Part 1 has some background about my own experiences and experience working with chronic (and emerging) medical issues in the context of my religious witchcraft work. This part was brought about by someone who wrote a letter of interest to me about group work, and as part of that, wondered about how much detail about health issues was important. This is something I discuss in some detail on the current group information pages, but I felt it deserved to be broken out in a little more detail.

Much more below…

Locally:

My first law is “Let’s not waste each other’s time, okay?” If we’re not a good fit for each other, for any reason, I’d rather figure that out sooner than later, so that the seeker can move onto places that might be a better fit.

While I really enjoy conversations with seekers and people interested in Paganism, religious witchcraft, and a wide range of related topics, my own limited energy and time mean that my primary focus in my religious path is on my small coven setting. I currently live in an area with many options for Pagan groups of all kinds, so if I’m not the right place, I do my best to point people at other promising options.

(I do support public Craft opportunities by helping to run the Twin Cities Pagan Pride and the new Paganicon events locally – both things that involve periodic meetings, a lot of at-home work, and two very long weekends a year. All easier for me, personally, than a regular evening or weekend commitment for conversation.)

Introductions:

What I want to know at first is quite simple: what do I need to know so we can have a comfortable and focused conversation.

One of the spaces I commonly suggest is mobility-access friendly, but has a fair bit of background noise (bad for people with various kinds of hearing impairment). The other location I’d normally suggest is often a lot quieter, but has stairs (and closely-packed chairs). I’m open to other ideas, but need to know we should be talking about them. Both are relatively near my home, but if someone is taking public transportation, one location might be a lot easier for them.

If that goes well, we move onto the next step, which is a series of discussions to help us decide if they might be a good fit for what I can offer.

Discussions – and looking forward:

This means that we need to make sure that moving forward into a short series of class/discussion evenings is the best use of our time, and that the space and schedule for those discussions works for both of us. Like many things in this work, these end up being intertwined.

I have a wide range of things going through my head as I get to know someone:

• I have certain limits on what I can and can’t host in my home.
• The prospective student might have things they need or can’t be around.
• Are these two sets compatible? If we’re sure they’re not, we should move on.
• Other group members may also have things I’m keeping in mind – their health needs, their transportation options, all sorts of other things.

And the standard practical notes: Rituals take place in my home, since I want non-initiates to be able to focus on the ritual, not hosting: I’m open to other group members hosting discussion evenings or social events, as long as I can be comfortable there. I enjoy shared meals after ritual, so we need to find foods we can eat together. And so on.

Some of my personal limits:

• I live in a very small home (400 square feet): it’s easy for me to clean (even when I’m low energy) but the layout is cramped, and not a good fit for someone who uses a mobility aid larger than a cane.
• I don’t have a lot of space for comfy seating or chairs with very specific requirements – during ritual or not.
• I cannot accomodate a service animal – my dog allergies won’t tolerate dogs in my living space, and my cat is also not good with other animals. (And if someone can’t be around a cat – even with an air filter and wood floors – I’m not going to be a good place to visit.)
• While my sensitivity to cigarette smoke varies depending on season and other allergens, I can’t reliably tolerate having it carried in on someone’s clothing/hair: someone who needs to smoke at any point during a class, discussion, social, or ritual event is not a good fit for the group. (This is usually 3 hours or so.)
• I need to hold ritual and teaching events at times that allow me to get enough sleep before the next day. Someone whose schedule is very far off mine is probably not a good fit.
• My energy levels are still a little unpredictable: meeting at my home gives me a lot more flexibility around preparation and clean-up work if I need it.
• I’ve got some communication quirks. (Conciseness is not my virtue, though I work hard to be clear. My natural speech speed is ‘very fast’, though I work to slow down.) Some people who do much better with these than others.
• And like many people, I’ve had experiences with friends and loved ones with a range of mental health needs. Some I’m very comfortable supporting (with appropriate professional support as needed). Others have behaviors that hit sore and damaged places in my own psyche that I’m not currently comfortable handling in a close emotional setting like a coven.

Many of these things are things that can and will change over time. The choices I’m making now (as the only initiate in a very small coven, and with some specific housing choices and health limitations) are not the choices I may make in a couple of years. A different living space, financial position, the presence of other active initiates who can share teaching, preparation, and ritual duties, or who could provide a balance to my experiences and personal history all can change what’s possible for me, and for the group.

Some group and tradition considerations:

Resolving incompatibilites:
Existing group members get priority when determining accessibility choices if there’s an incompatibility. (That’s because I’ve already made a commitment to them: if they leave the group for some reason, I’d be glad to revisit.)

If I’m the one who has an incompatibility issue, I need to figure out what’s realistic and fair to everyone, but I owe it to the group to not get in over my head by trying to accommodate everyone.

The tradition:
Some parts of the tradition practice have allergen, mobility, or other accessibility issues. Some of these are easier to work around than others: during our discussions, I’d want to talk about the specifics.

Examples:

• Our tradition uses stick incense for a specific part of ritual. While variations in the core of the incense, the scent, or the materials used are all fine, adapting to use no incense would be a lot more complex (and involve some collaboration with others in the tradition.)
• Our tradition training involves a number of guided meditations: there are some possible solutions for someone with hearing impairment or other reasons to have a hard time with this practice, but again, they’re not trivial to solve.
• We use bread and wine in ritual, though additions are possible (and more likely than using alternatives.)

