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.

And I knew that for BADD, I really wanted to talk about the intersection with the modern Pagan community. On Friday, I posted about my own take on my personal responsibilities and some practical process pieces, because the community parts, below, kept getting longer and longer.

For those coming here via BADD links:

I hope much of this content (and Friday’s post, linked above) will be of interest for non-Pagans: many of the things I’m going to mention here apply to anyone hosting small events in their home that have a specific goal or focus, whether that’s religious or educational or personal. Some points, of course, are specific to Pagan religions, but I’ll try to explain those as I go.

If you’re not familiar with modern Paganism and want to learn more, you might want to check out the three posts in my Background – Intro link. These begin by talking about Paganism in general (part one), religious witchcraft and Wicca (part two) and my personal practice (part three). I also welcome sincere questions, though due to my own needs and commitments, I may not be able to respond immediately (May 1st is a significant holy day for a number of Pagans, including me, though my group ritual is actually tomorrow.)

The bare minimum you need to know for the rest of this post to make sense:

• There are many different religions under the Pagan umbrella with a wide range of practices and beliefs. For length reasons, I can’t go into lots of detail here, but think of it like the range of *all* of the strands of the religions of the Book (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) in all their myriad forms, and then some.
• Many Pagan religions put a significant value on self-responsibility in varying forms. This has both benefits and challenges for people with accessibility needs.
• I follow and lead a group in a specific path (tradition) that has a specific way of doing things for many common ritual tasks. (Much like lots of religious traditions). Some things are up for negotiation, some things aren’t.
• Pagan groups in general are often autonomous but exist in context in a community: they set their own guidelines in accordance with their specific path. Obviously, guidance from teachers and other leaders in the community and community interactions in general help shape these choices.
• Paid clergy are uncommon: costs beyond nominal expenses are usually shared by all in the group in some form.
• Many Pagan groups meet in private homes – this raises all sorts of access considerations, which I’ll be talking about below. They’re also often small, so you’re often balancing the needs of 3-13 people, not dozens.
• There are some larger Pagan events – both open/public rituals (in parks or larger indoor spaces), but also camping festivals and indoor weekend conferences.
• While the number of Pagans is growing (though exact stats are tricky to manage, for varied reasons), there are some areas with many Pagan group options, and some places where there are few to no group options available to someone due to transportation, scheduling, or interest issues. (i.e. sometimes there’s a Pagan group with a different set of practices or focus than someone prefers.) Many Pagans practice on their own as a result, or with close family members. (In this post, I’m focusing on group work, however, since individual adaptations are a lot simpler to negotiate.)
• We are, after all, in this, talking about the practice of religion, a subject where people often have very strong emotional yearnings, connections, and desires. Sometimes the obvious ‘logical’ thing doesn’t actually serve as well as we’d wish. (I’ll be coming back to this one.)

Onward to the actual post! First, I want to talk about the things that we could do better (as a community in general, and specific parts of that community in places), and then I want to talk about some tools that I think deserve broader attention in doing some of those things better.

What we could do better:

Remember we have a wide range of abilities:

I think that Pagans who do even semi-regular group work do end up being a bit more aware of this than many people in broader society. That’s both because people often are relatively open about talking about it, and because aspects of our community bring out certain issues a little more clearly than they might in an established religious community with a fixed building.

However, I keep running into people who tell me of groups and public events who haven’t given any attention to it.

They design rituals that involve lots of dancing or movement without figuring out a meaningful way to participate for people with mobility challenges. They use clouds and clouds of sage smudging or incense to purify the space without considering allergies. They offer food and drink choices in ritual that leave people out of the shared meal, no matter how symbolic it is. And a lot of ritual methods are especially challenging for people with hearing or vision impairments, because there often isn’t a reliable framework they can rely on from ritual to ritual or an alternate way to participate in some practices. And as a community, we encourage a lot of reading as a method of one kind of learning, without giving a lot of support to those with learning disabilities that make in-depth reading difficult.

You might not be aware of all of the possibilities, but it doesn’t take much to realise that there probably *are* going to be a wide range of different needs and requests for accommodation. Figuring out in advance which basic categories you’re happy to accommodate (and would be easy), which ones you might be able to do, but would take some effort and planning, and which ones you’re just not able to do right now is a good move.

I’d also encourage groups to look for (and design) ways that people with different skills and abilities can help at the event. A lot of early volunteer tasks are hard for mobility challenged people (moving chairs or tables, for example.) Finding tasks that someone can help with while sitting (folding pamphlets, welcoming people, directing where food should go on the potluck table, etc) can be really useful while welcoming a wider range of volunteers.

Reevaluate if there are substantial changes in your group practice – where you meet, when you meet, what you do.

Provide information up front about what to expect.

This is the one I think we’re especially lousy about and that would be quite easy to fix. Many groups do provide an email or phone number for questions, but some of these communication methods are not answered as promptly as we’d like. Plus, simply having to ask can make someone with limits feel awkward. Putting the information out in some more neutral form is easier for everyone (and it’ll save work for the event organisers if you use the same spaces or do the same kinds of things regularly: do this once, check it quickly for any changes for future events, and you’re good to go.)

I’ve got some of this information scattered through my coven information process, but I want in the next few weeks to pull it out into its own page. I have, however, done my best to make it clear with the Twin Cities Pagan Pride event (last fall’s event info page is here – we’ll be at a different site this year, so I need to do some major updates.) Note that it doesn’t mean you have to be able to offer solutions to all kinds of access problems. It’s quite possible you won’t. But letting people know what they can expect helps them plan ahead or to ask more detailed questions.

Information I’d love to see offered reliably:

• Clear directions to the site, including how close parking is to the event location.
• Mobility access: Are there stairs? Is there an elevator or ramp someone can use instead? Is it possible to manage a wheelchair, scooter, or walker in those spaces or are there tight turns?
• What’s the seating like? Does someone need to bring their own chair? What if they can’t stand during the ritual or other event?
• Are you going to be using sage to smudge, incense, scented oils, or anything else that might trigger a scent allergy or asthma?
• Is food going to be shared in ritual? If so, what type? What should people do if they can’t consume that?
• About how long is the event expected to run? (And please split out the event and social time after.) Obviously, this may often be a rough guide, since ritual length can vary based on some variables that aren’t obvious until you start (like number of people there.)
• What kind of food and liquid will for certain be available (if any) and any potluck guidelines. (Asking people to bring an ingredients list or the label for the food is a good place to start.)

Give specifics when you know them:

There are ways to do this without weakening the emotional impact of many rituals.

I think back to a small festival I was at a few years ago. There were multiple rituals during that week, but two stick in my head because their approach was so different. It will help you to know that this was a camping festival, and at the time I was mostly able-bodied, but that camping took a lot out of me due to asthma (camping has mold triggers), and less great sleep and the general mechanical effort of camping was doing a number on my reserves over time. I was generally fine with standing for an hour, maybe two, but more than that, and I needed a chair or a suitable patch of ground.

