Limen: Thoughts from a threshold

I just got back from one of the more meaning-dense hours of my life. (And y’know, my life? It is not exactly lacking meaning-dense hours.)

One of our local churches - one with a long history of social justice, questioning ‘how it has to be’ and everything else - has been running a 10 day arts festival focusing on spiritual questions and covering a *wide* range of paths. I’ve managed to drive past this church regularly (it’s at the corner of the exit I get off the highway for for work) but hadn’t actually gotten around to going to the URL until yesterday.

(The festival is Spirit in the House. It runs through Sunday, June 1st, and if I’m still in the Twin Cities next year, I suspect I’ll be aiming at getting a festival pass because there really are about 10 things I’d like to see.)

When I did, I discovered that there was a performance of Invocation to Free Women based on material from Ruth Barrett (a Dianic priestess now living in Wisconsin) with some extra added stuff. Tickets were $12. I’m short on cash after having to buy two new tires yesterday (one of mine turned out to be unsafe when getting standard maintenance done). And then, this morning, had the sale of two gaming books to someone who will love them and use them.

I pay attention when the universe lines things up like that.

I had a chance to do a chant workshop with Ruth Barrett at the Mankato Women’s Spirituality Conference a few years ago: she’s a talented and thoughtful priestess, even if her path is not quite my path. One thing that I do find the Dianic community does particularly well, though, is the integration of music, dance, and other arts into ritual work. I own the CD the title of this piece comes from, which is a song that always makes me think.

The performance was fantastic. Six women, three musicians, a director, a tech guy. The women all have significant other acting credit and experience: one of them is a vocal and dramatic coach with a voice to die for (and the others were quite good singers, too.) The performance is an interweaving of music, dance, poetry, and spoken word, divided into short acts focusing on different aspects.

Some of the history’s a little suspect (mostly in the witch trial segment), but not by too much. The rest of it? Stunning. Gorgeous. Fascinating to watch six different women, evoking different goddesses, different moods, different modes. Very simple costuming and ’set’ (fabric covered boxes to sit or stand on) and a double handful of small props. Very engaging. Visuals that are going to keep me thinking for a while.

I still can’t quite believe it was only an hour.

I was also amused that not long after I got there, so did my former housemates (and still friends), so I got to chat to them for a little bit after, before heading off home. Soon for the housecleaning and the eating of dinner, and the petting of cat, and maybe some not being productive for a bit as it’s been a productive day. Tomorrow for the farmer’s market, and some longer project time.

I’ve been thinking about ways to talk about things I like - books, music, websites, whatever - that’s at least loosely related to the topics I talk about here, so I’ve decided to do a once a week post (as you might guess, on Fridays) with something I like and why I like it.

The question, of course, is where to start. There’s a lot of stuff I like.

One of the things that’s been on regular replay on my iTunes recently is Heather Dale (currently her latest release, The Gabriel Hounds, downloadable from her website at http://heatherdale.com (you can also order songbooks and CDs from her). Some of her albums are also in iTunes.

Dale’s music is rooted in the Celtic folk tradition, with a lot of other additions (a bit of blues, a bit of jazz, etc.). The overall emphasis is on interesting stories, and on music that enhances and expands them.

The most recent album has several songs I like, but the ones that got me hooked on her music are on her Road to Santiago album. “Sedna” is a song about the Inuit ocean goddess (hey, I’m true to form about water deities), with a particularly earwormy-in-the-best-way tune. Another track on that album, “Medusa” is a fascinating take on self-image. I’m also quite fond of the title track: my mother’s did the Santiago pilgrimage a few years ago, and I find the history and culture behind it absolutely fascinating.

I’ll also note that while a lot of Arthurian material sometimes puts my teeth on edge, Dale’s doesn’t: her takes are not always mine, but I often come away with some new thought about an interaction from them. When money permits, I definitely plan to pick up the songbooks.

I spent Tuesday evening at a retirement party.

I currently work in the library at an independent school, one that’s been around for over a hundred years. The party was for two teachers (in different departments) who met and married early in their careers at the school - who have both taught here for well over 30 years. They are core to the school, and it’s going to be a very different place next year.

It was an excellent party - good food, and laughter, and people who’d retired in previous years coming back, and stories, and good humor.  It also made me think.

We talk in the Pagan community about community elders: the people we look up to, the people who help us frame the conversations in and around and about our lives, the people who offer thoughts and wisdom and advice - but who don’t push their answers on the person asking.

It was clear, at this party, how many incredibly intelligent, capable, wonderful teachers looked up to these two, in so many ways. I work with really amazing people (it’s one of the main reasons I’ve stayed with the job so long), and when they all think someone else is amazing? You pay attention. Close attention.

One teacher told a story of when she was department head, of asking one of these teachers (a former head of that department) for help on how to figure out a staffing issue. She came up with plan after plan, and would go and ask for advice, and get back the answer “You’ll figure it out.” After a number of revisions, she came up with a really good plan, one that solved all the problems, and tried again - to get a smile, and a “I knew you’d get here!”.

It’s teaching without being patronising. It’s guiding, but treating your colleagues like the mature, capable, competent, intelligent adults that they are, and standing back and seeing how they solve things, not how you’d solve things. It’s being a resource, without doing all the work for someone else. It’s sharing the cool stuff, without competition or fear of losing your own value. These are people who *know* they’re good teachers, who know how many lives they’ve touched - but who also know they can always improve, and who were, up until the very end of the semester, both looking for new ways to teach material, to engage their students, to share their wisdom and knowledge.

