One of a Million

I wish I could say I haven't been posting because I've been having fantastical, ecstatic religious experiences that have drawn me away from the computer. I even wish I could say I haven't been posting because packing and arranging things for the move and the new apartment are eating my life. Instead, I haven't been posting because I've been sleeping a lot and geeking out with other geeky friends about Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and the new Doctor Who finale. I'd be ashamed, except for the way the past four years have been an attempt to stop being ashamed of my geeky love for things.

I have also, though, been thinking, fairly abstractly, about community. As Sojourner pointed out in reference to my last post, community is an important part of ritual and of our lives in general. I've never felt much of that, to tell the truth. It takes me a long time to feel integrated in a community, which means that both in high school and college, about the time I started to feel as if I belonged somewhere, it was time to leave. The town I grew up in holds very little attraction to me, and the sense of community here is so tied to church attendance that I have had very little sense of belonging here since I left the church when I was in high school.

I still have a strong, if muddled, sense of community with a variety of people from college, including a variety of friends, professors, and staff people, but now I've graduated and most of us are dispersing to various parts of the Midwest, those networks are bound to be a little stretched. I'm moving into my new apartment with a friend I've known for years, from the summer geek camp I used to go to in high school, another group of people I have a weird sense of community with, despite not having seen most of them in years. (They still reappear in my life from time to time, though, and we always seem to know each other on sight. The mark of a geek is eternal?)

I've definitely never had a Pagan community I've felt a part of, though I'm starting to carve out my own corner of the Pagan blogosphere. (There was an abortive attempt at a Pagan society at college once, but it seemed to crash and burn after a particularly poor Samhain ritual.) And while I love the blogging community, I'm looking at this move as an opportunity to find a physical Pagan community to connect with, if at all possible. My problem being, mainly, that I'm both choosy and easily put off by negative comments from others (despite the fact that I know the amount of negativity flying around is usually entirely excessive). I'm moving to Madison, Wisconsin, quite close to Circle Sanctuary, and trying to decide if I want to put the money and effort into a festival there; I'm looking for other groups and circles as well, and being a little surprised at how few I find. I shall keep looking, and hope that I know what it is I'm looking for when I see it, because I certainly have no idea now.