Skip to content

Tag: pagan values

Published on Leave a comment on How accessible is your Pagan website?

Screen shot of the alt text over an image: "Blue and white stick figure actively wheeling a wheelchair."

I've been getting ready for the launch of A Broom and A Spoon, a podcast for and by Pagans with chronic illnesses made by ED and I. Since we also plan to discuss issues relevant to Pagans with mental illnesses, disabilities, and sensory processing differences, it is important to us to make everything connected with the project as accessible as possible. It has been quite the project, and I wanted to share some resources and tips I've discovered so far so other Pagan resources can also be made more accessible.

Website testing: It turns out there's a lot more to an accessible website than alt text for images, though that is really important. This website was very enlightening to me about both of my websites: WAVE: web accessibility evaluation tool. Many of the defaults for both Squarespace and WordPress websites are not very accessible. For example, Squarespace's way of dealing with alt text means that when I use a screen reader app, all of the alt text is read twice. My WordPress pages are full of errors like "Missing form label", "Redundant title text", and "Redundant link", all of which are done by WordPress or the theme I chose and will have to be manually overridden (if they even can be at my skill level).

Keyboard accessibility: It is driving me nuts that I can't get focus indicators to work on either website when they should be on by default. WebAIM is full of tips and cautions for making websites more accessible.

Designing for everyone: I love these posters of how to design better for a variety of needs: "Dos and don'ts on designing for accessibility".

Closed captioning: YouTube auto-generated captions are on a scale from bad to terrible. Really, I tried to watch some of them on mute and I have no idea what the person is actually saying. Please, please, edit the captions.

Videos for the blind: On the subject of YouTube, if you are posting one, consider making a described video version for people with vision problems. There's an easy free tool at YouDescribe.org, though you have to send people to their website to see it. If you don't want to record your own, let me know - I love doing described videos.

Edited to add: Social media accessibility: I stumbled across this great tutorial on accessibility on the major social media platforms: Accessible Social Media.

I have a lot of work to do on my websites to get them to where I would like, accessibility-wise. I hope other Pagans will be inspired to check their own websites and online resources too, and pass on tips to each other. Let's make accessibility a core Pagan value!

Published on Leave a comment on Nature isn’t here for you

A leaf with natural heart cutouts, lit from behind.

If we are the universe embodied and if we are here to experience the universe, it makes sense that there would be rewards built in to connecting with the natural world. As we serve the cosmos, we receive happiness, serenity, and maybe some healing as a side effect.

I see a lot of headlines like "How to harness nature's healing power", "How forests heal people", and "How to use nature to improve your health". Their version of nature is lush, green, and peaceful. There's no red in tooth and claw; there's no predator, prey, and parasite. Theirs is a tamed nature that exists as a tool for our benefit.

To me, respect for nature means understanding that it isn't here to serve us. It can be the soothing green shade with bird song, but it can also be the disease carrying deer tick picked up in that same idyllic place. It exists for itself alone. We are lucky that walking through the natural cathedral of old trees or observing a wild flower conveys spiritual, mental, and physical benefits, but framing nature in terms of how we can use it maintains the same paradigm that led to animal extinctions, rain forest clear cutting, and vortexes of plastic waste in our oceans.

Get out into the green when and how you can, for the personal benefits or as an act of worship, but don't mistake your reasons for nature's purpose. And wear insect repellent as needed.

Published on Leave a comment on Balance one; balance all

Morning glory and mint growing together over an almost completely covered lawn chair.
A piece of our yard is the most peaceful of war zones, as morning glory and mint fight for dominance.

I had a beautiful weekend. On Friday evening, Silver Spiral had a belated Litha. It was a gorgeous ritual. In the power raising, the group was given a fairly simple poem to turn into a chant. It started as just rhythmic speaking, than acquired melody, then evolved into a call and response with a complex clapping rhythm.

