Reblog: Words from Hephaestos: If I was coming to your ritual

Hail Hephaestos! -E-

For my entire existence, I have struggled with a deformity in my leg. I can walk, but it’s slow, and it hurts me.

Hermes, Apollon, Ares, all the gods, really, would outpace me no matter how slowly they tried to walk. They weren’t ever mean about it. They just always forgot.

Everyone forgot. My own temples had stairs. MY OWN TEMPLES HAD STAIRS. That was just how they made temples, and no one ever gave it a second thought.

I want you to know that there are people out there who you aren’t thinking about. Maybe they have an illness, visible or otherwise, and easily get tired. Maybe they have a physical issue that makes stairs painful or impossible. Maybe they can’t read your handouts because they have a visual impairment. Maybe they can’t hear your inspiring speeches when your back is to them.

This is all I ask: give it…

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About EmberVoices

Ember Cooke has been a member of Hrafnar and Seidhjallr for more than a decade, where she trained to be a Seidhkona, Galdrakona, and Gythia. She founded the Vanic Conspiracy and made ordination vows to the Vanir and her congregation in the summer of 2013. She has contributed to several publications on Heathen and Northern Pagan subjects and regularly presents rituals and workshops at festivals. Her personal practice is more diverse, as the Vanir have lead her into cross-training and service for the wider Pagan community. This has including medium and servitor training in American Umbanda, clergy training with the Fellowship of the Spiral Path, and jail ministry for local counties. She holds a BA with honors in Religious Studies from Santa Clara University. Ember has lived all her life in the south San Francisco Bay Area, and is intimately bound to the valley of her birth.

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3 Responses to Reblog: Words from Hephaestos: If I was coming to your ritual

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EmberVoices says:

June 4, 2015 at 2:19 am

I do recognize belatedly, though, that part of my assumption about stairs vs accessibility is grounded in the modern technology of wheelchairs.

It’s not actually a given in a pre-wheelchair world that a person who finds walking painful and limps would find a ramp any easier than stairs, or even that stairs would be harder at all…

Which just goes to show, we really *can’t* make assumptions about what kind of accommodation people need. We have to take responsibility for asking, and for trying to cover reasonable ground for likely needs, but most importantly, we have to be willing to listen when someone brings up a need we never anticipated.

-E-

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