Practical Coven Keeping
A Guide for the New (or would-be) Coven Leader
Kaatryn MacMorgan, CUEW ©2000

Contents:
Part One: What This Guide will NOT help you with and where to find sources that will.
i. What is Wicca?
ii. How can I become Wiccan?
iii. I want to learn about the UEW Tradition
iv. How can I find a Coven near me?
v. What is a coven, should I form one?
vi. How to get People together to form a coven.
Part Two: Now that I have 3, 4 or more people interested in working together, what do I do?
i. Nine basic Rules for UEW Covens, including several good for all covens.
ii. Meeting places
iii. Why every covener should keep his tools with him
iv. Our Covenstead and Why it Works as ritual area and has worked in the past.
v. Covenstead house rules.
v. Intentionally making a pest out of yourself.
Part Three: I’ve people, a place, ritual equipment, and a set of rites- What else do I need?
Coming soon!!!!


Part One: What this Guide will NOT help you with and where to find sources that WILL.
This guide is intended to provide help for experienced Wiccans wanting to run or start successful covens. It does not explain What Wicca is or how to become Wiccan. There are many great resources on and off the net to help with those things. This guide is for people who want to run covens that work. It is provided, gratis, because of the great lack of quality Coven keeping materials available and because of the author’s belief that such things are needed in our community.

This document assumes you have the appropriate degree in your tradition to start a coven, and you already have the tools and rites you intend to use. It assumes some basic experience in groups, or if that is not available to you, supplemental reading on group dynamics and groupthink. This is no book on coven keeping, just an experience based guide.

Statistically, someone, somewhere, will have reached this page in error, doing a basic websearch on Wicca or covens. Some websearch engine will pick out the words “local” and “coven” and “how to” and use this page to answer their websearch for a local coven. This page will not help you find a local coven or help you become Wiccan, it assumes you have a basic knowledge of Wicca already. If you are a beginner, there is nothing wrong with that, and I encourage you to seek out as much information on Wicca and Paganism as you can get your hands on. Scott Cunningham’s Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, for example, is an excellent book that sells for about $12 and doesn’t bog down the beauty of the faith with revisionist history or glitter and sparkle. All One Wicca, by the author of this document, is available free online and is also a good introductory text. If your time is limited, the latest revision of the author’s “What is Wicca, Anyway?” essay is available online at http://home.att.net/~macmorgan_design/cuew/bwi1.html. All One Wicca is the textbook of the Universal Eclectic Wiccan tradition, and a great place to learn about UEW. You can also visit the Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca Homepage, at http://www.cuew.org .

To find a coven or group near you there is NO better resource than Witches, Wiccans and Pagans of the World, at The Witches’ Voice.

For the purposes of this document, we will define a coven as a group of three or more adults practicing or studying Wicca together. When practiced by a couple (or a triad, at times), a very specific group dynamic is called for, and many of the topics covered within this document will not be applicable to groups under three or four. Couples (and some Triads) tend to more closely resemble solitary practitioners in their group dynamics than “covens”, and while some things in this document pay prove helpful to triads and couples, it’s often better to not attempt to place an “artificial” dynamic on these powerful small groups. As with all things, when there is no direct info available, cull the information you need from similar information.

There are many types of Covens in every Wiccan tradition, and UEW is no exception. For purposes of organization and to make charter writing easier, we divide covens into six primary types: Hierarchal, Egalitarian, Teaching Covens, Online Covens, Family Covens, and Interest-based Covens. These Six types are discussed ad nauseum in the Clergy Handbook, in the appropriately entitled “Types of Covens in UEW.” If you DO decide to form a coven, looking over the types of covens listed in that document, is a great place to start.

Before you start a coven, Ask Yourself the following questions:
Do I have access to a group of people who want to study/practice Wicca?
Do I want to practice with them or teach them?
Do I have enough knowledge to act as a leader or even a participant?
Do I know when to defer questions to another authority when I don’t know?
Is this coven a good way to help people study and/or practice Wicca?
Do I have the time for this?
Do I have the willingness to prepare study materials or other needs and to help people between meetings?
Am I doing this out of a love of my faith not because of ulterior motives like a love of power?