On Saturday morning, I went to my weekly Tai Chi class. The instructor was emphasizing the importance of paying attention to the group's timing: pushing forward together, turning together, kicking together. Doing the Tai Chi set smoothly as a group requires paying attention to the people on all sides of you and matching your timing to theirs. It also means making constant tiny adjustments to your positioning, taking some smaller or larger steps here and there or nudging yourself forward or back in order to keep spacing even and keep the lines straight. You have your workout to do, but you are also part of the whole. Ideally everyone in that whole values both of those things so the whole works as one while the individuals also work and balance their bodies in the ways they need as individuals.

Silver Spiral's rituals are firmly grounding in consent culture practices. When it is "just family" at rituals, we often rely on our long-standing mutual understandings about consent and participation, but we sometimes use an explicit acknowledgment, especially when running a public ritual:

We stand here as empowered and free individuals. We are each able to make our own choices about coming to this circle, about staying in this circle, and about how to participate in the ritual. You may leave at any time and for any reason, return whenever you want, and sit out any activity. We ask of each other only that we don't interfere with the experience of other participants.

That isn't comprehensive, of course: we do ask more of participants than just not interfering with each other's experience. A ritual is a whole that is more than the sum of the individuals in it, but that requires that all participants put effort into it.

Friday's ritual's chant started as a slightly ragged spoken poem as we figured out the words. As we found our own individual ways, we also came together. Even as I slipped into a light trance, I could find ways to follow the group's shifting chant. I could find a place where my voice belonged and hear it contribute to the whole.

Published on Leave a comment on The magic of vulnerability

A water-side city at sunset overlaid with the quote "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased" by Spider Robinson I'm trying to write a speech today, which naturally means that I want to write anything other than my speech. To be fair, the speech is three-quarters written, but when you are sending people off on a 5 kilometre walk for charity, you really want to nail the ending.

In January of this year, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. With that came the understanding that my pain, numbness, and cognitive concerns were not temporary or easily fixed, so there were things I love that I was going to have to give up (for now, at least). I needed something else to focus on, to look forward to. The answer for me was the Vancouver MS Walk: something to physically train for and to work towards in other ways. I started my own bit of magic.

The spell was multifaceted, but the power came from one place: vulnerability. I wrote my story of illness and diagnosis for my blog on the MS Walk website, for my personal FaceBook, and for my coworking space's internal email list. Each part took a long time to write and hitting the publish/send buttons was scary every time. I knew people wanted to know what was going on - they asked me all the time about my limp, about my change from standing desk back to a chair, about my painstaking trips up and down stairs - but naming the cause makes it more real for me and for others.1 It made me feel exposed, but that's where the power came from.

I sent the stories out knowing that people would want to help me, but there's not much they can do for me personally, so I offered some directions for that energy: donate blood, since I no longer can; attend the walk or one of my fitness fundraising events; or donate money to my MS Walk fundraiser. I was touched and blessed by the amount of love that came my way, and I was amazed by the generosity of my family, my friends, my colleagues, and the members of my coworking space. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, as I am surrounded by people interested in community-building. I originally set my fundraising goal for $200, which I quickly had to increase, and increase again, and increase again. I was soon the top individual fundraiser for Vancouver's walk, and the MS Society of Canada took notice.

As a result, I find myself in the position of being "a MS Society of Canada's MS Walk 2018 spokesperson", according to the press release(!) going out tomorrow. I've already been in a local paper and on the provincial news, and there may be more media coverage at the walk on Sunday, May 27th. The speech I'm putting off finishing is to be given at the start of that event - the final part of my working.

1

Published on 1 Comment on The Pagan value of vulnerability

Picture of three medical signs: radiology, nuclear medicine, and "caution: lasers".Due to some mysterious symptoms and random pain, I went from a very active person to being mostly house-bound very quickly in 2017. In the search for answers, I've been shot with lasers, radiation, electricity, ultrasound, magnetic resonance, and xrays... I should be a superhero by now.

