It seems to me in the pagan/wiccan community that the thing that is the lacking the most is a sense of cameraderie amongst us. I feel that sense there is no meeting place where we can all get together in most midwestern communities at least, and everyone can't jsut jump up and move to Salem Mass. or Ashville NC. that most of us don't have a group of Pagans that we can get together with and it sucks. I mean I like being a part of these online forums but i never feel like i am really part of something that is tangable. I would really like to hug some of the poeple I have met on some of these forums and see them face to face, smoke a bowl with them. It would rock. I wish we really would just get together
... Hey look up! The sun.. Here on Earth is the meeting place.. under the sun moon and stars! how fantastic!
start something then, find some pagan friends tell them to tell there friends and so on go to some occult stores and ask to put up a flyer get a campsite or something have a littile gathering of pagans in your area discusse ideas and stuff, maybe do a ritual or something, i know where i live like once a year in some mountins theres a pagan gathering everyones wecome wiccan, druids,shaman theres all kinds of stuff going on there, my uncle went once and said it was realy intersting
gillianwind, in ur first post you put pagan/wiccan, why would you want to associate Pagan with the Golden Dawn?
Flic you need to understand something. I am in no way associated with the group refered to as the golden dawn. That is just a catch phraze. Wicca does fall under the umbrella of Paganism whether you like it or not. Pagan is anyone who is not christian jewish or muslam. Wicca was introduced in 1948 when Gardner wrote the book, High Magic's Aid. He was an accociate of Crowley, and Clatterbuck. Wicca and Golden Dawn are not the same thing. Golen Dawn is primarily based in Eastern phillosophy where as Wicca is mostly bassed on Celtic, Norse, Galic, and other European pantheons, and on druidic teachings. Either way though they both share the belief that there is more then one diety, or Godlike entity which clearly places them both in th catogory of PAGAN.
The following is simply my opinion, though it has been repeated to me countless times; Wicca would be looked upon as more of a druidic art if the 12 year old, black velvet robe and pentacle-wearing everywhere, turn you into something slimy, goth-lets were exterminated. They have not adopted a life style, they are making a fashion statement. Granted, there are serious wiccans everywhere, but in the company of the former you must admit it's rather difficult to be taken seriously. But to answer the original post, given the current political climate in the US, I strongly doubt that a national gathering of Pagans would be seen in any favor. Bushit would love to convert everyone on the planet to Xianity. You know, just like Torquemada... Again, just MHO...
I totally agree with your entire post! Finally someone who is not a flake! Send me a pm if you want we can talk more or something I would like to get to know you better
*sigh*. ok, here goes... "pagan" does not necessarily refer to someone who does not belong to one of the religions of abraham. the term is originally roman; it meant "country dweller" and referred not to any religion at all, but to a bumpkin, a hick. the term was used in the early christian church as a word indicating someone who had not yet converted. it was not associated with heresy and witches until the inquisition, after the church had been gaining power for hundreds of years. judiasim and islam do not, and have never, used the word "pagan" to describe those outside their faith. in actual use, it's contemporary associations are with earth-based religions, not just "non-christian" faiths, although some separtist, fundamentalist, or evangelical christians may disagree. the word is not necessarily applied to religions such as buddhism, taoism, and other eastern religions - i've known both buddhists and taoists who consider themselves pagan as too, but others who would be offended at the idea. it was first applied to earth-based religions in the 1960's, by a man named tim zell, also known as otter zell, and later oberon, now known as oberon zell-ravenheart. he used it in the pages of the newsletter of the pagan church he founded, the church of all worlds, to refer to the new, emerging and reconstructionist earth-centered faiths. green egg, btw, was one of the best pagan journals i've ever seen, and its demise is still mourned by some of us. the notorious forum in green egg was the first place these various faiths could get together publicly and discuss, debate, or catfight (which unfortunately was, and apparently is, what happens most of the time.) the reapplication of the word "pagan" gave these faiths a