Tredara Good News

Spring 2019

Oh my friends, I have a story for you. It’s a good story, because it has a good ending, and being near the end of it makes me Very Happy.

Many of you know that I and my partner have, for many years, been using and developing our patch of land as Pagan sacred space. Starting with an 8-acre lot that Sue has been on since 1975, and expanding in 2013 to include 8 additional acres to our north. Along with a small patch on the other side we now work with 17ish acres. The tale begins following the expansion.

The new acreage was, when we purchased it, a disused satellite growing-field for the nursery-stock, shrubs, etc that is a common local agriculture. On our early inspections it was serene, with shoulder-high grass, overgrown shrubs and a variety of lovely flowering trees. It was a lovely acquisition, but with it we also acquired new neighbors. 

Just north of the northern boundary of this new property a family keeps their several acres of small agriculture, horses, etc. We seem to have frightened them. It was certainly the case that for as long as they had owned the property that patch had been quiet, even deserted… flowers, deer and bunnies, nice place for the dogs to run – I get that. Then comes us. The grass is mowed, the roads regraveled, regular tractor action, and people – our people. (for details on the progress, click the Tredara tab on the blog front-page, and recall that articles are reverse-time-line order)

Having acquired the acres in 2013, we immediately began building a new, larger worship space, and by the following spring we were holding our Stone Creed Grove seasonal rites in it during the summer. That fall we built a new 30 x 50’ pavilion-roof and attached shower-house. With that in place we hosted the ADF Wellspring Gathering at Tredara in May of 2016. This modest, 120-ish-person event had previously been held at the Brushwood folklore center, but this moved it into our full management.

Even prior to that we had our first visit from our local zoning inspector, who mentioned some neighbor concern and wondered just how commercial an operation we were running. He explained that some complaints about our activity (and some presumptuous youtube vid claims by me...) had brought him out, but was satisfied that we were making incidental use of our personal back-yard to host our church events.

The fact is that Tredara is not and has never been a ‘campground’. We do not charge by the night to camp, nor advertise ourselves in that way. We are, and have always been a sacred space for Pagan worship and spiritual practice. From the days in the 80s when our coven met in the woods, through the evolution of our public Druidic work the place is the private project of Lia Fal and I. We build in service to the Gods and the folk, and with honor to the land. While we have been blessed with donations we seldom seek them, and we’re just not in it for the money, as they say. Nevertheless, the place has been a buzz of construction, campers, hippies, pagan drumming and chanting and the installation of idols in the five-ish years we’ve owned it. I can understand a degree of culture-shock for the closest neighbors.

So this past fall the zoning inspector returned to our door, and had a look around. I’ll keep the details simple – our ‘agricultural’ zoning forgives a lot, but we’re not really doing agriculture. The decision was that our uses were ‘permitted’ under ‘conditional uses’ in the local ordinance. That began a process of determining the ‘conditions’ under which we would be permitted to continue.

Of course I was prepared to stand on the first amendment. I was allowing my church to use my farm for services and our annual reunion-campout. However in the USA if anything overrides the bill-of-rights it’s local land-use sovereignty. I hoped to avoid the employment of attorneys in the matter, and in the end I was able to do so. 

I have also had my faith in the culture of my corner of NE Ohio affirmed by the lack of passionate Christian opposition to our efforts. The offended neighbors held back from any religious reference, and we debated noise and imposition. Early on there *were* people at the podium with concerns about “what kind of church” was being permitted, but the members of the Board of Zoning Appels plainly said that such a topic was not at issue in the discussion. At no time past the very first speakers were our ways mocked or belittled – mainly they were accommodated. In the end there was no outcry from either Evangelical or Catholic local churches, may they be blessed by the spirits of America.

The offended neighbors leaned on issues of noise and property-security. It seems they had had a distressing random visit or two, which they wanted to attribute to our guests. We agree that good fences make good neighbors.

My kin, this all-winter process has had my brain just Parked! Our goal here has been to make a sacred space for the sake of our folk, and now we faced an external authority’s mandate on whether we would have to undertake a serious fight to keep our dream alive. Discussion happened only on the record at live meetings, so we were simply suspended for weeks at a time. By the final meeting quite a groove had been worn in my patience.