That was part of it.

The other part is about community. Both children of these teachers were there, and they spoke about what it was like growing up as part of the community, having many of the teachers in the room as family friends. And from that came stories that I’d known but not quite pieced together.

These are teachers who are very careful about how they spend their time. They invested incredible time outside the classroom in grading, designing assignments, or creating new courses. They spend their time thoughtfully: they’d rather travel to an interesting place, or see a specific, chosen film, than have the TV on or watch whatever the summer blockbuster is. They read in a way that awes and amazes an extremely literate and well-read community. They’ve been active in their community - in politics, in community service, in service to the school - in all sorts of ways.

But they’ve also done a host of other things. One teacher there spoke of how she’d worried when her husband began working at the same campus - what would it be like to work with your spouse? These two retiring teachers invited them both over for dinner, not just once, but regularly, to talk about how it worked for them and what mattered. They’ve done similar things for other teachers at various times in their lives: reached out in small and quiet ways on a personal level - and been quite active in discussions about school structure and administration on a more public one.

These are all things I’ve been thinking about. How do I spend my time? Where do I spend it? Are there places I could spend less time? How would I improve that? What would make my life qualitatively *better*? How can I make my community better? How can I do the equivalent of those kinds of dinners? What would happen in our Pagan community if more people did small things like that? I don’t have any immediate answers - but I do have some ideas for the summer that I want to try out.

Cat Chapin-Bishop, guest blogging at the Wild Hunt, made a fantastic post about ‘why don’t we write more about what we experience’, and less about the mechanics of how we do things.

She’s right. It’s something I struggle with, too, because I describe the essential tension in my religious life as an Air-Water problem: I am inclined to be intellectual, to be hands-off and analytical, to look at information and knowledge, and books, and words, but sometimes have problems diving in and experiencing and flowing and feeling. (I come from British parents who rarely expressed emotion: I learned a lot of it very deliberately as a college student and adult.)

It’s no surprise that my strongest primary deity affinity is to water deities (and a specific one in particular, but in general? I’m fond of them.) It’s taken me several years to get a grip on this, but it’s been good for me, every step of the way.

In honor of Cat’s post, a few memories and experiences of my own. A couple I want to come back to in later posts, but a glimpse now will give some idea.

My first Pagan ritual, ever was MIT’s Samhain ritual in 1997. I was still Catholic at the time, and it was a particularly bad year for remembering my father (who died Nov. 3rd, 1990). A friend invited me to join her at MIT’s ritual. I went from playing piano for the Catholic mass that evening to getting on a bus to meet her.

I don’t truly remember the ritual. The memories are lost in the twist of the spiral dance, the endless harmonies of a hundred singing voices, in the careful step in the dim light down into their basement chapel, thick with incense smoke. Part of my brain, even then, was comparing it to what I’d read about, and to the rituals I knew - but part of it was far, far away, dancing, and singing, and tasting the sweet tang of the pomegranate.

My experience now tells me it was a beautifully done large public ritual. But the important part is that it worked. It helped, it eased, it did things deep inside me that I didn’t know needed doing.

Some years later, in the summer of 2001, I went to my first Sabbat with the group I initiated with and trained with, and have only recently left.

We were outside, in a valley in one of the local city parks, away from the crowds, at the height of midsummer. I remember a little about the ritual (and I took notes on it at the time). But what I remember, what sticks with me, years later, is the rainstorm. One minute it was clear, then cloudy, then there were drops of rain.

And then, this being Minnesota, there was a downpour, three minutes of hail, and then everything cleared up and blew away. The ground was damp, but barely muddy, but the shimmer and the shine on the grass was breathtaking. It felt fresh and clean and gorgeous, and like anything in the world was possible.

After ritual, I remember sitting on the ground, and talking to people in the group about anything and nothing in particular, of sharing food and laughter, and knowing that - whatever else happened - some of these people were going to be very important to me.

There have, in fact, been many more rituals, with many more stories. I’ll leave most of those for another time.

Two dear friends, one of them my HP, and the other a widely-respected teacher with a rather different approach to some of what we do - got married. It was the best wedding I’ve ever been to. (Granted, I haven’t been to a wide range, but this - it’s hard to top.) Amazing people, and incredible amounts of love, and fantastic food, and people honestly and truly joyful to be there.

It also made a decision much easier for me.

I remember sitting at the table over potluck afterwards, talking to people I knew (because I did not - and I regret this - have energy to go be social with all the fabulous people I did not know). My husband and I had been seeing if our relationship was fixable, and in the midst of all that joy, and all that love, and all that community, I looked around, and knew my marriage was over. That while it had some good in it, it lacked that essential spark and joy.

What amazes me is that it didn’t hurt. I didn’t even feel like I should have done more, or that there was anything I needed to do. It was just done. I was just done. It was time for it to be done.

Moments in the kitchen: Many of my fondest memories of the last two years are of a particular kitchen table. For over a year, I’d meet L (who was first a dedicant the same year I was, and who is now my co-conspirator in the shiny new coven) at her house, to pick her up before an evening meeting with the group. In her kitchen - which glows with light and looks out on her garden - we’ve drunk cups of tea, snacked, and talked about everything, nothing, and the whole scope of the world in between.

I come away from every one of those conversations refreshed, renewed, delighted with some new insight or idea or concept or way of looking at the world, because although we have very similar training, and while we have a very similar take on the power of discussion and conversation, we actually have some fairly different views of how the universe works. Doesn’t matter: we can still work in ritual very well together.

