To say that I am grateful I was able to attend The Gathering Paths 2022 is an understatement. The weekend was fulfilling in ways I could never have predicted, in an environment that was supportive and inclusive like I have never witnessed, but knew in my heart was possible. Despite having my Christian religious trauma triggered during the closing ceremonies, as the event ended I had every intention of attending the next Gathering Paths, and offering as many presentations and rituals as I could manage.

Now, I am doubtful. It is six months later without any follow-through or public accountability for the mistakes of the conference, in direct opposition to the organization’s founding principles. This brings into question serious issues of integrity and the willingness of Between the Veils (BTV) to adhere to its own founding principles. Any future involvement of mine is unlikely, but will depend upon what steps, if any, they take to prove they are genuinely committed to their principles going forward.

But before I get into the bad, I want to tell you about the good, because there was a LOT of good that happened, and my fellow attendees were absolutely wonderful to meet and be around. The culture of the conference was amazing, and I am so very sorry the bad stuff delayed me gushing about the good stuff.

If you are here just wanting to read about the drama and trauma, scroll down to The Blunder.

Atmosphere and Culture of The Gathering Paths 2022

The Gathering Paths promised to be a magical spiritual event built upon foundations of inclusivity, diversity, and mutual respect, and during the event the organizers took every possible opportunity to affirm those foundations. I have literally never been to any event where people were so visibly present in their true selves and amazing diversity, universally welcomed. Despite the small attendance of the event, the programming had a great deal of breadth, enough so that it was at times hard to choose what to attend even though the event was rather small.

I was on the Access Committee, so it was very nice to see that as many of our suggestions as possible were implemented. This included a lot of simple accommodations that are often overlooked, yet benefit everyone in attendance, like having personal pronouns on all the conference passes, using large fonts on all signage (large enough that anyone with good eyesight could read them from at least several feet away), marking all elevators and bathrooms (including nongendered) on the conference map, having plenty of seating everywhere throughout the conference (including the halls!), a children-focused community room, an oasis room for destimming, a quiet room for meditation and altars and divination, having microphones and speakers in almost every presentation room, and making sure that there was room for wheelchairs and walkers to get around easily in all locations. Some of those areas were underutilized, but I suspect that had far more to do with the overall small event attendance than anything else.

Just having those simple accommodations, visible everywhere, immediately created an atmosphere where attendees felt heard, seen, welcomed, and valued. There was no evidence of any discrimination that I witnessed (including from attendees), and the vast majority of people I saw were smiling and relaxed.

In short, it was everything I could hope for in the atmosphere and culture of an event, and then some!

The Personal Importance of Between the Veils

Although I would be hard pressed to count how many conventions I have attended at The Doubletree in San Jose in the past two decades, I was not able to attend Pantheacon until the very last year, and even then only for a day trip. I had wanted to go since the late 90’s, but for various reasons it never worked out.

That one day, though, happened to be the day that Between the Veils was holding an open discussion in one of the suites regarding the formation of a new event, one created upon a foundation of aggressive inclusion and diversity. Just about everything they talked about were things that I had thought about, that I believed should be present in an event if it was going to be a truly fulfilling experience for everyone, free from prejudice and bigotry. These were things that needed to be done to avoid the repeated mistakes of Pantheacon. Those who came were welcomed to provide feedback and suggestions, which I did, and I felt heard and understood.

And I knew, right then, that I wanted BTV (Between the Veils) to be successful, with every fiber of my being.

Even though there was no date, no hotel contract, not even a fully finalized non-profit yet, my partner and I purchased tickets to show our support and help provide the funding they needed to get off the ground.

Of course, covid derailed the initial plans for an in-person event, so I offered to present at the 2021 virtual conference that was held instead. I then made plans to attend the in-person event scheduled for February of 2022. I had money set aside for the hotel, and it had been so long since the initial ticket purchase that my partner and I were able to upgrade to VIP tickets in the interest of supporting the event.

I also joined the delightfully diverse Access Committee, and helped to advise the convention about things that could be done to help make the conference more accessible to everyone. Of course, not everything we suggested was going to be practical for the first year, but we all felt like we were heard and taken seriously, and I did see many of our suggestions implemented during the inaugural The Gathering Paths 2022 conference.

Then there was the omicron covid surge, and the event was postponed yet again, rescheduled for August, but I believed I would still be able to make it, no matter the time of year. Then, in April, I found myself in staggering pain, unable to walk, and found out that I had disk degeneration which I had been exacerbating thinking it was my normal chronic pain.

