Travel Requirements

Conferences or larger gatherings

If you’re representing a conference or gathering larger than 100 attendees, here are my needs:

1) Making arrangements 6 months in advance. My schedule fills up quickly.

2) Free comp in for myself and my assistant/partner. I have a chronic illness and I need him to help me stay well enough to work.

3) Travel fare for both of us. I am in central Massachusetts. For gas money and tolls, my assistant can drive me as far away as DC, or the equivalent in another direction. (We’ll need the travel money before we leave.) Further than that, and it’s two plane fares. If you want me to present on anything to do with shamanism, herbs, or BDSM, the plane fare must include two checked pieces of luggage per person, as the equipment is cumbersome. (No, I will not ship my shamanic items ahead and trust them to the postal system. It is hard enough to put them in checked baggage.) If I am flying, I will need arranged transportation to and from airports/hotels/conference center. If I am driving more than 4 hours, I will need extra room days so that I can come in the day before and leave the day after. I can’t present or speak right after a 10-hour drive. I will need to sleep and work the next day.

4) Free hotel room or cabin room for both of us, with bed that sleeps 2 people. I will share a room with people I know. I will share a bathroom with people who I am guaranteed have experience with transgendered individuals. I can’t fly to a tents-only camping event, unless very special arrangements are made, because the amount of equipment necessary to keep me healthy and comfortable can’t be shipped on a plane. People often want me to do readings for them if they know I’m in the area, and that’s another good reason for me to have some privacy.

5) If we are in cabins in a rocky campground with lots of steep, uneven ground, I may have trouble. With my chronic illness, sometimes I can get around just fine, sometimes I need a cane and have trouble walking. I have a great deal of trouble with long flights of stairs and generally need elevators. If there are handicapped-accessible buildings that are not entirely taken up with people permanently in wheelchairs (who need it more than me) then I’d prefer one. I may need to be driven around a large campground or campus where there is a lot of walking. Any cabin I’m sleeping or presenting in cannot reek of mildew — I’m badly allergic.

6) A safe address to ship my books to, given to me at least one month in advance of the event. If this is in a hotel, that’s fine. If it’s not, I’ll need the address of someone who will accept my boxes of books and bring them to the event.

7) I have special dietary restrictions. I will not be attending any banquets because I can’t inspect the food ingredient list. If you are providing my transportation, I may need a lift to the nearest Whole Foods or the like. If all meals are provided by event staff, I can work with them to see if they can make things I can eat, or possibly a small food stipend can be given to me. Here is a list of my food restrictions – please read before trying to feed me!

8) If everyone at a conference or gathering, including presenters, are required to do volunteer work: I’m fine with doing sit-down work such as registration. I’m very good on medic duty. I cannot do volunteer work that requires me being on my feet a lot, or carrying or walking. If that’s all there is, my assistant/partner Joshua will do my shifts for me as well as his own.

Classes/Workshops for smaller groups

If you are a small group that wants me to come out to your area and teach/give workshops, I will try to work with what you are able to provide. This is what I’ll need:

1) Make arrangements 6 months in advance, as above.

2) Travel fare for two people, as above. Local transportation, as above, if we’re flying.

3) Either a motel room as above or a room in someone’s house. For motels, we generally prefer Super 8s because they give you a microwave and mini-fridge (we prepare our own food), and the rooms are reliably clean and smoke-free. If we are staying in someone’s house, we need a room with no cigarette smoke or animal hair, an actual bed that sleeps two, and a door that closes. No fold-out couches or crashing on the floor. We will need access to a kitchen to make food. Everyone in the house needs to be fine with queer and trans people. I’d prefer that the room and the bathroom not be up a flight of stairs, if possible.

4) Some place to ship books, as above.

5) If you are charging for my workshops, I’d like half the door fee. I will give workshops for free in some circumstances, and I prefer workshops to have an affordable sliding scale or some accomodation for low-income participants.

6) The site should not be somewhere I have to do a lot of walking to get to; see above info on disability.

7) Space and time to see clients, if there are any. If I have a motel room, that’s fine. If I’m staying in someone’s house, they need to be OK with that. There will be mugwort smoke burned in the room.

8) If we aren’t driving in, we will need a ride to a local health food store or a decent grocery store. Ideally, I’d like a small stipend for food. If someone wants to feed me, I can work with them beforehand regarding my allergies and dietary restrictions

9) Let me know about workshops, as above.

10) I will need some kind of a guarantee that your group(s) will do adequate advertising for my workshops. I don’t like flying to the middle of nowhere and wasting several days when one or two people show up. You know your area — get the word out. You know your demographic — please choose workshops that will actually be of interest to the people in your demographic, not the ones where you’d like to think that the people in your demographic are the sort of people who would like those workshops. Depending on the circumstances, I may require you get paid registrations prior to the event, especially if you don’t have previous experience running events with this demographic, or you expect fewer that 20 people.

General rules about scheduling my workshops:

1) Let me know what workshops I’m giving, at least 1 month before the event. I may need to do special packing for them. My Pagan and transgender workshops are listed here. My BDSM/kink workshops are listed here. Some workshops require equipment that is not possible to bring to a location beyond driving range. If you want me to teach something not listed here, ask; I might be able to do it.

2) I need to sleep. If you schedule me for a workshop or ritual that will last till after 10 pm, you’d better not schedule me for anything before noon the next day. If you want me to get up and present at 9 in the morning, I’d better not be doing anything the night before. 9 am is my absolute earliest for an on-site workshop; if I’m traveling to the site, make it 10 am.

3) If you are having a religious ritual and want me to help, do not ask me to “play” a deity. I am a “horse” for spirit-possession, and acting as or dressing up as a deity is, in my case, consent for them to actually enter me. It likely wouldn’t happen, but it might, and I don’t want to take the chance. No, I will not do actual god-possession in a strange place at an unfamiliar event.

4) If you want me to run a ritual, please be clear about what you want, and what you don’t want. Please don’t ask me to do rituals that require more than half an hour of standing, or a lot of running around through the brush, or where I have to drink alcohol, or where I have to be touched or hugged by people I don’t know.

5) I can do up to three workshops a day, and up to seven per weekend. (Usually that is one Friday night, three each on Saturday and Sunday.) I can also do book readings, poetry readings, and sing (if I’m driving I can bring my guitar; if I’m flying someone will have to let me borrow an acoustic guitar). I’m there to work; I’m happy to do it, I just need the above comforts to keep me well enough. I am fine with being booked straight through.