Care for community:
I have friends with a wide range of health concerns themselves. Some of them are immuno-compromised. Some can’t afford the downtime from what would be a simple cold for most people. If I have plans to see them, I need to be attentive to my own health and exposure.

So for the needs of my friends (plus my own: right now, I’d rather my body put all its energy into recovering from the past year, not add more demands!) mean that I want to work with people who are thoughtful and clear communicators about health considerations in advance. If they’re coming down with a cold, I want them to think through things and check with me: we might decide to reschedule, we might decide to go ahead and meet (but I’d take extra clean-up precautions), we might decide something else.

If there are other things I need to know to keep me and the group healthy, I want to know that, such as conditions which could be contagious, since a number of our ritual practices involve fairly close interactions (sharing a passed cup in ritual, hugs, being near each other for an extended period, the chance that a dropped glass or ritual blade might draw blood accidentally.)

The larger questions:

There are also larger and much more complex issues that I think about. They basically boil down to four things.

1) Our health has a huge impact on our lives.

When we are healthy, that impact is not always obvious to us, but when we’re in the midst of poor health (whether that’s due to a cold or a chronic illness), it’s very clear how much our ability to do the things we love (and the things we need to do) changes.

Our bodies also have a huge impact on our minds: we all have the experience – or know someone who has – of having medication change what’s easy and hard, or of introducing side effects that we suddenly have to work around. Even when those changes are good, they still take some time to get used to.

2) Change takes time.

Change takes up our energy and processing ability, whether it’s change for the good or change we’d rather not deal with. Taking someone who is already dealing with a massive amount of change (in what they can do comfortably, in their plans and way of living, in their view of themselves as a person due to significant or chronic illness) and adding *more* change to that (through the process of initiatory training that in our tradition requires a lot of self-examination and exploration of different ways to approach the world) doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Too much change can be overwhelming, frustrating, and utterly exhausting – exactly the last things someone who’s already dealing with significant ups and downs in health needs. This is the primary reason for wanting someone to be stable in treatment for a period of time, and without other major changes in their near future before we add something new to the equation.

(Conditions that come up after initiation are a bit simpler: at that point, while there are still substantial changes possible, someone has a good baseline of how they respond in ritual and magical settings within the tradition, and is better able to figure out what they can handle, what they need help with, and whether they need to take a break for a while.)

3) The magic and ritual we do places real demands on our bodies, and creates real change

Some ritual and magical work is gentle: the equivalent of sitting down to enjoy a good book. It has some demands (focus, attention, concentration, creativity), but we get up from it refreshed and relaxed. But some ritual and magical work – especially work designed to teach us new skills, have us experience something new, or deal with challenging emotions (grief, loss, creating a new sense of self and internal identity) can be tremendously hard work both emotionally and physically, as hard as running a long way or being in an amazingly challenging hour of therapy.

It can be hard to tell which way some things will go. Some of the simplest exercises hit people unexpectedly hard. Others dance through the challenging work in ways that show their growth and understanding, but don’t leave them drained or wanting.

But ritual work can also produce physical change. Some people have blood sugar shifts after ritual, or blood pressure changes. Some people have changes in migraine prodrome, or in how they use their lungs. Our bodies are amazing and interconnected, so even a relatively small shift can create a change we need to learn about to understand. (And sometimes, a change that needs to be checked out by a professional.) I keep first aid and CPR certification reasonably up to date, but that has limits.

Likewise, medication can change the way that we respond to and manage energy in magical and ritual settings. Starting from a stable dosage and treatment means that someone learning new skills can have a solid foundation – not an ever-changing baseline.

More than that, though, as we change, our response to situations in our life, to medications, to health factors, may change. Sometimes this is for the good – I’ve had fewer migraines and asthma issues since I started my own Craft training. But sometimes this is more challenging: it can affect mental health, levels of medication, or other parts of our life like our hunger cycles, the foods we crave, or how we approach exercise or activities.

These are not simple things.

That’s why I’ve got the requirement that anyone with chronic conditions (even if they’re well under control) has a way to check in with appropriate professional treatment if needed. (That doesn’t need to mean they’re currently seeing someone, just that they could if they needed to: they have the resources, transportation, ability to get referrals that would be involved.) And, as I’ve said, that treatment for their condition has been stable for at least six months – no substantial changes in medication, dosage, or other treatment approaches.

4) Sharing information helps us make better choices in what we do and how we do it.

And it goes both ways.

You’ll notice here that I’ve been pretty blunt and open about my own health issues. Oh, not every detail – but it should be clear from this post and the previous one that I have stuff going on, what that is, and a fair bit of how I cope with it. I am open in part because I think that the more we talk about some of these things in public, the more solutions we find and the more options we have (and the more ideas other people have to help their friends, their group mates, and so on).

I also understand privacy (you’ll notice that this isn’t under my legal name, for example.)

I don’t expect everyone to be open in the same ways I am (for all sorts of reasons.) But I do expect that someone who I am welcoming into my physical home and into my metaphorical home (my coven, the tradition I teach, etc.) will understand that it’s important that sharing be roughly equivalent at some point.