My Craft life has brought me a number of relationships and people I treasure and love - but this one is particularly near and dear my heart, because there’s nothing else quite like it.

Around a month ago, I started noticing increased eyestrain headaches, and got my act together to go and get my eyes examined.

Now, I’ve had glasses in the past - both times briefly, as my eyes got better, and there were some practical issues (computer-only glasses are a really poor choice for a librarian: I’m often up and down talking to people, looking at a shelf, getting a laptop for checkout, and all the other parts of it.) The end result? I have a mild astigmatism in both eyes, enough that everything’s readable, but not crisp. Hence, eyestrain.

The nice optometrist I talked to about this agreed that for library work, computer-only glasses would not work very well (they’d be constantly on and off, with all the wear and tear that brings), and so wrote my prescription for all the time wear. This is fine by me: as I pointed out, it was the only appearance thing I was missing on the librarian stereotype list (I have long hair, often in a bun, and I generally wear skirts and sensible shoes…) And I hang out in geeky-type crowds, anyway, so there are more people around with glasses than not, most of the time.

I picked up the glasses on Sunday. Being me, I also started thinking about the ritual and magical implications. And, since I’m finding less out there about how other people handle this than I thought I might, I figure a post about it is a possibly useful thing.

I do have some options, since I do not actually need them to read and can function just fine with them off (except for the eyestrain aspect if they’re off too much). In fact, I’ve been taking them off when I go to bed, even though I generally read for at least 15-30 minutes before sleep, because I both read and fall asleep on my side.

Ritual
There are, I am told, some groups out there that heavily limit items like glasses in ritual. (I’ve seen different arguments for this, some of which I’ll address below.) We are not one of those groups: my covenmate wears hers pretty much all the time.

Our ritual work (as you might have guessed from my general description of approach) is something we take seriously, but it is not necessarily very formal. Our current ritual clothing is generally ‘whatever suits the ritual’. But since before I can remember, I’ve also been a big believer in the interaction of ritual and theatre, and very aware of how people pick up mode, mood, and focus cues from choices in dress, word choice, body language, and so on. (This makes even more sense when you know my father was a specialist in ancient Greek theatre, and a theatre historian in general.)

Taken this way, glasses are interesting for two reasons. First, they are a physical, obvious difference: they’re on my face, after all. But second, I’ve already noticed some changes in body language (not just from the lack of tension in my jaw and neck, but also in how I hold my head, move, adjust them, etc.)

Does it matter if they’re on my face? Good question.

For most rituals I’m likely to be taking part in, I don’t think it matters: they aren’t going to affect my ability to priestess or otherwise lead or participate in ritual.

There are times, though, when I think taking them off may be a good idea.

1) One obvious time is if we’re doing something either messy or potentially messy. For example, we’ve talked about a ritual using either body paint or henna: I’d rather take the glasses off rather than risk splatters (and also because it gives more choices for face art.)

2) When they’d be distracting to me. I haven’t yet figured out what I want to do about meditation work, for example. I normally work with my eyes closed, and either sitting up or lying down on my back. I don’t know if I’ll find the weight of the glasses (or something like them shifting slightly) distracting.

3) When they break mood. For example, I’m likely to remove them for ritual theatre, or for Drawing Down, because in both cases, they may be one more thing for people to edit in their heads about presentation. As in good theatre, paying attention to the little details often helps. (Also, from a purely personal point of view, taking them off may be a good indicator to my brain that stuff outside my norm is happening.)

I don’t know which of these will end up happening, but they’re the things I can see as potential options right now.

Daily Wear
But aside from ritual, there’s another aspect that intrigues me.

See, I name stuff. Especially stuff that’s core to my daily function. I have named my computer, my harp, my car. My iPod. My cell phone (ok, so that one I don’t actually use very often.) This is not actually all that weird: many people name their cars, technology, or major musical instruments (or have some sort of consistent pet name.)

I often have small personal ritual moments - I’m not talking big weird things, but I do talk to my car (and my computer, and my harp, and…) and I have *far* fewer technical glitches than you’d think the law of averages would suggest. Treating the glasses in the same sort of ritual sense I treat those things is probably not a bad move. (And even if it’s weird, at least it’s an internally consistent weird.)

I’m not sure yet how I want to handle this with my glasses. Some obvious possibilities include having a specific place they’re kept at home, cleaning them as part of my morning devotional work (in part because there’s such a clear link to some of my primary vocational stuff), or naming them. I’ve been thinking about this since I got them, but I’m still trying to decide which things are meaningful and useful to me, and which things aren’t.

I mentioned in my previous post on this topic that I wanted to follow up and talk some more about it.

Responsibility and follow-through are things I pay early attention to because they continue to be important later. It’s not that I expect people to be perfect (and a recent, wonderfully illustrating story follows about that), but that over time, I want to be around people who take their interactions with others seriously, who recognise that time can be a precious commodity, and so on. There’s a couple of reasons for this.

A personal quirk (and digression to explain it)

For those of you familiar with Myers-Briggs personality typing, I am an incredibly strong J. For those of you who aren’t, this basically means I like things scheduled and time-defined (I do better with defined due dates, too.) And I always, but always, have more things I want to do than time to do them in. By large numbers. This means that unplanned for schedule changes, or ‘wasted’ time in which I could have been doing something else if I’d known in advance, tend to cause me greater discombobulation than most people.

