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'So Mote It Be'
By MICHAEL CANNING, Times Staff Writer © St. Petersburg Times, published May 19, 2000 As the half moon glowed through a patchy deck of clouds, the sound that most disturbed the quiet of the neighborhood was the hollow plastic wheels of a child's tricycle crackling over pavement. All the youngster would've seen while pedaling past one yard in Oakford Park, near Himes Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard, would be the tops of willow trees, and a sliver of torch light through the cracks of the six-foot privacy fence. Perhaps the fleeting scent of burning frankincense would have given the kid pause. A low, reverent female voice was heard from behind the fence. "I will call North," she said. "Guardians of the North, of the spirits, fairies, the gnomes, the woodnymphs, lend us your energy to this ritual that we work tonight. So mote it be." A small chorus of women's voices softly responded, "So mote it be." A witches' ceremony in the heart of Tampa? Curious? Suspicious, or even threatened? This weekend, the same people who held the Oakford Park ceremony will do the same in public, and you're invited. The Tampa Unitarian Universalist Church Full Moon Circle will hold its Mayfest on Saturday, beginning at 10:30 a.m., at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa, 11400 Morris Bridge Road. The coven, which is housed at the church northeast of Temple Terrace, holds the event as an annual fund raiser and community outreach program. To the uninitiated, it might seem like a cross between a Renaissance fair with activities for kids, live music and an assortment of metapsychical professionals ready to tend to your otherworldly needs. But there will be a pronounced pagan element amidst the carnival atmosphere. That's because after thousands of years, witches still get a bad rap. Inside the Oakford Park house, where Full Moon Circle high priestess Paulette Cadwell lives, she and two fellow witches cut to the chase. "One of the big misconceptions is that we have anything to do with Satan," said Bridget Collins, 30. "Satan is a Christian deity," added Cadwell, 45. "We do not even believe in that." Twenty-two-year-old Kelly Harkcom attacked another stereotype. "Let's all get drunk and have this wild orgy around a bonfire. Well, that isn't us either." So what's all this stuff people hear about animal sacrifices? "You can go in any Wiccan household," Cadwell countered, "and I guarantee you they have pets, and they're all like this," she said, pointing at Lucky, her portly Doberman pinscher reclined on the living room floor. "Spoiled rotten." Satanism, orgies, animal sacrifices, all nixed. What is there left to being a witch? Not much, if you still cling to the view that "witch" means "evil." But you'll find that witches like these -- and the additional ones who will perform rites like a full moon ritual and herb healing at the Mayfest -- are eager to tell you that most witches are good witches. Well, eager to a certain degree. According to its members, or dedicants, the Full Moon Circle is unusually large for a coven, and is experiencing growing pains. The coven was about a year-and-a-half old when Cadwell first attended in 1993. "If they had 20, 25 people there, they had a crowd," Cadwell said. "We average over 100 every single month now." Cerlin, a Full Moon Circle member and third degree high priest of Hecate, is somewhat wary of the group's growth. "We traditionally have always stayed small, because pagans are persecuted so much. We're learning as we go. We're trying to slow it down, the pace at which we're being exposed." Yet here they are about to throw a big festival. Cerlin, a 46-year-old professional magician who declined to give his real name, acknowledged it's a Catch-22. "The more secret we stay, the less people know about us, the easier it's going to be to point a (persecuting) finger at us." Modern withcraft is often referred to as Wicca, an Anglo Saxon word that means "magician" or "wise one." One of the more prominent genres of a broader neo-pagan movement, it claims roots in pre-Christian Europe and recognizes a divine, omnipresent life force. Deities are worshipped in both female and male forms, as well as in nature and even cosmic sources. Estimates of the North American Wiccan population vary greatly. A survey conducted by the Covenant of the Goddess, an international group of 200 covens, counts 50,000. On their Web site, the Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance estimates around 500,000 in the United States and 30,000 in Canada. There seems to be widespread agreement that Wicca's growth has accelerated in recent years. Factors such as millennial uncertainty, the rise of the internet, and the environmental movement have been mentioned as possible explanations for the increase. "Our religion is very much in tune with nature," Harkcom said. "Most of us are very civically-minded when it comes to recycling and earth issues." The Full Moon Circle members also acknowledged pop culture's somewhat more positive tack in its ongoing portrayal of witches (Blair Witch Project notwithstanding). They all cited the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed as shows with positive witches in central roles. "From a witch's point of view, frankly, we were just happy they were looking at us and the examples of witches they were giving were Sandra Bullock and Stockard Channing," Collins said with a laugh, referring to the 1998 movie Practical Magic. But these Wiccans, many of whom are unfullfilled former Christians, had no problem explaining why witchcraft appealed to them in particular. After drifting away from the Baptist faith and gradually toward paganism, Cadwell finally dedicated to Wicca 12 years ago. Now she's quick to tell people about her adopted religion's lack of dogma. "We always tell people that you are not going to agree with everything that you read. And you don't have to. Take what your heart tells you is true, and incorporate it into a lifestyle that works for you." Cadwell was raised Southern Baptist in Tampa. "I was only told to take things on faith and you weren't supposed to question certain things," she said. "And it just didn't feel right. Because if this was the way the universe worked, there had to be an answer, or at least a direction that they could send me in so I could get my own answer. I was chastised for asking too many questions." Collins, Harkcom and Cerlin were former Catholics. Collins -- as she emphatically put it, a former "Bostonian, Irish, Italian, Roman Catholic" -- asked too many questions in catechism class and declared her rejection of Catholicism during her final confirmation class. Cerlin, a native of Chicago, also "asked way too many questions in catechism class," and strayed over to Wicca via the pagan customs of his Sicilian roots. Harkcom was a non-practicing Catholic, but was turned on to Wicca by a friend while attending King High School in Tampa. "It felt like going home," Harkcom said of her first visit to a circle at the Unitarian Universalist church. "Everything just all the sudden clicked. It made sense." None of these Wiccans has experienced any significant persecution from their families or friends. They all say they are "out of the broom closet" at their workplaces and are accepted by their peers. Cadwell is an administrative assistant at BellSouth. Harkcom works for the Census Bureau and does event staffing at the Ice Palace. Collins does technical support for credit card terminals at Paymentech. Unitarian Universalist churches have become increasingly common sanctuaries for Wiccan groups. The multi-denominational church with origins in Renaissance-era Eastern European Christianity shares many core values with Wicca. "Unitarian Universalism is not a creedal religion," said the Rev. Barbara Child. "We are a covenantal religion. There's not one statement of belief that all Unitarian Universalists must subscribe to. I think Unitarian Universalists are much more inclined toward shared leadership than some other denominations. I think it's not surprising that a lot of Unitarian Universalist congregations have chosen to build buildings that are circular, as this one is. We have more women in the clergy than I believe any other denomination." Michael Canning can be reached at (813) 226-3408, or at canning@sptimes.com At a glance
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