However the process was, I must judge, fair and right. The bureaucrats were helpful, the board members cooperative and neutral-to-neighborly. They all toured the place for an eyes-on judgement, and listened in fact to our needs and plans. It seems plain that they had never seen anything quite like us, before.

In the end we were granted our conditional use permit as a ‘place of public assembly’! The only bad news is a mandate to install a big, damned-expensive fence along the boundary with the offended neighbors. We’ll do it, fulfill a few other simple requirements, and be free to flow as a working Pagan sacred forest and worship garden here in NE Ohio.

Magic? Well, some… we’re not done with every little thing, but I’ll say that I began asking Certain Others for their aid last fall, and various measures have been taken over the months. I give thanks, of course, to all those who have aided us.

All in all this is the public birth of the Tredara Hearth Farm & Shrine. Now we can actually put up a sign (must do, in fact…) and publicly be what we have been. At this time we’re not soliciting new events, or looking to expand our event program. Rather we’ll focus on our facilities for worship, and making our occasional camping guests even more comfortable. Our sacred work will continue, teaching and incidental ceremony will probably increase, and we can begin really fitting ourselves into this thing we’ve built, and growing into the corners.

Tredara Spring 2018

"The" Tredara

On we go!

Here at our own small Pagan sanctuary and community hall, which we call Tredara after the big triple oak in one corner., we are cranking the place up for spring. It is really only fate that has led that to mean that we must be ready for our local Grove's Bealtaine just at the beginning of May, followed by hosting ADF's Annual Meeting at the Grove's Wellspring Gathering at the end of the month. That means that if it rains in april, we have a bit of catch-up to do.

This year we had a bit of catch-up to do. We are also a couple of key staff people short, due to unavoidable attrition.  Fortunately L. and I are retired, and have some time to do the work. We also have our community of friends and volunteers, who have helped in many ways. We'll be ready, bless it...

So, without a lot of typing while I could be mowing and trimming, I'll give you a little tour of some of the pretty, sacred things, including new Shrines.

We have had several styles of shrine to the Earth Mother over the years. Aiming for a once-and-for-all solution, we commissioned this fine piece from artist Sidney Bolam of Bohemian Hobbit Studios. 

She knew just what we wanted, and produced a lovely image, with the figure on both sides so that it can be seen both from the path, and through the windows of the barn's social room

Down the path and over the little stream one reaches the Lower Crossroad, where we have erected a Herm. A Herm is a traditional crossroad shrine to Hermes, Lord of Roads, and the Hellenes have wanted one for some while. We kept this simple, with a square pillar rising from the start of a cairn. Folks will now bring stones when they come to visit, and the cairn will grow in time. There's something just right to me about having a shrine to Hermes, Lord of Magic, down in dark, moist crossroad next to the running water. Sure we're Druids, but witchy is witchy...

Leaving the Barn, and the warm, Earth-Mother's hearth, and passing the Crossroad with due offering, one makes the way up into the Shrine precinct proper.

The dedication to the Landspirits is standing firm, even as we consider how best to gently garden the space around it.
The Ancestor Mound requires more gardening attention, and it gets a full shave every spring, save for the patches of herbs that are establishing themselves.

We are reaching the completion of the vague plan we began with for buildings, shrines and facilities here. The device is nearly built. Now we must spend some years (if fate blesses us) learning what it can do.

A Shrine for the Landspirits

 At Tredara, our 17-acre stead in NE Ohio, we have been working to build a sacred complex of shrines and worship areas for our polytheist and animist ways. Last year we arranged the construction of a Mound-Shrine for the Ancestors. To balance that we are building/gardening a glade for the many Spirits of the Land. In Our Druidry we use a conventional division of the many spirits into a triad of Gods, Dead and landspirits. BY completing this shrine we will honor the gods at our primary Nemeton fire, and have special places for the other two Kindreds.

The image in storage
over-winter

A photoshop mockup of the basic layout
in last winter's picture.

To create the anchoring monument I sought out a local chainsaw Carver, Bob Anderson of Rock Creek Ohio. My original notion was a green-man tricephalus, but that was vetoed as 'too boring'. We decided on a tricephalus of green man, owl and bear, those being important guardian spirits around here Bob did a fine job on the piece.

