Welcome to Gaia! ::

First lets look at Gaia. If this were a state of the union report for Gaia there'd be concern here. People are leaving Gaia due to the high rate of inflation (driven by the saturation of gaiachash, cash shops are a curse, allot of sites die that way), hoops you have to jump through to use an old account you haven't visited in over two years, and what have you. The point being, site activity is down.

All but the most active forums are at a crawl. The forums were we'd be most likely to find interested persons are especially slow at this point in time. The guilds forum, people mostly expect it to be filled with RP listings.

Guilds are in worse shape. Most guilds I visit are ghost towns, with the last posts being a year or to ago usually. We are acually the most active guild I know except for a Digimon Tamers guild, but that's an RP guild (and the only RP guild I'm on for artwork and discussion - I assume most RP guilds are pretty active).

And here we are, a specialist guild.

So what can we do to increase participation while staying, for he most part, on topic?

You mean like having a main topic for discussion, sticky it and have the second post in the thread link to more specific threads? I do plan to do that with the "core rituals thread". I also figured we'd have to do that eventually so it wouldn't feel crowded in here. I was hoping that a a more intuitive structure would evolve naturally. I've tried to break things down in threads, into sections with the underlined and bolded text so it's not as intimidating and massive a read. However, it's great to get feedback from an outside perspective looking in.

For example, with the ritual of the pent thread (which I intend to explain a bit more but there's things i have to write up in a clearer way [not that that thread is really a priority right now, not unless we actually get some more ceremonialists?]. Now I know there are several rituals in that thread but I did that because you learn them in a certain order- they get more complicated as you go. But if for example we break up that thread into smaller ones and then have a reference thread we can put a "see first" note on the others.

Now the Sabbat thread.. what we have now is a pic of the Wheel of the Year, followed by a poem about it , a brief description and then historical information and relevent mythos about the individual sabbats. Should I make a thread for each Sabbat and link it to the mean thread which basically would just talk about what the Wheel f the Year is? Also, there's Wiccan bits in there even though I've never intended this to be a strictly Wiccan group. That post comes from material wrote as I was asked to give a presentation on Wicca, so it comes from a larger document. I think however, that no one will complain about it. :p

We can then link recipes and such to the individual threads, main threads or both. Or we can put them as a secondary post on the individual threads. I'm thinking those are the two most complicated threads, or at least the two most complicated ones that can be broken down. However is it too much to assume most people interest in the guide would know the basic structure (names of the sabbats and where they are) of the wheel? I figure that thread will be much more familiar?

On that I've got two Beltaine recipes ready to post and I want to write up up others for the other sabbats as the year progresses. So hopefully by this time next year there will be no reason we shouldn't have some kitchen-witchery threads. That's an area I need to personally work on (recipes) because allot of the food I make I don't have measurements and stuff for. I know the roots, flowers, nuts and all that are used but I measure by taste. Allot of it taught Orally.

I'm not all that strict about topic personally. I mean we've been going off on tangents. As long as people going of on tangents don't make it difficult for those wanting to discuss the topic to do so I don't see the issue. I mean if we have people talking about something regularly in the thread and it's hard for them to keep up with the thread because theres a bunch of off topic conversation going on, that's a problem. Its time for a new thread there. That's why there's a just just-silly (joke) forum and an RP forum there. That should give people a place to have general hang-out threads.

I'm not sure it really matters here but when it comes to stand-alone forums (not of Gaia but dedicated webspace ) it keeps people on the site longer and during points of slowdown on the main forrum. So your more likely to get an extra post here and there simply because they are on and are more likely to come across something interesting, or post a thought they have. So the threads that aren't specific to the subject matter of the guild are important, even if they aren't as important as they are to a dedicated forum platform.

A bit of off-topicness also adds a bit of entropy in discussion which occasionally will generate something really creative and interesting to talk about.. it's just a matter of knowing when to prune the leaves a little or put that plant in a new pot.

*nods* yep, if you practice you come back to the topic of praxis. Also if we do add links to more specific threads like you suggest that would make the main threads more likely to promote causal discussion and the secondary threads the more specific points of note.

The check in thread is a great idea.

I'll put a please quote notice on the front page after I finish this post.

I think a spell/working/ritual assistance thread would be very productive and bring the guild together. But your right, for that to work people need to understand that others aren't to be pressured for workings.

Dream interpretation pesky indeed... oh people ask me about dreams.. I always do my best to emphasize that the books on them can help but it's like going back and forth with a couple of paddles and a ping pong ball... We often say "In our tradition we tell you to figure out symbols mean for yourself because, we can give you all kinds of sources and tell you how and why we seem them the way we do in our praxis, but all that is, is a place from which to begin trial and error. Sand and a sifter. Start with a book of dream symbolism and end up psychoanalyzing a person. XP

But yeah we can do that..