One ritual did a workshop the day before the ritual to share these things and answer questions, with plenty of time between the workshop and the ritual so people could ask them privately if they preferred. It was going to be a fairly emotionally intense ritual. It would take a significant length of time. It would involve taking off a piece of clothing as part of the external commitment in the ritual (but it was up to us how much skin to expose.) And the ritual site was a fair walk away (about half a mile).

To help with some of these challenges, they arranged for some fairly simple access things, like running a shuttle from the central campground to the ritual site, and letting people know where to set their chairs up if they needed them for a long ritual (and then had someone available to move them to the second location used for the ritual quietly.)

But another ritual that same week wasn’t so clear. They began ritual, and a short way in, let people know that there were going to be two parts to the ritual, and it would be okay to leave out after the first part, if either you decided it wasn’t the right place for you to be, or you needed to for physical reasons. The first part was about 45 minutes. The whole ritual was closer to 3.

I left after the first part (with a smattering of other people – maybe a quarter or a third of the people there). However, I know I got some pushback from people (even people who know my general physical state pretty well) about doing so. (I also had some other issues with the way the ritual was framed, which didn’t help – but I was especially cranky about being thrust into the prospect of standing up in the ritual circle for 3 hours without warning and without much chance to move around.)

Warning is good. It helps people make good decisions for themselves rather than guessing based on shreds of (often inaccurate) information from their past experiences, conversations with others, or what this event was like in the past.

Make the information available early on.

I mentioned that I include information in our website about these issues. It’s also something I discuss briefly in our first meeting, and if that seems to be going well, also discuss when I’ll need more detailed information.

While I respect people’s needs for medical privacy, my tradition for small group work includes a range of practices that someone new to the religion or our style of practice may not anticipate – everything from extended meditation to dance and chant used in ritual to breathing exercises. When I take someone on as a student in the tradition, I make specific commitments to their well-being in classes and rituals they attend with the group (These things often are and should be challenging, and stretch them. But I’d rather not break them, and especially not accidentally!).

By knowing more about what the actual limits and diagnoses are, when relevant, I stand a much better chance of being able to ask the right questions about accommodation in advance or find alternate approaches. We build up to this: the initial information I need is to make sure we can have a comfortable space for our first conversations, and only ask for full details after a month or three, when someone is looking at becoming a student.

In large public groups, or open-invite ones, the conversations are a bit different, but starting early can make people feel more comfortable opening up with questions. Also, get your event notices out early. People with disabilities or health concerns often plan their time a fair bit ahead. They also may need extra time to arrange rides, or ask questions about what’s available. If you announce your public ritual two weeks before the event, many won’t bother even trying to come, because they’ll already have other things on their calendar.

Also, seriously consider multiple methods to get the information out. Don’t just announce it at face-to-face events, or on busy discussion forums where it can get lost in the conversation. Find a way to let people get annoucements of basic events simply and in multiple formats if at all possible.

Clearly communicate your own limits:

One of the things the Pagan community does that gets us in trouble (even though it often comes from a very well-meaning place) is that we try to make people happy and feel included, even if it’s really not a particularly good fit. People then try it out, are unable to get the support they want, and everyone ends up feeling frustrated, hurt, or worse. Or sometimes, we feel compelled to try and push through something to do something good for the community. Both of these are dangerous – to ourselves and to others.

If you have a hard limit, be clear about it.You don’t need to be defensive or apologetic, just clear about what it is, what’s negotiable, and what isn’t.

A couple of samples:

• I have asthma and allergies. If I’m doing in-depth more intense ritual, teaching, or other things when I want my full abilities, I’m probably going to be really picky about where we do them, to avoid those triggers. I won’t accept a student who smokes if they’d need to smoke at any point during class or ritual because I can’t reliably cope with smoke being brought into my home even if they smoke outside.
• I live in a tiny (400 square foot) house that has some mobility challenges (stairs in, and tight space in the bathroom) I have a cat, who is cranky around other animals. (even if my allergies allowed them, which they don’t). My group is a bad fit for anyone who’s currently using a wheelchair, a walker, or who has a service animal.  (I do expect to buy a home in a few years, and intend to look for better mobility access, but until then, there are limits.)
• I’ve got my own exhaustion issues to deal with. I have limited space in my life for people who don’t show up, run persistently late, or don’t respect my time. (For people who do, I do my best to be available in some form.)

There are plenty more things I could list here, but you get the idea. There’s stuff I can offer in my home, and there’s stuff I can’t. There’s stuff I can be around if I need to be on top of my skills as a priestess and teacher, and there’s stuff I can’t be around if I’m going to do that. While I recognise that my limits might leave out some very lovely people, I do my best to point them in other possible directions that might be a good fit, and/or find other ways to interact that don’t hit my limits as significantly.

One place I see this causing particular problem is a group leader who’s already stretched to their limits for whatever reason – it could be health needs, but it could also be family, work, or other stresses – who feels pressured to take on a new student, rather than say “Not right now.” Some of this is pressure we put on ourselves, some of it is pressure from a person who wants to find a group, some of it may be perceived pressure from the community. But breaking ourselves down as teachers and group leaders doesn’t actually help people in the long run.

My basic take is that if I’m inviting someone into my home (metaphorically and physically) on a regular basis, they can either deal with the fact that I’m human and have limits, or they don’t need to be there. I want to do my deep religious work with people who understand and value commitment, but who also get the need for flexibility.

Be aware that changes may have an impact on others.

This isn’t to say that group members or students have a veto on their leader’s life choices. However, when you’re sharing your space with other people on a regular basis, and they’ve made a commitment to *being* in your space on a regular basis, some advance warning and discussion about what might help will make everything go more smoothly.

I have far more significant dog allergies than I do cat allergies. I used to live in the same home as the priestess and several other group members of the group I trained with. They’ve added additional dogs, right before and after I moved, as well as having a range of other visiting canines. The dogs are lovely – but my allergies are such that even if I medicate,  and even if they clean thoroughly, I’ll still have significant allergic reactions that strain my body. If I’m otherwise healthy, that’s okay – but right now, it’d be hard for me to visit without also planning several days of possible recovery time afterwards, which doesn’t fit very well with working at my day job, or doing other things in my life.

Do I blame them (or the dogs?). Nope. But I also hope they remember that the fact I’m not up there has much more to do with the environment than with them.

The same thing is true of ritual practices that start trending consistently in a new direction. The more that we can pause and talk about the new direction periodically and make sure that people are either still interested and committed, or can gently move forward in a way that doesn’t leave people feeling dragged into changes they’re not sure about.

As a community, we often make assumptions about why someone isn’t there.

I haven’t been at many public events this past year – Twin Cities Pagan Pride, two of our fundraisers, a couple of concerts, and that’s about it. A lot of that is due to health reasons: my own basic needs, the job that pays the bills, and my coven come first (not always in that order!). And yet, I’m pretty sure that at some point, someone from my local community is going to ask about it, in a way that implies I’m not as fully connected or committed to the community as they are.

