Well at last I have the internet, and at last I can discuss pagan things again. Been excited about it for a while! There's no point trying to discuss paganism with the bapheads I live with.

I went to uni, I gave up my allotment, I viewed moving to inner city salford from the wild slopes around pendle hill as an opportunity to test myself and live as a city dweller thoroughly - just do it for three years and then you dont have to stay there if you dont like it. I chucked all my smallholding magazines etc and have tried not to think about it all.

It's no good though, I feel caged and not pagan at all. I haven't 'done' anything remotely religious for ages. I'm trapped here because you can't walk out alone in salford, not that you'd want to anyway because there's nowhere to go. At home I could just strike out in a direction and not worry about meeting anyone else, let alone being attacked, and there was always some subtle naturey thing going on that I'd find interesting.

I feel removed from my gods. I find it hard to believe they would ever bother spending time here to be honest. The next three years are gonna drag. Are there any city pagans out there who manage to function normally? lol.


Whitey

I've sent you a PM

Hi Whitey,

Nice to see you back in the Valley,

Only a couple of suggestions I'm afraid.

Firstly try to make a green corner in your home with plants (real ones of course) go for ones with plenty of foliage, ivy, philodendrums that sort of thing (you only need a small group).

Perhaps group them around something with meaning to you or your gods- doesn't have to look like an altar or anything (incase you are sharing with non-pagans) just a token.

Care for them, talk to them, meditate with them - let them be your physical link with Nature.

Practice meditative journeys- visit those places in your mind, that you can't get to in body.

Can't think of much else for the mo.

Don't forget that Nature gets everywhere - you just have to look for it.

Kev

I'm very much a city girl and I feel cities can be very alive, very spiritual places. I don't feel that I need to be on a hill or a shoreline to connect with my deities, I can create a space for them in my home and honour them there.

I don't know Salford particularly well but I did live in Manchester for a few years. Personally I think the place buzzes with mental energy.

What path are you followong, Whitemare? For me, I find a connection to the Divine in all things around me and especially the energy of other people in big cities. The honk of car horns and the smell of rusted iron gratings in the rain is the spirit of Ogoun, the vodou loa of iron. The Baron, Brigitte and their family of Gede spirits live in every cemetery. Legba, guardian of the crossroads is at every airport and train station. The deities are always there, sometimes it just takes alittle while to tune out the background noise of city life and listen to them instead.

I agree with Cos; perhaps you could work at creating window boxes or pot plants. Maybe even cultivating whatever plants and herbs correspond to your deities, if there are any which jump out at you, or perhaps herbs or flowers which you can harvest and dry for magical use?

Ohm, and if you find yourself crossing the border into Manchester and you're in Rusholme, pop into Platt Fields park and say hello to the crows for me. They're very good listeners and far more intelligent than a lot of Mancunians. ;-) Hee! There you go! A connection to nature right there.

what do you mean by i havent done anything remotley religious for ages.
you dont need to, if you are a pagan you will feel it inside

Pendle to salford, now that is a sacrafice.

Stormy - I very occasionally liked to do something a bit more physical, it isn't neccesary, but I enjoyed it - but I mean I haven't even *thought* about anything 'deep' for ages...and when I noticed i wasn't too happy about it.

But, there have been some good suggestions - think I might fill every spare space with a plant! And maybe start doing some art again, haven't done any of that either for a while, or writing. Salford seems to have killed my creativity.

Crow's post was interesting - it seems like you grow up with a certain 'set' of gods for your situation. I think I just am having trouble adjusting! I don't follow a particular path really as such, hehe, I make it up as I go along! I believe in goign with your instincts. But when I was at home I felt closer to the land what with all the digging and chickens and all and felt a bit heathenish, can you be a heathen in a city? It means 'heath dweller'.


Thanks all,


Whitey

'deep'? what does that mean?

stormy goes off to ponder deepness while she contemplates the reason for the universe....

and falls in a hole

I actually grew up in a village in the south of England. Now if you want a place that spiritually dead, try that...

Lol crow, u must be a born city-dweller then!

