Deaf Pagan Crossroads

A Deaf Imbolc Ritual
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Recently I have begun corresponding with a Deaf family who has been studying about Paganism and undertaking their own spiritual journey down the Pagan Path. Both the wife and husband are Deaf, and they have three Deaf children.Together, the family has been begun celebrating the Wheel of the Year and eight Sabbats. I recently shared [...]
Thu, Feb 02 2012

Helping vs. Controlling
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Continuing my theme of “help”... I now discuss the issue of helping someone as opposed to just taking over and controlling everything for them. This is a subject that many deaf and hard of hearing people know all too well – “do-gooders” who might have the best of intentions and who truly believe they are [...]
Wed, Sep 14 2011

The Ethics of Helping
Deaf Pagan Crossroads This post first appeared at the Crossroads over four years ago. I thought it was time to dust it off and repost it, especially since I and others have been dealing with the issue of “helpful(?)” people lately... In response to some of the blogs and vlogs posted on DeafRead and elsewhere lately that have [...]
Mon, Sep 12 2011

Another Video Captioning Option
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Recently I've put up a couple of posts here at the Crossroads about captioning your videos...an issue which – as a Deaf person myself – is near and dear to my heart, as well as an important one for many deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Since many people do use YouTube for downloading their [...]
Sun, May 29 2011

Adding Captions to Your YouTube Video
Deaf Pagan Crossroads In a previous post, I talked about the importance of adding captions to the videos that you create, in order for them to be accessible to deaf and hard of hearing individuals. In that post, I mentioned that YouTube has come up with a new automatic captioning program by which it can automatically add captions [...]
Fri, May 27 2011

The Pagan Community and Deaf Access
Deaf Pagan Crossroads (photo showing sculpture of the sign “relationship/connect”) As my Crossroads readers know, this blog is my attempt to merge my identity as a Deaf person with my Pagan spirituality. Some of my posts focus on Deaf issues, some of my posts focus on Pagan issues. And some of them focus on both. That merger of [...]
Thu, May 19 2011

Pagan Deaf Access Letter part one – “Clarifying the...
Deaf Pagan Crossroads (graphic showing sign language pictures for “law obey must you”) Greetings Ocean, We are writing you in hopes of giving you a better understanding about our organization and how our event and community work. That's not the issue here. You keep trying to divert away from the real issue by making irrelevant arguments about how [...]
Thu, May 19 2011

Pagan Deaf Access Letter part two – “Who Knows Best?”
Deaf Pagan Crossroads (graphic showing a person's head with a tree and roots growing in the brain area) As previously explained to you, our event exists because of the VOLUNTEER support of the participants – not in spite of them. Please, we encourage and support and welcome and invite you to work with us in coordinating and establishing [...]
Thu, May 19 2011

Pagan Deaf Access Letter part three – “Demanding or...
Deaf Pagan Crossroads (photo of the ASL sign for “advocate”)  On its face, you appear to make demands for your needs without considering the sacrifices others similarly situated have made in coming to our event to assist in creating such spaces/activities/micro-communities. You would rather have others do for you, when you seem to be ideally the individual who could [...]
Thu, May 19 2011

Pagan Deaf Access Letter part four – “Damaging,...
Deaf Pagan Crossroads (photo of a woman's face with an angry demanding expression, pointing a finger out) We ask that you not try to damage our event for what it is. At this point in time, the gathering cannot happen any other way than we've described above. You must know that Pagan communities, organizations, churches across the country [...]
Thu, May 19 2011

Providing Access
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Recently I have been involved in some education and advocacy efforts within the Pagan Community regarding the need for greater access for Deaf Pagans, or Deaf individuals interested in learning more about Paganism or topics related to Paganism. Rather than trying to “reinvent the wheel” so to speak, or repeating the same thing over and [...]
Sun, Apr 03 2011

Ostara – Bunnies & Eggs, Rebirth & Rejoice
Deaf Pagan Crossroads As a Deaf Pagan, I am always seeking new ways to teach the Deaf Community about Earth-Based Spirituality – what we believe and what we practice. An important aspect of the Pagan Path is the Wheel of the Year, and the eight Sabbats which we celebrate during the turning of the wheel. While there are [...]
Sun, Mar 20 2011

Pagan Books for Little Witchlets
Deaf Pagan Crossroads As a practicing Pagan and an ordained Wiccan High Priestess, occasionally I am contacted by parents (both Deaf and hearing) asking me for tips, resources, or books on teaching about the Pagan Path to their children. I recently became acquainted with Pagan author Edain Duguay, who has written a number of books related to Paganism, [...]
Fri, Mar 11 2011