Over the years, I’ve both developed better coping skills, and become a little more flexible. I can, for example, schedule time with a friend without fretting about precisely what we’re doing at each stage. And with close friends, I’m also increasingly comfortable with spontaneous invitations or changes. (”Hey, do you want to come in for tea?” turning into 3 hours of conversation, which is a tradition with L now.)

Coping skills, in case it helps someone else, include:

• spending most of my time with people who either work with this quirk of mine, share it, or generally tend to be respectful of time and energy. When 75% of my free time works this way, it’s easier for me to tolerate more spontaneous plans or deal with someone else being late or less time-centered.
• if I’m meeting someone somewhere other than my home, I make a point of bringing something that will help me feel I got stuff done if they’re late. (This might be my current book, notes I’m working on that can be easily put away, my drop spindle and spinning.)
• scheduling enough time on my own when I can work on larger projects in bigger blocks. I tend to be happiest if I have 2-3 nights a week at home without any particular time constraints (other than when I need to be in bed) so that I can do things for a 2-3 hour stretch if needed. If I have to pay attention to something (even as simple as baking or a phone call), it can feel more constrained, and doesn’t really count toward the weekly total.

Even with this, you will still see me paying attention to time even on a ‘day off’ than most people do. It’s worse when I’m otherwise stressed about something or other parts of my life are a bit out of kilter even if the something is not time related. I was out a couple of weekends ago, and noticed I was far more time-centered than I usually am: fortunately, the friends I was with get this, and put up with this particular quirk (with a little bit of teasing.)

Back on topic:

How does this apply to Pagan groups? Well, in this case, any Pagan group I’m involved with obviously involves me. This goes even more for a group that I’m leading (as is the case in the shiny new coven).

So, when looking at prospective new members, I do pay attention to these things.

• Are we having ritual? I want to make sure they show up (or cancel in advance) so that we’re neither waiting for them or having to scramble for a last-minute alternative if they don’t show.
• Are we going to go somewhere together? I want to have more time at the activity, and less time in the ‘waiting for them to show up’ part of the day.
• Do we have a list of things we want to get done? I want to use my planning time well: if someone’s especially late or unprepared, some of my preparation time probably wasn’t needed (and I’ll have to review it again, before the next time we talk, to be ready then.)

But there are other parts of this, that go far beyond my own personal quirks.

First of all, any time one person is late to a group event, the entire group either has to wait or go ahead without them. The latter can be tricky in some ritual situations or spaces (as a late entry can be disruptive), but the former is also a problem. If we’re doing a working on a weeknight, people will need to get home and go to bed so they can work the next day. Some people may have other plans for a day after an event, or need to get home to a babysitter, or any number of other things: in this case, being on time is really a group courtesy.

But there’s also the issue of demonstrating responsibility. In my tradition, you don’t charge for training (though it’s permissible to request help with actual costs for items used during training, or space rental, etc.) At the same time, it’s appropriate for a student to show that they take what they’re doing seriously. Showing up, taking responsibility for their learning and commitments, and otherwise following through on what they’ve said they’d do are all big parts of this.

In a ritual setting, showing up mentally ready to take part in the ritual (rather than running madly around trying to get places) is also part of it.

More on ritual:

I’ve certainly done my share of ritual and classes where I was running around madly beforehand.

My worst example was last January, where I was working at a part-time library job until 5, had a friend I was driving meet me there, drove up to ritual, changed and checked up on the ritual within 15 minutes, and was ready to go 20 minutes after I got there. The ritual was actually fantastic, and it was one of my better jobs as priestess in my former group, I think - but it’s definitely not the way I want to do things. In this case, I cleared it with everyone beforehand, since I obviously knew in advance time would be tight, and they were fine with what I’d need to make it all work.

But really? That’s not the way I want to do things. One of the things my covenmate and I have been talking about is about removing stress and discomfort from the immediately pre-ritual time, so that we can go into ritual relaxed, in a good mood, and not running around stressed. This is also an aspect of responsibility, in my book: if I’m running ritual, I need to set things up so I can do my best job (and so other people can do theirs.)

This leads to a bunch of choices:

• Elaborate ritual set-up takes time and energy. We’ve chosen to do a very minimalist ritual setup that takes very little time to do. (We can set up the physical space in 10-15 minutes of unflustered work, and take down in about half of that.)
• The only pre-prep is for the host to have a clean and tidy space (which we can plan ahead of time, based on our own preferences and schedules. I usually do a big clean a day or two before, and a tiny tidy the day off.)
• We also keep ritual workings relatively simple: they don’t require a lot of items or things to keep track of. The most complex was our Beltane working, which required embroidery floss, scissors and a few safety pins (All things we could put together in advance, and if we were missing some things, no big deal.)
• We do invest extra time and energy in ritual and post-ritual food, but this is something that’s a distinct pleasure for both of us (and it’s very adaptable depending on our personal energy/time before a given event.)

In other words, we’ve identified our primary interests (how we’d like to have ritual and what we care about) and then found ways to take responsibility for both making that happen *and* being able to start ritual relaxed and comfortable when we get there. We think this is great.

Follow-through and when stuff goes oddly:

I promised a story. A few weeks ago, we scheduled the full moon for yesterday (Monday night), as my covenmate was going to be camping over the weekend (when we normally do ritual). Normally, I send out an email with a summary and reminder a week in advance - I totally forgot (life’s been a little odd for me).

In fact, I forgot we were meeting Monday until I looked at my calendar after she’d left for the weekend. I called her, left a message, and then baked bread on Sunday on the theory that bread is never bad to have in the house anyway. I didn’t hear from her (at which point, *because* she’s generally good about that, figured that they’d gotten back later than planned, or something had come up) and called and said “If I don’t hear from you by 6ish, I’ll assume we’re not getting together: want to reschedule for Wednesday (our planned discussion night.)

