(A talk given to the LGBT "Fountain Moot", Birmingham; 18 May 2004)
Introduction
Hello!
My name is David - and he's Geoff. We are High Priests and Elders of the Coven of the Sacred Wellhead - a Coven within the Initiatory Tradition of Alexandrian Wicca. We are 4th generation from Alex Saunders - King of the Witches, and founder of the Alexandrian Line - and we trace our lineage through the "Hardy" Silver's line in Gloucestershire.
We're Members of the Pagan Federation - and are involved in leading Public Sabbat Celebrations - both in Cheltenham, where we live, and at Sacred Sites, such as the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire: the next one of which will be for Summer Sostice - in case any of you wish to come (in which case make sure to grab a card after the talk...)
We've had a Website for 6 or 7 years - and last year we also agreed to do an interview for the Gay Time's October issue - we think it might have been this which inspired Rob to ask us to come and talk about our Tradition and Practice as a Gay couple working within the Traditional Craft...
So - what we hope to cover in this talk is:
- A basic introduction to our own Alexandrian Tradition - and how it fits into the wider Wiccan Family.
- We hope to be express a little of what we feel makes the Craft such a beautiful path regardless of one's sexuality or gender...
- We also hope to explain The Gift that the Craft can have for ourselves as Gay people - and the perhaps gift that we as gay people give to the Craft
As a point of note - we speak here from our experience as a Gay couple within the Alexandrian Craft, but we hope that what we say is relevant to all of us within the "Rainbow Alliance" - and although we use the term "gay" throughout this talk, we really only use it as a shorthand for the fuller term of "Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual or Transgendered"...
We plan to talk for about 40 minutes - which should leave us plenty of time for questions at the end... I've drawn the short straw, and so will be doing most of the talking - but I'm sure he'll interject at various points - mostly whenever I either go off on one - or forget what I was going to say....
We have also split the talk into two parts - the first an introduction to the Traditional Craft and the Alexandrian Tradition, the second part concentrating on the Craft and gay people