The Covenant of the Goddess (CoG) “TImeline” is now available for free download online. Anyone interested in the history of contemporary Paganism in America ought to give it a look.
The CoG Timeline was compiled and designed by Andrea Joy Kendall with contributions from Anne Agard, Angie Buchanan, Jo Carson, Andras Corban-Arthen, Phyllis Curott, Amber K, Anna Korn, Rowan Fairgrove, Donald Frew, J. Hildebrand, M. Macha NightMare, and Starhawk. This timeline includes events of interest to anyone that wants to understand what the Covenant of the Goddess (CoG) and its members do.
The Timeline is presented in two PDF files: Part 1 and Part 2. Do understand that since CoG started in northern California, the Timeline reflects that geographical slant. The San Francisco Bay Area is somewhat over-represented. New Yorkers may wail and lament.
CoG itself was started in the 1970s:
In the Spring of 1975, a number of Wiccan elders from diverse traditions, all sharing the idea of forming a religious organization for all practitioners of Witchcraft, gathered to draft a covenant among themselves. These representatives also drafted bylaws to administer this new organization now known as the Covenant of the Goddess
It chief purpose, beyond fellowship, was to provide ministerial credentials to Witches who wished to perform weddings and fill other public roles.
New York might be short-changed, but Chicago barely gets a mention, and those mentions are about non-Chicago people doing something there. Even Margot Adler short-changed Chicago. There’s an awful lot of people on the ground between NY and SF. #PetPeeve
CoG timeline–Interesting. Informative. Useful. History.
As somebody who grew up in the post-WWII San Francisco Bay Area, the timeline reveals and confirms some of the many and varied Pagan and Witchy influences on me. And plenty of others. There was some sense of Change in the fog…and the Land…and the folks…
Is this the same Grey Cat who would attend the Free Spirit Alliance gatherings in Maryland back in the 1980s?
Very possibly. She was living in central Tennessee then, so it was not a super-long trip. S