And in some contexts, that’s true. I’ve got a different connection to the Pagan community locally than someone who’s able to go to the Sacred Paths Center on a regular basis for social gatherings. I help run one large event in the community, and I sometimes poke my head in at other events as time and energy allow. But I also chat with people in email, keep an eye on our local discussion lists, direct newbies looking for resources in the area to area groups, and do a whole lot of other stuff that I can do without pushing my health too hard.

If you’re in a position to help someone out, and you haven’t seen someone at a local event in a while, I’d also encourage you to get in touch, and see if a ride there would help out, or if there’s something else that you could do that would help them attend. (I know right now there are times when I’m not up for driving, especially if I don’t have a very good idea what the event will be like, but would go to something if I had a way of getting home again at the end I didn’t have to think about. This doesn’t always solve the problem, as there are still scheduling conflicts, energy conflicts, etc. but it’d help about half the time.)

Multiple models are a good thing

Especially in the Wiccan-derived parts of the community, I keep coming across this prevalent image of the high priestess (especially, but also group leadership in general) as always having it together. They come home from a job that both supports them in style and contributes deeply to the community. (or ideally, they don’t work at all, so they can devote all their time to the group). They whip up an elegant, tasty, healthy meal from scratch. They lay out everything in a perfectly clean and artfully decorated home. When everyone arrives, they are relaxed, fresh, and ready to have deep and wide-ranging conversations, and solve the world’s problems in a flick of the wand. When everyone’s done, they graciously hang out talking until the last person is ready to leave, and then whisk the dishes and other tidying away, go to bed, and wake up fully refreshed for another creative, magical, witchy day.

Erm. Yeah. Right. In many of our fantasies.

The reality is that many of us are passionate about jobs that do demand time and energy outside the standard workday, at least sometimes. Others deliberately work in jobs that don’t do this – but deal with the resulting lower pay or benefits than they might otherwise have. Many of us come home a mere hour or so before other people arrive for discussion, class, or ritual, which is about enough time to do a last minute tidy, stick something in the oven, and take a deep breath.

All of this is actually just fine – but it can take a tremendous amount of attention to be on top of everything, so that if work has an unusual demand, or you were out talking to a student having a hard time at a coffee shop the night before, you don’t have to scramble to do a major cleaning or make a significant part of the meal on the spot.

Even more than that, though, we need to publicly recognise that there are many ways to contribute to our Pagan community. Some people are driven or called to be teachers and group leaders. But there is also a need for people who show up and help make everything work smoothly. Who offer practical skills. Who plan less exciting parts of the events, like coordinating potluck, or simply showing up with a dish that has to go in the oven for a bit and then everyone can eat. Who reliably offer to help clean, who do the dishes after the event, or whatever else is comfortable and actually useful to the hostess or host. Who host themselves, so the people teaching can focus on that. Who offer or coordinate rides. Who create Pagan-friendly social gatherings and sustain them. Who do any number of other things I am doubtless forgetting right now.

Some ideas in the community are soul-destroying:

Concepts like the idea that we choose the bodies and lives we come into in detail, so that whatever pain or challenge or illness we have now was either a choice (in some models) or a payback for misdeeds in a past life. Neither of these actually serve us well in the present, and they can create a lot of distrust and discomfort in community settings. There’s also the idea that we can fix anything, if we just wish/want/protect ourselves from negativity hard enough. I think this is also utter nonsense. But all of these could be vast posts of their own, so let’s move onto the more useful bits.

And things we already benefit from:

We dwell in a polytheistic worldview

(Most of us, anyway.) This means that those multiple models are actually right before us, often. There is honor and benefit in crafting, in weaving people and intentions together. There is value in teaching, in leading closer to the knowledge of the Gods or the Craft or whatever other topic. There is honor in holding a sacredness in the home and in our food. It’s our own human nature to develop tunnel vision, but if we back up a few steps, we can often find a number of models of opportunity.

Our models also include gods and goddesses who have disabilities or substantial limits, who yet thrive.  Are their lives perfect? Nope, but generally neither are the lives of any other God or Goddess in the mythology in that case. The multiplicity of choice, however, can be very powerful, if we incorporate it.

We have tools to build self-awareness

Taught thoroughly, common practices for many paths like centering, grounding, shielding, and meditation can give us a way to work to build self-awareness. It’s also a great use for divination tools of all kinds, when we ask meaningful questions. Our rituals and ritual cycles can give us ways to keep looping back and checking in about different common topics. And when we work with other people regularly, those people can give us feedback on things we might not have noticed ourselves yet.

Most importantly, being self-aware gives us a chance to head off the worst of slow-building issues sooner than later, or to realise that something’s really going wrong. (I caught the “There’s something really wrong here” within a month, and it’d have been faster except that I had flu at the beginning of the month, and already expected to feel pretty lousy for a few weeks.)

Our religious practices give us experience in facing the unknown:

In dealing with my own health issues, this year, I keep getting the comment that I’m dealing with this with unusual grace. This is partly a choice – more on that in a second – but it’s also, I realise, because I have experience (through working in an initiatory religious witchcraft tradition) in going into experiences I know will change me, but not how, and coming out the other side. I’ve done that three times formally now (well, four, counting my dedication), with many more smaller ones. And I know from all those experiences that while I can’t predict how things will shake out in the long-term, that keeping my eye on my values and commitments and what I most desire helps keep me pointed the right direction, and helps me come out the other side even more of the kind of person I want to be.

We have tools to shape ourselves and our lives:

By this I don’t mean “Magic makes everything better, and illness go away”. That’s unrealistic in the extreme. But we *can* use the tools we have to help us continue to build the kind of person we want to be in dealing with hard times in our lives. Do we do it complaining every step of the way, or do we find ways to do it with as much grace and good humor as we can? Do we regret the things we can’t do, or do we build a vibrant and creative life from the things we can?

I use the tools of my religion to help me deal with the challenges in a way that’s consistent with my values, and my hopes for myself. It’s certainly not perfect, and I definitely have my moments of ranting and raving and whining – but overall, I think I’m much better off for having and using those tools.

Our traditions encourage us to learn and question authority:

I value and honor the education and work that the doctors and nurses I’ve been seeing have put in. I wouldn’t be seeing them if I didn’t. But I equally don’t see them as perfect beings. They know some things I don’t – but I know some things *they* don’t, like what’s normal for my body. This enabled me to push through and insist on treatment that is, in fact, helping, even though I’m not all better right now. A lot of our society tells us not to question at that point, and that’s not always the helpful thing.

Also related: my Craft work has taught me how to talk about things I can’t find the right words for immediately, and make it work out somehow, when talking to people of good will. This is immensely useful in dealing with medical stuff that’s eating your focus and ability to be as articulate as you’d like. (The major journalling habit I started as part of my early Craft training has been hugely helpful, too in tracking longer-term patterns and slides in health.)

Conclusion:

The good news is that there’s a lot we’re already benefiting from, both as a community (or collection of communities) and as individuals. The bad news is that there’s still a good way to go, especially on some of the more pragmatic and practical issues. I hope, however, by laying out some of these questions and ideas, people can adopt at least one or two to focus on or encourage more widely in their little bit of the broader community, and that people coming into this collection of communities will have an idea of what they may need to do some educating and asking around.

