Building Community Through Sovereignty, Hospitality, and Honor
Community
Our community is built around a focus on the preservation and protection of each other, and honoring land, sea, and sky. Our community includes our world and the spirit world alike. We know that many people access and interact with the spirit world in their own ways, and that is theirs to navigate. But there are still rules that all of us, no matter how we connect with Spirit nor how we connect with each other, agree to abide by as part of this particular community.
If you are working on decolonizing, staying in right relationship with our community, and working to help heal the wounds of colonization while not perpetuating them, your voice matters. No one gets it right all the time, but it’s important that we try. And when we fail - as we all will - we make it better by honest acceptance of our errors and effort to restore healthy relationship where possible. The unhealed violence of toxic, unchecked patriarchy, colonisation, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other ways humans wound each other are what we actively fight against and try to heal. Anyone continuing to wound our community in this way and refusing to heal is not welcome here. We do not allow violence against our community.
What is welcome is a focus on healing. That includes, but is not limited to, healing our relationships with each other, helping the land heal, working with the spirit world, and ultimately throwing off the unhealed perspective that damages so many people in our society. We firmly believe that the pain of the past can be healed but only in community, and the hospitality of the Wild Hearth is focused on offering places that are safe and healed for our communities to re-root ourselves in healthy connection with land, sea, sky, and our deities of choice, to build strong relationships that will heal ancestral traumas and provide the next generation a healthier world.
Sovereignty
Everyone must connect to Spirit - their Deities, guides, ancestors, guardians, the spirits of land, sea, and sky, and others - in their own ways. Those who have followed the path before, those who are in what you might view as “closer” contact with the spirits you want to interact with can serve as guides, but are not a substitute for personal relationship with any being. Your relationship(s) with your Deities and spirits are yours to navigate. No one should stand between you and your connections.
Consent matters, in both directions. If you ask someone for help, they have a right to give or refuse consent. Your path, your mentors, your deities, your spirits and guides - all of this is yours to choose and to navigate for yourself. While many here will help if they can - either with advice or suggestions or empathy as needed - asking for help does not obligate anyone to do what you want them to do.
We expect our community members to safeguard their own personal sovereignty. That means you have a right to say yes, or no, and our expectation is that you will use your own words to express your boundaries. If someone is ignoring your boundaries, or making you feel unsafe when you express your boundaries, that is a problem that we will involve ourselves with. If you are not expressing your boundaries and expecting other people to magically divine them, that is a problem for you to work on.
Hospitality
We offer hospitality to those who come to us. The hospitality of the Wild Hearth is the hospitality on a dark night, when you aren’t sure where you’re going to sleep and you’re in a strange and unfriendly place. In ancient times, this was a literal hearth - and we still do that today, gathering in physical community where we can. But in this digital age we understand hospitality can also be offered and accepted over hundreds or thousands of miles.
As such, if you are in online social spaces with us, you should expect to be treated kindly. This does not mean that abuses will be ignored, nor will it mean that we won’t call you on your shit. If you are behaving in unhealed or toxic ways, we will speak to you about it - but we prioritize healing and becoming better than we were before, all of us together. We heal as a community. We hope you feel welcome among us, and know that your voice is welcome.
You can come and go as you please. There is no activity expectation or requirement. We host events (ciorcals/circles), we have watch parties, we have get-togethers, online and in person. If you are in community with us, you are welcome. Free will is respected; you may show up when you wish and leave when you wish. The caveat here is if you show up and hurt people in our community and then leave, if you choose to come back you must commit to healing those relationships first or you will not be welcome here. We protect our community; that is one of the requirements of hospitality.
Honor
The principles of honor are many, but consent is at the heart of most of them. Consent is a two-way street, and consent cannot be given without being informed. Principles of consent weave through everything we do. Every member of our community must honor others’ right to consent. This means we do not offer blessings or prayers without consent. It means we don’t do protective rituals on the sly without getting the approval of the one protected. It means if you are asked a question and don’t understand why it would be asked, or what your answer might mean, that you have a right and a responsibility to ask about it until you thoroughly understand. And that the person asking has the right and the responsibility to clearly educate you on the ramifications of what they’re asking.
We deal with each other in much the same way as we deal with the spirits of this world and others. We bring our best selves, our most authentic selves. We do not treat each other like shysters trying to trap someone with fine print. Instead, we are honest and open and forthright and truthful.
Enthusiastic, ongoing, informed consent is important. If you say yes to something, and then get more information and want to revoke your consent, that is acceptable. It doesn’t mean you never consented in the first place, but if you need or want to revoke consent then that will be respected.
If at any time these principles are not adhered to by someone in the community, please inform a moderator and we will work to address the issue.