SignWriting
Deaf Pagan Crossroads One of my contacts in the Pagan Community is an individual who first introduced me to the concept of signwriting. For those of you who are not familiar with this, signwriting is a writing system which uses visual symbols to represent the handshapes, movements, and facial expressions of signed languages. It is an “alphabet” – [...]
Tue, Mar 01 2011

“I Will Use These Hands to Speak Volumes…”
Deaf Pagan Crossroads As a deaf person who grew up as a “solitaire” in an all-hearing, non-signing environment...this video made me cry. What a touching, loving, beautiful tribute to his sister. Thank you, Joshua Bennett...for sharing your heart, your soul, and your poem with us. Filed under: Archives #1 Deafness and Accessibility, Archives #3 A [.....
Sun, Feb 27 2011

CSI – The Deaf Episode (final thoughts!)
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Because three is one of my favorite numbers, I like to do things in threes. Thus this is my third and final post on the CSI episode featuring the Deaf actors and actresses. Overkill? Maybe – but there are a number of different topics from that show that one can focus on, and I've chosen [...]
Sat, Feb 05 2011

CSI – The Deaf Episode (continuing thoughts)
Deaf Pagan Crossroads This is the second of my posts focusing on the February 3rd airing of the CSI episode on “The Two Mrs. Grissoms” featuring several Deaf actors and actresses. I put up a post on my Facebook wall asking others what they thought about the February 3rd airing of the CSI crime drama episode which featured [...]
Fri, Feb 04 2011

CSI – The Deaf Episode (first thoughts)
Deaf Pagan Crossroads This is the first of a series of posts that I plan to do reflecting some of my thoughts and discussions in regards to the February 3rd showing of “The Two Mrs. Grissoms” on the crime drama CSI. I'm sure that this morning the “Deaf Grapevine” is all abuzz as folks share their thoughts on [...]
Fri, Feb 04 2011

ASL Tree
Deaf Pagan Crossroads In a previous post, I explained how my Word of the Year for 2011 is ROOTS. This will be an on-going theme in my blog this year, and I plan to create several posts through-out the year which revolve around this theme. Some of those posts will focus on connecting to my roots as a [...]
Sat, Jan 15 2011

Making a Video? How About Captioning It?
Deaf Pagan Crossroads With more and more people making videos, and/or posting them on Facebook and other social networking sites, we are confronted (again!) with the issue of Equal Communication Access – how can we in the Deaf Community enjoy such videos when they are not accessible? The answer of course lies in captioning such videos – adding visible [...]
Thu, Jan 13 2011

An ASL Sign for Pagan
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Around this time of the year, the word “witch” starts creeping into our vocabulary more and more. Perhaps that explains why this blog's Word Press stats indicate that two of the most popular search engine terms bringing people to Deaf Pagan Crossroads in the past few days have been 1) ASL sign for witch 2) [...]
Thu, Oct 21 2010

Sign Language Interpreters – To Provide or Not to Provide?
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Shortly after the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act in July of 2010, Ocean wrote a letter  to the Editor of the Evansville Courier and Press, which was printed in the paper a few days later. As a result, she was asked to to write a series of articles about accessibility for the [...]
Thu, Sep 16 2010

This Signing Is the (New) S#*t
Deaf Pagan Crossroads In this post Ocean shares her views on common perspectives about sign language, and its use...especially as an artistic form. Stroll down to the very end of this post to see a truly rocking video of an ASL interpretation of a song by Marilyn Manson! A little over three years ago, I put up a [...]
Fri, Sep 10 2010

The Goblin Road
Deaf Pagan Crossroads click on the above graphic to be taken to the novel's website J. Parrish Lewis is a Deaf man living in the San Joaquin Valley of California, where he works part-time as Operations Director for a non-profit agency. When he's not busy developing programs and services or supervising staff, J. Parrish can be found at [...]
Sun, Jun 14 2009
LaRonda liked this

Dancing With Gaia
Deaf Pagan Crossroads NOTE in order to watch the captions click on the triangle in the corner of the video then click on the middle icon in the menu (looks like square box with lines inside it) to turn on the captions Special Thanks to Bill Creswell for captioning this trailer Not too long ago, I received an email about a movie [...]
Tue, Jun 09 2009

