Done!

After some two years of development and writing, the Book of Nine Moons is complete, at least in a first edition kind of way! I’ve very pleased with how it has come out, and think that it can truly do the job of helping students become competent and empowered Druidic magicians. For those new to el bloggo, I’ve been writing a system that amounts to a nine month long ‘retreat’ in which daily simple work and weekly exercises and ritual intend to empower and illuminate the student. See here for the goals and more…

So, I’ve finished! Eyes crossed and tees dotted. Typeset and ready to offer. Now… how to offer it?

I’m still all confused about how to offer this material. My interim answer is simply to offer it in a lump, as a new book, called the Book of Nine Moons. I should be announcing availability as soon as I work over a proof, probably a couple of weeks. I’m very pleased with how it has come out, and a small group of students is working through the material with good results.

There’s every possibility that I’m going to offer access to mentored work in the system as well. I have supplemental files, notes and support, which I am considering administering through a private e-list. I still see some conflict between offering the book publically and creating a workable product as a ‘course’ that students take over nine months.

The other stumbling block is the focus of the system on the Pagan Druidic ritual system, with its fairly unique triadic symbolism. When one moves a system entirely out of Neoplatonism, Renaissance Hermetics and the four-quartered circle one limits the ability of many Pagans to relate. While I have no aversion to seeing where I can make a couple of bucks on this, I wrote it as a system that I actually use, based in the symbolism I have come to understand over the past twenty years of Druidic work. So as it stands it is built within a pre-hermetic, Indo-European cosmology, with a ritual system that looks more like an eastern fire-sacrifice than like renaissance magic. Probably anyone from a reconstructionist Pagan system could make sense of it, but it could be fairly opaque to newer students who come out of more standard ‘western tradition’ training.

It’s also plainly intermediate work. There’s no extra fifty pages up front to explain the cosmology and core ritual work. In many ways the Nine Moons is a sequel to my book Sacred Fire, Holy Well, where that whole system is explained. Of course the very best preparation for this new system is the ADF Dedicant’s Path (that article is a bit old), where the symbolism and practice is taught in some detail. However I’d sure like to offer this stuff outside the realm of the couple of hundred Dedicant Druids…

Ah well, blog readers and ADF members will get the first chance to buy the version I’ve just finished. Will it take me another year to figure out what else to do with it? No, sez I!