From February 7 – 9th, 2025, we celebrated Turning the Tide #18, and the theme was “Lunar Mysteries.” It’s a small festival in Miami, FL that is put on by Everglades Moon Local Council.
Selene and I usually camp (which is something you can read more about in last year’s recap), but this year… we didn’t! Since I was schedule to present a virtual workshop at WitchCon in the middle of everything, we actually decided to be all fancy and get an AirBnB nearby. It was definitely a packed weekend, but tons of fun.
Workshops & Events
If you attended the latest festival, you were in store for a bunch of cool workshops and rituals.
- Walking the Path of a Death Witch
- Create your own Moon Ornament
- Seven Sisters Spread for the Tarot
- Hekate as the Moon: Lunar Influences Within
- Your Moon Sign as a Portal to the Goddess
- Crafting Magic Moon Masks
- Using Huna Energy Work in Wiccan Magic
- Moon Cycles & Eclipses in Astrology
- The Moon in Tarot readings – Making Friends with the Card of Fear
- Dice Divination
- The Moon through the Tarot
As you can see, lots of those workshops were right on theme and featured the moon. How great is that?
And then there were a couple of new things… the first of which was a “Desserts & Divination” event on Friday evening, where a bunch of readers (including me) set up to do some short, 10-15 minute readings for folks. Every attendee got two tickets which could be redeemed for one reading. And on Saturday night, I played a late night concert outside amongst the trees as part of the “Lunatic Ball.”
The Experience
Friday Night
Every great concert begins by packing your vehicle to its maximum capacity with as many instruments as it will hold. If there is no room left over, then you have succeeded. (Side-note: if you do have room left over, per the musician’s code, you must buy more instruments to fill it)
A trained Tetris veteran will notice there is still room. Don’t worry, we filled it.
With the car packed and ready to roll, we started the drive to Miami… and braved the terrible traffic. We arrived probably a little after 6:30pm.
Not camping was… a little strange, honestly! This is usually time we would have spent setting up our tent and stuff. So instead, we just kind of wandered around and talked to people, thereby distracting them from setting up their own camps. But eventually we made our way to the Great Hall and checked in at registration.
The Great Hall decorations
The Great Hall looked great! And at registration, everyone was given a nice little pouch with some goodies. I’ll show you that at the end of this recap… because as per usual, things were added to it over the course of the festival.
Outside the Great Hall, there was a awesome-looking arch decked out with balloons, garland, and lights. In hindsight, I’m really puzzled as to why Selene and I never take advantage of these sorts of things. Honestly, while I think I did a decent job photographing things at Tides, we didn’t take any pictures of ourselves.
After plenty of wandering and random conversations to catch up with friends, it was eventually time for Opening Ritual.
At opening, we all gathered and invited in the energy of the elements, the genius loci, and of Aradia with chants, songs, and spoken word. Since there was a lunar theme going on, we had all been instructed to bring some moon water, gathered from our respective locations, and charged under a certain phase of the moon.
We took turns introducing ourselves and then poured our water into one big central basin. This would be used later as a part of main ritual on Saturday.
A collection of offerings to Hecate
After the opening ceremonies, there was a Hekate Devotional ritual. This happens every year and it’s definitely something that you don’t want to miss. Hekate was drawn down, then everyone was given a message and a little token. As my token, I got a penny, which meant to “not sweat the small stuff” with finances — a lesson that I must continually learn over and over again, apparently. I think for me this ritual was one of the highlights of the entire weekend… and I want to say a big thank you to all who were involved in facilitating it — namely Aequitas and Oracle Hekataios.
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Right after that ritual, I had to head over to the Great Hall for Desserts & Divination. This was a brand new event (and part of an anniversary celebration for Covenant of the Goddess, of which Everglades Moon Local Council is a part — but enough about politics and organizations…) where we had a bunch of volunteers offer their divination services for some short, free readings. Everyone who attended the festival this year basically had the opportunity to get read twice over the course of two hours. And, as the name would imply, there was also a table of desserts.
Some of my divination tools…
So… I read with a combination of fun things — my actual runes, a tarot deck, and a deck of rune cards. It’s fun to mix and match multiple styles of divination so that you can really find your own flow. Wanna hear more about that? Check out my services page and book me.
Oh wait, remember how I said we didn’t take any pictures of ourselves? Well, I did accidentally take this one while I thought I was getting a better picture of my divination tools that actually showed off my runes.
I’m really not sure how that happened. Oh well.
It ended up being a pretty late night. After I was done reading for other peeps, I went and got a reading from Shaylee, which was awesome. She used an assortment of bones, crystals, charms, and other curios in a throw — if you’re interested, you can find more info at her website. At some point after that, Selene and I made our way to the AirBnB and checked in.