With the added physical and financial strains, I did not believe I would be able to attend after all. I tried to cancel my presentations and ritual via email in April, crying my eyes out while trying to accept that this was just one more thing my health was going to deny me (disability and chronic illness are neverending grief journeys).

When I was sent presenter info in late June, it was like a punch in the gut. There I was, having to send my heartbroken regrets all over again. Even though I was managing the back problems better than expected, there was no longer any way I could pay for four nights in the convention hotel. Because of my disability, if I was to have any prayer of being functional all weekend and safely driving home, I had to be staying in the convention hotel, and I needed to be there four nights.

It still warms my heart thinking about how people I had not yet met in person scrambled to make sure I could be in the hotel, that I could still present, that I could still lead ritual, that I could still have all the amazing experiences of being at The Gathering Paths 2022, that I could still be at something that meant so very much to me!

I couldn’t do much more than I had already committed to, but I wanted to give something more in return, so I offered to give a third presentation (on ethical baneful magic), which they were delighted to add into the schedule at the last minute. When the day came, giving that presentation meant as much to me as it did to those who attended, and I am grateful I offered it.

My Gathering Paths 2022 Presenter Experience

I absolutely LOVE teaching and presenting. I love having the opportunity to share knowledge and help others find joy and understanding, to help demystify or deepen understanding of topics. I love the exchange of knowledge and insight, and being able to gush about things I care about to an interested crowd. Plus, it is rare that I walk away from a class or presentation without also learning something from at least one of the people attending. I just wish I had the spoons to teach more often.

I started doing some virtual teaching because of covid, and I quickly realized how much of my enjoyment in teaching, and how much of my teaching style, depends upon the immediate feedback of having the attendees right in front of me. Being back in an environment where I could be in the same room with attendees was a gift of profound proportions!

I use slideshows for most of my presentations to both keep me from bird walking, and as a teaching tool. The slides for the Ethical Baneful Magic presentation worked well enough that I noticed a couple people taking photos of some of them. After the event, I shared selected slides on social media for easier reference.

There were, of course, technical glitches setting up each presentation, as one would expect from a first-time event, but someone was always there to help sort it out and make sure everything would work, even if it wasn’t seamless.

On the whole, I felt supported and valued as a presenter. All of my presentations were well-attended, with lots of interaction. I also had people come up to me throughout the weekend thanking me for my presentations, especially the ones on animism and baneful magic, which was heartwarming and gratifying, especially since I had been feeling a lot of imposter syndrome leading up to the event.

My Gathering Paths 2022 Ritual Leader Experience

I am disappointed that my ritual was in the same time slot as the Medusa ritual (a ritual that sounded fantastic and had huge attendance), but I still had a respectable group of people in attendance. It was an open circle format, so people were welcome to come and go during the ritual as long as they were quiet and unobtrusive, which I was grateful for, as some people did come in late or leave during the middle. Their reasons for doing so are theirs, and I hope the time they spent in the ritual space served them well.

I must admit that I had no idea what the bulk of the ritual was going to be until I was in the space. Sure, I had written out a description and had a clear plan when I offered the ritual, but the closer the event came, the less enthusiastic I was about my original plan. It just didn’t feel right. I didn’t think my original plan would be what was needed or wanted by those in attendance at that time. I had decided several months earlier that it felt right to shift the focus from nonbinary divinity to gender euphoria, but I still didn’t know what that would mean in a ritual space.

I am not a big fan of rigid formality, so my rituals tend to be very fluid, but I was still nervous at having no plan at all. Knowing I can speak on the fly without reading off a script does little good if I am not certain what I want to convey with that speech.

I attended every ritual I could, feeling that somehow, in that, I would see the inspiration I needed for my own ritual, and I did. No two rituals I attended were even remotely alike, which was a breath of fresh air after decades of predicable format and exclusion via cis/het exaltation. Without any need for copying what anyone else did, I saw how I would go about the core of the ritual, and how I would emphasize the spiritual and personal beauty of euphoria through community and connection, while still giving space for divinity as well.

Stories were told and hearts were bared. We laughed and we cried. We held space for each other and we blessed each other. We danced and sang. It was exactly what it needed to be.

