Category: Pagan Responses to Recession

Pagan Economic Empowerment: Buying (and Selling) Pagan!!

On By PaxIn Community Building, everyday, Food for Thought, Pagan Pride, Pagan Responses to Recession, Yule13 Comments

Dear Friends and Pagani,

So I am working on my own self and spiritual practices and trying to rekindle my creative and spiritual fires.  Some of this spiritual hearth-building has involved journaling, and some of it has involved puttering and updating pages on this blog/site.   This has included some work on the Online Pagan Resources page.  Including the creation of a category for Pagan Economic Empowerment.

Now I have written before of my belief that it is important for the Pagan movement to start examining how we spend our money, and to find ways to increase the economic health and prosperity within our own local and regional Pagan communities in my posts on Invoking the Power of the Pagan Dollar.  This issue was highlighted for me again this October when The Wild Hunt did a story about a Wiccan who alleges that Bath and Body Works fired her for her religion.  It was actually in the comments/discussion of this last story that my thoughts on Pagan Economic Empowerment were rekindled.  Folks brought up the idea of a boycott, and then the idea of spending money with some of the Pagan purveyors of Bath and Body Lotions, Notions, and Potions on Etsy was brought up.  This is an excellent idea!

As I have said before if we spend our money in community, with Pagan owned businesses on Pagan made goods and services wherever possible we can build a stronger community better able to face the challenges the 21st Century will bring as the Contemporary Pagan Movement matures and grows.  If we spend our money with our fellow Pagans who are business owners and professionals, as well as our artisans and crafts-people, we can improve the economic and social status of our movement.  If we can empower our community through our economic choices then we can build a world where it is as unthinkable to fire someone because of their Wiccan Faith as it is to fire someone for being Hindu or Jewish.  (Not just as illegal, but as unthinkable…)

Now, what I am NOT saying, is that we should choose an inexperienced or shoddy good or service simply because it is Pagan owned/made.  Nor am I suggesting that in pursuing a Buy Pagan approach to our goods and services that we need Out ourselves or our fellow Pagans… being out as a Pagan is a personal choice and a life-long process.

I would also like to once again remind folks that a Pagan business can mean a heck of a lot more than simply a book & paraphenalia shop (or online store).  Spending Money at ANY Pagan owned business, with any Pagan professional, and on any Pagan made good will empower our community!

I am suggesting that if you have the option of buying your Pagan books and paraphernalia from a Pagan owned store, do so.  I am suggesting that the next time you want to hold a Pagan Pubmoot in your local community, you look at reserving a backroom at the quietly Heathen owned brewpub.  If you find yourself looking for a new home go with a Pagan Realtor.  When you move into that new home, and you are looking for a new local Doctor, look for a Pagan one.   If you have a Pagan Building Contractor/Remodeller in your area go with him for your remodelling needs at the new house.  If you go out to eat regularly, and you know some local Pagans work as Servers, go to their restaurants and ask to sit in their section.

(Oh, on that last one, leave a good 20% tip!  I know that 15% was standard once upon a time, but times have changed people!)

So I have covered Buying Pagan, what about Pagan Selling.  Well, Pagan business owners and professionals of all types, ADVERTISE!  You don’t have to completely out yourself to advertise in your community!  An add saying “your Pagan and Heathen friendly realtor”, or an add saying “please be discreet when making appointment” will work wonders in your advertisememts to local Pagan Newsletter’s and at the local Metaphysical/Occult shops.  Depending on your business and how out you are, you could expand to local coffee house postings or in the local Gay publications as well if you and your business is also Gay friendly.  (there is some overlap between the Gay and Pagan communities, or so I have heard…)

If you are interested in advertising and networking you might want to check out the Pagan Business Network, an international networking and resource organization.

