Paganism–broad-tent Paganism in all its variations–is a materialistic religion. I do not mean this in the sense of superficiality’ I’m not suggesting that Pagans value feeelthy excess. Rather, on the whole, we worship What Is-– the Great Mother (Earth, Gaia, and all her other many-faceted faces), and the Great Father, too–manifesting as Sky Spirit, Greek or Celtic or Germanic gods, the Green Man of the Forest, or the Horned God, who called to me as a child (see photographic evidence, above) in sooty post-War Germany, and who sings to me today in the green mountains of Virginia. Arguably, it’s because we worship what is manifest, what the poet Jane Hirschfield termed “…all this resinous, unretractable earth”, that Place is key to our respective practices. Place has power. Place has its own energy. And Place is sacred: sacred stones, whether constructed, like Stonehenge, or evolved, like the Black Hills. Sacred water, either immense (Michi Gami) or as small as moon water in a copper pail. And trees, of course!–trees with their old spirits, their deep knowledge, their shared voice. Yggdrasill, Bodhi, the sentinel redwoods of the Pacific Northwest. Recent scientific discoveries documenting that trees in undisturbed forests are interconnected by networks of mycorrhiza, that there are miles of fungal filament in each teaspoon of forest soil–the original high-speed cable, guys!–that the pain and joy of trees are shared in a language we only dimly and imperfectly comprehend–none of this is a surprise to earthy pagans.

So, five years ago when I began to weary, well-ahead of my original retirement plans, of the treadmill of public education, with its fifty-hour weeks, incessant rounds of assessment, and the increasingly bizarre political gantlet, my criteria ranged considerably askew of the articles I initially devoured on Realtor.com.

The Criteria I Mention in Mixed Company:

• Budget? Yes, of course, and a monastically severe one. Retiring (semi-retiring) ahead of my seventieth birthday meant I would need to halve my housing costs.
• Location (location, location)? I wanted to stay in Virginia, and that meant I needed to look towards the poorest part of that wealthy state, towards the the SW counties, rich in history, also rich in post-industrial drug crime and trailer parks. So be it.
• Real estate websites also have much to say about “trends”, “noise levels,” “crime,” “size and condition of property,” and nearness to hospitals, shopping and schools. All of these will no doubt come back to bite me when/if I try to resell, or when my famously hardy Viking constitution begins to flag. Until then: blah, blah, blah. Metaphorical water under metaphorical bridge. Onward to my real criteria (and, for some of you, cue laugh track!)

Criteria I Do Not Mention Outside the Inner Circle because I’m Tired of Being Mainstream-splained:

• Acreage: I am a gardener, and a Green Witch–among other things. Growing Stuff is both a mental health practice and a form of worship, and I had ‘way outgrown my Fredericksburg city lot, which I shared with an also-gardening housemate. I had serious, deep fantasies about elbow room. I was thinking five-ish to ten acres.
• Love, and other Complications. I was, during this time, in a relationship with a man who had made noises about moving to the mountains and sharing a life together that I misinterpreted at the time as serious. More about that later…Actually–I was in a limerent state; probably don’t need to say anything further. Anyway: Since I have a difficult time imagining living with another person full-time ever again, this idea meant looking for a property with room to navigate in terms of living arrangements. A huge house? Two houses? Enough room, somehow, to navigate two adults’ needs, habits (good and bad), and trust issues.
• Trees and water: See paragraph one, this post. My only water in Fredericksburg was heavily amended city water. I craved natural water for spiritual as well as health purposes. As for trees–I enjoyed the companionship of five trees on my city lot : an immense tree-form holly and a spindly privet in the front yard, and two maples and a live-oak in the back. (and each one of them represented so much space lost to the vegetable and herb beds). I wanted much, much, more. There is no doubt a word, in some language for “tree-hunger.” What is it?
• Privacy: The incarnate god of the Christians who admonished his followers to love their neighbors as themselves did not live on a 70 x 130 foot city lot. Okay–I really have no idea if he did or he did not. Love aside, I knew my neighbors well. I knew the battling couple to my west whose nocturnal arguments–their bedroom lining up with mine on the property line, his alcoholism lined up with her increasingly expensive pot habit, eventually spilling out into the street and involving the neighbors, détente achieved only when the arrival of police offered a shared enemy. I knew the overweight kenneled pit bull to my east, who barked, and barked, and barked….I knew the bands of young boys on bicycles, shouting and laughing, agile and swift as swallows, whose regular shortcuts across my front lawn meant I would never expand my garden beds in that direction. I knew the hungry, warring-or-pregnant feral cats–fifty-plus of whom I TNR-ed during my near-decade of residence and eight of whom I adopted and eventually took with me when I left (Yes, that’s my photo you see in Webster’s Dictionary beside the entry for “quixotic.”) I yearned for peace. And at the same time, as a child of the suburbs, the silence of the deep country alarmed me. I could hear my own heart beating, and all the voices, invited and otherwise, inside my head.
• Antique Ruins: Since I have a strong preference for old houses, and since my budget was small , I was predictably cruising for a haunted rattle-trap. You know– a Project (see first post). I knew little about home repair, and only a little bit more bout how to educate myself, or how to hire it out. never mind–not my first rattle-trap, and not my first haunting, either.

Here is the deal: if you can’t make smart decisions, I’m a solid fan of making interesting mistakes (and then writing about them). Today, I would make a different list. I would not include a second party in my plans. I would probably gird my loins and dog out my good government job for another year. I would have purchased closer to an urban hub (Financially possible? Possibly a moot point) and I would have purchased a truck sooner ( I spent the first four years of my rural adventure homesteading with a four-door sedan). I would have done some dark, whiskey-fueled brainstorming about What Could Possibly Go Wrong Here?–because much of it did. But that, my friends and fellow-travelers, is a topic for the next post.