Saturday
Saturday proved to be a very busy day! There were Tides workshops to attend, my virtual workshop for WitchCon, a group dinner, main ritual, and then the Lunatic Ball. I’m not quite sure how we’ve done this thing where we have a virtual festival scheduled on top of an in-person festival… but it’s not the only occurrence of that happening in our calendar so far this year. Oh well, I’m not really complaining. I guess it’s pretty awesome!
The collected moon water, prior to being used for main ritual
The collective basin of moon water was left out near the fire circle so that anyone who missed opening ritual could still add what they brought. Selene and I stopped by Oracle’s workshop on Hekate, which was fantastic! And then it was time for lunch.
We headed offsite to our “favorite” lunch spot. We go to this same secret place basically every year. (it’s not really a secret, but it’s more fun if I say that)
Lunch… appearances can be deceiving…
Don’t let the pictures deceive you. They look okay, but the food was pretty bad. I don’t know what happened, maybe they were having an off day or something… but now we’re going to have to find a new “favorite” lunch spot. Anybody have any suggestions for next year?
After lunch, we headed back to the AirBnB so that I’d have a quiet place to stream my WitchCon workshop. If you missed it, just wait for my book.
As soon as we got back to Tides, I started setting up a little bit of my gear for the concert later in the evening. Running cables to audio equipment can be a little tricky in the dark, so I wanted to get as much of it out of the way while I still had some sunlight.
I shall play amongst the trees…
If you’ve never been to Turning the Tide, then let me tell you about Saturday dinner. It’s a big pot luck. Almost everyone brings something to donate and a lot of ingredients end up going into the “Mulligan Stew.” And somehow, thanks to the skilled kitchen witches, this stew of random stuff ends up actually tasting pretty awesome. It’s a very nice community event. And check out how prettily all the tables were decorated!
Dinner decorations!
Shortly after dinner, it was time for main ritual. We met outside the Great Hall and processed down to the fire circle. Most of us were singing and a couple of people were beating on drums to keep a rhythm.
Once we got down to the fire circle, the ritual started. It was led by some of our local Mt Shasta Temple Priestesses. We called on the power of Aradia and sang these words:
Full moon shining bright
Midnight on the water
Oh Aradia
Diana’s silver daughter
The moon water was blessed. We shared cakes and wine (well, cookies and tea). And everyone was given a small piece of moonstone that had been sitting in the moon water. It was a beautiful circle!
Once we were finished there, it was time for the Lunatic Ball. According to the schedule, it was supposed to be from 10pm – 12am, where I played a concert for the first hour and then we had music for the second hour. In reality, we probably went until 2 or 3am.
There was a massive tent decked out with black lights, glow sticks, and UV-reactive body paint. My only regret is that I didn’t bring my poi.
Sing into a microphone or into a guitar, it’s all good to me
I think the concert went pretty well! I played a mix of my original music, a few covers, and some pagan chants that everybody could sing along with. Wanna see a clip? Check out The River is Flowing on YouTube. Wanna watch the whole show? Go to my Patreon.
Special thanks go out to the heckler in the crowd who requested Free Bird.
I did play a couple brand new songs, one of which wasn’t quite finished. It’s always an interesting experience to play new material for the very first time live — and you only get to do that once per song!
After the concert, we just blasted music, hung out, and talked for a few hours. I honestly don’t know what time I actually turned everything off and started packing up, but it was definitely late.
Sunday Morning
Sunday at Turning the Tide is usually pretty short. You’ve got closing ritual, where we say thank you and goodbye to all the spirits, then a little bit of time for everyone to finish packing up… but we all have to say our goodbyes to each other and be off the site by around noon.
The Oleta River
And at the end of everything, a few of us walked down to the river and left an offering to Oshun. A fitting end!
Stuff We Brought Back
You never leave Turning the Tide and go home empty handed. There’s a tradition where most workshop presenters give you a little token to go in your charm bag. It’s pretty neat. Over the years, I’ve grown quite a collection. Although I didn’t really attend many workshops this time around, I did come home with a larvikite crystal (given to everyone at registration), a moonstone from main ritual, a penny from the Hekate Devotional, and a tiny triquetra charm that someone gave to me. Those things are all sitting on the black drawstring bag with the moon and star pattern in the photo below.
On Sunday, a bunch of crystals were given away. I got a really nice piece of smoky quartz. I love smoky quartz! Such a great grounding stone.
And, duh, we all took some moon water home. You can’t really tell from the picture, but it’s sparkly because it’s full of glitter.
Finally, we collected leftover Pagan books from the book exchange. And these will be donated to our prison ministry. Trust me, someone will be happy to get them!
On the way home, Selene and I stopped at The Ancient Spanish Monastery. I was totally and completely 100% caught off-guard by how freaking cool it was. I’m gonna tell you all about it… in a different post. So… sorry, you’ll have to wait.
Conclusions
Turning the Tide is a lot of fun. It’s a small festival with limited space, so if you’re looking to join us next year, make sure you get your tickets early. Hope to see you there!
Aerik Arkadian 
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