Standing at her desk 17 years ago, Norma Joyce found herself repeatedly scribing a line on her notepad, over and over until its significance could not be ignored.
The words, “Women In Conscious Creative Action” stared back at her as she mused, “I wonder where this is going to go?”
WICCA, a pagan spiritual group for women in Oregon focusing on goddess energy and the practice of ritual, has since blossomed into a tradition shared by female members ranging from teenagers to grandmothers.
Wiccans adhere to the pre-Christian pagan calendar of the four seasons and celebrate each with quarterly festivals in February, May, August and October. Beltane, the commemoration of the bounty of spring, will be observed May 1 (often called May Day).
Joyce, 69, is not only a founding mother of the Oregon-based network but continues to work on expanding the message of WICCA to the community at large.
“I knew I wanted to meet with women,” she said. “That we had a special job to do in saving Mother Earth and in healing the destruction patriarchal religion has done.”
Expanding the responsibilities of that special job, WICCA’s message is now available to those in the Lane County justice system. Joyce has been officially recognized by the state as a spiritual advisor for incarcerated pagans.
Additionally, she recently began a six-week series of classes at Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility in Salem teaching the tenets of paganism and female-centered spirituality to youth offenders who express interest in the program.
Another founding member of the local group, Susan Walker, said being involved in WICCA empowers women, including herself. She describes it as the thing that “has helped me the most in my life.”
“Magic comes from within,” she said. “It’s about taking responsibility for our lives.”
Responding to popular misconceptions of the group, Walker stressed that Wiccans continue to work against stereotyping as witches or satanic practitioners and “being lumped into the occult.”
“We do not do the devil,” she said. “In WICCA, there is no dark side. We are a church of the goddess.”
Their deity, though female in context, stands to symbolize the feminine divine energy Wiccans believe is present and focuses on the aspects of the changing seasons or the creative nature of Mother Earth. “For us, the goddess is not a separate god,” Walker said. “It is beyond all that.”
In practice, Wiccans gather weekly in small groups of no more than eight, called “wings,” to perform and share in rituals that can vary from meditation, song or movement exercises to a lesson on medicinal herbs.
Joyce said each experience in the wing is unique, depending on the rotating woman in charge of orchestrating the activity that week and ranges from the “esoteric to the prosaic.” It is not the same as traditional prayer meetings or liturgical services of other various denominations.
“Ritual is different in the sense that we are celebrating our being, our commitment to Mother Earth, to the goddess’ energy and the wheel of life,” Joyce said.
Kim Reed, who moved to Eugene last year, sought out joining the group because she wanted to become involved with women who shared her interest in goddess energy.
“I wanted people to do rituals with,” she said. “But you get so much more out of it than that, too. You get to know yourself.”
Mother Earth revered in female pagan group
Daily Emerald
April 16, 2000
Hideki Tomeoka for the Emerald
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