Question about Covening / Experience with Covens

[Xiao Rong]

Hello everyone! I was wondering if those of you who have had been part of a coven would mind giving me some advice or otherwise sharing your experience ... bonus points if you have helped form a coven yourself! (bear with me ... long post incoming!)

Here's the background: I've been part of a local pagan group for the past year now. The group predates me by about 6 months (it was originally a book group that met once a month), but around the time I joined had decided to become a little more serious and committed and met twice a month, with the intention of celebrating the Sabbats and doing some ritual work. The other people I've met through the group have all been quite wonderful, and I feel like I've gotten fairly close to most of them. We've learned a lot from each other, organized a few rituals, celebrated the Sabbats. So far, so good. Although I think most of us have felt that we have kind of stagnated in terms of learning. There's only so much we can grow together in a somewhat informal, casual setting.

We've talked a little bit about covening (I've used the term "coven" to describe my group on the forum a few times, but we've really been more of a circle), but during our last Beltane celebration, we discussed the idea of covening much more seriously. Since this is my first pagan group (and I also am a solitary practitioner outside the group), I don't have any experience with covens, and while this is an exciting development, I'm still trying to figure out what it means.

The question for us is, what makes our circle different from a coven? We are all plenty committed to one another -- none of us skip meetings for any reason beside family emergency or illness. My personal feeling is that the reason why we would start a coven is because we would be trying to establish a local tradition of Paganism -- that this "work" is what would bind us together. And the reason why someone would apply to join a coven -- to get to know a group of strangers, to dedicate themselves to us, to go through the trouble of initiation -- is because we would offer them to teach us a set of traditions.

Problem -- almost none of us have had actual experience in other covens. We have all been Pagan for a number of years, but most of us have been solitary practitioners with our own respective areas of interest. There's one newer member who seems to have a fair bit of serious magical training from a proper (lineaged?) coven, but that's it. I had never really thought of the value of tradition before, but come to think of it, this is probably why the majority of covens are created by one experienced High Priest/ess who offers to train others, I imagine. And we don't have a teacher like that, to provide leadership.

Nor do we really want one. I think there's great value in the fact that each of us has the ability to be our own Priest/ess, and we all agree that we envision our future potential coven to be democratic in leadership and to recognize each person as having magical worth.

Our "homework" assignment for the next time we meet is to try to come up with things that we hope to get out of a coven. As someone who works in administration, naturally I want to draw up a mission statement before we get around to doing a covening ceremony -- something that will distinguish us from the more informal, casual group that we have now.

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SOOOO ... after that very long introduction and context, I'd be really interested to hear from everyone who's been in a coven ... feel free to answer only the questions you want to ... Here goes:

1. What is the history of your coven? How was it formed, by whom, and why? Did you have a ceremony to officially establish the coven, and what was it like?

2. What have been the biggest benefits of being in a coven for you?

3. What differentiates a coven from a circle, in your opinion?

4. How important is having an experienced teacher in the coven in your experience? Are they the High Priest/ess? And did they form the coven?

5. What is the governance structure of the coven like? (i.e. who makes decisions?) What are the pros/cons?

6. Does everyone in your coven mostly share the same practices and beliefs?

7. Do you also have a solitary practice outside your coven?

8. Any other advice you have for forming a coven?

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Again, any insight on the matter would be great ... Thanks a bunch for bearing with me!

[MsMollimizz]

There use to be a few "pagans" in my area listed on Witch Vox...
I met my only "physical" pagan friend on message board and come
to find out we lived 3 miles from each other, hooray !
When the "coven" was listed the two of us talked about for awhile
and finally decided to check it out.
Neither my friend or myself had a structured pantheon, she was
into astrology and doing charts for 15+yrs and pagan a year or so
before we met. I'm a long term pagan who has had a few Goddess's
under my belt per se'
We had to interviewed separately ! We were accepted to go thru
classes... She was teaching her ways of her path.
My friend got into the coven...I did not due to my focus becoming
unfocused frequently. I had to get a red binder for the papers on
their path and how they do things. I had to give them back when
I stopped ! In general, they were like a watered-down version of
a typical 101 their Deities were referred to as the Mother and
Father.
It was about a year later the coven started falling apart due to
conflicting interests in HP. The subject came up about helping a
fellow member who was going thru trouble, it's suppose to be
coven decision by silent vote. Years later I found out the coven
wanted to help but HP used her stature to veto the vote.
That's when my friend quit.
I just wanted others of like minded, I wanted friends, not just
one ! I feel isolated now, and my friend moved 30mi away
needless to say we don't get together as often as we'd like; I get
so lonely for pagan discussions. I could talk to hubby about this
before we moved down to the desert and he went to church
with her and got more religious. I went with them for awhile
but felt out-of-place, good thing the "pastor"(?) was an awesome
lady with a great sense of humor.
We thought we'd start our own coven, but we really didn't
know anyone so that went out the window.
I would think coven members should have, if only some, common
beliefs. Different Deities would be fine as long as one is getting
the attention in coven.
A circle, I believe are pagans together discussions about faiths,
Deity, which way they practice, which holidays they like...etc.
I think the HP should have knowledge and experience...but final
decisions relating to coven should be coven decided.
Gentle Light
MsMollimizz

[lwelke3]

You know, I'm pretty jelous that you get to experience this group co-op, the title being irrelivant.

Where I'm at, its pretty much impossible to get a fellow pegan to admit to being pegan! The other day I saw some guy with a very deticated wicca sleeve tats, and when I asked him if he was pegan (using pegan as a general term) and he straight up denied it. I was like "Dude, its cool, I'm a wicca-folk magician. What do your tats symbolize?" Nothing. Lol

[Xiao Rong]

Thanks, Ms. Mollimizz, for sharing! I do wonder if practices have to get diluted by default when you start working together in a group, if only because you have to find some common ground, which often happens to be a simple Wiccan structure. I remember as a solitary I had set up some associations with the cardinal directions that were more aligned with our local geography, but once I joined my circle I had to switch to the default North/Earth, West/Water, South/Fire, East/Air because that was just more "conventional" and easy to remember. Even now, if I was still a solitary, I'd probably celebrate the Sabbats a little differently to align it to the seasons here (e.g. celebrating Yule/Midwinter in February), but I have to let that go for my circle. Our deities are just the Lord and Lady as well. Again, that was some really helpful insight.

@ Lwelke3: Huh! That's strange. Do you live in a particularly Christian-dominated area? No luck on finding a group via Witchvox?