The circular meeting room in the Humboldt Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bayside is a bright, airy space. Seated in a ring of chairs are a dozen people, mostly members of the Grove of Hekate coven, who’ve come for the monthly full moon ritual. A few people are dressed office casual, while one woman wears a hooded cape and beaded headpiece. Another caped woman enters with a walker and a man in a wide-brimmed hat sits with a tall drum between his knees. Another woman in a feathered, black fedora sips from a Solo cup.
Tonight’s ceremony is led by Artemesia (her coven name), who’s in training to become a high priestess. She wears a flowy, sage green vest and silver flats, her pale blonde hair hanging loose down her back. Checking the presentation notes on her phone, she says, “If you see us on our phones, we’re not shopping, I promise.”
Depending on weather and the season, attendance varies from half a dozen to 30 witches. Evenings start at 6 p.m. with calling forth spirits, goddesses and elements, introducing the month’s ritual, sharing gratitude and chanting, followed by snacks, socializing and clean up. Attendees generally bring food to share, and the table is spread with brownies, pasta and hummus. “When you invite people to your home,” says High Priestess Jennifer Teixeira, who also goes by Bird, “you wanna give them food and drink.”
In a pair of covens here in Humboldt County, one private and one open to the public, member witches have found faith, community and connection to nature in traditions with roots predating history. They’re also finding joy, feminism, political resistance and inclusiveness at a time when women and marginalized people are under attack.
Sarah Pike, professor emeritus of comparative religion at California State University, Chico, says she’s seen the mainstream perception of witchcraft, the modern religion of Wicca and paganism shift in the decades since she began her research. “Things have changed a lot in the last 20 years … I think the internet has a lot to do with it. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, but pagans and Wiccans are very proactive about explaining what they’re up to.” In the early 1990s, “there was a lot more suspicion” surrounding covens around the country, and for members “there was more secrecy, there was a lot more fear about losing a child in a custody battle.” What one Grove of Hekate member calls “coming out of the broom closet” is less scary (though a number of people interviewed for this story asked to have their surnames withheld). “Traditional religion being less dominant has made many more practices if not accepted, certainly tolerated,” she says.
“I felt like I was born a witch,” says Teixeira, who adds her green eyes, at least in Portuguese culture, make her more likely, though not automatically, a witch. She recalls making stone circles in the yard as a child, talking to animals and insects. “I felt religious,” but bored by church conducted in her Azorean family’s native Portuguese. As a teenager, she read about witchcraft and wore her copy of The Victorian Grimoire ragged. The collection of everyday enchantments and crafts, she says, had a cover “pink and girly” enough not to alarm her religious mother.
After practicing alone in her 20s, Teixeira joined a coven and entered priestess training in 2009. In her search for a Dianic, or goddess-focused, matriarchal coven in Humboldt, she realized, “The only way that I’m gonna find the coven that I need is if I create it.” The Grove of Hekate, she explains, is “a feminist coven, so we only work with goddesses in that circle.” Worship of the coven’s namesake goddess goes back to early Greek mythology, wherein she embodies aspects of the moon, the night and magic.
A pan-Dianic coven that accepts all genders as the trans- and non-binary-inclusive Grove of Hekate does, has an attraction that churches organized and run by men don’t, says Teixeira, especially now. In our current cultural/political climate, “Women are kind of being attacked by the government and men in general … and we can’t stay locked in our room. The only way we can come up is to come together.”
Katie, who belongs to a private coven that formed a little over a year ago, agrees. The eight or nine women and two men are mostly white and range in age from their 50s to youths who attends with their mothers, and include LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent members. It is egalitarian and invested in cycles; women “don’t’ have to be shamed for the cycles their bodies hold,” she says, “and I love that there are men that are open to that.” The coven “grew out of a conversation between two people” and grew by word of mouth. She notes there is “nary a Trump supporter in our group.”
Their focus is “having community together,” says Katie. “A lot of it has been about celebration of the seasons because we gotta find joy … and about our own healing.” Forming the coven was partly about seeking safety together. “As human beings, we have a responsibility to take care of each other.”