Accessing PantheaCon
Deaf Pagan Crossroads As many of my readers may already know, much of my spare time during the first weeks of 2009 was spent advocating for and helping to coordinate interpreting services for PantheaCon, one of the nation's largest Pagan-themed conferences, held here in the Bay Area. It's been nearly a month since PantheaCon took place, and I have [...]
Tue, Mar 10 2009

Update on PantheaCon’s Equal Communication Access Efforts
Deaf Pagan Crossroads If you have been following Deaf Pagan Crossroads lately, you know that one of the main projects I am working on right now is promoting Equal Communication Access at PantheaCon - one of the nation's largest indoor conferences focusing on Pagan spirituality. For more information about PantheaCon and its Equal Communication Access Efforts, please check out [...]
Sat, Feb 07 2009

PantheaCon Spiritual Conference to Provide Sign Language...
Deaf Pagan Crossroads It gives me great pleasure to announce that this year, for the first time, PantheaCon will be offering Sign Language Interpreters for Deaf individuals wishing to attend this event. PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO BOTTOM OF POST FOR INFORMATION FOR DEAF ATTENDEES & INTERPRETERS The 15th Annual PantheaCon Feb 13 - 16, 2009 President's Day Weekend San Jose Doubletree...
Mon, Feb 02 2009

American Sign Language Linked to the Devil???
Deaf Pagan Crossroads While checking out some statistics about my blog that WordPress posts in my dashboard, I noticed a link to my site listed which caught my attention. Go take a look for yourself: [link] According to the author of this webpage “I Love You” sign is made using a combination of the letters I L and Y from American Sign [...]
Sat, Jan 24 2009

A New Chapter
Deaf Pagan Crossroads With this post, Ocean thanks her readership for their birthday wishes, and announces some big changes soon to be coming in her life... First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my friends and Crossroads readers for their kind words and birthday wishes. Overall I had a nice 50th birthday [...]
Sun, Oct 26 2008

The Deaf and Dumb Supper???
Deaf Pagan Crossroads As Pagans around the United States and the Northern Hemisphere prepare for Samhain, probably the holiest of the eight Sabbats in the Wheel of the Year - which occurs on October 31st/November 1st, I would like to take a moment to talk about one of the traditions of Samhain... from a Deaf perspective. Many [...]
Mon, Oct 20 2008

Doing Sign Language
Deaf Pagan Crossroads I was having a chat with an old high school chum last week (keep in mind, I was the only deaf student in a hearing high school), and she started telling me about this friend of hers whom she thought I ought to meet... I think you'd really like him... he does sign language. Hmmm. Does sign language. Is [...]
Tue, Sep 16 2008

You like me, you really like me… (and I like you too!)
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Sabrina over at Pagan Dawn recently chose to bestow Deaf Pagan Crossroads with the following award: Thank you, Sabrina. I'm both honored and humbled. Pagan Dawn is an infant in the blogosphere, begun by a woman who readily confesses to being new both to blogging and to Pagan Spirituality. I enjoy reading it, if for no other [...]
Mon, Sep 15 2008

Reasonable Accomodations for Closed Captioned Televisions?
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Are employers required to assure that televisions in private residences where they employ staff to care for clients are closed captioned for any deaf or hard of hearing staff to be able to enjoy watching television the same as the hearing staff do? Would this fall under the category of “reasonable accommodations”, even if the [...]
Thu, Aug 21 2008

The Lessons of the Bear - A Response to LaRonda’s Post
Deaf Pagan Crossroads LaRonda's recent post on The Time of the Bear got me thinking about the spirit of the bear, and what this animal has to teach us. In her post, LaRonda attempts to use the lessons of the bear as an analogy for teaching us a way of looking at DeafRead and what is happening there. We [...]
Mon, Jul 21 2008

Paganism and Dogma
Deaf Pagan Crossroads NOTE: This post was originally written for my Pagan blog - “Ocean's Tide.” I'm reposting it here at Deaf Pagan Crossroads as part of a beginning study I hope to write about; discussing comparisons between Paganism and Deafhood, looking at issues from different perspectives, philosophical similarities and differences, etc. I plan to reference th...
Sun, Jul 20 2008

Does Hypnosis Work In the Deaf Community?
Deaf Pagan Crossroads A good friend of mine, who is a licensed Mental Health Specialist and has a background in hypnotherapy, sent me an email recently asking an interesting question: Can hypnosis be used effectively with someone who is Deaf or Hard of Hearing? Apparently he got into an interesting discussion with another hypnotist who questioned whether or not [...]
Sun, Jun 29 2008

