2007 Washington and Baltimore Area Pagan Leadership Conference
I just spent the weekend in the company of some cool Pagan folks, a few like seer_eridanus I was already friends with, many more I just met for the first time, and I made some new friends. It was by invitation only, and since they extended me an invitation, I considered it an honor to accept. Not that I've ever considered myself as a leader of anything Pagan, but since I'm on the board of SpiralHeart, I am contributing to the collective managerial duties, so I qualify. I was honestly pleased that they thought of including me, since I'm a relative newbie to the scene. Since the location rotated to my Nova this year, all the more reason to go.
I found it a very fulfilling experience, personally, professionally, and most of all emotionally. I feel a special energy in the room whenever Pagans are gathered in Her name. It makes it easier for my heart to open to others in perfect love and perfect trust (as my favorite Witch saying goes).
From another angle, just the anthropology of 47 white people gathered together and grooving in a suburban hotel meeting room with flip charts, cooperative learning workshops, and styro coffee cups is worthy of note. First of all, many of us were vocal about how much it sucked that our groups don't get enough people of color, and our attendance itself was all white. (With the exception of Johanna-Hypatia, a Sicilian edgewalker who doesn't identify with any race, because my people came from a liminal space in between Africa and Europe, blending both worlds but not really belonging to either. But I acknowledge that everyone else classifies me as "white" due to current socio/geopolitical circumstances.) The other exception being my buddy Rook who brought up the issue is Latino; his brilliant mind and mine synch together so well, we make a good team. But he once told me he doesn't dig blogs, so he won't see this until somebody e-mails it to him. Hey Rook! Let me know if you got my shout out to you, baby.
The facilitation team did their homework sometime between the Saturday morning session and the Sunday morning town hall. They classified the hot-pink slip community concerns into a few broad categories and posted those on the wall. Then each group's representative got to talk about their green slip success story and how it went to solve one or more of the problems listed on the wall. Pretty neat, huh? It worked so neat because they put in a little preparation.
I got to talk up our success story, SpiralHeart's fabulous annual Witchcamp, the promotion of which is a duty I signed on for as Media Witch. All of the SpiralHeart brochures I set out on the table were taken up by the attendees. I'm also on the regional committee for planning Northern Virginia Pagan Pride Day--mark your calendars, it's September 8 at Lake Accotink Park. We want the whole Washington-Baltimore metro area to attend.
The main topic of planning was the campaign for First Amendment equality of Pagan military servicemembers, like getting the VA to approve the pentacle symbol on headstones. One activist remarked how even Jews and Muslims think Pagans are being unfairly discriminated against. (Well, naturally, Jews and Muslims both know what unfair discrimination is like in this country.) We collectively worked on the planning for the rally to be held in Lafayette Park on the 4th of July--mark your calendars! I feel we're blessed to have the energy of Aradia B, a dynamic young organizer with First Freedom First (Americans United for Separation of Church and State), focused on this issue. Please sign their petition.
We almost got snagged for a moment on the issue of the whole incongruity... Earth-based nature-loving tree-hugging skyclad Pagans meeting in a setting of such terminal mundanity? Frankly, most of us didn't see a big issue with that, since we were there explicitly to develop managerial skills, networking, and area-wide intercommunity planning--exactly the same as any other bourgeois nonprofit organization in this wonderful land. As for sacred space, we circled at the beginning, circled at the end, and all through ran a thread of sacredness, I felt. In other words: Our hearts, opened to one another with a sacred intention, had enough warm human power to overcome the plastic sterility of the location. Way I look at it, when you're a Witch, it's all good--you know? We make changes in our consciousness at will.
And for that matter, I lead such a bizarre everyday existence that it felt good to behave for once as an ordinary American professional woman in an ordinary middle management motivational setting. So this is what normal people live like. :)
Not bad for a weekend, especially since we put on a talent show directed by Baltimore's incomparable Isis Nefer, who treated us to her management skills in the morning and her showbiz talent in the evening. She included some of my music on the program too. We finished the show with a singalong of the Pagan classic "Give Me That Real Old-Time Religion," drawing upon hundreds of satirical verses that Isis had compiled, applied to dozens of religions, including Discordian and Cthulhu. That was fun.
I want to thank the beautiful, fascinating folks I bonded with over the weekend, whose hearts opened to mine, and hope to get with you again next year.
And Isis--you rock, lady. :)
I found it a very fulfilling experience, personally, professionally, and most of all emotionally. I feel a special energy in the room whenever Pagans are gathered in Her name. It makes it easier for my heart to open to others in perfect love and perfect trust (as my favorite Witch saying goes).
From another angle, just the anthropology of 47 white people gathered together and grooving in a suburban hotel meeting room with flip charts, cooperative learning workshops, and styro coffee cups is worthy of note. First of all, many of us were vocal about how much it sucked that our groups don't get enough people of color, and our attendance itself was all white. (With the exception of Johanna-Hypatia, a Sicilian edgewalker who doesn't identify with any race, because my people came from a liminal space in between Africa and Europe, blending both worlds but not really belonging to either. But I acknowledge that everyone else classifies me as "white" due to current socio/geopolitical circumstances.) The other exception being my buddy Rook who brought up the issue is Latino; his brilliant mind and mine synch together so well, we make a good team. But he once told me he doesn't dig blogs, so he won't see this until somebody e-mails it to him. Hey Rook! Let me know if you got my shout out to you, baby.
The facilitation team did their homework sometime between the Saturday morning session and the Sunday morning town hall. They classified the hot-pink slip community concerns into a few broad categories and posted those on the wall. Then each group's representative got to talk about their green slip success story and how it went to solve one or more of the problems listed on the wall. Pretty neat, huh? It worked so neat because they put in a little preparation.
I got to talk up our success story, SpiralHeart's fabulous annual Witchcamp, the promotion of which is a duty I signed on for as Media Witch. All of the SpiralHeart brochures I set out on the table were taken up by the attendees. I'm also on the regional committee for planning Northern Virginia Pagan Pride Day--mark your calendars, it's September 8 at Lake Accotink Park. We want the whole Washington-Baltimore metro area to attend.
The main topic of planning was the campaign for First Amendment equality of Pagan military servicemembers, like getting the VA to approve the pentacle symbol on headstones. One activist remarked how even Jews and Muslims think Pagans are being unfairly discriminated against. (Well, naturally, Jews and Muslims both know what unfair discrimination is like in this country.) We collectively worked on the planning for the rally to be held in Lafayette Park on the 4th of July--mark your calendars! I feel we're blessed to have the energy of Aradia B, a dynamic young organizer with First Freedom First (Americans United for Separation of Church and State), focused on this issue. Please sign their petition.
We almost got snagged for a moment on the issue of the whole incongruity... Earth-based nature-loving tree-hugging skyclad Pagans meeting in a setting of such terminal mundanity? Frankly, most of us didn't see a big issue with that, since we were there explicitly to develop managerial skills, networking, and area-wide intercommunity planning--exactly the same as any other bourgeois nonprofit organization in this wonderful land. As for sacred space, we circled at the beginning, circled at the end, and all through ran a thread of sacredness, I felt. In other words: Our hearts, opened to one another with a sacred intention, had enough warm human power to overcome the plastic sterility of the location. Way I look at it, when you're a Witch, it's all good--you know? We make changes in our consciousness at will.
And for that matter, I lead such a bizarre everyday existence that it felt good to behave for once as an ordinary American professional woman in an ordinary middle management motivational setting. So this is what normal people live like. :)
Not bad for a weekend, especially since we put on a talent show directed by Baltimore's incomparable Isis Nefer, who treated us to her management skills in the morning and her showbiz talent in the evening. She included some of my music on the program too. We finished the show with a singalong of the Pagan classic "Give Me That Real Old-Time Religion," drawing upon hundreds of satirical verses that Isis had compiled, applied to dozens of religions, including Discordian and Cthulhu. That was fun.
I want to thank the beautiful, fascinating folks I bonded with over the weekend, whose hearts opened to mine, and hope to get with you again next year.
And Isis--you rock, lady. :)