Interview with Griffin Ced of the Green Man Store in North Hollywood
What sets you apart from other witchcraft stores?
When we started with the Green Man we made a decision to focus the aspect of community building. Creating a place where people could gather and share their differences and their diversity and teach and have classes and help people to develop a sense of home, community, connection, and let the front of the store be a place that could pay the bills because when you gather then you shop and the shopping leads to the means in which we keep a roof over our heads. But the real reason for being here was to build community.
When Jill, Carrie, and Joe approached me they wanted to open a little gift shop. But our goal was always to rebuild the community. We never thought it would be as huge as it is.
How did the store start out?
It’s pretty amazing when you think about it. We opened up during a recession with a tiny little craft store and we finished up being the center of a very big community hosting some of the biggest rituals in LA on an annual basis. But we also maintain as a workplace for about twenty people working in and around the store. For a little craft store that ain’t bad doin’.
Do you feel the reason why the store has become so successful is because the goal was community building as opposed to just a retail space?
We are in touch with the larger evolving pagan community, we are practitioners, we are open, we are working with a very living witchcraft stream that seems to be reaching all over the western world and we are tied into that.
How has the Green Man shaped the larger pagan community?
