Ravenwood: Heritage, Transformation and Future

LadyMaia@houseofravenwood.org
Ravenwood (houseofravenwood.org)
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Living Witchcraft by Campbell, Nancy R. (amazon.com) 

Imagine stepping into a world steeped in tradition, where the essence of nature converges with spirituality. That's the journey we embark on with Lady Maia, High Priestess of Ravenwood Church of the Old Religion, as she guides us through the fascinating history of Ravenwood, a nearly 50-year-old Wiccan coven. We hear the tale of its evolution from a secluded backyard gathering to an influential public church, and the legal battles faced by its founders to secure their religious rights. Lady Maya, with her decades of experience, offers an insider's perspective into the heart of modern witchcraft and the paths one treads on their way to becoming a high priestess.

As we delve deeper, we unveil the legacy and diversity of groups that have shaped Ravenwood through the years, fostering a strong sense of community. But as our world evolves, so does the perception of witchcraft. In the face of a broader societal shift, the rise of the internet and social media, and their impact on the Craft, how does an institution like Ravenwood navigate these changes? Lady Maia shares her insights, discussing the challenges and opportunities that such advancements bring about. She sheds light on the spread of misinformation and the potential for individuals to rediscover their interest in the Craft. So, grab your cup of coffee (or tea) and join us.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Music. Welcome to Peg and Coffee Talk. Today we have with us Lady Maya of Ravenwood. She is the High Priestess of Ravenwood Church and Seminary of the Old Religion, based in Atlanta, georgia. She began her journey as a Wiccan Priestess in the late 1980s under the tutelage of Lady Centana, which Queen, elder High Priestess and Founder of the Ravenwood tradition. Lady Maya received her third degree and ordination in 2004. Her over 20 years experience running active covens includes founding title Moon Grove in 2003 and becoming High Priestess of Ravenwood in 2010.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Hi morning.

Speaker 3: 1:06

Morning to you too. We've asked you to be on so you can tell some people of the history of your temple and your teacher your elder Lady Centana. So tell us what you know, tell us about Ravenwood and all of this.

Speaker 2: 1:23

So Ravenwood is in the Atlanta area. We are almost 50, a 50 year old coven at this point. We have a long stranding tradition of holding an open public space For the craft. We provide intensive teaching, actually for priests and priestesses, but we're also open to the public for educational purposes so that people can understand and learn about what the craft is and decide if they want to continue on them. We have folks that continue with non-initiates and initiates and go all up into being ordained ministers. Ravenwood started out kind of as a not as a direct plan, so to say. They didn't start out planning over going to have this open public church, but it kind of came about through just the life history of Lady Centana and where she ended up and kind of what, no, I want to say, triggered her. So essentially she was an entertainer and she came to Atlanta to help out a sick friend and she had been involved with craft through some people that she knew in the entertainment business in Ohio, a lady Cersei who founded and ran the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Wicca.

Speaker 3: 2:45

What time frame are we looking at here?

Speaker 2: 2:47

We're looking at 1974, 75, 76. Yeah, this is back when there was nothing open in public, there was no internet, there was no come join us. There were very, very few books. The books that people had to learn from back then were more about looking at old stories, old myths, and gleaning things from very different places To put together there and get more understanding about what they believed in.

Speaker 2: 3:15

But you know, old craft ladies, eldership was from England. Lord Sariel came from England I did not know yes, and her initial training came out of an Italian woman. So she learned a lot of straga, the straga path back then too. But you know, old religionists have a code of ethics. It is their faith, it is in their core and it is not something they've just gone out and write about and they feel the gods very deeply.

Speaker 2: 3:48

And Lady was learning on this path, honey Santana was learning on this path and ended up in Atlanta with Lady Cersei and they opened up a boutique in the little five points area called the boutique, the boutique of the. We can just say. They opened up a boutique and they had a grand press relief and open house here in this Victorian home they were renting in little five points and three days later they were both arrested for Well, lady Cersei was arrested for fortune telling because they were reading to her car just in the living room and undercover popped out and rested her for fortune telling and arrested Lady Santana for operating a business without a license.