chance to begin seeing each other as having something in common. oberon, btw, is no longer affiliated with the church of all worlds, but still hangs with them on occaision at festivals like starwood. the association between wicca and druidry is relatively new. originally it claimed to have grown out of the southern european witchcraft traditions like strega, laced heavily from modified cabbala and other ideas & practices borrowed from - yes, deal with it - the golden dawn, and also strongly influenced by masonry (such terms still in use today by wiccans, such as "cowan" and phrases like "so mote it be" are lifted directly from masonic ritual.) it is unlikely, as is often accused, that gardner had crowley write the "original" gardnerian book of shadows, however, uncle gerald was strongly influenced by the man who called himself "the beast" as well. we probably have oberon and the term "pagan" to thank that the druids and wiccans even have anything to do with each other today, let alone borrowing so heavily at times from each other's practices. as for contemporary gatherings, there are many options, besides pennsic, which technically is not pagan, but a gathering of the SCA. an aside, nowadays serious pagans complain about young goth twits, however, i would like to remind everyone that previous generations of new pagans had their own silly subcultural quirks and stereotypes that might have hindered being taken seriously by "mainstreamers", regardless of political climate. i for one plead guilty for being an avid D&D player. the gathering you attend will of course be influenced by where you are. in my area, sirius rising and starwood at brushwood are favorites, starwood growing so rapidly it may someday soon attain the size of burning man. in pennsylvania there is a sanctuary where a contemporary stone circle was raised, they has a festival called stones rising, i don't know if that continues. virginia, i believe, has the harvest faire, which is an overtly pagan rennaissance festival. further west, in wisconsin, there is circle sanctuary, which puts on its own festivals, and the west coast has an abundance of gathering opportunities for pagans. in addition, there are also smaller groups that hold smaller festivals, indeed, most of the big ones got started small. smaller festivals, gatherings, open circles, and study groups are worth the trouble to hunt down. you might try seeing if there is a pagan meetup in your area, or google "pagan festival" and see what you come up with. there are many larger organizations that have online calendars listing festival dates or smaller gatherings regionally or around the country. try witchvox, of course, or avatar search. personally, i got started before the internet really took off. i think that back then there was actually a greater sense of camaderie and community, when people had to actually make the effort to go out and connect with real people by old-fashioned means like snail mail and phone, rather than just logging on to a forum and joining a discussion or "virtual" online ritual. camaderie was better, i think, interacting with human beings rather than screen names. there was also, i think, a greater sense of self and identity, without the mass-marketed llewellyn glossy prefab commercial pop-wicca image to be bought in a kit by silver ravenwolf. (young pagans today...don't know how good they've got it...why when i started, the newletters were one page xeroxes, not these glossy magazines. we'd have to walk 100 miles to circle, uphill both ways, in the snow...*grumble grumble grumble*... )
here's some resources to get you started. also, as zoomie pointed out, the SCA is positively crawling with pagans. http://www.avatarsearch.com/ this search engine has a personals service, as well as many links to pages with calendars http://www.witchesvoice.com this is always the best place to start for wiccan and other pagan contacts. i found the woman doing my reiki in woodstock through here. http://pagan.meetup.com/ find a pagan meetup group near you http://members.aol.com/lcorncalen/CALENDAR.htm i had no idea larry cornett was still doing his calendar. it's pretty thorough http://www.paganet.org/ free pagan newsletter distributed in occult/new age shops, lists events mostly throughout the northeast. same bunch that does the harvest faire.
there are so many so called Pagans out there that have never even read a book and that astonishes me. I knew that Pagan meant country dweller but i dodn't fell like going into it but i am glad you did. Anyway thanks for the info. I would like to start something in my hometown but damn if my town doesn't suck a dick when it comes to anyone who isn't Pagan becasue they think Hairy Potter is cool or Alisa Milano is hot. I mean Hairy Potter is cool and Alisa Milano is hot but that's not the point.