Each presentation and ritual was given a 90 minute time slot. I expected to use roughly half of that. Instead, we were closing up our circle almost exactly at the allotted ending time, without me ever looking at a clock.

Positive Ending Note

The Gathering Paths 2022 ended on an absolutely perfect note for me. I have never spoken to an oracle or medium before, but things worked out perfectly to see a seidr oracle in the Fire & Ice community suite. I was able to ask a question that I have been unable to answer for myself, for which I am grateful to that community and those deities.

After that I ate, had tea, and commiserated with people in the VIP lounge. It was calm and grounding and re-invigorated me.

Then I went to the Hekate Devotional in the Pandemos community suite. I was not expecting the devotional to include having the opportunity to talk to Hekate through a medium. I did not have a specific question, but I was given a message that was profound for me. For that I am grateful to Her and to the Pandemos community.

The Fire & Ice community suite was just barely down the hall, and I remembered seeing a Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok drinking game listed on their schedule. So, with Loki nudging me and saying I should absolutely go join the fun, because it will be perfect, I went in. I was welcomed in and offered a seat on the couch, where I watched the last third of the movie with them. There was no evidence of a drinking game, but we all watched and laughed and groaned and enjoyed it together. It was a perfect way to spend some time and relax after the Hekate Devotional.

I may not know the names of most of the people I shared those last hours with, but it felt like home, like true welcoming community, in a time of pure imperfect perfection.

The Blunder

The vast majority of the problems I witnessed throughout the event were outside the control of The Gathering Paths (ex: a small electrical fire in one of the hotel rooms), or the normal hiccups one would expect to happen at a first-time event simply because nothing had been live tested and there were no routines or proven protocols. This mostly manifested in small ways, which were addressed as best as possible as they came up, nurturing the impression that Between the Veils cared, and would make sure those problems were not repeated next year.

The opening and closing ceremonies … are to honor the convention as an entity. As such, the goal should be for them to be fully accessible to absolutely everyone at the convention, regardless of their personal tradition or path or background.”

There was only one serious blunder that I witnessed, and it was a predictable trigger of Christian religious trauma during the closing ceremonies. According to principle (5) in their own community agreements, this needed to be fully and publicly addressed by Between the Veils as soon as possible. “5. Accountability – Own your impact when you have caused harm. This can be healing to all involved. Let’s normalize it!” Any such accountability needed to be public because otherwise it would fail to “own” the impact, and also would never reach most of the people who were triggered.

Given those promised principles, I expected accountability. Instead I got hypocrisy.

Even worse, because of how BTV handled the blunder post-event, the only people who would have witnessed any modicum of accountability were the ones who reached out and said they were affected, placing the burden of the emotional labor on the victims in order to receive any apology.”

No one ever owes any explanation of what precisely triggered them, but for clarity of understanding I have included details about what triggered me in the accordion below. Also, for me, personally, being open and vulnerable about my traumatic experiences is extremely healing, especially when I am heard and understood.

Trigger Warning (accordion nested) – Description of Christian Religious Trauma Triggers

Specifically, I was triggered by four main things.

Audience participation was conducted in a way that was exactly as I witnessed in the overwhelming majority of Christian churches I attended as a youth, especially if there were any hymnals being sung. Singing and group chanting can absolutely be done in pagan settings without reminding me of Christian ceremony, but everything about the way it was conducted by those Thelemites is how I would have expected in a large-ish Christian church. I have no doubt that the austerity of the physical environment of the ballroom exacerbated this impression.

The organ sound settings chosen for the synthesizer were identical to the vast majority of those churches if they had didn’t have a real piano.

We were expected to say “amen” very frequently, something that has NEVER happened to me before at any pagan gathering, so my sole association with that term is Christian context.

We were also expected to give praise to archangels, repeatedly and at length, archangels whose purpose in existing according to Their mythos is to be the hand of That god on this planet. The longer it went on, the harder it was to ignore the trigger, but I guarantee that because of my religious trauma I was going to find no spiritual anything by having Them mentioned at all, even if it had been brief.

Those are all elements that Crowley directly pulled from Christian ceremony, and no matter how much I am intellectually aware that Thelema is not a Christian religion, Christianity is still my dominant association with all of those elements.

Brief Hopes for a Positive Resolution

Immediately after the conference was over, I sent an email informing them of the fact that I had been triggered in a way that guaranteed I was not the only person triggered, as well as exactly which aspects of the ritual were triggering for me. I also informed them of how it distastefully looked like showboating when the Board Director proudly declared, “This is MY tradition!” making the closing ceremony about him instead of the conference and its attendees.

