Mab of Dream

The Wolves Moot and me by Johnny aged 31 and 363 days

By November 2003, when Magenta (Jennie) was trying to talk me into going to the Wolverhampton Pagan Moot, I had already met five of their number... and there were only eight of them to start with. Even I could manage that!

Every couple of weeks/month on the Grove, you get the Vegas lot talking about their cacklefest and it sounds like fun. That month, I'd also met up with some of the Grovers in Glastonbury. Though I'd hidden behind FT Kate for much of it, I still managed to calm down enough to be completely relaxed by the finish. I just hadn't realized that Bella, Brian, Ocean and Graham were going so early, or else I'd have made an even greater effort to calm down or get over it. None of them bit me. They were all lovely people - the absolute greatness of Bella; her confident husband, Brian, who can put anyone at ease within seconds of meeting him; gentle, shy Howard, who's nothing like he's like on computer in real life; his beautiful wife, Tzer; quiet Ocean, whom I've only slightly got to know since, but who I didn't really get to speak to much that day; and her Graham, who I still haven't got to cant with. It was a brilliant day! Cabochon, FT Kate and I were buzzing with it all the way home.

With all of that in mind, with my new-found Witchgrove-related confidence and my zest to make Grovers happy, I gave in and agreed to go to the Moot with Magenta.

I didn't meet her until about half seven, in the Moon Under Water. Before that, I'd been working on my MA and answering WG e-mails, so to keep my mind off it. It came time to go and I locked up the office, got out the door, around the corner and had to run back inside to the loo to throw up.

Years ago, in the height of the aftermath, a friend had said to me, 'If you can only communicate by writing it down, then write it down. Even if the person who needs the message is in the same room.' It's a well established fact that me with a pen in my hand (or a keyboard under my fingers) is a totally different kettle of fish to me verbally and physically interacting with folk.

Still I went. I met Magenta, Mandy, Robbie and Ann-Marie in the Moon Under Water and was bought a drink. I wasn't expecting that. Magenta is like a big sister, but with a lot of Mother energy, and you can't help but end up under her wing in situations like that. I made it to the moot hiding under her wing and showing them for once and for all that Mab isn't entirely what she's cracked up to be in terms of confidence.

I did nearly calm down in the Moot itself. I spoke... But I spent the entire thing trying not to run to throw up again with nerves. At around half 10, I made some excuse and fled. On the way back to the car, I was canting with Kate M on my mobile, telling her that it wasn't for me and I doubted I'd be back.

I missed the December 2003 Moot.

By the January, BS Kate and Magenta were launching a joint campaign to get Wulfrunian Grovers to the Moot. There were plenty of those now! It seemed that a new pagan was cropping up around every corner and I was directing them all to the Grove, where they were being introduced to the idea of the Moot. One member, Ebony, asked if I'd be there and if so, she was coming too. She and I had a long off-list, where it was obvious that she was as nervous as I was. We promised to both attend. Ariadne came too, equally nervous.

I was prepared this time. Four 'Quiet Life' tablets, Bach Flower Remedy and whiskey. It went really well.

The next Moot it swelled even more - all of them Witchgrovers who had come after Moot members had bigged it up on the Grove. The regulars seemed completely stunned; I lost the ability (forever) to hear at a Moot. There was a blot held by the Heathens and I asked if I could watch. I was invited to join and at the end of it, the final toast was to me, to thank me for their upsurge in membership. I was honoured and graciously acknowledged it on behalf of Witchgrove, though the initial work had been BS Kate and Magenta, it had been the rest of us eversince. Magenta said that the addition of Grovers to the Moot had filled two pages in her register. I was also asked to be the Wiccan element of the Ogma Course (introduction to Paganism) and I accepted.

At the March Moot, it was decided that trustees were needed to take care of the money being raised every month. I was asked to be a trustee, which surprised me, but I was happy to help out. The Moot was still growing, still being filled with Grovers. I was still tanking myself up with 'Quiet Life' and Bach Flower Remedy in order to be there, but I was relaxing more while I was there. I even talked Jamie into running Witchgrove Junior.