Peace,

Pax

“What Now?” ~ Pagan Community Builders

On By PaxIn Activist Alert, An Important Message..., Community Building, Food for Thought, Modern Pagan, Pagan Evangelical, Pagan Pride, Pagan Responses to Recession, Pax's Beliefs7 Comments

So Darkly Fey, from Live from the Red Leather Couch and I had some fabulous back and forth conversations recently via e-mail about Paganism and Pagan community.  We decided to share with the Pagan Community Builder’s Yahoo.  This stirred up a little bit of discussion, and some really cool questions…  This encouraged me to engage in some of the following ranting about Pagan community…

I don’t know if movement’s neccesarilly mature into institutions, but I would definitely agree with the idea that they can mature into communities.  As I have said here and elsewhere that is where I think Paganism is right now…

Paganism is a spiritual, religious, and cultural movement made up of different interwoven and overlapping religious and regional communities.

It is my hope that Paganism as a movement will move and grow and develop into a family of interwoven and overlapping religious communities.  I just don’t think we are quite there yet.  (in my ever so humble and correct opinion!) ~ 😉

Moving on, if I may quote you…

“What would a mature Pagan community look like? More importantly, what would it do?”

I think that we as individual faiths and communities are in a process of hammering that question out… I also think it is related to another of your questions…

“But Pagans– do we have a goal? Is it individual enlightenment, collective enlightenment, improving the world with the idea that with an immanent divine, one serves the gods by serving others?”

I would say that the goal of a Pagan depends on the particular religion or philosophy of the individual Pagan.  ( I know, obviously, but I am moving towards a point here so please bear with me…)

I would observe that for the different Pagan faiths and paths there seems to be an overall theme of development into being a better person (personal growth and perhaps enlightenment, although it is not neccesarilly phrased as such) by practicing certain rites, and developing our relationships with the Divine (or the All That Is) and with the Spirits of the World Around Us (Elements and Land Spirits), and living certain  (intertwining and overlapping) virtues and values, and by building our relationships with others in our groups and faiths and societies through those virtues and values and practices…

I think that his theme of growth and development leads us quite naturally into engagement with other branches of Paganism, and from there into engagement with the rest of Society.  I also think that fear of discrimination, and a lack of outside pressure in the form of legal or social restrictions on religious practice, has helped to hamper that process of engagement.  Of course the fact that Paganism, with its Pantheism and Polytheism (among other Theisms present under the Pagan umbrella) whose essential concept of “our way AND your way” is having to re-emerge culturally from an immersion in Monotheism’s predominantly “Our way or the highway” mindset has also hampered our development as a community…

I think that both of your above questions are being hammered out by different Faith and Regional communities within the Pagan movement.

My instinct is (or, admittedly, perhaps it is merely my deep hope) that we as a movement are reaching a threshold point of in-group and inter-group communication and networking and growth and expansion that we are ready to go towards the next stage in our development from a movement into being a community.

Of course, I have been accused of being somewhat of an optimist and idealist…

“In my thoughts, I’d figured finding other Pagans would be the hard part. After all that navel-gazing and contemplation, the theological musings and soul-searching, we’ve figured out what we believe. We’ve found each other!….

…what now?”

I, SO, hear you! I share some of your frustration and experiences at local Pagan groups and rituals.  Socializing, in and of itself, is not enough.  Rituals on the Moons and/or on the Seasonal Holy Days are not enough!

That is part of why I created this discussion group.  To start and encourage discussions of “what now?”

“What now?” is why I have written Invoking the Power of the Pagan Dollar 2.0

Because I believe we need to start supporting our own community members (by supporting them as business people, and not just the occult tsotchke shoppes either!)  and institutions (religious, community, and charitable).

“What now?” is why I support the Pagan Pride Project and Pagan Pride events of all sorts… despite my occasional misgivings about some of the modes of dress and behavior!

We need, as religious and regional communities within the Pagan movement, to start engaging and reaching out to our wider local, regional, and national communities; not to proselytize, but to show clearly and honestly who and what we really are and are about!

We need to start looking at celebrating open and public rituals and observances at CIVIC holidays, not only to show our lager communities who and what Pagans are and are about; but to also deepen and expand ourselves as Pagans and our relationships with the spirits of our ancestors and of our Nations, and of the World around us; and to further build and strengthen our communities!

