A blog about Paganism and disability.
How to Get Me to Avoid Your Pagan Festival
I’m singling out one group here, which is really unfair, but on the other hand, they’ve been putting on Pagan events for decades and really ought to know better. In any case, the points herein should apply to any large-scale Pagan event.
“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.†— Helen Keller
“Recognize that the other person is you.” — Buddhist proverb
One of the things that drew me to Paganism was the acceptance and welcome I found there – not just for me, but for lots of people who feel “different†in more conventional settings.
These days, I’m the one feeling different. Thanks to an accident of heredity, I’ve been handed an incurable physical disability that began in my 40s and is getting worse each year. I get to deal with this in every part of my life, but right now I’m concerned about the Pagan part.
A friend recently invited me to attend a Pagan event with her – Twilight Covening, a long-weekend intensive put on by the EarthSpirit folks in Massachusetts. I know some people who’ve gone and found it valuable, so I was interested enough to check out the Web site. Here are some quotes from the descriptions of available activities:
- For a clan (weekend intensive) focused on energy work: “Participants should be able to stand comfortably for at least half an hour.â€
- For a clan on ritual and energy work: “Please do not sign up for this clan if you have … mobility challenges.â€
- For a clan on singing and chant: “We will do some moderate hiking.â€
- For a clan that is building an oven and baking bread to build a connection with Earth and Water: “People with health, mobility or physical touch issues should not apply for this clan.â€
You get the picture. After exploring the site, I came away with a strong feeling that I was not welcome, and told my friend I wouldn’t be going.
As the Pagan community grows and its leaders age, we ARE going to have more people among us with disabilities. There may, indeed, be more than we think already – I know more than one Pagan with disabilities who simply stays away from community events because he or she does not feel welcome. That makes me sad – and, because it’s now my problem as well, it makes me angry.
What I want to do is to turn my negative experience into a positive one. I’d like to propose a few standards for inclusion.
If you are putting on an event – a ritual in your home, a public workshop, a larger event – pay attention to what physical abilities are needed to participate.
Next, consider whether there are alternatives to your plans that would be more inclusive.
- Is it possible to move the event to a wheelchair-accessible space?
- Can those who prefer not to go on the hike – for any reason, not just physical ability – do something equally meaningful as an alternative?
- How can your warrior workshop include the person who has a warrior’s soul in a less-than-agile body?
- Can the space be arranged so the leaders’ mouths are visible to those who need to lip-read?
- Who in your community might be available to provide a ride?
- Is there a space available that’s on a public transit route?
For extra credit, consider how your event can help those with imperfect bodies (that is, all of us) build connections between physical and spiritual worlds, so that ALL participants leave feeling they have been encouraged and welcomed.
Finally, communicate in an inclusive way. How much different would my experience have been if the Twilight Covening people had indicated which clans would be best and most comfortable for people with mobility issues?
For smaller community events, of course there need to be compromises. Many of us do not have wheelchair-accessible homes, including me (and yes, that’s going to be a problem eventually). Be as clear as you can about what is and is not available, and offer to work with individual participants to find ways around barriers.
I know many leaders do these things as a matter of course. They make sure there’s a suitable chair or parking space for a mobility- challenged participant. They provide a guiding arm to a blind Pagan, or make sure someone helps the hard-of-hearing person understand the ritual.Â
Most of all, they treat EVERY Pagan as a whole and worthwhile person. This article ends with my gratitude to them, and my own resolve to remember these lessons in my community work.
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about 14 years ago
An excellent post, Patricia!
I fully agree that everyone deserves *meaningful* participation in ritual. Too many times the less-abled are allocated to the outside of the Circle, or are given a pointless task like clapping or mumbling a chant as an afterthought. Sadly, this does not make them feel engaged or valued and the worst is it could easily be avoided. It is not difficult to come up with alternative ways to fully integrate everyone into the ritual and into the community spirit itself.
It does seem odd that that Twilight has put so much effort into identifying what is NOT accessible without also adding new programming that IS. I would recommend that any community start by asking what its participants would find most helpful physically (and magickally) on a wide variety of access points. Your comment on lip-reading is a good one; temperature is another consideration as not everyone can do outdoor work in October, even with a fire circle.
