Sorita's Workshop in Athens

In November 1rst the Athens Goddess Festival was organized in Athens at Petralona by Shakila Ioanna Brati and Isidoros Karamouzos. The main topic was honoring the feminine part of the world. Some of the activities included were yoga workshops, dancing lessons, music lesson, tantra, bio-well... and lectures about dogs for the blind people, the kabbalistic system of the 72 angels, the Goddesses of Eleusis, Hekate, Astrology, feng shui. The most interesting part was the presense of the very famous Sorita d'Este.

I went to the festival for her. I knew who she was through ther books and I had kept contact with her before she decided to travel all the world in a year! So, when I read that she is planning to be in Athens, I felt ecstatic, but I was not sure that this will really happen.

Sorita, came in Athens last week and she started visiting ancient places and museums. She likes very much to watch the engravings and the letters as well as the statues. She is a moving encyclopedia on the subject of hellenic mythology and history as well. She has worked for more than 20 years with western magickal traditions, as she is a High Priestess of the Alexandrian Tradition, she has studied and practiced Kabbalah with a group of dedicated kabbalists and she has done some oracular work using different techniques with trance groups. Moreover, Sorita through her work and her publications, throught the last ten years she has propagated historical-based ideas about ancient hellenic magick and especially the Goddess Hekate. So, her knowledge has a practical basis and some serious years of experience. In the past she ran a coven in England and downline covens with the famous David Rankine. In other words, she was a very special guest in the Athens Goddess Festival and the participants liked her workshop.

Let's talk about what happened on November 1rst. At 10:30 a theatrical based ceremony started outside the building. The girls were dancing under the flute and they were dressed up representing each one a female Goddess from the hellenic pantheon. They walked inside the building were Sorita take over and with a candle in her hands she invoked all the Goddesses who were invoked in the past in Athens and she asked their help using simple ritual acts. We all formed a circle and moved deosil. She was very nice to all and she opened herself to questions, photos and she tried the flute too.

In the afternoon, she lead a workshop with the title: The Goddess Through The Four Elements. Sorita started speaking for herself and the with an introduction to the elemental theory crediting well Empedocles the philosopher. She told us that Elifas Levi changed 150 years ago the direction of the air-fire elements and then she proceed explaining the properties of each element. After that she connected the witch's pyramid with the elemental theory and she started to give advices of how this theory could be a part of our everyday magickal life. She divided us to four groups corresponding with the four elements. Each group should write Goddesses who were particularly associated with the group element. After 30 minutes each group presented their Goddesses and asked for blessings for all participants.

Simple stuff, but we live in a country, in which many people don't know anything about wicca, witchcraft, ceremonial magick... or even folk magick. So, it was a good introductory course for people who wanted to participate or maybe start reading and researching. It was also very nice to see Sorita deal with things and diversity and she was pretty successful. In Hellas there is still fear for witchcraft, moreover many frauds use that name to attract customers. In the end, the one who seeks, he/she will find the truth.

I hope that this was a beggining, a seed that Persephone planted in the Earth.

Read more about Sorita d'Este