Our Philosophy

Spiraling Heart Coven practices magick and celebrates the Goddesses and Gods in what can be described as an eclectic Wiccan framework. We celebrate the 8 Sabbats as well as the full moons. We honor the Goddesses and Gods in many forms and by many names. We cast the Circle for our rites, and call the elemental energies associated with the Four Directions in common with most Wiccan traditions. We also call the energies of Center.

However, there are also differences between our practices and those of other Wiccans. For instance, we invoke Love as a separate element. And we do not work with the concept of “polarity” as understood by most “traditional” Wiccan groups. We find this concept as often practiced unnecessarily dualistic and limiting as well as heterosexist. Instead, we celebrate and find power in many different forms of union, and seek to remind ourselves of our connection to a complex web of inter-relationships.

Our views on polarity, our criticism of assigning a gender to various human and natural qualities, our challenge of “traditional” gender roles, and our rejection of heterosexist models in our magick, as well as our commitment to awakening Goddess awareness and to Women’s and Queer liberation, have lead us to refer to our path as “feminist”. Unlike other Feminist traditions, however, our Coven is composed of women and men of all sexual orientations. And while many of us feel that our Path is Goddess-oriented, it is not necessarily Goddess-exclusive. Most of our rituals include an invocation to deity in a "male" form - not because we feel the Goddesses need a God for any sort of "balance", but because we feel called to particular Deities and desire to work with them.

We also call our approach to this Path “eclectic” because we are not bound to any particular path or cultural tradition. The composition of our Coven is multi-cultural – current and past members have Irish, Scottish, English, German, Polish, African, Finnish, and Chilean ancestral roots, to name a few, and this diversity is represented in our practices. Additionally, we do not limit or focus our worship on the Goddesses and Gods of any single pantheon.

Many of our members past and present have undergone training or been initiates in various Wiccan and Magickal Traditions, including Alexandrian, Garderian, Reclaiming, Feminist Dianic, Georgian, and the OTO. However, this training is not passed down through our Coven, and we claim no lineage. The initiatory process in our Coven is our own, and does not imply initiation into any of the several Wiccan traditions that have been represented from time to time within our group.