Yes, of course, we want to have a chair handy or a parking space, or to make sure our blind friends don’t trip over tree roots. That’s incredibly basic and obvious. (I also don’t want anyone’s hair set aflame by a stray candle. :D) However, as Pagans, we should use our magickal tools to full advantage, and aim to make make greater inclusivity and access into magickal space a bigger priority. Adding back in these missing fragments only serves to make our Communities into the truly powerful places they deserve to be.
Love, Light, Laughter,
Chesh
about 14 years ago
Here, Here! I appreciate both your understanding and your insistence. My experience as a person with physical limitation, as a parent of a person with cerebral palsy, and as someone who regularly participates in and hosts rituals is that the balance between what is actually physically do-able in terms of the space, and what is optimum is often difficult.
One key is for me to communicate, communicate, communicate with either my guests or my hosts. For example, I cannot make the steps that lead to the doors in my house disappear. I can, however, be sure that a guest knows in advance what IS available by way of accommodation (ie. strong arms to help, a place to sit, doors held open).
I am unwilling to orphan my pets in case someone has an allergy, but I CAN warn the allergic person ahead of time, offer a chair that is not upholstered, and do a careful job cleaning the area.
I cannot do certain tasks or movements in ritual, and at times am simply unable to attend for physical reasons…but I really like to know in advance if getting to the site might involve those tasks or movements.
And as a ritual designer and participant, the notion of limitation extends to the emotional and psychic impact as well… What is it like to be the one sitting on the sidelines during the Spiral Dance? To be the last in line for the feast? To spend the better part of the ritual entertaining a cranky 3 year old? What message will the sacred drama send to those who witness it?
Yes, as a magical person, I am ultimately responsible for myself and my choices. As are my hosts and my guests. And yes, as a magical person, I am invited to cooperate with my clan, my land and my world for the good of all.
The questions of mobility are deeply connected to the life and health of the community. Thank you for raising them, Jane.
Blessings,
Thea
about 14 years ago
Wow. How incredibly frustrating.
The Coven I co-founded had to deal with some of these issues from very early on; others came to our attention later. By the time we’d been together five years, our very small core membership included people with asthma, migraine, fibromyalgia, allergies, chemical sensitivities, and several interesting injuries. Our much larger extended community always included people from infants through elders, with all sorts of interesting issues, and some with no issues but whose awareness needed to be raised.
It meant we had to be pretty deliberate about how we did everything — from cleansing the circle (no incense or sage) to making sure everybody knew what was in the food at potlucks (no alcohol allowed, nuts and peanuts labeled).
Pretty early on, we devised ways for people with mobility restrictions to be at the center of the May Pole; to make sure we always posted information about different kinds of accessibility; to make sure we were accessible by public transit, by pick-up from public transit, or by carpool if we made a field trip to a remote area… Now we have more practice. And all of our events are clean and sober, and fragrance-free.
Not that we’ve ever been perfect at accessibility, and not that we’re perfect now — far from it. And we don’t have the resources, meeting as we do in people’s houses. But as you say, hopefully we can be aware, and willing, and creative.
I’m so glad you’re bringing this out into the open!
Blessed be,
Stasa
about 14 years ago
Excellent article and I hope it gets wide circulation because we must face the fact that not all of us are strong, healthy and the stereotypical ‘god-like’ image…the Divine resides inside- none the less.I have neurological injuries that impair my ability to stand occasionally-not good if your leading a ritual As the HPs, I sit often after opening the ritual, or have someone else do it. Unfortunately I have had to go a couple of rounds with members of our group who are ‘traditional’ in the respect that everyone in the circle be as ‘perfect’ a specimen as possible…as if the gods care about your physical ability or appearance. Perhaps as we explore our lives together our abilities or disabilities will not matter. We are all differently abled, we are all unique….and we are all divine.
about 14 years ago
“As the Pagan community grows and its leaders age, we ARE going to have more people among us with disabilities. There may, indeed, be more than we think already – I know more than one Pagan with disabilities who simply stays away from community events because he or she does not feel welcome. That makes me sad – and, because it’s now my problem as well, it makes me angry.â€
I began dealing with this over 15 years ago, first for an older friend, and then for myself soon after. I had to stop going to the local monthly gatherings, because there often was no place for me to sit but the ground, no place to set my plate after the potluck (which I ended up last in line because I otherwise was too slow), and ground that was treacherous for me to try to walk on. It was assumed that everyone could walk anywhere, stand for an entire ritual, and eat and drink standing up. Guess what? A person who lost the use of one side in a stroke can’t do that!