Pre-planning:

What is your own experience and training?

It’s good to be honest with yourself about these things – a lot of the most dangerous moments come from someone who either overestimates their experience or training, or just plain ignores things that training would tell them. It’s important to not only know what to do, but why something is done that way. Likewise, be aware of what you’ve done recently, and what you might be a little rusty on. If most of your experience is by yourself, working closely with someone with more experience for at least a couple of group rituals to learn skills and manage the energy is a really smart idea.

I also consider it part of my job as a priestess to have basic First Aid and CPR training. I hope I’ll never need it, but having it makes me feel more comfortable in knowing what to do if an emergency does happen. (I’m not rigid about keeping my certification totally current, but do renew it regularly.) If you’re not up for this, consider supporting someone else in your group in getting that training instead.

Are you changing anything from standard practice for that technique?

Standard techniques have often been widely tested and most possible problems already removed. When you change an element, however, you may be removing an important safety support. Don’t do that without adding something else that fixes that. For example, many traditions have some standard methods they use to bring people back to their bodies after trance or ecstatic work. These specific methods may not make as much sense in a large public ritual or a festival setting – but you’d want to make sure you included something that did the same thing.

What are your resources in terms of space?

What safety support does it already have? One reason we’ve been relatively relaxed about health and safety issues with our Pagan Pride is that we’ve been holding it in a community center space which both has its own safety equipment, but is also down the block from the fire station. These are a little different than being in a public park, where those things would be less available or further away.

Likewise, you’re going to want to take different steps if you’re outside in the heat or cold than if you’re inside in a climate-controlled building. You’re going to want to pay attention to different natural hazards if you’re in the Southwest US than if you’re in Minnesota (poisonous snakes and other critters). And some things are much safer if you can’t be interrupted than if you’re in a park with lots of people from the general public walking through.

What resources do you have in terms of people?

Appropriate space for risk-involving work requires people who can support that. In Wiccan-based work, this is a common role for experienced initiates: people who have already worked with a particular technique, and who can help out if needed, even if they aren’t the priestess or priest in charge. I’m going back to the group I trained with for Samhain at the end of this week, and that’s part of my role there, to be one more experienced body who’s familiar with the ritual (which has some logistical and emotional challenges for a lot of people) and help out as needed. Because I know the ritual, but don’t have a specific ritual role, it’s easier for me to to be more immediately helpful than one of the people who needs to help keep the ritual going.

In public rituals, even if I’m not doing anything particularly strenuous, I try really hard to have 3-4 people who are there and familiar with what’s going on. Both to help set the pattern for other people there, but also so that if there is a problem of any kind, I can say, “You, go get me a glass of water. You, can you get everyone to back up a bit while we sort this out.” and so on, and call people by name. (People asked by name to do something are a lot more likely to do it than if you just ask generally: this is the same principle you use when asking someone to call 911 – identify them specifically, like “You in the brown jacket, with the glasses. Call 911 and tell them…”)

These people may also have other roles, depending on your ritual structure. However, what makes sense will vary with path and need. If a role requires staying in circle, for example, don’t send that person out with a participant who needs to sit down and have a glass of water outside of circle.

What do you know about the people who will be participating?

There are some obvious differences between a group of people with a lot of experience in what you’re doing, and a group of people who either don’t have much experience, or don’t have experience in that particular form. Adjust accordingly. If you don’t know about the background of the people participating, do some checking before you start, or consider a brief discussion before you get started in which you go over the critical information.

One other thing to think about at this point is whether you have anyone with relevant chronic medical conditions. I don’t ask these for public events (instead, I avoid things where this might be a concern), but for smaller settings (coven work, for example), I want to know:

• chronic conditions (asthma, high or low blood pressure, etc.)
• tendencies -  for example, poorly managed personal energy can be a migraine trigger for some people. (It was for me until I got my personal energy management under better control.)
• past surgery that has a long-term effect. We discovered in my past group work that the two people who’d had gastric bypass needed some variations on common breathing exercises (or to ease into it more slowly) due to the surgery’s effects. Not a crisis, but there was more discomfort and frustration than I’d prefer until we figured that out.
• ongoing medication, especially recent changes in type or dose that someone’s still adapting to.

Now, in practice, in a small close-knit group, you probably know most of this anyway, before you get into the deeper (and more risky stuff). But it’s good to check in about. (These are among questions I ask anyone I’m seriously considering for group work once we’re past the initial ‘get to know you’ stage.)

What do you know about yourself?

The questions directly above apply to you, too. Do you have any chronic conditions, tendencies, past surgery or other injuries, or ongoing medication that affects you? For example, I’m asthmatic. I will not plan a ritual that involves my having to do a lot of very energetic dancing in ways I might not be able to sustain (and I have a backup plan for rituals that involve more than minimal movement in case I’m having more trouble than usual.) I also won’t priestess a ritual if I’ve been on inhaled steroids for more than a week or two, because they do odd things to both my sense of discernment, and to my emotional stability, but I’m not on them long enough to develop a new baseline.

Planning:

What is your goal?

One of the most important steps in the process: what’s your real desired outcome, and what is involved to get you there? Books have been written about this, so I’m not going to go into it deeply here.

What techniques might work for reaching that goal?

The techniques you use will depend on several things – again, books have been written about this, but you want to consider:

• Your particular religious, spiritual, or magical path’s preferred techniques
• Techniques that work particularly well for you, or that you feel most able to lead thoroughly.
• How a given technique fits the likely participants, setting, and other circumstances.
• If a specific tool or technique has particular considerations.

There’s usually more way to raise and focus energy, for example. If it’s likely to be 100 degrees out and sunny, you might want to pick chanting rather than fervent dancing, for example. If it’s outside in the winter, you don’t want to make everyone stand there in a meditative post for 30 minutes. You should build in approaches that are accessible to people at varying levels of mobility and health – for example, if there’s a dancing portion, have a way for people who can’t join in the dancing chant, drum, or do something else to participate. If you have a lot of inexperienced participants, you probably don’t want a method that requires 30 minutes of sustained focus (since they may not have practice in that.)

What risks are involved with those techniques? What would you do if those things went wrong?

