I have heard that there was some trouble in Paradise over various issues, but my bet is that all will be understood or forgotten by next year; or, more likely, by next week, if I know our attention spans and grudge-holding abilities. Call me blind, deaf, and stupid (again), but I cannot imagine how anybody could see Starwood in general as "negative". Sure, egos get bruised, but we're talking unusually large and tender egos to begin with, and they generally heal up fast. It's an absolute miracle, and a testament of HOPE for HUMANITY, that Starwood manages to happen at ALL, year after year, much less with so LITTLE trouble, commercialism, ego-clashes, etc.
The fact is, it doesn't just happen. A fairly small number of key people keep Starwood happening, by doing a fantastically difficult balancing act of diplomacy mixed with hard-learned practicality. JUDGE NOT until ye hath walked in the moccasins of the Barneys, Jeff Rosenbaum, Joe Rothenberg, and the other serious workers and organizers. You don't see them on stage pontificating and signifying; if you see them at all, they're solving problems. Frequently they solve problems before they happen, and those are the problems that festival goers never hear about or have to deal with. I genuinely feel sorry for those who can see only the little mud-puddles of problems and miss the ocean of Slack that is Starwood.
The worst things I saw at the festival weren't even sad, but funny -- the laughable spectacle of inadvertent clowns taking themselves with utter seriousness. But that goes with the territory, and is part of what keeps Starwood from being the dull monolithic institution run by a dour priesthood that it COULD be, under less democratic and open-minded leadership.
There is plenty of room for Starwood to grow. The minute you start defining who is a "real pagan" and who isn't, and limiting yourselves to a rule book that way, that is when the exploration ends, and the cult for dumb-asses starts. So far, it's still a free-for-all and, like the Internet itself, is great exactly BECAUSE it is uncensored. In such a free place, you should expect and even hope to run into things you don't like.
We DON'T all share the same focus and goals. For Starwood's sake, let's keep it that way. We might learn something.
Original file name: Stang Letter to Starwood List - converted on Monday, 21 July 2003, 13:44
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