Pagan quarter
A couple of my Pagan friends have apartments in the same building in the Lake district of Oakland. Now I hear tell a third Pagan family is moving into yet another apartment in the same building. And, a few blocks away is another house run by a Pagan family, and it looks like another couple of Pagan friends are moving in there too.
It's well known that the East Bay (aka Beast Bay) is full o' Pagans. Like any large coastal metropolitan area, I would assume. But I've never heard of Pagans having ethnic neighborhoods the way that, say, Fremont has Little Kabul, or San Francisco has Chinatown and Japantown. I suppose these things get started somehow. How did the Castro become the Castro? Did it start with a couple of houses full of queers, having enough fun that more likeminded people decided it would be good to live nearby? Or the Haight; it must have started with a few hippies and just kept going until it hit critical mass.
So what if this trend keeps up and the Lake district fills up with Pagans? Imagine: in 30 years it's "Oakland's famous Pagan quarter". Occult shops and goth clubs and tarot parlors round every corner. Community witch gardens full of nightshade and mugwort and rue. Houses with pentacles or knots or Sephiroth painted on the doors or on flags hanging from the eaves. Pagan temples cropping up where other neighborhoods have churches.
It's a flight of fancy, I know. But can't you just see it starting?
It's well known that the East Bay (aka Beast Bay) is full o' Pagans. Like any large coastal metropolitan area, I would assume. But I've never heard of Pagans having ethnic neighborhoods the way that, say, Fremont has Little Kabul, or San Francisco has Chinatown and Japantown. I suppose these things get started somehow. How did the Castro become the Castro? Did it start with a couple of houses full of queers, having enough fun that more likeminded people decided it would be good to live nearby? Or the Haight; it must have started with a few hippies and just kept going until it hit critical mass.
So what if this trend keeps up and the Lake district fills up with Pagans? Imagine: in 30 years it's "Oakland's famous Pagan quarter". Occult shops and goth clubs and tarot parlors round every corner. Community witch gardens full of nightshade and mugwort and rue. Houses with pentacles or knots or Sephiroth painted on the doors or on flags hanging from the eaves. Pagan temples cropping up where other neighborhoods have churches.
It's a flight of fancy, I know. But can't you just see it starting?