A few years ago we were fortunate to be able to enlarge our property, allowing us the space for this build. The fact is that we have since had occasion to kill many plants, disturb habitat and otherwise generate for ourselves a need for frequent special offerings. The glade chosen for the shrine was an abject wreck when we arrived, filled with tires, holes and unmanaged brush. While we have been somewhat severe in our pruning and prepping, I hope that our offering of beautification and the reverence that comes with it will be well received.

I think the best thing is to show you some photos, with captions, of our work over the last couple of weekends. With the coming Beltaine season we will be doing a special rite of consecration for the shrine - I'll try to show you that as well.

...Built a pedestal another 2' or so tall.

I wanted the main monument to be big.
The carving is 6.5', and we ...

Machine assist got the rather large
idol up the hill safe

And discussion ensued about getting it
upon the pedestal

But, up it went, safe and sound.

Cleverly disguising the brick pedestal...

Finished with a ring of brick to prevent mud around the image.

With the monument complete we are working on a small path down to the small, pretty pond. Gardening with local perennial plants will follow. 

We plan a consecration ritual for the Saturday of our Beltaine weekend. Human relations with the non-human world is always full of irony... we hope to get all our pruning and killing done in the glade before the big sacred apology ceremony...

On we go - let us raise up shrines and idols to the Gods and Spirits, that the land may once more be known as their home.

Genuine Starwood!

Starwood 36; 2016

So, not a ‘review’ or even a puff-piece so much as my personal impressions and musings. Moral of the story: come to Starwood.

Bam!
My joke at the end of the event this year was that the five-hour drive from our organizing center to the site requires us to bring the event in what amounts to a pop-up can. We arrive, pull the tab and the event inflates. If only…

This year’s Starwood Festival, the 36th annual, saw a new stage of growth and maturity in the on-site management. Our ‘maturation’ has been anything but a straight-line process, with various side-steps along the way, and presently we’re growing out of our move from a site of twenty years to a new location. That has meant redesigning our program spaces and materials use, usually on an as-arrived, ad-hoc basis. After all nobody pays us to do this stuff. This year we got it right. Our new wave of volunteers has solidified, our understanding of the required logistics is clear… why, it’s almost like we knew what we were doing!

Hot weather punctuated by short but exciting thunderstorms kept the clothing to a minimum, with clothing-optional temperatures from dawn ‘til dawn. Wisteria has made a major improvement in roads and paths, and the rain produced far less slippery mud than previously; kudos to the camp for ongoing improvements – better showers, improving electrical, etc. I believe this was Wisteria’s 20th anniversary as a self-invented intentional community and business, and that feat alone is worthy of applause.

Kids and grownups together
at Creation Station.

But enough in-house musing – it was a great Starwood! Efforts at budgetary control meant that we spent a bit less on our main stage, but there was no shortage of music, both there and at two smaller stages. Most days say lunch and dinner concerts at the kitchen and tavern venues, and a main concert in the evening along with scheduled side-jams. Yes that’s right – the Green Man Tavern is restored to us, this year with a selection of craft-brews from Athens’ brewers. Happy hour was consistently happy.

Overnight temps in the high 60s meant all-night clothing-optional living, and the Drum-Fire in Wisteria’s Paw-Paw patch rocked all night, every night. Located down in the dell the drums aren’t deafening for most camps, but it’s so nice to sleep to the rocking roll of the rhythm… ah yes… This year saw the return of some classic drum-fire personal, making it a particularly good year for that end of the festival.

Our workshop list continues to offer everything from sorcery to sustainability, to art & music, from this year’s progressivism to high-concept speculation on the future. I was very pleased to be included on a panel with David J Brown, Oberon Zell, Phil Farber and Harvey Wasserman discussing the future of consciousness-arts following the legalization of cannabis. One of my goals for the next years is to bring equally high-level occult and Pagan programming back to full-measure. At our thirty-sixth year we have suffered some attrition, with kinsfolk like Isaac Bonewits and Margot Adler traveling on. We have spaces to fill, and a platform to offer to new voices.

The ritual menu was also reasonably full, though the Druid sacrifice was rained out (yeah, well…)

One of the ritual sites

and we couldn’t wangle a Gnostic Mass (OTOites, we wanna help). The Alchemical Fire, as designed by Magnus McBride, is becoming a fixture of the event, and the Labyrinth provides an unstructured yet powerful contemplative opportunity. Workshop-based meditations, healings, gongings and other para-spiritual activities rounded out the offerings.

