Deaf Pagan Crossroads

As a Deaf individual and an alumnus of Gallaudet University, I watched with concern the protest which took place in October 2006 regarding the selection of the president-designee, a woman considered by many to not be qualified for the position. Students, Faculty, Staff, and Alumni…along with thousands of other members of the Deaf Community watched with growing concern as the protest reached a high pitch, resulting in a campus lock-down, arrests, and finally…the Board of Trustees decision to terminate the contract with this individual. In an attempt to make some sense out of it all, I wrote these entries, which first appeared on DeafDC and are in fact the posts Alli refers to in the “Out of the Broom Closet” post you can find elsewhere here at Deaf Pagan Crossroads. This is the first of two…it is followed by the second titled “The Magick of Gallaudet.”

I hope they give you some food for thought, as well as expressing my own thoughts concerning this whole protest situation.

~ Ocean

Okay folks, I’m coming out…out of the broom closet, that is. I’m about to make a confession which while known to some of my friends and peers, isn’t exactly public information.

I’m a Deaf Pagan…a Deaf Witch.

To be more precise, I am aThird Degree Wiccan High Priestess – to the best of my knowledge, the first and only culturally Deaf woman here in the United States to hold such a title.

Why do I mention this? Because as a practicing Pagan and a member of the Deaf Culture, I have found myself often fascinated by the parallelisms that exist between these two communities. Granted, there are some major differences between the two which have caused clashing at times; but nevertheless, putting such differences aside, as I study the history and the struggles of both the Deaf Community and the Pagan Community, I find a number of commonalities that we could share and learn from one another.

These commonalities particularly surfaced over the past few weeks, as I would read the various blogs posted in regards to the protest at my alma mater, Gallaudet University. As I struggled to better understand the issues behind this protest, and the actions taken by both the administration and the GUFSSA, I found myself going back to the teachings of my spiritual path for guidance. And in doing so, I think I have come to a deeper appreciation of just what this protest was really all about.

Perhaps the greatest insight came from the writings of one of the Pagan Community’s best-known and well-respected leaders – Starhawk. She is the author of many books about Witchcraft – including the classic publication The Spiral Dance…considered a must-read in the Pagan Community.

But it is one of her other books that I wish to quote from, a book which I feel really hits home with what happened at Gallaudet. This is a book entitled Dreaming the Dark, which was first published in 1982. It’s a well written book, and as one reviewer stated, “should be required reading for anyone involved in social justice activism.” Starhawk knows of what she writes – she has been involved in many different protests over the past 25+ years, and arrested on several occasions. She’s written of such experiences in a number of her books, including this one.

In the epilogue to Dreaming the Dark, Starhawk explains that

“this is a book about bringing together the spiritual and the political.”

BAM! Right then and there, I suddenly understood. At the heart of the matter, the Gallaudet Protest was about bringing together the spiritual and the political. The Protest was a crossroads where paths of spirit and action joined together to create a single trail that many (although not all) members of the Deaf Community felt compelled to follow.

Now, when I talk about the spiritual, I am not referring to religion. I’m not talking about which church you attend, or what God you worship. Rather, I am talking about the spirituality of Deafhood – of the thoughts and beliefs and ideas and concepts and struggles and dialogue that define a process by which Deaf people identify themselves and their existence in the world. It is this spirit of Deafhood that defines the Deaf community, a community which has looked to Gallaudet as a symbol of such spirit for nearly 150 years.

Defining the spirituality of Deafhood might cause one to conclude that the Protest was indeed all about the debate of “not Deaf enough.” On the surface, this might seem to be the case, but if we explore deeper, we find that the issues go much further than that. At the heart of the matter is not the question of what is Deafhood, but rather what one chooses to do with it. The individuals of Gallaudet University must ask themselves – “now that I know what I believe, what do I do with it?” That is not such a simple question…nor does it have any simple answers.

What makes Dreaming the Dark such a challenging book for many Pagans is that it presents a harsh but honest ethic:

That if you believe in and follow the Pagan Path, your spirituality will demand that you act, and work to bring about change. And change is never an easy thing to deal with.

By the same token, the GUFSSA was confronted with that demand to act, and that need to bring about change. It is a need that is linked to a growing realization amongst many of its members that the world of oppression, the world of domination, cannot sustain our inner lives, nor our lives in community with each other.

The context by which Starhawk brings about such change is political activism. However, she is quick to point out that activism

“…tends to involve the risk of bodily harm or incarceration…and to put one into contact with extremely unpleasant people, whether they are media interviewers, riot cops, or at times, your fellow activists. Not only that, it generates enormous feelings of frustration and rage…”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? 135 individuals were arrested on Black Friday; there were allegations of harassment by members of the Gallaudet DPS; conflicting information was fed to the media, with the result that news stories often contained inaccuracies; members of the Deaf Community traded angry barbs with one another as they expressed thoughts regarding the protest; and certainly emotions ran high during the time (and continue to do so).

So why would anyone in their right mind want to engage in such behavior?

Because if we look at this recent situation from that spiritual perspective, from that whole sense of the spirituality of Deafhood, the spirituality of Gallaudet University itself, then we must acknowledge that spirituality isn’t always about feeling good. Spirituality is also about challenge and disturbance, about pushing our edges and giving us the support to take great risks.

It is a mistaken assumption that spirituality must be about calm and peace, and conflict is thus unspiritual. If this be the case, then the spirituality of Deafhood would insist that we sit back and act like passive victims as we endure oppression, discrimination, prejudice, mistaken assumptions, and downright hostility from an unknowing and sometimes uncaring world.

I highly doubt that any of us could accept such a definition of Deaf “spirituality.” If we did indeed see ourselves as passive victims, there wouldn’t be so many Deaf advocates in the world. Indeed, there wouldn’t have been a protest at Gallaudet back in 1988, and there wouldn’t have been one in October of 2006.

To continue to the next post

“The Magick of Gallaudet”

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My deepest appreciation to Starhawk, whose words, writings, and wisdom have played a significant role in the writing of this particular post; and in an indirect way, the very creation of this blog site. Thank you.