I'm very lucky that my job let me work from home during the worst of my pain, but I couldn't hide my absence from the people in the office and had to be quite public about what was going on with my health. Being open about physical pain is still easier than talking about psychological pain or mental health concerns with all their stigmas, but it still made me feel vulnerable. Once I was able to return to the office, I took to smiling through everything again, though sometimes someone would catch me in a weak moment and their innocent inquiry of "how are you?"1 would get them more information than they'd expected.

Doing ritual with other people can be very vulnerable. Good (effective and ethical) ritual doesn't force intimacy, but opens the possibilities for participants to connect with each other, with their higher selves, with the powers of nature, and/or with deities2. But the road to get to that point is paved with vulnerability, often with potholes.

For the person who has written a ritual and is now leading it, there is the vulnerability of an artist presenting their work to the public, with the added pressure that the "audience" is participating in the art and if they don't fully buy in and participate, the art could fail. The work could be gorgeous and powerful, but might not work because the group isn't a good match for the theme, because people are distracted by problems in their lives, because the location wasn't suitable3, or because of a hundred other reasons that maybe the leader could have predicted or maybe they couldn't control. And all you can do as is plan as best you can, then take a deep breath and give your perfect little ritual4 over to the group.

There's also vulnerability in being a participant in a ritual. Agreeing to step into sacred space ideally means opening yourself to the experience someone else has designed for you, and even in a long-running group5, you can't be sure of exactly what that will mean. In a public ritual or within a new group, this will be magnified. And if you are asked to call a quarter or otherwise embody a role, you are public speaking (a very common fear) and ideally you are putting energy into that role. Being willing to call a quarter or deity, means taking on a responsibility, and using someone else's words and in public besides.

In my experience, the best rituals are ones where the person putting on the ritual has put heart and soul into their plan and maybe feels some fear in putting it out into the world6 and where the participants feel safe enough in the context of that ritual to say true things with conviction. Everyone involved has to agree to a certain amount of vulnerability for it to work.

Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased - and both require an open heart to share and to hear. I may have been pushed into vulnerability at work, but it has been a blessing. In talking about my health liminality, others have felt comfortable coming to me to sympathize because of their own health struggles. I had no idea how many people in my daily life were waiting for answers or had a diagnosed chronic condition to manage, but none of us are alone - none of us feel as alone - if we are willing to share.

Pagans are often proudly independent people. But creating healthy communities and strong Circles requires a certain amount of openness to each other, and we will have to find ways to be strong and vulnerable at the same time, at least when together. The magic lives in the vulnerability shared.

1

Published on 1 Comment on You owe it to the universe


A dark sky with a band of orange sunlight at the horizon and a number of people gathered, looking into the sky.
The horizon during the moment of the full solar eclipse of August 21st, 2017.

You are made of elements created in the depths of a dying star. You are made of the universe. You are the universe embodied and breathing, and the universe experiences itself through your senses.

That swept through my mind as I watched the moment of totality during the August 21st's solar eclipse. I didn't know what to expect from that moment, so the tears that welled up in my eyes took me by surprise. The experience was literally indescribable1.

In the days leading up to the eclipse, there was a letter by an optometrist going around social media urging people to stay home and watch the eclipse on TV. I understand the importance of making sure people take the risks seriously2, but it was shameful to tell people to miss the miraculous experience of being there in person if they could be. No matter how good your TV is, it cannot give you the experience of the sudden coolness, the sudden darkness - the awe-inspiring sight in person.

Some beauty comes with risks and sacrifices, as when you go into faerie land to come back mad or a poet. Or as when you fall in love. You owe it to the sacred universe that you embody to experience as much love and beauty as you can in the short time that you are on this earth.