I was pleased with my own activity this year. Having extricated myself from much of the physical labor I was able to concentrate on my program elements, and things went well. I did my two-parts on Pagan spirit-arte which were somewhat more raggedy in the woods, without visual support, and in 75-minute slots, but seemed well-received. L. and I performed twice, once in the café and once in the tavern. I was able to take some control of my schedule this year; I appreciate when the team views me as top-o-the-bill and puts me all on Saturday, but these days I get rather worn by the end of my 9-day woods fun.

 

The Pawpaw Patch
drum-circle, morning...

The Starwood Bonfire has been the trademark of the event since year one. It is simply true, if immodest, to say that Starwood helped to invent and develop fire-and-drum-circle culture, inspired heavily by that first big fire on Saturday night. Over the years, as Starwood has grown and receded with economic tides, what began as a hot fire-party for 200 turned into a wild carnival for 1,000, with a stack of wood as big as a house. As we have settled in at Wisteria we have been looking for the right combination of size and activity to hold on to that wild spirit as the years pass along.

This year we did pretty well. The fire was scaled back in diameter, but I noted that the central stack of the three-tiered fire was quite tall. The fire-tribe has worked for years to develop fire-models that fall safely inward and downward, and that makes a 25’ center-stack possible even in a smaller fire. This year’s fire blew up real good, as usual, and then produced a footprint that allowed the crowd to approach and dance without being roasted. We’re still developing an entertainment model that allows some ‘performances’ that don’t interfere with the general dance, but we had a good night, ending with the miraculous pancakes of dawn.

And under a Full Moon, too...

Starwood is more than just an event created by a committee, it is, or contains, a culture that has grown by its own life inside the event. Fire-tribe, Palace, Druids, people bring their own seeds and grow them in our soil by the light of our fire. One of the most central of these magics is the work of making the Torches that are used to light the Fire. This set of customs, and the crew that support it, grew from the attempts of early years to craft effective and safe carry-able torches. Many experiments were made, and many a torch-head dripped flaming oil, or went out in 7 minutes, or burned through and fell off like a match-head. Finally the current formula of paraffin-soaked terry-wraps was devised, and it produces some of the steadiest and most reliable torches I have seen outside of the movies. The custom has become to name each of the eight-plus-one torches by a certain virtue or power of desirable thing, and this provides a unique flavor to each year’s enchantment. This year’s torches were named Healing, Integration, Love, Perseverance, Flow, Transcendence, Wisdom/"Adulting", Slack and the Master Torch, from which the others were lit, was Grace. By that spell we bless these good things into us all.

 

Grace is a funny word, one with accumulated layers of meaning in our English tongue. In Christian theology it is used to describe ‘unmerited favor’, such as the gift of salvation, given whether we ‘deserve’ it or not. I prefer an older meaning. Grace refers to the natural and undeniable presence of beauty, true form, and balance, and to our experience of those things. The two definitions are not unrelated. We do not need to ‘deserve’ the beauty of a sunset or our delight in it – they are given to us freely, regardless of our ‘moral’ condition. The Three Graces of Hellenic Paganism were named Aglaea ("Splendor"), Euphrosyne ("Mirth"), and Thalia ("Good Cheer"). Splendor, Mirth and Delight – what three things can better describe the lighting of the Starwood Bonfire, and the all-night revel that it illumines?

So we emerge from this year well-recharged and energized for coming organizing. On we go, my kin! Thanks to all, and remember: We All Do It Together.

Druidry, Paganism and Pagan Magic resources from Ian Corrigan - Summer 2016

Multiple streams of income… that’s what all the smart slackers say about developing a cash-flow. Look, I create these products, out of my inspiration and skill, to help my readers/purchasers develop in the Arte – to worship the gods, speak with the spirits, grow in wisdom and skill. Along the way, I like to make a little money. Fortunately, the internet makes self-publication and complete creative control not only possible but profitable, at least for my skill-set, and so I have a few outlets for my writing and art to tell you about. I promise to return to substantive topics directly, here on the blog.

Books

I have two primary outlets for my books on Celtic Paganism and Pagan occultism. The core thing is published by ADF Publishing, and is available on Amazon. My other titles are available at my Lulu.com store, though some are also on Amazon. If you’re asking, I do better when you buy things from my Lulu shop.