Given the attacks on the human and civil rights of marginalized people and naked misogyny in the news and popular culture, Pike says, “It makes sense to me that there would be an increase in these groups in this time period.” In the 1970s, she explains, pagans in the Bay Area were involved in anti-nuclear movements and protests, and others over the years have fought for reproductive rights. She’s observed groups using magic and ritual with political goals, and she has attended rituals where political figures were named — usually, but not exclusively, Republicans. Pike’s quick to point out these weren’t hexes, which she’s found are “not common in many of the more traditional forms of Wicca.” Rituals were “more about raising energy in the group and sending out energy for change, not to hurt any person.”
Paganism and witchcraft are also generally body and sexuality positive, Pike says, reciting the common refrain from the Wiccan “Charge of the Goddess”: “All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.” It was, she says, one of the reasons women were drawn to the movement in the 1960s. She adds, “I do think over the years the men I’ve met that are in covens, they wanted to explore their feminine side.”
Shell, the woman in the hooded green cape,passes a silver bowl for donations before striking a gong three times with three breaths. She’s answered by a soft, collective, “Blessed be.” She gestures with a driftwood branch bound with herbs and flowers to “cast the circle.”
“We meet and gather in a circle,” Teixeira explains later. “We cast a circle that offers a little boundary, a little bit of protection but … it becomes the place where we work. … The circle affects everything in the world if you want it to.”
Members take turns calling in elements and High Priestess Yemaya Kimmel calls in the ancestors, including Margy Emerson, a locally beloved tai chi teacher who recently died, and speaks about Emerson’s connection to the coven members and the community, singing to the altar.
An herbalist, Kimmel was ordained as a high priestess in 2023 and has been a practicing pagan, on and off, for 25 years. She works with the Redwood Coast Chapter of the national organization Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPs), which “exists to educate people about different kinds of pagan practices.” The group hosts potlucks, movie nights and “wheel of the year ceremonies.” It’s a separate group from the coven but with some overlapping membership.
Once Kimmel finishes, Teixeira calls to Hecate with an invocation punctuated with three sharp yells that leave everyone smiling a little. “Come to us, she-wolf,” she says, reciting a litany of names for the goddess: “mother of all,” “torch bearer,” “fire breather,” “harbor goddess,” “queen of the crossroads.”
The incantation and the ceremony that follows draws heavily from Greek and Celtic traditions, but, Teixeira says, “There’s not a book or rules” governing the coven’s practice. “We’re not trying to recreate ritual from Greece. We’re trying to do what we can now.”
Pike explains there are plenty with looser, more improvisational styles and “there are those that are focused on exact ritual and learning traditions.” The spectrum is broad, she says, with “no founder, no body, no central text that tells you what to do,” outside of specific traditions like Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca that were formalized in the early part of the 20th century.
A poet, Katie sees poetry in spells and finds it cathartic to write them, share them and have them shared with you. She creates her own rituals, drawing from books, practitioners online, even Tik Tok, Patreon, Discord groups and YouTube. Recently she wrote a spell for binding self-sabotaging beliefs. She did what she calls “a lot about digging through the trash, old stories” that she believed about herself, recognizing how limiting they are and how they’ve halted her progress. Performing it with her coven gave her the kinship of shared common experiences as well as accountability in terms of not falling back on old patterns going forward.
Adherence to strict tradition wouldn’t work for her, Katie says. “I’m rigid enough just by myself without all these other things coming at me. It gives me a little freedom.”
In her coven, Katie says, “All of us kind of give a fat middle finger to Wicca,” for a number of reasons, its male authorship, for one, and its Rule of Three for another. The tenet stating “everything you put out comes back to you threefold … it is stupid and victim shaming.” For a coven concerned with social justice, “when all of us there that are women that have been dominated by men at some point in their lives,” the Rule of Three feels like more suppression of female anger. “That keeps women from seeking justice.”
While her coven doesn’t do any rituals near hexing, Katie says she is frustrated by the dark/light binary and how some magic work is automatically labeled bad or evil. She can see how “sometimes doing those practices is a kind of catharsis.”
In her coven, Katie says, “We’re not afraid of the dark. … We turn to community. We aren’t scared of it — we look into the dark. That’s way more useful than turning to some savior,” she says, adding there’s value in being a bit scared now and then. “I think it’s worthwhile to spend time in the shadows.”
Cara Joy, another member of the private coven, says, “I’m a Gray Witch and I don’t personally use dark magic but … darkness lives in light, light exists in dark.” She’s not comfortable with “manipulative magic,” or trying to shift the universe to, say, coerce an ex to come back.