That, at the very least, is “what now?”!

Beyond that, well let’s keep talking!

Peace,

Pax

PS- if you are interested in taking part in this discussion, or ones like it, you can post here, or even better yet sign up for the Pagan Community Builder’s Yahoogroup !!!

Honoring The New Year: Providing for ourselves and our Pagan communities…

On By PaxIn Carry Water, Chop Wood, Community Building, Honoring the New Year, Pagan Responses to Recession1 Comment

Honoring the New Year, is a series of posts highlighting sites and links, that I find amusing or inspiring when viewed through the lens of my identity and world-view as a Witch and Pagan.

So this is a bit of a rant and exploration of Gardening, Victory Gardening, and Pagan Communal Gardening…

The house I grew up in in Anchorage, Alaska had a huge back yard and a vegetable garden that my father worked in every summer.  I just barely remember the house in Fairbanks, having a greenhouse and garden.

Now live in a rental house, and The Big Guy and our roommate The Amazing Todd aren’t too keen on the idea of our starting a Garden… too expensive or labor intensive they say… I am marshalling my resources and working on my arguements and evidence.

See part of it is just my natural hunger, as an expatriate Alaskan, for a garden.  Alaskans are seriously into gardening, vegetabls and flowers, as after months of long-long Winter nights and cold snowy weather and getting a little stir-crazy… well Alaskans tend to go a little Garden happy in the short Spring and Summer months.  One of my hometown’s nick-names is “The City of Flowers” after all…

I also have a desire to reconnect to the land and the Earth and to Nature here in my new home in Florida, and it seems like Gardening would be a spectacular way to do just that!

I became especially intrigued with vegetable and kitchen gardening in the last year or two as prices have sky-rocketed.  In looking around the net I came across the recent Victory Garden meme…

Victory Gardens were a phenomenon of World War I and II, where folks planted vegetable gardens to help supply themselves and the troops with plenty of food in tough times.

Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia[1] during World War I and World War II to reduce the pressure on the public food supply brought on by the war effort. In addition to indirectly aiding the war effort these gardens were also considered a civil “morale booster” — in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown. Making victory gardens became a part of daily life on the home front.” ~ from the Wikipedia entry

There are a couple of good sites, here and here, about the modern effort to revive the Victory Garden.

Gardening can also provide a much needed savings in gas and food costs, yes, there is an initial investment of money to start the garden… but in the long term there are savings… which is part of the reason I think my parents got into Gardening in the first place.  I was born in 1972, so much of my childhood coincided with the recession of the late 1970’s… folks were very concerned with saving money and providing for their families and gardening is one way to do that.

Many of us, as Pagans, are also concerned with our relationship with the natural world around us.  Gardening, even container gardening, is one way to to experience that relationship and to build upon it!

I’d also like to mention the idea of co-operative gardening for our community, or as I think of it Pagan Communal Gardening.  Not all of us have big back yards, and some of us have the land but not the time, this is where we can not only provide for ourselves but encourage our community at the same time…

Get together with a few friends from the Pagan community and form a Gardening club… you meet once a week at the Garden site, work the land, hang out, have some fun… when it comes time to harvest each member gets a share of the harvest to do with as they see fit.  Maybe each of you needs the extra food… or maybe some of you want to offer it to a local Pagan community Elder in need, or perhaps you want to donate it to your local branch of Feeding America in the name of your local Pagan community!

Together, we as a community can save money, provide extra food for ourselves and our neighbors, and do good in the world!  All in an afternoon’s work!

Here are a few links from my own files… when in doubt talk to your local nursery and garden stores and search out your State or regional dept. of Agriculture… they often have resources for the home gardener, the last of the links is a good example of this…

Backyard Gardener (d0t) com

Florida Gardener (dot) com

Kitchen Gardeners International

National Native Plant Nursery Guide

Vegetable Gardening in Containers

Invoking the Power of the Pagan Dollar 2.0

On By PaxIn An Important Message..., Community Building, Honoring the New Year, Pagan Responses to Recession17 Comments

I am, admittedly partially repeating myself here, but this idea feels important on a deep intuitive level… and it keeps coming back to my thoughts, the ideas circling like sharks ready to devour my complacency whole… so here it is…

We need to build the economic self-sufficiency of our local, regional, and national Pagan communities!

