Thanks so much for the interview with Leon Reed. I really appreciated his insights and comments on the history of the Craft in the Seattle area. It is refreshing to see a witch with so much experience who is still humble.
Good for you for publishing it! And thanks for being on the Internet!
Blessed Be!
Betsy
Dear editors,
Thank you for your review of the Cascadian Pagan Leadership Conference that was printed in the Yule 1995 issue of Widdershins. I'm really happy that Widdershins was able to give as much coverage of the event as it did - about two pages including your review, the queries and the letters. That's really quite a lot.
In your review, you pointed out some of the shortcomings of the event and offered some welcome constructive criticisms. Needless to say, whenever anyone puts on a public event, there will always be things that could have been done better. If people don't speak up and offer suggestions, there might not be any changes. The suggestions you offered will hopefully help make future conferences better than this first one. What would be even more valuable would be for those people who have ideas on how to improve the event to join the other volunteers on the planning committee.
However, I am concerned that you may have missed the whole point of the leadership conference. Several times in your review, you alluded to expecting that the conference would be a format for leadership in the usually accepted role - that is someone "to who we could all look for clear and authoritative leadership." You wrote that you could not see "any Aleister Crowleys or Starhawks emerging from these incredibly overpriced sessions." I have to admit, I'm glad you didn't find that, and to be honest, I'm surprised that you were looking for it.
The point of the conference, from the perspective of the organizers, wasn't to underscore or promote any one person's agenda for leading paganism into the future. Nor was it to promote one individual or type of individual as having leadership qualities and the rest of us as being sheep to follow along. The intent of the conference was to encourage dialogue between individuals and groups of individuals about common challenges, share potential solutions to those challenges and encourage each person to become informed and involved in doing something about those challenges. In short, we were seeking to encourage each individual to empower themselves as leaders.
Leadership need not be a dramatic thing. One needn't free the oppressed, feed the starving or end bigotry to practice leadership. Simply taking the risk to make a personal stand based on personal ethics in everyday life involves being a leader. Your writing the review of the conference demonstrates your willingness to take this sort of risk. Your offering constructive suggestions is another step. Becoming involved in implementing those suggestions is still another step in accepting leadership.
Upon further consideration of your reflection that you didn't see any Starhawks and Crowleys emerging from conference, I would offer that you might be selling short those people who attended. Starhawk and Crowley, and countless others, chose to marshal their resources into making changes in the worlds around them. My understanding is that everyone who attended the conference made the choice to set aside time and money to focus on how they might be able to make changes in their worlds. Regardless of what we brought to and took from attending, I believe that all of us continue to make choices that affect the future of paganism.
Thank you again for your review. Best wishes to you and Widdershins.
Alex Kirby
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