First, if you are unfamiliar with my work, I would strongly suggest this article as a guide. I have had a tendency to recycle my own work, and the article will make that all clear, helping you to avoid redundant purchases.

“Sacred Fire, Holy Well” is my summary introduction to my understanding of Celtic Paganism and sorcery. You can find it here.

My Lulu shop is here. I advise you to watch their front page for sales from 10% to as much as 30% off. The marvelous thing is that such sales do not affect the author’s portion of the sale, so keep your eyes peeled.

 I have promised a new book, and a new book is coming. I’ll provide some proof-of-life here, soon.

Decks and Kits

A couple of years ago I discovered Gamecrafter.com, an on-demand printing service for games, decks and components. There are various suppliers for decks, but no others I’ve found for tiles, boards, small tokens etc. Being a board-game geek myself, I took to the opportunity. The ability to order these items on a print-on-demand basis is unbeatable for convenience and creativity, but not what I would call inexpensive. I offer two stand-alone decks:

The Ninefold Druid’s Oracle (sometimes called the 9x9) is a non-Tarot oracle deck that employs

nine key symbols of Our Druidry – Land, Sea, and Sky; Gods, Dead, and Landspirits; Fire, Well, and Tree. Each of these is analyzed into nine symbols, making an 81-symbol deck, well-suited to polytheist and traditional ideas. In order to reduce cost I have eliminated paper booklets (an expensive item) from all of these products in favor of providing detailed downloads.

 

My Tredara Ogham Pack (named for our bit of sacred land) is a simple display of the ogham letters, annotated with the Irish name, the English translation of the names, the associated Tree, a divinatory keyword and a selection from the “phrase Oghams”. It is intended as a learner’s support as well as for direct divination and oracles.

My Gamecrafter store also features portable ritual kits, made of game components, cards, tiles, etc: 

Traveling Magic: A Celtic Temple Kit: In this small bag of wonders you will find a portable temple of Druidry, along with talismans for works of practical magic. While the Temple is arranged especially for Pagan Druidic rites, it can be valuable to anyone interested in magic arts and the Old Ways
• Four Druid Ritual Temple-floor Hallows Tiles
• Thirteen Temple Images cards, Including nine images of the Celtic Gods. • Complete Ogham Oracle Mini-deck (just the coolest, if you like minis…)
• Velour drawstring bag and three card-stands
• Supplemental files Including 27 Book of Shadows pages with invocations of the Celtic Gods, instructions for ritual and spellcasting, and simple ogham divination instructions.

The Planetary MagicTemple Kit: A portable kit for rituals of magic with the seven classical planets, provides a portable temple of traditional western magic, focused on the Seven Planets as they are understood in classical astrology and wizardry. Useful both to ceremonial magicians and to Pagans and Wiccans, drawing on Elemental symbols and on traditional ritual forms common to both. The kit will be be valuable to anyone interested in magic arts and the Old Ways • Five Elemental Temple Ritual Tiles
• Additional Triangle of Manifestation tiles
• Seven Planetary Eidolon cards, depicting the Gods of the Planets with their traditional magical sigils.
• Seven Planetary Talisman cards, useful in evoking powerful planetary spirits.
• Two images of the Cosmic Goddess and God, and a Hermetic Gate image.
• Three properly colored dice for the ancient Oracle of Homer, and for a second more modern dice oracle.
• Three card stands, and a velour pouch that holds all. (No box, just the pouch.)
• Sixteen-page Planetary Magic Grimoire - Supplemental files with full details for use, and The Homeric Oracle. 

The Master Temple Kit: provides all of the content of the two kits, along with nine expansion cards featuring deities of various Pagan pantheons. The Big Box – not cheap, but very complete.

• 24-card Temple Images trumps, including Nine Celtic Gods, as well as general images for the Gods and Spirits, Norse, Hellenic and Neopagan deities.
• 14-Trump Planetary Magic series, appropriate both for Hellenic Pagans and Ceremonial work.
• Six jumbo trumps, with Gate and spellwork.
• Nine Temple-floor Tiles, for both the Four-Quartered Circle and the Druidic Sacred Grove,
• Micro-Ogham divination deck, Hellenic Homeric Dice Oracle, a New Dice Oracle, three card-stands.
• 36 Downloadable grimoire pages with full instructions for ritual and divination using the Temple Kit.