For me, that point is the point at which we’re seriously considering someone becoming a student and becoming a Dedicant in the group. By that point, they have had the following opportunities:

• To read the coven website, and this blog. Both of which have lots of information about me, the way I approach things, and why I’ve chosen to do things that way.
• To meet me in person in a neutral and public location for an hour or two of conversation.
• To meet several times (in public once or twice more if they like, then in my home) for discussions and introductory training material. Generally, this is 5 or 6 meetings, depending, about every two or three weeks.
• To attend at least one ritual, and quite possibly more.
• And probably some sort of social event in there, too.

What I know about them, at this point, is a bit more limited:

• Whatever they share in their letter of introduction (which generally does not include medical detail.)
• Whatever they share in those conversations and classes (which might be a lot, or might be a little other than the necessary immediate practical details.)
• Not much else. You’ll notice the imbalance here.

So, once we get to the point of considering Dedication, there is a questionnaire and a conversation that explicitly asks a number of questions if they haven’t come up yet.  And at that point, I expect a prospective Dedicant to either be able to say “Here’s the info, and I understand why it’s important to you.”, or to say “Can I ask more questions about why you ask about X?” and then share the important info. (For I do, in fact, have reasons for every question I ask, as you might guess from the above. I basically ask about the issues above, plus some further details of background and experience if needed.)

If the answer is “Can I take a little more time.” I might be willing. (Depends on my own life, on whether there are other prospective students who would be held up by that.) But if the answer is “I’m not ready to share at all.” Well, then we’re not a good fit for each other, and I’m not sure how to fix that, other than suggesting that if that changes for them, come back and see what’s possible when it does.

These questions talk both about things that are a current issue – but also about things that might not be as immediate.

One simple example: I’ve worked with two students who’d had gastric bypass surgery. One of them had a particular difficulty with a couple of specific breathing exercises, and spent a couple of weeks quite frustrated and in some discomfort trying to figure out how to make it work. Once we realised that it was probably related to the surgery, we were able to make suggestions that solved the problem. When another student came through who’d had the same surgery, we were able to avoid some very real discomfort and frustration that would distract from learning and understanding. That’s a good thing – but it took knowing that both of them had had this surgery.

(Both of these students needed a couple of very specific adaptations in other rituals, as well, that involved food or drink consumption in amounts larger than a single bite/swallow. Again, very easy to arrange with advance knowledge, but anywhere from seriously uncomfortable to risky for them if we hadn’t known.)

Likewise, I expect people to be truthful about what they do share. If I found out later that someone had mislead me in their answers deliberately, there’s quite a good chance I’d ask them to leave the group. (This is, of course, a complicated situation: however, there’s a huge difference between ‘I’m still learning about this condition’ and ‘I’m going to pretend it’s not a problem’. That’s part of the reason for the six month timeline, by the way, and the fact that joining the group deliberately takes a couple of months even if everything goes very smoothly: it gives people a chance to get past the denial stage of chronic illness diagnosis.)

As you can see, these are all very complex interwoven considerations. There aren’t easy answers – but there are a lot of places where thoughtful, forthright conversation at appropriate intervals can make sure that we treat each other well, and that we do our best to make sure there’s a good and meaningful fit before asking for any sort of long-term commitment on either side.

Is it a complex process? Yes. But so’s any time we’re asking others into our closest circle of self, of understanding, of potential vulnerability as we learn and change and grow and open ourselves to our Gods. Health isn’t separate from or different from those things. It’s wrapped up with them.

The other part is something I talked about back in March, which is health issues. And reminded by a letter of introduction from someone potentially interested in group work with me, I thought I’d take a moment to lay out some of my thoughts about the intersection of health and Craft work. This part deals with the personal bit, and my internal observations, part 2 will deal with how I think this impacts group work more broadly.

Quick personal update:
Now, the short version of my health stuff is that I’m doing a lot better. (My test results at the beginning of July were back in the normal range on all sides, and I’ve got much closer to my normal level of energy and concentration.) That said, the road back has been different than I’d expected. Not better or worse. Different.And that’s made a difference in my religious practice.

Add to this that there’s a reasonably decent chance that to get a job in my field, I’ll end up having to move. (I love Minnesota and the upper Midwest, but New England also holds a lot of my heart, and I have a number of friends and family there, and the job prospects are somewhat better.)

Both of these have meant some complications for group work. I have one very wonderful student-if-we-get-to-move-forward, and I’ve had a couple of other emails of interest in the last few months. I’m doing my best to be up front and honest with them that right now, it seems like a mostly-hiatus until I figure out the job stuff makes sense.

Basically, I’m happy to do some initial exploration with people who are interested the group, but not start substantial training. Plus I need some time to rebuild my reserves before trying to run group ritual regularly again, since I’m needing to devote a lot of attention and focus to the job hunt plus related tasks (like figuring out how I’d pack and move quickly if I got a job in another area and weeding out old clothes/books I no longer need to own/other such tasks that would be good to have done no matter what happens.)

So, on to the background:

Now, as regular readers might remember, it’s not like this chronic medical issue thing is new to me. I’ve had an asthma diagnosis since I was about 19, and migraines since I was 15. These days, I manage both of them without prescriptions (other than a rescue inhaler for the asthma that I rarely need): I’ve made a lot of lifestyle changes to make that possible.