We are facing some of the worst economic times, certainly in my lifetime, and it just seems to me as if we, as a community, haven’t really been talking about this.  I say this as someone who is a self-confessed blog-a-holic, a member of multiple yahoo-groups, and an avid surfer of the Internet, and who is not all that hard to track down either in his local community or by friends nationwide.  I’ve seen some small mention of individual challenges and responses to the hard times we are in, but nowhere have I seen discussions of how we as a community can face and deal with these troubled times.  I think it’s about time we started talking about this folks, because the tough times are not going to go away overnight!

I first started thinking about Pagan community economic self-sufficiency in the months after Ellwood “Bunky” Bartlett won the lottery, and there were a lot of discussions and posts about his windfall and opinions of all sorts were floated about how a Pagan with a lot of it should spend his money.  Then, too, there are the many discussions I’ve heard, or read, about various Pagan owned businesses that shut down for a lack of support.  I’ve also been thinking a lot about how various other sub-cultural communities have focused their economic power inward and reaped no small rewards, including any number of ethnic and religious and other sub-cultural communities.

All of these influences have had me thinking a lot lately about how we in the Pagan community could build a stronger community through economic empowerment.  For me, economic empowerment means that we, as a community, are focusing our economic decisions on those choices that strengthen our community locally, regionally, and nationally.  To strengthen our Pagan community, in this case, means spending our money within our community as much as is possible and practical.

Time after time in the history of my beloved United States we have seen how the ethnic, sub-cultural,  and religious communities that form up the patchwork quilt of the United States have been able to strengthen the their communities and build their social ties, and their economic, and political power by concentrating money into community owned businesses and interests.  These decisions include supporting Pagan-owned and Pagan friendly businesses, as well as supporting local and national Pagan community organizations, and Pagan charities.

Pagan Owned and Pagan Friendly Businesses

The first thing that I would like to say is that a Pagan business is not necessarily a metaphysical or occult shop.  I know, I know, some of you out there are going…

“Well, DUH!  Pax!”

But it was both interesting and instructive for me to notice that many, many times, on many separate occasions, when I tried to communicate with others about the idea of supporting our Pagan businesses that the idea of a Pagan business often seemed to be all but consumed by the idea of a metaphysical book and paraphernalia shop.  When I look at many Pagan stores or periodicals, most of the adverts are for fortunetellers, workshops, or various metaphysical shops.

Where are our doctors and realtors and other professionals?  Where are the Pagan owned home repair businesses, yard services, and plumbers?  They are out there, I know because I have run into many of them on the Web and in book stores and at open Circles and community socials.  Sadly, a lot of our Pagan business owners and Pagan professionals who may be active in the Pagan community are to one degree or another closeted for fear of the very real economic effects of discrimination and prejudice.  Even with full protection under the law you can still be fired, or have your business ruined by a word of mouth campaign or boycott, if you are Pagan.

These fears are real, and serious.  Being out as a Pagan can be hazardous to one’s livelihood.  What can we do about this?

Within my own experience in the GLBT community, in local newsletters and in local Gay venues such as bars and community centers you will often see ads for various GLBT owned businesses.  Realtors, lawyers, doctors, books & gift shops, florists, mechanics, the local Metropolitan Community Church (a GLBT friendly Christian denomination), massage therapists, psychotherapists… all of these and more will have advertisements in their local GLBT newsletters and posted in Queer friendly businesses, as well as in GLBT community directories… jokingly often called “the pink pages” after the “yellow pages” of U.S. phone directories.  These community directories are often free booklets that are paid for with advertising fees and donation.

Do you think that GLBT lawyers, doctors, and realtors, are nervous about the possibility of being out could affect their livelihood?  Yet still many are willing to advertise in GLBT community directories and publications.  Why?

