Learning about Consent

I had a big long post ready to go last week about how excited I was to be starting the Pagan Consent Culture course at Cherry Hill Seminar this week. Silly me saved it, but never published it. And now, it would be silly to share it, since it's so out of date.

Instead, you get this brief recap:

- The course started yesterday.
- I am extremely excited. Not only is my husband taking it with me, but there are other druids in the class.
- I have read two of the four articles for the week already, and written a synopsis of one of them.

The "I'm not a racist, but" myth

These days, the term "Social Justice Warrior" seems to evoke a mixed bag of feelings. Some folks wear it proudly as a badge of honor, using it as their declaration that they fully intend to fight injustice and inequality on every front. Other use it as an insult, implying that people need to quit fighting for others and work on becoming better people themselves.

I think those views represent the extreme edges of the term's usefulness. If we examine the term as a spectrum, I expect that the majority of us fall somewhere in between - we might have an issue or two that we are willing to fight for, but we aren't going to wall for everything.

Image by Gerd Altmann (Creative Commons CC0)

Running for Office Equals Personal Growth - Who Knew?

In previous years, when someone newer to ADF asked me for my opinions on the elections, I shared with them who I voted for and why.

But this year, as a candidate for the Mother Grove, I've found myself thinking about this a bit differently. I'm trying to approach this as a leader, rather than as "just another member." I am finding my change is attitude a bit fascinating, really. When asked by a grove member what I thought about the election and how they should vote, I paused before answering.

First and foremost, I found myself wanting people to make informed decisions when casting their votes. I want them to know as much as possible when casting their votes. Their votes mean more to me that way.

So I didn't just tell them about the people I voted for, I told them what I know about the people I did not vote for, also, and I tried to keep it as unbiased as possible. I pointed them to the questions answered by the candidates, so that they can read the responses for themselves, rather than getting the information through my filters.

And I thought about how to handle this going forward. If asked where a candidate stands on an issue, I will share their response to the questions. If they did not provide an answer, or if their position is still unclear, I will be honest and say that I do not know. But I will also suggest that perhaps they could ask the candidate directly, or offer to ask on their behalf.

So far, I have only had to reach out once to clarify something, for my own understanding, and I am happy that I did, because it led to a good conversation with another candidate. A conversation I might not have otherwise had.

The entire election process has already proven to be a source of personal growth in that it forced me to actually examine my own motivation in answering the questions. And now it has provided me with further growth in helping me define where my boundaries and personal integrity lie.

This makes me happy, my own personal Ides of March.