Amara WileyAmara Willey is a shaman, healer, ritual junkie, and co-founder of 28-year-old Hands of Change, a Wiccan church in central New Jersey. She has been practicing cross-cultural shamanism for 30 years. Every fall she runs a 6-month virtual shaman school called the Ancient Healing Way. For more information or to contact: https://www.bigwhimsy.com/Bill FreemanBill is a science teacher and leathercrafter hobbyist who has been attending FSG festivals since 1995. He began his leather crafting journey in the 1980’s through participating in various reenactment groups and LARPS, and enjoys combining the artistic expression of leather tooling and design with practical application in costume and armor. As a teacher he brings many of his projects into his classroom, and teaches students leathercraft skills through student clubs.Brian HenkeBrian Henke, a master guitarist, brings nature to life through his intricate fingerpicking and melodic compositions. His music is a peaceful escape, painting vivid, natural landscapes in your mind as you listen. His soul-stirring performance will leave you feeling connected to the earth and the beauty of life.Claire/LuminousWitch, Geek, Freak, Reiki Master Teacher, Grief & Trauma Healing Expert, Priestess, Minister, Counselor, Coach, Healer, Author, Crone, Leader, MaMa Bear, Cook, Performer, Dreamer, Builder, Druid’s Wife, Cat Mommy, Detroit and Jersey, Music and Mayhem, Above and Below. Blessed Be.Craig SettiElsye WellesElyse Welles is a Greek-Egyptian American earth intuitive Priestess, podcaster, & author based between Athens, Greece and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A practicing witch for over twelve years on three continents, she is a Priestess of the eclectic Faery Tradition. She has a book on connecting with land spirits releasing with Llewellyn in summer 2025, and a witchy paranormal mystery novel September 30th 2025. She also writes regularly for Witchology, Witch Way Magazine, and is the Greece correspondent for the Wild Hunt. She cohosts the Magick Kitchen Podcast, a top 20 show in the US, and runs Seeking Numina, facilitating ritual and magic at Greece’s sacred sites. She teaches The Path of the Sacred Wild, an earth-based spirituality building connection to land spirits and spirits of place. She is also an intuitive tarot reader. Read her works and sign up for her newsletter at seekingnumina.com + follow her on Instagram @seekingnumina.Erika WrenErika Wren is a queer and neurodivergent Gothi, SAHM, and homeschooler based in NYC. When they aren’t serving their kindred (House of Nine Waves) or their wider Heathen community through their work as Secretary of Northeast Thing or as a leader of NYC Heathens (a radically inclusive group serving the Heathen community of the New York City metro area), you can usually find them crocheting on their couch with a cup of coffee.FiresongFiresong (Eshu Akoni), M.Ed, is a versatile opera singer, as well as a professional vocal teacher, herbalist, artist, visual arts teacher, and experienced gardener. She is a priestess and Pathway initiate at the Universal Temple of Spirits. Firesong conducts Global Spirits services and is cast in several upcoming opera and recital productions. She recorded several CDs of recital performances and of teaching traditional chants. Her garden is ecologically diverse.Frank StormcatcherA practitioner of over 30 years, Frank Stormcatcher has a degree in Anthropology of Religion (specializing in ritual studies) and the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pittsburgh. When not teaching, Frank’s practice centers on metaphysical protection and exorcism, investigating new methods even as he refines existing ones. He also oversees physical security for several regional events, and in his spare time enjoys reading, leatherworking, and historical swordsmanship.Hugh EckertHugh has been a Pagan for more than forty years; he was at the very first Free Spirit Gathering and has attended almost every one since. He is an eclectic Polytheist and member of the Universal Temple of Spirits, a celebratory and devotional group working in the Global Spirits trance-possessory tradition. He attended Cherry Hill Seminary for several years and earned a Certificate of Continuing Education in Text, Tradition and Interpretation. He writes poetry, plays and writes for a medieval fantasy LARP, and reads a lot. A book of his poetry- “The Words Swim, Waiting”- is available on Lulu.com. His (not very up-to-date) blog can be found at thewordsswimwaiting.wordpress.com.Jacob BudenzJacob Budenz is a queer author, multidisciplinary performance artist, musician, and witch whose work focuses on the intersection of the otherworldly, the queer “other,” and the role of spellcraft in the artist’s life. Significant works include “Apology for the Divine Masculine” (ritual performance at the Walters Art Museum, 2024), TEA LEAVES (queer magic realist short story collection published by Bywater Books, 2023), I, A FLYING CRAB (psychedelic “witch pop” album by band Moth Broth, 2022) SIMAETHA (experimental cabaret ritual supported by Baker Innovative Projects, 2020), and more. You can follow Jake’s work on Instagram @dreambabyjake.Jason MankeyJason Mankey read his first Witchcraft book in the seventh grade, and by the age of twenty-one had fully embraced the Pagan path Today Jason