Dear Turning the Tide Family,
We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We are mere DAYS away from Turning the Tide 2014. As we get ready for our eighth celebration, we are all busy preparing and packing in anticipation of Dancing the Wheel with you.
This letter contains all the information you will need for the festival. Feel free to print it out! If you have any questions ahead of the event, contact our Coordination Maven, Alpandia at ttinfo@emlc.net. Please remember there are no on-site registrations!
If you are active on social media, such as Twitter or Instagram, we’d love to see the memories you capture of the event. Tag them with the hashtag: #TTT2014FL and they’ll automatically be included in our Turning the Tide 2014 Gallery.
Plan for the weather! The weather report currently shows rain ahead of a cold front for Tides weekend, so please pack accordingly! Jackets, umbrellas, extra blankets, extra socks, etc should make their way into your gear bags.
QuickLinks to Important Information:
- Registration and Accommodations
- Planning for Food
- Being Green
- Rituals Through the Weekend
- Fun Outside of Ritual and Workshops
- Donations to this year’s Charity
- What to Pack
- Rules for a Safe Weekend
- Festival Location and Directions
Our festival is held once more at the lovely Camp Greynolds, a private campground located off Miami Gardens Drive along the Oleta River. Specific directions are at the bottom of this page. It is common to see all sorts of wildlife, including egrets, ibis, and herons along the river, and owls, bats, raccoons, and foxes live among the great oaks of the camp. Nine cabins, all handicapped accessible and recently renovated, are steps away from a bathhouse and Great Hall with kitchen. A campfire ring is a short walk from the cabins and provides a beautiful spot for our rituals beneath the trees. The spirits of the land are alive and present at Greynolds – it is a well-loved spot that Witches and Pagans from South Florida have used for gatherings for over 20 years!
Our festival will once more include rituals, workshops, our Witchy Auction (so bring cash for tickets!), and drumming, plus new favorites like Battle of the Witches on Sunday morning! We cannot wait to celebrate with you!
Registration and Accommodations
Registration will open at 5:30pm for those tenting, and 6:00pm for our family members in cabins. This will allow you to check in and set up your tent/cabin while it is still light. Please Note: the campground is used by another group before we arrive. We will be able to access Cabins and the Great Hall once they have finished using the space.
Once you’re done settling in, feel free to pitch in with decorating the Great Hall! Be sure to sign up for a volunteer shift when you register, and pick up your Spirit Bag. This bag will collect tokens from the events you attend at Tides and be a memory you can keep all year long. If you ordered a t-shirt, it will be waiting for you at Registration. If you didn’t, check to see if we have your size in stock. T-shirts are $15 each.
Opening Ritual will be held at 9pm. Our gates will be locked during Opening Ritual, and throughout the festival with the exception of Lunch on Saturday.
All cabins sleep up to eight and have electricity and overhead lights, but please do not plan to store food in your cabin. Critters can find their way inside! A sealed cooler with drinks and light snacks can be kept in your cabin. Ice will be provided in the kitchen for your use. Your feast food should be brought to the kitchen for storage as soon as you arrive. We will ask that you label your food for the feast. Feel free to bring coven banners or other decorations for your cabins and the Great Hall!
We ask our family to have their cabins cleaned and be ready to leave Camp by 12:30pm on Sunday. This includes emptying any trash as well as completely sweeping the cabin. There are brooms and dust pans in each cabin’s closet for this purpose. We will give thanks, say goodbyes, and hold Closing Ritual. Please pitch in to help us clean up the site before you leave.
Planning for Food
A continental breakfast is provided on both Saturday and Sunday mornings from 7:30a-9:30am. The Yuletide Feast on Saturday night is a pot luck with lots of home made deliciousness. Please bring a dish or drink to share! Unsure what to bring? A vegetarian side-dish is always welcome, as are desserts. Please bring your contribution in a serving dish with utensils (as necessary). Keep in mind that there is limited space for food prep, so your contribution should be ready-made or only need re-heating. You will be unable to cook on site in the Great Hall kitchen. Our kitchen witches will be glad to show you around the kitchen but will not be cooking for you.
You are on your own for lunch on Saturday, but there are many stores and restaurants very close to the campgrounds, including Publix. This would be a good time to take care of any last-minute Feast needs.
The camp does not allow alcohol in glass containers. If you choose to imbibe sacred brew, please do so discretely and in a non-glass container.
Being Green
In order to diminish our footprint on Mother Earth, we ask our TTT Family to bring your own reusable plate/bowl/cup/silverware to the gathering. A washing station will be available after every meal, and we hope to greatly cut down on the solid waste we produce by having each person bring their own reusable utensils. There will be very limited paper products available this year, so you must bring your own items.
To help keep the campgrounds tidy, please also police your trash. If you are walking from your cabin to the Great Hall and see litter, please pick it up. Let’s leave the grounds cleaner than how we found them!