For Cara Joy, the coven is “an epicenter when we gather … coming together in one place with intention.” Typically, the members begin with a core intention and a chosen person to lead for the evening. They have, for example, planned a bowl spell where people write their intention — what they want to release or attract — on a bay leaf and burn it. For any spell, she says, everyone adds their energy to the ritual. “It feels like a pillar of magic. And it’s also a safe space for people to come who’ve maybe had to hide part of themselves for a long time,” because of taboos, she says. “We are very protective of keeping that circle close and protected.”
While solo practice has its value, a coven is special, Cara Joy says. “It’s more potent. It’s the same as when you hold hands and sing. When you come together and protest … it’s intensified. You have all these powerful beings in one space.”
Back at the Grove of Hekate, once the goddesses have been invoked, the gathering turns more personal. Artemisia offers small drums and rattles from a basket as the incense swirls from the altar. Shell walks the circle, striking a gong and asking, “What are you grateful for in the past moon cycle? What are you manifesting in the coming moon cycle?”
One by one, the witches speak about gratitude for strength, family aid, health and tax refunds. Their hopes for the coming weeks are for a safer vehicle, health, organizational skills, time in the garden and financial stability. Each answer is met with nods, hums of sympathy and, finally, a soft chorus of “So mote it be” above the rattles and drums.
The gatherings are therapeutic, Kimmel says later, “in as far as any spiritual practice is therapy when you gather in a group. At least for me it is. It’s a reset when I come out of a monthly ritual.” She hopes everyone emerges feeling more connected to the earth, the seasons and each other. “Our lives can get crazy, and you can press the reset button and come out refreshed, refocused and more centered, realigned.”
Once the instruments are put away, Artemisia faces the altar to invoke Airmid, Celtic goddess of healing and garden magic. Her nine-month ordination process includes public, or “open circle,” full-moon rituals like this one, as well as private training and rituals during the dark moon. Some of the initiation is secret, according to Teixeira, involving aspects of life, death and rebirth, among other things related to Hecate.
Artemisia shares stories of Airmid, a healer who studied herbs, and asks, “How can we bring the healing energy of Airmid into our lives and into our community?” She ticks off expected options like yoga and massage but also emphasizes reaching out to others with material or emotional support.
A witch who’s been “out of the broom closet forever,” Artemisia lists a calcified brain tumor among her health issues. She says she’s sometimes asked, “Well, you’re a witch, why don’t you heal yourself?” She answers that it’s never that simple or that fast, and having already passed the life expectancy her doctor gave her is already a victory.
“The focus on healing is something that I’ve seen in virtually every meeting I’ve been to,” says Pike, whether it’s meant for the planet, oneself, bodies, minds or loved ones. “I would suggest people who are interested in paganism and witchcraft — or anything, really — have found the other religions wanting.”
For this ritual, Artemisia has made a batch of healing oils and is also offering little bottles for $10 as a fundraiser. She discusses the healing properties of the lemon balm and elderberry on the altar before the other witches approach to anoint pieces of yarn with the healing oil and prepare for “knot work.” Together they repeat a numbered chant as they tie lengths of green yarn to carry with them however they like. “It doesn’t matter,” says Artemesia. “This is your magic.” Anytime you’re tying a knot, she says, whether on your shoelace or a ribbon, “You can tie your intention into that knot.”
Having grown up Catholic, Katie finds the idea of ritual is comforting. “We see ritual all the time,” she says, “when a fireman or a police officer [dies] and they put out the last call, that’s a ritual.” Same with singing and blowing out candles with a wish on birthdays. But, she says, that’s not something she can talk to her strictly Catholic mother about.
When she was 19, Katie says she was nearly disowned over a deck of tarot cards. It was scary then, “But the older I’ve gotten, the less fucks I have to give.” Other members of her family are more flexible or at least less concerned. “My belief system is not so fragile that it’s shaken by someone else’s beliefs. I think it adds texture to the world that there are all kinds of beliefs.” Faith, she notes, “is very human.”
