JaguarMoon started (allll the waaaaaay back in 2000) as a typical hierarchical* coven. I was the High Priestess and although three other people founded the coven along with me, they all felt they were not ready to Lead. In all honesty, neither was I, but Deity Called and I answered.
Over the years the other founders left (two hived to form a daughter coven) and I kept on Leading. I wrote a book about what I had learned and thought was logical, and in it I mentioned a different model of leadership, that of the wheel.
Fifteen years later, I am very pleased to share that JaguarMoon is no longer a hierarchy, but a wheel.
This is the result of a great deal of time and the special nature of a trio of people. Let me back up a ways to to 2018 when, in a general coven meeting I mentioned that I was coming up on 20 years of leading JaguarMoon, and I really couldn’t see myself continuing to do so forever. To my husband, privately, I said I thought I had seven more years in me before I burned out past any ability to recover. Not much later, I had a very clear conversation with Deity about this asking Them to assist in the solution. Then I let it go.
By “let it go,” I mean that I kept doing the Work of leading by example. But witchcraft leadership is not exactly about picking someone you like and training them to be the next leader. All too often that ends up with broken covens, and distorted egos. I knew this from experience, as the people I had previously chosen to step into leadership roles did not work out well. Some of this came from my not doing a great job in choosing and training, but much of it was their core personality. (It’s like making an anxious introvert the Featured Speaker at a large convention. [I am deliberately choosing an example that has nothing to do with the people in past leadership roles.] It leads to stress for them, and the coven.)
I was hoping that someone would hear a Call, that Deity would given someone a *nudge.* That was the magickal working I enacted and released in late 2018.
Magick takes its own time and has its own pattern.
In late 2021, as so many of you know, my husband and I left much of what we’d known and owned in the Pacific Northwest for an entirely new life in Portugal. This was going to profoundly affect my ability to be a part of JaguarMoon as I was suddenly in a radically different time zone from everyone; our live meetings, rituals, and student classes were all held at 6pm Pacific, which meant 2am for me in Portugal. I simply could not lead every class and ritual. So I asked the coven to step up and take as much of that work as possible.
Almost everyone did.
In the first year (2021-2022) about half of everything I had been present for was taken off my plate, in the second year (2022-2023) it was more like 90%. It’s difficult to explain how emotional I was at the support I was given by so many in JaguarMoon. I was literally shown how important they felt it was that the coven continue and thrive. The experiment of my not having to lead all the classes and rituals was a success, and I was freed to do what I most love: be a witch and teach “witch” to others on a more advanced basis. I started monthly salons with a topic to focus the discussion, but allowing me to get beyond 101 and into the meat of our being a teaching coven.
It was great.
Then about this time two years ago, three of my long time coven members each reached out to me over the course of a month and all said some variation of, “I need to start working on a deeper role within JaguarMoon.”**
Deity was making its move.
Since then, we’ve been meeting for several hours twice a month. I can’t quite call what I’ve been doing “training,” even though there was a general outline out information to impart. You see, I have been doing this for so long I no longer know what’s only in my head. My agenda was to get what was in my head shared with others. Aspecting, ritual as performance, ethics, deep elemental work, Deity specific work . . . With each task I set, each test, they succeeded. Gloriously. They assisted one another, they took on smaller leadership roles within the coven, and they were fantastic.
In a special ritual just before the start of our Art of Ritual class^, the three of them took over the leadership of JaguarMoon. I remain in the hub, but as an Elder
I am no longer alone.
A new cycle begins.
All Hail JaguarMoon!
* First inevitable digression: A hierarchy is the most commonly seen group structure. Think of a triangle with a single individual at the top, and then spreading out with underlings and such in broader levels as you go towards the bottom. Information (and, everything) flows from the top down. This structure is stable and extremely efficient for creating new groups, which is one reason why it is so popular. However, it is also very difficult to change into a differently shaped structure and reinforces the idea that the leader, or those at the top, are somehow better than those below them. (Which is almost always the case when there is a top and bottom involved.)
** Second inevitable digression: Traditionally, this is known as the Second Degree. Generally speaking, only a Second degree (or higher) can initiate another into witchcraft and may be able to lead a coven on their own. If you’d like to know how JaguarMoon describes it, I invite you to see our page.
^ The Art of Ritual class is our year-long “witchcraft 101” class. It starts the first Monday in November and covers all of the basics of witchcraft: altars, sacred space, divination, ethics, ritual, etc.