Reviews from past intensives

Campers have kindly sent us their reviews of camps past; excerpts from their words are quoted here with permission.

AVALON CAMP 2006

“Avalon Camp is a ton of fun. It provides an opportunity to learn some deeper magical skills and also gives space for your inner child to come out and play! It’s an opportunity to create deeper community and interact with people in an ongoing ritual space. There’s also time for you to share your own offerings and gifts. Treat yourself to a nourishing week for the soul!” – DM

“This year’s camp started off, for me, as a journey into the wild world that I have never known before. It was my first time at camp and from the moment I got there everyone made it very welcoming. By the end of the week you become close friends with everyone there.

Avalon camp was a personal journey, but you were surrounded by people who were taking their own personal journey. The rituals that were set up this year were amazing…. I really enjoyed being able to express myself through singing as well, which was present in rituals, along with dancing.  After this year I don’t doubt the presence of magic in this world.” – RR

“I return again and again, led through the infinite
connection of our worlds, the human and the wild
both calling their vital song deep in my blood.
Remembering our world’s compassion and comfort
is just a hearth-fire, a community, a swelling of love away.
Remembering the wild’s undefeatable wildness
is just a mud-smear, a wolf’s howl, a barefoot dance away.
The story has many endings, the story has no ending.
I am the story alive on the land.

With gratitude to all witch-campers and teachers
Blessed Be” – FV

AVALON CAMP 2005

“I was blessed this summer to be part of the Avalon Witchcamp in Great Britain. Me being a citizen of the United States – what an opportunity it was to visit with our UK Reclaiming family.

Camp was great. Reclaiming is known for being eclectic and this camp manifested this as reality. I am glad that I listened to my spirit allies to attend Avalon Camp. Great fun, great magic and lasting friends.” – C

“It was an amazing experience. The beautiful grounds of EarthSpirit and nearly seven days of warm sunshine played host to quite a dark story. We watched the ancient Greek Gods interfering in each others lives; we witnessed the traumatic meeting between Kore and Hades; we helped Demeter search for her daughter and joined her in her grief; and then we went into the underworld with Persephone and saw her claim her power crowned as Queen of the Dead.

My personal highlights of the week include the hilarious talent night, which saw the first performance of the official Avalon Camp song; the use of a lawnmower to create a massive pentacle in the grass; an amazing auction in which people gave generously for the “send a witch to camp” fund; and meeting Elvis!
The week long camp provided opportunity for deep personal work (which for me is still having a positive effect in my life) and the opportunity to experience powerful magic, along with meeting old and new friends, and learning from an incredible teaching team. Thank you to everyone who came to camp this year for making it such an enjoyable week, I can’t wait for camp next year!” – WC

“Recreation. Consecration.
Creativity.
Introspection. Reconnection.
Community.” – DW

“The experience was uplifting, exciting, spiritual and often tiring! The thing that’s come away with me from Witch Camp is that you don’t have to know why you’re there when you are, what you take away with you is used everyday after you leave.  The energy and strength that is shared at camp has stuck with me, camp is whatever you want / need it to be. The realisation that so many different people, coming for so many different reasons, can share a wonderful week together is truly magical.” – DV-H

AVALON CAMP 2004

“i smile
and run about a mile
my blood
hot from laughter
i warm up inside
i love
and skipping along i fall over smack flat on the grass with my face in the mud it’s warm, soft and comfortable i couldn’t have landed any better

This is how i felt at camp, where I can grow into the full me.  Now, since last year’s camp, i’m not so closed down anymore. Learning to let go in an environment where no-one holds me back, where people give you encouraging smiles and even encouraging hugs. So three cheers, and many more, to the teachers and my fellow walkers of the path. Three, and again many more, cheers to the organisers, the other teachers and everyone at camp. Thank you all!” – SL

“Avalon Witchcamp opened me up in ways I could not have imagined. It provided a solid foundation for personal empowerment, and enabled a freedom to BE that was long-ago lost.

A broad spectrum of kindred spirits gathered, dropped their egos at the door, and brought their truest, most authentic selves.  They then provided inspiration, guidance and support to one another, as equals.  Everyone had something to offer, no matter where they were on their “witch path”.  Not once did I feel judged, nor did I judge. A cceptance seemed to be a natural occurrence in this magical place called Earth Spirit.  Witchcamp was all-accepting, inspirational, empowering, supportive, educational & magical.” – CR

“Witchcamp was a full-on experience for me. I’ve got good and strong memories of camp – the unity I felt in the evening rituals; the mad giggling and tears of our air affinity group; going for peaceful walks on my own to the yew tree and along the path to church; the rite of passage path (every last lovely morsel of it); warmth, openness, passion and honesty from some lovely people. Thanks to everyone for making it happen.” – IL

“I appreciated my Path immensely: Oak and Anne-Marie and their shared wisdom, and the blossoming of many of my younger sister witches. Connecting with a sense of Wicca’s foundation, that is why I made the journey to the Avalon Camp. Thank you, hard-working organisers at British Reclaiming, for a wonderful Witchcamp 2004.” – CH

“Camp 2004 was my sixth camp, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. As always I camped, and the beauties of the lovely land were all around from my first moment of waking….the sounds of the birds all around and the pink bells in the long grasses. It’s such a marvellous place.

