2023 Workshop Presenters
Jane Sibley
Jane T. Sibley, Ph.D., is a traditional Norse practitioner and a specialist in Norse folklore and runes. She has taught at many Pagan events for decades, including Rites of Spring, Feast of Lights, Twilight Covening, Fertile Ground Gathering, Ecumenicon, Changing Times-Changing Worlds ... the list goes on ... and also hosts MithraCon, which focuses on Mithraism and other cults in the Roman Empire.
She is the author of "The Divine Thunderbolt: Missile of the Gods", "Norse Mythology...According to Uncle Einar", "The Hammer of the Smith", and "The Way of the Wise: Traditional Norwegian Folks and Magic Medicine"
Her books are available at the teachers’ vending table.
Visit Jane's Website.
Irene Glasse
Irene Glasse is a mystic witch based in Western Maryland. She is a longtime teacher of witchcraft, meditation, and magic in the mid-Atlantic. She has performed, taught workshops, and led rituals at many festivals and conferences over the years, including but not limited to the Sacred Space Conference, EarthSpirit’s Twilight Covening and Rites of Spring, Fertile Ground Gathering, Free Spirit Gathering, the Shenandoah Midsummer Festival, and more. Irene is the main organizer of the Frederick Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (Frederick CUUPS), offering events, rituals, classes, and workshops to a large, vibrant community. She is the coauthor of "Blackfeather Mystery School: The Magpie Training" and blogs weekly at GlasseWitchCottage.com.
Visit Irene's Website.
Cael Jacobs
Cael was born and raised in the Northern Virginia area. He took an interest in spiritual subjects early in high school, and his explorations led him from agnosticism, into evangelical Christianity, through an eventual crisis of faith, to where he is now: an animist, an elementalist, and an energy worker.
He is an author, a teacher, a storyteller, one of the co-founders of ShadowGrove, and Speaker for the ShadowGrove Tradition.
His illustrated collection of pagan origin myths and short stories, Tales from the Wilder Forest, was published in April 2014, and his book on meditative practice, Living a Life In Balance; An Elemental Journey of Self-Discovery, was published in February 2015. His writings have also appeared in Circle Magazine, Thought Notebook, and Corvus Review.
He has been a teacher and ritual leader at Fertile Ground Gathering since its inception in May 2008.
Visit Cael's Website.
Ash Glasse
Ash Glasse is the Gothar of Elk Ridge Kindred, an inclusive Heathen Kindred based out of Western Maryland. Ash is an active member of the Frederick Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans and can be found at most of their events carrying chairs. They teach classes and help facilitate workshops through Frederick CUUPS and at various festivals in the area. Ash is a member of pagan folk band Kindred Crow where they play guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, drums, bass, and spend too much time yelling at sound equipment.
Sophia Kelly Shultz
Born and raised in the Philadelphia suburbs, Sophia Kelly Shultz grew up in a house where art was like breathing; creation could occur at any hour of the day or night, and the medium in which it manifested was never predetermined.
As a child, she was introduced to sketching, pen and ink drawing, colored pencils, and various types of paint; later, her best friend's mother, who also happened to be her 9th grade Home Economics teacher, taught her her first embroidery stitches. While a student at the University of Pennsylvania, she discovered a niche doing portraits of science fiction conference attendees in fantastic settings. Her almost simultaneous discovery of science fiction costuming and 1980s bridal beadwork, combined with inspiration from her needleworker college friend has inspired award-winning beadwork and embroidery, including her accidental crazy quilted robe, My History's Embrace, which was based on one of her paintings.
Art is also part of Sophia's spirituality, and she feels that empowering people to do art is among her callings. She also has a working relationship with chaos, via the Egyptian god Seth, who is in fact not the Devil (that's what they say on the all-knowing, all-seeing internet!)
She is the author and illustrator of three publications: The Stone Circle Oracle, The Promethean Oracle, and Seeking the Spirits of Palo Kimbisa (all published by Schiffer Publishing in Atglen, PA.)
Cheered on by David, the most tolerant husband in the world, she works in her attic studio, on the second floor, or in the living room of their 140-year-old house located in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, shared with an enormous rock collection, a young and enthusiastic English Springer Spaniel whose best friend is a spirit dog, and a very small, very bad cat.
Visit Sophia's Website.
Tchipakkan
Tchipakkan is an artist, writer, healer, soothsayer, teacher, and eclectic pagan/heathen/rustic, openly pagan for more than 50 years, author, host of Otherworldly show, and co-founder of the Changing Times-Changing Worlds conference, Tchipakkan uses every means she can to empower people and get them to realize their inner strength, beauty, and talent.