By the April Moot, I'd crashed and was in a considerable amount of pain. It was also slightly awkward in that a member had upset another member. As both were Grovers, I didn't know if I was to be intervening (am I the Mod outside the group as well? I don't know...). In considering that, it suddenly came to me that not only was I NOT a mod at the Moot, but what if the Moot's organizer was feeling insecure about the Witchgrove element? After all, it looked and felt like an invasion, and he couldn't have known that I'm pretty useless face to face, and moreover, completely deaf. I put at the back of my mind two things: a) I wasn't going to mention WG at the Moot; and b) I wasn't going to try to organize, intervene with or act as any kind of leader of any stripe at the Moot. I'd take the Wiccan questions and that's it. I even said to someone (probably Laura) that I'd only carry on going to the Moot as long as it was fun. That became a mantra.

I didn't actually share these thoughts with anyone, just made myself determined that the two would be separate entities, despite the fact that, at that moment in time, all but one Moot member was a member of Witchgrove and that member wasn't on-line. I was starting to get so worried about this sort of thing. Another Grove member had mistaken me for the group's owner, which always freaks me out, and that just transferred onto the Moot. Someone had mistaken me for the Moot's owner and, though I'd passed the e-mail onto Singe, it worried me deeply. Had this been out in the open, Cerr might have e-mailed Singe and warned him to stamp on this before I panicked and ran away. But she was dealing with her own shit, coupled with my panic attacking about the Grove by then. There had been an emergency Mod meeting in March to calm down just this sort of thing. I missed any mention of Witchgrove from my usual introduction line, but Singe called across, 'And Witchgrove', so I added it.

What was impossible for any of us involved to know was that the whiplash had messed with my mind and emotions. For a very physical reason, I wasn't thinking logically at all anymore. I nearly left the Moot then, because it was hard work in my emotional state, but I figured I'd wait until after the Moot camp, see how I felt then. All the crap with Witchgrove had taught me that my perception was out of sinc anyway. ALL of the Mods were on Operation Talk Johnny Down in March and April. In my mind it ran something like this: People think I'm the owner of Witchgrove, so therefore people might think I'm the organizer of the Moot. SINGE might think I'm stealing his glory, CERR might think I'm stealing her glory, the MODS might think I'm stealing their glory. OHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK Get me out of the bloody spotlight.

By the May Moot, I was a lot calmer. I wasn't to know that that was the chemicals in my brain re-aligning after my brain was shaken in my head back in March; it was the doctor who provided that tit-bit, though Kass and Saoirse had tried to warn me IN March. Calmer doesn't necessarily equate logical, of course, it just means that I'm working out how to accept it.

A gang of us went down to Glastonbury and that was fun! I was nervous as Hell though, because it was Cabochon's initiation. In the run-up to that, there was a lot of faffing around at the bottom of the Tor, which only served to make me want to a) throw up; b) lash out; or c) faint. Fortunately, Ian was there. I looked at him, remembered the past decade, linked arms with him and started us walking up the Tor. There was Laura and Magenta panicking through vertigo, which kind of took my mind off the fact that I was about to do this ritual in front of everyone, and once they'd found an equalibrium, I quickly got the ritual happening.

As always happens, once in there, with my circle raised and my athame in my head, I click into something bigger and more powerful than me. I can do it because there are no other options. I'm the priestess that I always dreamed of being, but can never quite pull off in life. Afterwards the buzz was amazing again and this carried over into the evening and the Moot following it.

I felt like I now had it sussed. Just don't mention Witchgrove at the Moot; and ensure that everyone knows that I'm just the mod on the Grove. I was finding my feet emotionally and trying to play catch up on all the folk I felt I'd let down. I pushed myself, work-load wise, to the maximum... less than a month after Anna had had to reply to e-mails on my behalf, because I couldn't cope.

In May I became the High Priestess caricature. I was everywhere at once, calming, soothing, advising, offering help, supporting, recommending. By the end of the month, I was so exhausted that I stood in BS Kate and Phoenix's lounge falling to sleep on my feet, at 6 in the evening, as they got their stuff together, too tired to even sit down. Phoenix made me a cuppa and it felt too heavy to hold. I sat and sipped and reached inside for energy. None. So I reached into my handbag for energy and that worked. Then I drove us over to Clun for the Moot camp.

The Moot camp was fun. I did a lot of laughing, but there were moments of frustration too - missing a whole evening of chilling because I was trying to fix my tent; some tension on the following day. I left Clun on the Sunday to drive home and nearly fell asleep at the wheel on the M54.

The June Moot was full of ideas for petitioning the council to provide us with a building or some land. It looked as though everything was coming together. I practically had to sit on my hands not to volunteer to help with the steering committee, but I was trying to be sensible. I was exhausted, still in pain, trying to sort my mental shit out and generally worn out. I should not be volunteering for steering committees.

