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Many Witches would rather stay home where it is warm, rather than go out and tramp around in the cold, snowy wastes. This attitude is quite understandable. Still, sometimes we are obliged to perform our rites in cold weather, because the weather changes from what was forecast. Sometimes we perform our rites outdoors in winter because our magical focus concerns winter itself. Sometimes we just like playing around in the snow.
The purpose of this guidebook is to describe how the environmental conditions stress a person's health and performance during cold weather rituals, and to explain ways of overcoming that stress, so that ritual work may become safe and enjoyable.
The intended audience of this guidebook is coven leaders who are planning to lead (or provide significant logistic, health-care or house-keeping support in aid of) outdoor rites in cold weather. Please note that the coven is not the universal unit of small-group activity in Pagandom: this guidebook ought to be just as helpful to the leader of a Druid grove or a shamanic drumming group.
Read this book! Print it out, and put it in your coat-pocket or inside your ditty bag, so that it can travel to the field with you. Like any other book, it will only serve its purpose if you read it.
This guidebook's text is freely adapted from (and extensively quoted from) two unclassified technical notes published by the United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM), Natick, Massachusetts: Sustaining Health & Performance In The Cold: Environmental Medicine Guidance for Cold-Weather Operations, USARIEM Technical Note 92-2; and Nutritional Guidance for Military Field Operations in Temperate and Extreme Environment, USARIEM Technical Note 93-3. Hard-copies of both of these documents are available to the public, from the Defense Technical Information Centre.
Additional information was obtained from Craft kin who are nurses and emergency medical technicians, and from the editor's own experience in Arctic and montane survival.
Do not abandon your common sense! No guidebook can replace the information that your sense and your experience provide to you in the field, in the moment. Your people will tell you much of what you need to know about their state of well-being. Take this information seriously.
Brigantia Stone, editor
Riverside House, New York City, October 1998
Prevention of cold injuries within the coven is the responsibility of the coven leader and of all members of the coven - in other words, we should look out for each other, and as coven leaders we should take care to encourage this attitude of mutual care.
Human beings co-evolved with their environment of origin in Africa, which happened to be comfortably warm year-round. As an immediate consequence of that, we are naked apes. We wear skin, not fur nor blubber. In the African savannas, that made a great deal of sense, and it still works okay in centrally-heated houses. In the snow and cold of the Northern winter, we get into trouble. Given that the average air temperature recorded when cold injuries are experienced by outdoor workers is -1 C (30 oF), and that temperatures this low are experienced during winter over about 60% of the Earth's surface, coven leaders must appreciate cold-weather effects on the health and performance of the people they are leading.
During cold weather, the environment directly affects a person's health and performance. Cold can lower body temperature, resulting in cold injuries and impaired performance. Moreover, cold weather is often accompanied by wind, rain, snow and ice, which can worsen the effects of cold, as well as contribute to injury and performance impairments in and of themselves. Cold-weather conditions impair many aspects of normal outdoor rituals, which can in turn influence a person's health and performance. Food and water problems are common during cold weather, since requirements are high and supply is difficult. Cold weather contributes to increased disease and injury, since maintaining proper camp sanitation and personal hygiene is difficult, sick and injured individuals are susceptible to cold injuries, and the use of indoor stoves in tents, caravans and cabins may lead to burns or suffocation. Operational problems often arise in cold weather. Heavy clothing restricts movements, equipment often malfunctions, travel can be difficult, cold-weather clothing and equipment are difficult to integrate, and fogging and freezing of eyewear and windows occur frequently.
While cold makes outdoor ritual tasks more difficult, it does not make them impossible. Viewing cold as a challenge to be overcome is the key to the positive attitude required to successfully accomplish the ritual.
Remember: our religion does not require that we take foolish risks, and we should certainly avoid leading other people into situations of physical danger. If you intend to conduct an outdoor ritual during cold weather, always ask yourself: do we really need to be outside in the cold? Be sure that you understand the risks involved.
Have you thought things through? Frostbite is not a necessary part of our faith.
Heat flows from places with high temperature to those with lower temperature. When a person is surrounded by air or water having a lower temperature than body temperature, the body loses heat. If heat escapes faster than the body produces heat, body temperature falls. Normal body temperature is 37 C (98.6 F), and if body temperature falls much below this, performance decrements and cold injuries can result.