Both improved during my early Craft training: unbalanced energy (in the ritual/magical sense) was one among several of my triggers, so removing that obviously helped reduce the frequency of migraines. Likewise, while I’m a longtime musician (woodwinds, singing, and harp), with good training in various breathing approaches, my Craft training gave me a way to apply them in some specific ways that helped with asthma. (And working with an herbalist and becoming *very* aware of early triggers helped a lot otherwise.)

However, there are still some limitations:

• Lack of sleep remains my most reliable migraine trigger: this means that rituals/classes/events that run late have always been a problem for me. (Especially since I’d need to be at work at 7 or 7:30: it’s hard to be at something until 10pm, drive home, have a bath, and still get 8 hours of sleep when that’s true!)
• At this point, camping festivals are a lot more work for me than the enjoyment I get out of them. Basically, I can camp, or I can enjoy the festival. One-day outdoor events aren’t as bad, but still have complications.
• Visiting people at their home is also sometimes complicated: I’m most allergic to dogs and to dust, so how someone deals with cleaning their home (and what pets they have) can make a big difference in when and where I can see them and how much time I can comfortably spend there.

And, of course, as with all chronic conditions, there are ups and downs. Sometimes I can deal with something just fine. And sometimes, usually due to a combination of factors, I can’t.

For example, I rarely have asthma issues anymore, but if we’re in the middle of fall (my worst seasonal allergies), and I’m running tired, and I’m at the home of someone with carpets and dogs (as opposed to wood floors and no pets), I’m more likely to have problems, or to need lots of extra recovery time (which I don’t have to spare right now.)

The new things in the equation:

The more recent conditions are both things I’m taking medication for. I’m extraordinarily fortunate that we figured out the treatment (and found me something that’s clearly working) as fast as we did: six months is amazingly rapid in terms of time from diagnosis to reasonable function for most cases.

That said, a few things have become really clear to me in the last couple of months:

• I’m back to about 90-95% of my ‘normal’.
• Unfortunately, that last 5% seems to have a lot to do with the speed with which I can get things done.
• So most things (whether that’s household tasks or writing something) are taking me 2-3 times longer than I think they should.
• It’s particularly complicated for things involving a combination of creative thought and precision communication – part of the reason I wanted to take a break from group ritual for a while. My ability to write at length and feel like it’s decent has only come back really well in the last few weeks.
• My overall energy levels are much better, but I still have sudden dips that I don’t know how to predict well yet. Every day I learn a little more, but I’m still getting surprised on a regular basis.
• I need to remember that dealing with relatively minor but tedious side effects takes time and energy too.
• There are a lot of things about how my body works that are continuing to change: I’m seeing changes in hunger and metabolism, in sleep, in hormonal cycles, in how warm or cold I feel, and when and how I do my best focused work, to name just a few.

All of these things mean that I want to ease back slowly into specific kinds of ritual work – and especially group ritual work where I’d be the only initiate in the tradition in the group (and therefore responsible for doing a lot of the specific energy work, although there are also pieces that others could start doing relatively quickly if needed.)

Effects on ritual work:

General level of energy: One of the most basic: if I’m constantly exhausted from the very basic functions of the day (getting up, making sure I eat reasonably, do the things I need to do – work, work on finding a job, whatever), then there may not be a lot of me left over for other tasks. This is the Out Of Spoons problem. (If you’re unfamiliar with the Spoon Theory explanation of dealing with chronic illness, I recommend reading it.)

There are obviously ways to have a meaningful spiritual life while energy and time aren’t very available (and in fact, I just sent in an article on that for the 2012 Witches’ Companion almanac.) On the other hand, I have ritual itches that aren’t always scratched by those things.

Amount of time tasks take: Remember how I talked about things taking me longer? That’s just as true for ritual prep as it is for doing my dishes or writing an email.

Right now, I’m tending to work through what I want to do on one day, spend a day or two tidying and getting things together, then do the ritual work. Previously, I would have been much more comfortable coming up with the plan and doing it within a day (or maybe two.)

Ability to focus: There was a while in December when my focus was so bad I couldn’t read light fiction for 5 minutes at a time. (That would have been much scarier if I’d had the energy to be scared, I suspect.) Fortunately, that got better. However, the process of getting down into a trance state and being able to use it for various purposes have changed somewhat for me.

I’m currently working through basic exercises on a regular basis to see what’s changed for me, and how things are working now.

Executive function: One of the things that went totally away for me, for a disturbingly long time (it only started to come back  in late May) was what’s commonly called ‘executive function’ – the ability to make choices between options, to make decisions about what order to do things in, and so on.

Some choices remained fairly easy for me. (What book to read next). But a lot of choices got very hard for me, and I’d sit there looking blankly at my list of options for a long time before being able to move forward on anything. If I got distracted in the middle of a task, it took me forever (like half an hour) to get back on task. Needless to say, I have hugely more understanding for my friends with ADD and ADHD these days. Even when it started getting easier to make decision and stay on track, it was still tremendously tiring for me.

In ritual and Craft practice terms, it does present some challenges for creating and following through in ritual – and more complications when working with other people. In particular, I don’t want to fall back on the easy thing when really something else might be much better, if I could get past the decision tree problem.

