Rosemary Kooiman

Washington Post Obituary

Rosemary Kooiman; Championed Witches’ Rights

By Joe Holley

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, March 10, 2006; Page B07

Rosemary Kooiman, 77, a self-described witch who won the legal right to perform neopagan weddings in Virginia, died March 5 of a heart attack at her home in Laurel. She was a former Mitchellville resident.

Mrs. Kooiman, a retired government worker and the high priestess of a neopagan group in Mitchellville called the Nomadic Chantry of the Gramarye, sought to marry a Virginia couple in 1998 but was denied a clergy license after a Fairfax County judge ruled that Wicca did not qualify as a religious organization. A judge in Alexandria also denied her a license.

With assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union, she applied for the same license in Norfolk Circuit Court and received it by mail in September 1998, allowing her to officiate at weddings — known as “handfastings” among neopagans — anywhere in Virginia. She also performed wedding ceremonies in Maryland and Pennsylvania, which do not require clergy to have a license, and was licensed to conduct weddings in the District.

Rosemary Jeanette Kooiman was born in Grand Rapids, Mich. After attending college in Michigan, she became a ballet dancer in the Detroit area and operated a dance studio from 1947 to 1953. Her husband was a safety engineer, and the family moved frequently throughout Michigan. Mrs. Kooiman worked primarily as a homemaker and a bartender when the family was living in Muskegon, Mich. As her daughter noted, finding a job tending bar was easier than starting a new dance studio.

In the 1960s, she moved with her family to Houston, where she worked for General Electric, testing space suits for leaks at NASA. She also shook out moon dust from wrinkles in the suits.

The family moved back to Michigan, then, in the 1970s, to the Washington area, where Mrs. Kooiman worked as a safety and health officer for the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service. She retired in 1994.

She became involved in neopagan religious practices in Michigan in the 1970s, because she could not find a Christian group that met her needs. Through anthropology courses at a community college and two trips to Mexico, she became acquainted with paganism, which is rooted in nature and encompasses a range of polytheistic traditions, including druidism and Wicca. She turned her back on Christianity’s Father God and embraced paganism’s Mother Earth, she explained in later years.

When she moved to the Washington area, she and her husband founded the Nomadic Chantry of the Gramarye, primarily to give comfort and support to people involved in the Sports Car Club of America. Today, the Chantry has about 50 members. The Kooimans, car enthusiasts, were active SCCA members and spent most weekends at area tracks, where they helped out with SCCA events and held neopagan circles and celebrations.

Mrs. Kooiman was a member of Mensa, a group that celebrates high intelligence. She compiled a syllabus for a three-year course of study on neopagan beliefs in response to questions from fellow members. She also began teaching classes and holding full-moon circles and celebrations at her Mitchellville home.

Her husband, Abe Kooiman, died in 2002, and recently she had been working to get a pagan headstone for his grave in Arlington National Cemetery. Her effort was part of a campaign by pagan religious leaders to persuade the Pentagon to add the pagan pentacle to the list of symbols approved for Arlington headstones.

Survivors include three children, Kathleen Egbert of Laurel, Micaela Kooiman of Laurel and Dirk Jon Kooiman of Fredericksburg; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

One, are you local to Laurel, MD? If no, why not check out your local
listings at the Witchvox (http://www.witchvox.com) to find a teaching group in
your area. If so, proceed to question two.

Two, are you over twenty-one (21) years of age? If so, great! Drop us an email
introducing yourself and we’ll talk. If no, not until you’re over 21. Why,
you ask? For your protection as well as ours. See the question on age for an explanation.

Paganism is not yet well accepted in the mainstream religious community.
Many people, with the best intentions in their heart, firmly believe that
no matter what actual, practicing Pagans say, Paganism in all its forms is
evil. It is their right to believe this, but it makes it hard when you’re the
kid of someone who feels this way, and you feel pulled to a Pagan Path.

When a minor requests teaching of a legal adult, they put that teacher in danger.
Yes, danger. The teacher risks everything from being sued or arrested to losing
their jobs or getting beat up in a back alley. Does this sound drastic and
fantastical? Yes. Does it happen? Yes. Parents who feel that Wicca is evil
are not going to sit quietly while their precious son or daughter goes off to
study it, and their anger is likely going to be focused on the person “facilitating”
this, or in other words, the teacher.

Aside from dangers to a teacher, there are good reasons for any teen to wait to
find a teacher. When you are a teen it is a time of growth and exploration.
You are learning to be a grown-up, a person with interests and opinions all your
own. This is a time when you should be trying all sorts of things to find out
what they’re like. Do you really want yet another person telling you what to
believe and how to feel about the world?

If you really feel called to Wicca, then here is what I* recommend. These
recommendations work for non-teens, too.

Read. Read everything you can get your hands on, fiction, non-fiction. Read
mythology, physics, biology, history and chemistry. These five subjects actually
correspond to the five elements. Earth=biology, Air=history, Water=physics,
Fire=chemistry and Spirit=mythology. They will give you a good, solid understanding
of the world around you, and remember we’re a NATURE-based religion, so if you
want to understand Nature, you have to study Her. Another good reason to read
in these five subjects is that none of them are “overtly Pagan”, so if your
parents don’t approve, they won’t necessarily realize what you’re reading is
part of the fundamental base of your Pagan studies. If you can get away with
it, try reading a few comparitive religions books, and attending services of as
many different churches and religions as possible.

Spend as much time as you can outside. Observe the world around you. Write
and/or draw in a journal what you see, the people, the plants, animals,
buildings. Watch the cycles of the changing seasons. Learn the feel of the
Earth around you. If you can, plant a garden. Even for brown-thumbs like me,
growing a plant gives you a wonderful sense of accomplishment and connection.

All of this will give you a solid, healthy basis for beginning classes on the
Wiccan religion. In fact, it’ll probably put you miles ahead of most people!

This started the first Tradition, or Trad, of Wicca. There are many, many Trads
in the world today, including Gardnerian (practicing Wicca as Gardner practiced
it), Alexandrian (based on the teachings of Alex Sanders, who based his
variation on Gardner), Eclecticism (take from many different sources to create
a whole), Lycian (shamanic Wicca), Dianic (female/Goddess only Wicca) and many,
many, many more.

Witchcraft is a system of Magick working that, generally speaking, is more
nature-, elemental- and spell-based, ie. candle-magick, poppet magick, etc. and
it is practiced by “witches”. This is as opposed to “high magick” practiced by
“magicians”, which is more based on numbers and words and is less physically
oriented and more intellectually oriented.

We are not a coven, as covens are usually closed (i.e. they are member only).
If you are interested in taking classes from us,or celebrating the Sabbats and
Esbats with us, please email us. We practice Eclectic Wicca, and have as many
influences as we have members. Our emphasis is on in-person teaching and outreach.