The colder the surrounding temperature is, the greater the potential for body heat to escape. When the skin is exposed to cold, the brain signals the blood vessels in the skin to tighten, and blood flow to the skin decreases. This is the body's attempt to prevent heat inside the body from being carried to the skin where it will be lost. However, due to reduced blood flow to the skin, the skin temperature falls.
Table 1: First Aid for Chilblain and Trenchfoot
When cold exposure lasts for more than an hour, cooling of the skin and reduced blood flow to the hands leads to blunted sensations of touch and pain and loss of dexterity and agility. This can impair ability to perform manual tasks and lead to more severe cold injuries, since symptoms may go unnoticed.
Non-freezing cold injuries can occur when conditions are cold and wet (air temperatures between 0 C (32 F) and 13 C (55 F) and the hands and feet cannot be kept warm and dry. The most prominent non-freezing cold injuries are chilblain and trenchfoot:
Table 2: First Aid for Frostbite
Notes:
Freezing cold injuries can occur whenever air temperature is below freezing. Freezing limited to the skin surface is frostnip. When freezing extends deeper through the skin and flesh, the injury is frostbite.
Table 3: First Aid for Hypothermia
Body temperature falls when the body cannot produce heat as fast as it is being lost. Hypothermia is a life-threatening condition in which deep-body temperature falls below 35 C (95 F).
Generally, deep-body temperature will not fall until after many hours of continuous exposure to cold air, if the individual is healthy, physically active and reasonably dressed. However, since wet skin and wind accelerate body heat loss, and the body produces less heat during inactive periods, body temperature can fall even when air temperatures are above freezing if conditions are windy, clothing is wet, and/or the individual is inactive.
Hypothermia can occur rapidly during cold-water immersion. This could happen within one hour or less when the water temperature is below 7 C (45 F). Because water has a tremendous capacity to drain heat from the body, immersion in water considered even slightly cool, say 15 C (60 F), can cause hypothermia, if the immersion is prolonged for several hours.
Hypothermia is a medical emergency. Untreated, it results in death. Hypothermia may be difficult to recognise in its early stages of development. Things to watch for include unusually withdrawn or bizarre behaviour, irritability, confusion, slowed or slurred speech, altered vision, uncoordinated movements and unconsciousness. Even mild hypothermia can cause victims to make poor decisions or act drunk (e.g., removing clothing when it is clearly inappropriate).
Hypothermia victims may show no heart beat, breathing or response to touch or pain when in fact they are not really dead. Sometimes, the heart beat and breathing of hypothermia victims will be so faint that it can go undetected. If hypothermia has resulted from submersion in cold water, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) should be initiated without delay. However, when hypothermia victims are found on land, it is important to take a little extra time searching for vital signs to determine whether CPR is really required. Hypothermia victims should be treated as gently as possible during treatment and evacuation, since the function of the heart can be seriously impaired in hypothermia victims. Rough handling can cause life-threatening disruptions in heart rate. All hypothermia victims, even those who do not appear to be alive, must be seen by a doctor as soon as possible.
Susceptibility to cold injury (non-freezing, freezing or hypothermia) is affected by many factors.
For any given air temperature, the potential for body-heat loss, skin cooling and decreased internal temperature is increased by wind. Wind increases heat loss from skin exposed to cold air, in effect lowering the temperature. The wind-chill index integrates wind-speed and air temperature to provide an estimate of the cooling power of the environment and the associated risk of cold injury. The wind-chill is the equivalent still-air (i.e., no wind) temperature at which the heat loss through bare skin would be the same as under the windy conditions. Appendix A-1 (metric units) and Appendix A-2 (imperial units) depict the Equivalent Chill Temperature for different wind speeds and air temperatures. To find the equivalent chill temperature in the table, find the row corresponding to the wind-speed, and read across until reaching the column corresponding to the air temperature.
Wind-chill temperatures obtained from weather reports do not take into account man-made wind. Man-made winds worsen the wind-chill effect of natural wind. Individuals riding in open vehicles or skiing can be subject to dangerous wind-chill, even when natural winds are low.
When assessing weather conditions for outdoor ritual work, altitude may need to be considered, if weather measurements are obtained from stations at lower elevations. Temperatures, wind-chills and the risk of cold injury at high altitudes can differ considerably from those at low elevations.
Water can conduct heat away from the body much faster than air of the same temperature.
