Welcome to Carolina Spirit Quest, where you will see familiar faces, make new friends, and have an opportunity to learn some amazing things. We have a diverse offering of Learning Circles (workshops) from Bellydancing and Mead-making to Tarot and Crystals. Our Learning Circle presenters are experienced and enthusiastic. We are excited about these Learning Circles because we think there is something for everyone!

Please register early as participation in some Learning Circles is limited. A brief schedule of the Learning Circles is provided below, with links to where they are described in more detail.

Learning Circle Schedule

Friday Afternoon 4:30-5:30 PM

Newcomers Circle

 

Saturday Morning 9:00 - 11:00 AM

Finding Your Mystical Powers

Watercolor Class

Quick and Dirty Divinitation

From Wool to Yarn

Developing Touch

Stoplights are our Friends

 

Saturday Afternoon 3:00 - 5:00 PM

"How do I love thee? Let me count the way..." Prayer Beads for Pagans

Runes, Seidhr, and Sacrifice: Germanic Magic

 

Beginning Tarot

Coloring Empowerment

Witches Bottles, Ladders and Cradles, and other Paraphenalia

 

Sunday Morning 9:00 - 11:00 AM

Watercolor Class

72 Card Pickup - A Tarot Spread Workshop

Cooking for the Seasons

Honor, Luck, and Fate: Germanic Religious Culture

The Wheel of the Year in Context

Please Note: Learning circles are subject to change. Please check with the web site, or the Learning Circle Coordinator, for any changes or additions.

A Special Welcome To Newcomers

We are so glad you are with us at Quest. We invite you to attend the Newcomers Workshop 'So This is Your First Quest?' on Friday night from 4:30 - 5:30. Attendance is not mandatory, but you will learn many helpful tips. Also, take a moment to look over the "What To Bring" list. If you think you will be lost without a certain item for the weekend, go ahead and pack it. Make sure you bring lots of ritual items, like clothing, staffs, jewelry, etc. During the Opening, Main and Closing Rituals, it is common to see participants dressed in their finest ritual garb. Robes, dresses, tunics, gowns, cloaks and capes decorated with symbols meaningful to the participants' traditions or body painting in colorful designs are worn by many. Plus, there is always lots of glitter!

Remember, you are here to have fun. If you have questions at any time throughout the weekend, please feel free to ask a Staff or Board member. We are here to help you have an enjoyable weekend. Be ready to meet many different people from many different paths. Bring an open mind and heart, and be ready to learn, teach, share, listen and make new friends. Welcome to Quest!

Newcomer's Circle - So This Is Your First Quest?

Facilitators: CSQ Board Members
Time slot: Friday Afternoon 4:30-5:30

Back for its seventh year by popular demand, Quest is presenting a Learning Circle for new folks. This fun, fact-filled mini Learning Circle is offered to anyone attending their first Quest. Please come even if you are a veteran of other gatherings. Steph and Kara have attended several Quests and promise you some fun and a few surprises. Anyone who has attended Quest may come and offer their favorite tip.

72 Card Pickup - A Tarot Spread Workshop

Facilitator: Becky Starr

This Learning Circle will look at Tarot spreads for a variety of uses. We will explore several different layouts and discover the best spread for the type of information desired from easy 3 card spreads to more elaborate 15 card ones. Some experience with tarot is recommended, but not required. Bring your decks to use for readings or to share!!

Beginning Tarot

Facilitator: Lance Brown

The Tarot is a richly symbolic tool useful for meditation, spellwork, divination, and magick. Are you interested in the Tarot but don’t know where to start? Beginning Tarot will introduce you to the Tarot, help you select your first deck, and begin studying and using it. We will cover the fundamentals of the Tarot, some simple layouts for readings, and other techniques for using Tarot in magick and daily life.

Coloring Empowerment

Facilitator: Beth Fox-Ebert

We use various colors and symbols throughout our lives, in magic, in decorating, in clothes, in personal ideas. We can also use these colors for empowerment and to delve into what colors and symbols mean to us personally. So get comfortable, and gather your crayons. This workshop uses a guided “drawing” meditation to discover our intuitive connection to colors and symbols. We will use colors and personal symbolisms to tap into our own personal life-force and project it into a personal statement of self confidence and strength. This will be followed by a discussion on using color and symbolism in our lives and magical practices.