Published on Leave a comment on Come as you are to my circle

Sign outside a church that reads "Come as you are... but don't stay that way". I saw a sign outside a Christian church: "Come as you are". I thought about my small town childhood: about getting up on Sunday mornings to get ready for Sunday school, about the weeks when Sunday school was cancelled and we had to sit stiffly in pews instead of colouring, and about tea and cookies with everyone else in their Sunday bests after the service. It was a thing we did for years - every Sunday unless we were camping - but when we moved to a suburb, Mom stopped taking us to church and I never asked to go back.

"Come as you are": it sounds like permission to wear jeans to church, or maybe to show up without faith. It sounds like an unconditional welcome for all; a lovely invitation to enter no matter who you are, what you believe, or what you need.

It turns out, it is about sin: come though you are a sinner. You don't have to be perfect - you don't have to have it all figured out - but bring it all to Jesus/God now. And since there is so much variety within Christianity, there is controversy about what it means and whether or not this kind of invitation is a good idea. But to me, an outsider, it sounds functional: If your religion is going to work, people have to show up. If you want people to be saved, they have to first come in their unsaved condition.

As a whole, Pagan religions aren't much into "sin" or being saved, but we can get hung up on other things. I've spoken to many a new Pagan who has not done any rituals for themselves or who express reluctance to run rituals for their coven or group because they feel like they don't know enough yet. They want to make sure it is going to be perfect before they even attempt it. They put off setting up an altar until they can collect all the perfect tools, and they put off praying wile they seek a deep call to a patron deity, and they put off attending a public ritual until they've read their way through a few lists of "books every Pagan should read". I'm as guilty as them of not starting a morning ritual because I fear that I won't get it right and I'm not sure I can be perfect in doing it daily. We may not be concerned with sin, but we can put off dealing with our spiritual needs due to perfectionism.

The other half of the saying "come as you are" is "but don't stay that way". The Christians will sometimes quote Jesus as saying: "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more" (John 8:11) and explain that it means not to return to sinful choices.

Though we may not be interested in being saved, our religion is only as good as the changes it makes in us. In my Paganism, we come to circle, grove, or altar with no fancy robes, tools, or excessive knowledge needed, and in being there, we change in ways we choose and are changed in ways we never imagined. Whether we enter sacred space alone or in community, we come as we are, but we don't stay that way.

Published on Leave a comment on If only the activists see your activism, does it mean anything?


A restroom sign with a white triangle instead of a man or woman stick figure
Photo by sarahmirk, published under a Creative Commons license.

Every year, I go to a big local literary festival. I typically buy tickets for six or more events over the course of a week and come home with a pile of new books. I've mentioned before that this particular festival includes a territory acknowledgement before each event. This is something that started a year or two ago, and it's really the most basic of acknowledgements; the moderator reminds people to turn off their cell phones, that the event takes place on unceded Coast Salish Territory, and to please Tweet after the event using the hashtag... It's better than nothing.

I had the same moderator at two different events. At one, she did the same type of acknowledgement as everyone else had been doing. At the other, she asked everyone to take a moment of thoughtful silence after doing the acknowledgement. One was an event with Joy Kogawa, a Canadian author and poet of Japanese descent, and the other was an event that included two First Nations authors - Katherena Vermette and Joan Crate - and was about books that include Indigenous characters.

This festival includes simultaneous events at several different theatres. At one theatre for an evening event, the bathrooms had been relabeled as "gender neutral". The next day, there for another event, I found the conventional signs were back. One event was for transgender author Ivan Coyote's "Tomboy's Survival Guide" and the other was for a panel of thriller and suspense authors.

We weren't more on unceded territory one of those day and less on the other, and that fact was not more worthy of thoughtful consideration because there were First Nations people on the stage. Though "Tomboy's" attracted more transgender and non-binary audience members than the average event, everyone needs a safe place to pee every day, not just when they are represented on the stage. In fact, the reverse is true: if someone at "Tomboy's" had to use a gendered washroom that was not an obvious match to their gender presentation, there probably would have been no fuss or issue; the same could not necessarily be said of the same person in the same washroom during the thriller author event.