resides in California’s Silicon Valley with his wife Ari where he spends his days writing about the Craft and tending to his sunflower garden. For fun Jason enjoys researching pagan deities, the occult influences in rock/pop music, and the history of Witchcraft and magickal practices. When not participating in, writing about, or studying the Craft, Jason is usually spending time with his cats or participating in some whisky tasting. His latest book is “High Priest” , a biography of Raymond BucklandJeffrey JonesHi, I’m Jeff. I vended last year at FSG with my business, Bohemian Brewing. I make handmade shamanic hand drums out of rawhide and wood, among other things, and I recently started teaching classes on how to make them. I would love to help/show people how to make their own hand drum for their enjoyment.Jess ChaikenJess is a librarian, cocktail and kitchen witch, cat wrangler, accessibility evangelist, and a founding member of Thalia’s Brats. She likes to nerd out about language, food, archaeology, and menopause, and will talk to you at length about any of these, whether you want her to or not.Jim Welch
Jim Welch is one of the artisan-owners of WizardsTower, supplier of ritual garments and custom wands for mid-level and advanced magickal practitioners. He is a writer, teacher and community elder. In his personal practice, Jim combines elements of both the Celtic and Norse traditions, following the Dragon Path. He began designing garments and bags 40 years ago and has used this skill to serve the ritual needs of the Pagan community for over 18 years. Currently, he offers workshops about the magickal properties of color, woods/trees, crystals and stones, among others. He can be reached through the WizardsTower website, www.wizardstower1.com.Juliette LaClaireJuliette Laclaire is a Trans Chaos Worker, Healer and Heathen Witch who specializes in musical magic and modern shamanic practice. She brings an unorthodox and fresh approach to modern magical practice, while paying homage to extant examples of magic. Juliette works with a variety of trickster and war-gods, notably Loki and The Morrigan. Vehemently anti-folkist, and anti-fascist.Keiden Bren StamoulisKeiden is a queer kinky pagan artist and educator. They possess a deep passion for the topics of identity, communication, and language. With a desire to create safe spaces for people to just be themselves they have given presentations, led workshops, developed curriculum, and taught classes on a wide range of topics in various communities. Their educational offerings have a focus on well-being, connection, sexuality, and spirituality. In addition to their work in education, they are also: a drummer, a sacred fire tender, a member of the Universal Temple of Spirits, an ordained Priest by the Order of the Golden Gryphon, a graduate of Gryphon’s Grove School of Shamanism, a participant in the Stone Circle Council community, and a first degree initiate of Stone Circle Wicca.KlytusKlytus is a solitary, eclectic, Pagan practitioner who has been teaching classes on “free form” (as in, not tied to any specific magical or spiritual traditions) energy work since 2016. In addition to being an energy worker and energy healer, he is also trained in Reiki III, shamanic journey work, and shamanic soul retrieval. During the festival, he makes himself available for teaching private lessons and performing healing work for no charge… provided you can catch him at the right place and time to ask.Liz PorterLiz is a Wiccan priestess, teacher, and healer. Liz is a 3rd degree Wiccan high priestess, Reiki master, and farmer who has been using practical magic to manifest goals into tangible reality for over two decades. She has led clans and workshops at various Earthspirit gatherings and in her hometown in New Jersey. She has raised a coven of witches who are teachers and healers in their own rights and is sharing this path with her family, animals, and the land.Maggie BeaumontMaggie Beaumont is a hospital and hospice chaplain and a third-degree initiate of the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel. She has facilitated Death Cafés and received training in Advance Care Planning in the Gundersen “Respecting Choices” model. She is a former Dean of Students at Cherry Hill Seminary and a past board member of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans and has taught at Womongathering and at Vermont Witch Camp in the Reclaiming tradition.MaraMara is an activist, healer, witch, and devotional polytheist working for justice and community care. They are also an occupational therapist providing somatic mental health care and trauma-informed bodywork including lymphatic drainage and craniosacral therapy at their private practice Rainbow Spring Wellness.Martin WalshI originally became ordained with the universal life church to protect me from having to disclose information that had been shared with me as a critical incident stress peer counselor. As time went on Maryland law changed so that it peer counselors could not be required to testify. But before that happened I became the Chaplin of the Havre de Grace Ambulance Corp. Between that and finding that there was a need in the Pagan community for someone that could legally perform handfasting’s and marriages’. So long story short I learned and discovered a lot about myself and my