Speaker 3: 4:27

No, thank you.

Speaker 2: 4:29

And they ended up in jail and the Atlanta City Jail would not say that they were holding two women, they would not admit to holding them after they had this big press release and press conference which was very confrontational back then. I mean the open public witches, what's that about? Right? So they got the media involved and the media came in to set up cameras in the jail to photograph the jailers saying no, we don't have these people, to get them on camera and get them on record. Well, you know, lo and behold, suddenly the jail knew where they were. It was amazing. And so they got people involved and they got through those lawsuits.

Speaker 2: 5:08

But it really kind of was really a religious rights issue, because at that point the tarot is part of our craft, the TRO is part of the divinatorial part of our craft and they felt that it was infringement upon their religious rights.

Speaker 2: 5:23

How to agree? So the battle began and through multiple I mean I think seven or eight lawsuits, they went. They had to establish with us as a faith. They had to fight the IRS to get taxes and status. They had to fight the state of Georgia and Fulton County to get at Valorum on the house so they didn't have to pay taxes on the house because as a religious place, because you know, the argument was well, yes, people live here, but normal churches, normal Christian churches, also have mixed use on their property as well. They have gymnasiums, they have social events, they have, you know, all these different groups coming in and using their space. They have tax exempt. So why don't we so? Through many, many battles, we were established as a a faith be valid church and with that comes the rights of any other religious organization in the country, and that was through the state of Georgia Supreme Court, and we were finally granted all those statuses clean and clear, in about 1980, around around.

Speaker 3: 6:30

No, from the time this began to the time it actually ended. How long of a period are we talking about?

Speaker 2: 6:36

three years.

Speaker 3: 6:38

That's a lot of time and effort.

Speaker 2: 6:40

No, that's a very short time for seven lawsuits. Yes, Wow, Very short. But while this is going on, they had started holding circle before they ever came out with the, the, the original. Hey, here we are as a new boutique. They started holding circle in the backyard in late 75, early 76. So that's when the actual church got started. And it didn't didn't start out as here's this grand plan to be open public church. Right, it started out as just a few people getting together, here's this boutique. And then, once it went into notoriety, of course, ladies familiar with the media and very charismatic. So she's like oh, this is going to be a battle, this is going to be fun. And she dug right in and it was exhausting.

Speaker 2: 7:23

The church was under attack from from locals and university students would come and pee on the witches porch and the rednecks would come out from, you know, all over the place, and there's witches in Georgia, yeah, there's witches. And then ladies and Dana would come out in her negligee and her big hair because, like I said, she was an entertainer, she was a burlesque dancer, she used to go out with that stuff and they go. Oh well, lady, you know I'm, you know they wander off, but there was a lot they had People would sit in the bushes at night and guard the house. They were open 24 hours a day. There was an open door 24 hours a day and a big sign up front, which I have downstairs. They took in people that had no place to go. They took in people that had substance abuse. They took in kids that lost their parents runaways and they would reunite these kids and their parents. They would heal a lot of broken people that would just kind of draw into this place.

Speaker 2: 8:23

They did a lot of community service and little five points, which are the Obihemian area of Atlanta, and they embraced their riches. So when all these lawsuits would go on, the people of the little five points would go in with petitions and things saying leave our riches alone, we love our riches. They would have these huge sabbets. People would come from all over the place and join up and experience it. I think it was 79.

Speaker 2: 8:48

They did a hand fasting that was public and the AJC covered it and had all these pictures of the hand fasting. Because it's a marriage, it's legal to do that. It's just our different way. So there was a lot of press that went on. There was a lot of protection that went on. It was high alert, it was crisis every day, because you never know who was coming at you for what. But at the same time, there'd be musicians that would come in in the middle. You do concerts in Atlanta and they'd come in the middle of the night Because they were craft right and they were from California or wherever, and they would just show up and say hi, I'm filling the blank, which I'm not going to do on.

Speaker 3: 9:26

I'm not going to expose this.