I let them know I believed it was vitally important to quickly give a public apology, not only because their foundational principles demanded it, but also because failure to do so would irrevocably damage BTV’s credibility. Failing here would likely confirm to many that BTV is just Pantheacon with a new veneer, continuing the tradition of engaging in deeply damaging and hypocritical practices.

Following my formal feedback, I was involved in two separate email chains about the event. The first was more personal in nature, between myself and three of the BTV Board members.

To summarize the first email, my experiences were immediately validated, and they agreed the entire incident was a blunder that never should have happened. They confirmed that I was far from the only person who reached out about the ceremony being triggering, and they agreed that Thelema never should have been chosen to conduct the closing ceremony.

I only made … promises on the expectation that BTV would fulfil its promises, so ultimately they inflicted a second, completely different and even more severe trigger, where I was lied to and deceived, and then in order to be true to my word, was stuck keeping their secrets for them, party to and enabling of their lack of integrity.”

I was also promised several things would happen, in keeping with the foundational principle of accountability. In other words, they KNEW what actions they needed to take in order to have integrity, and at that time I had complete faith that they would follow through on those promises. They even acknowledged repeatedly that the emotional burden for accountability should not fall on people like myself who were triggered, and said how much they appreciated me spending my emotional energy discussing it with them.

I was asked if I thought the following promised actions were a good plan, and I agreed emphatically that it was a solid approach to achieve accountability.

“Here are somethings we are going to do to try and acknowledge the harm we caused and to ensure it doesn’t happen again:

1) Publicly acknowledge the harm and trigger that the ritual caused.

2) Promise in the future to have a better/ more detailed description in the program of what is going to happen.

3) Set forth a plan to have a fully collaborative process involving all members of the community to design the opening and closing. This would include ensuring more traditions are present as well as non-hierarchical structure.

4) Acknowledge those who were not thanked in the closing, publicly and privately.

5) Offer people an avenue to speak directly to a board member about their concerns.

I know none of the above mentioned makes up for what happened, and unfortunately there are no do overs. However, if you feel so compelled to share, I would like to know how these commitments land with you. Its not your job to guide us in repairing the damage done and I want to ensure that your voice is included if you would like it to be.”

– Excerpted from email from Nikka Tahan, Vice President- BTV Board (as of the writing of this article, no longer on the Board of Directors)

In that email I was also offered further details should I want them, some of which were private in nature. In my reply I informed them that I would love more details. Understanding why and how a thing happened is usually helpful to my healing process. As I explained in the email, “I know no one is perfect, and mistakes can happen, and it really helps me to understand the truth behind what caused triggering events, including the messy and unflattering bits, because there are always messy and unflattering bits when things go sideways. There is no need to hold back or worry that I will feel it is just excuses. Excuses are what happens when there is no accountability in the process. When there is accountability (which your letter to me starts that process), explanation allows for greater understanding and can help with ensuring unfortunate events are never repeated. History which is not known cannot be avoided in the future.”

I made sure to tell them of how impactful accountability was to not just victims like myself, but also their organization’s future. “Accountability is rare, and incredibly healing, and I appreciate being included in that process. Lack of accountability leaves a pain that can be difficult or impossible to heal. Accountability is hard and painful, but it allows for real healing and growth. I am not afraid of that work, because I know first-hand what it can bring. It would have been nice if it had not been necessary with BTV still so young and unestablished, but I believe it will also tangibly prove the commitment of BTV to uphold its own principles and community agreements, making it stronger in the long run.”

And I made them two promises in return, to show my continuing support for both BTV and The Gathering Paths. “I have a blog post nearly finished where I want to gush about how amazing the event was and how important it was to me, but I also cannot ignore or dismiss the closing ceremony, because it did affect me.  I am relieved that I will also be able to talk about accountability, and BTV upholding its principles even when things are difficult.  I will be waiting to finish and publish it until after the public acknowledgement and apology have been issued, so that I can link to that.  Since I do tend to err on the side of too much information, and do believe in the healing power of full disclosure, please let me know if any details you share with me should not be passed on in such a public format so I can respect the privacy of anyone involved.”