And in the nearly-unclassifiable department, a set of spellwork and spirit-conjuring sigil-tokens:

Celtic ConjuringTokens: for use in Pagan and Druidic conjuring and spellbinding. A pouch of thirty-nine 1.25" tokens printed with sigils proper for Pagan spellcraft, especially in a Celtic or Druidic context
• Twenty-seven conjure-word tokens - Irish Gaelic words referring to magical intentions, rendered into sigils on the mysterious Fionn's Window. Each token presents the sigil on the front, and the Irish word with its English translation on the back.
• Three tokens for the Gods, the Dead and the Sidhe; three tokens for the Land, Sea and Sky at large; three tokens for the Wise, the Warriors and the Landkeepers.
All packaged with a red velour bag.
Together this symbol set can constructs patterns for almost any sort of spell-work, or for the summoning of a variety of spirits. This system has been explained in Ian's several books, and this small kit will be useful for those putting it to use. It is especially useful as an addition to the Celtic Temple kit, but can be used for many kinds of Pagan spellcraft.

• Nine tokens of the Druid's Elements - Stone, Soil & Vegetation; Wind, Sea and Cloud; Sun, Moon & Stars.

Audio Meditation training: The first of these albums, ‘Training the Mind’, is a basic 90-minute workshop in trance and divination, very useful for students or groups beginning their practice. The second of those albums includes selected intermediate trance-workings, and the ritual-support recording gives full trancework guidance for basic Druid ritual.

OK, now we enter the almost-entirely-frivolous…

Pagan T-shirts, Prints, etc: My Teepublic store offers many choices of my art in print-on-demand t-shirts in good quality at mid-level prices, along with various other printed products, including phone cases… Keep an eye out for monthly sales in which all shirts are $14 + shipping.

My Café Press Shop features various gee-gaws and print-on-demand swag that I have adapted as ritual and devotional items - plaques, cups and glasses, trays, etc. Also a stash of Cthulhu Mythos fun…

So, I hope that you might find inspiration, support and fun in these products of my slightly-twisted mind.

AJ Gooch, In Memoriam

This eulogy was written for ADF's magazine, Oak Leaves, following AJ's death at the end of February 2016. It is late to the public, but I want it preserved here on the blog. 

Let us take a moment to write about our good friend… our brother... AJ Gooch.  He passed from life due to a suspected pulmonary embolism following minor surgery on the 28^th of February, 2016, at the age of forty-eight. He is survived by his son and daughter, Madoc and Sydney, and wife Stephanie, and by the work and worth of several organizations and communities of which he was a central part.

We met the Gooches at Stone Creed Grove’s Summer Solstice of 1998. Madoc was in a stroller, and the young family was searching for a spiritual home. The sense of accord was immediate, and the family threw itself into ADF, and into the local Grove.

At that time AJ’s back-injury disability, the result of an auto-accident and subsequent surgeries, was not as severe as it would become. Throughout the years that we knew him AJ fought against ongoing nerve and structural difficulties, which produced chronic back-pain at levels that we guess were well beyond what an uninjured person might suspect. He faced medical predictions of life in a wheel-chair, but he never arrived there; largely, we thought, due to pure cussedness, but also due to the care of his family and ongoing alternative medical attention. AJ seldom allowed his pain to interfere with his mood, and handled the pain that his efforts produced privately; we consider him a fine example of a bad lot well-handled.

AJ and his son Madoc

AJ was, maybe first of all, an organizer. When we met him he was finishing a long term as the Seneschal (administrator) of the local SCA Barony, where his interpersonal and political skills had allowed him to see that group through a difficult change of leadership. He was also the ‘Lord’ of a small but noisy household – a matter of personal loyalty and tribe, more than bureaucracy. His work in the Current Middle Ages had given him broad experience in organizing events large and small, handling an all-volunteer membership work-force, and generally herding cats. From the first he was ready and willing to share those skills with ADF. AJ served nearly ten years as Senior Druid of Stone Creed Grove, helping us grow and solidify our work. He became a partner in the Grove’s effort to develop Tredara as a Pagan resource, and his absence will be deeply felt in those ongoing efforts, as in all.  Our local organizer cadre being fairly incestuous, AJ and Steph also quickly became organizers for the Starwood Festival. While his son was young he took charge of Starwood’s Children’s Program, and now-adult members of that community will remember him as that big, nice guy that helped them have a great, if different, ‘church-camp’ experience.