She did in fact call back after I got home from work, and we sorted everything out (for Wednesday). But even though this was a schedule glitch, I still feel we handled it responsibly all things considered: I managed to set up things so I wouldn’t be out an evening of doing other stuff if we changed plans, she got back to me promptly, we had an easy alternative that doesn’t put either of us out further. All good. Not ideal (in the sense that this happening all the time would be bad) but all good in the end.

What does it all mean?

Stuff happens every so often, and I’m as capable as flaking as any other human on the planet. (I might do it less, due to my organisational obsessions, but less is not never.) But what I really care about goes like this:

• I care how often someone flakes - but I care even more how they recover from it.
• I care how they communicate about glitches, and whether they leave me guessing.
• I care that they respect my time and energy - but also how they respect theirs (Are they totally overcommitted? That’s not sustainable or healthy. This is one I watch myself carefully for.)
• People are often on ‘best behavior’ early on. If they’re flaky or not responsible about basics (being on time, showing up, bringing what they need to do the work) the first few times, it’s probably not going to get better.
• Most of all, I care that someone respects the work we’re doing together enough to let us know if they can’t be there, can’t be on time, or something else is going on.

There’s going to be one more part to this - about initiatory and other oathed commitments, and how the responsibility and follow-through parts play into that.

Back to this ongoing series of things I’ve seen when dealing with Seekers. (You can find all the others by clicking on the Seeker tag.)

The next thing I look for is something I call ‘responsibility and follow-through’.

I taught the short series of intro/Seeker classes (a very general ‘What is Wicca/what is ritual/community etiquette/really basic daily practice ideas series of 5 classes) for the group I trained with for about 3 years (and I’ve helped on and off since then.) I also answered the group email.

For every 25 people who email, at least 15 of them never reply again, never make contact again, etc. This is totally normal: they inquire, we send some more info, it’s not what they’re looking for. That part’s fine. What has always interested me is the next stages.

Of those 10, about half explicitly say “Oh, I’m interested in [next class series]. I’ll be there!” - we’d ask for an RSVP to make sure we had enough copies/chairs/etc. We’ve traditionally sent out a reminder email a week or so beforehand, and sometimes another one closer in. Less than half of those who replied show up. (And I’ve been at several classes where *no one* who RSVPed showed up, and we had new people we knew nothing about there.

On one hand, this is no big deal in that setting. But it makes me wonder. Some of them do try again later - but you know, none of those people has turned out to be a fit for the group. It’s hard not to wonder if those things go together.

This is where stories from other Pagans come in. I’ve heard story after story from priests and priestesses who arrange to meet a prospective member at a coffee shop for an initial meeting, where the interested prospective member never shows. (And not only doesn’t show, but doesn’t call, email, or otherwise apologise.)

Why does this happen?

Good question - and it’s often hard to ask. I’ve heard various theories: that people inquired as a lark, and then got nervous. That people were interested, but something (maybe a relationship partner or friend) got them nervous about meeting a strange witch. That they’re interested, but not enough to actually make it into the car.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what the reason is: all I can do is judge from the end result. If I show up, and the person I’m meeting doesn’t (and doesn’t have a decent reason), I’m unlikely to set up another meeting like that unless meeting them is absolutely essential *or* I’ve got a good reason to think that things have changed for them.

My time’s pretty precious - like a lot of people these days, I’m juggling a full time job (and one which can have some quirky time demands), chores and daily life stuff, friends and a social life, personal projects, my personal religious practices, and little things like reading and other amusements. I always have other stuff I could be doing with my time that I would enjoy or get me closer to goals that matter a lot to me.

Because of this, one of the most basic things I look for with anyone I’m looking at spending more time with is “Does this person get that they are not the only thing in my universe?” and “Do they respect my time and other commitments/interests?”

I admit I’m a fairly big stickler on this one - but I think it’s got some other interesting aspects, too.

Further down the road:

Work and training with a group is going to involve a number of things.

• Can this person show up for scheduled events, or do they keep others waiting?I don’t know about other people out there, but I’m sick of Pagan Standard Time. I want to start reasonably promptly, end at a sane time, and have time to hang out and spend time with my groupmates without dashing off. Ritual takes as long as it takes - but there’s a big difference between a 4 hour ritual that started on time and a 2 hour ritual that started 90 minutes after it was supposed to.
• Yes, meeting strange witches can be a little scary. But.Other parts of witchcraft training can also be challenging. If someone isn’t yet ready to deal with a well-controlled challenge (meeting in a public place, for a short time, and with no further commitment if it’s not the right thing), they’re probably going to have a hard time once training starts. (In this case, them not showing is a good thing: I’d rather figure this out very early rather than later.)
• Can they communicate?Stuff comes up for people - I totally get that. If I went to meet someone, and they weren’t there, but they sent an email promptly (say within the next 24 hours), I’d give them another chance. The point isn’t “Are they perfect”, but “Can they recover from an inconvenience to someone else” and “Can they communicate about what they need.”

I’ll have some more to say about this going forward, but I think this is a good stopping place for tonight.

A dicussion elsewhere online got me thinking about limits. The specific question was “What happens if you get a prospective coven member who is allergic to pets, and you have pets?” and it got me thinking.

