The Small-Town Pagan's Survival Guide by Bronwen Forbes

Author:Bronwen Forbes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: witchcraft, wicca, witch, spell, ritual, solitary wicca, worship, Magic, Rituals, Initiation, goddess, pagan, community, festivals, parenting, legal, religious freedom, broom closet
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2011-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

[contents]

12. For further discussion on creating Pagan community in your small town, see chapter 7.

13. Chapter 6 will cover the Internet aspects of Paganism in more depth.

Chapter 6

Internetworking:

Finding Others of Like Mind Online

I’m always swinging by Witchvox to look for shops within driving distance, festivals and meetups, local Pagans. Google isn’t Pagan, but it’s great for finding me what I need when I’m too lazy to link-hop. I am STRONG in the “Google-fu”! I don’t have any other Pagan-ish sites that I visit regularly. I try to bookmark good ones when I come across them, but then I rarely return. I just generally Google what I need, link-hop a while, and voilà.

—ravenna, dowagiac, michigan

To say that the Internet has greatly helped Pagans in small towns—and big cities—connect with each other is like saying that the sun makes it easier to see during the day. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, and blogging sites like LiveJournal, make it easy to meet new friends and interact with others of a like mind without having to leave home.

For example, as of this writing I have over fifty friends on LiveJournal and about 120 friends on Myspace, plus the aforementioned 177 friends on Facebook. A handful of them are old college friends (and their spouses) and former co-workers; the rest are Pagans I’ve met online or in person at some time or other. When my family moved to Portales, New Mexico, and struggled unsuccessfully for four years to start a local networking community, discussion group, or coven, these online friends were our social and spiritual lifeline. The day we got DSL at home was my happiest day there. I finally felt like I could “talk” to my friends without waiting all afternoon for a webpage to load like it did on our old dial-up system.

Witchvox and Other Recommended Sites

Every single survey respondent, even the ones not quoted in these pages, mentioned Witchvox (www.witchvox.com), also known as the Witches’ Voice, as the flagship site for Pagan contact and information on the Internet. There’s a page for every state and many foreign countries, and each page includes listings for local events, study groups, covens, shops, Pagans offering services (tarot reading, house painting, web design, etc.), local Pagans in the news, and a list of Pagans in the state alphabetically by town or city. Witchvox also offers hundreds if not thousands of articles on pretty much every Pagan subject, a comprehensive list of Pagan books and magazines, and national and international news items of interest.

The survey respondents also recommended some smaller, more specific sites. Here are their—and my—favorites:

Yahoo Groups (groups.yahoo.com): If you’re looking for local e-mail groups, Yahoo Groups seems to have the most. While living in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, I was able to connect with people in Milwaukee and Sheboygan through various Yahoo groups—often finding out about local events (Pagan Pride Days, drumming circles, Pagan picnics) that for whatever reason weren’t listed on Witchvox.

There are also national and international Pagan Yahoo groups.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.