Amethyst Treleven

AM – This week’s Featured Author is Amethyst Treleven.  Amethyst is the founder of Oak and Mistletoe, an online coven and school, and author of the “Seekers Guide” for both the southern and northern hemispheres.  Thank you for joining us today!

AT – Pleasure to speak with you.

AM – Please tell us a little more about yourself.

AT – Crumbs, where to start? Well I guess I’m on the crone side of 50, the mother of four kids who’ve all left home and think they’re grown up and a grandmother to two although I still say my daughter’s too young to have kids (even though she’s older than I was when I had mine) and I’m too immature to be a grandmother! I’m blessed with the best husband in the world and I doubt anyone else would put up with me anyway and we have several feline kids and the doggy shadow who follows me everywhere.

AM – What drew you to Wicca and got you started on your spiritual path?

AT – I was practicing what I’d call spiritual witchcraft since my teens but never understood what it was I was doing. In fact I thought I was the only one in the socially confined world who saw things the way I did. I was certainly the odd one out in my family and amongst my friends. Then in my forties I picked up a book on Wicca and it told the story that was me. That’s when I realized other people around the world felt the same way I did. Once I realized I was part of something bigger, I sought out a local coven and the rest as they say is history.

AM – Starting your own tradition is something that some of us only dream of.  Why did you start Oak and Mistletoe and what makes it different from other traditions?

AT – Interesting question because I’d venture to suggest that there are as many traditions as there are practitioners. However, I began my training in an Alexandrian coven, moved to an eclectic coven and then explored other traditions as well. I was blessed to be doing a PhD researching how Wiccans and Witches learn to be Wiccans and Witches during my early training and so I had the honor of learning from not just my home coven, but also from attending the rituals of many different Wiccans and Witches and this reinforced in me the concept that Wicca is legitimate in many forms.

As I learnt and “went up the ranks” I became more and more disenchanted with the “this is the only way to do it” paradigm and having been part of so many different Wiccan styles of ritual and practice as I did the PhD, almost all of which were amazing, I felt there had to be a more flexible and encouraging way to teach the new folk coming through. I was already teaching of course, had been doing so for a while and it was from my own vision and discussions with my students, that the tradition of Inclusive Wicca began.

Oak and Mistletoe was then, and still is, a face to face working coven with a new Outer Court each year and in 2008 the online school and coven started and it’s just grown like wildfire ever since.

AM – Where can potential students of the Oak and Mistletoe online school find more information about your classes and potentially register?

AT – The website has a ton of info on it for potential students. Folk can go here http://www.oakandmistletoe.com.au/content/school but I’d also encourage people to join the forums first to get the feel for the O & M community before they commit to a learning program. The forums are here. http://www.oakandmistletoe.com.au/forums/community

AM – How did you become interested in writing?

AT – I guess as part of the PhD in fact. That ended up as over 100,000 words and by the time it was finished I felt pretty much “written out” but I guess inspiration and motivation just keep rolling in. About four years ago I also wrote a book on managing stress and it just grew from there. There’s currently two more books in the pipeline so I guess I caught the writing bug!

AM – Tell us more about the “Seekers Guide” and why there are two versions.

AT – “The Seekers Guide” is essentially a book for people who’d like to learn about Wicca and spiritual witchcraft but who can’t attend a face to face coven for whatever reason. It’s full of things to do rather than just pages of theory so the reader gets to “do” Wicca as well as learn about Wicca. Readers can also join the online school and have one to one meetings with a tutor as they read through the lessons in the book too, so it’s a surrogate teacher when they can’t have a physical teacher with them.

Here in Australia we have many thousands of people who live in the bush and they can literally be thousands of kilometers away from the nearest town. For them, jumping in the car to get to the nearest town can mean an all day journey so joining a coven isn’t practical and simply isn’t easy. There’s also a whole bunch of people who can’t join a coven because perhaps there isn’t one near them, there is one near them but doesn’t suit them or whatever. That’s true the world over in fact. The Seekers Guide can be their substitute teacher but it can also link to the website as well so they get to be a solitary but with support from the Oak and Mistletoe community. The best of both worlds.

Why two versions? To be honest I got fed up with “translating” northern hemisphere books for use down under here in Australia. Because our seasons are opposite to those in the northern hemisphere, we can’t celebrate for instance Samhain as a harvest festival because we’re not harvesting in October. In fact it’s worse than that. Given the size of our continent, we can have between two and six seasons here so it’s not even as easy as swapping the festivals over.

So I decided we needed to have some student learning material for Australian students that fitted where we lived hence the southern hemisphere version. But then the online school started to get a huge amount of USA, Canadian and English students as well as from all over Europe and the southern hemisphere version didn’t work for them so I had to write the northern hemisphere equivalent. Voila! Two books!

AM – What inspired you to write this book?

AT – I think more than anything that I got fed up with my students constantly asking for southern hemisphere materials when there was so little. I already had all the teaching materials so I pulled it all together and eventually, after much work, it became “The Seekers Guide”.

AM – What other books have you written?

AT – A few years back I wrote a book to help people manage their stress which is called “De-Stress Now! Your Personal Program for Reducing Stress”. I revised that and it was republished in 2008.  Then on top of that there’s the PhD book called “How and What Witches Learn: Modern Witchcraft in Suburban Australia”. That was published in 2009. There’s two more in the pipeline as well if I can get them finished in between everything else.

I’ve also written “A Year of Wicca: 52 Inspiring Essays on Wicca and Witchcraft” which was released in 2009.

AM – Where you nervous when the book was released?  How has it been received by the Pagan community?

AT – Nervous? No. Terrified? Yes. I’ve since learnt to not worry about stuff like this and let things take care of themselves. The book isn’t for everyone and as long as I keep my feet firmly on the ground with that sensible platform, then I can discuss the content with anyone who doesn’t agree with what I teach. It’s very eclectic so doesn’t fit with fundamentalist Wicca so I had to make sure I made that very clear at the outset.

So far the feedback has been great and I’m thrilled that the community hasn’t lashed me to a tree and hung me yet! J

AM – What can we expect to see next from you?

AT – There’s a book halfway finished about how to make or modify store bought Wiccan tools. I’m a firm believer in the concept that you don’t need tools but the fact remains that we Pagans love our tools none the less. I love home-made tools or tools made with love so this book shows readers how to make their own athame, book of shadows, robes and so much more.

AM – What do you think is the most important piece of advice that you would give an unpublished writer?

AT – Two things. Number one is NEVER give up! Always believe in yourself. Number two is more practical. Proof read, proof read, then get someone else to proof read and then proof read again. Oh and just for good measure proof read one more time. I swear that the typo gremlins breed when you least expect them!

AM – Where can we go to learn more about you and purchase the “Seekers Guide”?

AT – The website has a tone of info about Inclusive Wicca, me, the school and of course the book so I’d encourage folk to go to www.oakandmistletoe.com.au. If people would like to buy “The Seekers Guide” (either version) they can get it at the Oak and Mistletoe shop here http://www.oakandmistletoe.com.au/catalog/37 or from Amazon.

AM – We appreciate you sharing your time with us today Amethyst!  We wish you the best of luck with the coven and school of Oak and Mistletoe, the “Seekers Guide” and your future writing endeavors.

AT – Many thanks indeed. It’s an honor and a privilege to be part of such a sensational endeavor as Pagan Writers.