Paganism is on the rise

[Wynd Runner]

I stumbled upon this article: "Paganism is on the rise—here’s where to discover its traditions" with the recent date "PUBLISHED MARCH 22, 2023"

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/trav ... an-culture

I was really happy to find this.

Early in the article:

"At least 1.5 million people in the United States identify as Pagans—up from 134,000 in 2001. They range from Wiccans and Kemetics to TikTok witches and heathens."

It makes me so glad people are curious and looking beyond patriarchal-based religions. This is freedom.

The article also talks about festivals and gatherings. The one thing I miss most are all the pagan festivals. When the pandemic came, many of the festivals stopped or went online. I am hoping they come back and grow.

Back when we lived in FL, we used to go to FPG / Florida Pagan Gathering. That was big. There were a few others here and there, too. I used to love to dance around the bonfires!

[Dragonoake]

We used to go to PSG every year when it was in Witchsconsin.
In the mid-90's, it out-grew the campground we were at and moved to Ohio, so we started going to Heartland in Leavenworth, Kansas.
I used to always ask people if there was anybody they wanted me to say Hi to while I was in Leavenworth
Then there were three smaller festivals in Iowa we went to every year,
Unfortunately, that all came to an end in 2006 when my girlfriend's kidney (she only had one) failed and she ended up on dialysis.

We got so we called the Summer Solstice Festival in Boone "Dances With Racoons" because they always managed to get involved somehow.
I remember one time, they had a pottery workshop with the firing done by what Ivy called the Jiffy Pop Method: a big pile of wood chips covered in tin foil and left on a slow burn overnight.
The next day, she said she heard a racoon chattering around two in the morning...
Scratch, scratch, scratch...
<< KA-BOOM!!! >>
Then she saw a raccoon flying through the air!!
Apparently, it had clawed through the foil and let the air in...
And it went off like a fuel-air bomb.
Other than a few scarabs, none of the pottery survived the explosion.

Another time, the ritual honored Pele, so we had a 12-foot high paper mâché volcano for the high priestess to climb out of.
After the festival, we hauled it over to the fire pit and burned it.
This went just fine for about ten minutes...
Then it started making a sound that I can't even begin to describe...
And that volcano erupted, shooting a column of flame well above the treetops for about ten minutes!
I can just imagine Ranger Rick looking out over the park...
"What in the world are they doing down there??"

Then there was the time at PSG where people at the morning meeting were complaining about how long it took the porta-potty guys to clean everything out.
It was a clothing optional event, so they said, "Well, if you don't put on a show for them, maybe they won't take so long."
OK, fine.
So the next morning, the herald came around as the truck was coming down the hill...
He made the announcement with this SCA flair, "Cover your nasty bitsies, the Tidy Bowl Man cometh!!" and apparently, not everybody understood what he was talking about.
Now, it was a long winding road through the woods to get to the Big Valley where the festival was being held, and there's a spot near the bottom where you can see down into the valley, but you still have to make one more sharp turn...
Just as the truck got to that point, four women walked by sky clad, and he drove right out into the woods
They had to down with the big tractor to pull his out

[Wynd Runner]

. . . PSG . . .

Oh my gods! Those are amazing stories! LOL Back when we lived in FL, we always wanted to go to the Pagan Spirit Gathering festivals out of state. But sadly, we were really poor at the time. We always had a dream, "if we win the lottery . . . " that was one of the things we planned to do. Plus, that was a time when I worked in a grocery store and they had us on a brutal floating schedule, so it was difficult to plan any time off.

We had other friends who used to travel to other festivals and tell us about them. They always sounded amazing.

[Dragonoake]

PSG was awesome.
Ten days in a closed circle

[Dragonoake]

They recorded the Mother Earth Ritual in Eagle Cave, and you can still get the CD from Circle
When the free form chant hit just the right pitch, the cave would answer

[Dragonoake]

Back when we lived in FL, we used to go to FPG / Florida Pagan Gathering.

Then you have probably crossed path with Don "Two Eagle" Waterhawk at some point.
He has a rather unique style of silverwork (somewhere between dragon scale and candle wax)
His pieces are rather expensive (I think I paid something like $250 for my athame, thirty years ago), but they're all handmade and each has a unique spirit to it. I've always said you don't choose a Water Hawk piece; it chooses you.
I'm thinking that Fritz and Wren from Witches Voice were also from Florida.

I used to love to dance around the bonfires!

That's one thing that's never been in my make up. I'd go down and watch the dancers, I've drummed a time or two, but I've never been a dancer. My brain just doesn't operate that way.

