You Attract What You Are

If you want to be supported by your peers, you have to be supportive.

I am calling all Witches to come together and be supportive of each other and help each other succeed. If we stick together, help and support each other it makes us stronger. Together we are more powerful. We can achieve anything as long as we stick together.

Why am I hearing so much hissing and sighing with that statement?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have the support of your peers in your community to help you succeed at your goals?

You can. It depends on you. You attract what you are.

The Pagan community, regardless if you consider yourself a pagan or not, includes Witches of any kind, Satanism, Traditional Witchcraft, Wicca, Shamanism, Heathenism, Asatru, and so many more paths that I can’t think of on the top of my head.

Because this community is extremely diverse and continually growing in a society that has become more distrustful, hateful, spiteful, resentful, and even unethical, it seems that modern Pagans don’t realize that in the Pagan Community, every path is valid and it doesn’t matter which path you walk, it doesn’t matter if someone agrees or disagrees with your path or if you agree or disagree with theirs. We are not all born to walk the same path or live the same life as everyone else. 

One of the biggest Pro and Con of this diverse community is that nearly everyone is a freak in some way. Don’t get mad. I mean it with love. Many People who fall under this umbrella term don’t fit well with the general population. We have our own ideas, perceptions, talents, opinions, beliefs, practices, skills, and techniques all rolled up into quirky personalities. We often feel like the outcast or outsider when coping with the rest of the world. We definitely feel different as an individual when comparing ourselves to others who are the social norm.

As human beings, we search for others who are like-minded. We seek to fit in with others like ourselves, hence the cliche “birds of a feather flock together.”

While many of us find our way to our Tribe easily there are still many of us who are still seeking like-minded people to fit in with. A few people are Loners and these Loners are our beautiful Solitaries. Some Solitaries find that there are paths that are Solitary in nature and they love it. We are people and yes, we have similarities, we also bring diversity to this crazy and fantastic community through our differences.

In today’s society that is heavily influenced by our screwed up economic condition and scarcity of full-time jobs, many Americans have found themselves trying to figure out how to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. The only answer is to make a job for themselves. So, What is happening in the United States since the government has passed laws, regulations, and signed treaties that throw the majority of the American Population under the bus for their own profit, have chased a lot of business out of our country. We have almost no Gross Domestic Production which is why there aren’t enough full-time jobs to support the average family.

The decrease in hours per job and inflation on living expenses have only substantially increased beyond the average American’s part-time paycheck. This is leaving many Americans to try to build a business that will earn them enough money to pay their light bill, their rent, buy food and other costs of living in the United States.

Large Corporations are destroying the American Economy by giving billions of jobs to other cheap countries to sell their cheaply made crap to us for outrageous prices gouging us on items that aren’t worth the price. Large Corporations have taken millions of call center jobs from the American People and giving it to cheap countries to have them call us to market to us, to not provide service to their customers with their policy of “it is legal for us to offer a service and only provide the minimum which is considerably less than advertised.”

Corporate business is often unethical although not necessarily illegal. It is extremely difficult to grow a regular business idea without substantial funds available because regular businesses can’t compete with these large conglomerates whose only goals are to make as much money for the Corporation as possible with out any regard for our environment, our lives, our needs, our pets lives or even to make us a satisfied customer. They don’t use the term Satisfied customer anymore because there is no such thing in this corporate run economy.  Small businesses such as in our Pagan Community, are not a soulless corporation. These businesses are real people with real families trying to survive.

That brings me to why I am calling all Witches. As a Witch, I have a particular taste in what I like to buy, have, use to fulfill my needs as a Witch. I want these things for an affordable price. Like most Pagans, I am living in poverty here in America. I want to get stuff that isn’t mass produced. Mass Produced stuff is bland and the farthest thing from Unique and lately any kind of real quality of workmanship.

Here is my dilemma. I am poor and I want my simple, Unique items but I can’t afford what it costs to make them because in my area, I’m not allowed to gather the natural items myself because I don’t own any land and most places in my general area even if public access can take action against you if you pick up a branch, or pick an herb, or even a freaken rock for crying out loud. That means many of us have to purchase raw materials to make our items.

Many Pagan’s goods are unique and of course, you still need to be wary of quality. Because I know how much materials cost, I understand why the regular Pagan Handcrafted items are so danged expensive. Because it is handcrafted it is both unique and time-consuming without machines to measure, cut, mold, pour, and so on to produce the item.

Store owners are needed to get these beautiful items out into our community. The Pagan community doesn’t have all of what we need as Witches but we have quite a bit right here in our community. The biggest problem for many Pagan type business owners and artists and healers and psychics and more are hidden and lost and never to be found so we will never know about them. I hate it when I am left with no other alternative but check Amazon for what I am looking for and worse than that is having to settle for some cheap piece of crap thrown together from some generic production line.

What about a Psychic Tarot reader or a Reiki Master? What if I want a Shaman or a teacher to teach me Tarot or spell casting? How do we find them if we don’t personally know one or if we are a solitary isolated from a local Pagan Community? What if your group doesn’t know of anyone? What do we do? There are so many questions going around about how to find a coven or how to find a teacher or whatever.

I would like real Pagans to do business with who actually understand what they are offering and why I am likely to look for the offer to do business with me. I want these Pagans to grow and I want to help them succeed. The reason I want to help as many Pagan businesses as I possibly can, in some way and the best way that I can is that I want real Pagan stuff and I want it to be affordable so I can enjoy it and they can make a living. The only way to do that is to help lift these Pagan businesses to the top so they can compete.

