For many years now, we’ve had a power as a patron for each year, running from August to July. In the beginning, we held it as a fundraiser for the community and a food-raiser for Harvesters Community Food Bank. A dollar equaled an item equaled 1 vote for that power. A few years ago, we decided to make it truly democratic and uncoupled the voting process from money.
So, now, we hold a forum in the spring to create a slate of nominees (this year, there are nine), and then have several Sundays (this year, there are three) where we present the powers in a series of mini-rituals. The team behind each power’s temple tells us about the power, what kinds of ways they could help our community, and what sorts of commitments they would expect us to have in return.
After the mini-rituals, we’ll have an election using the ranked choice voting system (https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/). The winner becomes our patron for the next year, inspiring and guiding us. We also honor the two runners-up in rituals.
This year’s nominees are Athena, Enki, Ganesha, Ianus, Lao Tze, the Morrigan, Nemetoma, Ninshubur, and a year reviewing previous patrons.
