by JRob Zeteluman

It was a cold and blustery night 15 years ago. Teisha and Paul (who would go on to be the force behind the Sacred Paths Center) gathered with their first daughter (who was still a toddler at the time) and one other person at Susan's Coffee Shop, next door to Evenstar Bookstore. This was the first gathering of Coffee Cauldron.

Today Coffee Cauldron is the oldest and most popular Pagan gathering in the Twin Cities. On the first and third Wednesday's of every month, an average of 30 to 60 local Pagans gather to hang-out, chat, play games, network, make plans, perform spiritual healings, knit, work on chain-mail, or whatever they feel like doing.

The event defies structure. Early on there were attempts to have themes for the gatherings, but they never worked, attendees preferring to just hang-out. When asked for really good Coffee Cauldron stories, people tended to be at a loss. There were maybe a couple stories, but the event isn't about generating monumental occurrences, but rather about friends coming together and sharing the joys of their lives. New-born children are introduced to the community, as are new partners, new jewelry, new tools, new toys … stories are told at the gathering rather than stories being told about the gathering.

The Time Line of Coffee Cauldron

For Paul and Teisha, the history of Coffee Cauldron is interwoven with the history of their lives together. The dates their children were born are the landmarks to remember the timeline of Coffee Cauldron.

• January 1995 — The gathering started  the same year they were handfasted. The next year their second daughter was born.
• Winter of 1997– there was a fire at Susan's Coffee Shop and Coffee Cauldron moved across the street to Giovanna's artists studio. Attendees had to pitch in to supply the coffee and cookies each month. That was just before the birth of their third daughter.
• July of 1999 — an open mic night, and had a great turnout with lots of poetry read.
• Summer of 2001 — Susan's Coffee Shop reopened as Prairies Star and Coffee Cauldron moved back next door to Evenstar.
• Spring of 2002, there were scheduling problems with Prairie Star and Coffee Cauldron moved across the street to Roasting Stones. That was just a few months before their son was born. 
• Summer of 2004, Roasting Stones closed, and Coffee Cauldron moved to Cupcake, about a mile west on University.
• August of 2004, after 9 years hosting the event (and the birth of four children) Teisha and Paul pass the hosting of Coffee Cauldron over to Earth House.
• Fall of 2005, Coffee Cauldron moved back next door to Evenstar due to arrangements with the new owners of the coffee shop. The coffee shop was renamed The Artists' Grind, was sold and renamed The Edge, but Coffee Cauldron continued.
• As 2008 ended, so did Evenstar, but within a couple months The Sacred Paths Center opened around the corner, and all the while Coffee Cauldron continued.

According to Teisha, "Fifteen years ago when we created Coffee Cauldron, that was pretty much the first step on the path toward creating The Sacred Paths Center." These days participants spend as much time at The Sacred Paths Center as they do at the coffee shop. There was even one night when the person scheduled to work at the coffee shop called in sick and they closed early, and Coffee Cauldron simply met at The Sacred Paths Center and continued without a hitch.

Celebrating 15 Years

To celebrate the fifteenth anniversary, there was a cake. Other than that, it was pretty much a typical Coffee Cauldron. At one point a group stood around in a circle (it was noted that we're Pagan, and we like circles) and reflected on the last fifteen years of Coffee Cauldron.

Paul talked about how as he and Teisha entered the community there was a group which was trying to work toward having a community center which fell apart. Of this, Paul said, "They said the community isn't ready. So we said fine, let's change the community." All these years later we finally have a community center. "We're patient."

Teisha said, "Remember that time we tried the poetry night. Long dark poems. Notice we never did that again."

There were discussions of "gang reiki". Any given Coffee Cauldron, there are at least six reiki practitioners, so if anyone has an ailment, they are able to get a group experience of reiki healing.

This lead to the one memorable Coffee Cauldron Reiki story:

Coffee Cauldron is hosted by Earth House, who also host a midsummer camping festival. One of the regulars at the midsummer gathering is known as Catgut (so called because of her abilities as a fiddle player). She lives way into Wisconsin and far from here. Catgut was hospitalized with an infection and things were not going well. The only thing which made her life tolerable were chemical cooling pads. Catgut's nurse was annoyed by this because the pads were in a different department, which meant time out of her schedule, and walking to get the pads. To activate the pads, they had to be twisted to break open the chemicals, and then the pad would cool where needed. A group of 11 reiki practitioners raised energy at Coffee Cauldron, and then sent it all at once to Catgut as a reiki bomb. Luckily they noted the time that the reiki bomb was sent so that later they could verify that at that exact same moment the not-very-nice nurse was activating a cooling pad which spontaneously exploded all over the room, but mostly all over the nurse. She checked around and no one had ever heard of these pads bursting before. The nurse became much nicer after that, and Catgut quickly recovered.

Like many Coffee Cauldrons, people laughed. New people were welcomed into the circle. People said goodnight. Some went out to eat afterwards.