Social justice isn't something to nod to when forced to by the visible presence of a minority group. We need to do the right things to make our communities safe and comfortable for more people. If we make our public events and rituals inclusive and welcoming of people who aren't there, maybe one day they will be.

We need to practice social justice over and over until it becomes good, conscious, purposeful habit - until we are inclusive as a default. Good habits take time and effort to develop. The "3 R's" approach looks good...

... every time we first pick up the broom to cleanse the space, we acknowledge that we are on unceded First Nations territory, and we take a moment to sit with that knowledge.

... every time we light the central candle on the altar, we agree that we consent to being a part of the ritual and speak of our right to withdraw that consent any time we want, and we enjoy the mutual respect and self-care that creates.

... every time we take down the Circle, we deliberately distribute the clean up chores among everyone, and we appreciate the benefits of cooperation and undermining gender roles.

... every time we hold a ritual that includes social justice components, we remember that we want to make the world more fair, more just, more safe, more comfortable.

Published on Leave a comment on Privately taking it seriously


A meditating figure with a bowed head, carved in a tree trunk I've been a vegetarian for about two decades. I keep my reasons for becoming and staying vegetarian quiet and I don't talk about my vegetarianism much - I don't want to be one of those vegetarians. Unfortunately, in an effort to be just "cool" about something that matters to me, I end up in uncomfortable situations like listening to a detailed description of sausage making, being served dessert made with gelatin, or being gifted leather items. It's not the other party's fault: for the most part, they don't know my values because I haven't told them; I default to privacy. I am deeply grateful for my friends and family who are respectful of my beliefs and who make an effort to accommodate me.

There are a couple of areas of life that are particularly prone to a blurry line between informing and preaching: religion, politics, and certain lifestyle choices (we know the joke). They are areas of life where people have made choices and where believers have dedicated a lot of time and energy. They are highly invested, which means the cost of being wrong is very high. These are areas that help us define our identity; things that we consider pretty fundamental to who we are. If I were to try to sum up who I am, both Pagan and vegetarian would be on my list of descriptors.

I've noticed that if I mention that I'm vegetarian, even casually and in context (when declining a meat dish at a potluck, for example), many people react defensively. They explain to me how little meat they eat, or defend their need for animal protein, or tell me about how they tried to be vegetarian once... these are not conversations I generally want to have. If I don't tell people, though, I don't know whether or not there's meat broth in the soup. And while speaking out about certain topics is seen as preaching, silence will sometimes be taken as lack of caring.

A friend of mine who is a Quaker says that it is a bit of an awkward "coming out" every time she has reason to mention it. People often confuse Quaker with the Amish or Mennonites, and will ask her questions about why she drinks alcohol or uses a cell phone. If she has reason to refer to her spiritual beliefs, she is often facing a challenge of explaining without seeming to preach. Pagans, as members of another minority and sometimes misunderstood religion, will have a similar balancing act, further complicated, perhaps, by the fact that our values vary from Pagan to Pagan, so we can't even necessarily turn to our own community for the unquestioning support other groups can give each other. If you are an evangelical Christian, you don't have to explain certain things to your church: it is assumed that you are anti-abortion, for example. But even though I consider my vegetarianism to be a part of my Paganism, that is not an assumption I can make when with my spiritual community. And, on the other side, in my limited experience with the vegetarian community, they may not share some of my Pagan values that lead me to choose leather shoes over synthetics in some cases.

When there's unnecessary waste in a ritual1, when there is boundary crossing during ritual2, when there is strongly gendered roles in ritual, it doesn't fit with my values as a Pagan. I hold those values - I live by those values - because I believe they are good ways of being and acting. To not speak up, especially around consent issues, feels like betraying my beliefs. But by saying "I don't think that belongs in ritual", I am saying "I think you are wrong" to the people who did it. I would leave behind postmodern relativism and criticize both their artist work as ritual creators and their religious values... be caught comparing their values to mine and finding their's wanting.