Another PSG story:
One year, it was really hot and humid when I set up camp, and after a little debate about the rain fly, I decided to leave it off for now and let the air circulate for a while.
Now, they say it isn't an official PSG if it doesn't rain at least once, and this year was no exception...
By the end of the Opening Ritual, the wind was picking up and it was pretty clear that a storm was coming in, so I decided I should walk back and see if the hatches are all battened down.
About halfway down the road, it occurred to me that I hadn't put the rain fly on...
And I'm telling you that somebody was waiting to think of that.
Right at that moment, I heard << Crackle crackle crackle KA-BOOM!!! >> as a bolt of lightning lit up the whole valley and Enki opened the gates wide.
It poured so hard I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Needless to say, it took a day or two for things to dry out.

[Wynd Runner]

Back when we lived in FL, we used to go to FPG / Florida Pagan Gathering.

Then you have probably crossed path with Don "Two Eagle" Waterhawk at some point.
He has a rather unique style of silverwork (somewhere between dragon scale and candle wax)
His pieces are rather expensive (I think I paid something like $250 for my athame, thirty years ago), but they're all handmade and each has a unique spirit to it. I've always said you don't choose a Water Hawk piece; it chooses you.

No, sadly I didn't. It could have been that I stayed away from a lot of the vendors for that reason. lol

I'm thinking that Fritz and Wren from Witches Voice were also from Florida.

Nighthawk met them; I never did unfortunately.

Now, that is a sad and confusing story to me . . . the ending there of. Why did they just drop Witch Vox? Why didn't they pass it on to a trusted friend or group? They had "The" thrusted name in various pagan groups, covens, etc helping to find each other. They got that site setup when the Internet was so young. Now, there's no central web presence for finding others of like mind if you want to hang out. And for festivals, good luck with that unless you happen to remember some from the past if they even still function. Oh well.

I used to love to dance around the bonfires!

That's one thing that's never been in my make up. I'd go down and watch the dancers, I've drummed a time or two, but I've never been a dancer. My brain just doesn't operate that way.

I hear you! I loved to drum, too. I was always torn. I would start to drum, but then I "just had to" get up and dance around the bonfire. It was like I was driven, but also loved it.

Another PSG story:
One year, it was really hot and humid when I set up camp, and after a little debate about the rain fly, I decided to leave it off for now and let the air circulate for a while.
Now, they say it isn't an official PSG if it doesn't rain at least once, and this year was no exception...
By the end of the Opening Ritual, the wind was picking up and it was pretty clear that a storm was coming in, so I decided I should walk back and see if the hatches are all battened down.
About halfway down the road, it occurred to me that I hadn't put the rain fly on...
And I'm telling you that somebody was waiting to think of that.
Right at that moment, I heard << Crackle crackle crackle KA-BOOM!!! >> as a bolt of lightning lit up the whole valley and Enki opened the gates wide.
It poured so hard I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Needless to say, it took a day or two for things to dry out.

That sounds like a FL story! LOL And yes, lightning and thunder starting a downpour like that? Yep! Damn I miss a ranging thunderstorm! Man, the best was when the rain was blowing horizontally because the wind was so strong. lol

I feel for you though having to deal with a wet tent . . . such a pain! lol

The rain here in WA state is like a lite spritz that lasts a few hours! LOL

You've got some great festival stories! I love 'em!

[Wynd Runner]

Nighthawk and I met at a festival during a Beltaine. I was camping and she got a cabin. Her cabin was number 6. Keeping this raged G or PG, we hooked up a few times. We swapped phone numbers and developed a long distance relationship, and of course later got married.

But after that "hook-up" and me moving in with her, everyone would try so hard to get cabin number 6 for the Beltaine festival. It was always so funny to see people racing and running to beat each other to cabin number 6!

**************

A typical "Florida by-the-swamp story". About those cabins, there would always be spiders in there, many times a lot of large, brown recluse, which are very dangerous in FL.

One time we went, the cabin we got had dozens and dozens of spiders in this tiny one-room cabin. It was like a horror movie set or something.

We had to go into town and get a bug bomb for an apartment and then air it out for a few hours. We ended up unloading and setting up the cabin at about 10 pm after it had aired out for a few hours. Crazy!

**************
And speaking of spiders! Oh my gods! A spider spirit had been trying to get Nighhawk's attention for some time. It had happened to me previously, and I acknowledged it. I had peace from it and was fine. But, Nighthawk was nervous and wanted nothing to do with it.

It kept trying to get her attention, but she would ignore it. It would continually manifest various spiders. At one point, it manifested a large wolf spider. Those are no joke in FL. It got into her car, and we had to bug bomb it so she would not get bit.