If the answer to all these questions is yes, then forming a coven is probably or you. “A Blueprint for Running a Teaching Coven V3.5,” includes many ways of getting people together to form a coven, including the following:

Invite beginners you know, people you’ve talked about Wicca with in the past.
Invite people you in places where Pagans congregate.

Create a website, post a notice, or add your group forming to the list at The Witches’ Voice.

Part Two: Now that I have 3, 4 or more people interested in working together, what do I do?

First, decide whether this group is going to be a permanent thing following a definite schedule or organized from week to week. Speak to all of the members, both as a group and separately, and discuss what they intend to get out of the group. Synchronizing the needs of each member into a practice that meets all the needs of the members may be difficult, but worth it. Many covens have gone downhill when one person viewed the coven as the next step in a straight line to the clergy and another viewed it as an ecstatic party designed to reach the next level of Bacchic Consciousness while still another thought it existed merely to mark the passing of the seasons. Clearly delineate the purpose of your group, no matter how basic it seems. If the coven is to be recognized as a UEW coven, some rules apply. Ones that would probably not help non-UEW covens are printed in pale blue.

#1. The coven must have a minimum of three people, twice a year. Couples practicing Wicca as a unit are generally considered "Solitary Practioners" or "Solitaries" (sing: Solitary). Membership may fluctuate, butshould not dip below three people regularly.

#2.If the coven does not meet physically, membership within the coven must be clearly delineated by entry requirements and a method of regular contact must be established. (For an example, visit Coven of The Far Flung Net)

#3.The coven must have distinct rules for membership that include how entry into the coven is gained, expectations of members and reasons for and methods of expulsion from said coven. These should be made clear to all members, and these methods should be mentioned in the charter. Optimally, the leader of a coven and any members will sign a copy of the charter, affirming they've been made aware of the contents.

# 4.EVERY COVEN MUST HAVE A CHARTER. The charter of the coven shall firmly and clearly express the goals and purpose of the coven, the fact that it is a coven of the Tradition of Universal Eclectic Wicca, what septs it belongs to, if any, and the type of Coven under AUEWC that it is. (More info: Types of Covens, Sept Creation Handbook.)

#5.If a septed coven, methods for dealing with persons interested in learning Wicca outside of the sept must be clearly delineated within the charter.

#6.At least one member of the coven should have regular contact with CUEW headquarters, the method for this contact and the contact person should be within the charter.

#7.It is not required that a Charter be on file with CUEW/AUEWC, however, filing a charter with CUEW/AUEWC assures that your group will be counted fairly in AUEWC polls, and, unless your charter is grossly outside the realm of CUEW, will result in the coven having a copy of their charter with the CUEW embossed seal upon it.

#8.The leader of a coven may be elected (ideal) or otherwise chosen. The process for this method shall also be within the charter.

#9.Every coven must have a unique name. If a coven distinctly changes membership, a roman numeral can be used to indicate that it is a group of different people (i.e.: Black Water Coven, Black Water Coven II) Likewise, a coven started by the same people may have the same name, but with a modifier. (I.e.: MacMorgan Covenstead, PA and MacMorgan Covenstead, NY; Bell Coven, Bell Coven Mother coven, Bell Tower Coven)

A coven, being a body of persons gathering together, needs a location. Unless you have the time and space to provide your group with a spotless, free room to come and go as they please, location will, at times, be problematic. The most effective coven locations, or covensteads, that I have personally witnessed have been small outbuildings on large properties, in the best case I know of, a converted carriage house owned by the Sacred Sisters of Hestia, in which the group exchanged the free use of an upstairs apartment to a member in exchange for keeping the temple in the large part of the house secure and an eternal flame maintained.

I’m not going to indulge myself in suggesting that all Wiccans go out and buy properties with carriage houses. I am aware that some authors have written long treatises on the creation of entire buildings dedicated to Wicca in the insane belief that the majority of Wiccans have the time, inclination and funding to build such temples. I choose, instead, to focus on the average Wiccan, who, like the average American, has too little time, and too little space already. If you are in the blessed position to create a temple on your land, I encourage it, while realizing most are not.