Meditation and trancework: One interesting note on meditation and trance work in particular: while I tried a few times in the past six months, I kept getting a very clear message that it was not the thing I needed to be doing. It wasn’t painful or bad: just a persistent door closed in my face.

In the past month, I’ve done a couple of deliberately short and gentle forays into trance work again, and while those are not my best trance moments ever, they’ve been much more functional.

Ability to raise and focus ritual energy: Which is one of the core jobs of the high priestess in ritual, and certainly necessary for my own personal work. As you might guess from my previous comments on general energy levels, this one fluctuates (sometimes unpredictability) and is harder than it used to be.

That said, habit counts for a whole lot: when I have the energy to kick in the practices and techniques that I’ve learned and done regularly in group work, those practices carry a lot of the effort with them. Think of it like getting a shuttle into orbit: large cost to get it off the ground, but once you get everything moving, the tendency of things already moving to stay in motion helps out a lot. That said, I’m not currently at a place where I’d want to trust that in a ritual with high or very specific expectations (initiations, for example) just yet.

Commitments to deity, to coven energy: These are things I’ve mostly had to set aside (other than the most basic form of attention and devotion) for a while: I just haven’t had the spare energy to send out. The deity part has been fine: the coven energy piece is a lot more complicated. (And again, it’s a place where having another active initiate would have made things much easier.)

I think my solution to the coven one is that – once I feel my reserves are up to it and I can afford a day or two of recovery time without discombulating the job search – to reinforce a number of those commitments and connections again very deliberately. (Not quite recreating them, but tracing over them, so to speak.) That includes the coven’s communal astral space, but also some other commitments and connections.

Tradition: There have been some substantial changes in the group I hived from (and where I’m still very fond of people) in the last couple of months. I regret very much that my energy levels and amount of focus meant I was less able to be present and offer my thoughts (as one of the three third degrees in the tradition) than I really wanted to be.

I’ve been making up for it a bit in the last month – partly to catch up with people I just plain like (and to hear some of what they’re thinking about things now), but also because if I do end up moving for job reasons, I wanted to make sure I’d seen relatively recently if I have to do a quick move.

Attention to detail and ability to shift plans on the fly: Here we come to the reason I’m being really cautious about group ritual: I recognise that my ability to spot details (especially in areas where I have to work a bit more for it) and to adjust logistics and plans on the fly are still very shaky compared to my norms.

Now, granted, my norms in this area are pretty high – it’s part of why I love library work, for example. However, leading ritual for others, or formally taking them on as a student (with the energetic commitments that entails) mean I want to be really sure I’m able to notice any potential areas of concern when they’re still small. While I’m getting back to that point, I’m not quite there yet.

How I present myself: While I feel mostly like ‘me’ in that core way, I’ve had a number of internal shifts over the past few months. I’ve accepted the fact that the combination of health issues means that thinking of myself in at least some contexts significantly limited is a big shift for me. (As opposed to just having two well-managed conditions, where as long as I didn’t hit the sore spots, we were mostly fine.) Likewise, leaving a job and school community I’d loved for 10 years is a complicated thing emotionally, in the best of circumstances, which this wasn’t. (As there are a number of things I wish had happened differently in various ways, both things I did and things I had no choice in.)

But I’m aware that all of these things affect how people interact with me. I talk regularly with friends who have a good baseline on me, and I listen to what they say. I’m slowly working through some ritual work around the transitional bits. But I also want to make sure that anyone who meets me right now knows that some of how I’m doing things and how I must come across is a transitional state in some ways.

(Ok: Life is always a transitional state, but some times in life are more transitional than others.)

In particular, I’m still figuring out the best way to be clear that what ritual I can offer right now is not the full spectrum of possible intensities I’d normally prefer to work along. On a scale of 1-10, with most rituals being around the 5 mark – moving and changing, but designed to do so in small and manageable doses  – I’m averaging a 2-4. My normal range would spend a lot of time in the 5-6 range, with a very 8s, and the occasional 9 or 10 of initiations and other pivotal ritual moments for an individual or the group.

Integration takes time: The level of internal change and impact on my daily life from the last six months is probably *more* than any of my initiations, and more than either my marriage or divorce. (In large part because those things – while they had their challenges and really hard moments – mostly didn’t fundamentally change how I felt my brain worked in ways that were core to my self-identification.)

There’s really no solution for this one beyond time, self-awareness, and finding situations that stretch my new sense of myself in ways that help me grow into the spaces. I’m doing a combination of conversations with friends, journalling, other projects, and a bit of body modality work (Feldenkrais, in my case) that lets my brain try new things out that might work better in a structured context.

And in group terms – I’m not quite to the point where that’s integrated enough that I feel comfortable being responsible for leading someone deliberately into that state of needed-integration, and showing them ways back out: something core to initiatory work. I have a feeling I will be in a month, or two, or three. But not quite yet.

Onwards…

And now, if you don’t mind, it’s time for me to aim at bed, so I can get plenty of sleep, so I can get up in the morning, take my meds, wait a bit, have breakfast, and get some job applications out before meeting a friend for something like coffee. Part 2 of this – how I look at health issues in terms of group work (both my health issues and other people’s, and what kind of information I want to know about it when), will, I hope, happen tomorrow.