All this time, I am telling her to acknowledge the spider spirit, but she did not want to.

We went to a pagan festival (of course in FL). We are walking around, and then suddenly she feels really weird. She starts feeling really light headed and starts hallucinating. She complains about her back.

I look down the back of her shirt, and there are three sets of spider bite-marks going down her back directly on her spine! I got her to the medical tent. They had her lay down and gave her water and Benadryl. They watched her a while waiting to see if they would have to call an ambulance. Thankfully, she got better.

But damn, if she didn't start making a little shrine to Spider spirit after that and got spider jewelry for her car, got spider ear rings, and all kinds of spider stuff! LOL Yep, we were worried the next spider bite would be worse . . . the dreaded and fearsome brown recluse!

[Dragonoake]

It could have been that I stayed away from a lot of the vendors for that reason. lol

I used to go in just to look at all the cool stuff he had. I didn't have the money to buy anything, but his work (or his rendition of The Mother's work, as he prefers to look at it) was so unique.
One day, I walked in and there was a new athame, that he just put out an hour before, that grabbed my attention and refused to let go.
It had a rough blue Kyanite handle with a Labradorite sphere at the bottom, and a guard made from antler, all wrapped up in flowing strings of silver like a vine wrapped around a tree. It was an organic design unlike anything I'd ever seen before.
I didn't want to spend that kind of money (most of a week's wages at the time), but it was mine and we both knew it.
I got my wand the same way...
I was on the website, just to look at what might be new, and being that I was on dial up internet at the time, it took a minute or two for the next page to load...
When it did, one wand filled the screen, and it was like BAM!!
Like I say, you don't choose a Water Hawk piece; it chooses you.

Why did they just drop Witch Vox? Why didn't they pass it on to a trusted friend or group?

Well, they were in their fifties when I met them and probably pushing eighty by now.
I've heard that traffic was dropping off with the rise of social media, and it was probably expensive to run a server of that size.

That sounds like a FL story! LOL And yes, lightning and thunder starting a downpour like that?

Don once told me that Tampa Bay was the Lightning Capital of the World.
I remember when we moved to Iowa...
Thunder storms were rare in California, so it was quite a shock to me.

Yep! Damn I miss a ranging thunderstorm! Man, the best was when the rain was blowing horizontally because the wind was so strong.

I've seen the videos of the weather man standing out in the middle of a hurricane...
No thank you, I'll pass on that one.
Ever seen it rain out of a clear blue sky?
Had that happen in Iowa once. the only thing I could think of was that the storm was just over the horizon and the wind was blowing it over.

[Wynd Runner]

I used to go in just to look at all the cool stuff he had. I didn't have the money to buy anything, but his work (or his rendition of The Mother's work, as he prefers to look at it) was so unique.
One day, I walked in and there was a new athame, that he just put out an hour before, that grabbed my attention and refused to let go.
It had a rough blue Kyanite handle with a Labradorite sphere at the bottom, and a guard made from antler, all wrapped up in flowing strings of silver like a vine wrapped around a tree. It was an organic design unlike anything I'd ever seen before.
I didn't want to spend that kind of money (most of a week's wages at the time), but it was mine and we both knew it.
I got my wand the same way...
I was on the website, just to look at what might be new, and being that I was on dial up internet at the time, it took a minute or two for the next page to load...
When it did, one wand filled the screen, and it was like BAM!!
Like I say, you don't choose a Water Hawk piece; it chooses you.

Awesome story

That sounds like a FL story! LOL And yes, lightning and thunder starting a downpour like that?

Don once told me that Tampa Bay was the Lightning Capital of the World.
I remember when we moved to Iowa...
Thunder storms were rare in California, so it was quite a shock to me.

We all used to say how Tampa FL is the lightning capital of the world. Then information on Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela came out. It was if Lake Maracaibo said, "hold my beer" because while Tampa lightning can be intense, I've never seen this:



It looks the wrath of the gods or something! LOL

Yep! Damn I miss a ranging thunderstorm! Man, the best was when the rain was blowing horizontally because the wind was so strong.

I've seen the videos of the weather man standing out in the middle of a hurricane...
No thank you, I'll pass on that one.
Ever seen it rain out of a clear blue sky?
Had that happen in Iowa once. the only thing I could think of was that the storm was just over the horizon and the wind was blowing it over.

I hear you and understand. lol It is definitely not for everyone. It is what makes me think I have tempest demon in me because I LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT! Oh my gods!

It is funny, we will occasionally get thunder and lightning with one thunder clap and one little flash. I will run around yelling, "where is it? where is it? I want more!" LOL