2021 Calgary Pagan Resource Guide

 

A Guide to Pagan Resources in Calgary

Compiled by Stephen Hergest, revised January, 2021

 

Note: This is periodically updated; if you know of anyone I’ve forgotten, please let me know.  These are provided for informational purposes only, as I haven’t personally vetted more recent entries, and some may be inactive or under lockdown.  Please observe prevailing COVID-19 protocols.

 

Groups:

Druid – Chinook Hills Druidry

Heathen – Calgary Heathens

Pagan –  Calgary Pagan Pride Society

Pagan/Wiccan: Calgary Witches Meetings

Wiccan - Evergreen Tradition (my group)

Wiccan - Stone Circle Teaching Path

Wiccan/Druid/Shamanic – Grove of Mysteries/Spira: ravenofapollo (at) gmail.com

 

E-groups:

Alberta Reclaiming

Alberta Witches Association

Calgary Pagan Network

Cochrane Wiccan Meetup

Calgary's Own Witches Buy and Sell

Calgary's Witches, Wiccans, and Pagans of All Kinds Pub Moot

Celts and Pagans of Medicine Hat

The Cauldron

NeoPaganWorld

Pagan Paths of Mountain View

Pagans of Canada

PaganSpace

Southern Alberta Pagan Association

Witches and Pagans of Alberta

YYC Queer Coven

 

Books and Craft Supplies:

Blessed Circle, 224 – 13 Avenue SW

Calgary Witches Brew : Monthly market at Hillhurst/Sunnyside Community Hall, 1320-5 Ave NW

Coven Collective YYC – Pagan Market

Dana DaPonte – Creative Workbooks

Divine Mine: 222, 11566 – 24 Street SE (Douglas Glen) and 3113, 8650 – 112 Avenue NW (Royal Oak)

Elemental Illusions – Masks and Leatherwork

The Home of Om:  2312 – 4 St SW  

One-Eye Publishing a.k.a. Secret Fire Publishing

Red Moon Curios: Crossroads Market, 1235 – 26 Avenue SE

Rite of Ritual:  211 – 17 Avenue SE

Son of the Pharaoh:  1512 - 17 Avenue SW – more than just Egyptian items!

That WITCH Boy Spells and Sundries

 

Gemstones and Jewellery:

Earth Gems: 201, 1022 – 17 Avenue SW

Emerald Cowboy  

Friends and Gems Inc.:  Crossroads Market, 1235 – 26 Avenue SE

Green's Rock and Lapidary Inc. , #7, 1236 – 38 Avenue NE

Komarevich Originals Ltd., 1510-7 Street SW  

Master Ark's Medieval Jewellery

Mystic Spirit Design

PaganRoots Jewellery and Accessories

Silver Cove:  #101, 7004 Macleod Trail S.

Soul Food Crystals and Books:  #3, 213 - 19 Street NW

 

Herbs, Incense, and Foods:

The Allium - Plant-Based Restaurant Co-op:  211a – 12 Ave SW

The Apothecary In Inglewood, 921 – 9 Avenue SE

Ascention Aromatics: 808 Edmonton Trail NE

Community Natural Foods: 1304 – 10 Avenue SW, 202 – 61 Avenue SW, and 850 Crowfoot Cres. NW

Herbal Healing Inc., Bay G, 2410 – 2 Avenue SE

Kodiak Herbal Métis Health and Culture

The Light Cellar: 6531 Bowness Road NW

Soap & More, 3830 – 7 Street SE

 

Music:

Sora

Spirit Quest

Vanessa Cardui

 

Ritual Blades:

Cutting Edge Cutlery Co., North Hill Centre, 1632-14 Avenue NW

Dark Age Creations, 508 – 42 Avenue SE

 

Weddings/Rites of Passage:

All Seasons Weddings

Enchanted Weddings

Essential Ceremonies

Weddings by Jen

 

Other:

The Art of Tarot, 924 – 17 Avenue SW

Baba's ArT HauS, 4108 – 7 Ave SW

Circles of Rhythm - Weekly Drum Circles,  Inglewood Community Hall, 1740 – 24 Avenue SE

D,I.C.I.B. (Does It Come In Black?) – Custom Clothing

Extinction Rebellion Calgary

Ghost Hunt Alberta 

One World Drum Co., 3415b – 26 Avenue SW 

Panfest Pagan Festival

The Standing Stone – Alternative & Holistic Health Service

Well of Wyrd

 

Out of Town:

Airdrie and Drumheller - The Spirit Within

Bellevue – Blessed Be Healing Arts, 2138 – 213 Street

Black Diamond - Bohemia:  112 Centre Avenue 

Claresholm – Eclectic Soul Gifts and Boutique, 103, 106 - 5 Avenue W

Cochrane – Spirit of Oneness, #1, 80 Railway Street E. 