As a Pagan with specific needs:

I need to take responsibility for my needs. This is both for philosophical reasons, but also for practical ones: no one else is going to know my needs and limits as well as I know myself. I feel that I should be able to do the following, in order to help others in the community figure out what they can offer, and how they can offer it.

Recognise my limits:

I am fortunate to live in a metropolitan area with a wide-ranging and active Pagan community. On many days, there are a couple of different events going on. Many happen in ways that just aren’t accessible to me: for example, they end at 9pm or later on a worknight, which means I can’t get enough sleep to function the next day if I go.

I could try demanding that all those events meet my specific needs (unlikely to happen, and frustrating for everyone.) Or I could recognise that at least right now, I’ll need to miss some things. Lots of things.

Be able to communicate specific needs clearly and well in advance:

I know that group leaders and event planners are busy people. Keeping my questions and request short and focused will make it easier for everyone if I have to ask for help or additional information.

The larger the event, the sooner I should ask: I know there is a limited amount that even the best-intentioned folks in the world can do last minute. I’d suggest at least a week in advance, more like two or three if it’s a major event (a once-a-year festival.) Mostly, this isn’t a direct issue for me right now (I’m more likely to be the one running something than attending), but it’s good to keep in mind.

Clearly share what I can offer:

This is true both as a group leader and as a friend to others in the community. One of the things I’ve struggled with this winter is how to be a good priestess while my own resources (energy, time for anything other than basic necessities) are so slim. I think I’m walking that line about as well as possible, given the limitations, but every time I have to hold myself back from offering help or even just seeing a friend, it’s hard.

Being clear about what I can and can’t do right now means people don’t have to guess. And that saves time and energy and lets us get onto more of the good stuff, and less of the disability-management stuff.

Be a good guest:

It is not nice to spring things on your hosts, and tends to make everyone less happy. This is true whether it’s a specific food need, the fact you have a service animal, or that you have specific allergies. In general, I’d say that it’s important to be especially clear for an event hosted in someone’s home, and to realise that not everything may be an option given those circumstances.

Issues I’ve seen show up in the past include:

I’ve seen or heard about all of these situations (and more!) in my past experience, though I’m doing my best to leave out any specific identifying information.

If there are things you absolutely can’t be around:

Communicate these early and clearly (if you do it in person, follow up with an email, so they have the complete list of concerns in writing.) This includes

• Foods you can’t be in the same room with
• Incense, herbs, or scents that you can’t be around
• Cleaning products, ditto
• Pet allergies that you can’t medicate for
• Major mobility issues (as below) that require specific furniture or arrangement of space

Food and drink limitations.

If the group tells you that they share food (often bread and alcohol in small amounts) in ritual, but that they can include alternatives with warning, tell them in well in advance (by which I mean ‘in enough time they can add something appropriate to the shopping list’, not ‘when you show up at the ritual.’) I know I don’t always have juice that’s seasonally and thematically appropriate to the ritual unless I buy it specially.

Time limits.

If you use a ride service due to mobility issues, and they give a wide time frame for pick up and drop off, check with the hosting household to make sure they’ll be home and available enough in advance. They might have been planning on last minute cleaning, a leadership discussion before everyone else arrives – or even a rehearsal of the ritual that needs to be private. You should expect to entertain yourself (bring a book, etc.) until everyone else arrives, rather than have a nice long friendly chat with people in the household (who, again, may need to be doing other things.)

If you have a service animal:

Discuss this clearly and up front with the hosting household as well as the ritual planners – people will be able to accommodate different needs. (The ADA doesn’t apply to private homes or invite-only settings, and religious settings also have specific exemptions.) This is for good practical reason. Some people have allergies sufficient to make it hard to host any animal in their personal living space. Some have pets who live in the home who do not do well with other animals. There may be specific concerns around space, mobility, or allergy needs of other attendees.

(Having had a very bad experience around this one in the past, I think it’s also good to provide some advance information that can be sent to everyone in the ritual about what to expect, and so people with mild-to-moderate pet allergies can medicate or make other choices appropriately. If your service animal has never been in this type of ritual space or work before, make extra sure to let people know that.)

Check with the hosting household about any mobility issues.

Good questions to consider include:

• Are there stairs to get into the home? How many?
• Are there stairs to get into the ritual space?
• Will we be standing during ritual? Could you have a chair available?
• If there is sitting during ritual, could you have a chair instead of sitting on the ground?
• If outside, is the ground level, or is there a hill or valley, gravel, or other difficulties?

Plan ahead around food:

Expect that in a potluck situation (common for many Pagan groups after ritual) that there may be some foods there that you can’t eat for whatever reason. Since people have so many different (and sometimes conflicting!) food needs, especially after intensive ritual work, you should make sure you bring food you can eat that will satisfy you, and expect that you may not be able to eat everything offered, unless it’s been carefully arranged in advance.

You should be aware that some people experience blood sugar or other related reactions to some kinds of ritual work. If you have any concerns, you should let the event hosts know in advance, and ask what you should do if you need to be excused from the ritual for a minute. (In groups using a formal ritual circle, they may want to let you out in a way that doesn’t disrupt the existing energy and focus of the circle for others if at all possible.)

