Sometimes you don’t get to make this choice.  If there’s not a coven near you, there’s only one option left besides putting everything on hold and moving to a city where you can find a group.  Still, many people who come to the Craft have differing understandings about whether or not you can be a Witch without a coven, or if you can choose to be Solitary even if there’s a coven available, or how joining a Coven will change your Craft experience.

Coven training provides…

• Social interaction that most people need in life.
• Plenty of people with whom to share (multiply joys).
• Plenty of people with whom to have conflict (increased opportunities for growth).
• Structure that can help one feel secure as learning begins.
• Trained leadership that can accelerated the education process.
• Support system for all aspects of your life.
• Group ritual experience and shared magickal opportunities.
• Someone to go to for help in emergencies or when questions arise.
• The feeling of being part of something bigger than just you.
• Safe space in which to do the deep sharing necessary to grow in personal power.
• The potential for you to be able to share your knowledge and teach others.
• The chance to be part of a living tradition of the Craft as shared by the group.
• Friendship, networking, and teamwork experiences.

Negative coven experiences can include…

• Extreme angst and conflict, if the group isn’t well-managed with an “active focus”.
• Danger, if the leadership doesn’t accurately assess skill levels and prepare members for the work to be done.
• Codependence, if personal power and accountability aren’t stressed and encouraged.
• Extortion, if unethical behavior is enacted within a atmosphere of trust.
• Poor education, if those instructing are not well-educated or trained and capable of passing on knowledge.
• Ego-centrism, if the leaders are insecure and see/treat coven members as minions.
• Stagnancy, if change is not accepted and differing views/conflict not dealt with maturely and integrated.
• Unethical alignment, if the coven is geared towards illegal or “shadowy” work or behavior as a standard.
• Immaturity, simply because people are people and we all make mistakes as we grow.
• Embarrassment, because you now have an audience for the mistakes you make.
• Relationship conflict, between friends, husbands/wives, etc.  As you change, your relationships do also.

Solitary work provides…

• The opportunity to hear your own Voice first.
• Freedom to study what you please at your own pace and to use what you find as you see fit.
• No one to judge you on your ritual skills.
• No “peanut gallery” to tell you what you may or may not be doing “wrong”.
• A true “at your own pace” approach.
• More anonymity — literally, no one else knows.
• The chance to grow in strength as you face your challenges alone.
• The opportunity to develop your own symbolism and correspondences.
• An often “more unique” end product that is your spiritual practice.
• No group to whom you are bound or outside rules you have to follow.
• No situations where you are being pushed to expand an area you might find uncomfortable.
• No added requirement to learn to play or work well with others.
• No one depending on you to do your part to contribute to a larger whole.

Negative solitary experiences can include…

• Having to reinvent the Wheel every time — no benefit of someone else’s trial and error.
• No one to call when you have a magickal emergency.
• Potential questions of self-doubt (am I doing this right?  am I doing this safely?)
• No one to celebrate your successes — unshared victories.
• No one to help dust you off after a massive failure.
• No one to give you that “Other Input” when you feel lost and unsure which way to go next.
• Fears of looking like a fool if asked to participate in group ritual.
• Dangers of getting in over your head because you’ve missed something that was foundational training for a magickal working you are wanting to do.
• Lack of support in the mundane times, no one to call or with whom to share your path.
• Wondering if you’re the only one and the extreme loneliness that can ensue.
• Being told you’re invalid because you’re not Initiated, even though you do everything else “right”.

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Being in a good coven can provide many helpful growth experiences, good educational opportunities, a social framework, a sense of group purpose, and many other wonderful things.  Finding a good coven can be difficult.  Because we do not have a centralized body of ministry, education or clergy approval, there are a large number of self-appointed High Priests and High Priestesses out there whose only claim to being such is a whim and a self-delivered smack on the head.  There are equally more who really want to serve and do a good job that just aren’t equipped as leaders, have bad personal skills, can’t teach, and don’t understand the work it takes to keep one’s ego well-balanced while being “in charge”.  There are still others who see their students as ego-extensions of themselves, others that want to keep their students held back so they can ensure they remain at the top of their self-created pyramid, and still more that use the titles as a front for sexual misconduct, monetary exploitation, and unethical behavior.