Cooking for the Seasons

Facilitator: Ashley Lee

Workshop intended to give new and fresh ideas for cooking items for ritual feasts. Also to give ideas for picking up items at stores when you don't or can't cook. Using recipes, foods, and ingredients at home to make great dishes to share that represent the sabbats.

Developing Touch

Facilitator: Kay Warren

This is a hands-on workshop about connecting to and developing your sense of healing touch, taught in a meditative style. Everyone gets to participate, everyone gets to share. Beginner through intermediate skill levels will get the most from this class.

Finding Your Mystical Powers

Facilitator: Cindy Loar

This learning activity consists of a questionnaire that is filled out by each participant and scored. From the score, they can identify if they are empaths, channelers, mediums, or precognitioners. Characteristics of each of the 4 areas will be handed out after scoring. This is followed by an exercise where participants are paired up with someone they do not know well. Given pictures and attributes of the 4 elements, each person thinks of the picture and its attributes and the partner must decide which element the first person is thinking of. The exercise is done 10 times. The exercise is repeated with the partner touching the first person (usually holding hands). Scores are compared for first and second trials to see if physical touch helped the partner receive additional information empathically. There is no cost and I will have all materials to hand out.

From Wool to Yarn – Learn to Spin

Facilitator: Cynthia Campbell

In this hands-on workshop you will learn one of humankind’s most ancient arts: how to hand spin your own thread. Spinning is very relaxing and easier than you may think! As this class is for beginners, no experience is necessary, though if you have spun in the past and need a refresher feel free to sign up! A drop spindle and sufficient wool to knit, crochet, or weave a small project will be provided. (If you already own a spindle and would like to learn, or re-learn, on it, bring it along!)

There is a $5 fee for Learning Circle materials and take-homes

Honor, Luck and Fate: Germanic Religious Culture

Facilitator: Dan Campbell

Each of us lives within a web of relationships and reputation. The actions of our kin and friends (living and dead) both support and limit our choices in life. From a pagan Germanic perspective, those bonds help us live fulfilling lives. A good life is full of deeds valued by friends and family, gods and ancestors alike. Gaining such honor also gains us the luck we need to follow our fate: whether that means working with or against events beyond our control. In this workshop, we will explore how pagan Germanic values survive in modern culture and how understanding their original meaning can help us live our lives today.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the way..."
Prayer Beads for Pagans

Facilitator: Becky Starr

Many cultures and religions have used beads as an instrument of prayer – Islam, Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism to name a few. These prayer beads, known as rosaries, malas or sha sha in Egyptian (for "luck"), have been used for hundreds of years to pray or connect with spirit. We will explore the use of a rosary (from the Latin for "rose garden" or indicating the use of flowers in a circlet) as a moving meditation for our personal spiritual practices. We will create a rosary for a moon goddess, or goddesses, of our choice and write accompanying "prayers" or affirmations to use with this beautiful tool. We will also discuss other uses of prayer beads in our personal practices. No previous experience with prayer beads or poetry writing needed! "Recovering" Catholics welcome!!

There is a $7 fee for this Learning Circle for the materials and take-homes.

Plant Essense Confidential and Bathtub Alchemy

We regret to inform you this Learning Circle has been cancelled

Facilitator: Amanda d'Adesky

The first part of the class will pertain to the basics of essential oils and their many uses in caring for mind, body and spirit. The second part of the class will deal with choosing the right salts, oils, and plant compounds to create custom blends that meet your individual needs.

Requirements: All you need to bring is a stainless steel bowl large enough to hold about 12 oz. of salt and your fabulous self. (If you cannot bring a bowl, please email Amanda and she will make arrangements to provide one for you. She’ll need at least ONE WEEK’S NOTICE prior to Spring Quest.) PLEASE ALSO NOTE: If you have allergies of any kind PLEASE list them when you sign up for class. Latex, lavender, nuts, doesn't matter! I don't want anyone to get hurt while taking my class!

Materials: Students will be provided with handouts pertaining to the subject matter, as well as small amounts of essential oils, carrier oils, 2 glass jars, mixing tools, and 6-10 ozs. (by volume) of various salt blends in order to create their own bath salts for personal use. (Safety equipment will also be provided, obviously.)

There is a $12 fee for the Learning Circles for the materials and take-homes.