Speaker 2: 9:28

I don't know who was around back then, but there were a lot of people that would come in in the middle of the night after doing gigs or whatever in the Atlanta area and just meet up with the lady. Lady had a lot of contact. She had a lot of support from the overarching craft elder community to do this, from across the country and actually across the world. Sybil Leek was supportive. At one point she was working with Gavin and Ron Frost. We're not the Frost tradition but they were very supportive of what she did. Essentially she did a psychic seminary I don't know the name of it, but it was in like 79.

Speaker 2: 10:06

And she brought all these craft elders together and there were long discussions about is this the time for craft to go public? Because before then there was no public craft Very it vows of secrecy kept it under wraps and it was very progressive and avant-garde to suddenly say let's go public, let's make this a thing. And, ladies and gentlemen felt very strongly that dignity needed to be brought back, respect need to be brought back, ethics needed to be brought into this. Because at that time, starting in the late 60s, all you said was a whole lot of Lucy Goosey paganism going on and a lot of it had had some not so great or dignified aspects to it and she felt that that was not the way of craft, because there's a lot more ethics to it and it's not a free love, free sex society. It's not. I mean, you live with the laws of the land. Our traditions don't come down the gardenarian line, not all the gardenarians.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Don't get me wrong, but we're not gardenarian.

Speaker 2: 11:10

We come down the Robert Cochran line. In fact, robert Cochran was the one that coined the term gardenarian. He's the one that started calling that. And there's a different aspect on how craft is looked at. From Robert Cochran to the gardenarians, to the Alexandrians, everybody has a different flavor of all of it and each of these branches there's a lot more branches of traditional craft than that. I'm not reading anybody out All had a set of ethics, and still do to this day, and through that set of ethics she felt that it needed to be more public. So, as you can see, there are ethics behind this faith and bringing it out of the room clause, so to speak.

Speaker 2: 11:52

And that she did and that she did, she did, she did. So it all kind of culminated. All this was going on in a three-year period.

Speaker 3: 12:02

Which tells you a lot right I?

Speaker 2: 12:04

mean yeah and when she started these fights she got the ACLU involved. There were people across the country involved. Lady Liberty leave was founded with Selena Fox. So there's a lot of Civil rights, religious rights going on at that time within craft and the those lawsuits were used as precedent across the country for Other states and other covens to come out of the broom closet.

Speaker 3: 12:31

In which they did, they did they did.

Speaker 2: 12:33

I mean I can remember several. I remember in the in the late 80s several Groups coming in early 90s from across the country to consult with her on these lawsuits in these cases, because they use it as precedent, which I think is it's astounding. You look back at what they did. You come in some ways like yeah, yeah, okay, so they had to get, they had to get, you know, certified to be a real church. That's easy.

Speaker 2: 12:55

Oh no, it wasn't that I know it's not, it is now because of her work and because of this church, but Ravenwood's been around for a long, long time. I mean I honestly I think we're hitting 50 years and two years now we started circling in 76 77. We had a 40 year anniversary party at 40, so now we're hitting 50 in a couple years. What do you?

Speaker 2: 13:22

had a hundred no, you know, be great but that won't be beat. But lady was After. They were a moorland for a long time. Ladies health took a dive and they moved to Alabama for some time and then they came back into the Atlanta area in a 89 88. Okay and then moved several places and then ended up on Rainbow Drive, which they're kind of called the golden period because we got so big at that time.

Speaker 3: 13:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:53

I Remember coming in and there that's about when I joined up. They were 35 40 active initiates at that time, so it was a big thing group.

Speaker 2: 14:02

Yes and then we continued on and, and you know, there was a new set of classes started up every four months with 30 people in them and there's a lot of attrition in those classes because they're pretty hardcore, they're not, they're not real easy, and people's lives start changing and growing. And when you're, when you're hit with a change in perspective of life, your life starts changing. Oh yeah, people come in, people come out, new jobs, we move, we this, we that, relationships change and it's a lot of spiritual growth that goes on during the adoption of new perspectives. Well, I've told us would have a whole lot of attrition.

Speaker 3: 14:44

Yeah, well, I mean, I've told all my students. You know, I'm sorry, I don't say how the words you can hide this religion for people when you're learning it. It just changes you so much.

