Paganism in Rural Ohio

I don’t know about the rest of you, but being Pagan in rural Ohio, with a church on nearly every street corner, sucks. We only have a handful of stores to get actual supplies for the craft. Out of which, only a few genuinely catering to Pagans, and one or two that if you squint you could argue that the intention is there, but not really. Last I checked any other genuine Pagan store is at least two hours away. 

Craft stores and online shopping help make up for the lack of Pagan geared stores. Amazon has literally everything under the sun, and most craft stores carry things like candles and bottles for spell work. Most grocery stores will have at least your basic herb list, and really, it’s just all a matter of creativity and dedication. 

It’s not just a lack of aesthetically pleasing supplies, though. It’s hard to find local people who also dabble in any of the various crafts. I suppose there could be people who simply are not open about it, but that still doesn’t help the situation. Most of the kids that ended up being some brand of Pagan from our school days were in our same basic friend group. I cannot speak to whether everyone still practices, but the ones I still talk to do. 

Having such a lack of support around us makes, at least, my motivation to dive into things very sluggish. There are very few new perspectives being shared to unleash this flow of desire. Everything we’ve learned has been the hard way, and for someone like me that is the biggest motivation killer of all. I am very tired of having to research every little thing to get even a vague idea of how to do it. I am tired of learning the hard way how not to do various things. For once I would like someone to come around and be like, “Hey, that’s not the best way to do that! Try like this.” 

We do have a Pagan Pride festival every year, about 2 hours away, that we try to go to. It’s not quite the same now as it was the first couple years, but it’s still a place to find like-minded people, and that is nice. When we all first started going, we tried vending, first with someone who was used to that sort of set up but branched out on our own pretty quickly. We admittedly did not make things up to the quality most people look for, but that’s because we just jumped in headfirst without too much preparation time. We have learned much since vending at Pagan Pride. Even if we never made much, I don’t think any of us would trade the connections we made along the way.  

So here is my advice for people who live in similar areas as I do; reach out online. Safire and I are doing this blog as a way for us to share, learn, and be able to talk to others. The internet is a wonderful place full of diverse ideas and we hope that through sharing our experiences with you all that maybe we can help someone feel not so alone.