First, some background:
I used to live in my covenstead, post divorce. I’m very grateful for that, because it was a very good option at the time - but I was already having some ongoing allergy issues when they added another dog. (to a household of 5 cats and then 2 dogs: I’m much more allergic to dogs than cats, and my cat lived in my room with the door closed and an air filter running constantly.)

At this point, I have a hard time spending more than 2-3 hours there before the allergies kick in, even if I’m medicated. Once they kick in, it impacts not only that evening, but my sleep (wheezing in bed? Not good for sleep quality) and my ability to function the next day (the thing I resent most about asthma is how it takes my brain away.)

Do I blame them? Nope, though once they made that decision, I did move out pretty promptly. I miss spending time with them, and I dislike the fact I can’t just hang out up there easily. But I also fully understand that it’s their home, and their love for their pets, and that these are good things (and values I also hold.)

So, going at it from the HPS side, now (where I still have one cat), here’s my take on it.

1) I have existing, long-standing commitments to my cat

When I adopted her from the humane society, I made a specific commitment to take care of her for the rest of her life. What kind of witch would I be if I broke those very deliberate commitments for anyone (never mind someone who might or might not work out) just because those commitments were now less than ideal in a particular way?

2) On a practical level, it’s not like there’s a shortage of cats.

My beloved furball is 9, far above the usual adoptable age. If I did take her back to the humane society, she’d almost certainly be put down very quickly. I love her. I don’t want that to happen.

3) The loss rate for potential students can be quite high:

In the group I trained in, at least half the people who express more than a cursory interest (i.e. enough to get invited to an open ritual) don’t pan out as long-term students. At what point does one get rid of one’s pets to accommodate a student? And what happens if you have years of students not having issues with pets, and then one person who does?

In the group I trained with, out of 30 people (over 7 years) who were prospective students, only one has had major issues with the covenstead pets (besides me, and that developed over time). That’s a pretty low ratio, all things considered. Should people change their lives for one person? For a less than 4% chance, based on past history?

4) My own well-being and happiness.

I’m single. Some days, the only tactile input I get from other living beings is from the cat. (I have a number of friends I hug regularly, but I don’t see them every day.)

I’m fairly certain I had less trouble post-divorce than many people do because I still had regular tactile input (there’s some interesting research out there about this, too - there’s all sorts of internal body systems regulation that works better with regular touch.)

Beyond that: witchcraft does not require martyrdom. There is no requirement for me to give up pleasure that might not be someone else’s choice that is not directly harming people. That kind choice is going to depend on a lot of other factors, many of them very situationally dependent.

Likewise, as a now-HPS, I set needed limits in my own space: people are not welcome to bring their pets with them (both for my cat’s well-being, and to reduce further allergens), and I’d have a really hard time with a student who was a smoker and who’d need to smoke (even outside) during our time together: I’m sensitive enough to smoke sometimes that I don’t want it brought into my living space on someone’s clothes or hair.

Is that going to mean I turn down some potential students? Probably. Is that the end of the world for me or them? No. Is it easy? Also no. But sometimes the necessary things aren’t.

Are there also times I’d consider alternatives? Quite likely, yes. But I wouldn’t make unalterable changes (like getting rid of a pet): I’d look for solutions (meeting elsewhere, exploring other medication options, doing some work by phone or online rather than meeting in person all the time) that could be easily reversed if a particular student with concerns didn’t work out. And I’d also want to be extra sure (once I start going out of my way for someone) that I was fairly sure they *would* work out - taking more time with conversation to make sure someone was a really solid fit in other ways.

It’s one of the things I’ve kept in mind when looking at how I’d like to handle prospective new members.

As some of you might know, I’m also a casual World of Warcraft player (I play on Hellscream, and like playing priests. Hypatia - Disc/Holy - is almost level 62, and Thalassa - Shadow - is 32 right now).

I read posts on the WoWInsider site regularly (they’re a good fit for my interests), and my attention got caught by a comment on this post.

First: should anyone find this post via my referencing the WoWInsider link

Hi! Part of why I’m a (very) casual WoW player is that most of my spare time and energy goes to my religious life, specifically something close enough to Wicca for most people’s purposes. I’m in the process of forming my own ritual group after several years of training and work in another group, and this blog is about a lot of that process. Feel free to ask questions: I’ll answer anything that’s not outright insulting or abusive.

That said, almost everything I do gets funneled back into the religious work somehow - especially group dynamics and interaction concepts, which are a major interest of mine.

A quick guide for non-online gamers
Many of these games have guilds (or some similar term) that are formed for all sorts of reasons - social interaction, but also to take on larger challenges in the game world. In World of Warcraft, a significant amount of endgame content requires at least 25-40 characters to do, thus at least that many individual people.

I’m in a small, informal guild of longtime friends (it’s my chance to spend social time with friends from the East Coast), but almost all of them are associated with a larger raiding guild that plays endgame content regularly. I don’t have time for that, but I happily putter around the edges and do things when they have time, and chat, and so on.

Back to that post…
The comment that particularly caught me was Rational’s comment (the first one) where he/she says: “Sadly, guilds are tiny. They can’t afford to have someone vet new recruits.”

Which made me go “Hmm.” Because, after all, your average coven is not large (far smaller than your average raiding guild), and this is something that most covens do as a matter of practice (and, in fact, can’t afford *not* to do). I wanted to explore it the parallels a bit. What do I see?

1.) You need to know you have enough in common.

Not everyone is going to fit into every guild. And not everyone will be a fit for every coven. Finding out some things early helps a lot in wear and tear on *everyone* involved (applicant and existing group members alike.)