Provide brief information about any potential emergency needs

I’m asthmatic: I always tell someone there where my inhaler is. (And that I’m asthmatic in the first place). Seizure disorders, vertigo or other things that make standing up suddenly a problem, significant blood sugar issues, and anything where you’ve got significant limitations on the amount of standing, walking, exercising, etc. you can do are good things to communicate. The group doesn’t need all the details, but they really do need to know whether it’s more useful to hand you food or medication or to call 911. We all hope none of these emergencies will happen, but preparation helps a lot if they do.

It’s also good to let people know if you have a compromised immune system (so that if the whole group is coming down with something nasty, you can get a warning), or if you have any particular considerations that might affect others. (Like a disease that might be transmitted by casual contact, or by blood if there was a minor household accident – I’ve seen enough broken glasses and similar things to like to know this one for clean-up precaution purposes.)

Be aware that not all accomodations are realistic

We’d like them to be. But I think we also do better if we admit we live in a world where sometimes, the options don’t allow that. And likewise, sometimes, that accommodations are mutually incompatible.

One common problem of the first type is mobility, and I’d like to take some time to break down the choices here, to look at the range of considerations that come up when evaluating long-term changes in ritual and magical practice.

Let’s say that rituals currently happen in a space that involves stairs, and someone who can’t climb them would like to attend. On one hand, it looks like there might be a simple solution: hold the ritual in a space that doesn’t have stairs. In reality, that may not actually produce the same kind of potential space and work.

Option 1: Rent a space

Many rental spaces have better mobility compliance than private homes, it’s true. But they also have some limitations that significantly affect what kinds of ritual work can be done in them.

• It is much easier to find rental spaces for a Pagan group in some places rather than others.
• Cost can be prohibitive for a small group. My tradition has 22 rituals each year: rental spaces in the Twin Cities commonly used by the Pagan community run $50 to 100 a time – that’s a fair bit of cost to share between a few people.
• The times the space is available may be limited – and often, the group that owns the space gets priority on scheduling.
• Groups may need to be done and cleaned up with a strict time limit – this can make some kinds of ritual work challenging, or may make doing ritual work on weekday evenings impossible in that space.
• Many spaces have restrictions on the use of candles, incense, food, and drink (all of which may be used in many practices at some point.)
• Group members have to pack up and carry all of the needed items. (I’m going to come back to this point in a minute).
• Outdoor parks can be an option in some settings – but you are at the whim of the weather. (And in some areas, outdoor ritual for a significant part of the year might be an accessibility issue all by itself. I live in Minnesota, where I think ritual planners need to pay attention to both heat issues and cold issues, depending on the season. More on that on Saturday)
• Many spaces do not offer much privacy, or much control over the space.

It’s this last one that’s particularly challenging. Some groups do actively present open rituals (that anyone from the public can attend). Some groups hold rituals that have a very low entry bar (open to anyone who asks for the location information). And some rituals are celebratory, or are open to distractions or interruptions. But many Pagan paths include at least some elements are very private, personal, or challenging for the participants. Some more intense ritual practices can also be especially draining or even unsafe for the participants if they’re interrupted.

Let’s look at an example. The ritual celebration of Samhain in a number of paths focuses on remembering our beloved ones who have died. This can be a deeply moving and emotionally powerful time for many people. Now, imagine that you’re crying your eyes out, after telling a story of a beloved friend, partner, or family member, and someone opens the door to the space, walks through the large meeting hall you’re in, and disappears into the bathroom at the other end of the hall. And a few minutes later, they do the same thing in reverse. This is often very common in rented church or community spaces: the larger function rooms without fixed furniture often have the bathroom or other important facilities (utility closets, storage, sound or lighting controls for the building) attached or nearby, and if there are other events in the building, people may need to access them.

Or imagine the same ritual in a building where there’s a drum jam, concert, or noisy meeting taking place on the next floor, or behind the next wall. Would you be as able to focus on your memories and grief as you would in a place that was quiet and undisturbed? Sometimes spaces share light switches (or are either in total darkness, or glaring fluroescent), meaning that it can be challenging to create a soft, gently lit, sacred space for worship.

In other words, the rituals that work best in rented space are often the more public ones. More emotionally intimate ones often don’t translate well, or require a lot of special arrangement to feel like safe and meaningful space for the participants. In some cases, creating an appropriate space for a particular kind of ritual may be impossible in rented space.

Option 2: Use a different space hosted by someone in the same group

Again, if this is actually an appropriate option, this can work great. But often, the number of people in the group who can reasonably host a small group ritual are relatively small.

• Does anyone else have sufficient space to host a group of your size? That includes being able to move furniture out of the way to clear enough open space for ritual.
• Do you actually have a space that solves the mobility challenges? If everyone else lives in upper story apartments, or other places with lots of stairs, you might not.
• Is the prospective host able to deal with the necessary cleaning, furniture moving, etc. to prepare for ritual? If not, is that a problem that can be reliably solved with help from the group, or not?
• Does the prospective host introduce any new accessibility concerns – pets, other allergens, mobility within the space, space for people to sit during the ritual.
• Will it limit someone’s spouse or partner, housemates, or children from reasonable freedom in their own home for the duration of the ritual? If they can’t move between the kitchen, the bathroom, and their preferred space to curl up when the living room/other likely ritual space is in use, frustration will likely build. These spaces might work well for a very occasional need (like a rain location in a place with generally decent weather in the summer), but they create hard feelings if they’re used all the time.