Speaker 2: 14:55

Right, and you may not have a pentagram around your neck right, but you go through changes uh-huh and and you know, I think that the modern terms for this now are shadow work, where you're, you know, yes, digging down and changing things, and I'm okay with that term because really it is it's the things that we don't know within our brain that are coming out and getting cleaned out so that we can grow and learn more. But anyway, back to Ravenwood before I start going up. So, ladies to Tanner, retired in 96 95 96. Lord Starhawk was the high priest for a while, and then there was a council of seven third degrees that ran the church for a while, and then there was a hive. So we had a hive in 2000, which Started another group called Oak Spring, the house of Oak Spring. Okay, and then Ravenwood continued under the leadership of Lady Lorena and Lord Galen, and then, in 2010, I was asked to take the range, and now it's under myself and Lord Ereborn.

Speaker 2: 16:00

Yeah so at this point there's a whole bunch of groups that are either. There's groups that are associated Directly with the tradition, and then there's a lot of lineage groups around as well, and you know we are supportive of, you know, all these different folks and they're good works as well. So I think that's been very successful. Messy at times, but yeah. So there's right now what? One, two, five groups underneath the umbrella of the tradition and lineage groups one, two, three. There's more than three. There's a lot of people in the Atlanta area that came through our doors. I mean, essentially, if you've been in craft for any time in Atlanta, especially in the 70s and 80s, you hit Ravenwood's doors at some point, right, I mean you know, it's just what it is.

Speaker 1: 16:55

Yeah, and I was going to ask for people who don't know. Could you explain the difference between what? Could you explain what a lineage group is?

Speaker 2: 17:05

A lineage group is someone that's come through and had your training and has decided to go off on their own and take the training that they've gotten and create something that I would say is not exactly in the same swim lane as you're in, but it's beautiful and wonderful on its own and grows on its own. In other words, it's been modified a little bit from the original swim lane Because I mean, as the high priestess of Ravenwood, I hold the swim lane, so this is the way this goes. But we have other groups that have incorporated other things in, and lineage groups are people that have come through over the years and started their own beautiful thing with the basis of Ravenwood's teachings and, honestly, most of them teach the same classes, whether they've been updated or modified or added to. You know, if I go to a circle of one of the lineage groups, I recognize the circle building process.

Speaker 2: 17:59

I recognize the teachings I recognize all these things, but they're just a slight, they're just different.

Speaker 3: 18:05

Just slightly different. Nothing wrong, nothing like that, it's just different.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Well, it's like we've said for the longest time. You know, this is a adaptive religion. Yes you know, we have to adapt in order to grow, in order to survive. Yes, you know, so that makes perfect sense.

Speaker 2: 18:24

And I think I would add something to that, though that I think people that haven't been through a process under a teacher it's not real obvious, but it's an experiential face. Yes, yes, it is what you experience. You learn and grow through your experiences. This is why we're all so very different, which is why if you picked up my traditions book of shadows it's sitting in my living room and you read it, thinking you're going to get the keys to the kingdom Nothing to you.

Speaker 2: 18:54

Nothing because you haven't experienced it and you don't understand what is in there, and you can say that for any faith. You know, the things you can't talk about, you can't put words on them, everything else is just a secret.

Speaker 3: 19:11

I mean, I have read some of these books of shadows by some other elders and you're right. I couldn't make sense out of it to begin with. You'd probably look at mine going. Well, it's firewood.

Speaker 2: 19:29

But yeah, I'm, so I'm carrying the banner. It's been 13 years now. I've been a high priestess for 20. I started my own group first group called title and growth and I've been in for over 30.

Speaker 3: 19:44

So you know let me, let me. Let me ask you a question right quick, from Neophyte on way up to high priestess or third degree time span, how?

Speaker 2: 19:57

long does it take? Believe it or not, it's an average of 13 years, thank you, if not more, I mean I've known people that were Neophytes for 17 years before they ever took the step. You know you're all. You're never ready for your first or your third. You're always ready for your second, yeah. And even after those initiatory, even after those initiatory experiences, there's a whole energetic shift that takes years to get through. For that shift, yes, no, and when you get to third, that's a seven year energetic shift.