Coven members should decide on a meeting location from the beginning, either deciding on meeting at a specific location or creating a calendar of floating locations. Shared coven tools, such as a sword, can be stored at the meeting location, or brought there by the Priest or Priestess of the coven. Individual tools, such as athamés, goblets and robes, should be kept at the individual covener’s location, so that they can be used in the private rites all coveners should be doing at home. Coven Wicca can breed laziness, especially when the tools are kept safely away until they are needed, and coven members should be encouraged to be performing at least small rites on a regular basis without the coven, even if those rites are no more than nightly prayers. They should feel that the tools they use in the coven are a part of themselves, and separating those tools from them outside the coven can deny that feeling.

That being said, the covenstead becomes a much more portable facility. With each coven member expected to bring his or her tools to the specified location, and a coven leader willing and capable of bringing the larger tools, the covenstead becomes “the place” and not the collection of things and a place.

Our covenstead exists in our office; a 15 by 12 ft basement room with pale lavender plaster walls and cheap mauve office carpeting. It is home to a desk and the associated paraphernalia, a rabbit in a 3ft by 1ft glass sided hutch, a cat-tortured flea market couch, two bookshelves,(one of metaphysical books and one of gaming books and board games), and two altars: a round decorator table, 18 inches in diameter, and a 5ft by 2ft heavy wooden coffee table which is rarely used as more than a bench for sitting but has seen the occasional great rite and naming ceremony. When the coven is not in session, the large altar sits along a wall and is used as a bench, and the small altar sits far to the east, against the radiator, which is covered by a large wood and metal radiator cover, the top of which we store metal and glass ritual equipment on.
It is lit by a garish fluorescent double circle on the ceiling, a throw back to 20 years ago when this room served as a tinker’s workshop. The light illuminates the imperfections of the room, three electrical outlets from the house’s old wiring, just plates over empty sockets, a sVVVlight stain beneath the paint on the wall from the water in the kitchen when, 15 years ago, the now-removed wiring started a fire. Gaming posters and signs that make me smile hang above the computer desk, and to the left two fake brass plaques of Grecian libation bearers flank my Eta Sigma Phi initiation certificate. When that fluorescent light is on, the room is a workroom, a place of business, a source of stress and aching fingers. Yet magick and technology can change it into a ritual holy place.

A pair of strings of magenta Christmas lights begins the transformation, a suggestion from a practitioner of Feri Wicca I looked askance upon but tried anyway. These lights line the top 3 inches of wall in an unbroken circle. When the fluorescent light goes off and they go on, the fact that it is an office is left behind. The magenta lights, which were supposed to be purple according to the package they came in, have some special properties all their own, bright enough to read by, but when you close your eyes, you see the complete lack of light you’d expect in a room lit only by a few candles. To a Priestess whose eyes began to go bad her Junior year in college, the ability to light the room with more than candles has been indispensable, I simply haven’t the memory of my own priestess, who would memorize great tracts of her book of shadows rather than wear her thick reading glasses in circle.

During the times when the room is used as an office or as the site of quicky two-person rituals, the floor is often littered with misplaced papers, woodchips Pikachu the rabbit has thrown out of her cage in a plea for attention and the toys and gadgets of an eight year old boy, a six year old cat and a pair of busy technology enhanced lesbians. This debris is the wage of life, the collected detritus of the fact that the room is used on a daily basis.

To some authors on the subject, this would be indicative of a destructive, non-Wiccan way of life, and I shudder to think what such people would think of the house above the temple during your average midterms week or right before a big contract or paper presentation- Pizza boxes, wine bottles, vitamin containers and candy wrappers, dishes piled so high the sink has disappeared, clothes strewn about here and there and worse. This disorder is NOT indicative of not being a real or proper Wiccan, but has everything to do with life. Just as a body gets a ritual and physical washing before a group ritual, the room gets a ritual cleaning, the walls sprinkled with seawater and hyssop, the vacuum run over the littered floor, papers cleaned up and wastepaper baskets emptied, and because the room is also home to our coven mascot, the fluffy Holland lop bunny named Pikachu, cleansing the room also involves changing the rabbit hutch litter, and providing fresh food and water so she won’t be cranky when our coveners arrive. (Contrary to some opinions, Fluffy Bunnies DO have teeth and often don’t believe in harming none.)