community.Mary “Tyrtle” RookerTyrtle’s cosmology is North European shamanism. Answering the call to healing and wholeness, manifesting non-dualistic realities, and transcending gender roles are central to Tyrtle’s vision. Her spiritual beliefs inform her political activism, which dates from the 1970s and includes a range of freedom, justice, and ecology movements. She calls her sweats “Stone Baths” in honor of her Anglo-Saxon/Germanic heritage. She has worked sweats full-time within the Pagan community from 1995-2010 and since 2014; she has poured since 1996. She is a graduate of lengthy teacher trainings from Betsy Bergstrom and others. Having engaged shamanism since the early 1990s, she has a shamanic healing and teaching practice in the D.C. area. Her Shamanic Healers’ School opened in 2007 and continues to offer training for healers, journeyers, and everyday life. She’s starting a new Healing Earth Relations “HER” Series. Visit <http://www.shamanicspring.com/>.Michael DrumMy name is Michael drum 68 years old and the medicine drum entered my life in 2012 and since have drummed for over 7,000 people. Studying metaphysics since a teenager Tibetan Buddhism and the tao is my primary life path along with shamanic culture spiritualitiesMorgan McNultyMorgan is part of our Fire Crew and ritual team. She has a background in magic festivals as well as kink events, gaming cons, other ecumenical conferences, and music festivals. She’s been an enthusiastic attendee of Free Spirit for well over 20 years you can always find her by the fire. She is very friendly and is always happy to chat, and usually doesn’t bite.MortellusMortellus is a lineaged Third Degree Gardnerian High Priestex of the Long Island Line and author of the award winning Do I Have To Wear Black? and see current best-seller The Bones Fall in a Spiral. Presently hard at work editing “Necrobotany, The Morticulture of Death” for its spring 2025 release date. In addition to their role as High Priestex, Mortellus is a Mortician, and holds degrees in Design, Education, Fine Arts, and Mortuary Sciences. Their areas of expertise include necromancy, necrobotany, mediumship, and the funerary rites of minority faith groups. Currently residing in Western North Carolina on two acres that doubles as the Covenstead for the Coven of Leaves with their spouse, six-year-old twins, and dog; and generally wishing there was a better way to cram their adult child off at college into a bio, and more time in the day for hiding in the studio and playing with clayNina AmayaNina Amaya is a faerie-inspired witch and performing artist based in Baltimore, Maryland. She is a longtime teacher of dance, art, resilience, and witchcraft. She has performed and taught workshops at many festivals and conferences and schools over the years, including but not limited to the Fertile Ground Gathering, Avalon Festival, Drum and Splash, Starwood, Mountain Mysteries, MarsCon, Mythmusica, Pennsic, CCBC, Avalon Resort, School 33, Hampden Family Center, Frederick Pagan Pride, Mythicon, Maryland Faerie Festival, Cleveland Pagan Pride, BelMarva Pagan Pride, Darbukastan, Art of the Belly, and more. Nina is the founder of the Baltimore Faerie Faire and the Fairy Scary Ball (2015-present). She directs the Aubergine Faerie Bellydance Troupe, and the Brinjal World Music band. She is a sought-after leader in the local Faerie community for people looking to start their own events, or get more outreach for them. In her day job as a stilt walker, she is a Giant in her field, and runs BigWhimsy.com . She can officiate weddings and other rituals; baby blessings are a favorite.Oak the NamelessOak was born and raised in Southern California and began exploring Norse Rune divination at 18. They began teaching informal classes for new and experienced rune readers in 2019, focusing on tapping into the wealth of interpretations that all individual readers can draw from, when performing an intuitive rune reading. After more than a decade of experience with intuitive rune reading techniques, they developed a unique new approach that builds context and structure into this normally fluid system for divination.Orien LaplanteOrien is a legacy Fire Circle ritual artist. He has carved statues you see here on Ramblewood grounds. He is an accomplished practitioner and you can find him imparting wisdom around the fire circle just about every night.Paul ShafferPaul Shaffer is the longtime curator of the world’s first computer, the ENIAC. Today, he introduces a new deity into the world: Nee-ack, the god of computing. As editor and steward of the Transistoric Codex of Algorithms—a sacred text authored by AI—Paul guides this unfolding techno-spiritual movement with insight, reverence, and over 50 years of experience in computing.Peggy BrennanPeggy has been working FSG’s Sweat Village for decades. Her sweat training comes from eclectic human teachers, from historical research, and from the spirits themselves. She was handed a water pouring gourd in 2009 and also did a Mary Tyrtle Rooker sweat ceremony apprenticeship. The calling to pour a sweat at this year’s FSG came following a change in her shamanic healing practice which occurs in Tea Spa in Montgomery County Maryland. www.bearhawk.worldPookyJoe Hardy (AKA Pooky AKA Feathersword) first attended FSG during the great deluge of 1998. A glutton for