Summer Magick Fest 2025 Recap

Summer Magick Fest 2025 has sadly come to a close. We’ve been back in the “real world” for… what, four days now? I’ve been doing my best to collect all my thoughts on the experience so that I can share them with you.

But just in case you’ve never heard of Summer Magick Fest, well then I’ll tell you: it’s a collection of workshops, rituals, vending, and family that takes place each year at a hotel in Orlando, FL.

In their own words:

Summer Magick Festival is an earth-based spirituality convention with workshops, celebration, and community in a comfortable hotel setting. Headliners, rituals, and musical entertainment have been chosen to encourage tolerance between the many different earth-based faiths and foster planetary stewardship. We are a family-friendly event with programming for our young ones as well as close proximity to all the wonders of the Orlando theme parks. Join us for a new kind of Florida festival!

-SummerMagickFest.org

Why is it important to have hotel-based, pagan events? Because they give us an opportunity to connect and focus on learning and building community while staying comfortable. Orlando is a wonderfully central location for many folks in Florida, but you definitely wouldn’t want to be outside camping in the summer. It’s hot here, guys.

Want to hear more about the whole experience? Read on!

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Headliners

Just as every previous year, we had a fantastic lineup of headliners and a very special musical guest.

Eireann’s Call

And I had the wonderful privilege of speaking with many of them… you can check previous episodes of M3 to watch the interviews, but for now, we’re going to focus on the festival experience.

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The Experience

This year, as it often does, Summer Magick Fest felt like one big bubble that existed outside of the usual confines of space and time. In fact, I’m not completely sure any of it actually happened at all. Maybe it was all a dream. As such, I am having a very difficult time reconstructing events in a linear fashion. Luckily, however, I have pictures. And those pictures have time stamps.

THURSDAY

We were given our name tags and told to select a colored bandana (the purpose of which would be later revealed). After a quick round of hugs and hellos, we collected our luggage and ventured to our hotel room.

I was pleased to see that the Queen of Hearts successfully found the new venue. If you ever get lost, just head in the direction that she’s pointing.

Queen of Hearts points the way…

This year, one of the conference rooms was set up as a dedicated “temple room.” As opposed to switching back and forth between lectures and other activities, the temple room would be solely for rituals, meditations, and devotions. Several people signed up to erect altars to particular deities – there were many small tables outlining the perimeter of the room for this purpose. I signed up for a Pan altar and Selene signed up for an Aphrodite altar.

IO Pan!

My Pan altar consisted of some incense, a bowl of acorns, a singing bowl, candle, statue, antlers, and a syrinx — most of which I just relocated from my altar at home. I also included a little white dish where people could leave an offering… and over the course of the festival, it collected things like leaves or a stray acorn or two.

In the center of the temple room was another small altar and a circle of chairs. This is where we would have opening ritual later in the evening. And then all of the other rituals after that.

The empty temple room

But before all that, we had to check out the marketplace! Lots of fun vendors with books to flip through, pretty crystals to touch, and incense to smell. I believe those are all required activities and we spent a significant amount of time doing all three.

At 6:00pm, it was time for our opening ritual hosted by Butterflies, Mount Shasta Priestesses, and Canu.

Butterflies, Mount Shasta Priestesses, and their honorary member, Canu. Photo cred to Rick de Yampert.

We invited in the usual folks — spirit allies, plants, ancestors, elements, deity…

The ritual officially set the energetic tone. From this point until the close of festival, the temple room would be sacred space.

Afterwards, there was a short reception with refreshments, munchies, and a cash bar.

Rick de Yampert and Michelle Davidson took on the responsibility of being the photographers for the weekend. They set up a photo booth space with lights, a backdrop, and a collection of silly props that could be used to “express yourself.” There were masks, hats, ridiculously large sunglasses, butterfly wings, pompom necklaces, and more.

Photo booth fun!

Covenant of the Goddess was also celebrating a 50th anniversary, so we had a cake to mark the occasion.

CoG Cake

But enough about cake, let me show you all of the amazing altars that were built! I walked around the temple room several times to take pictures.

I think this was one of the coolest things about the entire festival. It’s really interesting to see so many different altars by so many different people with unique perspectives on deity and how to worship them. I sincerely hope this is an experience that we can repeat in future festival years.

We attended Yeshe’s class on “Sitting with the Dead.” And later in the evening, there was a “Priestesses in the Wild” reception where you could encounter some of the Mount Shasta Priestesses, who were mostly wearing some sort of animal print and dancing to wild music.

I did not dance, but I did catch a wild Canu. Photo cred to Rick de Yampert.

After the reception, we hung out for a while. We probably didn’t go to bed until the wee hours of the night (or of the morning, I guess, depending on how you look at things).

FRIDAY

We knew Friday was going to be a very packed day, but that wasn’t discouraging — it was exciting! Whoops… woke up a little late, though. Unfortunately we missed Byron Ballard’s class, but I’m quite positively sure that it was great.

David Shi explaining Shamanism…

We kicked off the day by attending a lecture on shamanism by David Shi. It was quite an interesting class, as it’s a very misunderstood topic. We did have to sneak out a little before the end, however, because Selene was scheduled for an Aphrodite devotional at 12:30. In her devotional, she had us all write a short, affirmational letter to ourselves and then speak it into a mirror — an act of self love that is often easier said than done.

We grabbed some lunch. I used a tiny bit of the remaining break time to make some last-minute preparations for my workshop, then we headed to the Spiritism and Mediumship Panel with Oracle Hekataios and Bobbi Roberts. I was under the impression that it was going to be more of a Q&A or explanation, but it turned out to be a full-on demonstration. Oracle and Bobbi went around the room and did spontaneous readings. Very cool!

