Old Gods and New Pagans
"Old Gods & New Pagans" is a welcoming space for new and curious pagans, heathens, and animists to explore the basics of paganism. Rooted in an Animist perspective, this podcast takes an inclusive approach, covering topics relevant to a variety of pagan paths. Each episode breaks down complex ideas into simple, easy-to-understand language, with guest discussions, stories, and insights. Whether you're just starting your pagan journey or looking to learn more, join us as we dive into the wisdom of the old gods and the practices of modern pagans.
Old Gods and New Pagans
Ep: 6 Modern Paganism and the Importance of Community
What if embracing community could transform your pagan practice? Join me, Matt Holloway, on this enlightening episode of "Old Gods, New Pagans" as we explore how building strong communal bonds can elevate your spiritual journey. We journey through historical contexts, examining the significance of pagan communities from family units to regional gatherings, and discuss how modern pagans can replicate these connections. I share my personal experiences, from intimate friend groups with diverse practices to larger organizations like the Pagan Project, which aims to promote public understanding and awareness of paganism.
Dive into practical steps for fostering and maintaining vibrant pagan communities, whether through shared rituals, unique altar setups, or seasonal gatherings. Discover the parallels between pagan communities and other religious groups, and learn how to balance solo practice with community engagement. We'll also discuss the power of online platforms like Discord in building global connections, and provide tips for maintaining relationships with non-pagan friends and family. To round off the episode, find out how you can actively participate in the Pagan Project through social media, volunteering, or simply sharing your experiences, contributing to a supportive and growing network.
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Hello everyone, I'm your host, matt Holloway, and today we're going to discuss the importance of community in paganism. Some topics we're going to discuss the importance of community in paganism. Some topics we're going to discuss. We're going to discuss the importance of community, cultural preservation, education, social connection, some forms of types of communities within paganism and information on building and sustaining a pagan community, partnering in existing communities and some challenges and solutions regarding that. So let's dive in. As I said, my name is Matt Holloway. I am the host of the Old Gods, new Pagans podcast. I'm also the current president and director of the new nonprofit, the Pagan Project. Some more information for that's going to come up later in the podcast and, yeah, let's get in.
Speaker 1:So the concept of community in paganism, first and foremost. I just want to just kind of put this out there before we even get into the community aspect of it. Solo practice is very important. This I absolutely want to stress. Just because this episode is all about community doesn't mean that solo practice is anything less or not as good as community practice or just overall community. Solo practice is personally my primary form of practice, mostly because I live in the Bible Belt and there's not many communities around me, but also because of my particular style of animism, I spend a lot of time outside by myself, in nature and in meditation. So solo practice is my primary practice personally, but I am a member of other pagan communities, so just wanted to put that out there. That solo practice is absolutely important. So let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Pagan communities it's like in general, when you look at historical paganism, this was before, like the modern age and all these things that we have now the instant communications, the world travel and such. So for the most part, pagan communities were their small individual groups. So you could start at the home level, so within a family, you had your own pagan practices and traditions and ancestral traditions and things like that that were honored. So you have your say, you honored certain ancestors. That's going to be really just within your family and if you had, you know, extended family nearby, they may participate in some of this stuff. But that's going to be like a really closed, closed knit. You know small group. As you move out you've got the larger community. So you've got the encompassing all the farms in the area, the village and such. So you have your big group of festivals and gatherings and then you've got the more, like every year, seasonal, et cetera, like large types of gatherings, that would happen. So in history you know you had these different functions of communities that would offer different benefits and kind of outside the spiritual aspect, you know you get your local farms that would help protect your livestock. If you had some sheep get out, you had cows get out, you know these local farms would kind of get together and help you out. When it come to like outside threats, you know the whole community would get together, the whole village, all the farms in the area, everyone would band together to repel that. So you have that aspect of community and then you have the cultural identity of an entire region. That again is another large type of community In modern times that extends a little bit differently.
Speaker 1:So we have our local community. So if you live in an area where, like you, live in a more rural area and you have these kinds of structures around you as well, you know your small farms and outlying areas that may come together and help. That's going to be more of a secular type of community nowadays, just because of the prevalence of Christianity in other religions as opposed to just pagans in an area If you are lucky enough to have other pagans nearby, that would be great. But typically you might have your family unit that all have your own spiritual pagan practices, but as a community around you it may be less common. That being said, in your broader general area, in your town, your city, however, your community, you may have other pagans that could get together and have bloats or sabbats, you know, kind of celebrate those together and then you have like your regional stuff. So in the US, here, you know, we structured into states, so you have your individual state, would have like a big pagan festival, or maybe the southeast, the southwest, the southwest you'd have these larger pagan festivals and gatherings that you know would be, you know, larger communities get together and take part in that. But with the modern pagan communities you also have your online communities and this is a whole different beast because people from around the world can get together and share ideas. Share, you know, and just you know, spend time talking about, you know, spirituality, just you know. Spend time talking about, you know spirituality, spend time getting to know each other.