Quick and Dirty Divination

Facilitator: Stacey Lawless

Divination is an art that doesn’t have to depend on memorizing complicated systems of meaning. With the cultivation of intuition, nearly anything can be a tool for divination. This workshop will teach you how to use signs, symbols, and stuff in your pockets to gain

Runes, Seidr, and Sacrifice: Germanic Magic

Facilitator: Dan Campbell

Germanic magic took several inter-related forms: spell-songs, runes, prophecy, herbal magic, soul-faring, etc. We will discuss the key elements of these magical practices, how they are related, and how Germanic magic and religion become one in rites of sacrifice. In particular, we will look at: how runes were used, the importance of prophecy, the power of the spoken word, and the souls which make up the individual.

Stoplights Are Our Friends

Facilitator: Johnson Davis

Animism is the belief that everything has a soul, and is in many ways a basis for much of modern religious and Magickal practice. This presentation is an examination of ancient animism, at least what we know of it, and how to apply it now to create changes in our modern world. This will include an interactive discussion where we can all share how animism might synchronize or clash with our personal belief systems.

Watercolor Class

Facilitator: Brydie Palmore

We will explore techniques for handling and playing with watercolors to produce a finished painting by the end of class. Techniques will include gesso, mask, collage, and salt. Expect to have fun. Wear clothes that are washable and that you do not expect to wear the rest of the weekend. There will be two sessions: Saturday AM and Sunday AM.

Supplies will be provided.
Maximum of 8 participants
There is a $30 fee for this Learning Circle

The Wheel of the Year in Context

Facilitator: Dick Merritt

We will look at the seasonal celebrations the neo-Pagans refer to as Sabbats. The rituals are the enactment of myth and the myth reflects nature. So, we will speak of the weather and agricultural cycles of the year and connect them to the mythos. There will be opportunity to share the mythos of your favorite pantheon(s).

Witches Bottle, Witches Ladder, Witches Cradle, and other Paraphenalia

Facilitator: Ric

This workshop will be on those things often not used or heard of in the practice of Witchcraft, but which have had a part in our history and still have their uses today. This will be an informational workshop only, we won't be making any of the items to be discussed.

Learning Circle Presenter & Spring Quest Staff Biographies

Amanda d'Adesky has been making soap, candles, and bath salts for the last five years. In the not-so-distant past she worked for a national chain of bath and body stores, and was originally content to sell what she thought were wonderful products. After a while, though, the veil dropped, showing her exactly what it was she was selling. As such, she was drawn toward a different path after getting fed up with pressuring little old ladies on Social Security incomes to buy things they really didn’t want or need. Out of the desire to affect even a small change on the world Dancing Panda Soapworks was born. Today, Amanda lives in “the middle of nowhere” with her husband John and their three “fur-kids” Max, Luna, and Oddball.

Lance Brown is a Unitarian Universalist Techno Pagan living in Hillsborough, NC. He’s been interested in Goddess worship and Earth-centered spirituality since 1986 and has been studying and using the Tarot for 21 years, including teaching learning circles at previous Spring Quest events and leading an ongoing series of classes for Celebrate The Circle at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Hillsborough, NC.

Cynthia Campbell is a full-time mom and long-time pagan. She learned to spin at Spring Quest 2002, a skill which has grown to become her passion. She has taught learning circles for CSQ, Celebrate the Circle, and Idhavelli Hof. Cynthia lives in Hillsborough with husband Dan, two daughters, cat, and two gerbils.

Dan Campbell is a member of Iðavelli Hof (http:// www.idhavellihof.org) and has led Beginner Runes since its inception in 2004. In 2001 & 2003, he assisted Danny Moses with 'Yggrunar: Runes of the Ecstatic One' at two CSQ special events. Dan lives in Hillsborough with his wife, Cynthia, and daughters, Jess and Bri.

Johnson Davis has been a practicing pagan for 22 years and a presenter/author for 11 years. Trained as a scientist, he approaches spiritual and metaphysical worlds with a maddening combination of acceptance and skepticism. So, he believes some crazy things, though he knows they are crazy. And why not? Most people believe in gravity, and it turns out to be pretty crazy when you try to explain why it actually works. Johnson currently serves on the board for the Church of the Earth of NC and is a local coordinator for the annual Central NC Pagan Pride Day Festival.

