Free Cascadia Witchcamp

Witchcamp 2018 and moving forward

As you may have heard, through whispers on the wind, the future of FCWC is unknown. As organizers we have been sitting with big questions, camper feedback and our own experiences. And as we move through the shifting energies and listen deeply we have decided to not host camp in 2018. We have mixed and complicated feelings about this, so if you do too, know that you are not alone.

As a collective this decision has brought up all kinds of feelings. Heartbreak, joy, sorrow, hope, indifference, dissatisfaction, satisfaction. You name it, one of us has probably felt it.

We are living in challenging times, and there is a great need for gatherings where we can come together in ritual and magic.

We are grappling with how to do that well.

Organizers of Free Cascadia Witch Camp have been struggling with various issues as an organizing body. We have questioned our organizing model for years and not been able to come to a workable solution. We are also having challenges navigating differences in intentions, values, and priorities for camp within the collective.

Some of the unresolved questions include: How can we be in integrity around holding camp on stolen land? How best do we engage with Reclaiming as a eurocentric tradition that desires to weave in and be welcoming to other traditions/communities while addressing issues of racism and cultural appropriation? How do we host a camp within a community that has varying experience with self/community work around racism and white domination? Structurally, we struggle to have enough time to adequately address these issues and dynamics while also working on the essential logistical elements of putting on camp. We are confronted each year with the need to handle these big questions and big issues without appropriate or adequate space or time.

Some things however, are becoming more clear. Working across bioregions and land bases is undermining our connection and ability to be responsible and accountable to the land, the peoples of those lands and one another, and to work through the above issues and dynamics. Our hope is that by not taking on the logistical work of putting on camp, we will have time and space to better address them.

What we are doing now is opening up to possibility and to the unknown.

We are discussing many options including ending FCWC in its current form. If this is the case we want to do it well, by hopefully holding and tending the loose threads, wounds, inspiration and spirit of camp that has developed over the past 13 years. If this is our path, we want to provide opportunities for the seeds of future camps and gatherings to grow from the compost of our collective. An ending and a new beginning. A transformation.

We will let you know more as our path becomes more clear.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
“To Know the Dark” by Wendell Berry

-FCWC Organizers

More about Free Cascadia WitchCamp

The Witches, Activists, Organizers, and Visionaries of Free Cascadia Witchcamp gathered in Cascadia June 22-28, 2017 to make magic and ritual, weave new dreams, and co-create the world we want to live in. The theme and story worked with Oil.

Every summer for the last 13 years, witches and activists and activist-witches have gathered together in the Cascadia Bioregion.

Free Cascadia WitchCamp is a place people can attend regardless of economic status, a camp with a unique commitment to group wisdom that allows any camper to host a path. It’s a place where magical change-making resides at the center of our circle; it’s a camp close to our hearts. Although we gather for just a week, the invitation extends into the rest of our lives.

Location

Camp is held in Oregon with Portland as the closest major airport. Medford/Rouge Valley is the closet minor airport. This year’s site offers a fair amount of infrastructure including a limited amount of raised, indoor beds and electricity. It is on the more accessible side of the spectrum of locations we hold Freecamp. If you have any questions regarding access please contact us!

Registration is required to attend this gathering and our location is announced only to registered campers.

Registration

While registration is now closed, we value your interest in and support of our camp. The web we exist in is real and important!

Camper Essay/Camp Experience Feedback for both current campers and camp community. Even if you’re not attending camp we’d love to hear from you.

What is Free Cascadia Witchcamp?

Free Cascadia Witchcamp is a week-long intensive that explores Reclaiming-inspired magic, ritual, and activism for all levels of experience, while creating and tending culture centered around weaving collective magic to aid and support each other and the earth. Free Cascadia is a consent-based, gender-safe and sex-positive camp. We welcome people of all ages, including children.

Food

We anchor our own kitchen and welcome kitchen witches and donations. In the past, this has sometimes meant that meat options have been donated and served.

NOTAFLOF

FCWC is unique in the realm of Reclaiming Witchcamps in that we exist within the NOTAFLOF tradition (no one turned away for lack of funds). This makes our camp accessible to many who can’t afford to spend hundreds of dollars attending a Witchcamp. However, creating camp is not free, thus we ask for donations to cover our costs. We are a Do-It-Yourself and participatory camp; it’s only by coming together as community that camp able to happen!

What to expect?

Throughout the week we will enrich our magical skills through daily paths, affinity groups, open spaces, and community rituals. Like other Witchcamps, FCWC is organized around Paths which meet every day. Each Path has two or more co-facilitators and will explore a different focus of magic in action. You choose your Path (or it will choose you) once you arrive. You are encouraged to stay with the same Path throughout the week which can lead to a deeper understanding of the Path’s focus. Affinity groups provide a smaller container to connect with and support others who share an affinity. Open Space is a time when anyone can share a skill or project. In the evenings, the entire camp gathers for ecstatic ritual and shared magic. During this time we feed the cauldron and step into our collective power.

2017 Path descriptions (and their Facilitator bios) are still to come!

Contact us

Questions? Contact us: freecascadiawitchcamp@gmail.com.

Since camp is a co-created event donations and support are always welcome.

http://freecascadiawitchcamp.org/donate/

See you at camp! And if you can not make it this year, try checking out other Reclaiming Witchcamps!