Attacking Leadership

For many years I had a column in the Reclaiming Quarterly. It started out as a column on aromancy, but led over the years to be so much more. I post here a column that was published in August of 2003. I had to fight hard to get it printed, the issue being it was seen as an attack on leadership. My column was soon dropped. Rereading it this week, I just shook my head and felt incredibly sad. The blend that was and is Reclaiming has lost potency due to views like mine being experienced as attacks on leadership, and consequently so many of us putting our energy elsewhere. Why can't things like this be expressed in Reclaiming? Feel free to answer... or question!!!

An Aromancer's Dream - Views on leadership in Reclaiming and in the world

I have a magical drawer that is chock full of essential oils. Opening it is always an olfactory experience, the scent changing according to which bottle has been opened last, which random drop still clings to label or top. What pleasure to look at and inhale my storehouse of smells from root, leaf, nut, fruit, and flower! The essence of a field of Bulgarian roses touches up to dram of balsam collected by Brazilians drop by drop, the maple syrup of the Amazon. A thousand stories, a million possibilities lay waiting for the aromancer to blend into something new and delightful.

In my drawer, there are oils that do not get along, that are not compatible. The beginning aromancer is warned against mixing such essences and encouraged to begin with simple blends. Tree oils tend to get along with spices and herbs. Flowers get along with exotics (like ylang ylang and sandalwood) and citrus.

Beginning aromancers are instructed to start simply, just as musicians learn to compose with basic notes and chords, working towards more complex and intricate compositions.

There are about ten essential oils which any beginning aromancer can start to create different blends. My drawer contains at least 100 oils, an overwhelming amount to confront. For the advanced aromancer, a wide array elicits the promise of a good challenge. Perfumers and aromancers strive towards incorporating wildly different scents into their concoctions, scents that aren't commonly thought to work together, crafting aromatic potions with as much drama and flourish as a good opera.

I am part of a magical community as diverse and complex as my drawer of oils, with many of us taking names from the same beings that these oils are derived from.

We started out, like the beginning aromancer starts out, as a small group of individual spirits, which essentially blended well together. We have become an enormous collection of wildly different beings and groups of beings, all held together by the name Reclaiming. Sometimes collections of us create something transformative, and sometimes the blend of individuals leave all feeling foul.

Recently I have been thinking about Reclaiming and my drawer of oils. I have been thinking about conflict, about peace, and I have been thinking about the idea of "leadership".

I realize that as aromancer and Witch, I view my community and drawer of oils in similar ways. Both are made up of spirits which are individual and distinct, which when blended together create new beings. All have worth and value. Some work well with many others. Some don't, but are incredible when handled carefully (like black pepper and mugwort) making what would be an ordinary blend extraordinary. Some I tend to work with more often and feel deep affinity with; some I work with only on rare occasion. All I see as divine, and none are required in every blend.

Many of us are still recovering from our relationship with Yahweh, the God of the Jews and Christians. This God, when faced with those who did not behave as he wished, kicked them out of the garden. This god, when his favorite angel displeased him, sent him packing to hotter climes. How easy it is, when faced with conflict or working with those we find difficult, to imagine them moving elsewhere, or to simply stop talking to them. How much harder to keep seeing those we have conflict with as valuable, and essential to the mix!

And how much harder this is to do globally, to view those we oppose politically as neither evil nor inhuman. It is challenging to see every human on this planet as having intrinsic value, especially when some of those humans are destroying what we love dearly and hold sacred. Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama give voice to the many who have survived atrocities to the human spirit, yet somehow remain compassionate and reverent towards each individual being, no matter how damaged and destructive.

I look into my drawer and breathe in the angelica. It is not a scent I enjoy individually, but mixed carefully with lavender and mandarin, it creates a fragrance that revitalizes.

As my spiritual community has grown, we have become more complex. We now have as much diversity and depth as my drawer of scents. There are people in the community I downright don't like. There are those that don't like me. These are not necessarily the people I have had conflict with, given that some of my most potent conflicts have been with those I deeply love. We can look at the clash of dissonant personalities and views as a problem, we can look at our clashes as part of the challenge of creating a truly revolutionary blend.

Gandhi said "If you want to change the world, change yourself". What a glorious challenge! I am choosing to view our community as a testing ground for this, believing that if we Witches can create a sustainable community with room for blending diverse voices, without killing each other, or shunning those we find offensive, then maybe this can happen in the world at large. If we can grow at the rate we have been growing, and stay true to our principles of unity, then perhaps we really are changing the world, one meeting and one ritual at a time.

What I love about aromancy is the art of blending, of combining scents. Blended fragrances have a magic that is more intense, more poetic than the individual scents.
This, to me, is also what is so powerful about working with groups. we live in a time that is an aromancer's dream. We are moving from the time of Pisces into the time of Aquarius. The age of Pisces gave us the romance of the hero, gave us such dreamers and visionaries as Martin Luther King and Gandhi. The Age of Aquariuss is about the romance of the blend, not the individual. In this age, individual leadership is not the point.

In this age, heroes change moment to moment, people working together is the new mythos. No charismatic leader is springing from progressive movements, but instead an amazing sense of people working together. On the streets of Seattle a few years back (and I would add now, in the Occupy movement) what stands out is not individuals, but an amazingly diverse blend of spirits. We are not a homogenized group with one brilliant leader, but a complex and brilliant blend.

To quote Pat Hogan, who was long time individual organizer of BC withcamp who segued into being part of an organizing team:

"The Aquarian Age is all about building community, honoring many, as opposed to individual heroes, working for social justice, building a world of equals, communicating in honest ways and using technology for the betterment of all, accepting all races, orientations, peoples. Some of these values carry over to our own Reclaiming communities which I see happening more and more; speaking honestly and openly, naming the many in our community who have no "titles" but contribute much, questioning authority, questioning what has been in order to find new ways of being and working together, coming together under a common banner for actions and demonstrations."

One question raised recently in Reclaiming is how to "support and encourage leadership". I strongly agree that we need to support and encourage each other into stepping into our power, but I think as we enter this new age, we will be looking for new language and new concepts to replace our Piscean ideas of leadership.

Leadership implies that there is someone wh leads, who is out in front, guiding us. Etymologically it springs from a word which means "cause to go along one's way". As time goes on, my guess is that less of us will be interested in being leaders, nor will we be interested in being followers.

What will interest us is being part of a powerful blend, where one spirit does not overwhelm all the rest, not steer the rest towards an individual vision. There will be more support and encouragement for turning the idea of individual leadership on its head, with a healthy respect given all who make up the circle, not just those who are comfortable in the middle of the circle.

This does not mean we will need to discount those of us whose gifts tend to catch attention and hold it rapt. The most powerful blends include both delicate and strident scents. I support and encourage each of us to hold precious to our true and essential natures, to feel the vibrancy of our different qualities, and to notice how they imbue and enhance our community, even if we are washing the dishes instead of cooking the meal.

We move from the individual hero into the time of the heroic blend. In this blend we call Reclaiming, we come together under a common banner. The spirits beneath that banner are as varied and complex as my drawer of scents from around the globe.

Together we create something new, something strong, and something potent. On the streets of San Francisco, on the streets of New York, London, and around the globe, our powerful blend infuses the widening stream of other who, working together, are bringing in a dawn of a new age.