Following are some points that during the Cascadian Pagan Leadership Conference were presented for discussion. The dialogue resulting was relatively short, the people attending and we at Widdershins felt the questions deserved further consideration. Take a look and see what you'd do in the following situations:
1. It's 2 a.m., and you've just gone to bed after sending your coven home and cleaning up the house. The doorbell rings and when you answer the door you're confronted by two policemen. They inform you that one of your coveners was in an accident and arrested for DWI. They inform you that it is their understanding that your home was the last place your covener had been, and they want to ask you some questions. To what extent do you cooperate with the police investigation?
2. You're baking cookies on a Saturday afternoon with the daughter of one of your coveners. You notice that she's particularly withdrawn and has some odd-looking bruises on her cheek and arm. When you ask about the bruises, she's pretty uncommunicative, saying that she guesses that she fell. Knowing some of her family history, you're suspicious about what might have happened to her. What do you do?
3. The company for which you've worked for 10 years, a medium-sized corporation, announced last week that they were merging with another firm in order to improve their marketability. Today you learn that if you want to keep your job, you'll have to transfer to another office over 500 miles away. This will impact not only the future of your family, but your grove as well - particularly since there are six new members studying with you. How do you handle the situation?
4. You get a call from a new member of your group who's very enthusiastic and dedicated to preserving Mother Earth. This person has invited you to join them this weekend in a gathering to clean up a local stream. To be honest, your chief desire is to stay home after another week in the rat race and catch up on a little television. At the same time, you want to do something fo rthe planet and, by example, encourage the new member. How do you resolve your conflicting desires?
5. One of your group's members has what in school would be referred to as an attendance problem. The person is consistently tardy and often enough absent from meetings, always with reasons that, to that person, seem appropriate. Now the member is enthusiastically nominating him or herself as secretary for your group's governing council, saying he or she can easily do the job. How do you respond to this person?
6. You're the high priestess or priest of a coven that works carefully to maintain a balance of female and male energies in ritual. Whenever possible, your coveners alternate, when standing in a circle and always when doing cord magic. This strikes some folk outside your group as being "traditional" or "old-fashioned," but you like it this way. Last week, one of your newly initiated male coveners showed up at the meeting wearing a dress and announced that he is transgendered, news that surprised everyone. This covener wants to continue working with the coven, as a woman. How do you handle the situation?
7. Last week, you had a conversation with a very close friend about their experiences in another magickal working group. Your friend informed you, in no uncertain terms, that he or she believed that the priest of that group was dishonest, manipulative and misogynist. It was his or her opinion that this priest had used his significant knowledge and skills to lure people into joining his fan-club coven and would then intimidate them should they want to leave. Knowing your friend as you do, you have little reason to doubt their experiences but have no objective information to either confirm or deny what they've said. You're now on the phone with an individual who's new to the community who is interested in attending one of the events hosted by the priest your friend described. What do you tell this person?
8. For your entire career as a pagan, you've been taught and believed the stories of the Burning Times. The Malleus Maleficarum, Pope Innocent VII's bull, the "nine million European women" who died horrible deaths - all have become images that represent for you the worst that a patriarchal, fundamentalist Christian society can do, and continues to do, to the underprivileged and the planet. Recently, though, you've begun to learn about research into those dark days that is painting something of a different picture. This research indicates that the numbers of people killed, though still tragically high, is far less than previously stated, that the accuser in a witchcraft trial was often a woman and that early on even pagans were accusing women of witchcraft. What do you do with this new information?
9. It's another day at work, and you've just returned from lunch to find a pamphlet at your desk that describes in detail the horrible punishment awaiting sinners. This is the third time in the past two weeks that some anonymous person has left such leaflets at your desk and nobody else's. Although you're not flamboyant in your dress - no all-black outfits, no shiny pentacles - you don't mind stating your position as a pagan and often take the holidays off as vacation days. Apparently, someone wants to change your mind. How would you handle this?
10. Your grove is fairly new and still small, with only a half-dozen members. Only a couple of you can carry a tune in a bucket and the remainder "frighten the horses" when trying to sing. Just the same, you're determined to add music, singing and chanting to your services. Short of buying recordings of your favorite tunes, what options might you explore?
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