For it to be worth it to me to speak up - worth risking making other people uncomfortable or defensive - it has to be something I care about and that I also think I can change someone else's mind about. I know that I'm unlikely to convert any meat eaters to vegetarians3, but I do hope that if I talk to someone about ways to increase consent at a ritual, there will be a chance of having those suggestions implemented in the future. I think the difference is that everyone knows that vegetarian is a choice they can make, where they may not know yet about consent culture. There's less likely to be a conflict with their own established, chosen values, and I have the opportunity to present ideas as something new to them that they can take on as their own.

I pick my battles, but please don't take my silence as lack of caring. I hold my values close to my heart and I judge myself (and you) by them.

A tiny winking face

Published on Leave a comment on Consent culture at Vancouver Pagan Pride Day


People holdings hands Last night, some members of Silver Spiral gathered to rehearse the ritual we're presenting at Vancouver Pagan Pride Day (VPPD) on September 10th. Jamie Robyn and I had worked to create a very inclusive, accessible ritual that empowered the participants to participate. Our pre-ritual speeches include explicit permission to leave if needed, information on how to opt out of activities, alternatives and assistance for people with issues with mobility, sight, or hearing. This makes for a bit of a long period of talking at our participants before the ritual even starts, but in my experience, making sure people don't feel trapped or pressured results in freer, deeper participation, so this is time well spent. We've also made sure the rest of the ritual is monologue-free (no half-assed rituals for us), so hopefully everyone will understand the necessity and forgive us for the "lecture".

In my opinion, Pagan Pride Day is the perfect place to build consent culture in our community. It's when all our different traditions gather and when the public gets to see what we're all about. If we want to show each other and the public our best selves, the event must address accessibility, social justice, and consent. It can't just be a nod in the opening remarks either; we need to talk about it over and over again, and walk our talk in the most visible ways possible.

I am just the volunteer coordinator for Vancouver Pagan Pride Day 2016; I can't take credit for how the overall event is embracing consent culture. That's being led by ED Johnston, the event coordinator, and she has had some amazing insights into what it takes to make an event safe and inclusive. For example, the yellow wristband policy is one of the thoughtful ways we can live consent culture at VPPD. Anyone can easily opt out of having their picture taken, which makes the event safer for those who can't be publicly Pagan, for those who aren't Pagan and don't want to be labelled as such in a picture, and, hell, for those who just hate having their picture taken.

Creating inclusive, welcoming spaces is hard. It is hard to create an event that respects the needs of a wide variety of people. I know; it feels like every week there's a new consideration. And there is pushback from people who will accuse you of "political correctness", or of coddling people, or of watering Paganism down. Reading the comments on the excellent Bad Magic reminds me how many people think you have to shock people or force them to confront their challenges. I don't think that's true. I think it is lazy to depend on shock to create a religious experience. It is bad ritual art, and potentially harmful, and unnecessary. People will surprise you; if you give them safe ways to do so - if you give them a real, informed choice about how deep to go - they will push their own boundaries. Or not, and I don't see how that's anyone's business.

Pagan Pride Day isn't the place for hard work anyway. If you want to explore your inner darkness and challenge yourself spiritually, that's best done in a trusted group that has done a lot of foundational work together. To me, Pagan Pride is both the opportunity to show off our unique collective identity and our diversity, both to each other and the public, and the opportunity to create that identity. When we gather together our tribes and traditions in a literal Big Tent of Paganism, we have a chance to set a tone and to set an example and expectations for our community. Vancouver Pagan Pride Day is leading our community towards more inclusion, more accessibility, more safety, and making consent culture a part of our religious culture. I'm honoured to be a part of it.



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Social Network Integration by Acurax Social Media Branding Company
Follow

Get every new post on this blog delivered to your Inbox.

Join other followers: