Ethics, Products, AI, oh my! A note about the shops/stops. 

Hello hello, my loves! 

The CT Witch Crawl is my love letter to the witchy, Pagan, metaphysical, and adjacent small businesses of Connecticut, and you; and I am so proud to connect our community with the magic that lives in these spaces. Although I have a great support system, I am one person doing this during my free time between college classes, working a 9-5, and trying to squeeze in time to spend with my wife.

That said:  I don't conduct exhaustive reviews of every product, supplier, or practices a shop carries, and I will not be asking business owners about their ethnic backgrounds, cultural affiliations, or spiritual training. I don't feel it's my place to police that. I do lightly vet each stop to make sure they are safe people and align with my most pressing ethical values. 

Shop owners that are known predators, anti-LGBTQ, pro-MAGA, etc. are not invited to participate. 

On that note, I want to talk about where I stand on generative AI. I cannot control how participating businesses run their own marketing. What I do ask is that AI-generated images and flyers not be used in conjunction with the CT Witch Crawl such as its name, logo, or any events (or my other biz, The Untamed Priestess, or me/my name).

The data models powering these tools have largely been trained on stolen artwork without the consent or compensation of the artists who created it, and the environmental cost of running them is detrimental. 

For a community that holds the Earth sacred it feels wrong and counterintuitive to me to use these "tools". 

Beginning 2027, I will be factoring the use of generative AI marketing into my decisions about who participates in the crawl.

As always, I ask that you bring your own values with you as you're crawling. You may encounter products, practices, or traditions that don't resonate with your personal path and that's ok and a part of moving through a raw, diverse, beautifully complicated community. 

Spend your money where it feels right. Ask questions when you're curious. Trust yourself as a practitioner. Let businesses know (as respectfully as you can) what you'd like to see and why you'll be taking business elsewhere, if that's what you choose. I trust the competency of my fellow witches and mystics here in this community. 

I'm here to show you where the magic is. What you do with that map is yours to decide.

With so much love, 

Autumn