Broken Promises

I now regret both of those promises, because it put me in a deeply damaging moral grey area. I only made those promises on the expectation that BTV would fulfil its promises, so ultimately they inflicted a second, completely different and even more severe trigger, where I was lied to and deceived, and then in order to be true to my word, was stuck keeping their secrets for them, party to and enabling of their lack of integrity.

This was literally the worst thing I could have done for my mental health in the months since the conference, which is why I am speaking now. I need honesty and openness to feel safe, because lies and secrecy are the stuff of deceit and abuse.

Then the hypocrisy started, because you cannot have full accountability without transparency.”

Their next email included some elaboration on fundamental flaws in how the responsibility of organizing the ceremony was conducted, and mentioned some changes they were contemplating enacting to avoid a repeat of the problem. It was all very hypothetical, but let me know that they were in discussion to figure it out. That was great.

Then the hypocrisy started, because you cannot have full accountability without transparency.

That email included, in confidence, some details about why the ritual was Thelemic. It also gave some behind-the scenes details about the roles particular individuals had in how it all went down, including why the Board Director, Jonathan Quant, made a proud declaration of “This is MY tradition,” which at the time had given me the impression he was delighted to inflict his tradition on an unsuspecting audience.

I may have agreed to keep peoples’ privacy, but I was not expecting to be handed private details that were vital to understanding how the entire triggering event came to occur. Without those details, it was going to be impossible for the attendees and public to understand the triggering event was a mistake, a chain of errors and miscalculations that resulted in something that, while being predictably problematic, was also genuinely unintended and unexpected. Knowing that in no way excuses it, but does change the severity of the incident – malice or callous disregard are far worse than short-sighted and stupid.

That is why transparency is essential to accountability! You cannot even know what exactly is being accounted for without transparency.

Not only that, but secrets create doubts about honesty. When you do not have all the information, you cannot know if the version being told is misleading. If there is any doubt as to the honesty of the individual or organization making the apology, it also raises doubts as to the sincerity of that apology. When the sincerity of an apology is in doubt, that immediately nullifies the effectiveness of that apology and its ability to facilitate genuine accountability and healing.

Giving partial truths to hide secrets and dishonest motivations is what gaslighters and abusers do! It is incredibly disingenuous to approach apologizing to abuse victims by doing anything even slightly reminiscent of gaslighting, intentional or not!

For example, because I have the private information, I can say with confidence that I believe the blunder was genuinely unintended and made with the best of intentions. However, since I cannot tell you why I believe that, you are under no obligation to believe me. If BTV expects people to believe it was a mistake with no information to back up that assertion, they are expecting those people to “assume good intentions”, which they explicitly eschew in their community agreements.

ACCOUNTABILITY

“We do not use the phrase “assume good intentions” as a part of our community agreements. While this phrase is intended to promote understanding, sharing, honesty and authentic relationship, it can undermine commitments to inclusivity and support for marginalized people. The phrase places the responsibility for hurt on the person who has received the hurt, who is very often a marginalized person. It is vital that we recognize the impact our actions have on others, in our daily lives and especially as a spiritual practice.”

“Anyone in attendance including board members, staff, presenters, vendors, community members and participants will be asked to abide by the community agreements.”

– Between the Veils Community Agreements
excerpted 2/13/2023

That email ended with, “We also apperciate your waiting on publishing the blog post until we are able to post our public appology- I hope to complete by and post today. This something that you do not have to do (waiting on us), and again we are so thanful for the grace you are providing us as we manuever through this.” – 8/18/2022

In my final reply on this email chain, I re-confirmed that I would hold the blog post and the confidential information. I also emphasized that, “…the fact remains that impact > intention…”, and I encouraged them to be transparent about the confidential information due to its importance in understanding how things happened and reassuring people that such an event would not be repeated.

All of the promises made to me were left unfulfilled, most especially the promises of public apology and community involvement to ensure it did not happen again.”

I also offered a couple suggestions about how to organize the closing ceremony in the future, and offered to help with that aspect of the next conference. I never received another reply.

The next day I received the boilerplate personal apology I expect was sent to every single person who reached out to tell BTV they were triggered.

“Thank you very much for sharing this perspective and feedback.

“I’m not sure if Board members or other folks have already responded, so this might be redundant, but I wanted to let you know —

“First, that (as you might imagine) this is not the only negative feedback we’ve received about the closing ceremony. What happened there was not something we have any desire to have happen twice, and we will not make the mistake of inviting that ritual to close our ceremony again.