I've wanted to make a thread in the supernatural and religion forums. However its my understanding that Gaia really doesn't like guild advertisements outside the guild forum. If we had a thread whereby we were also contributing to forum in question and kept mentioning the guild as an aside that might fly. I don't know how strictly they enforce the rule..

Banners are important. I'm thinking of removing the banner in my sig and put one there for the guild. We just need to get an idea of what we want it to look like. This is the image I use for a banner for the facebook group but it might be a tad intimidating, or maybe not:



On that note though I think if we leaves the words supernatural and paranormal out of the title we'll probably get more serious and respectable discussion about it- or at least make the discussion a bit more tangible and practical. Just saying....

Yeah allot of my friends that were on here have families and careers now. I feel you on that one, actually I don't know that any of them are still on here. So we are the only active members right now. I'm hoping the guild announcement reveals a few people still on here.

I invited a few people who seemed interested but haven't seen them post yet. I've been adding content but have slowed don somewhat because I don't want the place to feel like a bunch of empty threads or rather, a construction team building a village for caspers family.

I keep an eye out for potentially interested members. The first thing I look at is atitude, how they present themselves and how they interact with others on the forums. Its nice if they know a bit about occult subjects but if they are a counter-weight to the productivity and creativity of the group they just aren't right for the group.It's a shame but... so just because one seems ignorant in the posts they make doesn't barr them from being considered if they aren't arrogant, seem to be genuinely interested, open to advice, other perspectives and committed, Not committed necessarily in the committing your life to it kind of commitment, but committed to getting some personal transformation out of it. If I think they'll benefit from the group thats reason enough in my mind, as long as they don't harm the group. That's how I try to balance the groups I've managed.

The tradition I work in, as far as Wicca, is a bit different than others. It's a mixture between nominal traditional Wicca with influences from various family traditions. We do "open Sabbats at times". Now they aren't completely open to the public. We open the opportunity up through a local UU church we all go to. If you go to that church, know us or know one of our friends... that's how you end up networking with us.

Now, people who come, they may not know what it is we are doing in circle. They wont understand allot of the festures, the pentagrams and so forth and that's good, because you don't want them to over think it and if they keep coming back and are committed to being with us as we seek the mysteries they'll pick things up. The point is, while we recognize that not everyone is met to be a witch we cherish the experience of the Sabbat so much that we feel if someone is in the right place (not physical place, though that certainly helps) to recieve it and it helps their path unfold then that's all the reason they need to be there. Of course we do modify things a bit.

But it's still traditional, still very "High Church" or ceremonial and because we limit who we make ourselves known to, we dont suffer from that huge Pagan-festival scenario. What I mean by that is that Pagan-cons are great but you lose allot-of intimacy. That's not a concern for us. We've found out sweet spot. We know it well. It's still a fairly small and intimate group. And those who do accept the invitation seem to be the same people every time so it's not like there isn't a working relationship going on. Though I wont lie, there is a difference when its just us who know step by step whats going on and how to attune to and channel it.

This last time we gathered we had someone there who had children which honestly can be annoying sometimes but we don't lose our focus and we are very accommodating. You have to be committed and want to be there don't get me wrong. But excuses are one thing and life circumstances are another. If transportation or something is currently beyond someone means we do what we can. We also raise people up to take control of the means they have. We also make sure we provide chairs and such in circle for those who can;t stand for a long period of time.

You have to address your needs as well. You don't want to hold anyone back but you don't want leave anyone behind either. And one person who can't stand long, there great with certain types of divination, visualization and so forth and they can tell you about allot about the craft in previous decades. Everyone has something to add to the fire, to the wisdom.

Point is, that's my tradition. that's how how I carry myself as a Witch and I see that to manage this group in any other way would be a disservice and dishonor to that tradition and its elders. Also to my Cherokee ancestors whom have many of the same values. That's how both my grandfathers were as well I learned allot about how to interact with people from them.

So with that, I look forward to meeting her... and oh, forgot to mention that an entities sub-forum sounds good. Also i think I'm going to make a literature sub-forum as i've got poems and parodies I can put in there and we can talk about stuff such as "Bell, Book and Candle"

So Katty has agreed to make her way over here to Gaia!

Katty0 has made an avi please invite her.

invite sent



Well its action at a distance - magic(k). We do it every time we are in circle and wish to affect change somewhere. It's just the increased distance that can be intimidating though it shouldn't matter, provided you can make a sympathetic connection. Letters and such sent through good ol snail mail are very valuable here. The era of video chat also helps,the written word of forums and social sites being very crude. There's not as much fore the subconscious mind to pick up on. Video helps with that but its not like being in the same room either. There's actually a term for presence at a distance in our technological age. It's called telepressence and a friend of mine who works with artificial intelligence, we were talking about how it affects our conscious and subconscious processing. She's great because while being scientifically minded she is Cherokee and can follow and understand esoteric conversation.

Of course, then you have various forms of projecting the astral body, or Ba, remote viewing and Enochian vision magic(k).