Web hosting Custom Email SiteBuilder

Pagan98 was held at Camp Warrrawee, in North Brisbane, on the banks of the North Pine River. It was the first major Queensland Pagan Festival, and despite controversy both from within and without the pagan community, it was a roaring success, with over 300 attending. Following are a few articles about it, along with the newspaper articles detailing the controversy. If you have any pictures, I would love to have a copy, so I can scan them onto this page.

Legendary Journeys: The Wizard in Oz

1985

Thirteen years ago, in March of 1985, Morning Glory and I were among the thirteen adventurers on the infamous ERA Mermaid-Hunting Expedition to New Guinea. Flying from San Francisco on Qantas Airline, our trans-Pacific journey took us first to Sydney, NSW, Australia, from whence we would eventually depart as well for our return home. Wending our way through customs at the Sydney Airport, we wondered how we would ever recognise among the thronging masses our as-yet-unmet Pagan friends with whom we had been corresponding. No worries-as we exited through the final doors we were met by an entire coven, all in full robes and ritual regalia, holding out to us a chalice full of sparkling clear water!

Our initial visit in Sydney was very brief, as this was only a stopover on the way to our intended destination of Port Moresby, New Guinea, where we were to rendezvous with our dive ship, The Reef Explorer, which would take us through the Coral Sea to a little bay called Nokon on the coast of New Ireland, where our Mystery awaited. But afterwards, having solved the Secret of the Mermaid, some of us, including Morning Glory and I, returned to Sydney for a longer visit.

At that time, the Pagan scene in Australia ("Oz" to the locals) seemed to consist mainly of Alexandrian Witches and a few Ceremonial Magicians. Many were Solitaries, as Australia is a country the size of the US with the population of Los Angeles (17 million), and the People are widely scattered. Morning Glory, my son Bryan, and I were put up in the Addams-Family-style Victorian home of Tim and Gillian Hartridge, where we slept in the Temple. Tim and Gillian arranged for a couple of open-house meetings, where we got to meet a number of the local Pagans and, more importantly, they got to meet each other-many for the first time. We also did interviews with local media-on Mermaids, Paganism, the Goddess, and the Church of All Worlds.

We visited other kind Pagan folks as well, including Bill Beattie, a brilliant and sardonic writer who was at that time Editor of the wonderful little journal ShadowPlay. Bill took us on a pilgrimage to the Norman Lindsey Estate out in the Blue Mountains, as well as to his favourite secret places and vistas of stunning natural beauty.

On our return flight, Morning Glory, Bryan and I stopped off for a week in Oahu, Hawaii, where we stayed at the home and Heiau of Sam Lono, the last traditional Kahuna Priest of Lono, the Hawaiian god of Agriculture, who was at the end of his life. We absorbed teachings from him, his apprentice, and from the land itself, before heading home to face major changes in our lives...

Fast forward to 1998

In April of 1998, Morning Glory and I were contacted by Quenten Walker of the CAW Temple of the Spiralled Web in Brisbane, Australia, who wished to invite us to attend as honoured guests and presenters the upcoming "Pagan '98" festival-the first Pagan festival ever to be held in Queensland. How could we refuse? During the past decade the Church of All Worlds had taken hold in Oz, spearheaded by Fiona and Anthorr Nomchong, who in 1992 had managed to get CAW incorporated as the first legal non-Christian church in Australia! Fiona had come to the US in 1994 to be ordained as our first Down Under Priestess, and there were now several CAW Nests and numerous members in Oz, where the 1996 national census had concluded that-as it is also in the US-Paganism is Australia's fastest-growing religion (11,383 self-identified Pagans-not counting 67,279 Hindus-already .064% of the entire population!).

Pagan '98 was unfortunately scheduled for the same weekend (Aug. 7-9) as the CAW Annual Meeting at CAW's "Grow Closer" festival in Indiana. But Larry Andersen and Kris Jensen kindly released us from our prior commitment to Grow Closer so we could represent CAW-US in Oz.

Return to Oz

We arrived in Brisbane on Thursday, Aug. 6, having lost an entire day due to crossing the International Date Line. Quenten picked us up at the airport and took us home to Mimburi (means 'sacred place' in Dingadau aboriginal dialect), his newly-acquired land near the Glass House Mountains. It's a charming and magical 59-acre ranch, with several buildings and a meandering year-round stream running all through it. By next year, he hopes to have the facilities fixed up well enough for it to serve as a site for "Pagan '99." His long-range plans for the land include provisions for leaving it in trust to the CAW.