This is the place where it’s really hard to talk about specifics without looking at examples, but here’s some ideas:

• Ritual blades: Sharp objects (or even dull one) in close spaces have some risks. A common restriction is to ask everyone but the priest or priestess using a blade for the group’s ritual work to leave them sheathed on their belt or to not bring it at all. In public parks, or some rented spaces, having only one (generally on the altar) may be easiest.
• Glass : Some public parks and other spaces prohibit glass – and if you have a lot of people around who are unfamiliar with ritual in that space, it can be a bad idea anyway. Consider whether there are other materials that might work just as well. (My coven candleholders are stone, precisely so I don’t have to worry about either tipping them over or shattering them if I drop them.)
• Candles: Obvious fire safety issues here, especially around the area of long sleeves, long robes, or long hair. Having a fire extinguisher handy (and choosing clothing made of natural fibers, which burn much more cleanly if they burn) rather than polyester or other non-natural blends is a good move. Many locations ask that candles be enclosed in a container that extends above the level of the flame, and again, this is a good safety precaution in many cases.
• Burning something in a cauldron or over a bonfire: Again, fire safety issues. More is not better when it comes to chemical fires: avoid a 8 foot tower of fire created by too much epsom salt and rubbing alcohol mix. Have a way to cover the cauldron and stop air getting to the fire. (And have the fire extinguisher accessible.) Also, be careful what you burn – what chemicals are you releasing into the air? Does the place you’re doing the ritual have any fire or burn restrictions (common during droughts or dry periods).
• Incense: People can have a wide range of allergies – some to sage, some to lavender (a popular substitution), some to pretty much anything else you’re likely to want to try and burn. It’s often better to avoid incense or smudging of any kind at a public event. (At smaller closed events, it’s easier to ask in advance and find a solution everyone’s okay with.) This also goes for essential oil burners, and other things that release scent.
• Ecstatic ritual techniques: Ecstatic work can be glorious – but without appropriate support, it can also lead to an emotional crisis point, and leave someone feeling drained, unable to cope, or draw multiple people into chaos. These are not necessarily what you want. Having a clear way to enter the ecstatic experience, but also a clear way to return (and sufficient support staff to help individuals as needed) can be very important.
• Trance work: Same thing – do you have a method for not only getting people there, but getting them back securely? Do you know a variety of techniques to help people ground and return to themselves (in case the first one or two you try don’t work – some ideas further on in this piece) Is there space for people to sit and chat (and maybe have food) before they have to drive?
• Complex ritual techniques: Deep trance work likely to hit emotional issues, Drawing Down/aspecting/possessory work, anything involving a commitment lasting more than a few months, etc. all have some more complex risks. (beyond the scope of this post, I think) and should be handled very carefully.
• Dehydration: Have more water around than you need. Gatorade or something equivalent is also a good move if you’re doing anything involving exertion, or are going to be out in the hot sun for a while.
• Eating, drinking or inhaling: Identify what you’re giving people in ritual (whether it’s food, drink, incense, a salve, or what.) Be aware of your local, state, and federal laws. Don’t force a substance on anyone or ‘hide’ it to play a joke: you may be hitting someone’s allergy or strong sensitivity. Mention alternatives for an alcoholic chalice (send a non-alcoholic version around, or remind people they can raise the chalice in blessing or pour a tiny bit on the ground if outside, etc.)

How do those fit with the experience levels of the people participating?

If you have an unknown group (as with public ritual), err on the side of caution. If you have a group of people where you know all or almost all of their experience levels, it makes sense to take a few more risks or stretch further. (In my experience, if there is more than 1 guest for every 4-5 people familiar with the ritual methods, you want to detail one or more support people to keep an eye out for problems.)

What else is going on in your life, and how is that going to affect this event?

If you are currently juggling a lot of stress at work, you’ve had major family demands, you’ve been seriously ill, or anything else that takes your energy and focus, this is not the time to plan a big event that uses a whole bunch of ritual techniques you haven’t done much before this. Instead, use approaches you’re more familiar with, or get the help of people with substantial experience with the techniques you want to use. Try the new stuff in a smaller, more controlled environment first (experienced people who can give you feedback or any concerns) or at least at a time when you can give your full attention to preparation, planning, and rehearsal and have the emotional and physical energy to support it.

What are the general things that might go wrong that have nothing to do with ritual – just people.

It’s always good to think about this – most of these have been covered already, but think through your specific space. What will you do if someone feels faint? Steps on a wasp? Twists their ankle? Tips over a candle or a glass of wine or water? Think through each part of your ritual plan, and look for what could go wrong, then figure out at least one way to resolve it. Make sure you bring the tools needed to do that.

The announcement:

The ritual announcement can be a great way to get important information out to the participants, and it’s easy to include some general information about safety and well-being. (It can be relatively informal – and in a consistent small group work, you can often communicate most of this once, and then just let people know about any specifics as they come up.) I like to include:

• Who is planning the event/designing the ritual (and how they can contact this person with specific questions.)
• When (an idea of duration is helpful – is this a ‘few hour’ thing or an ‘all weekend’ thing?)
• Where (location, address, map with directions, whatever.)
• Who is welcome (public event? invite only? guests welcome or not?)
• General ritual dress requests (seasonal colors, ritual robes, street clothes, that the ritual will be skyclad). If you’re doing a lot of dancing or movement, you might suggest people avoid long skirts or robes. If you’ll be standing or sitting on a cold floor (winter in Minnesota!), let folks know if they should bring a blanket, are welcome to bring slippers or socks, etc.
• What to bring (potluck dish, specific items for use in ritual, etc. and what to do if they don’t have those items.) For example, if you ask people to bring a chalice, you might tell them that any pleasing cup is fine if they don’t have a dedicated chalice.
• What not to bring (blades, small children, pets, things other people are allergic to, etc. depending on the event.)
• Advance warning of any situations that people may want to prepare for (rituals that involve lengthy time standing, extremes of heat or cold outside, lots of moving/dancing, etc.) If you’re asking them to make oaths or commitments, I think it’s a good idea to let them know that, even if you’re not specific at this point about the details of wording.
• Ask people to contact the ritual organiser with any specific needs (for example, you might only provide a non-gluten option for cakes and ale for a small ritual if you know someone coming can’t eat bread products, or be extra certain to have some seating available if someone coming can’t stand for long). For a public event, you want to plan these alternatives anyway, because not everyone will RSVP.

You may also want to solicit additional help – people who can help with set-up or clean-up in order to make sure you and your support staff have the energy and attention to spend on other tasks related to the ritual and ritual safety. (If you have spent 3 hours setting everything up yourself, you will be less able to do this than if you’ve had a bunch of people to help you move furniture and do other general tasks.)

On the day:

Remind your support staff of important information:

This can be simple or complex. It can be general, or specific to an individual you think might have more potential for concern (either because of past experiences, or because they’re new to what you’re doing, or whatever.) Remind people where the fire extinguisher and other useful things are. Especially if it’s a large ritual, it might be nice to have an agreement about what the ‘we’re ending this ritual now’ conditions might be. (And what stuff, on the other hand, is “You and you deal with it, the rest of us will keep going.”)

Where are the relevant safety supplies?

Know where your fire extinguisher is. Also your nearest available bathroom (it does not count if you have to move a pile of furniture to get to it.) Do your helpers know where cups and water are (if someone needs water?) A few kinds of food? (Protein, something with sugar, something solid and grounding?) Where the first aid supplies are? Where a phone they can use is? (Ok, less relevant in these days of cell phones, but worth checking if you’re in a remote location with poor coverage.)

If you’re working in a situation where you won’t know someone’s disease status (blood borne and otherwise – you don’t want someone’s stomach flu, either), make sure you have cleaning supplies that will deal with this on hand in case you need to deal with cleaning up body fluids. At the very least try to have gloves, a suitable bleach solution, paper towels, and multiple plastic bags on hand.  (They’re all useful for other things, too!)