Rituals through the Weekend
Our festival is book-ended and punctuated by community rituals. We start with our Opening Ritual on Friday evening. Closing Ritual will be held Sunday mid-day. But the focal point is our Main Ritual. Our Community Yule Ritual this year will be organized by Temple at the Crossroads. This ritual will focus on the ancient Goddess Hekate. You are welcome to bring offerings for Her in Main Ritual. There will also be a blessing during the rite, so bring your pendants, jewelry, rings, amulets made during our workshop, or keys you would like touched by the Goddess. The Temple at the Crossroads will also be holding a devotional to Hekate Friday evening at Midnight. Feel free to bring offerings to leave for Her. Some suggestions may include pomegranates, garlic, figs, honey, barley, rosemary, dark red wine, also flowers.
On Friday following Opening Ritual, and on Saturday after Main Ritual, our drummers will be building sacred energy around the fire. Feel free to bring your own musical instruments and/or drums to join in!
Fun Outside of Rituals and Workshops
While our Rituals and Workshops will be where you spend most of your time, there will be tons of other fun activities at Tides this year. Before you arrive, be sure to craft a wreath for our annual wreath contest! These wreaths will adorn the Great Hall. Voting through the weekend will pick a Best Overall, Best Use of Theme, and Most Creative wreath. Bring your entry with you on Friday!
In addition, we’ll be caroling again before Feast on Saturday night. Song books will be provided that have paganized versions of your favorite Christmas songs. Please sing along – you know the tunes!
On Friday and Saturday Evening, our amazing drummers will be keeping the energies high at the fire in the ritual circle. Bring your own drums or other instruments and lend your energies to the rhythm. If you’re more of a dancer, the area around the fire circle makes for great grapevining.
Sunday might be our last day of Tides, but it’s jam packed with activities. We’ll be playing Battle of the Witches, our Family Feud-style witchy gameshow. In addition, we’ll be announcing the winners of our Wreath Contest as well as pulling tickets for our auction of Pagan Gifts. Be sure to purchase your auction tickets through the weekend! All proceeds of the auction are donated to EMLC to help us contiune our philanthropic work in Florida.
Donations to This Year’s Charity
As part of building Community energy during our gathering, we would like our family to bring either a single, new unwrapped toy or toiletries (shampoo/soap/conditioner/etc) to be donated after the festival to Harmony House of West Palm Beach. This YWCA organization services women and children impacted by domestic abuse. You can find out more information about them at the YWCA website.
| Confirmation Email with Directions | Bedding, including blankets, sheets, pillow |
| Personal Toiletries & Towel | Reusable plate/bowl/cup/silverware for each person in your party |
| Pot Luck contribution for Feast | Food for dinner Friday & lunch Saturday (or go out) |
| Cooler for Drinks and Snacks | Cash for Auction Tickets |
| Decorations for your cabin | Ritual Wear for Saturday Night Ritual |
| Donation for Harmony House | Flyers or business cards for your services of interest to the Tides community |
| Comfortable festival wear for days outside (check the weather!) | Comfortable walking shoes |
| Flashlight | Musical instrument and/or drum |
| Camp chairs or blanket for sitting outside | Notebook for workshop notes |
| Camera (but get permission before taking pictures of people!) | Binoculars for bird watching |
| Yoga Mat (if you are taking Yoga in the AM) | Yoga Clothing |
| Cell Phone Charger | Items for blessing during Main Ritual |
| Offering for Hekate Devotional (something biodegradable: pomegranates, garlic, figs, honey, barley, rosemary, dark red wine, also flowers.) | |
Rules for a Safe Weekend
In keeping with the rules and regulations of our host site, no blades of any kind can be brought into Greynolds Park. We also regret that there will be no skyclad option. We request that our Tides Family respect our sacred ritual area and refrain from smoking anywhere near the Circle or the workshops. All buildings at Greynolds, including the cabins, are non-smoking areas. Smoking is allowed in the parking lot only.
Directions to the Festival
Getting to Greynold’s Park is very easy. Take I-95 north or south to exit 14 (FL-860/Miami Gardens Drive), and head east (toward the water) on Miami Gardens Drive for 2.2 miles. Take a left at the light at NE 22nd Avenue and the entrance to Camp Greynolds is immediately on your right, through a chain link fence. Pull all the way into the parking area, park, and register at the Great Hall, the building on the right as you enter the Camp.
The Everglades Moon Community is incredibly honored to host another gathering of our Turning the Tide family. Joining together to celebrate the beauty of Florida and our diverse but exciting community is one of our favorite things to do, and we are so glad you have decided to join us! As we gather, let us do so with a sense of strengthening our community in mind. As we part, may we take with us stronger connections, clearer paths, and a deeper relationship with Mother Earth. See you all on Friday, December 5th!
Blessed Be!
Alpandia, and the Turning the Tide 2014 Planning Committee