Falcon River

Falcon River

Interviewed July 29, 2022, and September 14, 2022

Falcon River, born in Ohio in 1952, grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of southern West Virginia, climbing the trees and crawling into every cave she could find. She describes her family as a “proud line of moonshiners and thieves.” As a child, she was trained by her family elders in woodcraft, and in traditional folk magic and medicine.

Being “wild” herself, Falcon River left home in 1968, coming out as a butch lesbian soon after leaving. She lived in California and in Virginia. She won the title of drag king, “Mr. Roanoke,” in 1973 and 1974.

In 1975, Falcon went to Louisville, Kentucky, to find Jade River, an old flame from Girl Scout camp. They partnered and parented Jade’s son. They were founding members, along with many other women, of the Lesbian Feminist Union in Louisville, Kentucky. Also, they managed a private club and bar for women called “Mother’s Brew,” providing within it a feminist library, art gallery, and battered women’s safe space.

The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival introduced Falcon River to Goddess-based religion. She attended Michfest for forty years, from 1975 to 2015. Falcon and Jade were living in Louisville, Kentucky, when they participated in a women’s coven in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area. In 1983, to protect Jade’s parental rights, they moved to Madison, Wisconsin. In Madison, they founded the Re-formed Congregation of the Goddess (RCG). Within a year of relocating there, Falcon and Jade dissolved their partnership. Falcon engaged only peripherally with Goddess rituals for a time.

When she was in her 30s, Falcon River studied and apprenticed intensively with Dawna Markova, PhD, author of The Open Mind, a body of work dealing with perceptual learning modalities. She also studied for several years with Linda Tellington-Jones and Robin Hood, learning the Tellington TTouch ® TEAM Techniques, healing and training techniques with horses and other companion animals. Falcon was a professional bodyworker, healer, and clairvoyant, and she worked with animals and people for more than 30 years.

In May of 1999, Falcon River met Ruth Barrett, Dianic High Priestess, ritualist, and musician, at the Gathering of Priestesses conference that the Reformed Congregation of the Goddess (RCG) produced. Ruth was teaching at the conference. She and Falcon soon became partners, and Ruth relocated to Wisconsin with Falcon. There, Falcon River and Ruth Barrett cofounded Temple of Diana, Inc, a Dianic Temple federally recognized as a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) religion.

Falcon River cocreated Temple of Diana’s Spiral Door Women’s Mystery School of Magick and Ritual Arts, a Dianic, educational program as a path to ordination as Dianic clergy. As cocreator, she became core faculty for the school. She talked with other women about how they felt drawn to serve in women’s rituals. She designated guardian facilitators, the women who offer their service from the perimeter of the circle by energetically [with women’s magic energy] supporting the ritual facilitators who work within the circle.

Falcon River was ordained in 2000 as a Dianic Priestess of the Guardian Path, dedicated to a magical partnership model that collaborates with other facilitators of women’s rituals to insure a safe and powerful ritual experience for the participants.

Falcon River is also a storyteller and a traditional archer. She is a former Level II instructor with the National Association for the Development of Archery, and an instructor with the National Archery Association. Falcon brought “Amazon Archery” as a tool for women’s empowerment to women’s festivals and to Pagan gatherings for decades. She continues to teach online. She also continues to do healing work, leather crafting, and woodworking from her home with Ruth Barrett in Michigan.

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