The Hearth Covenant
This is what we promise one another and anyone who comes to our fire. It was written at a kitchen table over several arguments and is reread, aloud, at every Imbolc. It is not a creed. Nothing in it is about what to believe. All of it is about how to behave.
The ten promises
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We harm none, and we look hard before we act.
The Rede is our law: an it harm none, do what ye will. We understand "none" to include ourselves, the land, and the people we are angry with. We do not work magic to compel, bind, harm or manipulate another person, and we do not teach others to. Where harm cannot be avoided, we choose with open eyes and own what follows.
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We work only with consent.
No magic is worked on or for a person who has not asked for it, however loving the intent. No one is touched in circle without asking. No one is pressed to speak, to share, to disrobe, to drink, or to stay. Consent given can be withdrawn, and a door will be cut.
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The Craft is given freely.
We charge nothing for teaching the Craft, for dedication, for attending our rites, or for any standing within the Hearth. We share the ordinary costs of halls and candles according to our means, and we make sure nobody is ever kept out by money. Those of us who earn a living from related skills, as readers, celebrants, herbalists, writers, do so honestly and outside the circle.
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We keep the confidences of the circle.
What is said in circle stays there. Who was present is nobody else's business. We do not photograph, record or name without permission, and we respect that some of us are not public about our path. The one exception, which we name here so there is no doubt, is harm: where someone is being hurt or endangered, silence is broken and help is sought.
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Our fire is open to all who can keep this covenant.
Every gender and none, every sexuality, every race and nation, every body, every age of adulthood, every faith that can sit beside ours in peace. We do not merely tolerate; we welcome. Racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and contempt for the poor have no place at this hearth, however they are dressed up, and whoever brings them will be asked to leave.
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We respect the sovereignty of every path and every practitioner.
We do not tell other witches, covens or traditions how to practise. We do not claim our way is the only or the oldest. Hearthkeepers may belong to other groups and are not asked to choose. We honour the traditional secrecy of initiatory lines and do not press anyone for what is oathbound.
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We tell the truth about what we know and what we do not.
We distinguish history from myth, scholarship from inspiration, and tradition from personal gnosis, and we say which is which. We do not claim lineages we do not have, ages our practices have not reached, or powers nobody has seen us use. We read the historians and we thank them.
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We honour the land and those who were here before us.
We leave every place better than we found it. We take nothing from the wild without asking and without need. We acknowledge the peoples on whose ancestral lands we gather, and we do not borrow the sacred practices of living cultures that have not offered them. Our Craft is from Europe; the land is not; we hold both of those truths.
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We take care of one another.
We show up when we have said we will. We notice who is missing. We carry food to the sick, sit with the grieving, and say the hard thing kindly when it needs saying. We treat burnout as an injury to be tended, not a failing.
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We make our decisions together and we can be told we are wrong.
The Hearthkeepers decide by consensus. Any visitor, friend or keeper may raise a concern about anything the Hearth does, including about a Hearthkeeper, and will be heard by at least two people who are not the subject of it. If we cannot resolve something inside the Hearth, we will say so and point to people outside it who can help.
The response
At Imbolc, after the covenant is read, the circle answers: We have heard it. We will keep it. And where we fail it, we will mend it, and begin again.
This covenant owes debts to the Code of Ethics of the Covenant of the Goddess, to the community covenant of the Missing Witches coven, to the Pagan Federation's principles, and to a great many conversations. We have tried to pay them by being specific.