by Julian Greene

Created on: May 14, 2008

The Best Little Pagan Festival in the U.S.

Desert Magic is hosted by the largest and most successful Druid Grove in Ar nDraiocht Fein (ADF), Sonoran Sunrise Grove. The festival is now five years old and truly coming into its own. Held usually in April or May in a location near Tucson, Arizona, Druid scholars from all over the United States fly in to present workshops.

Past presenters have included such notables as the Rev. Todd Covert of The Fellowship of Druidism for the Latter Age (FoDLA); John Michael Greer, author and ArchDruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA); and Ian Corrigan, ArchDruid Emeritus and Bard Laureate of ADF.

Ceiswr Serith, author of The Book of Pagan Prayer, presented this year on "Law and Order East of the Asterisk." The first slide in his presentation said, "Warning: Linguistics Ahead." The workshop attendees snickered and hunkered down for a fascinating hour and a half ride through proto-IndoEuropean concepts dealing with the similarities in language and culture in terms of law, order, and ritual. No slouch in scholarship, Serith was invited in 2006 to present his paper on the Gaulish god, Kernunnos, at Harvard.

But it's not all academic. Great food and drink, fellowship, trance, elaborate ritual, and ecstatic dancing and drumming by the fire are all in order for attendees.

ADF's Magician's Guild Preceptor, Eremon Cantwell, said, "The best part for me is getting together with people from all over the country who I only get to see once a year and sharing ideas - theological, cosmological, philosophical - for viably sustaining this living religion of ours."

Vice ArchDruid, Kirk Thomas, opens the festival each year with his invocation of Math fab Mathonwy, the Welsh god of magic. The initial rite is put on by the host grove (Sonoran Sunrise) - known across the U.S. as "the spinning grove" because of their unique style of opening the gates to the OtherWorld. The gates are held open all weekend, and the sacred space is available to make offerings to any and all deities, nature spirits, and ancestors.

Because there are many Indo-European hearth cultures represented throughout ADF, a Norse opening devotion to earth-mother Nerthus was performed, and a Hellenic rite was done by Emerald of Sassafras Grove. Up-and-coming scholar and Dedicant Priest, Rev. Michael Dangler, presented his workshop on Vedic concepts and ADF. A round-table presentation and discussion on Comparative Mythology was held with each of the various hearth-cultures in

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