The Importance of Being Thrifty

Coming from humble beginnings, I always thought that finding things to use in personal practice wherever you could was the most important. No deity would ever care if it wasn’t from the top online pagan retailer. You can find the most amazing things in regular stores if you think creatively, and are open to interpretation.

Even now, although I work at a fantastic pagan shop that enables my book addiction, I sometimes crave something used. Something with a history. I am a notorious bargain shopper – I hate paying full price for anything in a department store. I do most of my shopping at small antiques stores and a large used store chain called Value Village. I always check the housewares and the knick knacks to see if anything of interest pops up.

Here are a few of the more recent items I have picked up:

Aphrodite statue for Andrew – $3.99

Matching set of metal candleholders – $2.99

No idea what it originally was, but it is now an incense/offering bowl – $3.99

Brass Cauldron! – $4.99

For a total cost of $18.95. All this for under $20!

In the past I have found shelves, books, chalices, candle holders, offering bowls, statuary, altar decor…. you just have to be patient and willing to dig.

Plus, with the money I save, I can buy more books and incense and goodies from my store!

The intro post.

I guess it’s time I introduce myself (and I’ll let Andrew introduce himself, in his own words).

I’m Renée. I have lived on the east coast of Canada my entire life. I love it, and I find it hard to think of myself living anywhere else,though I suppose it could be a possibility. I grew up on Prince Edward Island, the smallest of Canada’s provinces.

From a young age, I was fascinated with nature. I grew up in a tiny village where I spent my youngest years playing in the forest, riding dirt bikes recklessly across stony, loamy paths. My house was in the middle of 3 cow fields. When I walked to the general store (we had one of those), it literally was uphill both ways. The grass was my first crash pad, the forest ferns my first ‘pretend’ bed. I liked to play with mud, to get dirty, and to climb trees to watch the cows graze.

Unfortunately, I moved a lot. It grew increasingly hard, especially in my later adolescence, to connect with nature on a deep level. However, at 18, in a crazy happenstance, I found my religious calling.

I grew up Catholic (like fully half of PEI did), but the religion never clicked with me, and I refused to be confirmed. My grandmother, bless her, simply told me I was going to Hell. My mother was non-religious and cared not for my disobedience. I spent a lot of high school deeply agnostic. I had no idea that Wicca, witchcraft, or Paganism existed. The pagans in my school (and, I found out later, there were a few) were very hush hush, it seemed. Really, I wanted to find something that fit me like a handmade sweater, something that made me feel proper and warm. After moving out of my house, I came across a tarot deck in my local comic shop. I purchased it.

I spent a lot of time trying to find books, but almost all books were about this ‘Wicca’ stuff. Finally, a friend passed me a copy of Silver Ravenwolf’s To Ride a Silver Broomstick, because apparently it had a great tarot section. I read the whole book, and, dissatisfied, I craved more. I checked out every book in the PEI Library system. I purchased my first book (a Gerina Dunwich book, I believe) a few months later. I did the whole ‘ouija board’ thing, and worked some spells with a friend and co-worker. Soon, though, I wanted a deeper relationship – the same healthy reverence and fear I had of nature as a child. I ended up in a coven with a few other girls my age. Like many other first groups, it unfortunately fizzled.

In the past 9 years, I have been in many groups. I have read hundreds of books, been to countless rituals, and worked with many people. And I finally feel like I have found my place – something that continuously challenges me, feeds my soul, and leaves me in awe.

My current life? I am working on a year of faith and I blog about it here. I work with two other folks and run the Nova Scotia Pagan Alliance. I work at the Halifax bookshop Little Mysteries. I am a trained photographer, and working on merging it with spirituality.

And I spent every day thanking this world.