Uluru: the Great Red Rock, Australia's most iconic holy place.
Held sacred by local First Nations peoples, it is considered by them to be a men's shrine, and hence forbidden to women.
So, can a pagan woman, in good conscience, go there?
Well, different peoples, different ways. I can't rightly expect you to act in accordance with my people's ways, nor you me.
Still, it's always best practice to be respectful of other people's stuff, especially their religious stuff. In the old Witch language, there are two words for "peace." Frith is peace within a community. Grith is peace between communities, and maintaining grith is a cultural value of great (although not overriding) importance.
And when it comes to religious rules, peoples vary. So what to do when your people do things one way, and mine another?
Among the Kalasha of Pakistan, the last remaining pagans of the Hindu Kush, the high mountain pastures are considered sacred to the suchi ("fairies"), and hence reserved to men; and even then, only at specific times of year. (I should mention that there are also, among the Kalasha, women's places that are forbidden to men.)
Yet now tourist women (probably unknowingly) and Muslims (intentionally, to flout the Old Ways) go there regularly, and the Kalasha are powerless to prevent it. The result? A devastating increase in the frequency, and severity, of floods and landslides. "The fairies are angry," say the elders of Kalasha. "Climate change," says the Western observer. But are these not two ways of describing the same thing?
The impact of alcohol on American First Nations has been historically devastating. With this in mind, some North American elders feel that to pour alcohol on the ground is a violation, a profanation of Earth's sanctity. Yet for my people, to pour out a libation onto the ground is an act of worship. These are irreconcilable positions. How to keep grith?
Well, when I'm in First Nations contexts, I try to play by their rules. That's only respectful. And when First Nations visitors join us for our celebrations, I try to be a good host and make sure beforehand that they're aware of what we'll be doing and of what it means in our context.
There are wide cultural and intercultural questions here on which we as a community simply don't yet have the experience to speak authoritatively. But that doesn't obviate the responsibility to ask the questions, and to proceed on a case-by-case basis until more general guidelines emerge—as, in time, we may be sure that they will.
So, can a pagan woman, in good conscience, go to Uluru?
Well, that's a question that I can't answer. You'll have to ask the pagan women of Australia.
If anyone would know, they would.