Two reasons…

One, those of us in the GLBT community have for nearly 30 years subscribed in a broad sense to the philosophy of supporting our own.  If there is a Gay owned or Gay friendly business in my area I am darn well going to use them first… keep the money in the GLBT family!  Because of this those who advertise in “pink pages” and in GLBT publications know that they are reaching out to their own community, or to a community they are friendly towards, and one that will actively spend it’s money in house first!

Reason number two, is that for the most part the people most likely to actively discriminate against GLBT owned and friendly businesses are the people least likely to willingly pick up, much less read, a GLBT publication where they would be advertised.  As for the “pink pages”, well those are usually only available in Gay bars, GLBT owned businesses, and GLBT Community Centers; none of which are on the bigots top ten list of places to go into or be seen!

To be fair I have seen some ads for paralegals and therapists in some Pagan bookstores, and that is a start.  In searching the Internet, I was only able to find one comprehensive listing for a Pagan community business directory; a similar search for a Gay business directory yielded ~ many ~ interesting ~ results.

Once we start identifying our locally owned Pagan and Pagan friendly businesses we must commit to supporting them!  When we keep our money in the community, the community will become stronger.  By supporting our Pagan businesses we also strengthen their ability to support themselves and in turn our community.

Pagan Community Organizations and Charities

A lot of you are probably thinking of groups like the Asatru Folk Assembly or Covenant of the Goddess, and yes I would certainly encourage Pagans to support some of our national spiritual/religious organizations.   I would also never hesitate to encourage you to support your local Pagan Community groups.  Is a local Pagan group holding a fund-raising dinner for a campground or community center or local charity?  Then go eat a few plates… even on a work or school night already!

Just as there are more types of Pagan business than the occult supply shop, there are other types of Pagan community organizations that we could come together to support through either our membership or charitable donations.

Cherry Hill Seminary is a graduate level Pagan Seminary with counseling and public ministry programs that is currently working at creating a Masters of Divinity Program.

Then there are programs like the annual National Pagan Leadership Skills Conference, now in its 5th year, fostering workshops on issues of Finance, Pastoral Care, and Group Facilitation.

Pagan professional organizations have come and gone, yet some remain.  The best current example is, of course, The Officers of Avalon.  This international benevolent organization for Pagan Law Enforcement Officer’s and Emergency Services Personnel has also established an active non-profit charitable wing Avalon Cares, which has done some fundraising and participated in several aid and relief efforts!  Avalon Cares is one of a number of Pagan organizations doing charitable work, and worthy of Pagan community investment.  Circle Sanctuary maintains a list of Pagan groups doing charitable work, for more examples.

Organizations like these, and supporting them as a community, are, I believe, the next step in our evolution as a community.  Think about it… having a fully accredited Pagan Seminary… is the idea of a Pagan University, a real academic 4-year degree University that happens to be run by, and offering some programs specifically of interest to, Pagans all that radical or far off a notion?

Imagine the impact, for example, if each of us focused our charitable donations to Avalon Cares for one year?  Imagine if every Pagan group in the United States focusing it’s food drives towards a specific food bank or hunger fighting organization like Feeding America (formerly Second Harvest), and then specifically donating in the name of the U.S. Pagan community.  Imagine if each of us donated even 3 dollars to Cherry Hill Seminary.  Imagine, not only, the positive impact we could make in the world, but the positive impact that would have in our community?

We all want a world where our spiritual path, our faith or belief system, is simply a part of who we are; not something that has the potential to get us fired or harassed.  We want a world where the leaders of our cities, regions, and nations address issues of concern to our community; rather than writing us off as nuts or “not a religion”.  We want a world where the press will jump all over a public official making ignorant of bigoted remarks about Pagans, rather than just letting it pass or chuckling.

Empowering ourselves economically is the pathway to that world.

