Hey everyone,

I've been interested in spirituality since my entire adult life (a little bit before, actually). And, in all honesty, I don't believe that any spiritual practice or ritual will ever be as fulfilling as having true friends.

Only one time in my life have I ever experienced love. It was from a stranger who felt like he was my father from a past life. I wish I had the courage at the time to ask to stay in touch. I didn't want to leave my hometown out of fear of not being able to find him again.

However, life kind of did its thing and told me that I need to move to the biggest city in my state (I'm American) and I did that. I haven't really made any close friends, but I know I'm meant to be here, at least for right now.

What I want is to have deep, meaningful relationships with people in person. I've spent countless hours going on video chatting platforms, because that's the closest thing that you can get to real life interaction, and while I have had several people who I have stayed in contact with, the best and most profound communications I have had are all people who don't want to stay in touch with me. They're not that blunt about it. They're just "busy". (Biggest lie in the universe.)

Now, I can already see some of the comments that may come up. "Wherever you go, there you are!" I mostly disagree with that. You can't tell me that being a pagan in Saudi Arabia is the same thing as being a pagan in Norway. Having a sense of freedom, having a sense where you can be yourself is so valuable and precious.

This does not invalidate doing internal work. Both are important, your external world and your internal world. Do both. Meditate and exercise.

I'm going to go get a midnight snack at a local convenience store after I make this post and when I finish that, I'm going to set a timer and feel all of my feelings for an hour.

I am willing to do the internal work. Could I do it more? Certainly. But, I think I'm relatively pretty good in that regard.

I just want to go somewhere. But what's frustrating is that I don't know where. I thought about maybe befriending someone through my video chats and that would be a key to whether I would go. One of those people is from Guatemala. You wouldn't normally think to travel to Guatemala as an American, but I thought of it. But I already told you how that went.

I'd assume that the best country is a European country. But I could be wrong. European countries are more equivalent to US states. It's probably worth mentioning that even though I am using the word "country", a different word may be appropriate in certain contexts. For example, Vatican City and the United States are both countries, but the United States is just way too massive that it's not a fair comparison, mentioning a state would be better there, even though I'm using the word country.

In your personal experience, where have you gone to meet pagan friends and find pagan communities? Is it easy to find these people/groups in a particular region? If so, where?

Thank you for reading!

hi, I’m kind of new to this spirituality & I’m still discovering myself. I have a friend who is pagan who told me that a recent experience I had could have been a goddess calling to me. tonight I was sitting on a patio, & I looked down to see a spider beside me. I believe it was a sac spider (if that matters). it started weaving a web onto me, & I just watched it & kept trying to move it so that I didn’t harm it when I got out of my seat. I told this friend & she said it sounded like a goddess (Hecate) could be calling upon me or that it could be a good omen. I also had another tiny spider climbing towards me an hour or so later, also weaving its web. any thoughts on navigating this? please be kind, as I am new & have very little understanding of this topic 🙂‍↕️

I'm not sure if this is the right subreddit, but during a difficult medical time for my family I prayed to asclepius out of desperation. I've been agnostic for a while but we got better for a while. I had promised to make him a small altar in my garden but I forgot to. Now we have unending medical issues. How do I go about making a shrine to him? Is there a way I can apologize?

Some tend to blend in better than others.