Post-ConVocation Thoughts

I've given myself a week to decompress from ConVocation, because there was just so much going on, I needed that much processing time.

Don't get me wrong - it's a great problem to have.

I made a brief post to FB immediately after the con, thanking the people and groves who helped make the Druid Fellowship Suite happen again this year, as well as those who stopped by for conversation since that is what truly made it a success. It is always a privilege to coordinate that suite, as well as the druid hallway arrangements, and I felt that this year it was even more so. I invest a lot of time and effort in order to insure that our Suite suitably demonstrates my understanding of Hospitality, and it is rewarding to see that same effort returned by our guests. I take it as proof that *ghosti  is alive and well.

Image by Gerd Altmann (Creatives Commons CC0)

The biggest question, by far, I have been asked "But how were the Consent Workshops?"  I am happy to report that the subject was well received, and while we may have hoped for a larger crowd, there were also several teaching moments which occurred organically throughout the weekend. We are also planning to run the workshop again at our Grove Retreat, next month. Following that, there may be some tweaking of material, but I really believe that Reverend Hill did a great job of finding the balance between information, discussion, and exercises. The responses were quite enthusiastic.

Otherwise, there were two surprising take-aways for me.

The first, diversity, came up during a discussion panel on the subject of ethics. Our own former Arch Druid Fox sat on the panel, and the conversation revolved around a few touchy topics, which included the subject of hate speech. That topic, in and of itself, was very emotional not just for the panel members, but for nearly everyone in the room. It was wonderful to see so many different paths and traditions agreeing that hate speech can simply not be tolerated. It would seem, based on such things, that we are not quite as diverse as we might think.

At one point, though, Jacki Smith (a Detroit local and elder) spoke up, saying that we all talk about how inclusive we are, but when she looked around the room? That was not what she was seeing. The subject was discussed, stereotypes were mentioned and challenged, and Jacki ultimately summarized it with the idea that if we want to be truly inclusive, we cannot just say "everyone is welcome." We need to do the work. We need to go out into the communities and make sure that they know they are welcome.  And if they still aren't coming, we need to go back and ask what we can do to make them feel welcome.

Jacki gave words to the ideas that have been tumbling around in my head. At her words, they finally clicked into place. This is precisely the sort of bridges I think we need to be building. I have been saying for years to those who will listen that the beauty of the rainbow is not in the individual colors, but in the combination of all the colors, and people should be thought of the same way. It does not matter the color of one's skin, or their spiritual path, or their gender identity, or, or, or... it matters that we learn to love them as they are and accept that by doing so, we all become more beautiful for it.

I now have an understanding that it is not enough for me to feel that way, I need to do the work. And I need to do the follow-up.

The second big take-away for me was an increased sense of community, or more specifically, of expanding my community. I have been actively working on getting to know people outside of my grove and getting to know folks outside my local community for some time now. In previous years, ConVocation was full of "people" - most of whom I did not know. In some ways, that mindset made it a bit of an ordeal. I had shields up whenever I went to a class or workshop. I spent energy concentrating on protecting myself, insulating myself, and cleansing away whatever unfamiliar things I might have bumped against.

Last year, I made a conscious effort to try to do less of that. Instead, I began to work on networking and getting to know a "new" person here there.

This year, the results of those efforts paid dividends. Instead of seeing faces that I just "recognized" this year, I saw "people that I knew" and it was a phenomenal boost to my energy. It made the weekend feel more like a homecoming than an ordeal. Very similar to the feeling I get when attending ADF Festivals, just on a smaller scale.