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Coven of the Stone and Mirror is a Gardnerian congregation in the wilds of Western Canada. We are a fairly recent arrival on the scene, as we were founded early in 1995, and have maintained our covendom in Calgary, Alberta since that time.
The High Priestess (HPS) of the Coven is Brigantia Stone, who trained with Lady Cleindori of Proteus Coven in New York City (now moved to easternmost New Jersey) and Lady Deirdre of Coven of the Silver Trine in Louisville, Kentucky. The position of High Priest (HP) within our Coven is presently vacant.
We function as an elder coven; most of our active and corresponding members have groups of their own. We are, however, co-sponsor (along with Coven of the Stone and Cauldron) of Wild Rose Outer Grove. With the aid of elders from several other covens, we also publish a small journal for Gardnerian initiates: Six Roads: A Gardnerian Journal of the Art.
One of the catchphrases of the conservation movement is "Think globally, act locally." We live within a world of complexity, beauty, strength and fragility. As do many people within our faith, we concern ourselves with the issues of living lightly upon the Earth; in running our households, most of our members practice the Four R's: "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink."
We carry our faith into the communities within which we live. Brigantia was for some years an officer of her community association (the smallest unit of local government within the City of Calgary), and she has recently been involved with the Interfaith Council of Greater New York in projects related to the United Religions initiative; others of us are involved within environmental, community or professional societies. Wisdom for us often lies in discretion, so we mostly do not advertise our religious affiliation within such venues.
As Witches, we strive to act in accordance with our values and the dictates of our conscience. Neither of these are easy guideposts for actions, for we must spend a fair bit of time "testing the leadings", as our Quaker friends would put it.
A Coven is a small, closely-knit religious congregation within our faith. We conduct the sacramental rites of our faith as we see the need arising: these might include:
The astute observer will note that we use the term "passage" a bit differently than do many other religious groups; this stems from our understanding that someone who experiences a Mystery will view the world from a different perspective once the rite has been done.
All of the above-mentioned rites are ordinarily worked by as many members of the Coven as practicable, given the needs and pressures of school, family and shift-work. We regard our collective religious observances as a high point within our lives.
When circumstances prevent any of us from joining together with our Coven at the appointed time and day, we can perform rites of solitary devotion and celebration.
Wild Rose Outer Grove is our local Pagan training group. The Grove maintains its own Web page , and also has a private, members-only, e-mail discussion group.
Wild Rose works from a syllabus based on that used in Seattle for some years, most recently under the sponsorship of Coven of the Stone and Staff. During the 1999 session, the Grove is meeting on forty Thursday evenings, in four blocks of ten weeks each, at a fixed location on the outskirts of Calgary. The 1999 group is now closed; information on next year's group will be available via the Wild Rose home-page.
Our Coven, in keeping with Gardnerian teachings, has occasionally taken in new members by means of our Tradition's rites. However, during the course of the Grove's work, the Coven will only take in new members from among the graduates of the Grove, thus affording an assurance to the graduates that at least one local Coven will consider their post-graduate petitions for Traditional initiation and Coven membership, should they so desire.
For all other extents and purposes, the Coven is "closed", with the exception that we do accept petitions for formal transfer of membership from other Gardnerian groups,and we have in turn sent our people opnwards to other Gardnerian groups; in these options we acknowledge the harsh reality of modern business practices, which sometimes oblige even the HPS and HP of a Coven to pack up and move house on short notice, because their careers call them elsewhere.
In the past few years, our members have pursued professions as diverse as computer sales, drum-making, engineering, geology, nursing, community medicine, software design and entrepreneurship. This diversity is typical of our faith: we strive to lead lives which balance professional devlopment with religious vocation.
All Covens within our religion are autonomous. However, many of our Covens choose to band together in various larger groupings, in recognition of the ancient communion which we share with our Deities. There are several organised Gardnerian Churches in North America; our Coven is not, however, a member of any one of these although we have considered helping incorporate such an organisation in Canada.
Several other Covens are connected with our Coven, through relationships between their HPSs and our HPS. These relationships are of affection and mutual support, rather than direction and control. At the moment we have five such "daughter covens", scattered throughout North America.
Gardnerian covens seldom advertise themselves on the Internet. We are doing this as an experiment, to see whether we can maintain better relations with our neighbours in the Craft, who have from time to time expressed curiosity about our work. An Oath is a complicated thing to bide, and the wise observer will discern how we have kept ours.
written by Brigantia Stone
updated: April 10, 1999
document © 1999 Coven of the Stone and Mirror
the address of this page is: http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Agora/2416/cosminfo.html