Speaker 1:I'm a member of three, mainly three, pagan communities. One is a private community. It's just a group of friends that kind of get together and it's not so much to talk about spirituality but we know we all have common spiritual interests. But it's a place that we can have our other discussions and just kind of cut up and have fun and know we're in a good place with everyone. So we know we're not going to be judged for our pagan beliefs and that sort of thing. So we can kind of get together and just cut up. And not everyone in the community is the same type of pagan. We have Norse pagans, celtic pagans, animists, wiccans. We have a whole group of people in there and everyone respects everyone else's spirituality.
Speaker 1:And then I'm part of other pagan communities that are specifically about the paganism. One major one is the One for the Pagan Project. It's a nonprofit that myself and a few others have founded, put together and we're working on building Just a little kind of shout out to the Pagan Project. We are working on a couple of things. One is to build public awareness about paganism so the public at large isn't as leery of what we are. We can kind of dispel some of the common myths, stereotypes etc and just create an overall public awareness and education on paganism. Another part of that is to be a resource for new pagans Out there on the internet now there are so many mixed messages. You have all these different pagan groups pulling people in all kinds of different directions and new pagans have a lot of trouble trying to really navigate that world. And on top of that you have problematic pagans that will spread their white supremacist values or they try to close down open practices, or they are spreading information about closed practices openly when they really shouldn't, appropriating certain cultures, different markings, etc. So we want to be the overall resource to help New Bagans find their path, without the confusion With that we are using. We're bringing together a list of content creators, mentors and just overall allies of the pagan community to, you know, create this large community of resources and people, the biggest resource a community has, and it's the knowledge of its people.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's get into the importance of community. There are really three main aspects to the importance of community, in my opinion. One of those is spiritual support and growth. Communities can get together sharing rituals and ceremonies. So you know, with that spiritual support and growth, you know they can learn from each other. So if, say, we have a larger community and five of us that have practiced together, you know have a ritual that we do and a way we do it. You know we can perform that for other people and teach them about those traditions and why we do things the way we do and such Like.
Speaker 1:For example, one thing about my spirituality that I like to share with others is my type of altar. It is kind of based on the Northern European style, the North style of the Horga, the, basically a pile of rocks, and whereas I live in Florida, we rocks are a very rare commodity, with the exception of some limestone that might get mined up. Um, so the way I have my altars is, when I cleared this property that I live on, I left stumps in place at a certain height to act as an altar. So I have these stumps really around the property that I use as altars in certain aspects, like I have some that face the south, some that are in the middle of my garden, etc. So you know, sharing those rituals and sharing those ceremonies with others so that we can learn from each other is a big aspect of community.
Speaker 1:Another really important aspect of community and I'm going to kind of lean and explain like the Christian side of things is you know, with Christians you have your local church. It's a big community of like-minded individuals that can say they can go to a movie together and they know they all have the shared values and they have that sense of belonging to each other. You know, for the pagan community that connection and belonging is also important. We can use these types of communities to build friendships that will exist outside of paganism and we can create these support networks so that we have people we can turn to in times of need, times of sorrow, if we just need a shoulder to cry on. We need a friend in certain situations that share our values, that won't be trying to say pray for us and lay hands on us and try to get us to do other things that really just exist outside of our current practices, our current beliefs, our current situations. So having that sense of community around paganism is really important and it'll help, you know, overcome those feelings of isolation because, again, while my personal practice is mostly solo practice, you know sometimes I do feel quite isolated just because in my area there aren't that many pagans. I've met a couple and you know they have different beliefs and practices that don't really align with mine so we don't really really aren't able to connect that strongly, but we do have that friendship because of it and it's nice having that.
Speaker 1:Another important aspect of community is the cultural preservation and education aspect of it. You know being able to pass down these traditions and knowledge, as I mentioned before. You know being able to like, share um and educate others about paganism. You know being able to like, share and educate others about paganism. You know having like a public ritual, a public ceremony and having the public attend. That may be not pagan, they can observe and they can learn about our culture and they can be educated regarding. You know the specifics about that. So three of the main important aspects of community, in my opinion, are the spiritual support and growth sharing rituals, learning and growing from others. The social connection and the sense of belonging, overcoming those feelings of isolation and creating those support, networks and friendships. And then the cultural preservation and education aspect passing down traditions and knowledge, educating others about paganism. Those are huge things and a lot of that is what we are trying to do with the Pagan Project and, as I mentioned before, there are different levels of community and paganism. Levels of community and paganism we can, you know, kind of start at, say, the local groups or covens. If you're in the Wiccan side or the witch side of paganism, a lot of the local groups are referred to as covens. Those smaller groups you know allow for shared rituals, a shared sense of belonging. Closer knit friendships and such would kind of work along in with that.