I can teach things, too, I think. Photo cred to Selene.

I taught a class called “Through the Looking Glass: Scrying and the Dark Mirror” that went over different ways of building and using magick mirrors. At the end, I invited everyone to try scrying. I know that several people who said they wanted to attend, but missed the class. Don’t worry. I’ll do it again in the future. And if you did attend and you want access to the slides, they’re temporarily available on my Patreon as a free download.

I made sure to keep my class on the shorter side because I was scheduled to do a Pan devotional at 5:30. We made a half circle of chairs around Pan’s altar… and I read a guided meditation so that everything could meet Pan and receive a message from him. The text of the meditation, by the way, is also available on my Patreon.

After my class was a dinner break. Selene and I snuck away from the hotel grounds and had a little date. We ended up going to Texas Roadhouse because I wanted a burger. And then we rushed back for the auction!

This photo perfectly captures Eric’s spirit

You may have seen Eric hosting auctions at Summer Magick or Phoenix. His antics make for a delightfully entertaining experience. Lots of neat items were auctioned off, including books, flower crowns, crystals, and statues.

The concert!

Friday evening’s event was a concert by Eireann’s Call, a 6-piece band with bagpipes, guitars, bass, violin, keys, and tons of drums. It was a fun show! Want to see them in person in the future? Oh, well… you can’t. Toward the end of their set, they announced that it was their last show. They’re retiring! But you can, of course, stream their music from their website.

I love my wife

SATURDAY

You know what? Waking up late seemed to be a theme. It’s okay, I guess we needed the beauty sleep.

Along with Trish and Eric, Selene and I participated in a panel on Wiccan prison ministry. We answered questions, shared experience, and had a nice, open discussion with a small group of folks who were interested in hearing about it. If you’re interested in starting one yourself, feel free to contact me or read more about it here.

Shortly after, we attended a Sekhmet ritual, led by Emily Guenther, which was styled in such a way to resemble how Ancient Egyptians [probably may have] structured their rituals. Was it different than a “normal” modern witchcraft ritual? Yes. Were still there recognizable elements? Absolutely.

Emily Guenther leading her Sekhmet Ritual

I found the verbiage of the ritual very fascinating. And I will never forget Emily’s exaltations to a particular deity’s testicles.

From there, Selene and I started getting ready for main ritual. Well, to be clear… it was more like she went to go do ritual prep and I hung out and tried to write for a little bit in the hotel room.

And then… the star attraction of the evening: main ritual.

The altar at main ritual

Main ritual was amazing. There was singing and chanting and a giant ribbon was unwound around the circumference of the room. Canu led us all in a guided meditation down to a river where we met and took care of an ancestor. I couldn’t tell you more than that, though… I blacked out. After the meditation, the purpose of our bandannas was finally revealed! We split up into four groups based on the bandanna color. I had a purple one, so I went to the North. Each group shook noisemakers like rattles and drums and was responsible for raising the energy of one of the four quarters.

After the ritual was over, we all filed back into the hallway. Cornbread, honey, and peppermint tea had been set up as our cakes and wine.

Next up was the Hekate Devotional led by Priestess Shaylee, in which we were introduced to different forms of Hekate (including a new epithet – Hekate Kathairo Hydor – Hekate of the Clean Waters)

Shaylee’s Hekate altar

And after that ritual was over, I stood up… and almost passed out. I don’t think I’ve ever done that many guided meditations in a single day. Seriously… after all, I had just been in a desert, then a temple in Ancient Egypt, then a river of blood, and finally a beach to meet Hekate. My consciousness was getting tired of all the running around. Who knew that astral travel also inflicts jet lag?

We went out, grabbed a quick bite to eat, then hung out once again until the wee hours of the night.

SUNDAY

Every other day of Summer Magick, I kept telling Selene “hey, we have more days of festival left!” Except for Sunday, of course. On Sunday, there were no more days left. How sad!

At 1030am, the event on the schedule was called “Final Conclave.” It was a panel where all the headliners sat up front, answered questions, and shared experience.

Headliner Panel with Jamie, Yeshe, David, and Byron

The very last event, of course, was Closing Ritual. Wrapping things up is always a little bittersweet. The altars were packed away. Our temple room was transformed back into a regular old hotel conference room. But hopefully we were able to keep a little bit of the magick inside ourselves.

That’s it, guys. That’s pretty much the end of what I experienced. Did other things happen? Absolutely. Am I forgetting some stuff? Most certainly. Am I going to ask myself a third rhetorical question? Definitely. But maybe more important than what I remember is what I felt. And what I felt was love!

Prison Ministry Donations

We had asked for some supplies for our prison ministry. Specifically, we asked for books, tarot decks, altar cloths, and small bowls.

Amazing donations for inmates!

And boy, did we get them! What an overwhelming response! Pretty much every time I walked by the registration table, someone told me “there’s a new pile of stuff for you to grab.”

A giant thank you goes out to everyone who participated! As I said during closing ritual, it’s amazing to be part of this community. Small acts of kindness and generosity really add up to make a huge difference. One of the very first things we did this week was ship some of these items off to find new homes — and I know for a fact that they will be well received.

Final Thoughts

Every year at Summer Magick is different, but it’s always a magickal experience. This time, I was really sad to leave. Like, really sad. But I’m thankful for the time that was spent with old friends and the opportunity to make new friends.

I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone again next year (plus, I see most of you in-between anyway).

And with all of that said, I’ll just leave you with one final picture.