Pagan and Witch Community

A pagan community is a group of pagans and witches who gather to celebrate the sabbats, hold full-moon rituals, share meals and knowledge, and stand beside each other through the turning points of a life. Paganism and witchcraft have no central church and no single authority, so each pagan and witch finds their people in their own way.

Families are part of pagan community, too. Pagans and witches bless their babies and raise their children around the seasons and the natural turns of the year. They also celebrate their elders and mourn their dead with their own rites, often in mixed-faith families where not everyone at the table is pagan.

Finding Pagan Community

Pagan Rites of Passage

Pagan Families

Resources and Gifts for Pagans and Witches

A coven is a small group of witches who practice together, meeting for the sabbats and full moons and teaching one another the craft. Many covens are closed, and new members join by initiation once the coven knows them. Covens rarely advertise, so witches usually find one through moots, open circles, and metaphysical shops.

A grove is a group of Druids who meet to celebrate the seasonal festivals and rites of passage. The word is also used to describe the sacred place where Druids gather, often a clearing, a garden, or a stand of trees. Many groves belong to a larger Druid order, like the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids or Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF).

A kindred is a local group of heathens who gather to honor the Norse, Anglo-Saxon, and Germanic gods, like Odin, Thor, and Frigg. A hearth is a smaller group, often a single household. Kindreds hold blóts, which are offerings to the gods at the seasonal festivals, and support one another like a small congregation. The word kindred reflects how much heathenry values kinship.

An open circle is a pagan group that holds its rituals in public and welcomes anyone who comes. Open circles meet in parks, bookshops, and rented halls for the sabbats and full moons, often with a shared meal after. For most newcomers, an open circle is the easiest first step into pagan community.

Some pagans gather at a temple or church, a sacred space built for pagan worship. Circle Sanctuary, founded by Selena Fox in 1974, is a Wiccan church on a 200-acre nature preserve in Wisconsin. Heathens build temples called hofs, taking the name from Old Norse. Pagans have built new temples in countries around the world.

Unitarian Universalism is a religion with no required creed, where people of many beliefs worship together, and it counts earth-centered traditions among its sources. Pagans can belong to a Unitarian Universalist church as full members, and many churches host a chapter of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, known as CUUPS. CUUPS chapters hold open sabbat rituals, classes, and even Pagan Pride Days, often in the church itself, and CUUPS keeps a list of chapter locations.

A moot is a casual meetup where pagans, witches, Druids, and heathens talk over a drink or a meal in a pub, café, or community hall. A moot is social, not ritual, and it's where many pagans first hear about the groups that never advertise. Moot is an Old English word for a meeting.

A metaphysical shop sells ritual tools, crystals, herbs, tarot decks, and books, and for many pagans and witches, it's the first place they find community when they take up the craft or move to a new town. Many metaphysical shops hold classes, readings, and meetups, and the bulletin board by the door may list local moots, circles, and events. The people behind the counter usually know who's meeting where, and getting to know them is one of the surest ways into the local pagan community.

Pagan Pride Day is a yearly public festival held by local Pagan Pride groups in cities around the world, usually in late summer or fall. Each one welcomes families and children with a public ritual, workshops, vendors, and information booths, and many collect food for the local food bank. To find one, search for "Pagan Pride Day near me," or look for it as an event on Facebook.

Pagan festivals are gatherings, sometimes of several days. Many of them are camping festivals, where pagans and witches from different paths come together for rituals, workshops, music, and bonfires. Circle Sanctuary's Pagan Spirit Gathering, held at the summer solstice since 1980, is one of the oldest and largest in the United States, and indoor conferences like Paganicon in Minnesota gather pagans each March. For many pagans, a festival is the one time a year they practice in the open.

Many pagans and witches find each other online first, and for those who live far from any coven or circle, an online community may be the only one they have. Pagan groups on Reddit, Discord, and Facebook share questions, spells, and online rituals, and some exist just to help pagans find a group near home.