Speaker 1:When you expand out from that, you have, like, your festivals and your big gatherings. So you have your like seasonal gatherings like bealtain and sawin and all your bloats and other sabbats and such you know people can get together for those like um seasonal festivals. If you follow the wheel of the year, you have four or eight festivals that you can participate kind of on a, I would say, a medium-sized gathering. And then you have your large-scale pagan festivals. That's more of a generalized festival that encompasses sometimes it's one specific flavor of paganism. So it might be a big Norse festival or Celtic festival or Druid festival or Wiccan festival, or it may be just an over-encompassing, just large pagan festival that we've seen a lot of that bring people from all these different paths together to share what they know and to share their own practices and experiences and really just kind of get around people of the same ideas and ideologies.
Speaker 1:Then you have again your online communities. I mean, it's like the role of social media, online forums. Servers like Discord are great avenues for finding online communities. So, like Facebook groups or YouTube is you know, you can get into these communities and start meeting these people to form these things. And then, like, we have Discord servers that are an amazing aspect. We have discord servers that are an amazing aspect. It kind of takes the old school way of you know thought of forums where people can kind of chat or chat rooms, and really kind of puts it all together. So you have, you know, like, a lot of Servers have different chat rooms for different topics.
Speaker 1:You know, for just shooting the breeze, the Pagan Project Discord is one that I'm a little more active in, just because we're trying to bring some more people in and we're spreading that knowledge and helping each other out as we go along the way. We've had people from around the world join that server, yeah, and we have academics, we have people that have been practicing paganism for decades to people that have just started. So we have a wide range of people from all different walks of life, all different walks of paganism, kind of coming together and sharing their knowledge freely, openly, without the fighting. That's one thing that we just really try to keep out of. There is the drama. So it's a really good um location to have those online communities and we can connect worldwide. It's so great when you have online communities because you know people from different walks can really share these ideas.
Speaker 1:So if you have the ability, if you look in your local area, try to find a local pagan coven study group of like-minded individuals to see if there's a group already available. You can use social media to find that. You can do an internet search for that sort of thing and if you can't find anything, consider starting your own. If you have some experience with paganism and you feel like you can lead others, try to consider starting your own local group. If you can find the existing communities. Join those Online communities is a great place to start because as you start making connections in these online communities, you'll find people who may be in your local area. It was actually kind of an interesting thing for me that I was in an online community just chatting it up and happened to mention where I was from and I found out there was somebody who lives like an hour down the road from me in a random online community that you know I never would have met this person otherwise. So it's kind of really neat to get in these online groups and then eventually you'll find other people and meet them.
Speaker 1:There are some challenges in online pagan communities because you have so many people coming together that there is a higher chance of disagreements and people just fighting. That could happen. That's why it's important to find a good pagan community. You know, start talking to people about it, talk to the members of the community, see what they like about it, what they don't like about it, and go from there You'll learn pretty quickly whether or not a pagan community is a good community or not, depending on how the members act. If you see a lot of drama in that community, you may want to step back. If you hear a lot about that community in the wider community on things, you may consider stepping back. And if you have anyone in that community that claims to know everything about a pagan path or claims to be something like a reincarnated god or goddess, you can start picking up on these red flags and you may consider backing out of that group. Or, you know, maybe viewing it from like a 30,000 feet kind of mindset and just kind of stand back and observe and see how that community interacts and see if it's going to be a good enough community for you. Or see if, like, the topics really interest you and it's something that you want to be a part of. Or see if the topics really interest you and it's something that you want to be a part of.
Speaker 1:Something at the Pagan Project we're working on is to identify good communities from different paths so that we can partner up with these communities to be able to point people in the right direction, to good quality communities. So check us out. At the Pagan Project we're working on this over time. We don't have any connections yet, but that's something that's on the list of things to do. By the time you hear this it may be already put together.
