Leadership Issues: Failure to Plan

This post is both about venting my spleen about issues in my household, and a lesson in Pagan leadership, particularly event organizers. I live on a farm in a rural area, and the top of the silo half blew off in the storm last week and is now bouncing around precariously. Some parts have fallen, the rest needs to come down. I live with my boyfriend and his wife, and it turns out that my boyfriend’s wife (ie, my metamour) is highly emotionally abusive. It’s a complicated situation and the abuse impacts the rest of the scenario.

Getting back to the silo, my partner had a plan for doing this on Tuesday on his day off. (He works third shift on a rotating schedule of 12-hour shifts. This weekend he works Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, so he’s pretty wiped out by the end of that.) We talked through how I could help with the plan, and waiting til Tuesday gives me time to finish up some of my own backlogged to-do list.

My metamour, however, decided to just do it today on her own. This didn’t go well. But first, the backstory.

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Pantheacon 2017 Schedule

Here it is, my schedule for this year’s Pantheacon. The bolded items are workshops or rituals I’m leading, or supporting. As always, we’ll see how many of the workshops I actually get to.

Full Moon Gratitude: February

I can’t believe Pantheacon’s in a week. So much to do! It’s full moon again, and I’m once again feeling a lot of gratitude, so I thought I’d post about that. Gods know we could all use a little hope in the world right now.

Your Hate has Made You Powerful

This one’s a repost as the blog it was on is now defunct. Though I wrote it a few years ago, it seemed appropriate given the political climate and the many people rising as activists to fight against a bigoted regime.

There’s a quote from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi that has nagged at me for years. In my 20′s, it was an inspiring quote that brought a lot of energy to me when the chips were down and I was fighting the good fight.

After I did a lot of feminist leadership training, I reversed my opinion on the line: “Your hate has made you powerful.”

Compassion, Truth, and Bonesetting

I was taught that setting the bone is a crucial part of being a priest/ess, a leader. That sometimes we have to hurt in order to heal. And I was also taught that truth often hurts. We couch so many things in white lies to salve someone’s feelings, to soothe it over, to make it hurt less. But those attempts to ease pain in the short term often cause longer term pain. In essence–sometimes the deepest form of compassion is to say the hard thing. It hurts in the short term, but it heals in the long term.

Ritual and Chanting Prep: My Voice Warm Up Playlist

When I teach workshops on chanting, or on chanting in context of trancework, energy building in ritual, or other logistics, I talk a lot about how important it is to sing a lot and keep your voice warmed up. In short, our voices are a muscle. Don’t expect to roll out of bed and have a good singing voice, or to have a strong singing voice to lead chants if the only time you sing is 8 times a year for sabbats (or less). While I don’t sing every day, I do sing at least a few times a week. One of the things I suggest to folks instead of singing scales (which, for my part, is pretty boring) is to find songs to sing along with. 

Music, Magic, and Life on the Road

My posts have been sporadic, and I apologize for that. As a writer, it’s really tough when I’m not able to do that writing thing. That being said, my past months have been chock full of new experiences that will give me writing fodder for months (and years) to come. I’ve been traveling and teaching at different festivals and events, and recently I’ve really been upping my game as a musician and connecting more with other Pagan musicians.