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The Mystai of the Moon has been founded as a new Tradition by the Dream a New Dream Coven. We did this when we realized that our coven was truly going somewhere new. Our focus both in the outer world and spiritually takes us to new places that none of us had encountered so far in our decades within various Goddess-oriented paths.
We have bonded together in a vision of the world as it can be. The world that we WILL to be. The central tenet of our group is the Manifesta of the Dream A New Dream Coven, which was created at the founding of our Mother Coven, and is a description of our vision in words and intent. We aim to live this Manifesta daily both together when we share sacred space and seperately in our lives. We are a small group for now, but we welcome womyn to look over what we have to say and see if it applies to them. We know that we are embarking on something new within the traditions and we welcome our sisters on the journey.
So why are we new? There are several reasons, but the most profound ones are that 1) we have realized that reacting to patriarchy puts us in a position of weakness relative to it, so we refuse to do it. Instead, we see patriarchy's need for absolute control and its willingness to employ fear and violence to its ends as signs of its weakness, its frail hold on "reality"; and 2) since we are an international Sisterhood, we have decided to not celebrate the seasons as observances within our rites as a group. The seasons vary in their manifestations and intensity depending on where in the world you are, and when some of us are experiencing the blistering heat of summer, others are nose-deep in parkas, but the Moon, She Who Shines For All, is the same for all Her daughters. Therefore our rites are entirely lunar in focus within the group and observations of the seasons are done individually reflecting the seasonal realities where we each live. We also consider the seasonal rites to be a community thing where men and womyn and children have traditionally come together to mark the cycle of Life within each community. Whereas the lunar rites have often been observed by womyn only.
The word Mystai comes from the Greeks and their traditions. Mystai were initiates or priestesses of the various mystery traditions, which included the Rites of Eleusis. A Mystes (the singular of mystai) is one who goes within and finds the deity and meets Her in the spirit realms and communes in the deepest Mysteries of that deity. We see that path as a needed one as the world is rebirthed from the five millenia long nightmare of patriarchy. The Mysteries and the way they were done in ancient times are lost to us, but we womyn can create new Mysteries and new rites. The Goddesses are still with us and still speak to those with ears to hear. We don't need to legitimize our worship by doing something the way it was done in the distant past. Goddess-tradition is ALIVE! It lives, it breathes, and it grows! We grow by following the Goddesses wherever they wish to take us in creating a world of love where womyn are free and the Mysteries once again are celebrated!