• Do you want to do the same things?
• Are you available at the same times?
• Do you have compatible approaches to getting things done and communicating?
• Do you have enough goals in common?

There are obviously many variations - a guild, for example, is going to care a lot more about whether a particular person fits a specific in-game need than a coven is likely to. (And be more willing, probably, to take a chance on someone who fills a major need.) But the basic questions? Still really useful.

2.) You need some kind of process.

It can be elaborate, but it doesn’t have to be. A lot of guilds use a simple online questionnaire, followed by a face to face interview and a trial period. My first experience with something like this was applying to Harper Hall on PernMUSH way back when (1995), which used pretty much exactly that method. (More on that below.)

In many cases where the cost if someone doesn’t work out is not huge, this is a perfectly workable system. You can give someone an initial (often limited) membership, and as they demonstrate they’re reliable and competent, they get more responsibility/access/resources (very common in gaming situations).

Covens tend to be far more involved processes, because the costs are much higher if you get it wrong. If you’re inviting people to your home, you want to make sure that they’re not going to abuse that or become stalkers or anything like that. But even then, it’s not all that hard for one or two people to be the ‘front’ people for the process, and bring others into it only once they’ve weeded out people who are obviously unsuitable.

Most important part of the process? Know what you’re looking for. The more specific you are about what you’re seeking, the more important your process design is. If you’re fairly flexible, you can generally weed out the people who’d be a dismal fit with a few simple questions, try everyone else out, and go from there.

3.) Your front person or people need to enjoy what they’re doing.

I get a huge kick out of reading initial contacts/applications. I have for years. I’m fascinated by what people share about themselves, how they phrase it, and how they approach the questions that a group asks.

It’s much better to have someone like me doing the initial read through (assuming they’re competent) than someone who hates doing it: someone who thinks it’s a necessary evil that gets in the way of the stuff they would rather be doing will procrastinate, grumble, and otherwise drag their feet eventually (and burn out) and that’s no good for anyone.

4.) Your initial contact person has to have a good idea what their job is.

Is it their job to weed out certain things? Be really clear what those things are. Is spelling a big deal for the whole group, or just a pet issue of the gatekeeper?

Be clear what the next step is. In some groups, the initial contact point just passes everything (except the truly misguided apps) along. In others, they do several more steps - checking to see if requirements are met, or even an initial interview to make sure the applicant and group are on the same page, before passing along someone as a serious possibility.

5.) Backups are your friend.

If you’re dealing with a lot of applications, or there’s a chance your gatekeeper may disappear (even for the best of reasons), it’s good to have a backup. Again, limit your failure mode. In online settings, this usually means the officers (or guild leader, or whoever) also having access, even if they rarely or never use it.

(In coven situations, this is much less of an issue: if someone is that seriously out of contact, you generally know where they live and what’s going on, and so on.)

6.) Finding the right process makes everything easier.

It’s easy to over-engineer it: to make it very complex or have lots of steps, or add bells and whistles. (I have temptations this way myself.) The problem is, it doesn’t always improve things.

My solution is to look at the process, and ask myself: “What am I looking for with this question?”. Not “What should their answer be.” but “What am I trying to learn.” - they’re two different things. Figuring out your best questions for what you really want can save your time, your applicant’s time, and everyone’s energy.

Let’s compare a couple of variations. If I want to know what someone’s goals are for their time with a group, I can ask that in several ways.

If I ask

What are you looking for in a group/guild/whatever right now?

I’ll probably get a list of goals or desires or intentions. This may be all I need, and if the rest of the application is short and simple, this may be fine. But what happens if I ask something different? If I ask:

After reading our website/info, what makes you particularly interested in us at this time?

Most people will answer that with something about their goals - but you also will quickly weed out anyone who hasn’t actually looked at the information you’ve already provided. In a longer more complex application, this can be a great way to combine questions, and it’s also a great way to sort things out if you’ve had a recent history of people not reading provided info (and that’s particularly important to you.) There are other ways to get at this kind of information, too.

7.) Consider length and commitment.

I tend to think that the initial questionnaire should take 10-60 minutes to fill out (depending on how tightly you want to filter your applicants). Much shorter than 10 minutes, and people won’t take it seriously or will do it on a lark (which wastes the time of the people who respond.) Too long, and most people won’t bother, even people who might be a good fit.

I think most game/fun/hobby related forms should take most people 10-30 minutes to fill out initially. (Not including background/informational reading, etc.) On the other hand, I’m aiming for the initial coven questions to take about an hour. One of the things I’m deliberately sorting for is people who are sure enough we might be a fit that they’re willing to spend that time. That said, it might need adjustments down the road…

8.) Refine the process:

Once you’ve had a few people go through the process, see what works. If you point 50 people at the application, and only one submits it, you’re probably doing something wonky somewhere - maybe the page is glitched, or it’s way too long, or it’s unreadable, or something else. Look at it closely yourself. *Do* it yourself, for that matter: it can give you a good sense of how long it takes.

Also, as you get applicants over time, look and see how the patterns shift. Some patterns may change as the surrounding environment shifts and changes. Others may mean that you want to adapt your process. If you find that you weed out a lot of people on your first person-to-person chat, maybe you want to do that first, and then have them submit an application for everyone else to review.

Some examples:

I’m still working out the details for my shiny new coven application - but I know it’s going to be a pretty detailed process, and it needs a lot of fine-tuning.

Why? Because we’re talking about a small group (probably no more than 8-10 people total) who will be meeting in people’s homes for significant amounts of time and doing emotionally intimate work together. Any one person we take potentially bars other people in future, so we want to make sure that we find the right fit. Also, any changes in the group affect the whole group significantly.

