magical transformation in their own lives and in the world. Many witches have covens of 13 or more, but my best coven experiences have been in small