Sometimes, neither of these are good options. In which case we’re back to our less-than-accessible space as a hard limit.

The problem of tote-and-barge Paganism:

This is, perhaps, my favorite term for those groups who meet in places where they must bring our equipment. (I have the kind of experience with this you might guess when I say that in my former group, one of the best presents we ever got our HPS when we were still regularly renting space was a set of matched rolling luggage.)

How much a group needs to bring varies a lot on their practice. However, it’s fairly common to have a selection of candles and candleholders, something to share ritual food and drink, artwork or statues of deities to be honored in that ritual, and whatever appropriate ritual tools are needed. Many of these may be breakable. Altar cloths appropriate to the ritual. If the site doesn’t have suitable tables, the group may need to bring those too.And then there’s the ritual decorations, which can take up about as much space as you’re willing to haul. Some items are small. Some are fragile – glassware or ceramic. Some are large and have to be carried separately – a broom, for example, or a staff. This often requires very specific packing skills to be able to move everything safely and securely in as few trips as possible.

On top of this, of course, we must include the items that the people bringing the ritual stuff need for their own personal needs – which could be anything from food and drink to share, to a chair to sit in and cooler (if it’s an outdoor ritual), to bags with personal items.

It adds up to a lot of stuff. And it adds a good 20-30 minutes of physical effort to the day’s activities. For some people, this is no big deal – but for some people (and that includes me, right now) that’s going to substantially change the other things they can plan for that day.

There are ways to do it with less stuff. My own group has a one-basket policy (with a couple of exceptions like a small cauldron). If it doesn’t fit in the basket (which is about 9″ wide by 18″ or so long, and about a foot deep), it doesn’t get acquired. However, I’m rigorous about this because I also don’t have room to store a lot of items (little tiny house!) rather than because of the hauling complications.

The hauling’s hard enough, but in my experience, is the need to pack and unpack the stuff multiple times is even worse.

If we’re doing ritual in my home, it’s no big deal if I suddenly discover we need one extra tea light candle, or if I can’t find the lighter that’s supposed to be in the basket. I snag another one (because we’re at home, and I have such things handy.) I can do a final check of things for the ritual as people arrive, if I’m home.

If I’m elsewhere, I have to find time to double check the basket and make sure everything’s there – that we haven’t used the last stick of incense, that we have plenty of candles, that the lighter’s full enough to light things easily. This can easily take 10-20 minutes, and it’s a task that’s particularly fragile if you get distracted or lose focus for some reason.

And of course, there’s the issue of cleaning things after use. If I’m at home, my chalice often stays out on one of my shelves: it gets rinsed and cleaned, and then goes back there. If we use the one in the basket, it needs to be rinsed and washed, and then packed back down there – into the bottom of the basket. This also means you end up unpacking stuff when you get home, cleaning the stuff that needs cleaning, and then repacking it – tasks that add up to a fair chunk of time after what has already been a demanding day.

You might also notice that these are hard tasks to share. If we’re meeting at my home, I can hand much of the set-up over to other people, and focus on the bits only I can do. I can leave the washing up for a day or two, if I’ve already rinsed everything out. If we’re meeting somewhere else, but the *stuff* lives at my home, I either have to do it all, or make arrangements for someone else to do it (which might limit my schedule, other things I could be doing, etc.)

None of these are great solutions, if the person who is responsible for the stuff also has health concerns (either of focus/concentration or of energy)

Personally, I’ve found that doing rituals at home – even with the house-cleaning expectations that go with that (but I’d want a reasonably tidy house anyway…) – is perhaps a tenth of the work of doing ritual somewhere else, just because I don’t need to invest nearly as much time in double checking everything and making sure it’s available if we need it. It also makes for a richer ritual experience because I’ve got more space to improvise if I have a last minute brilliant idea. And I can spread out the work over a couple of days if I need to, rather than doing it all at once.

It also – as someone who’s dealing with exhaustion issues – means I don’t need to drive home afterwards. I can push myself to the further edge of my limits, because if I need to go to bed right after we’re done, I can. I have the comforts of home, and I don’t need to go far to make use of them. That’s pretty invaluable right now. There *are* ways to share the work in many groups – but some of them work better than others at some stages in an individual’s or a group’s growth and cycle.

So…

As you can see from all of this, sometimes there isn’t an actual practical solution that’s accessible in the ways we might like – in an ideal world – to be able to offer. I think it’s important to keep looking at these questions, and whether we’re missing an answer that would improve accessibility without removing anything from the core practice of our path.

But I also think it’s important to realise that – in Pagan terms – there are many reasons we might be a poor fit for a particular group. Scheduling (when the group meets), the group’s focus, the time expectations (both for group events and personal practice or study at home), the specific practices, and many other things like the personality of existing group members all also matter.

Sometimes we can fudge on some of those and make everything work out in a way that preserves the tradition’s tested practices and meaningful experiences but can include people with specific needs or limits. Sometimes we can’t, for reasons that are not anyone’s fault or blame in particular, but that come from all sorts of other things going on in our lives. It’s fair game to ask what might be possible – but also our responsibility to know what we can and can’t accommodate.