Speaker 3: 20:35

So yeah, it's a very rough and long process to go through, but I think it's worth it.

Speaker 2: 20:45

I do too. I've it's. It's meant the world to me. It's made me a lot about who I am, maybe understand my world a lot better. It's given me peace. It's given me much more open heart than I probably would have had, and I just sat there and did nothing.

Speaker 3: 21:02

So even when I'm sitting there with your group I can. I can tell the affection and you know family connections between you and your other coven members. I mean y'all truly care about each other.

Speaker 2: 21:17

We do, we do. We're a spiritual family without the Kool-Aid, and you know we've always said vote with your feet. I won't hold anyone here. That's not the way craft works, and no one's required to be here. Nor am I required to keep you here. Works both ways right. So but yeah, we are a spiritual family. We do support each other and and, but we're not up in each other's business.

Speaker 2: 21:45

We come together for spiritual purposes and I've always said leave the outside at the door, don't bring me your politics. I mean, there's, there's been some set rules with all the stuff that's going on in the world of what we will and will not consider topics of conversation here. We come from very different political backgrounds and ideologies. We, we, we we're on different sides of the fence. With the whole COVID thing, I mean, but I don't bring it in here, I don't want to hear it. I don't, because that's not why we're here. This is supposed to be safe, safe, safe spiritual place where you can express yourself spiritually. Or if you have an issue with something you're working through, you can speak of it and you're not going to get heckled or blackballed or you know, treated.

Speaker 2: 22:33

What's you know? You see, people joke each other all the time. I go to these coven sometimes, and everybody's so an insult, set each other in a joking spirit. That's the death of a coven, because that's it's mean spirited and it's not why you're there, right? So there's, there's a decorum, should I say, and there's a protocol of how we relate to each other and how we interact with each other. That I think is cool Of craft, because without that your structures fall apart.

Speaker 3: 23:02

Definitely. I guess it might be our area, but there is this community. Here we do have respect for each other. No, we don't agree. But there's a lot of things we don't agree on spiritually and all this other stuff. But I think it's amazing how well we all do get along with each other outside of that. Yeah, I have never felt unwelcome in y'all circle whatsoever. You're always welcome. So you know, things are different. I don't see one where we have to argue over those things.

Speaker 2: 23:34

Well, I mean, it's interesting because we all worship the Lord and Lady and we do it differently and right, wrong and different Everyone is. I've always had the belief, and it's part of our teachings, that everyone is where they're supposed to be. Meaning meaning, if where you are energetically with your soul, your higher self, everything else, wherever you are, the universe is going to put you where you need to learn your next lesson, and if that next lesson is from a leader I put quotes around leader at this point that has quirks and scars and is not the best of leader you're still supposed to be there to learn something. Thank you, it's not that it's wrong. Everyone is where they're supposed to be to learn what they're supposed to be.

Speaker 2: 24:24

We've always said that people come in to this life and maybe they have no exposure to anything spiritual and are vain whatsoever, and maybe the next life they get a little bit of it and maybe the next life they get a little bit more. Not that everybody is supposed to be exposed to this, that's not the case. But you know, through lifetimes of work, these energy states change with us as we evolve. Because we are reincarnation. We do believe we're incarnation, whether it's this faith or another faith or whatever have you, but Radenwood has always kind of taken the tact that people come for a while and they get what they need and then they go on and do what's next.

Speaker 2: 25:07

Now that process, I believe, also happens in the non-traditional world.

Speaker 2: 25:13

It also happens in the folks that have read three books and now call themselves a high priestess.

Speaker 2: 25:19

There's lessons on all that level, but I do believe that the universe does spin people out when they've learned that you're not not on a death perspective, but it just finds other interests. It kind of puts things in the path so that you take what you've learned and go apply it someplace else. So all this public craft and online craft and Zoom rituals which don't ask me, I can't figure that shit All that stuff has its place and has its purpose, but the light of the traditional groups and that deeper knowledge is still shining as a beacon for people. I've found that a lot of the people that come into this group are coming from other places and they've learned other habits, and it's part of my part of my job is to fix some of the bad habits and help them through learning what they help them understand what they've already learned. But it's just the way that it is people come, people go and people out, but there's always going to be that core that stays, stays, stays. Very supportive.