There’s no one to whom these kinds of leaders can be reported.  There’s no “slap on the wrist” or “magickal incarceration” that can be meted out.  No one can “make” anyone give up a title or degree.  Even worse, these days, those that have gone through the degree process are treated as though the time they spent and the skills they have gained mean nothing (if anyone can be a High Priestess just by deciding to be so, why work for it?).  After all, anyone can say “I’m a 3rd degree High Priestess of Such-and-Such Circle of the Blah-dee-Dah”.  The proof is in the pudding.  You can tell a person, their focus, their dedication, their ethic, and their personal power based on what they do in the world around them.  In other words, it’s not what they SAY, it’s what they DO that you need to pay attention to.

In short, look at what the coven is by what it does and ask yourself… is the Coven like something I am aspiring to be?  Covens require resonance, require that a certain amount of “fitting in” takes place.  Can you fit into a group that is focused on achievement, on hard work, on dedication?  Can you fit into a group that is laid back but spends more time reliving old stories and gossiping than doing any kind of magickal work?  Can you fit into a group that requires all children be left at home for every group event?  Can you fit into a group that requires you be silent about anything you are taught, not even speaking to your spouse, even if your spouse is a member of the same group?  Look at the group’s overall energy, work, presentation, feel, and focus.  Realize that, should you become part of that group, you will begin to take on the energy of that group, which will change you.  If you fight against that change, you will be seen as trying to tear apart something that was working just fine before you got there.  Or, worse case, you will change yourself and implode later as you realize you aren’t what the Gods wanted you to be.

Being a solitary can present equal difficulties, almost in mirrored inverse of coven-difficulties.  Whereas most of the problems working with a coven involve other people, most of the problems working solitary involve you and you alone.  There’s no one to blame when you screw up, so you have to have a thick skin and be willing to make mistakes.  There’s often no one to ask what to do when shit hits the fan, so you have to have some common sense.  There’s no one to challenge you, so you’d better be self-driven.  There’s no one to give you a reading list, an assignment, or to guide your spiritual walk, so everything you do is an adventure, self-dictated by you.

There’s less chance of getting wrapped up in someone else’s drama, though.  You don’t have to worry about conforming on any level.  You don’t have to worry about sharing, telling anyone what you feel, or asking anyone’s permission to do anything magickally.  You are a free agent.  This can be a really good thing as you begin to grow in your own power.

Then there’s the not-so-good side… Wicca is traditionally an initiatory religion.  This means, it takes a Witch to make a Witch.  To many, you have to go through a ritual, conducted by another Witch, to be considered such.  As a solitary, you can claim whatever degree or title you want.  There are those who have been trained and initiated that won’t value it the same way you do because they can’t relate — everyone in THEIR tradition knows the value of a 1st degree in that Trad, but only you know the value of your own training.  Worse, they’ll be watching what you do to see if you “measure up”.  I’ve seen Solitaries laughed at in ritual because they did an invocation in a strange way.  I’ve also seen Solitaries blow coven-trained people out of the water in ritual only to end up the butt of negative talk because “who do they think THEY are?”.  People are people.  Give them a chance to offer criticism to make themselves feel better and it’ll happen more often than it should.

When making a decision to join a coven or be solitary, the first question you should ask is:  What appeals more to me — working alone or working with a group?  If the answer is working alone, then do that.  Start working alone.  Network as you can for help if you need it.  If your answer is working with a group, you need to start looking.  Ask the Gods to bring you the group that is right for you.  Ask them to give you a sign to help you differentiate between multiple groups.  Understand that asking the Gods for a “good group” isn’t the same as asking the Gods for a “group with only good experiences”.  Remember that those in charge of groups are learning, too.  You can evaluate how healthy a group is by seeing if its leadership also grows and changes and is humble and laughs at themselves while still being able to maintain a certain reverence and seriousness about their Craft.