There is one thing I like about it all - the buskers. The manchester buskers are ace, apart from the guy who plays the bagpipes: he's crap! I like dreifting from street to street on my way home from work and hearing different music from every one. That's a positive thing! yay

Whitemare - I had the same thing when I moved to Newcastle. Newcastle isn't anywhere near as city-like as Manchester but it's still a leap from Chorley where you can see the moors from the town centre and be there in about half an hour and where you also have quite a large wood in the town centre. I didn't like it at first, I hated all the concrete, all the people, the fact that if you wanted to get to moorland you had to drive for an hour and the fact that everything was so big. The energies of the place were just quiet compared to what I was used to and different. In the end I got used to it even though I did have to 'dig' a bit further.I even came to like it. I don't think I'm making sense here....going now.

Btw, you could try meeting up with local Pagans, I think there are a few moots in Manc land - pop in to New Aeon Books on Oldham street. They'll tell you when they are (they have moots, talks and are really friendly). Does your uni have a Pagansoc? While they are nightmarish, you can still find some decent people. As previously suggested by Cos, go journeying or even just cast a circle so that you can 'reconnect'

:-) Oh yes, the buskers. They were great. Do they still have the Hoochie Coochie Man, that guitarist in sunglasses who sits under a huge umbrella on Market Street outside the Arndale?

The big issue sellers used to do my head in, especially that woman outside HMV at Piccadilly. I wouldnt care but she'd just pester you and go 'look man...I'm trying to make a living here and you're just...you're just showing me all this...you know....'

She didn't seem to understand the words

'P*** off love!'

Then there's that one that hangs outside Oxford Road MacSh*ts that when you go to buy a copy, he will say 'can I keep this copy and just take the money?' and then when you say no will try and block you from getting into MacSh*ts.

I have nothing against Big Issue sellers, I just like to know that when I buy a Big Issue, they use the money to help themselves and not buy drugs or in the case of the alcoholic - cider. Some of those guys have fresh tattoos done - sleaves at that and they cost quite a bit. Then again, I'm just jealous that I can't afford to get a sleave done ( then again - I need a design first )

The buskers are cool though and yeah the bagpipe man is crap.

Totally agree with you about the tattoos, Elswyth. Loads of the Big Issue Sellers in Manchester seemed to have expensive piercings as well.

Here in Cardiff there's a Big issue seller who stands outside my local Tesco smoking and listening to his personal Cd player. *I* don't have a personal CD player.

Anyway, since I'm in danger of sounding like Ann Widdecombe I shall stop now and let the thread get back onto its original topic.

Yes, the hoochie coochie man is still here, although recently he has gotten a lot of competition from a blind guy with a dog who gets that spot really early in the morning!!! There is definate rivalry.

The big issue sellers are awful, well, most of them. There's one guy outside debenhams who is just horrible to me! and every weekend i *have* to walk past him to get to work! I don't understand how he thinks abuse is going to get me to part with my money! My problem is that I cant afford ot buy an issue off every seller i see, so how do i pick one to buy from? What makes one more needy than the other? I only get an issue therefore when I geuinely wnat to read something in it. Today there was an article on johnny vegas so i bought one off another guy I walk past regularly because he is really friendly even though I've refused him so many times!

Feeling better through talking already, thanks guys!!!

Hi Whitey!

Dryad

poor you whitey .... i can't imagine living in a city and not being able to ramble in the woods whenever i felt like it. 'tis not good for us country folk
i'm sure you'll get used to it though .... eventually that is.

Just a quickie, but if you ever find yourself feeling divorced from the countryside by being in a city, have a close look at the pavements - tree roots will quickly shove aside concrete and break tarmac, and there's no type of masonry or city planning that can stop them. Gypsophilia and daisies will grow on any tiny patch of grass, moss, ivy and virginia creeper will quickly colonise any wall going... Even if you can't see it, you're never more than a few inches from the earth and from nature. Its still there even if its buried, and its still alive underneath the paving slabs and the streets. You might have to look that bit harder to see it, or concentrate that bit more carefully to feel it, but it is there.

There is grass here, and trees, but even they seem fake and captive? I guess they cant be though, I'm just being silly. How do you capture a tree? All it is is that someone put them there, rather than them growing naturally. That happened on my allotment too...i did it!!!!!

Hi Dryad!!! Good to see everyone again...

You seem to be beating yourself up about this a bit, Whitey - I can understand you wanting to connect with the earth a bit more than you are doing, and the suggestions above make a lot of sense. As for not thinking about "anything deep" for a while, if you've started a uni course, hon, you won't have much space in your head for thinking about anything but that for a while, while you get in to the swing of it, so try to be a bit gentler on yourself...........you'll be fine.

I've grown up in a city, but fortunately one with plenty of parks, a beach and lots of places to go to escape the concrete. I used to feel that it was impossible to connect with the gods while surrounded by concrete, but I'm getting over that now.

One of the main things that helped me in getting over the issues with concrete was a book called 'City Magick'. The guy who wrote it is called Chris Penzack, or something like that, and it's a really interesting read. He suggests loads of exercises to do in the city you live in to get to know the place and discover the energies within it. I'm gonna do a review of it to go up here as soon as I get a chance.

Hi whitey

I was brought up by the sea and in my childhood worshipped the sea. When i was 18 i started moving around and ended up in Cardiff. Cardiffs not a huge city but it has a magick of its own. Heres a thought a city rests upon the land and is not seperate from it. Your gods/goddess' don't see it as having a wall around it so they can't enter, its just a 'concrete forest'.

A city has a group of spirits and gods/goddess' which gain praise from people who live there. try meditations and trances to try and contact them. Look at the clubs in your area, the clubbers are worshipping the god or goddess of music and partying, with the DJ as one of his/her priests. or the demon of trafficjams and roadrage.

when you feel like you need a break get on a train or bus and go rambling. its only a couple of quid.

NC

"Im a rambler, I'm a rambler, from Manchester way,
I get all my pleasures the wild moorland way.
I may be a wage slave on Monday,
But I am a free man on Sunday"

Alas, it sounds as though you're a wage slave on weekends, WtheN, but I second the suggestion about journeying in your mind.

Even in a city, nature will flourish in the most unexpected places, wether we like it or not.

To quote a song lyric

"I saw some grass growing through the pavement today"

I get what you're saying, I don't live in a city but a town, there are parks and green grass, but I don't feel safe there due to the bad sorts that roam there. I have always lived in a village, first in the country where I could look out of any window and see fields then I moved to a villiage by the sea, I could walk out of my door and straight down a bridel path to sand dunes and then the sea. Although you can connect with nature in a town and city sometimes you are just a country person who will feel something missing. I agree with getting on a train or a bus and going into the country for the day. Good luck with it all and I hope you find your little sanctuary.

It can't be easy, maintaining an attachement to the land in such an artificial environment, but Paganism really isn't that simple or basic. It's not only about what's around us immediately but what's within us and it's interaction with that which surrounds us.

If that which surrounds us seems totally artificial then I guess it could be argued that natures small intrusions into that environment are even more profound.

I don't live in what I would have called "the country" when I was young. I now live on the edge of the suburban sprawl. It's only a ten minute walk to escape from it, but I still don't feel as attached as when I was immediately surrounded by woods and fields.

You should see inside my flat though, sticks and stones, feathers and grasses, all of the bits and bobs of the countryside. Visitors must think that they've walked into a squirells nest. It just gives me access to the textures, sounds and memories of the woods and fields, even when I can't be there immediately.

What isn't there physically is all inside my head.

How truly natural is the UK countryside anyway? Whether we're talking about farmland, woodland or moorland, it's all been artificially managed for a thousand years.

The point for me is to keep that inner connection with the land. Whether it's covered in rape seed or concrete has to become almost irrelevent from an immediate point of vew, otherwise we all would have lost our connection centuries ago.

I grew up in Kent- that's where I got my links to 'things' from- so I don't consider it to be spiritually dead, I feel the South of England as a whole has so much history and everything it makes me buzz! I've met someone people who link with cities in the same way too

I know what you're going through Whitey, it has taken me years to get a connection to where I am now- the 'burbs. Ok, it's Essex-in-London (think Birds of a Feather, then think most of that place is council estates......) and I am lucky enough to have a forest (not that big but hey!) within ten minutes by bus- half an hour on foot if I'm feeling masochistic enough!!

In years of travelling past the forest, wandering in it and through it and round it, it's only within the last year that I hav picked up 'the feel' of the place and can feel the old energies :-) I;ve started to explore the history of it (Ice-Age to Roman at the moment) and really appreciate the area where I live- can't stand it though because of the people which is a shame!



Don't beat yourself up too much, it could just be one of those DNoS thingies.....

Hmm yes, I like what Dave said - about nature being even more profound when it pokes through in the artificial places...