Speaker 3: 26:27

So, after 50 years of Redmond being here, what is, what is their public persona now in your area compared to what it was? How much has it improved? Has it gotten any worse?

Speaker 2: 26:41

It's not about improved or worse. There is was such a push within Pop Wicca, should I say, of traditionalists are bad.

Speaker 3: 26:51

Yeah right.

Speaker 2: 26:52

So we've got that stigma, but at the same time we're not as out there as we used to be, so we're kind of like unicorns you don't see very many of us.

Speaker 1: 27:06

We can be found right.

Speaker 2: 27:08

You'd be surprised how many people I get emails from that say hey, my husband, I'm interested in craft. My husband said to go find you. Or my wife said she had heard about you 30 years ago. So go look them up. And people come in that way. It's very, very interesting for that.

Speaker 2: 27:26

But you know, there's a, there's a little shop up here that I go into and whenever I come in the owner is like oh, it's Lady Maya from Ravenwood, and so she kind of announces me, but not in like a hair, oh, it is not that, and she just me around. So people kind of go oh, you guys do still exist. Well, of course we do, but we're not out doing, you know, rituals in Piedmont Park, which we never did do. But we were involved with Atlanta Pagan pride for a while. We sponsored it, we didn't run it and that's kind of not been done for the last couple of years. But we're around. I mean we all kind of network with each other.

Speaker 2: 28:05

But as far as Ravenwood's reputation, it all depends on who you talk to, because there was the stuff that went down with ladies and ten and other people and you know there's baggage and but most everybody holds to the to the same one core thing is the training at Ravenwood is the best you'll receive. Now I'm saying that, but is it's the best I've received? But it's the only I've received. So you know, I don't go out and do comparisons and everybody else's training, but I can see evidence of it. But I do know that we provide some of the best training in this country for craft. So people come looking for that as well. You know, I have always felt like well, there's a statement that says that when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and so people come out of the blue sometimes and it's time in their life to do this and they, they are attracted somehow to us, they find us and, sure enough, they stick.

Speaker 3: 29:04

I mean, give me wrong it's always seems to have been the thing in the community, that job always been the gold star standard of governments, of training that's a huge statement.

Speaker 2: 29:18

That's a very honestly, this was the impression.

Speaker 3: 29:21

I've always gotten from Lord man and I'll say, of course, Lord man.

Speaker 2: 29:25

Yes.

Speaker 3: 29:28

You know, but again, even from Lord Lou and some others, you always seem to be the gold standard of training and stuff like this in the area.

Speaker 2: 29:37

We do provide excellent training I will take it yes. And I'm honored and humbled to be a steward of that.

Speaker 3: 29:45

You know I'm a steward. That's a lot to take upon your shoulders too, Because you got how many people running around under you Roughly across the five groups.

Speaker 2: 30:00

I don't know. I don't know. We're not as big as we used to be. I put it that way, right? I can't handle many people. I've always said I can't handle that. I can't handle over a certain amount of people.

Speaker 3: 30:13

So let me ask you this, from when you first started to know what's the biggest difference in craft that you have seen.

Speaker 2: 30:20

When I first started in the 80s.

Speaker 3: 30:22

Yeah, to now.

Speaker 2: 30:25

I think, with the internet, social media and all these quote unquote authors, it's good to see people jacked up and interested in craft. Yes, it's bad to see people getting egos fed, personal egos fed, with this. I'm a this and I'm a that. When you're not from my definition, I think that there's. If I look across the books that are out there right now and the resource materials available for people that are just seeking and searching, I don't see any difference in the information in the books. No 30 years ago.

Speaker 3: 31:14

No.

Speaker 2: 31:16

The inner knowledge of this stuff is still not published.

Speaker 3: 31:19

No.

Speaker 2: 31:20

Which is where it should be. So I think people are learning. I think people are making money off of it, but actually it's not a lot of money making it. Then you go learning and growing and getting glimpses of craft and with as popular as it's been for the last 10 years. I'm really interested to see what happens 20 years from now, because what happens is people get involved in their teens, in their early 20s.