If you really want to find a coven but can’t, for now, network online.  It can help with the social connections you need and may lead you to a group nearby you didn’t know existed.  Ultimately, it can still be hit-or-miss when it comes to finding a good coven and having a successful relationship with that coven (these are two separate steps).  A period of solitary work can be good for most anyone because it builds strength, builds character, teaches self-reliance and self-trust, teaches how to Craft your life without being fed by a spoon by someone else.

A Coven (like a Church) is an organizational structure to effect a purpose supported by a shared set of beliefs held by all those in membership/attendance.   At the end of the day, you can be a Witch without being part of a Coven.  You can’t be part of a Coven without being a Witch.  Just as one can be a Christian without going to Church but a Church is typically composed of Christians.

There will be some who disagree with me whole-cloth.  I have met some people in my life who have never been “formally trained” but whom I count as degreed and initiated Witches.  Sometimes Life is the Initiator and wears a mundane face.  I personally judge a person’s initiatory process based on what they’re doing NOW, the sincerity of their hearts and the efforts they are demonstrating to walk their path.  If someone asks the Gods for Initiation — be it Solitary or Coven-bound — the Gods hear and the Gods start setting wheels in motion to put that person through the lessons needed to purify that person and strengthen them for the work ahead.  Be careful when you ask for Initiation… it does begin to happen.  Initiation may be what we call the ritual, but it is also a process, just as birth may last 6 hours but who discounts the 9-months that lead up to birth as meaning nothing?

Also, an initiated person isn’t one who is beyond mistakes — oh NO!  Rather, they tend to make more because they know the learning, not the perception of their success, is what is important.  A perfect person tends to denote someone with either (a) lack of principle, (b) a fence-sitter, (c) someone good at covering up the truth, (d) someone who can’t admit wrong and is deft at shifting blame, or (e) someone who always plays it safe and doesn’t try to expand beyond what they can already do well.  None of these are, in my opinion, things to which a Witch (or anyone else) should aspire.  If a person looks like Teflon, acts like Teflon, and has the one-dimensionality of Teflon, then chances are nothing sticks to them — even the good stuff — and they emit noxious particles when the heat is on.  Stay away!

There’s enough to say about this dilemma to fill a book, but this should get you started asking the right self-questions to determine whether or not you need or want a coven-based experience in your life.  I don’t personally believe that the Gods turn aside anyone who is sincere in their Quest.  If that means you get led to a coven, then wonderful, but that’s not going to be the only road to knowing the Divine Ones.

Don’t let an initiated person tell you that they’re better than you because they have a degree.  That shows you their limits.  I assure you, the Gods don’t have those limits, and there is at least one High Priestess — me — that will stand up for your right to take the Hermit’s Walk towards wisdom and who will embrace you as changed upon your return.

Listen to your inner voice.  Be sincere.  Do the Work.  Always strive.  Love yourself.  Love the Gods.  Love your fellow wo/man.  Love the Earth.  Feel the Wonder.  Own your Power.  Make a better place of this world.  Live with integrity.  Persist and prevail.  Be a good example of what to be.  Have faith.  Ask for what you desire.  Observe the Holy Days.  Seek the Mysteries.  Trust your Knowing.  Strive for Balance.  Know Joy.

None of these requires me or anyone else.  Being a Witch is in your hands.  If you want a Coven, then I pray you find one that emphasizes the Truth and Beauty and Health and Positive Growth of this path so you have companions to share your journey.  If you’re ever in my neck of the woods, our doors will always be open to those who are Seekers walking in Love, Truth, Honor, and Service.

Your path is your own.  Make it extraordinary.

Next entry in New To Wicca?  — Teacher or No Teacher?

Witchvox Featured Article, August 2009.

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).