I was also getting close to finishing the typing of 'Priestess' and some very old demons were re-surfacing. It had become one of those head down and get it done moments, because this was for the greater good. I'd started bloody haunting myself, as described in its epilogue. But as long as I could finish it by the Festival, and as long as I could work all the projects I was involved in into some conclusion by the Festival, it was all going to be ok. I played a lot of Syd on the internal jukebox.

Also in those weeks, I started getting tip offs that a couple of Moot members were sounding people out about me. Things like, 'she's not as knowledgable as she makes out' or 'she's trying to take over the Moot' or 'she's bringing Witchgrove into it too much, when it's not a Witchgrove Moot'. Most of the comments were laughable, so I did. They didn't touch me at all. What did touch was after the newly created mid-Moot, when I was asked to post the dates of Georgia's visit to the Moot group, I was basically slapped as that was a Witchgrove matter. I off-listed and asked if we needed to talk, as this was precisely what I'd been panicking about happening back in April. No response.

I put it all on a back-burner; had a long cant with Laura, who basically told me to drop everything, type out 'Priestess', go to the Glastonbury Festival and come back refreshed enough to deal with the questions raised from 'Priestess'. So I did. The slight technical hitch being that no questions were asked and there was still no response asking about the Moot/Witchgrove situation until right before the next Moot. The response told me that Singe agreed and that was that.

I think disillusioned just about covers it. It was injury induced paranoia before - it hit the Grove as well, but Cerr, Anna, Georgia, Roxanne, Chelle and Cabochon had it covered and brought me down to land safely. The Moot I was only staying with while it was fun. Fundamentally, it was still fun, but I'd been tasting Pagan politics with the Pagan Headstone Campaign and now it was happening up close and personal with the Moot.

I offered to leave, and in my 'Priestess' disillusioned state of mind was quite relieved at the thought. No more straining to hear in order to participate; no more wondering what the Hell was going on, even in positive situations; no more rushing back after a Moot or a camp in order to try and catch up on all the things I'd dropped to go there. However, I was talked into staying by the fact that these individuals marked off people one at a time. The signs were that Aud would be next, unless I drew the fire. I'd just learned about Tyr. He was turning up everywhere. My mind was full of 'Mara's' bitterness and anger at waiting for the cavalry to turn up. I'm the sort of person who, when bitter and growing a chip on my shoulder, I pull out all the stops to make the world a better place. It failed me, but it won't fail the next person along. Especially when the next person along is Aud. Plus Georgia would be at the next Moot. I wasn't going anywhere. I metaphorically put my hand in Fenris's mouth and shut the fuck up. And that was the July Moot.

By the August Moot, there are a lot of rumours and ideas flying around. It felt like it was going to be a make or break kind of Moot; but also very different, because of the presense of Georgia. It was also quieter and so I could hear at least Georgia, Aud and those floating around the table. The two, who I'd been told didn't like me one bit, were absent, and the tension just floated away from me. I quite enjoyed it! That Moot convinced me to put the memory of the politics behind me and carry on going for a while. There was also a newcomer, who needed advice from an Alexandrian Wiccan. That'll be me then. I saw how I could be useful in the Moot. Also Singe announced that there were going to be guidelines from now on, so that newcomers to the Moot felt welcomed. I wholeheartedly agreed and left with the knowledge that I'd either be at the September Moot because it was going to be fun again; or else there was no need for me to be there, because Aud was no longer in the firing line.

The decision was put off until after Shambala, when I was planning to do my 'removing fingers from pies' thing. I did remove fingers and I don't think I lost a hand doing it. However, I still haven't made this decision. It all got too much on the night I left so many over things, then the death of Mike and now this serious soul-searching.

I haven't come down to land on it. Maybe Singe's guidelines would provide that, but does it match my criteria? Is it needful, is it fun, is it a rock of my life? Not if I've constantly got to put my hand in the mouth of a chaotic wolf, no. Not if I'm constantly struggling to participate because, at the end of the day, I'm deaf, no. Neither of those are fun. Needful? Not really. I've learned about group dynamics and how Moots work, but the purpose of Moots is to feel part of a Pagan community - Witchgrove provides that with knobs on, and I can hear in there.

A rock of my life... It would leave a lot of people feeling very paranoid; but most of them read this blog and know the context.

I really ought to decide quickly, because it's nearly time for the Moot. But I have a birthday and some chilling out on the mountains to do first. I'll probably decide on the day.

yours
Mab
xxxxx