Practice good fire safety:

Covered this one already, but remember to blow out any candles you light, and to have a way to handle lit cauldrons safely. Be smart and put a heat-resistant surface under the cauldron, too, even if you think the heat won’t damage the floor/ground. Check and obey any fire restrictions if you’re outside.

Prepare your participants (and include a reminder on what to do if someone feels unwell, etc.):

Do a quick reminder with your participants on what you’re doing, and on what to do if they need to leave the ritual. Most commonly, this is asking an identified person or persons for help. If you have a number of helpers, a simple pinned symbol, or a piece of brightly colored ribbon around one arm or some other indicator can all be really helpful. Examples: “Raven is our Summoner: ask him for help if you need to leave circle” or “You can ask any initiate – people wearing white or red or black cords” or “Our helpers have an oak leaf pinned to their robe, ask any of them.”

Know some good methods for the most common issues:

In my experience, there are a few situations that are likely enough to make it worth having a solid plan in place. (That doesn’t mean they’ll happen – just that of the things that might go wrong, these are the most plausible) One of these, grounding issues, I’m going to cover separately, below. The others include:

• Someone knocking something (candle, chalice, etc.) off an altar accidentally. (Set breakables well back from any edge, consider having a dustpan and brush handy)
• Someone getting too close to a flame (set well back from edge, have a fire extinguisher handy, and containers are your friend).
• Other things involving fire, practice first, and remember  more is not better. Know where your fire extinguisher is.
• Blood sugar drop (ask the person what they need, cut them out of ritual to get appropriate food).
• Feeling faint (cut them out of circle, get a glass of water)
• Feeling overwhelmed (cut them out of circle, find a quiet place outside the circle and ideally out of noise range to sit and recover.)
• Unable to come back from meditation (see the grounding techniques)
• First aid needs (wasp sting, twisted ankle, sick to their stomach, etc.)

The issues of grounding:

One of the most common ritual ‘things that go a little wrong’ is people needing help to return fully to conscious awareness or to let go of the extra energy running around from ritual. Both of these have some possible risks – and honestly, they’re just plain uncomfortable. The first thing you should do to avoid this problem is to include a short grounding pause in your ritual closing. Often something short and simple will get everyone back. Some ritual methods include something as part of the cakes and ale where the priestess or priest will touch or hug everyone in circle – this is quick and easy way to make sure you get everyone back.

How do you recognise a problem? Here are some common signs that someone may need some more help. In all cases, a behavior that’s not normally like someone (i.e. someone who is very quiet is suddenly babbling, someone who is normally energetic is really reserved) is a good thing to check on. (Note: Check, don’t force. If you are not running the ritual, alert someone who is if there’s a possible problem.)

• Being jittery, unable to stay still.
• Chattering, babbling, unable to focus.
• Someone normally outgoing is being extremely quiet.
• Ongoing minimal response to people checking on them. (i.e. they say “Eh?” and that’s it instead of “Yeah, fine, thanks – just thinking about ritual.”)
• Absence of hunger when it would normally make sense to eat.
• Either easily upset, or flat, without emotional affect.

These signs won’t be the same for everyone – they may vary depending on you, on what you’ve been doing, and various other factors. You might have one common set of responses, but a different ritual will bring something else out.

What to do about it:

The following are a collection of the methods I’ve either used on others  or had work well for me.

• Walk through a full grounding method, without skipping or glossing over steps.
• Salt under the tongue is a classic remedy. Salt is energetically grounding and dampening.
• Hold a stone used for grounding (either hematite, etc. or a quartz crystal charged to focus on grounding and containing excess energy.)
• Hug a tree or lie flat on the ground (arms and legs spread out from the body) for 5 minutes.
• Sitting somewhere quiet for a few minutes often works too, but someone should check on you.
• Eat. Protein, dense grains, and dense veggies are best. Someone may only really want sugar, but get them to eat a bite or two of something sweet and *then* the dense stuff.
• Dark chocolate also helps a lot, interestingly. The good stuff.
• Turning on the news or some other very mundane/practical conversation.
• Walking, stretching, or other activity that centers you in your body.

One last remedy I learned this weekend is a physical one (so get permission to touch the person first!). Put one hand, thumb down, over the base of the skull. Put the other hand thumb up over the forehead/third eye. Have the person inhale. As they exhale, gently squeeze together. It’s a technique that helps recenter the person in their body, and also helps buffer from input from the third eye, and from the large bundle of complex nerves (and in some traditions, psychic centers) at the base of the skull. Firm pressure basically gives the body something else to work with than the more esoteric parts. Walking someone through wiggling or scrunching up each part of their body may also help center them in their physical selves.

What to do when warning in advance would affect the ritual:

And finally, a quick word about rituals where an element of surprise is part of it (or where the ritual itself is oathbound.) This is, of course, a tricky situation, because simply providing information is not always the best choice for the most effective emotional impact. Possibilities include:

• Only do rituals with a significant element of surprise with people you know well (so you know any of their possible concerns) and who also trust you to treat them well. Initiations following an extended period of interaction and training fit here, often.
• Do a general discussion. The group I trained in handled initiation information in part by having a class in which we said “Here’s why initiatory rituals happen, and what they’re supposed to do. Here’s a bunch of things that are commonly mentioned as possible options in them. We’re not going to tell you what ours involves, but if you have questions or concerns about any of these things, you should let us know so we can take it into account.” As mentioned, I’m asthmatic, and I’ve got a fairly strong reaction to anything that restricts postion of my neck (as some forms of ritual binding do) I told them, they took it into account, and I had no worries on the night in question about that, because I also trusted that they would take it seriously.
• Providing general information without details (“This ritual will involve some physical challenges: if you’re not sure whether you’re up for that, talk to [ritual organiser] about your limits, and we’ll tell you whether we think you’d be able to manage.”) This is not a great solution (because it requires people to reveal some personal information), but can work for some situations. But for “I can walk X distance, but not fast” sorts of needs, it can be great.

I’m sure there are many other options that could be included here – but this is certainly long enough for now. Again, questions, other suggestions, etc. are all welcome in comments.

One of my favorite blogs, Making Light, posted a fantastic analysis of many of the issues involved (practical, philosophical, and everything in between). One reason I was so glad to see a detailed post go up there, however, was because another of that blog’s contributors, Jim Macdonald, is (besides being a SF author) a wilderness EMT who’s been doing a long series of occasional posts about various medical calamities. One of the things both writers do a great job of is showing others what people can do that’s actually helpful in avoiding crises when possible, spotting problems early, and giving the best possible chance for the best outcome if they still happen.

The comment threads on Making Light run long (hundreds of comments are pretty common), but I encourage taking the time to read them: the community culture (and some clear moderation when needed) keep them very useful, coherent, and meaningful (even the thread-drift is handy). In this case, there are more links to supporting information and a great discussion of other ritual and spiritual safety issues throughout. (There is also a great thread on the Pagan news blog, The Wild Hunt that’s worth reading)

However, all of this got me thinking about issues of ritual safety in the Pagan community, and I thought it might be useful to put some of my thoughts into electrons.

