We chatted with Debi, who is part of our Expert Panel, as she has some exciting news to share! This news is about a brand new organisation called The Grove of Aletheia and this is what she had to say about it.
‘With years of cumulative experience and months of quiet preparation, our Council of Elders are hoping to launch The Grove of Aletheia by Beltane. The Grove is dedicated to the support of disabled and neurodivergent Pagans and the provision of training for Pagans and Pagan organisations, raising awareness of disability and neurodivergence within our faith community.
The Grove of Aletheia is a soon to be launched community organisation dedicated to supporting, advocating for and educating on the needs of neurodivergent and disabled Pagans. The Pagan Federation does a great job of supporting disabled Pagans and their resources are very good, I should know as I created most of them, but I felt that my many years volunteering for them had highlighted some gaps in the resources. With their blessing, I’ve set about filling some of those gaps in ways that they’re too overworked to manage. Supporting disabled Pagans is important to them but this new organisation has been built for them from the very beginning and will dedicate itself only to accessibility and understanding for neurodivergent and disabled Pagans. We are currently writing courses that cover many different topics from how to understand and accommodate the needs of neurodivergent and disabled Pagans in social spaces or other community organisations to utilising our faith practices in order to challenge internalised ableism and debilitating masking.
Aletheia is the Greek deity of Unconcealedness. Scholars always assumed she was the goddess of truth and there are similarities across all pantheons but truth and Unconcealedness aren’t the same thing. The Greeks seem to have understood this and wanted to express it with this deity. She is the personification of not being hidden, the epitome of “being evident”, hence our use of her as our patron for this organisation. My hope is to roll these out slowly over the next year for the community’s use. I have a group of community Elders who have (or still do) worked with practically every Pagan organisation in the UK between them with an impressive array of skills and experience. They’re my guides, advisors and backbone for this project. We also have some representatives from the likes of the Pagan Federation, Pagan Aid and Heathens of Yorkshire, among others, who are poised and ready to pilot our courses for us before they’re launched to the public. As of yet, we have no social media to check simply because our primary focus is writing the courses so then they are ready for launch. However, I am looking for volunteers for our secretary and IT support roles to help us in the run up to launching. You can apply for those by messaging me directly on my Facebook page, The Neurodivergent Bee. Once we’re ready to launch, we’ll set up social media spaces and, hopefully, have a decent website too.
UPDATE: Since we spoke to Debi, The Grove Of Aletheia is live and had their online launch party on Sunday 18th June. You can visit their Facebook page and find recordings of their launch party to watch.
Here is their website: www.groveofa.wordpress.com
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