The other imported Guests of Honour for the festival were Isaac Bonewits, "Archdruid Emeritus" of Ar nDraiocht Fein; and Deborah Lipp, Gardnerian High Priestess. They brought along their son, Arthur, and planned to extend their visit into a family vacation touring Oz, as did Morning Glory and I. Quenten took us all back into Brisbane for dinner and a movie-"Dark City," a positively brilliant Australian film which we would recommend to everyone! (Except kids; Quenten's delightful daughter Demelza took Arthur to see "Dr. Doolittle" instead.) When we got back to the ranch, Rob Adams (a giant biker with "Proud to be Pagan" painted prominently on the saddlebags of his motorcycle) gave MG and I fantastic and much-needed Shiatsu massages.

Pagan'98

The festival began Friday afternoon, and was held at a YMCA camp near Petrie, Brisbane. During the previous month, there had been various attacks on the event in the local media, spearheaded by several Uniting and Evangelical Christian ministers. Naturally, as always happens in such cases, the media had to come out and interview the Pagans to see what we had to say for ourselves. The result, as usual, was some of the best publicity we could have hoped for, as Quenten and the other festival organisers and Pagan spokespeople came off splendidly and informatively, and the Christian antagonists came off as ignorant, hateful and bigoted idiots. With great promotion, competent organisation, and four imported Guests of Honour, the festival attracted around 300 attendees, making it the largest Pagan festival yet held in Australia.

Being as it was the middle of Winter in Oz, this festival celebrated Imbolc, not Lughnasadh, which was going on at the same time back home. I felt considerably disoriented being plunged from high Summer into the season of short days and long cold nights. On top of that, there was a 17-hour time difference, and the cardinal directions were reversed! The Southern Cross blazed in the polar sky, the full moon was upside-down (no "face" discernible), and "deosil" (which means "sunwise") was counter-clockwise! The only familiar constellation was Scorpio, and it was upside-down, looking like something else entirely.

The camp provided comfortable lodging, and meals were excellent. There was a full schedule of workshops and presentations, and a number of merchants and craftspeople had booths. Saturday evening was the main ritual, with the theme (as it so often is these days!) of "Unity Through Diversity." Everybody, kids included, got dressed in their best ritual regalia for the occasion. But when the presiding High Priestess announced just before it began that children would not be allowed, Morning Glory and I caught each other's eyes across the dining hall and nodded our signal: "Right, then. We're off with the kids. Mrs Peal, we're needed!"

The Kids' Ritual

Isaac and Deborah joined us as we gathered with the kids and their parents, who were milling around in dismay wondering what to do, and we packed everybody off to the camp's fire circle, where we all put together an impromptu ritual that I daresay the grownups dug just as much as the kids. A five-year- old little girl named Alex (daughter of Ambrosia) had a light-up plastic sword, and I walked her around the Circle with it (deosil-counterclockwise of course!) while Morning Glory led everyone in singing Buffalo's "We Are a Circle." Four children each took the Quarters (going in order: East=Air; North=Fire; West=Water; South=Earth), lit the Quarter candles, then together ignited sparklers from the candles and brought those in to light the central fire. As the fire blazed up, Morning Glory gathered all the girl children to her on one side, while I gathered the boys on the other. She had the girls all stand in the Goddess-invoking posture and call upon Kore, the Daughter-Goddess. Then I had the boys all make finger-horns, stamp their feet, and call upon Kouros, the Youth, and Faunus, the young Horned God. Anthorr had joined us by then, jumping ship from the Main Ritual, and he drummed while we danced wildly around the fire, raising energy to empower "The Next Generation."

After the dancing, a plate of cookies and a large chalice of milk were blessed and passed around, and we settled back for the Storytelling. Deborah Lipp began with a European folktale; Morning Glory then told her story about how Kore created the first Possum, and won thereby the right to design all the animals of Australia; and Quenten finished up with an Aboriginal legend. So the stories carried us across the world with the migrations of our People, to this very place. We concluded the ritual with Gwydion's "All from air into air..." just as runners arrived to tell us that the barbeque Feast was beginning. As we ate, a ring-tailed possum climbed down from the trees to join us, no doubt having appreciated MG's story!

