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.

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.

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.