Accessible Magic
30 March 2019 12:50![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaon "Relationships with spirit are really just like relationships in real life! They take work and regular investment and social skills"
Great. Now, not only am I living in a material world of people who are mean & unreliable & who judge me over the slightest things, I've got the same thing from the astral plane.
"Magic is WORK. It is HARD. You have to be committed to it & invest a lot into it and practice because nothing just gets handed to you, you have to put the work in"
Great. Now, not only am I being punished in the material realm for being disabled in a world run by neurotypical people and underpinned by a protestant work ethic, I've got to tolerate the same "we've set everything up so you'll fail how hard you try, but we'll still punish you for failing and not trying hard enough" dynamic in my religion.
It makes sense that the spirit world in some ways echoes our own - or rather that ours echoes theirs. But how can we do this in ways which don't marginalise people in exactly the same way they're dealing with in everyday life?
Part of being disabled is people thinking their experience of "tired" or "confused" or "can't" is in any way comparable to yours; and so you get these maps to magical mastery which are built on the idea that "this is hard! It should be hard!" Without there being any way to articulate why it's specifically inaccessible to you. And like, idk, if that is the one and only objective way to develop your skills then maybe one is inherently shut out of it for reasons of health.
But my experience of the world is, people who are *throughly capable* of adapting tasks around your needs simply refuse to do it. And the disability has nothing to do with your health, but society's collective refusal to recognise that the world favours some people over others. And that verything is set out to favour them.
Great. Now, not only am I living in a material world of people who are mean & unreliable & who judge me over the slightest things, I've got the same thing from the astral plane.
"Magic is WORK. It is HARD. You have to be committed to it & invest a lot into it and practice because nothing just gets handed to you, you have to put the work in"
Great. Now, not only am I being punished in the material realm for being disabled in a world run by neurotypical people and underpinned by a protestant work ethic, I've got to tolerate the same "we've set everything up so you'll fail how hard you try, but we'll still punish you for failing and not trying hard enough" dynamic in my religion.
It makes sense that the spirit world in some ways echoes our own - or rather that ours echoes theirs. But how can we do this in ways which don't marginalise people in exactly the same way they're dealing with in everyday life?
Part of being disabled is people thinking their experience of "tired" or "confused" or "can't" is in any way comparable to yours; and so you get these maps to magical mastery which are built on the idea that "this is hard! It should be hard!" Without there being any way to articulate why it's specifically inaccessible to you. And like, idk, if that is the one and only objective way to develop your skills then maybe one is inherently shut out of it for reasons of health.
But my experience of the world is, people who are *throughly capable* of adapting tasks around your needs simply refuse to do it. And the disability has nothing to do with your health, but society's collective refusal to recognise that the world favours some people over others. And that verything is set out to favour them.