Growing Closer and Separating

In appreciation for our handling the Kids' Ritual, Rhys and Andrea, the presiding High Priest and Priestess of the Main Ritual, gave MG and I a bottle of Mead, and one as well to Isaac and Deborah. Mead in hand, we all wandered over to the outdoor stage where the popular Celtic band, Mythica, were playing. Morning Glory and Deborah went off into the dark to parlay with some folks, and Anthorr, Isaac and I snuggled up to Natasha, Julienne and Ambrosia. When the band finished playing, the six of us migrated over to the bonfire, where a bardic was in progress. Isaac contributed his delightful and sexy song, "Black Velvet Band," and he and I managed a duet on "We Won't Shave Any Longer." And we all snuggled into a warm and cuddly puppy-pile throughout most of the long Winter's night.

After a lunchtime "Pagan Leaders Panel," Sunday afternoon was for final sales, packing up and sad farewells. The YMCA staff members who'd been on-duty told us that we'd been the best group they'd ever had. As we were loading the cars, a koala climbed down out of one of the gum trees and wandered obliviously right through the bystanders to another tree. The guidebook warned us not to try and handle wild koalas, as "they have claws like Edward Scissorhands." But we never expected them to be so unafraid of people.

A bit of a problem (as in, "Houston, we have a problem...") in our Mythic Images statuary business had necessitated a last-minute change in plans for Morning Glory, who, instead of accompanying me on a planned tour of Australia, now had to fly to Hong Kong on Tuesday to rendezvous with our other wife, Liza, and personally oversee production of our first factory order from China. Anthorr offered to drive me on Monday up to Cairns to visit the Australian Tropics, which seemed like a good idea at the time.

So after a late barbeque at Quenten's, we (Quenten, Demelza, Isaac, Deborah, Arthur, MG and I) got up early Monday morning for a trip to the zoo. Morning Glory went really nuts in the kangaroo petting area, saying: "I have found my people, and they are 'roos!" The 'roos seemed really drawn to her, and they gathered around her, standing tall, with blissful looks in their big lazy eyes as she scratched their chests. But I couldn't stay, and had to bid farewell to my lovely lady, and go meet up with Anthorr. The last I saw of her she was cuddling a koala.

Car Wrecks and Crocodiles

Anthorr had two other passengers for his trip home to Cairns: Scarlet and Melissa. We bunged in all our gear wherever we could fit it and headed out from Brisbane around two in the afternoon. I had only the vaguest idea of the scale of distances on the map (they were all listed in kilometers, one km equalling .6214 miles), and no one had bothered to mention to me that this trip would entail thirty hours of driving one-way, with a 36-hour return ride on the train! These Aussies are a tough lot; they think nothing of piling into a car and driving straight through for days for a one-or-two day event.

Well, I didn't think much of it, either. I'd had a whiplash injury from a rear-end collision last November, and trying to sleep on the plane on the way over had nearly wrecked my back. But as the night wore on, and the other three rotated drivers (not only didn't I have an Australian driver's license, but I'd never have handled driving on the left side of the road; in case of an emergency, my instinctual reactions would be lethal), I tried futilely to make myself as comfortable as possible, finally settling like a pretzel onto the floor of the back seat.

It was in this cramped position that I was startled awake about dawn by the violent lurching, bumping and spinning of the car. Anthorr had fallen asleep at the wheel, and we had landed in the middle of a field on the other side of the road, having taken out several pylons and ripped through a fence. Fortunately, no one seemed to be hurt, and the car was still driveable, although making some funny noises. We managed to limp on into Ayr, the next fair-sized town, where Anthorr was able to find a shop that could do repairs sufficient to get us back to Cairns (still over six hours away).

Well, the repairs took until 5 PM. We got showers at a caravan (trailer) park, found lunch at Col. Chicken's, and hung out at the town library. When we finally pulled up at Anthorr's place in Cairns, it was nearly midnight.

Since I had only one remaining day to spend in Cairns, we got up early, and had a pleasant visit with the folks at "The Witches Cauldron of Cairns," a really neat occult shop where I picked up a copy of the full-colour slick newsstand magazine, Witchcraft. After lunch, Anthorr drove us up the coast to the Hartley's Creek Crocodile Farm, where a whole bunch of giant estuarine crocodiles-the largest reptiles on Earth-were on display. Some of these suckers have been recorded at nearly thirty feet long, and some of the ones they had here were over twenty! A highlight of the tour was a regular "Crocodile Dundee" handling and feeding demonstration, as we were regaled with tales of unwary bathers in Northern rivers being "taken" by these monsters.

