The Busy Season

Well, we’ve had a cold, wet spring here on the southern shores of Lake Erie, though things are warming up at last. April was mainly a wash – literally - in terms of getting anything done here at the old homestead. For readers who don’t know me as well, my wife and I keep a small stead in what I call the exurbs. People *do* commute an hour so that they can live in the ‘country’ and have a city income, but we’re still rural enough that cries of ‘accept our sacrifices’ and sounds of gunfire (from the target-shooters down the road) are unremarkable.

However, Beltaine hit the old schedule like a train. First, we had a marvelous work-weekend with the help of that wild-ass gang of Lemurians, the Space Rangers. This is a new aggregated neo-tribe that seems to have arisen (or arrived in their ships) at last year’s Starwood, and has already made great strides. It was astounding to have them come out and lay brick, dig holes, clean stuff, and then rock out!

That same weekend was our public Beltaine rite. Yes, it’s the start of the busy season.

That meant we were quite ready for our annual May Party the weekend after Beltaine. The May Party is our oldest event, L. having begun hosting it long before she and I were a couple, for the nascent local Pagan scene in the early 80s. This year we had a memorial for one of my closest friends, who passed in the spring, and that brought a lot of folks. The Space Rangers returned with their lights and sounds, and it was bonfire meets tiny rave, in the woods…

Now I’m prepping for the Wellspring Gathering at the end of the month. Wellspring is Stone Creed Grove’s annual festival, which has hosted the ADF national meeting for many years. It isn’t a giant event, but then we don’t have a giant staff for it either, and we have folks coming from all over, even from Down Under. Lots to do…

Giant event-wise, I’m an organizer for Starwood and that hits 4 weeks after Wellspring. In the meantime we’ll have Summer Solstice here at Tredara.

The upshot is, I’m still gonna try to post!

Writing Projects
Having completed the Book of Summoning (remember, don’t buy this if you’ve already bought the Book of Nine Moons, unless you’re some wacky Corrigan completist ; ) ) I’m poking around at my next writing projects. Here’s the list in my head, roughly by priority:
• The Novel: This will happen, probably this year. Occult adventure/horror with a little Mythos action. What else would you expect…
• Book of Visions: The trance and meditation material from BoNM arranged for more popular appeal. This will probably happen, maybe even for the summer, same caveats as the Book of Summoning.
• Basic Non-Wiccan Paganism book. This is an idea for an heretical-reconstructionist popularization. Take basic Indo-European religion, reduce focus on specific ethnicity and old-world cultural material, and apply the framework and techniques to making alliances and relationship with the spirits in your place, and the gods of your inclination. American tradityional paganism?? Speculative, but in development…

Occult Projects
Having completed a round of the Nine Moons work, L. and I are feeling charged and focused. This summer (in our copious free time…) we mean to deepen and focus our ritual relationship with the specific guardians of the land on which we have lived for so long. From there I expect us to find a number of new directions and options.

I have always been interested in rites of group theurgy. For many years I used more standard Neopagan magical models to write rituals intended to induce psycho-spiritual experiences in festival and ad hoc groups. As I have become more committed to a spirit-model of magic, I’m interested in how to use that model for the same intentions. That amounts to looking for ways to make ‘mystery’ rites, usable in a post-modern context.

Watch This Space.
So I hope this stuff will keep me stocked with material for the blog. Thanks for reading, and, of course, I welcome your comments.

Incidentally, the photos are of Tredara, our little place, our barn and Nemeton.