The mission of the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel goes beyond the training of its members. The ASW also strives to encourage the growth and development of resources and infrastructure within the Pagan community. The Between The Worlds Conference occurs every few years when there is an appropriate astrological event to act as the focus and the anchor for the conference’s work. Shortly after the 2012 Between The Worlds Conference, we selected the date for the next conference and found that it would conflict with the Sacred Space Conference. The usual locations for these conferences are about two and half hours apart by car. There would be competition not only for attendees, but also for prospective teachers. The Sacred Space Conference is an annual event and is about a third of the size of the Between The Worlds Conference and most of the attendees come from the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Between The Worlds draws people from across the United States with a few international attendees as well. We became very concerned that if both conferences were held at their regular times and places that both would suffer. More importantly, we feared that the Sacred Space Conference would lose some of its financial viability if we were in competition with each other. Our event, the Between Worlds Conference is larger and hence has deeper pockets and is accustomed to being an occasional event rather than an annual one.
Ivo Domínguez Jr, one of the ASW’s Elders proposed a joint event as a solution to this dilemma. Representatives from the Assembly of Sacred Wheel and Sacred Space Foundation had numerous emails, phone calls, in person meetings, and finally a site visit to a hotel that we could share as an agreeable compromise. The location is near the traditional site for the Sacred Space Conference in Maryland, instead of our normal Wilmington, Delaware location. What could have been a disaster if we had chosen to compete with each other, may in fact be a benefit to both organizations because we chose cooperation. It certainly was not a trivial matter to work out equitable cost and benefit sharing. A great deal of thought and sensitivity was required to craft a schedule, to allocate the space in the hotel, and to compare notes on which teachers we were inviting to present at our conferences.
The attendees will get to have the benefit of having full access to two conferences for the cost of one. Both conferences are designed to meet the continuous growth and needs of intermediate to advanced practitioners. And for 2015 both conferences chose to cooperate with each other, taking advantage of that synergy of purpose instead of engaging in destructive competition. The two organizations will move forward with the future of both conferences intact, and will also leave a legacy of an example of cooperation amongst pagan/magickal organizations.
A special thanks to Gwendolyn Reece (Sacred Space Chair of the Board) and Michael G. Smith (ASW Elder) for working to make this joint effort possible.