Brydie Fyredragon. I think now that I was born a Witch, however I did not know that for sure until 30 some years ago when I read Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler. As I saw myself in the book I was able for the first time to name myself. I created my own ways of celebrating and my own wheel of the year. A friend gave me my first Tarot Deck, and another friend gave me a book. Now I read and study with people I honor and always, always I have been a rite writer. I am most interested in ethics: how we treat one another; how we treat our planet; whom we honor and respect. Meditation is my most powerful tool. Using meditation I created a workshop called Circle of Stones. I have been an artist most of my life and have been splashing in the water for at least 12 years

Beth Fox-Ebert has been a pagan for over fifteen years, Momma Lioness, serves an active role in the spiritual community, founding Spiritual Pathways and co founding Tempest Haven CAW Nest as well as co-coordinating the local Pagan Pride Day for the past 3 years. Beth strives to shed positive light on Paganism as a living practice, and has taught many workshops and classes at a variety of pagan events, as well as leading rituals for both adults and children.

Sharon Hill is a licensed clinical social worker and a certified employee assistance professional. She is also an experienced trance worker who practices shamanic techniques with a local group and individually. She also has experience in chakra work, meditation, Norse rune magick, Seidhr, group process, divination & healing work. Stacey Lawless has been a member of Iðavelli Hof’s seidhr circle since its inception and is a student of rune lore and tarot. She is interested in folk magic and issues of the pagan community and makes her home in Chapel Hill, NC.

Ashley Lee "found" her path in her early 20's but always knew she was on a different spiritual path than her upbringing. Constantly learning she devotes her life to a few different genres of "Paganism" having felt the pull from the Celtic side of life all the way to her Native America ancestors. Having grown up with a Paternal Grandfather and Maternal Grandmother that both loved to cook, she found that her favorite place was the kitchen. Her other "happy place" is the outdoors doing just about anything.

Cindy Loar is an Occupational Therapist by trade and teaches at a large technical college in east Georgia. She is a member of Celtic Crossings Pagan Community, Mystical Powers Research and Development, and the Beltane Band drumming circle in Augusta, Georgia. She has presented workshops on topics such as using crystals for healing, pendulum use for divination, and healing touch for man and animal. She studies Reike with a massage therapist/Reike Master. She will be graduating in May from the University of Georgia with a doctorate in adult education. She and her family have been adopted by 4 retired racing greyhounds. Cindy and her husband Karl have a daughter, Tessa, who attends college in Georgia.

Dick Merritt, a retired professional member of the American Massage Therapy Association, led massage workshops for many years. Dick grew into paganism through the influence of eco-feminist spirituality in the 80's. It was a natural fit, given his agrarian background. He is an eclectic neo-pagan & Unitarian Universalist. Dick characterizes himself as a Joseph Campbell pagan because of his conviction that religion is metaphor. Strongly influenced by the Creation Spirituality movement, he describes himself as a panentheist. He enjoys frequent rituals and purification ceremonies. A techno-pagan, he is a retired UNIX technician.

Ric considers himself to be a traditional Witch, but has been eclectic on many occasions. He’s been studying Witchcraft on and off since the 80's but has only really had a chance to be active in the last seven years, Currently Ric is on the board for Church Of The Earth, is a coordinator with Central NC Pagan Pride Day, runs the Witches, Pagans, and Goddess Spiritualists Meetup Groups, runs the Goddess Morrigan Yahoo Group, and helps his wife care for 13 different animals at home. That, other than working and sleeping is essentially his life.

Becky Starr is an instructor by passion and training with interests in many things. Currently, she is in the final stages of starting up Starrlight Mead, with her husband Ben, expected to open in 2009. In the Pagan world, she finds herself a frequent workshop leader for Celebrate the Circle, the CUUPS chapter of Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Hillsborough, and at events for Carolina Spirit Quest, including both Spring Quest and Winter Quest. Becky is a past President and Vice President on the Board of Trustees for CSQ. Becky considers herself an eclectic Egyptian Pagan, is a Priestess of Isis and Freyja, and lives in Durham, NC with her husband and cat, Missy.

Kay Warren has been a practicing Witch since ’89. Her practice is Eclectic Craft with Taoist sympathies. She has taught at EMG, PantheaCon, and Wild Magick. She has been a Medical Massage Therapist for 24 years, and holds the National Certification for Medical Massage. She’s had the Gift of Touch as long as she can remember, it feels it needs to be shared.