We Are Your People: Reclaiming’s Oral History

We Are Your People! Reclaiming’s Oral History shines a spotlight on the voices of the innovative witches, artists, activists, writers and community weavers world-wide who have co-created the ecstatic transformational cauldron and earth-honoring, sex and LGBTQ+ positive eco-feminist social justice movement known as the Reclaiming Tradition.

These YouTubes are the beginning of a larger Oral History Project documenting Reclaiming’s first fifty years. It is our intent to use this spotlight to get better acquainted with one another and the elders who walked this path before us and to record these conversations for those yet to come.

To hear about new posts plus classes, witchcamps, and more Reclaiming news, subscribe to Reclaiming’s international googlegroup – email ReclaimingQuarterly@gmail.com to subscribe.

More information on Beverly can be found at beverlyfrederick.org

Questions and more info: ReclaimingQuarterly@gmail.com

Interviews

1. Lauren Liebling and Lou Hart (interviewed by Beverly M Frederick)

In the 1970s retired London Biodynamic Body Psychotherapist Lauren Liebling was a member of Starhawk’s first San Francisco Reclaiming-Tradition coven which began as Honeysuckle and was later renamed Raving.

Lauren is one of Reclaiming’s original Founding Mothers, the first person to teach Reclaiming Tradition in Europe and the person who introduced Starhawk (and others) to the practice of Aspecting through her lengthy involvement with Turning Castle, a Circle that used Aspecting to celebrate the festivals of the Pagan Wheel of the year in Northern London, England.

Lauren is joined in this interview by her dear friend Lou Hart, who was the first woman to hold the aspect of The God for a year and a day with Turning Castle. Lou is an artist, a musician, a chant writer and one of the founders of Queer Pagan Camp in the U.K. Lou resides in Summerset, England.

Beverly M Frederick began working with Starhawk and Raven Moonshadow in the 1980s while collaborating on FACING AIDS, her healing ritual performance and fundraiser that completed her Masters Thesis in The Choreopoem at San Francisco State University.

Throughout the 1990s Beverly was the first to offer year-round weekly training and Apprenticeships in The Reclaiming Tradition, the first to teach Iron & Pearl Pentacles through the body and originator of many innovative classes incorporating dance, drumming, chanting, dream enactment and Aspecting into Reclaiming Circles. She has taught at over 35 Reclaiming Summer Intensives World-wide. Beverly’s music can be found here on YouTube, as well as Spotify and Apple Music.

More from Reclaiming Quarterly at http://weaveandspin.org

More information on the Reclaiming Tradition of Magic and Activism: http://Reclaiming.org

Chants and Music: http://weaveandspin.org/playlists

Questions: ReclaimingQuarterly@gmail.com

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2: P at Hogan & Bridgid McGowan (interviewed by Beverly M Frederick)

Pat Hogan founded the oldest contiguous Reclaiming 7-Day Summer Intensive ( Witchcamp) at Loon Lake, British Columbia in 1987. That camp became an inspiration and blueprint for dozens of other camps that mushroomed across North America and Europe in the 1990s. Pat is a dual citizen of Canada and The United States and has been a bold and inspired producer of women’s and lesbian gatherings and events for several decades.

In this interview Pat is joined by Bridgid McGowan who attended that first camp in 1987 and stepped in to assist Pat in organizing camp as well as community weaving in British Columbia.

Bridgid is a Cisgender Queer Femme singer and songwriter living with disability. She has working class Irish and Scottish roots and is a Somatic therapist. Bridgid is both a student and a teacher of The Reclaiming Tradition who has helped teach and develop camps in both colonially known Canada and The United States.

For more on Beverly M Frederick, see interview #1 or Beverly’s website.

More from Reclaiming Quarterly at http://weaveandspin.org

More information on the Reclaiming Tradition of Magic and Activism: http://Reclaiming.org

Chants and Music: http://weaveandspin.org/playlists

Questions: ReclaimingQuarterly@gmail.com

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3. Cybele Rouchat (interviewed by Beverly Frederick)

Beverly M Frederick interviews Cybele Rouchat about Deep Witnessing & Breath and Body Groups for Survivors of Incest & Abuse Cybele Rouchat taught magic, ritual and meditation with the Reclaiming Collective from 1984-1997 in the US, Canada and Europe.

Her ongoing Contemplative Arts workshops include Gates: A Chakra & Gemstone Journey, Dreaming Stones and Angels of the Tarot. Cybele is a Lomi Bodyworker and Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner. She sees clients in Santa Rosa and San Francisco. Cybele has been a hands-on healer for more than 25 years, including two years of Hospice work. She created the first Breath & Body groups for Women Survivors of Incest and Abuse in 1988.

For more on Beverly M Frederick, see interview #1 or Beverly’s website.

More from Reclaiming Quarterly at http://weaveandspin.org

More information on the Reclaiming Tradition of Magic and Activism: http://Reclaiming.org

Chants and Music: http://weaveandspin.org/playlists

Questions: ReclaimingQuarterly@gmail.com

Interviews

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