Metal objects and liquid fuels that have been left outdoors in the cold can pose a serious hazard. Both can conduct heat away from the skin very rapidly. Fuels remain liquid at very low temperatures. Skin contact with fuel or metal at below freezing temperatures can result in nearly instantaneous freezing. Fuel handlers should use great care not to allow exposed skin to come into contact with spilled fuel or the metal nozzles and valves of fuel containers - this applies equally to pouring alcohol from a can into a cauldron as to pumping gasoline into a car.
Cold-weather clothing protection is based on the principles of insulation, layering and ventilation. By understanding these principles, Witches can vary their clothing to regulate protection and stay comfortable.
Table 4: Think C-O-L-D When Wearing Winter Clothing
Insulation depends on the clothing thickness, properties of the garment material, and the amount of air trapped within the garment. When clothing is dirty, the material tends to be packed down, which compromises insulation. Wearing clothing ensembles in multiple layers allows the wearer to remove or add clothes to adjust the insulation to changes in environment or workload as well as to the individual's own needs and preferences. Wearing layered clothing is especially important for Witches whose duties require them to frequently move in and out of heated shelters, or to periodically undertake vigorous physical activity. Physically active people can sweat even in extremely cold weather. Sweat will be able to evaporate if clothing allows ventilation. Proper clothing will be made of material that water vapour can pass through, and will allow the wearer to unzip and open the clothing periodically to increase ventilation. If sweat can not evaporate, it will accumulate, soak the clothing, and compromising the clothing's insulation value.
Because cold-weather clothing is heavy and cumbersome, it greatly increases the energy required for physical activity. The increased effort can result in overheating and sweating, especially during hard work, and can make you tired faster. You can minimise perspiration build-up by opening your clothing and removing layers during heavy work and scheduling frequent short rest breaks.
Wind-chill temperatures are widely reported by television and radio meteorologists, but they really only estimate the danger of cooling the exposed flesh of inactive persons. Windproof clothing greatly reduces wind-chill effects. Rather than cancel outdoor rituals at some arbitrary temperature limit, the rituals should be modified and safety surveillance should be increased as the weather becomes more severe, and the danger of tissue freezing increases, as indicated in Appendix B - but don't take this as a licence to ignore your common sense.
Several different sorts of heaters may be used in tents during cold weather. These heaters are available from mountaineering and camping shops, as well as from military-surplus dealers and hardware stores.
Shelter from weather is critical. The best shelter is a cabin, caravan or tent, but improvised shelters (snow caves, snow trenches, lean-tos etc.) can be constructed from local materials. Shelter construction can be made the basis of an interesting ritual in its own right - how about a snow cave as the womb of the Goddess?
The best sleeping system for cold-weather camping is a down-filled sleeping bag, on top of a waterproof-cased polyfoam sleeping mat.
Feet, hands and exposed skin must be kept dry. Feet are particularly vulnerable and extra foot care is required in cold weather. Feet should be washed, dried and dusted with talcum- powder or foot-powder (if available) daily. Socks must be changed whenever they become wet from exposure to rain or snow, or from excess sweat. This may require changing into dry socks at least 2-3 times daily. Extra socks can be air-dried and then carried under one's coat to warm.
We protect ourselves from cold primarily by avoiding or reducing cold exposure using clothing and shelter. When this protection proves inadequate, the body has biological defence mechanisms to help maintain correct body temperature. The body's internal mechanisms to defend its temperature during cold exposure include vasoconstriction and shivering. When these responses are triggered, it is a signal that clothing and shelter are inadequate.
People do not acclimatise to cold weather nearly as well as they can acclimatise to hot weather, although repeated cold exposure does produce what is referred to as habituation. Proper training before travelling into cold-weather regions is more important for prevention of cold injuries than repeatedly being exposed to cold temperatures.
Besides cold temperatures, other environmental stressors will be encountered during outdoor rituals in winter conditions. For example, winter rites in the coastal regions of the United States, Canada and Britain may be conducted during periods of near-freezing temperatures, rain and wind. Heavy snow may be encountered during the winter in areas of northern Europe and America, and throughout the year in mountainous regions. In the mountains and High Plains, very low temperatures are often accompanied by high winds, low humidity, very bright sun, or a combination of those conditions. The influence of wind and rain on the severity of cold stress has been discussed in the last section. However, sun, wind, snow, rain and low humidity each present environmental health threats in and of themselves.
Table 5: First Aid for Overexposure to Sun and Wind:
edited by: Brigantia Stone
updated: October 15, 1998; minor corrections 1998 November 12
document: WM216PT1
GWI: WM 21-6-0/1
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