punishment, he has been coming back ever since. On years he feels especially sane, he even hosts a workshop or two. Even though he has no kids (he’s a total faux pa) he loves dad jokes.RavynwolfEclectic kitchen/green witch. Multipantheonistic and LGBQT. I enjoy creating, in the kitchen, in my studio and in the world. My wife, children, grandchildren and pack are my everything.Rev. Kyle Aaron Reese, MARev. Kyle Aaron Reese is a proud transgender man and the Associate President/NYC Steward of The Troth. He comes from an academic background with studies in anthropology, political science, gender studies, and a Master of Arts in Human Rights. In practice, he is a mead maker and craftsman working in wood, stone, and whatever else he can get his hands on!Ron PadronRev. Ron Padrón (he/him/his) is the creator of White Rose Witching. He is a gay Cuban-American hedge priest from the swamps of Florida, now living in the mid-Atlantic with his husband and their small werewolf. He is specifically interested in divination, Queer Ancestor veneration and necromancy, hedge witchery, and spiritual activism. He has presented at gatherings such as the Salem Witchcraft and Folklore Festival, Hallowed Homecoming, Free Spirit Gathering, and Sacred Space. He is a co-founder and co-editor of a punk spirituality zine, ALTAR PUNK, an interfaith project focused on reclaiming faith and spirituality from nationalist movements, and the founder of the PaganPunk Community Grimoire project, a collection of short zines on varying pagan topics.S. J. TuckerSong Witch S. J. Tucker (she, her) is the voice of lore at the campfire and the sharp laughter of modern myth, influenced both by real life voices from the Delta where she was born, and also those of the dangerous sirens of yore. With one hand anchored in her art and the other held out to you, she is songs and stories, community and wit. If you vibe to Jesca Hoop, Joni Mitchell, and/or Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem, S. J. (“Sooj” to fans & friends) has a song for you, spun with skillful guitar, locked-in hand drums, and soaring vocals. She’s honored to return to FSG with her fellow Muses this year, and to thereby contribute to the soundtrack of our shared spiritual (r)evolution! https://sjtucker.comSundance MetelskySundance Metelsky has been walking the shamanic path since 1992 and recently completed the Foundation for Shamanic Studies’ 3-Year Program of Advanced Initiations and Shamanic Healing. She is a certified Jungian coach developing a private practice. She is the founder of the Weather Dancing Circle, leader of the Celtic Study Circle, coordinator of the WiseWoman Forum, and member of the Universal Temple of Spirits, Sacred Women’s Circle, Sister Dreamers, and the Jung Society of Washington. Her interests include dream and art explorations, deep diving in the psyche, research/study of various spirits/pantheons, shamanic work with the Spirits of the Land, Weather Dancing, River shamanism, Celtic shamanism, and Shamanism without Borders.Tava BairdTava Baird is an archaeologist, author, folk artist, and active mentor and researcher in the Pagan community who has been practicing and teaching Witchcraft for over thirty-five years. She is the owner of Darkflower Books and Folk Art and instructs at Pagan gatherings all over PA, MD, DC, VA and W. VA. She sits on the governing board for the historic (and very haunted) 1747 Blue Ball Inn, where she teaches Witchcraft and archaeology classes and assists the spirits in residence. She delights in building inclusive communities centered around alternative spiritual practice. Tava regularly channels her spirit guide, Samael, and documents the conversations on both the Metaphysical Musings podcast and in The Book of Samael series. Her fantasy series set in Scotland in the 1700s, The Spiral Pathways, blends authentic Witchcraft practice with Celtic folklore and history.Tina Van PeltI’m a fused glass artist from Greenbelt Maryland who has been teaching at Free spirit gathering since 2006. I have studied this art since 2000 and love to share this with my pagan friends so we can create unique art that meets our spiritual needs.Tom SwissTom Swiss describes his spiritual path as “Zen Pagan Taoist Atheist Discordian”, which usually baffles questioners enough to leave him alone. He is the author of the books “Why Buddha Touched the Earth” and “Punk Magkic”, and blogs as “The Zen Pagan” for the Patheos Pagan Channel. He has previously served as President of the Free Spirit Alliance. Over the paat 25 years Tom has built a reputation as a lecturer on subjects spanning the gamut from acupressure to Zen and from self-defense to sexuality. Find out more about his wacky adventures at www.infamous.net.VioletViolet has dedicated her many existences to helping people learn, grow, and evolve through holistic healing and creative expressions. With decades of experience in tarot and astrology, as well as more recent wisdoms of hypnotherapy and shamanic practices, Violet is here to guide others through all of life’s challenges and empower them to create the life of their dreams. Violet Imagery is also the only place in the world where you can find tarot and oracle decks created and produced by Violet herself. She pours her soul into everything she does and you will feel it too when you soak in all she has to offer.