![]() But I had an overwhelming feeling of guilt and responsibility, that if I and my crew weren’t there, that my beloved community would be in greater danger. For the past few years I didn’t even enjoy myself. Many of us served as free labor, paying for the privilege of teaching classes and leading rituals and performances, providing peer counseling, resources, and basically what has amounted to very needed unpaid professional grade social services to the community, lending our good names, reputations, skills, labor, and love to the Con.įor many years I have found myself on the other side of PantheaCon wretchedly sick, depleted, exhausted, financially compromised from lost wages as well as con expenses. PantheaCon has maintained the illusion of being a community event, but ultimately has been responsive to market interests above any other factor of the organizing and running of healthy, just, and equitable community. This event has always been Glenn’s event, and she has always had final say about the shaping of the event. The business model of the Con itself has always been entirely a private for-profit enterprise ultimately run by a single person. From egregiously culturally appropriative and blatantly racist, anti-Semitic, and transphobic workshops and rituals (I have not attended a single PantheaCon where this wasn’t a major problem), to near constant racist and transphobic blow ups by community leaders and presenters (many of whom were known offenders and never should have been provided with a platform to begin with), to rampant sexual assault and boundary crossing, PantheaCon has never been a “safe” place. The Priesthood of the Braided Path was organized in part to bring an array of polytheist clergy and devotees together to provide a pan-polytheist Temple and sanctuary space, and had originally been put together explicitly for the PantheaCon community. Strong Roots Wide Branches saw its launch at PCon back in 2015. PantheaCon has been an incubation chamber, an opportunity to grow my skills, serve my Blessed Powers, experiment with group ritual structures and class design, network with skilled spiritual specialists from around the world, grow my reputation, and meet many many folks, some of whom have become good friends, trusted colleagues, co-conspirators, and family to me over the years. This year, the last year of PantheaCon, will be the first Con I haven’t attended since 2003. From the early 2000s onward, I participated every year as a ritualist, workshop leader, organizer, and performer. The Con made some very needed policy changes, and I returned. I attended Con for several years then took a 6 year break because I couldn’t tolerate the extreme, and entirely unchecked, levels of sexual harassment, exploitation, and boundary crossing I experienced in that space. I’ve been attending PantheaCon since the second convention back in 1995, when I performed in LeighAnn Hussey and Annwn’s Rock and Roll Ritual. ![]() I agree with what these wise voices have already called out, clearly and repeatedly: the inadequately managed nor appropriately addressed and redressed racism, transphobia, and other institutionalized oppressions that has always been a deeply embedded part of this Con, the shadiness around the financial aspects of the running of Con, the hard-wired overwork, overwhelm, and exhaustion of the event that appears to be a feature. The many problems with PantheaCon, and many of the folks whom I respect most are not attending, for very good reasons. ![]() The Temple of the Braided Path will not be present among the hospitality suites. Folks who follow my work might have noticed there is nothing on the PantheaCon schedule from River Devora, Strong Roots Wide Branches, nor the Priesthood of the Braided Path. I’ve been sitting with what to say to you, my extended community, for a year now. PantheaCon is starting tomorrow (tonight, I suppose?). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |