Changes for the New Year

The past few years have been quite a challenging time for us, both as a collective and for many of us individually. In the midst of the general chaos going on in the world, we've been responding by shifting how we operate internally. It's been a long and sometimes arduous process. But we are happy to announce that as of this last Samhain, we ratified a new constitution for the Coru Cathubodua Priesthood. 

One of our pressing questions was how can we more accurately reflect our values of equity, sovereignty, and social justice. Our original constitution was written at a very different time, and numerous parts of it never really reflected how we operated in practice, which leaned towards a more cooperative approach. Over the past few years we grappled with how to level the playing field internally among our members, while also staying true to the initiatory tradition that we've been building. We also felt the need to stay in right relationship with our gods and spirits, in particular the Morrígan to whom we are primarily dedicated. As an entirely volunteer-led organization, we have simultaneously been dealing with life-work balance and finding ways to deal with burnout that comes from having a heavy burden placed on some members. 

So in our new structure that is still being tried on this next year, we have widened our primary officer roles to include teams. While we still have officers on paper to fulfill our 501(c)3 status, the task that was previously focused on one individual is now being shared across several members. The exception to this is our Chief officer position, still valiantly being held down by Barbara Cormack. After dialogue with our gods and spirits, we kept a single person in the role of chieftain, backed with support from other members who served previously in that role so that all that wisdom remains available even as individuals take their turns in the cycle. But our other officer positions - Resources Chieftain, Lore Chieftain, and Communications Chieftain - are now being collectively filled. We are hopeful that this new structure will both lighten the burden on individuals and create a better team atmosphere. 

How this impacts our community is less direct. At worst, there might be some bumps in the road of communication as we work out the wrinkles of this new arrangement of flatter hierarchy and greater collaboration, making sure everything that needs doing is getting done in more personally sustainable ways. At best, you’ll be seeing more from us than we’ve been able to do for a while!

We look forward to continuing to serve the community. New projects are on our horizons and we are as committed as ever. We thank you all for giving us a purpose that unites our members under the banner of the Great Queen for the last 10 years, and what we hope will be many more years to come.

Cover art by Valerie Heron