09/11/2025
Dear Reclaiming LA Community,
For thirteen years, Reclaiming LA has been the Los Angeles home for witches who practice in the Reclaiming Tradition. Now, we are writing to say goodbye, at least for the time being.
Reclaiming LA has always been volunteer-based. Our Ritual Planning Cell (RPC) is the organizing body who has not only planned rituals, but has set the calendar, organized communications, chosen ritual locations in alignment with community needs, dealt with financials and tax documents (we are a registered nonprofit with an extremely modest budget), and convened the community to discuss and consense larger changes to the tradition. In keeping with Reclaiming's non-hierarchical values, this group has been open to all community members who are willing to show up to the relationship building and organizing that is required in this role.
As you might imagine, the work required of the RPC is substantial. We have done it joyfully. Still, there are also very few of us who have been able to devote so much sustained time and love to this community, and now, the RPC is in a time of transition. RPC members have fallen in love, had babies, begun career transitions, and moved away. This is part of the magic of our community, and we have gladly supported each other in these big leaps into the unknown—just as we hope this group has been here to support all of you, when you've come to rituals with broken hearts or wild hopes, when you've pledged at Imbolc and mourned at Samhain, when you've been part of one big magic in our spiral dances and our songs.
But now, we have come to a time when the work of organizing for this group is no longer sustainable for anyone on the RPC. For this reason, Reclaiming LA will go dormant at the end of 2025.
You have two more chances to work magic with us before that happens:
—On September 13, we plan to hold our Autumn Equinox ritual in Griffith Park, where we will close up our multi-year spell of offering blessings to the land we live on.
—On November 1, we will hold a Samhain ritual at The Green Man Store in Burbank. During the ritual, we will bid farewell to this version of Reclaiming LA.
We do not believe this will be the end of the Reclaiming Tradition in Los Angeles. In this bioregion, we have seeds that lie in the earth, sometimes for many years, waiting for a wildfire to pass over them. When the right flames jolt them out of sleep, they bloom into life again. This is the kind of dormancy that we imagine for Reclaiming LA. We are closing the community as it is now, but we are also planting a seed that may be awakened when the right fire passes over—or, in other words, when the organizing work is taken up by a new group of Reclaiming-aligned witches with the passion, will, and deep love for community magic.
With that in mind, here are the practical steps we are taking to ensure a new group of witches will be able to revive Reclaiming LA when the time is right:
—We will be keeping the resources on community organizing and ritual planning that we have accumulated over the years, including a small pot of money that is available to help support starting a new community.
—We will be keeping up our website and the associated email address ([email protected]) so that it is possible to find this information if anyone is seeking Reclaiming community in Los Angeles.
—A triad of witches from the previous RPC will be monitoring the [email protected] email address. If you would like more information about resources to start a new version of Reclaiming LA, you may reach out there.
The RPC requests that anyone interested in restarting the Reclaiming LA community waits a year and a day from the time we bid farewell to this version of the group. We will not be available to share resources before November 2, 2026. In part, we are making this request because those of us on the RPC have been deeply involved in this community for many years, and we have strong energetic ties to this group. We would like some time to allow those ties to dissipate before someone else picks up our organizing work.
But also, our intuitions and spiritual allies have been telling us that now is not a time for big, public magic. Many of us have been feeling that this is a moment for witchcraft performed in small groups and in secret, where we can support each other with more care, and can work more targeted, intentional spells. To that end, we have created a contact sheet that you may use if you are hoping to get in touch with other Reclaiming-aligned LA-based witches. The sheet is available here. We will also be keeping our Facebook group open for anyone who would like to use it. Please keep in mind that we will not be monitoring these resources, and use your own discretion when getting in contact with one another.
Whether you've been attending our rituals for many years, or have only connected with us at one event, you have been part of our community. You have contributed to our spiral of magic, and have sent our spells into the beautiful future that we are creating for our descendant witches, and for one another. We are so grateful.
With love and magic, always,
The Reclaiming LA RPC