“The Bible is just a book of witchcraft, really. Nobody wants to hear that, but people still use it for witchcraft,” Teixeira says, citing its syncretism to spiritual practices like Hoodoo and Santería. “I still have my St. Mary protecting my house because it protected my grandmother’s house.” The wine and wafers in the ritual of holy communion aren’t so far from other rituals. “It’s a metaphor in a way but it’s also in a sense creating a thing where I’m imbibing this god,” she says, “a metaphor for how you can be better.”
“We’re trying to connect to that energy,” she continues. “So do some people think it’s real? Probably.” Every coven is different in terms of how literal and/or metaphorical their interpretations are, likewise every individual within a coven. It’s about finding a fit, she says. Some members of the Grove of Hekate believe in a literal goddess, while others see her as something manifested by communal thought and still others consider her an archetype to which they relate.
The variation, says Pike, isn’t unusual. “Some people see [witchcraft] as psychological and some really believe material change happens.” It’s also a spectrum for some who view it psychologically and believe “how we move through the world makes change.”
For some, the practice is more than the outcome. Katie says she doesn’t think she knows anyone who is convinced spell work is “actually going to happen the way we will it.” For her, “It kind of depends on the day, too,” and she and her coven mostly fall somewhere on the spectrum of belief. When she was apartment hunting, she asked her coven for good energy. “Is their energy going to help me find an apartment? I don’t fucking know. But it gives me a little more confidence knowing there are people out there that will take a little time out to think about that.” She adds, “It’s an act of faith and it gives you something to hold onto. … I’m a sceptic myself. I believe in science but I’m also full of contradictions and I can hold both of those beliefs.”
Like Teixeira, Cara Joy says she grew up in Christian home but felt connected to magic and nature since childhood. “There is a tug inside myself,” she says. “When I was 15, I had my first panic attack and genuinely thought if I went to sleep, I would die.” She recalls deciding to light a candle and staring at it, letting it calm her down. “Lighting candles to this day is one of my biggest grounders.”
At 26, when Cara Joy began accepting magic as a real element in her life, she says she told a friend over the phone, “I’m a witch.” She laughs recalling they responded by saying, “Yeah, I know.”
“For me,” she says, “it’s this deep knowing and connection” to what she calls “source and spirit … it’s what I imagine other people call ‘God.’ … It’s me at the end of the day.” Cara Joy says she feels herself connected everyone and that “practicing magic is me wielding my own personal power and agency to create the life that I want … the world that I want to see in front of me.”
Teixeira, in a black dress and braided belt laden with small talismans, announces to the Grove of Hekate gathering that the night’s healing chant is in German, a favorite of hers “because it sounds very witchy.” The members stand in a circle to form a “healing cauldron” into which they will pour energy for loved ones. Artemesia adds her friend who’s ill and has a sick dog. When Teixeira invites those who need some extra healing to have a seat in the middle of the ring, a woman named Tanya gives a wry smile and sits in the middle, saying, “I will take it. Sit down and take it like a woman.”
An artist, Tanya says she came to the coven in October “through amazing women” and found it a fit. “I feel very loved and accepted and at home. … I’m searching and I’m trying to heal, and this seems like a good place. It’s safe to learn and explore.”
The political climate and the actions of the Trump administration play into Tanya’s motivation. “I think there’s a shift happening in the world where women are finding their voices and it’s important and potent to be with women in this moment,” she says. She’s found magic can be a kind of protest and there is a special camaraderie in a coven. “Powers were given at birth that we’re talked out of and trained out of.” Joining with these women, she says, feels like an act of reclaiming.
Once Tanya is seated, the chant starts off melodic, with everyone singing, “Come, healing,” and other encouragements. Then it gets faster and more forceful with stamping and voices growing louder until the floor shaking with it.
As everyone catches their breath, Kimmel says, “Let’s take some of that energy and give it back to Mama Earth. She hears us all.” Together, the members bend and crouch to place their hands on the floor.
Artemesia sings a blessing over the food, then returns to the altar to “devoke” Airmid. “Thank you for the healing and healing to come,” she says. “Hail and farewell, Airmid.”
Teixeira likewise bids hail and farewell to Hecate, and Kimmel does the same for ancestors and Margy. The members take their turns calling the directions and elements again with expressions of gratitude and the ceremony is closed with more drumming and the coven singing, “May the circle be open but unbroken.”
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the managing editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400 ext. 106, or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Bluesky @jfumikocahill.bsky.social.
This article appears in Your Local Coven.