Speaker 1:Summarize you know a lot of the key points in this is the importance of community and paganism. You're looking at sharing ideas, sharing knowledge, learning from others, creating those bonds of friendship and overcoming really the isolation that comes with the new pagan path, because, as new pagans, you know when we come out of the broom closet, so to speak, even though in a previous episode I recommend against certain things like um, burning bridges for you from your previous friends and family, um, particularly the Christians or other Abrahamic beliefs, because when you burn those bridges, you end up like destroying those friendships. So in that case you can expand your isolation and sometimes it happens. But try to be thoughtful when you do come out to your friends and family and try not to burn those bridges, because isolation as a pagan is a real thing and something we're trying to overcome. But keep that in mind. So pagan communities are a really important way of limiting that isolation.
Speaker 1:So, all that being said, my personal thoughts on the topic is again strengthen your solo practice. Find these local communities, find a good online community, because we live in a digital age, we might as well embrace it. Being a nature first belief system, we want to try to isolate ourselves from so much technology sometimes, but technology is here and we should embrace it and use it as a tool to our advantage and building these communities. Embrace it and use it as a tool to our advantage and building these communities, and I encourage everyone to engage with a current pagan community or look into building your own. If you don't have anyone locally, you just have like two or three friends you know, formally form a group, you know, make it a thing and start trying to find more people and invite them to your group and start building that community Something again that the Christians do really well with churches. You know, with being pagans, we don't really have temples everywhere, because most of our practice is just in the woods, outside, at our homes, so we don't have those really dedicated places to build those communities, which is something that could definitely change. Witches do it pretty well with their covens. They start building these smaller communities of people. So I think we, as pagans, should start working harder on building our communities. We can start with the online communities and go from there. And for all of you that are in a community or have had good experiences with a community or bad experiences with the community, I highly encourage you to seek me out on social media B-C-O-R-A-T-H, on pretty much all the places YouTube, instagram, facebook reach out to me or the Pagan Project and start building. You know, just telling us you know about what your experiences with these communities are, your thoughts, ideas on building a community. We want to hear from you. So, yeah, that's all I really have to say on the importance of community today.
Speaker 1:Definitely follow along with this podcast if you don't already subscribe, Please do. We have a lot more content coming out, a lot more information. This podcast as it's, you know, kind of like a personal project of mine, helping new pagans find these paths and to kind of learn and build onto it from basic foundations. I will be partnering a lot with the Pagan Project, since that's a large part of my time these days, so this will kind of connect in with that a lot, and you'll hear a lot of mentions of the Pagan Project. We're trying to do some really great things.
Speaker 1:So you can head to the pagan projectorg and show your support. There's a link at the top that just says support. You can fill out an application to volunteer as a content creator, as a mentor, as a promoter, to help get the message of the pagan project out there. If you have skills, uh, talents you think would help the pagan project whether that's you know you're, you have um experience with education, you want to build, help us build um educational content or build um a curriculum you know for new pagans. Or if you are really good at graphic design or video editing or you're excellent in front of a camera and you want to help us make content, uh, definitely reach out to us and, on the volunteer form, tell us what you have.
Speaker 1:There's a box there that you can just really boast about yourself. So you know, tell us what are your strengths and weaknesses and how that you can use your abilities to help us. Uh, there's even a check mark in there, like I'll do whatever I don't know. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Um, though, that's important as well. So if you want to click that, go for it. Um, we currently have a full board, but there is also a point on there where you can volunteer to be a member of our board of directors and part of our council. Definitely fill that in and tell us again what your strengths and weaknesses are, because we're also building different committees that, even though you may not be a voting board member, we definitely want members of these committees to build out these services, to build out our public awareness, our programs, even financing and fundraising. If you have strengths in that, we definitely want you along for the ride on that. So please go out there, fill that up. If you can provide a monetary donation, there's a section in there for that as well.
Speaker 1:We thank everyone for being the best part of what we do. We do everything with the Pagan Project, or me with this podcast, just to help new pagans, and that's because when I first started this path, there really wasn't much out there for me. I learned a lot from like TikTok and YouTube and later on I found out that a lot of what I learned was BS. So we're trying to filter out the BS and just provide the core information and help point people down the correct path with a good, solid foundation. So, yeah, follow along the podcast.
Speaker 1:Check us out at the Pagan Project. You can go there. There's all the socials and such on there. The Pagan Project has also started a Patreon account. It's got some neat little perks in there. There's some merch. So, yeah, check us out. That concludes this episode. Thank everyone for being the best part of this. Check us out on social media. They'll be linked in the podcast notes. Definitely follow, subscribe, share these podcast episodes with people you think it may help. We have episodes so far we're at like maybe six or seven now explaining your beliefs to Christians coming out of the broom closet. We have a section on animism, basic paganism, cultural appropriation, appreciation, and coming up may dive into some um content on divination, maybe some modern druidry, um. So yeah, follow along, we'll check that out, thank you.