This preparation is all the coveners should expect of the person donating their house to the ritual, beyond a sanitary bathroom and a path through the chaos to walk through, but even the most decidedly messy coven leaders feel uncomfortable with guests tromping through messes, so we’ve found that the special assistance of our coveners is needed at times. One member is known to fix broken sinks and stoves, another offers to do the occasional sink of dishes, another showed up with Chinese the night before a ritual knowing we would be too tired to cook and still another comes by once or twice a year to help clean the closets. This sort of help, not payment, is what makes a covenstead location work!

As with all things, keeping a covenstead requires that boundaries and guidelines be set and discussed. Basic rules of etiquette should be observed- don’t open closets, medicine cabinets or closed doors without permission, don’t bring illegal substances or legal substances the occupants disagree with. Assume that even those smart enough to be in a coven with you can have a lapse of judgment at times and put those rules and guidelines in writing.

Bell Tower Coven of Wicca, UEW, is an example of a group that has guidelines that are simple, explicit and a good example of what I mean. The new member house rules are given below, and may be used as an outline for creating your own house rules.

Bell Tower Covenstead House Rules:

Please remember that this temple is in a house with real, living occupants and respect it as the property it is. Do not bring guns, drugs or cigarettes into the house or wear perfumes or strongly scented cosmetics.

Refrain from rooting through closets, medicine cabinets, and the refrigerator, we’re more than happy to give you the tour for $3.00

Assume doors are closed for a reason, Penelope and Ulysses, our Labradors, and Cynthia the cat are destructive forces in the circle with a penchant for knocking over candles and chasing smoke. The upstairs smoke detector will go off during ritual if the French doors are not shut.

Please don’t flush anything but body wastes and toilet paper down the toilets, our septic system is VERY fussy. Trash receptacles are under the sink in both bathrooms, as is extra toilet paper. Please replace the roll if you use the last, and don’t leave a tiny bit on the roll. Don’t leave the seat up. 75% of our group is female, they’ll know who did it.

Communal food is left on the kitchen table, communal drinks in the cooler. We are not millionaires, please don’t eat the groceries we’ve bought to get us through the week. The water in the tap is filtered well water, the water in the fridge is distilled, filtered, fluoridated water for the baby. Please don’t use that water. Cream for the coffee is in the door of the fridge in a blue container, the clear container contains breast milk. Don’t make that mistake (again!). Soymilk is also in the door. The large blue canister contains sugar cubes.

If you break something, TELL US. We won’t hurt you.

Volunteers to prepare the ritual area and house before are welcome. Sweepers, dishwasher loaders and putters away and lawn mower men and women are appreciated but not required. There is a $0.25 printer fee to print out documents on the computer.

If you intend to come early, or late, please call first.

I think that’s pretty self-explanatory, don’t you?

My last bit of simple advice to the coven leader is this: Make a Pest out of yourself. If people don’t show up, call them and ask them why. If someone repeatedly forgets stuff, call them up and remind them. Make a phone tree and have people call before the ritual to remind people, even to remind you. As their leader, you are not stepping on toes when you make a pest out of yourself, but doing what must be done to keep the coven running like a smooth oiled machine.


Bibliography and Recommended Reading:
Documents with an asterix are judged to be especially helpful on this topic.

Adler, Margot, Drawing Down the Moon, 1986
Corey and Corey, Becoming a Helper, 1992
Grayarrow, Gerard, Teaching Covens, A Blueprint, 1990
K, Amber, Covencraft:Witchcraft for Three or More, 1998
MacMorgan, Kaatryn “Coven Creation Handbook” 1999
MacMorgan, Kaatryn “Elected Clergy” 1999
MacMorgan, Kaatryn “A Blueprint for Running a Teaching Coven V3.5”, 2000 *
MacMorgan, Kaatryn “Types of Covens in UEW” 2000 *
Tomas, Jayne “Covens:A Blueprint” 1986
Tomas, Jayne, “What makes a successful Coven Tick?” 1988, revised.*

Copyright notice:
©2000, Kaatryn MacMorgan and CUEW
This article is distributed for the sole purpose of helping Modern Wiccans run successful covens.
It may be reprinted ONLY with the permission of Kaatryn MacMorgan. Much of the info is directly quoted from other CUEW articles.

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