The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

Taking this slightly out of order...

I don't know how to meditate, I know I need to learn to ground and center and I've been trying for a long time. It's hard to ask for help but I basically got a gentle slap and the message 'ask for help!' so I've been messaging groups again and still getting nothing. I don't know if they just aren't answering, their emails are long abandoned, some of the sites are down that are linked to etc. So basically here I am.

I've got some general material up on my website (start with the Core Skills section at the top of the page here for that), but the book I'd recommend to start with is Diana Paxson's Trance-Portation.

Silly title, but it's a series of material that she ran through multiple series of students (and then had some of *her* students run the material) so it's been much more thoroughly tested as a method than a lot of stuff in books, and has both some of the best material that deals with people whose primary mode isn't vision (i.e. including tactile, spatial, kinesthetic, audio, and scent cues) and also the best general meditation and trance troubleshooting guide. There are people who bounce off it, or who need a couple of passes to work on it, but even if you use it as a troubleshooting guide with other material, you'll likely find some useful stuff.

For a general magical overview, including energy work, I also really like Brandy Williams' Practical Magic for Beginners

I've never actually used a beginner book but I found a copy of Cunningham's book and was planning to try and go through the whole thing properly.

I actually recommend against starting with Cunningham these days, because while he's written some great stuff, there's a lot of things we've gotten a *lot* better at talking and writing and teaching about since he died, and obviously, his books can't draw on that material. (More about why some of the classic books may not be the best starting point here.)

I think most people are better off starting with a book from within the last 5-10 years that covers topics thoroughly, but can also reference other recent titles, resources, and conversations. (Other titles and why I recommend them over here: you might also find some of those useful - the list is focused on religious witchcraft, but there's a number of general titles that should be useful to you as well.)
 
Back to the earlier bit...

There's no groups around here, I've gone to witchvox and tried to contact people through there and never got a response. I joined ADF for awhile but the one meeting I went to ended up being their last meeting because some drama going on that decided to explode right after in the core group.

That's one of the complications with groups. It's unfortunately way too common for people to not answer email (and honestly, there's some very good reasons for it, as well as some lousy ones.)

Stuff that might help if you haven't already tried it:
- Locate the nearest Pagan Pride event to you that happened this past fall (also any festivals within driving distance) and take a look at their lists of people involved / linked groups / presenters /etc. You may find people from more or less your local area or region. (I'd look at least 2 hours out, even if that involves places you couldn't easily get to.)

Those links indicate those people have been at least somewhat active in the not too distant past, and that they were interested in broader community interaction in some format. Even if they're not from a kind of group that you're interested in specifically, a brief, well-focused (i.e. 2-3 paragraphs at most) email asking if they know of other active groups nearer you or focusing on [whatever] can sometimes get you useful pointers or connections.

- Facebook has significant privacy concerns and my own personal standards are such I can't recommend it, but that is where a lot of Pagan groups have online presences these days.

You might consider whether searching for groups (try state names or regional names or nearest large city names and 'Pagan' or 'Wicca' or 'Druid' or 'Witchcraft' or whatever other terms) is worthwhile for you. If you have privacy concerns, try it from a public library browser without logging into Facebook, and you can at least see what options are.

- Can you locate any stores in your area / region? First, they'll have bulletin boards and other methods of info distribution. Second, they may offer classes or workshops.

Generally, stores that have been around for a bit will have some idea what's going on in the local community (though to find Pagan stuff, you usually need to aim for the more Pagan stores rather than the more New Age or other focus ones for this to be most useful.) Again, looking carefully at their online info can be helpful.

- If you haven't tried Witchvox emails very recently, I'd say give it another try toward the end of January. Sometimes people just are very busy / overwhelmed / etc. and this year's election and aftermath have had a lot of people focusing on other things, on top of the usual holiday slowdown.

Again, write something brief, polite, and easy to answer, with a "I'd appreciate pointers at other resources for finding groups in the area, I've already tried Witchvox and [whatever]."

It's good to remember that groups are often set up for one thing (doing stuff for their own members - their own rituals, etc.) and may not have the capacity to answer emails from random strangers, no matter how well-meaning, about more involved topics like specific techniques. Some groups may only write back next time they have an opening for new potential members or students, or have a new event open to the public.

So if you're writing for general help to people, that might be why you're not getting much in the way of answers. Asking stuff that's about the focus of the group (if they're taking new members / still active, if they are doing public rituals like it says in [source], etc.) tends to have a slightly better response rate, though it may still not be great.

- Several of the Druidic orders offer distance training of various kinds - since you mention you were curious about ADF, that's definitely something you can investigate. I know there's some threads on the forum here comparing different of the options, but perhaps someone may also have more comments in this thread, too.

More ideas here, if it's helpful.

Welcome! What would you like to do now? Or longer term?

Why is grounding and centering a must, what for? Do you seek a more stabilizing regular spiritual/religious practice? Witchcraft practice? Would a community be more for formalizing spiritual identity, or finding a touchpoint/benchmarker of common interest between people (like a Scott Cunningham book study group?), or making new friends with this in common?

 
For the grounding and centering I work in a field where I'm in contact with some very negative people constantly m-f 40hrs a week. I come home feeling icky and gross and I feel it would help me 'bleed it off' if that makes any sense?

I'm definitely looking for a stable practice, not even necessarily finding a group just more people around here I can ask questions to who might be receptive to that in exchange for anything I can do with my skills.

This is really awkward but I'm feeling pretty good about it.

I became Pagan when I was 19 and had a small group on campus I belonged to. It was just a couple of other students and me and occasionally one or maybe two other people. One of them belonged to a group in her home town and would get care packages for holidays from them etc. Naturally it sort of dissolved as people graduated/moved away etc.

Not a bad way to dissolve. My teenage 'coven' exploded dramatically, which sucked at the time and is kind of hilarious in retrospect.

I don't know how to meditate, I know I need to learn to ground and center and I've been trying for a long time. It's hard to ask for help but I basically got a gentle slap and the message 'ask for help!' so I've been messaging groups again and still getting nothing. I don't know if they just aren't answering, their emails are long abandoned, some of the sites are down that are linked to etc. So basically here I am.

I've never actually used a beginner book but I found a copy of Cunningham's book and was planning to try and go through the whole thing properly.

Does anyone have any other resources I can look to for things like meditation/centering/grounding etc?

 
I will first say that, as you saw, Jenett's site is a treasure trove of excellent information. I'm not a beginner, but I still sometimes just poke around the site myself.

Because you mentioned meditation, I thought I would link a few recent threads on the subject: http://ecauldron.com/forum/showthread.php?14003-Difficulty-meditating
http://ecauldron.com/forum/showthread.php?14529-Meditation-Question
http://ecauldron.com/forum/showthread.php?14438-Meditation-makes-no-sense.

There are some fairly common questions and issues in those threads, as well as advice from different people. (I'm one of the "sit still and count breaths" people when it comes to meditation, but as you can see that does not work well for everyone.)

You mentioned you're looking for a stable practice - were you thinking magically, religiously, or both? Also I think if you're working with negative people you may also want to look into shielding as well as grounding and centering. Pretty sure Jenett has a section on that on her core skills page.