On Faith: Carole A. Smith and Pagans in the Workplace

Exactly how is generally attacking and 'being suspicious of' the rest of your community based on whether or not they can secure an interpreter for you when putting on a local gathering of whatever size, ….when there's an issue about being turned out of jobs for *being* Pagan? Do you really think it helps to come along and attack the character of Pagan people?

If you're Pagan, too, do you really think that's going to help you as a deaf person if you call, well, yourself, all those things as a Pagan?

People frequently just don't understand how overstretched a lot of gathering organizers are, not just on money, but time and effort and all the other things that can go into such events, just to put the thing *on,* when they start expecting a lot of things done for them. These are not for-profit enterprises.

While I agree it's valuable, I frankly don't see such interpreters elsewhere, and frankly, for anyone to ask how they could help out with *anything* is usually quite a welcome thing, …perhaps instead of getting adversarial, especially when it comes to accusing a whole religious group of some unspecified malice, *you* could do some of the networking on this: there *do* seem to be a number of Pagans who know Sign, I can think of a few I've known over the years, and have tried picking some up myself along the way, (Come to think of it, the kids seem to *love* it.) Never let it be said lack of curiosity is a fault of Pagans, or that we aren't a community with a lot of interest in languages in general: if you *bring* some SIgn to a community, it's fair likely to catch on.

Same, frankly, goes for people coming along on this occasion claiming 'Wiccans shouldn't count as Pagan,' (which is, frankly, ridiculous,) as if people wanting to discriminate and repress us all are really going to give a flying one about their definitions and distinctions. Gods know how they think it somehow helps to take that sort of attitude, anyway.

I'm not deaf, but I can see what Ocean1025 is saying….

If you can't then I suggest the next time you go to a Pagan event, especially a Festival or a Con, you spend all your money and then put in a set of sturdy earplugs on…so that you only get a visual experience and can't hear any of the speakers or the speeches that give rituals more context…. Because that is exactly what we are asking deaf Pagans to do if we don't have an interpreter…

And there are any number of possible solutions out there….

Hearing assist devices that work with auditorium (or convention hall) sound systems to aid the hearing imparied….

A special track of Interpreted workshops….

A scolling sign board somewhere visible where the words can be shown real-time…

Printed outlines of workshop topics provided to deaf participants….

In large metropolitan areas with universities that have ASL programs, see if they run any interpreter classes and see what sort of practicum these folks need… students might be willing to work for low cost or for free (sucking it up and offering a hotel room and a meal plan can probably get you some volunteers)

these are some possibilities, will they require work? Yes. Might they require creativity in execution and financing? Yes. Are they the ethical thing to do? Yes. So how about we put on our Big Pagan Panties and find a way to do it?

Curiously yours,
Pax

Why not offer to coordinate interpretation services for the event? If you want it there, help make it happen.

Pagan festivals aren't put on by corporations with unlimited funds and employees. They're volunteer-run, not-for-profit. Pitch in! Maybe you'll help others besides yourself.

It really does lead one to wonder who's claiming to be 'The Real Pagans' if they aren't aware of the simple fact that trying to bash anyone of a Wiccan bent over someone else's standards is neither helping whatever they say 'True Pagan Religion' is, nor making themselves any more credible.

What I detect here is a certain amount of 'defensiveness' on the part of certain political-conservative-aligned Pagans who *insisted* they weren't supporting people who hate us all. And maybe find it easier to attack and defame whoever they call 'Wiccans' as 'easy targets' …apparently in hopes the real bullies will somehow respect them for using 'arguments from antiquity' (and 'continuity' which the Christianist bigots apply against us *all.*

As I've always said, "I'm a Wiccan when they're pickin' on the Wiccans."

Really, I call myself what I am.

An American Pagan. I may study and respect the ancient lore, but I am not bound by it. And I'll tell you this, the Gods and spirits found me before anyone talking any *book* did. It hasn't been my fate to settle down with any one trad for long, (Kind of against my own inclinations, really,) but it also means I've celebrated with *darn near everyone,* and for the most part, I'd be happy to finish this life among *darn near any of us.*

They were with me when I thought I might be the last Pagan in the world, and I assure you They aren't first and foremost concerned with proper footnotes.

I have that perspective, and I go where my people are. My people have been for me everyone from dusty academic Recons to high-dudgeonly occutlist quacks to total hippies to established mainstream Pagans to, well, gutterpunks filling in the gaps with stuff expropriated from roleplaying games, urban legend, and the contents of branch libraries if they had to.

It's not a contest.

It's not a debate, it's not a pop quiz from the Gods on historical authenticity, it's not *commentary on monkish glosses or medieval or Victorian retellings,* for Godssakes.

It's. Not. Book. 'Revealed' Religion. (And this is *why* we can be literate, cause we can learn books instead of being ruled by them.)

Visions first. Look it up later. Or take it from where you get it, cause if nothing else, She *has* been with us from the beginning, and all that stuff people debate about regarding the trappings and 'witchiness' and whatever else is *not.* Not. Not the *point.*

Someone *else's* values are about founders and antiquities and proof-texting, even if the texts have been in unfriendly hands for double-digit centuries in many cases.

I mean, who *cares* where Uncle Jerry got it, and where Leland got it.

The thing I respect about Auld Unca Jerry is not about his academic claims or whatever, ….frankly he was more than this, but I like to think if we do meet in Summerland, what I really will respect has everything to do with him *not* having known what would happen or where it'd go. More like 'You magnificent so-and-so, you cast a spell to bring our Gods back to us, and it *came off.*

*puffing on stogie.' "I love it when a D'an comes together. "

Like it or not, this *is* our heritage, all of it.

The Old Ways will not be revived, *renewed,* *restored* and *regenerated* by clinging to the standards some though to destroy us by.

"Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows
For my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset,
And the baths of all Western stars, till I die
It may be the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall reach the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Though much is taken, much abides,
And though we are not now that strength which in old days
Moved Earth and heaven, —that which we are, we are,—-

One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive,
To seek,
To find,

And not to yield."

(Obviously, Tennyson. )

One thing that I see from all *my* travels that all Pagans have in common is, we're not *really* about what they didn't destroy.

We're about what they *couldn't.*