A solitary pagan or witch practices alone, and most pagans in the United States practice this way. Solitary pagans and witches learn from books, the internet, and the land, and many mark their path with a self-dedication instead of a coven's initiation. Solitary describes how a person practices, not how visible they are.

A pagan or witch is "in the broom closet" when they keep their practice secret from family, coworkers, or neighbors, whether that's for safety, peace, or privacy. They practice in private, or in public with everyday things that draw no notice, like a wooden spoon in place of a wand and a kitchen knife in place of an athame, the witch's ritual blade. Many keep their book of shadows, a witch's record of spells and rituals, on a phone behind a password or on an altar in a private room. Like coming out of any closet, coming out of the broom closet is each person's own choice.

Pregnancy blessing, a rite that blesses the mother and the child to come and asks the gods, the ancestors, or the land for a safe birth. Some pagans also hold rites to help a couple conceive.

Baby blessing and naming, a rite that welcomes a newborn to the family and the community, introduces the child to the gods, the ancestors, or the forces of nature, and gives the child a name. It's also called a wiccaning or a paganing, and unlike a baptism, it asks nothing of the child in return.

Coming of age, a rite that marks a young person's passage into adulthood and its responsibilities, often around thirteen. For girls, it's sometimes timed to their first moon, meaning their first period, and each family shapes the rite to its own tradition and child.

Dedication, an oath to walk a pagan path, made to yourself, to the path, or to a deity. Solitary pagans and witches often dedicate themselves in a rite of their own, often on a new or full moon.

Initiation, the rite that brings a new member into a coven or tradition after a time of study. Many traditions initiate by degrees, with each degree marking deeper training.

Handfasting, a pagan wedding or vow in which the couple's hands are bound together with a cord or ribbon. Some couples handfast for a year and a day, and others for life.

Handparting, a rite that unties a handfasting when a couple parts, releasing both from their vows. It serves as a pagan form of divorce, marking the end with care instead of bitterness.

Croning and saging, a rite that honors a woman as a crone or a man as a sage as they step into their elder years. Croning marks the third stage of a woman's life, after maiden and mother, and most women wait until they're at least fifty.

Funerals and mourning, sending the dead on with pagan rites, often outdoors in a garden, park, or woods, and keeping them in memory at the ancestor altar. Samhain is the night pagans honor their dead above all.

Many pagan and witch parents raise their children on the Wheel of the Year, the yearly cycle of eight sabbats. Each sabbat is celebrated with crafts, picture books, feasts, and time outdoors. Children learn the plants, animals, and seasons of the land they live on, discover the correspondences of the natural world, and help set the family altar. Rites of passage mark the milestones of a pagan childhood, from a baby's blessing and naming to coming of age.

Much of pagan parenting happens on ordinary days. Families collect stones, leaves, and sticks on walks to make wands and nature crafts, grow herbs on the windowsill so children learn to tend living things, and tell stories of the gods and the seasons at bedtime. Pagan and witch parents often fit their own practice around family life by keeping an altar sturdy enough to survive a curious toddler and taking a few quiet minutes each day for their craft.

Pagan children grow up in the wider pagan community, too. They come along to open circles, Pagan Pride Days, and festivals, some of which offer programs just for kids. Standing in the circle for the rites of passage of the people they love, from a cousin's baby blessing to a grandparent's funeral, they see what it looks like to live as a pagan openly and freely.

Pagan homeschooling often follows the Wheel of the Year, with reading, science, history, and art built around the themes of the sabbats. A Samhain month will bring spiders and their webs, the fae folk, and the harvest, while spring lessons turn to seeds, eggs, and new growth. Learning through nature is something families of every faith can share.

At home, the kitchen, the garden, and the family altar become classrooms, with lessons in herbs, seasonal cooking, and the phases of the moon. Pagan families whose children go to public school share their path at home in the evenings, on weekends, and on the sabbats, using resources like sabbat crafts, picture books, and free pagan worksheets.