“Second, that a Thelemic ritual being what closed our event was never our intention at the outset. We had a last-minute unavailability issue, including from many of our board members, which caused our President Jonathan to reach out and ask those folks to fill in for a closing ritual as a favor. I can assure you there was no intention on his – or Between the Veils’ at large- part to dominate that experience with a particular tradition. Unfortunately, regardless of our intentions, that’s what happened and we fully acknowledge and apologize for the evident harm that was done to you and others because of it.

“Finally, a sincere thank-you for sharing this vulnerable experience and information with us. It is clear that this was a meaningfully negative situation and we want to make sure that things like this do not happen to our community again. We hope that you will give Between the Veils a chance to do better next time, and continue to be involved in our events and community moving forward.

“Thank you, and we hope to see you soon.”

It was fine as apologies go, but it was literally the only visible action BTV took to engage in accountability. Also, it provided a recounting of events that avoided transparency, and in doing so provided a version that was sanitized. While technically true, there was barely enough information to potentially satisfy the questions of attendees, while leaving out any and all clarifying details that were potentially unflattering.

Omitting unflattering details is the antithesis of accountability.

Compounding Problems

All of the promises made to me were left unfulfilled, most especially the promises of public apology and community involvement to ensure it did not happen again.

Those were the most important details! Giving an apology in private was fine and well, but as their solitary gesture it was ultimately meaningless. Without also being publicly accountable, it stank of placation to avoid accountability, a hollow gesture to suppress further criticism and prevent public awareness of wrongdoing.

Omitting unflattering details is the antithesis of accountability.”

It worked. I expected that the public apology would eventually come, and I understood that things might not happen at an ideal speed because of the committee nature of BTV. So I was patient and let days turn into weeks.

I then was in the throws of moving, so I no longer had the spoons to spare re-writing my blog post or attending to my blog at all. By the time I was done with the move it had been almost three months since the event, and it felt like writing about the conference was too untimely to be relevant. Plus, I had made those promises, and I was not certain what to say about my profound disappointment without breaking those promises.

Processing my Traumas

I also had writer’s block, uncertain how to articulate my perspective on their hypocrisies. After the conference I went from triggered, to hopeful, to expectant, to a second huge trigger, to disappointed, to too busy to deal with any of it, to stuck in a state of emotional flashback.

Emotional Flashbacks

An emotional flashback is a symptom of CPTSD, resulting from prolonged or repeated trauma, often stemming from childhood abuse. It is a period of intense emotions without visual involvement, resulting from experiencing a trigger that brings the person back into the emotional states they experienced during ongoing or reoccurring traumas. Emotional flashbacks, when unresolved, can last for days, weeks, or even months. Because they lack the visual involvement of PTSD flashbacks, it can be difficult at times to identify exactly what the trigger was, or why it was triggering.

I thought I had dealt with my Christian religious trauma by contacting BTV and resolving it directly, but the promises of resolution that never turned into action piled on a second, far bigger trigger that I disassociated from and ignored because of the other things going on in my life at the time. I found myself paralyzed to do much of anything at all, stuck in anxiety loops and near panic attacks, usually over things I normally would be able to shrug off. I was hypersensitive to small triggers because the main triggers, the Christian religious trauma, and the trauma of being deceived so someone else could avoid accountability, remained entirely unresolved.

For months I knew I was triggered, but I was so far removed from the triggering event that I had a very difficult time figuring out what the root problem was. I had not adequately dealt with the religious trauma, but more importantly I didn’t realize the bigger trigger, deceit, was even involved. It took time to realize I had been deceived, because I knew it would take time for them to follow through with accountability. By the time I admitted to myself that I had been deceived, I was already in an emotionally triggered state, feeling betrayed and disappointed, anxious, hypersensitive to small triggers, and disassociating as much as possible so that my life would be bearable.

I couldn’t write. I felt little joy and no peace. I couldn’t meditate or maintain any routines, even my physical therapy exercises. I couldn’t engage in magic or my spiritual practice, because I couldn’t access even a shred of equilibrium.

I wanted to do all those things that are good for my wellbeing and quality of life, but I couldn’t, because I was in an emotionally triggered state for months.

In order to resolve that state, I needed to figure out the root source of the trigger. I am terrible at symptom management, and always have been. I want, need, to go at such things directly. I hate beating around the bush and spending all my energy dealing with side effects, when I could be dealing with the problem for real and genuinely healing it so I don’t waste my life doing repeated miserable circles ad nauseum.