One way regular Witches can help ourselves and our community is to buy from small Pagan shops, classes, and services. Doesn’t matter if they are online or local to you.  If you find something you like being offered by a pagan, please don’t look up Amazon or some other soulless entity such as a corporation. In this case, compare prices among Pagan owned business.  I promise the corporations won’t really miss you because they aren’t even Human and don’t really care about you. In fact, they don’t care if you buy anything. They would be happiest if you just donated cash to them on a regular basis just because. They don’t want to provide anything for you. They give the bare minimum required by law to you to get your money because unless they are the government, it is illegal to just take your money out of your paycheck or bank account.

Our local economy affects all of us. We can’t save the world while we are struggling to survive ourselves but we can keep our money in our own local economy helping each other and ourselves by simply shopping Pagan when you have the option. Whoever possesses the Money, Holds the Power. Give it back to ourselves through buying Pagan.

I would like to see a lot of listings sites created for people like us to go to find Pagan owned business to choose from. I would like to go to one place to look than to surf through the few businesses Google decides to show me that half the time isn’t even relative or what I am looking for. I also want it to be relatively functional for easy search and what not. I would also like to see a site for Pagans to post classifieds specific to Pagan interests for Pagans by Pagans.

I had a hard time finding a Santeria Botanica when I moved. I finally found one after I hijacked my boyfriend to help me search for one. I feel there should be more than WitchVox to go to or list with. I feel there should be as many legitimate classes and blogs and healers and tarot readers and so on out there to support the ideas and knowledge of our paths. I want so much Witchy stuff out in the wild chaos of our society that it becomes part of the mainstream.

I know we won’t be able to avoid buying crap from the corporate monsters but support our community as much as possible is all we can expect from one another.

It doesn’t matter if your contribution is big or small because it all adds up. Here are some things you can do.

1. Don’t bad mouth other Witches. If you disagree with them and it is so intense for you that you have to say something, just write something like I am a high whatever of the old tradition of whatever and this is what I think, feel or believe about this topic then state what you believe.
2. If you like what you see, hear or read, please share it with a link on social media and with friends.
3. If you find an open group, church, school or teacher that you liked, tell everyone you know about them. Keep their information handy like how to contact them and their location.
4. If you find a store you like, tell everyone. Dang, we aren’t trying to hide anymore.  The biggest thing in the Pagan community is that all Pagan business, authors, services, and artists need exposure. We Thrive on exposure. We all need exposure. Spread the word.
5. List your business on as many listing sites as you possibly can. List your friend’s businesses where you can. Make a list of all your favorites if you have a bit of traffic on your site.
6. Don’t forget to suggest all of your favorite Pagan businesses to WitchDigest so we can list them on our Witch Resource Page. If you list your link with us, don’t stop there, find other listing pages and sites and add your listing there too.
7. Guest Post everywhere you can. Most blog sites won’t invite a writer to write for them as a guest post because contrary to popular belief, many blog site owners don’t pay for the blog post you are reading. Getting paid to write blog posts is a job. They exist because some people don’t like to write blog posts so they hire a writer or marketer to write them in exchange for cash. That is not going to help you promote your small business. Guest Post relevant information to promote you as an expert in what you offer. This means you will need a relevant site. EG You don’t want to write about spellcasting for a lumber company and you don’t want to get stuck writing about lumber when your offer is Tarot readings. To Guest post, find the sites you like and search them for a guest posting policy or related page on guest posting. If you don’t find one, use the contact form.  Yes, we have one on our website too. We accept guest posts.
8. Keep in mind that to make money you have to spend money. There is a flow of money. Money is energy. To help it flow into our hands we have to let some of it go. Pass it around. Keep it moving and flowing. The more money we spend in our own local economy, the more money that will be available to flow back to us.
9. Help our small Pagan businesses grow. When a small business grows, it will need help to fulfill the need. That help is a job opening. I would LOVE to see a successful Pagan business earning enough to employ more Pagans because that will bring more money back to us here in our local community.
10. Recommend other Witches as often as you get the opportunity. Don’t be afraid to support your competition. They are not the enemy. Division, separation, lack of support. I know that people today will buy from you and your competition if they know about you and like what you offer. They can’t steal your business unless you suck. Do you want the upper hand in competition? Take a basic business course on how to run and operate a small business. That alone will give you a leg up over the competition.  Raise the bar of expectation for small business.

The contribution that WitchDigest is offering is to list links to resources that are relative specifically to the magickal community in which we live and belong. Our Resource Page exists for this purpose. To connect our community to let the money flow among us. We can’t share the wealth if we don’t have any. The Pagan community must generate the wealth by giving and receiving. Fairly take and Fairly give. Are businesses trying to make money off of you? Duh! That is the whole point of business and how the economy works. This country is set up as a capitalist country. This is how capitalism works. We must learn how to use it to our own advantage.

When you go to work, the business you work for makes money off of its clients then they pay you a portion of that as your paycheck. The business makes money off others and you make money off the business then you spend the money at other businesses that are making money off of you and the cycle continues. The problem is that corporates are making a lot of money off of you but once we give to them the flow stops for us.

We are finding it harder and harder to make enough money. The flow of money has a big flow right out of this country which means it is Pouring out of our economy and almost none is flowing back to our economy.  This leaves us poverty stricken as a whole society.

Because Pagans create and manufacture by hand right here in our own country, they spend money in this country, and they help to keep the flow of money here coming right back to us.

Shop Local, Buy Pagan, keep the flow of money in our own community.

My call to all Witches is to save ourselves by helping our brothers and sisters and keep our money local.