Hay Lakes – Haven - Nourish Your Spirit

Lethbridge – Seawitchcreations

Lethbridge – The Soul Sanctuary, 1277 - 3 Avenue S. 

Medicine Hat – The Blue Lotus, 519 – 2 Street SE

Medicine Hat – Nirvana 101, Nirvana 101, #101, 616 Kingsway Avenue SE

Okotoks - Tribal Connection Market, 41 McRae Street

Pincher Creek - Dragon Moon Crystals & Gifts

Rocky Mountain House - The Oily Hippy

Rocky Mountain House – Sacred Space - Community Healing, 5016 – 50 Ave

Sundre – The Grounding Stone, 202 – 5 Street SE 

Love vs. Fnord: A Personal Credo

“Blessed be and blessed are

The movers and the shakers

Blessed be and blessed are

The dreamers and the dream.” – Paula Wolowitz

Since it seems to be more relevant in recent years, here’s the “fnord” story.  It comes from Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy, a spoof of conspiracy theories, not to be read by anyone with paranoid tendencies.  The story goes that we were taught as children to experience anxiety anytime we saw the word “fnord”, and we were also taught to forget that we had ever learned this.  The media would therefore insert the word into newspaper and magazine articles (and by extension, subliminally into news broadcasts) to manipulate us emotionally without our knowledge.

Particularly in the last four years, it seems we have been living daily with heightened anxiety levels.  The climate crisis and all it entails, super viruses, provincial and national politics, the depredations of the mad child-king south of our borders.  And immediately after the Inauguration, the Resistance arose and grew louder.  “Fnord” is (metaphorically) incorporated into the software of word processors and social media platforms, so between the news and our reactions to it, the word is shouting at us more and more until it is becoming visible.

As Edmund Burke wrote, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing”.  But... there are various kinds of “something”.

As I began, blessings to the movers and the shakers who keep the Resistance alive.  Yet for this old burned-out hermit in his forgotten tower, “fnords” hurt.  I mute or scroll past articles and posts containing them, as my personal tolerance for "fnords" is so low.  My own resistance to the triumph of evil is to follow the words of Martin Luther King Jr., and to “keep hope alive”.  To see the good in people, wherever possible.  All of us are fucked up.  Life fucks us up.  Some of us fuck each other up.  Some of us manage better than those who lose themselves and let their own personal evil triumph, and become beyond redemption.

The Resistance rises us to anger and action, which is good as far as it goes.  But anger only begets more anger, and leads to the triumph of anger.  I am one with “the dreamers and the dream”; I believe in love.  I know love is ineffectual and naive in a climate of anger.  One of the ostensible reasons the Democrats in the U.S. fail and fail again (unless they’re entirely corrupt, which seems likely), is that they naively try to mollify their opposition, who are indeed totally corrupt.  It’s easier, and perhaps more gratifying, to try to shout louder.  But for some of us, it only brings out the “fnords”, to our detriment.

This is why community is so important, at least to me.  I’ve been, at least marginally, part of various communities most of my life.  When our own families fail due to estrangement, toxic parenting, prejudice, addiction, divorce, or other reasons, communities provide us with family-by-choice.  We still need to strive to be part of the larger society, but at the core, we all need family.  Sure, we are fucked up, but if we’re fucked up together, maybe we can heal each other.

Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world”.  He believed in non-violent resistance, something picked up by the hippies in the Sixties.  As James A. Michener quoted in The Drifters, “When they conk you on the head with their billysticks, zap them right back with superlove.”  For me, that change begins with love; by starting with our own family-by-choice, we can be that change.  There is a place for anger, but I believe in the triumph of love.  Only through love can the “fnords” be revealed, and can we surpass the (imagined) programming of our childhood.