On the way back, we stopped off at Ellis Beach. The Southern end, as with many public beaches in Oz, was "clothing optional," so we enjoyed a cooling bit of naked frolic in the surf and beachcombing for shells to incorporate into my sculptures. In the evening, back in Cairns, we met up with Rich, a wonderful young student of Anthorr's, and we all went out to a mall for dinner and souvenir shopping. We conversed long into the night, largely around Anthorr's getting back into fuller participation in the CAW that he had been instrumental in bringing to Oz in the first place, and resuming his bid for ordination (which I support). And early next morning (Thurs.) I boarded the train for the 36-hour return to Brisbane.

Brisbane to Bellingen

Quenten met me at the train Friday afternoon, considerably the worse for wear after another all-night journey. We grabbed a meat pie at a gas station, and rushed back to his land for a Nest meeting of the Temple of the Spiralled Web. There was a fairly large turnout, and I was the featured attraction, "holding court" while folks plied me with questions, such as: "How did you come to start the Church of All Worlds?" "Has the CAW turned out like you expected?" etc.

Since I had just taken a one-year leave of absence from my three-decade position as Primate of the CAW, I had to make clear that I could speak only about the Church, but not for it. Throughout my entire trip, I scrupulously avoided promoting or representing the CAW in any way, though of course it was my lifelong service in this capacity that had resulted in my invitation to Oz in the first place. This was an interesting exercise for me; other than the few years we were raising and exhibiting the Living Unicorns (1980-1984), I have never before seen myself in any other public context than as an emissary of CAW. So instead I focused on promoting and representing Mythic Images and our Ravenheart Family.

The next leg of my journey was to be a visit to Bellingen, about a third of the way South towards Sydney. Lillitu Babelon and Cullen were driving up to the TOSW Nest meeting to pick me up and take me back with them. But just before the meeting, Quenten received a call from them; their car had broken down and they were stranded about an hour away. He took off to get them while I stayed at the meeting. When they returned, they concluded that the only thing to do was rent a car. By the time they'd figured this out, we had to leave immediately for the Brisbane Airport, where the only available rental agency would be closing at 10:00pm!

I grabbed a small bag of clothes and necessities, and my CPAP breathing machine (I'd been diagnosed with severe sleep apnea just before leaving home, and had been outfitted with a machine to force air through my nasal passages at night. After only a couple weeks of this, barring impossible circumstances- like sleeping in planes, trains and automobiles, and camping out-where I couldn't use it, I was already feeling much more alert and functional than I could ever remember. My diagnosis had indicated that my nightly blood oxygen level was being depleted by 20%! However, now each night I look like I've been attacked by an H.R. Giger misegenation of an alien face-hugger and a portable vacuum cleaner!). After another difficult night of trying to doze in a moving car, we arrived at Lillitu's around 4:30 AM.

Lillitu and Cullen have a booth at the monthly Saturday Market in Bellingen, and the next day was a particularly big market day, as there was also a major jazz festival going on. So we got up early and headed down to the park. I hadn't walked ten feet from the booth when I ran smack into an old friend: John Douglas. He and his lovely wife, Naomi, used to live right around the bend from Morning Glory and I during the eight years (1977-1985) we'd homesteaded on the 5,600-acre Greenfield Ranch, one of the great California Hippie communities, founded in 1972 and still going strong, and where the CAW still maintains its 55-acre sanctuary of Annwfn. Running into John in Bellingen seemed the most incredible of coincidences, as I hadn't seen him in ten years. He used to put on these wonderful annual "Healing Gatherings" at the Ranch; then he and Naomi disappeared, and I never heard what had happened to them. Well, it turned out that they were now living in a community in the beautiful Thora Valley above Bellingen, where he's still putting on annual Men's Gatherings!

Email us at kimandq@caliph.net.au

Home Page. About the Temple of the Sacred Spiral. About Us. Aboriginal lore. Articles. Bibliography. Corresp Tables. Crafts. Creeds. Crete. Crystals, Gems and Metals, etc. Divination, Tarot and Runes. Events. Herbs, etc. Links. Meditations. PaganFAQ. Pagan Humour. Pagans in Qld Media. Rituals. Sabbats. The Sanctuary. Songs. Spells. Syllabus. What's New. Witches' Kitchen. E-mail us.

You are visitor number since 15th July 1997.