AJ’s skill with children (some called him the baby-whisperer) was an example of the kind of heart that AJ brought to the world. A big, tough-seeming young man, he possessed a core of empathy and open-heartedness. He was the sort of fellow that spent time on the phone and in person with friends, just getting his broad shoulders wet, helping friends process their bad times and enjoy their good ones. Certainly AJ enjoyed good times, and his ability to bring life to a party had as much to do with his openness and easy respect and affection as his skill as a bartender, grillmaster, and host.

AJ, Liafal & I at the Winterstar Ball 2015

AJ was also a man of art, and arts. A craftsman in metal and wood, he expressed musical talent especially as a drummer and didgeridoo player. He developed his high level of natural talent through casual workshop instruction, but especially by hours of real practice. (I admired him for his success at mastering circular breathing.) AJ will be remembered in Cleveland’s alternative community as the organizer and host of the “Thursday Night Drum Jam”, a venerable meeting that AJ revived and preserved for many years, bringing it out of living-rooms into notable public venues.

All of these things came together in AJ’s personal priesthood. AJ had a desire to serve the gods and spirits, to work magic, and to serve the community spiritually as well as by organizing. His charisma and forthright face made him a fine public ritualist. He was ordained in ADF in 2010 and, while he did not complete the scholastic work of ADF’s training program, served as a priest in fact in Stone Creed and the surrounding Pagan community. He was dedicated to Brigid, both of the Arts and the Hearth, and to Manannan the Wise. He served as a chief, a diviner, and as the occasional voice of inspiration, bringing such things as the Oath-ring custom to SCG’s local religion.

A person can have many sorts of luck. AJ lived with the bad luck of his injury, but he lived, and lived a life he often enjoyed. He was blessed with a family that he loved, and with an extended tribe that he loved as well, in all its motley qualities, and which loved him in turn. His memorial was attended by over three-hundred, all drawn by the departing light of AJ’s life and work. We lit the Fire of his final offering (well, not final…) in the fire-altar that he mortared with his own hands. His life was short, it must be said, but it was not quiet or without reward. The wise also say that luck comes from strength, and it was AJ’s strength - of body, heart and character – that made his life shine brightly, and that will keep his memory equally bright in the hearts of those whose lives he touched.

May he Roam In Pride, wherever his fate takes him.

Changing Tides

The Spring spring was wound down tight by the weight of 30" of February glacier, but it has finally sprung! We've been able to get out into the flooded woodland of Tredara, and get the fun... uh, work... started.

 The gradual thaw has left the place fairly workable, and our rush to put gravel on the roads at the end of last season is paying off. I've got mud on the tractor, and lots more to come

One of the central tasks of developing our new acreage is the building of our outdoor Nemeton worship space. In imitation of the Brushwood Nemeton, which I have helped to design over the years, we have arranged our new space with Eidola of the Earth Mother and the Keeper of the Sacred Center ('Gatekeeper') in places of permanent honor. These two gods are offered to at every rite, asked to uphold the sacred space and guide the work.

The Eastern porch, with Well and Bile (World Tree), and now the shrines of
the Mother of the Land and the Lord of Wisdom

 














We are very pleased and proud to enshrine carvings done exclusively for us by Sidney Bolam of Bohemian Hobbit Studios. She worked from sketches by me, and so it's a bit of my own art mingled with her excellent execution.

Here's the real news. 
This blog is moving to the Patheos platform! I'll admit to being pleased and flattered to be asked (by Jason Mankey) to be part of the Pagan blogging team on what is, I think, the largest religion-topics portal on the web.

I expect the topic list to be mainly unchanged, though I will put some greater effort into producing 'essays' rather than just rambling on about my life and stuff. This is going to mean a period of confusion (for me at least) as the switch is made. I'm not transferring content from here, so the old archive will remain, though I will post the top-twenty posts from here over the first months, along with new material. We're about to hit the traditional working-not-writing part of my year, so having reposts will be helpful.

I hope my readers here will follow me over to this fun shiny new building. I'll be keeping stuff coming. More detail in a week or so...