The richness of Bridget with her triple aspects meant plenty of themes emerged through the week. I especially loved the ritual where we celebrated her poetic aspect and all of us co-priestessed, singing, dancing and drawing pictures in a spontaneous fashion.   Other delights were the people – Reclaiming really does seem to attract wonderful people – often financially poor but rich in Spirit, creativity, and passion for living life anew. Blessed Be!” – RG

“The Witchcamp felt like a gift and within minutes of arriving I had largely relaxed and opened my heart and mind, sunning my soul. I was a newcomer to Witchcamps and also to Reclaiming, which I’d heard of only weeks earlier. It dawned on me that the beauty of Reclaiming is its sense of delight, liberation, permission to be who you really are. With Reclaiming people and events, we are generally free to be as dance-y, as sing-y, as emotional, as any-sexually-oriented, as creative, as unconventional in expression, as we wish.

A week’s beautiful work, it was a true faery world, enchanting for me. There were emotional challenges – you take yourself with you, even to Avalon – but the week was a joyous feast for me. Watching a room or field full of love-intentioned people, dancing and singing so innocently, sending out healing to the earth, I thought: These are the real Witches! I felt refuelled, replenished, eating and drinking of magic and the heart’s warmth.” – EB

Camps 1998-2004

“I recall my first affinity group ritual on the top of Lollover Hill in the howling winds and dark clouds racing across a golden sunset sky, invoking West (but not yet as the rain threatened and hung in the air), while others nervously eyed the cows who eyed us, more curiously than nervously. Joy and mirth. It really brought us together as a group, and it was a very real experience.

Another was the amazing cone of power generated inside the tower on Glastonbury Tor (at both the camps I have attended), strangely the more powerful I felt for the (various) reactions of passers-by.” – DW

“Here’s my most memorable Witchcamp experience: invoking the Goddess as Maiden to the rising sickle moon in our support group, in the garden, with our own lovely Maiden dressed in white with her hair loose….Smells of summer garden, magical half-light, clear sky…” – PC

“When I came to the first camp, I was very nervous. In my mid-twenties, I was only just finding my self-confidence and strength. So much has depended on me working up the courage to go to camp. I have found and learned so much because of that decision.” – CS

“2000 - The healing ritual, which went so deep.
1999 - Raising power twice inside the tower on the Tor – so much energy, that kept on coming and coming and building and resonating all round the inside of the building and out the top.” – SR

“Choosing my most memorable Witchcamp experience is a hard task – they’re all memorable! ….From the 1999 Avalon Camp: the spontaneous riot of exuberant dancing, chanting, clapping and dancing that erupted as the two groups (the red group & the white group), climbing via separate footpaths, met at the top of Glastonbury Tor.” – SF

“This was a wonderful surprise for me. Most pagan rituals I had previously attended had been very ‘polite’, staid or stagey, often with a certain edge of pomposity – which may explain why I have been a solitary for several years. The rituals at this camp were a complete revelation for me – they were fun! Irreverent towards the leaders of the ritual, with a deep sense of wonder in the presence of deity, energetic, spontaneous, uninhibited, humorous, moving – magical. Each ritual induced in me heights of ecstasy and depths of feeling I had rarely felt in a religious setting since my teenage years – and, Goddess, did we raise some power!

The main highlight of the camp for me was the spirit of the place, the site, the surrounding land and energies, which permeated all our work together. Especially magical was the company of glow-worms which lit our path from the ritual every evening – a blessing from the place on our workings, I hope.

Leaving camp was very hard to do. I made some good friends and I was loath to leave the wonderful group energy that all of us had built together. I was impressed by the organisation and planning, by the site, by the rituals and by the goodwill which had developed so swiftly between all participants. The teachers displayed the best kind of leadership, encouraging others to step forward into their own power, with no kind of airs or graces, and were extremely approachable throughout.

I would recommend Witchcamp to anyone who enjoys ecstatic, transformational ritual and is willing to take up the challenge of some intensive magical, personal and group work. Or, of course, who simply appreciates a good pud!”
(Excerpted from an article previously published in ‘Spin’ Magazine) – EP