The question of ‘what is safe’:

Many, many things we do – in all parts of our lives – have risks. We stand up, for example. We get in cars, and planes, and have dinner at restaurants, and hug people (who might have something contagious), and take public transportation. And all of those things (and pretty much everything else) have some risks attached.

In various parts of the Pagan community, we do things that have some greater risks. Burning incense? That adds a possible allergen or irritant to the air. If, like me, you’re asthmatic, that can be a problem in the wrong circumstances. Dancing? Easy for someone to twist an ankle. Outside for ritual? What happens if it turns cold and damp and people aren’t prepared? Or what happens if it’s 95 degrees and blindingly sunny out? (See Jim’s posts on hypothermia and hyperthermia for examples.)

There’s riskier stuff, too. Deep experiences of Drawing Down (having the deity speak through the body of the priestess or priest involved) can be a powerful and amazing ritual experience for everyone involved, but it has psychological and physical risks in various ways. (Deities, in my experience, don’t always get why something might be dangerous or uncomfortable or inappropriate for the body they’re inhabiting.) And many of our deeper ritual techniques are designed to poke at the areas we feel uncomfortable about, so we can better examine them and make changes we feel are necessary.

There are reasons to court these risks – just like there are reasons we choose to get in a car or plane, to eat food from a variety of sources, to do all sorts of things. But we should, ideally, do two things.

1) Have some idea of what the risks are (so we can make an informed choice)

2) Have some idea how to limit or mitigate the risks.

So, what does this mean in the Pagan community? Good question, so I’m going to look at it from two perspectives: someone attending an event (that they didn’t plan and don’t know lots of details about), and then from someone planning an event. (Since this post got long, I’ll do the planning an event as a separate post.)

Attending an event:

I even happen to have a handy example: this weekend, Thorn Coyle is doing a workshop in St. Paul on a topic near and dear my heart this year (integration of different parts of the self), and I’m going to be there all day Saturday and a chunk of Sunday. So, I’m going to use that as a part of my example.

1) Background education

The first part of safety, to my way of thinking, is ongoing personal education. When something related to safety comes up, take a little time to review it thoughtfully. This way, you build up foundation in safety issues that’s incredibly powerful over time.

The point with all of this is not to become an EMT or a doctor, or anything like that. The point isn’t even to retain all the details of different kinds of breaks, and what to do. The point is to give you a starting point so that you can evaluate possible risks, and decide what would make you feel safe enough to pursue that activity in that setting. The other part of the point is that if something does go wrong, you stand a much better chance of saying “Hey, wait… stop a minute” before it gets worse. You don’t need to be able to fix the problem – just knowing when to call for help is a *huge* win. Or, as is often the case, when to drink more water, get somewhere warm, or sit down for a bit without other stresses.

I started First Aid and CPR courses when I was 13 (as part of a babysitting course). Since then, I keep my hand in with regular renewals of the certification, and by picking up useful information as I go along. Sometimes that’s classes on issues in a particular setting (horseback riding, for example, which I did a lot as a teen). Sometimes it’s by reading (Jim Macdonald’s posts)

And when I read about other people’s ritual experiences, I often stop for a few seconds, and think about whether I’m interested in that kind of experience, and what kinds of safety issues or practical issues I’d want to pay attention. This both keeps me in the habit of thinking through possiblilities, but it also means that if something comes up suddenly (an activity in a ritual I wasn’t expecting), I don’t have to start from scratch.

The other part is building skills slowly over time. We don’t drive for the first time in a car at high speeds in bad road conditions. We learn in an open parking lot at slow speeds, and build up from there. Our ritual skills can work the same way: having a solid basic practice of common skills (centering, grounding, shielding, personal energy management, different simple/gentle ritual tools (chanting, simple dances, etc) can all build our experience so that if something more significant comes up, we have some way to fit it into what we already know without panicking.

2) Evaluate the specifics

If you have specifics about what’s going on (or when, or where), look at them. Some examples:

• Summer ritual? Evaluate for heat exhaustion and heat stroke risks. Pack plenty of water, no matter what it says about what’ll be available at the site.  Drink it, too. (And remember that caffeine – tea, soda, coffee – reduces hydration.) If I don’t need it, someone else might. An ice pack might be nice. And appropriate clothing that breathes, and sunscreen.
• Winter ritual? Look at concerns about mobility (slipping on ice) and cold damage (Minnesota can be lethally cold pretty fast a few times through the winter.) Also consider risks in driving (black ice, blizzard conditions, etc.) Wool and silk are my friends for clothing here, but also adequate boots, gloves, scarf, hat, etc. If I don’t know a good place to get warm (the car counts), I shouldn’t be going.
• Physically taxing ritual? What else am I doing around that time? Will I have energy reserves going into it? Will I have recovery time afterwards without putting my ability to do my job at risk?Have I recently been sick for more than a day or two, or am I in the middle of bad-allergy-and-asthma season?
• New ritual technique? Look at the risks and concerns that come with it, and decide what might help with any of them. Is it like other things you’ve done before, but a bit more so? Maybe spend some time with those more basic skills before the ritual.
• Situational issues: Is there flu going around your community? How will you feel if someone passes a chalice around to drink from? (Nice to think in advance what you’re comfortable with.) Does the ritual host have pets you’re allergic to? Take your allergy meds, and bring whatever other emergency needs you have.
• Personal limits and needs?  I’m asthmatic: I make sure that someone in any group I work in knows where my inhaler is. (Very simply, like “I always have one in an outer pocket of my bag.”). If you’re diabetic or prone to blood sugar issues, some kinds of ritual work can affect them. Trying new stuff with other people (or at least someone in the house who can come if you need a hand) is a really smart idea.
• Things designed to take you out of yourself? Guided meditation, drawing down, etc.? Start with small and contained experiences with this, before trying far more major ones. Work with people you trust and get to know over time. Work up in complexity and length.

This also goes for specific activities that have more significant risks. If you know an event is going to include a period of fasting, or a sweat lodge, eating or drinking specific things, or anything else that has medical warnings on it for some people, you should be asking several questions.

• What’s the point of this activity? How will you know if it’s successful?
• Could it be done using some other (safer) technique? (Not everything can be, but risk for risk’s sake is .. a risk.)
• Are there ways for people to participate at varying levels of risk/stress? If someone feels uncomfortable or at risk, can they do something relatively quickly that will help (get out of the immediate area freely, get water, get someone to help them?)
• Does the person monitoring the risky experience have specific training in doing that? Can you evaluate it for yourself, rather than just taking their word for it?
• If something goes wrong, how close is help?

The sweat lodge deaths:

The sweat lodge came after a fairly extended fast (which puts strain on the body), in a location at higher altitude (which also stresses the body if you’re not adapted). The sweat lodge was billed as not only being a way to purify the self, but to push beyond limits (see #3, below). According to various of the news reports,  people were encouraged to stay past their comfortable limits, and leaving the space was reportedly extremely difficult for both emotional and physical reasons. That’s a problem in every way.