Caine Dreamwalker
Once an officer in a prison, is now a sworn priest of The Morrigan who walks a path of Primal Magic. A massage therapist and shaman, Caine’s life is dedicated wholly to the practice of healing arts. He received his calling, nearly a decade ago, amidst the chaos of both a divorce and the process of recovering from a broken spine. That upheaval set him down a road of deep self-discovery, during which he has come to find himself standing alongside his spirit sister and co-creator Irene Glasse. Through her encouragement, Caine has begun to put words and even some semblance of organization to the wildness that is his particular flavor of spirituality. A true believer of the power of our Primal nature, Caine seeks constantly to explore and refine techniques that encourage healing, growth, and connection by way of tapping directly into those things that are raw, untamed, and powerful. It is his deepest wish that this path, which has so helped him find peace and strength during his most wounded moments, can help others rekindle the fires within.
Liz* Jacobs
Liz* enjoys life to the fullest; often seeking new experiences simply for the joy of it. She finds that looking at new perspectives helps her understand herself and the world around her, and she is always happy to help others see new perspectives as well. Her favorite thing to do is ask questions, much to the chagrin of many. Yet she does this to help those who seek her counsel find a deeper understanding of themselves, and the reasons behind what they do. Her child-like curiosity is infectious, and she wants to help you find that part of your soul that sings the way hers does.
Liz* is an eclectic witch, an animist, one of the co-founders of ShadowGrove, and an archetypal Shaman for the ShadowGrove Tradition. She has been working with people and helping them learn their personal truths for as long as she can remember. A native of Bolivia, she incorporates her family’s folk traditions with several other spiritual and magical paths she has discovered through years of study. As she traveled through her own spiritual awakening, she encountered several mentors who gave her the knowledge she needed at exactly the right moments in her life. These teachings, combined with her continuing personal exploration, led her to understand that her calling in life is to help others find their own personal truths, as her mentors did for her.
Liz* accepted this calling wholeheartedly when she co-founded ShadowGrove in 2004 with her husband, Cael, and has been working full time to serve the spiritual community ever since. She is a leader and ordained minister, serving both individuals and groups within the community. She regularly leads public and private rituals, facilitates rites of passage, and offers spiritual guidance, personal journeywork, relationship counseling, and mentorship.
Visit Liz*'s Website.
Terry Wagner
Former High Priestess of Red Oak Grove Druid Grove. One of the founders of Garden State Pagan Alliance. Board Member of South Jersey Pagan Pride. Owner of Wee Witches. I am a hereditary Strega, taught many of the traditions by my grandmother. I consider myself an eclectic Strega. I have studied and loved tea since a small child, understanding that it is much more than a drink. I currently own more than 157 vintage or antique teapots, create my own teas and have sold them through the Wee Witches brand.
Ravynne
Valerie has been a lifelong native Virginia resident, raised in Northern Virginia. The first curiosity outside of the faith she'd been raised in happened in high school with a semester-long Comparative Religions elective class with an amazing teacher, and so the quest began. After witnessing a close family member's crisis of faith and their treatment by the church not long after taking that class, she started to delve deeper into the Pagan faiths and eventually dedicated herself as an eclectic witch in her early 20's. Since then, she has attended numerous festivals, workshops, classes and trainings by respected teachers and elders, including Twilight Covening, Rites of Spring, and Sacred Space Conference. She has received Death Midwifery certification, and would like to eventually expand her training to focus on this practice in the future as a resource to the larger Pagan community and their animal companions. Her path almost always involves Kitchen Witchery in some form, and now involves learning more about the Norse pantheon and spiritual traditions. She first attended ShadowGrove at the 2006 Beltane celebration, and hasn't left since. She has served on various forms of the inner planning council over the years, and is a founding member of the yearly Beltane retreat Fertile Ground Gathering where she runs the kitchen to feed everyone for the duration of the event. She was elected as clergy at Samhain in 2019, and is grateful to have more opportunity to serve ShadowGrove and the larger community however she can. She is a cook, an auntie, a crafter, a cat mom, a listener, a mentor, and a doer who is happiest when helping others to reach their goals.
Jenny Brown
Jenny Brown has been a practicing Pagan since 2006. An American who worships primarily Welsh Gods, she lived in Wales from 2015-2016, and has been a dedicant of Rhiannon since 2013.