This isn't exactly a dark night of the soul, I dont have a problem with my paganism or anything, I'm just uncomfortable being away from the things i find necessary for my 'worship' - for want of a beter word! And I'm whinging about it a bit. It's been good for me though, it's made me appreciate 'home' and the countryside even more, and has helped me decide to move back there as quick as possible!!! My only problem is, I have to stay at uni for the next two and a half years...not too long really, but it feels it at the moment... I just want my chickens!

I yearn for the moorlands of yorkshire again. I moved to Scotland for 6 months when I first met my husband, then we moved to Surrey and now live in Maidstone, and I suppose its more location, because I'm actually veryclose to the countryside, but oh, how I hate it here.

I'm in the middle of splitting from my husband and we are selling the house, for a wee while I'll be staying with Queenie. She and my other friends in this neck of the "woods" would like me to stay down here, and I think its sensible for now there's enough big changes coming without moving somewhere I no longer have family or friends. But, I am drawn to yorkshire, more as each year passes. Altough of course, moving back wouldn't mean to the moorlands, I'd have to move to a city or town.

I get what you mean tho, I find cities very hard, there just seems so much negativity, everyone is so busy and intent on getting places and just don't seem to notice their environment or the people around them. I think I've never being more alone than when living in a city or town.

Are there any conservation projects about locally? It's not the same as being on your own communing with nature, but it can be the next best thing. At lot of projects will pick people up and drive them to the back of beyond in exchange for a few hours back breaking labour.

I'm lucky, although I live in London, I can see Epping forest from my window, well OK a bit of the forest. But when I walk past my garden I can see the daf bulbs coming up the new shoots on the rose bushes coming out. But I find myself checking the trees out when I'm passing them. So what I'm trying to say is that if you look you will find evidence. And yeah the big issue guy in my area has got better things than me, but hey good luck to the guy, he's a nice bloke and does'nt harrass people.


Ed

Yep, in fact wheatherwitch have actually talked about the spiritual difference between living in the country and the city. I lived in tower block on the 19th floor at the time, but I had a view over the city and down towards the river Tay.
Wheatherwitch also reminded me that flowers will grow through concrete, a good way to illustrate that just because nature isn't seen doesn't mean it isn't there.
City paganism is easier, once you relise that the city itself seems to be alive! Look at it as an entity and you will find that nature is everywhere and can take some suprising forms!
I hope this advice helps a little.

When in the city, in the tarmac and concrete, and bricks and glass remember that even the most blatantly man made objects were originally made by Nature.....Man just....jiggled em about a bit........hold admiration for the many beautiful things made by man.....after all we'd admire a birds nest or a beaver dam or a rabbit warren and Man too was made by Nature so why not admire our own structures?

I was in leicester a few months ago and I decided to have a wander down some back streets in a more dilapidated area, full of broken down factories and stuff.

Actually it was a very memorable experience. It was a gorgeous day with clear blue skies, few people were around so you could hear all the blackbirds, sparrows, rooks, crows and pigeons calling from above. I noticed all the nests built among the buildings.......The birds didn't see it as some ugly abomination. They saw it as quite useful actually!.....So I thought "Why should I see it as ugly then if they don't?"
I walked on through the shadows and came accross a little yard area bloked off by an iron, spiked gate. It was a tiny area, and the sun spilt down the walls. The windows were broken and the door was boarded up and the bricks were crumbling and stained with industrial filth. But there was ivy crawling over the walls and grass/dandelions/dock and thistles growing free and long out of every crack in the concrete.
And I thought to myself "This is a beautiful as anywhere I've been in the countryside" and it made me realise, that despite all mans intervention and despite all our urban sprawl....if we were wiped out tomorrow, Nature would return in no time and in a matter of a very few years our cities would become fantastic additions to Natures range of habitats.

I even saw a Peregrine Falcon hunting Feral Pigeons.

Whoo! I love the city from a spiritual perspective. It's just heaving with energy - the collective energy of all the people there, all the things that are happening there. You could maybe try to connect with the actual energy of the city, which is a very different energy to the country. I see it as quite androgenous and impersonal, which I love because it's so full of potential. With such a blank slate, you can make just about anything from it.

Having said that, it doesn't translate very well to a traditional pagan perspective, because of it's nature, but if you remember that the city isn't outwith nature, you can maybe reconcile your practice with your location, somewhat.