School is where many children find their first community, and since both homeschoolers and pagans can find themselves without a solid community, pagan homeschooling families often feel the gap the most. Some fill it by coming together in small co-ops, often quietly, where two or three families meet weekly at a home or a park and take turns teaching what they know best, from herbs and the stories of the gods to math and reading. Others find their people in online groups, like r/RaisingPagans and pagan homeschooling groups on Facebook.

For pagans and witches in interfaith families, most sabbats never compete with the holidays their relatives celebrate. Yule and Ostara always come before Christmas and Easter, and the summer solstice rarely lands on anyone else's holiday, so a pagan can celebrate the sabbat however they like and still gather with family when those holidays come. Samhain often shares a night with Halloween, and the two fit together easily: many families trick-or-treat with the neighbors in the early evening, then light a Samhain fire or set a plate for the ancestors once the house is quiet.

Many pagans and witches in interfaith families live with more than one practice under one roof. With a pagan altar in one room and the sacred things of another faith in the next, children grow up learning both. Some pagans host the whole family at a sabbat feast, where the food, the season, and the ancestors are honored by everyone at the table. Others keep their practice quiet at family gatherings and open everywhere else.

Rites of passage bring interfaith families together. Grandparents of another faith may stand in the circle for a baby's pagan blessing and make their own promises to the child. A pagan couple can hold a handfasting and welcome guests of every faith, explaining each part of the rite as it happens so everyone feels included. When someone dies, a pagan may mourn at another faith's service and again at the ancestor altar. Pagans and witches who want a pagan funeral for themselves can write their wishes down, so their family knows how to honor them.

Pagan grandparents and elders are often the ones who host the sabbats, cast the circle, and teach the lore of each season, since many have kept the Wheel of the Year for decades. When they pass, they're remembered at Samhain, with their photos on the ancestor altar, a space set aside at home to honor the family's dead.

Many pagan grandparents choose their own names instead of Grandma or Grandpa, like the Old Norse amma and afi, the Irish maimeó, or a name drawn from nature or family history. They pass down stories, recipes, and seasonal celebrations, teaching their grandchildren to respect the earth and remember those who came before. Since the pagan revival began in the mid-1900s, many pagan families have grown two and three generations deep, with people who were raised pagan currently raising their own children on the same path.

In the wider community, elder is a title others give, never one a person claims. Elders keep the oral histories and ritual ways of their traditions. Communities honor them by recording their stories, making rituals easy to reach with seating and rides, and buying their books and supporting their workshops. Many women mark their own passage into elderhood with a croning, stepping into the Crone, the third face of the Triple Goddess after the Maiden and the Mother, and many men mark theirs with a saging ceremony.

Explore Witchcraft and Pagan Practices

• Spellwork, casting spells and making charms
• Herbal Witchcraft, the herbs used in witchcraft and what each one is for
• Pagan Divination, tarot, runes, scrying, omens, and other ways of reading
• Energy Work, grounding, centering, shielding, and cleansing
• Spirit Work, working with ancestors, deities, spirits, and familiars
• Animals in Witchcraft, familiars, omens, spirit animals, and animal correspondences
• Kitchen Witchcraft, cooking, cleaning, and keeping a home with intention
• The Four Elements, earth, air, fire, and water in witchcraft and paganism
• Wheel of the Year, the eight sabbats and how to celebrate them
• Symbols in Witchcraft, the circle, the pentagram, runes, sigils, and other signs of meaning and power
• Crystals in Witchcraft, crystal magic, grids, hag stones, and stones and their meanings

Explore Modern Paganism

• What Is Neopaganism, the modern movement, where it came from, and what its branches share
• Paganism in a World of Religions, where paganism stands beside the faiths around it
• Paganism in Our World Today, how pagans live and practice now, at home and in the open
• Modern White Supremacy and Paganism, the misuse of pagan symbols and how practitioners answer it

Kids and Families

Free Pagan Worksheets

Pagan Homeschooling

Best Pagan Books for Kids

Kids Pagan Activity Books

Pagan Kids Holiday Crafts