Invoking the power of the Pagan Dollar

On By PaxIn Community Building, Food for Thought, Pagan Responses to Recession8 Comments

Don’t panic!  This is NOT going to be an article about prosperity spells and you drum I chant “money, money, money, gimme, gimme, gimme” type of invokation.  This little article is my own thoughts on how we in the Pagan community can respond to the current economic hard times, and at the same time, strengthen our own ties of community.

I am inspired to write on this topic, in part, by an article at The Wild Hunt on how one Pagan in Iceland has been responding to that country’s economic collapse with civil protest and increasingly strident calls to action.

In part  it also just seems to me as if we, as a community, haven’t really been talking about this.  I say this as someone who is a self-confessed blog-a-holic, a member of multiple yahoo-groups, and an avid surfer of the Internet, and who is not all that hard to track down either in his local community or by friends nationwide.  I’ve seen some small mention of individual challenges and responses to the hard times we are in, but nowhere have I seen discussions of how we as a community can face and deal with these troubled times.  I think it’s about time we started talking about this folks, cause the tough times are not going to go away overnight!

We need to build the economic self-sufficiency of our local, regional, and national Pagan communities! Time after time in the history of my beloved United States we have seen how the ethnic, sub-cultural,  and religious communities that form up the patchwork quilt of our great nation have been able to strengthen the their communities and build their social ties, and their economic, and political power by concentrating money into community owned businesses.

I have seen this work within the Gay community.

In order to do this, we need to get better about communicating with one another.  What do I mean?  Well… how many Pagan businesses can you track down?  Now before you start listing off every metaphysical book, candle, and tsotchke (sp?) shop within a hundred miles… can you name a local Pagan Doctor, Lawyer, Realtor, or Plumber, (non occult store) Business owner, or Yardwork company in your area?  Why Not?

Now as a Gay man, I know I can go into most Gay community centers, or local gay bars and find some version of the local community directory.  They are often jokingly called the “pink pages’ after the U.S. phone directories “yellow pages”.  (do they have “yellow pages” in other contries?!)

Armed with this handy information I can find gay owned restaurants, bars, realtors (my people are all over the real estate and home remodeling market, go figure!), Gay or Gay-friendly doctors and therapists, Lawers, Yard work companies and GLBT owned or friendly establishments of every kind.  I have never seen or heard of such a thing in the Pagan community!  Why not?

Now before some of the naysayers strike, don’t be afraid to spread the word within the community if Joe the Pagan Plumber does shoddy work or rips you off; but also do not hesitate to hire him if he does good work!

Another thing some of the naysayers out there may be muttering even as you read this is, ‘well doesn’t this just open us up to fundamentalist attack or religious discrimination?’  Well, in my experience most of the bigots are not going to go into a Gay bar to pick up the ‘pink pages’, and I have never heard of a business being targeted by a church or hate group for their advertising to the GLBT community; so I have a hard time imagining that the Pagan community would have any more trouble than the GLBT folks.

So now that we are starting to find one another, how can we build economic self sufficiency?  Let us start reaching out to one another, let us share what great or little good fortune we may have with others in our community.

Need a lawn mowed but just don’t have the time?  Find a Pagan Lawn Service, or local Pagan in need, to do it!

Do you go out to eat anymore?  Find out which Pagans in your community are Servers and frequent their restaurants and ask to sit in their section!

Are any of the Pagans in your area business owners?  If theirs is a type of business you might frequent, then do so!

What about knowing that there are employers friendly to Pagans as employees or customers?  Shop there!  Maybe during Pagan Pride Month you could go and drop off a note thanking the business for their progressive policies and attitudes and letting them know that because of them you make a point of spending your Pagan dollar with them!

Then there is the question of our Pagan dollar’s power for good.  How often have you, or your Grove or Circle or Community Group given money to charity in the name of the Pagan community?  Or donated food?  Next time maybe you can look for specifically Pagan run Charities or Food Banks or Scholarships.

Maybe you could even look into starting one.

The more we in the Pagan community can support our own, the more success our Pagan business people and Pagan Professionals have, the more we improve the economic and educational opportunities of our fellow Pagans, the stronger and more self-sustaining our community will be.