Speaker 2: 31:46

Yeah, they get through college. They're still interested at that point. But life side swipe Some they get married, they have kids, they have a career, so 20 years later they go. Huh, there was this thing that I was really interested in 20 years ago. Let me get serious about it. And that's when they come find me, they need facsimile and they go. Yeah, I did this stuff 20 years ago and I studied and still love this stuff, and now I want to follow back up on it. I think that's fascinating. I think it's fascinating that I'm a magical herbalist. I've been doing magical herbalism for 30-something years and I think it's interesting that, if you look across all the different published herbals now that every herb is good for everything, Because this one is just good.

Speaker 2: 32:36

I find that fascinating. I find there's a lot of whitewashing of information. I find there's a lot of disinformation out there and people are learning and going what they need to learn and grow. That goes back to that you are where you're supposed to be thing. But the difference is the openness of it. I mean, it was very controversial when we went open public and that was in the 80s, so now it's commonplace. People just put their little banner out and there they are.

Speaker 3: 33:08

Nobody thinks of it anymore.

Speaker 2: 33:11

Nobody realizes why they're actually able to do that Now. I personally was not involved in that fight. I was not at Ravenwood back then. I can speak to it to some extent, but I did not live through that. I was a little young at the time.

Speaker 3: 33:28

A little young A little young at the time. We were all young back then.

Speaker 2: 33:34

Only I was 11. I mean I was too young. I mean I got into craft at the time, 22, maybe that's about the same time I did 22, 23, 23.

Speaker 3: 33:46

Yeah, so yeah that is about the time and, yes, we do seem to have a lot of older people come into classes instead of young.

Speaker 2: 33:54

We did. At one point in my history of running a group, I was a state Actually. Lord Ben said this. He said he says, lady, you don't have Elderly.

Speaker 3: 34:06

Now how much of a difference is between trying to teach these 22-year-olds and these older people that are a little bit more mature and gotten some roots?

Speaker 2: 34:18

The younger folks have a lot more influences coming in. They're very malleable because they're open-minded, they're open for growth, they're open to learn this out of the other and sometimes you have to help them simmer it down. The common core with both of them is they have to do the work. If you're going to go through I don't know how many classes and you don't even know what the elements are, you're not in the right place because you're not driven enough to go study it. Go study, learn, work with it. We also live in a very, very busy society. Yes, so both sets have to work with scheduling, and scheduling is the biggest time eater of what I do is trying to figure out when to get all these people together. But I find that the materials that we teach and then our teachings apply equally to both of them. I don't think there's a difference really without the two different sets of. I don't think age has anything to do with it, so to speak.

Speaker 3: 35:19

OK.

Speaker 2: 35:20

I only have really, really young folks who don't have any life underneath them. You've got to have some life underneath you to do this. Yes, absolutely. I mean, if you're just popping out of your mom's house, you can adopt the faith, yeah, but you don't have some of the scars that you need to really get your figure underneath you.

Speaker 3: 35:36

There's something about going out there and scraping your knees and You've got to do it.

Speaker 2: 35:41

Part of life is grown up. I'm not saying that they can't be great followers of the faith at that age. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying my experience has been the lessons and the teachings that we do work much better for folks that have a level of maturity.

Speaker 3: 35:56

Yes, and really take it serious and take that time. Is there anything else about Ravenwood you'd like to share?

Speaker 2: 36:06

Well, if you're in the Atlanta area and you're interested, please speak, drop me a line. I'm on Facebook at my Ravenwood, and we also have our website, which is an old, clunky website that needs to be updated, but our contact information is out there.

Speaker 3: 36:28

A little bad in the descriptions.

Speaker 2: 36:30

OK.

Speaker 1: 36:32

Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Peg and Coffee Talk is brought to you by LifeTemple and Seminary. Please visit us at lifetimepleseminaryorg for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, discord, twitter, youtube and Reddit.

Speaker 4: 36:50

We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a sea of blazing fires. And so it is the end of our days. So walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our days. So walk with me till morning.