Winning Jockey Has Deaf Son
Deaf Pagan Crossroads This Saturday, many eyes will be focused on the Belmont Stakes in New York, as Big Brown, a strapping bay three-year-old colt, attempts to become the first to win the Triple Crown in thirty years and thus go down in horse racing history. Big Brown will be piloted by jockey Kent Desormeaux, who rode the horse [...]
Fri, Jun 06 2008

So How Does One “Screw the Pooch?”
Deaf Pagan Crossroads In this post, Ocean discusses the struggles of translating expressions from one language to the other, and offers up a challenge to her readership (scroll down to the bottom to read the challenge!) Note: This post does use some language that might be considered crude and vulgar, but is necessary as part of the writing [...]
Thu, Jun 05 2008

But Hello Anyway…
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Not too long ago, I published a post here at the Crossroads entitled “Too Deaf? Too Pagan? Too Firewalking?” This post was written as a response to a comment which was left on yet another one of my posts here on this blog... a comment which I found to be rather interesting. This reader was expressing [...]
Sat, May 17 2008

Too Deaf? Too Pagan? Too Firewalking?
Deaf Pagan Crossroads I woke up this morning and checked my email, only to discover that I had a new comment to an old post - one that I wrote over a year ago, shortly after I first started Deaf Pagan Crossroads. It's a response to my post titled “On Being Deaf...and Pagan” - a post I wrote about [...]
Sun, May 11 2008

Jeff Daniels - His Views on His Role in “Sweet Nothing In...
Deaf Pagan Crossroads I was curious to learn more about what Jeff Daniels thought about his role in “Sweet Nothing In My Ear,” in which he played the part of Dan, the hearing husband of a Deaf woman and the father of a Deaf son. It must have been quite a challenge for him to take on a [...]
Mon, Apr 21 2008

Pieces of April
Deaf Pagan Crossroads One of the things about moving back to my hometown is that evokes a lot of childhood memories. Driving home to and from work, I often pass the schools I attended when I was a kid. As the only deaf child in an all-hearing family, I was kept at home and attended the local all-hearing schools. [...]
Sat, Apr 12 2008

Studying Deaf Paganism
Deaf Pagan Crossroads I've been getting a number of emails from ASL and Interpreting students, asking permission to quote from my blog for a paper or project they are doing for one of their classes. I am honored to receive such requests, and happy to grant such permission. I still prefer that you contact me if you do wish [...]
Thu, Mar 27 2008

“A Simple Sign, But It Means So Much More…”
Deaf Pagan Crossroads A number of people have been asking me about the above picture, and the sculpture found in this photograph. I did a little research, and was able to come up with the following information... This photograph was taken by photographer “Istolethetv” (yup, that's his flickr identity!) while the sculpture was on temporary display at Carl Schurz [...]
Thu, Mar 06 2008

Pagan-Friendly Sign Language Interpreters
Deaf Pagan Crossroads Greetings! As we begin a new year, many Pagan organizations are beginning to plan their events for the year. Most of these events take place during the summer, usually around the Summer Solstice, although some take place during the spring (around the time of Beltaine on May 1st) or during the fall, (around the time of [...]
Thu, Feb 28 2008

A Deaf Child in the Family - Part Four
Deaf Pagan Crossroads This is the final part in the series, taken from an article in my files. I still don't know who the author is, but I hope you have enjoyed this mother's story about raising her deaf daughter. While this is one person's experience and viewpoints, I think many of us can identify with much [...]
Fri, Feb 22 2008

A Deaf Child in the Family - Part Three
Deaf Pagan Crossroads This is Part Three in a continuing series of posts taken from an article written years ago by the hearing mother of a deaf daughter sharing some of her thoughts and experiences; the challenges and the joys. In this part we also get a glimpse of what it means to raise a deaf teenager! [...]
Thu, Feb 21 2008

A Deaf Child in the Family - Part Two
Deaf Pagan Crossroads This is Part Two in my continuing series of posts taken from an article in my files. I don't know who is the original author of this article, but I think she does an excellent job of sharing what it means to raise a deaf child. There was an amazing custody case in North [...]
Wed, Feb 20 2008

A Deaf Child in the Family - Part One
Deaf Pagan Crossroads First of all, I want to clarify... I did NOT write this article. It was sent to me by an interpreter friend several years ago, and I have had it in my computer files ever since. At that time, I was the leader of an on-line spirituality group which had both deaf and hearing members, [...]
Tue, Feb 19 2008