They were also doing it in a fairly rural area with limited emergency care facilities within a short distance. That’s a big difference from being no more than 10-15 minutes from a major trauma center, and closer to several more quite competent emergency rooms. (As I happen to be most of the time, living in a major city.) And there’s no evidence that Ray had meaningful training in the safety aspects (and in fact, his method changed several traditional Native American practices that build in an additional safety buffer.) or had staff on hand who did or who knew the relevant warning signs and best practice treatments. Previous problems regarding sweat lodges Ray ran happened in 2005, and also in 2008, too.

None of this adds up to being a particularly good idea.

2b) Sometimes you won’t have specifics

That’s the case for the workshop this weekend: the actual announcement doesn’t have a whole lot of details about specific activities. However, I can do my own research. Here’s some of the things I know:

I know the basic physical set-up.

We’re meeting at our local Pagan community center, a space I’ve been in a number of times. I know what facilities they have, that I can get water and soda and other things easily. I know how long it will take me to drive home, and my best route if I’m tired or a little spacy. We’re going to be inside, so I don’t need to worry about heat, cold, or most of my allergens. I also know that breaks are planned for going out for food, so I don’t need to bring anything.

I know my own experience.

My training and group ritual experiences over the last 9 years have given me a good idea of what my healthy tolerances are, and what things I want to be cautious of.  For example, I know that I need to leave some energy and physical leeway leading up to this event to make the most of it. (10am to 9pm is a really long day for me, especially right now with my work schedule.) This event is worth it to me, so I also have made sure to schedule sufficient downtime in the days around the weekend.

I also know my own weaknesses.

For example, I have asthma, and my lungs are usually most grumpy at about this point in the fall. I’m actually having a very good fall re: asthma stuff this year, but I’m still going to need to probably be careful about some kinds of breathing work (otherwise, I can trigger a coughing fit), or substantial ongoing movement (dancing, for example.) I can do both these things, but need to be careful how. Don’t know how much they’ll come up – but do know it’s good to know where my own areas of caution might be.

I’ve done some obvious background research.

I have read Thorn’s books. While this probably won’t have everything we might do in it, it does give me a good idea what types of things might come up, and gives me a chance to prepare any questions I might have about specifics. If someone isn’t an author, looking at blogs or other web searches can often help. If I didn’t have time to read the books, I could still look at summaries or other shorter material. (And of course, if I were really not sure, emailing the organiser or Thorn directly would quite likely get me more information.)

I know people who’ve done other work with her.

(Both short-term and longer-term). I had conversations with a couple of them to get an idea of their impressions. This was a good idea anyway, as it’s a relatively large money and time investment for me, and I wanted to make sure I was likely to get enough out of the experience to make those things worthwhile.

Obviously, adjust for the setting. You don’t need to spend as much time for an evening event in a well-known location as you do for one that lasts longer, has a large outdoor component, or that involves techniques that are known to be risky in at least some cases. (fasting, sweat lodge-type structures, etc. Basically, anything that sometimes has a warning label on it that some people should not do.)

I’d guess that most of the time, my evaluation at this stage takes 20 minutes at most, and often a lot less (if it’s a group of people I know well, or a setting I know, or I’ve done similar evaluations before.) For example, my ‘ritual outside in winter’ checklist gets trotted out most winters, and is not that different from my “going outside for longer than it takes to get from work parking lot to door” checklist.

3) Look for warning signs.

Once you’ve looked at the specifics, look one more time for any warning signs. The following are things I’d have concerns about:

Language about ‘pushing through discomfort into change’

… especially if it’s got a very macho ‘no gain without pain’ thing going along with it. Yes, pushing through discomfort can be important, but only if you’re still able to function at the end of it.

One size fits all settings.

Sufficiently safe settings will have some options available (and clearly noted) that can be used if the basic practice isn’t accessible or safe for everyone. (Or, they’ll be really clear up front about what’s involved, and what people should be prepared to deal with.)

For example, a ritual with a lot of movement or dancing might arrange some spaces for people to sit or stand while drumming, clapping, or anchoring a chant. That’s participating, but gives options besides the most physically demanding option. Or a ritual may say “We’re going to be outside, standing and moving around for 3-4 hours in cold weather and probably wind on a steep slope. This is not a good ritual for people with mobility issues. Be sure to bring suitable warm clothing for several hours outside.”

Vague and general information.

Me, I trust the announcements with specifics a lot more. The more vague something is, the more wary I get. Thorn’s announcement would not have been enough for me *except* that I had other ways of checking on what kinds of activities were likely to arise.

Inadequate (or inadequately trained) staff/people running the thing.

Do the people helping know enough about what they’re doing to actually be helpful? Do they have relevant religious, professional, or other training that helps manage any risks or deal with problems? (Lots of previous experience with few problems is usually a good starting point, but it’s not the only thing to look for.)

Language about how those who are truly committed to the experience will be fine.

This is often a mask for ‘if you got hurt, it’s because you didn’t want it enough/weren’t ready for the experience’. In most settings the cost of failure should not be lasting damage, it should be that you just don’t get much out of the experience.

Isolation from people who know you well.

This can sometimes happen for good reason – a weekend festival or event that you go to by yourself, for example. However, you’re a lot more at risk of something heading out of balance here, than at a shorter event (where you go home to familiar space and resources), or if you go to something with a couple of friends who know you and your normal reactions really well. In either case, you’ll catch possible problems more quickly.

4) Be aware of the power of pressure.

It’s possible in some situations for there to be a feeling that one has to measure up, or meet certain benchmarks in order to be taken seriously. These are some of the most serious risks out there, partly because they’re very hard to avoid. They can crop up otherwise quite safe settings, or start as a game.

Knowing that it’s a possibility, however, helps. Doing some reading about how crowd psychology works does too. It doesn’t mean it’ll be easy to walk off and do your own thing when you need to – but knowing your own particular weak points means you can protect them a little more diligently.

For example, one response I have to my asthma is wanting to push through it and not let my lungs determine what I do. The problem is that’s not always good for me. Over the years, I’ve learned how to say “Sorry, can’t do that today” in situations where there was very little pressure, and little to be lost by saying it (walking with a friend, and asking to walk a bit more slowly, or avoid a particularly steep hill). That practice makes it easier for me to say it when the stakes are higher (being at a work event when a lot of outdoor walking is involved, and advocating for some different ways to approach it that also benefit students with medical limits in various ways.) And that makes it easier for me to quietly find an alternative in ritual if I’m not up for dancing, but that still lets me contribute, like at a Pagan ritual.

5) Listen to your intuition

If something feels off, ask more questions, or just plain don’t do that thing right now. Other chances will come around that will be similar. Do some more research, find people who’ve done it where you can ask any questions. Do some learning about specific components you may be concerned about. You’ll be better informed for the next time.

Done with this part – will do the part about the planning side in the near future.