It's about People

This past Pantheacon of 2011 has opened a long standing discussion and factor within the Pagan community. That of gender, and gender discrimination.

I am not going to use this space to rehash a rundown of what happened at PCon, and I really don't have much to say on the ritual in question itself other than to say it was a powerful and moving experience for many of the women who attended, and I am forever grateful to help make that happen.

No, instead I will direct you to CAYA response to Pcon, Gender, and the Amazon Rite of Lilith. 

Because it's this that I want to share with you all. It is one of the many many reasons that I love and am proud to serve as a HPS in CAYA. We are not perfect, we are not stagnant. We are a group of people that are committed to holding ourselves to a higher standard, having hard difficult uncomfortable conversations, and evolving our thinking and practice.

That statement is a product of hard work, ethics and love.

I am sure that since the very last day of Con, and certainly once the conversation hit the internet, people have been wondering where CAYA's voice was. And the truth is we were in deep conversation. Admist the blogs and comments it was very surreal to see the "CAYA" name being used so much, and frequently with the intention that it were some unified force. And it is, but it isn't.

I guess the insight I'd like to share is that CAYA is a large group of people. We don't have a machine that hands down all the answers, we don't have some dogmatic law that we contrive all our decisions from, there isn't one overlord who hands down proclamations.  We are an odd bunch of eccentric differing people that all share a love and a commitment.

So after Con, during Con, the conversations were flowing. Not in a immediately we all got the bat signal and in a sharply lit conference room, we all met and immediately knew what each other were thinking and proceeded with absolute clarity, kinda way. Though that would be cool on some level. While the internet buzzed at light speed, everything happening in a moment, our inboxes and text messages were filling with conversations from each other. Our several email lists (because we have many) were a buzz with the wide variety of perspectives, concerns, and emotions of all the individual people that make up CAYA. There was hurt and dismay, I can speak with authority that NO ONE in CAYA likes to cause harm to anyone intentionally or un. Seeing that we had harmed others was truly heart wrenching. There was a wide gambit of emotions and all needed to be tended to while having a conversation and deciding together on what our statement would be.

It started with and Amazon ritual and thus it started within the Amazon Tribe, so 19 powerful opinionated women, had to have hard uncomfortable conversation and come to an understanding. Then it had to go to the High Council, some of whom are Amazons and some of whom are not but all of whom then had to look at things from a different perspective, with a higher level of responsibility. Finally it had to go out to the entire Coven, a group of 30 some odd people, to look it over, voice their concerns, alter it, and come to a consensus.

No small task. And not one undertaken lightly.

But it doesn't end with this statement for us. We are all still going to be having these hard conversations, because we don't have the answers.

For myself personally, and for others, I don't even know where my opinion on this great matter falls. I am freely admitting my ignorance to the internet and thus the world, that up until this conversation it had never occured to me that the matter of gender was such a great one. I have had the privileged of a sheltered life, and while I am eternally grateful for that in many respects, in situations like these I am at a disadvantage. Throughout this conversation I have had to learn and have to continue to learn, as I am woefully in the dark. I've have now been opened to many new ideas and theories about the nature of gender that I'd never heard before. Words like cisgender, and binary gender systems, are not things I was familiar with.  They are things I will become familiar with, as it is only through knowledge and learning that can find common ground.

The thing that I do know, without a doubt, is that there is a great need in this community and the world. A great need for power, healing, and self growth in the Divine. It is something that we in the Amazon tribe strive for ourselves and for the community of women we have been providing for these past years. It is a need so great that it has extended past our limited understandings and reached others we could not see, did not intend. Powerful magic works like that. I believe that we will step up to this great need, without abandoning the sacred work we are doing, somehow, someway. There simply is enough power, healing, and Divine for all to have the sacred space they need. 

I love my people. And I know that we will all strive to better ourselves and continue to grow with the same integrity as always.

Fierce Love to All

Cheiftain Branwen

HPS of CAYA Coven in the Amazon Tribe