Not knowing why I was so triggered and for so long only added to the frustration and anxiety. The heightened stress levels caused prolonged high chronic illness symptoms, adding to the frustration, anxiety, stress, guilt, and feelings of helplessness.

I have, frankly, been a mess.

I don’t know exactly why, but out of the blue I had an epiphany. The Christian religious trauma from last August was unresolved, and apparently a far worse trigger than I had realized. That made sense to me, because for my entire adult life I have actively avoided any situations that would potentially hit that trigger. I had little experience dealing with it directly even though I knew it was there.

In voicing that epiphany to friends, I realized the deceit and the lack of integrity had also been triggered. I felt stupid about not realizing that one sooner, since I have dealt with it a LOT during my adult life, but I also completely understand why it fell out that way.

Once I understood exactly what had triggered me, I immediately knew that continued silence was only going to exacerbate the problem. I needed to finish that blog post, and I needed to share it so that I would no longer be complicit in the BTV’s hypocrisies and lack of integrity.

Thus, here we are. I pulled some pieces from the original blog post, especially about the good stuff that is no longer so fresh in my mind, but this post is a lot longer and more involved than the original one.

Technically, my trauma is a separate issue from BTV’s handling of the blunder, but I have included details about my traumas and healing process for multiple reasons:

• I feel that transparency is helpful in illuminating why I have responded to BTV in this way. It also helps to explain why their actions and lack thereof are problematic, especially given their promises to interact supportively with individuals who carry trauma (a very common situation when dealing with marginalized people and identities).
• Open honesty is critical to my healing process at all stages, because any time there is secrecy there is risk of lies and deceit, and I want no part of that.
• Reading about my experiences and processes might be helpful to someone else who is also dealing with CPSTD or is close to someone who is.

What Now?

I have been deeply wounded by Between the Veils’ handling of this, so at the moment I have no expectations of future involvement. That is their fault, but how I handle my trauma is ultimately MY responsibility, not theirs, because I’m the one who has to live with it. I learned decades ago that depending upon the actions of others for trauma resolution, especially others who have let you down before, is a recipe for never resolving that trauma.

I also recognize that I have a far higher bar for integrity and honesty than the vast majority of people do, because that is a boundary I need in order to feel safe and secure in my life. The same is not true of everyone, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If this kind of integrity issue is not a deal breaker for you, that is your business, but please recognize that being able to ignore integrity issues is a privilege. It means you expect that you are not a potential victim of that lack of integrity.

I feel people should be aware that this integrity problem exists, so that they can make informed decisions about whether or not they are comfortable being involved with BTV, and to what degree.

I am not going to be shunning any particular members of the BTV Board. I still have hope that the individuals I corresponded with were sincere, but BTV is run by committee. Because the organization has no transparency, I have no idea where in that committee process the refusal to be accountable happened, or why. It is entirely possible that the individuals who promised resolution did try to make that happen, but were overruled.

What happens now is up to BTV and its Board. I have said my peace. Since they already failed to follow through on promises made explicitly and repeatedly, I expect no personal resolution from them. The time for private assurances is over. Public action is the only thing that will have positive meaning.

If they do decide to take action, they now have an uphill battle. Instead of simply confirming they will follow their founding principles, they have to prove that they will not ignore their own community agreements ever again. I’m not sure how they will accomplish that, though. Once trust is broken, it is broken. Repairing broken trust is far more difficult than earning it in the first place.

Or, maybe they won’t. The pagan community in the USA has proven repeatedly that it is willing to support events that have far more problematic issues than just a question of integrity and accountability around a potentially triggering ritual format. But, theoretically BTV wants to appeal to a wider cross-section of individuals and traditions, many of whom do not have the privilege of looking the other way when faced with questions of integrity and accountability.

I hope that BTV will decide to embark on the difficult task of genuine commitment to integrity, honesty, and transparency, but that is on them. My offers to help have been met with silence too many times to offer again, but that’s probably for the best. I would have expected them to hold standards they are apparently unwilling to hold.

On the bright side, there is also clearly community that is ready for an event like The Gathering Paths was supposed to be. BTV facilitated that in the moment, but it was the community, the people who were present, who made the event amazing. Without them, it would not have been the beautiful experience it was.

I will post further updates as things develop on the BTV blog tag.