I would carefully label my potluck item with ingredients, and someone would throw the label away, or dump something else in with it. I would stake out a rare chair, get up to use the restroom, and a healthy teenager and a gaggle of giggles would be in it. The ritual planners would plan on everyone taking these walks around a little maze, or dancing into the area, and would not realize that some of us don’t move that well. Seriously, I have wished I was in a chair – just so people might think!
I now attend one pagan event a year – PantheaCon – because it is indoors and accessible. Everything else I do at home, or online. I am not up to playing disabled advocate in my pagan life too. It’s hard enough stumbling after the under 30, able-bodied types I work with.
about 14 years ago
God and Goddess, Vulcan’s Sister, thank you for writing this! I’m a Wiccan with an invisible disability, and it’s so easy to feel isolated in trying to bring these issues to the attention of the larger community. Personally, I was delighted to see specific mention of disability issues in Bonewits’ book on putting together good rituals, but unfortunately, it’s up to us to do the heavy lifting of awareness-raising in our own groups. I’ll be reading you regularly and look forward to how this conversation develops!
about 14 years ago
Just a little mention I think may have been overlooked. In addition to being ignorant and insensitive to physical disabilities this is incredibly disrespectful to our elders!
How many of them are able to participate in these activities? Are we willing to forgo the wealth of their knowledge for a few strenuous activities? That would be a shame.
about 14 years ago
Comments on How to Get Me to Avoid Your Pagan festival.
Immediate disclaimer- I am writing as an individual, however, I am on the EarthSpirit Community Board of Directors and I have helped organize and have participated in our gatherings including Twilight Covening for almost 30 years. I am also 59, severely overweight, have fibromyalgia, arthritis, a new hip and a knee and shoulder still awaiting replacement, so I am in the physically challenged group you are advocating for in this post. For the last five years I have needed support to be able to attend these events and I have received it, along with a number of other people in need.
This year at Twilight Covening I was actually in the Camel Clan, which was a weekend of yoga. I have never done yoga and I couldn’t do most of the postures that most of the clan was doing but I wanted to push myself a little and also wanted to learn the breath-work. The clan leaders helped me do as much as I could, even coming up with alternatives that I could do in a chair. None of this support was because of my position on the Board or as a frequent clan leader; other handicapped people received the same kind of support. Our clan leader drove me and another clan member to clan sessions in her car. Another support person quietly shadowed me as I attempted and succeeded in doing the lengthy outdoor ritual in case I needed to stop or needed help. Instead,another participant stayed with me and felt that his experience of the ritual was enhanced by being able to offer support. There is also an alternative, indoor, seated ritual for those who would find the lengthy outdoor ritual too much.
Perhaps the brochure and web site for Twilight Covening feel heavy with warnings to you – but, in fact, only on 4-5 clans out of the 17 offered this year had that kind of information included in the description. In the past some pagans have been surprised at the amount of physical activity included in some of the clan work – like going for long walks in the woods, or spending considerable time outdoors in focused activities regardless of the weather – all of which seem like appropriate activities for many pagans to participate in. We feel that advance warning is a courtesy to all so that people can know what kind of work each Clan entails and choose what will work best for them. Most of the Clans are accessible to all, regardless of physical ability.
It may make you sad that people stay away from events because they are not accessible. While I appreciate your advocacy, and I support increasing awareness and accessibility at pagan events, it makes me sad that your comments will exacerbate that situation when a simple phone call to the gathering coordinators could make attendance possible.
about 14 years ago
Sue, I’m very glad you’ve had such a positive experience! I did communicate with the organizers before the event and was offered transportation to clan meetings held at a distance. However, I also was told that the terrain was very challenging and there was an “alternative” ritual for people with disabilities to be held during the main, more active one. That did not sound very inclusive to me. I would like to see EarthSpirit take on the challenge of communicating a welcome to Pagans at all levels of ability.