On the other end of the spectrum is something like what I did on PernMUSH (a text-based role-playing game set in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern universe). When I took over as Masterharper, we’d been getting a bunch of really lousy applications from people. (Lousy how? Badly written, showing little understanding of the game world, with assumptions that would limit or mess with other people’s enjoyment, etc.)

Often, the people who did bad applications disappeared 2 weeks later, having taken up a lot of time and energy (from their interviewer and the masters discussing the application) with no real benefit for anyone. That leads to burnout.

The revised version worked like this: we started with a 5 question application in email. This showed us:

• Whether they could read the background information we provided in multiple forms.
• Whether they follow basic directions/instructions.
• Whether they were familiar with the game world and setting, or could work around what they didn’t yet know.
• Whether they paid some attention to the application (we wouldn’t rule someone out for a couple of typos, but constant spelling issues or incomprehensible writing are a big deal on a text-based game.)
• Whether they cared enough about this particular goal to spend a little bit of time (maybe an hour for most people) on an application: an hour is a tiny percentage of the amount of time they’d spend with us as a player.

Once they submitted that (and assuming it wasn’t totally impossible), they’d also have an in-game, in-character interview, so we could see how they role-played and fit in with existing events in the game spaces.

What did we ask? Again, we were open to a wide number of play styles, types of focus, and interests, but focused on a particular goal in the game (a particular profession, more or less), and a specific in-game community. So we asked questions that would help us figure out whether someone would fit with that.

We were willing to push the time demands for the application a little higher because knowing the setting and enjoying working with words were important aspects of long-term fun (both for them, and for the people playing with them.) Also - while I’m still pretty pleased with these, or I wouldn’t be referencing them, I wouldn’t approach it in quite the same way now (10 years down the road, with far more group experience.)

1) Please tell us something about your character’s background. (Example: Who is your character, where is s/he from, what does s/he want from life, and why)

Goal of the question: Character background is the overt question, but we also wanted to know if they could give us a rounded idea of their character without being asked each and every detail. (Do they need to have their hand held all the way, in other words.)

In Warcraft, I might ask something like “How is your character currently specced, and why?”. In a Pagan group setting, I might ask “Tell me about your religious path to this point.” or even, basically. “What’s your background so far?”

2) Why does your character want to be a Harper? What IC skills and interests does s/he bring to the Hall.

Goal: To weed out the people who said “I’m just curious.” or “I’ve done everything else, why not Harper?”. Sometimes those people worked out - but we’d had a whole run of applications where they hadn’t. Asking people to put in a little thought about what their character’s goals and motivations were solved the problem tidily. In a guild setting, this might be similar to ”

In Warcraft, you might ask “What interests you about [focus of guild].” Or in Pagan settings, “Why this group?” or “Why are you seeking training right now?” or “What do you want from your path in the near future?”

3) In your opinion, what role does Harper Hall play, both in Pernese society and within PernMush as a game?

Goal: To see how comfortable they were with the game setting, and whether they could discuss it briefly. If someone couldn’t answer this one, we’d want to do a lot more talking with them before accepting them.

In Warcraft terms, this is similar to “What does your class/spec do well?” and “How do you feel about doing that?” In Pagan settings, questions like “What have you read?” or “How do you define Pagan/Wiccan/witch/etc.” often get at the same kinds of questions.

4) Do you have IC ties to anywhere on the game? Is your character involved in a romantic relationship? (Weyrmating, engaged, etc)

Goal: Are there any in-character relationships we need to adjust for/work around/might cause some issues for in-game reasons?

This one has less application in Warcraft, but variants apply in my religious life - if someone’s romantic partner doesn’t approve of their study, that can get hairy.

5) Do you have a regular online schedule? About how much time do you expect to be on as this character?

Goal: Basic logistics. And pretty self-explanatory: if someone can’t work on the same schedule as the group, you’re going to have problems. (Broadly applicable, too!)

Also, how much time is this person willing to commit to this? Does that mesh with their goals? With the group’s requirements? (You will likely need to play this by ear in places: someone may say what they think you want to hear, only to struggle with showing up that often once the honeymoon phase is over.)

6) What OOC knowledge might you bring to the game and the Hall? (For example: Have you read the Harper Hall trilogy? Do you play a musical instrument or sing RL? Are you familiar with the PernMush news and +info files? Are you familiar with the Harper information in particular?)

Goal: To find out if there’s any other non-game-specific knowledge that might benefit our shared fun. There’s also a certain amount of work involved with running any group: if someone has interests that’d make that easier, I like knowing early on. Again, not required for membership, but it often meant we could phrase explanations in a clearer way, or let them run with some idea more easily after a brief discussion.

This type of question is less relevant in something like Warcraft (where you’re pretty centered on the game action together) but you could ask about what sites they use for information, or something similar. Shared hobbies/interests/familiarity can make a difference in coven life (though it depends heavily on the group.)

Summary:

As you can probably see, once you actually get the system set up, it’s relatively easy to maintain it and adjust it quickly - but you need to invest a little time up front. My experience, though, is that once you do that, it really *is* very easy to keep up. You get instant rewards in both how quickly you can review applications - and, often, in the quality of applications you get in the first place.

You don’t need to be stuffy or toss an application for every minor thing - but how they answer questions or approach an application can tell you a lot about their overall approach to learning new things, interacting with people they don’t know well, or how they pursue goals that matter to them.