Updates and Plans for 2018

My December is almost always spent doing my best imitation of one of Santa’s Elves, hiding in a corner churning out presents for friends and family.  Now that I’m almost done with those things (I still have a cloak to finish for my eldest daughter) I’m turning my attention back to production of pagan materials!  I’ve got big plans for the next six months and I want to let you all know what’s coming up!

I’m making jointed paper puppets for all the characters in the Norse story of Idunn and the Golden Apples.  I am working on the layout and character construction right now and should have printable PDFs in the next month or two.  I’m planning on making them black and white with the idea that children (and adults so inclined!) can cut them out easily and color them in, jointing them with brass brads.  My research indicates that mini-brads will work better so for my ten dollar supporters you’ll be getting a fun ready-to-make package in the mail. 🙂

I’m also getting ever closer to starting my small run screen printing production.  I’ve got the supplies, including soy based inks and was able to get a free sink for my basement. Once that’s installed I should be able to actually start production and so I have been steadily working on prepping my artwork to be turned into screens. This is a bit of a project, since it all needs to be black and white at the correct size and then printed onto a transparency for the chemical burning of the screen.  Wish me luck!

After some reflection, I’ve decided to focus on doing paintings of the 13 full moons next.  It seems like a logical next choice and it blends well with the work that I am doing with my local grove.  Here at Cedarsong I asked our grove members what they wanted out of their Clergy and they said they wanted more spiritual leadership and opportunities for their spiritual development. I’ve decided to start hosting monthly Druid moons and have been doing it for a few months now. In order to facilitate both tasks I’m going to be researching ancient IE calendars for month names, particularly looking for lunar calendar names.  So far I’ve looked at Celtic, Norse, and Germanic, and will be spending some time on Baltic and Slavic calendars.  I will probably stay with the northern cultures because the Roman and Greek ecologies are Mediterranean. I’m looking at creating something that reflects more of a Temperate climate. I’m hoping a side effect of this project will be to create some sort of infographic of comparative calendaring, so be on the lookout for that.  If you want access ahead of time, I can give you the google page sharing link.  Right now it’s all in a massive and rather ugly spreadsheet.   This has been a great excuse to study ethno-astronomy and it’s influenced a great deal of my research, including the story I wrote about the sun. I have to admit, I crammed a lot of research bits into that story including the daughters of the sun being planets and the possibility of a reconstructed northern zodiac.

I’ve recently switched from spending my book researching time on researching swan maidens to finishing classes for my Initiates Program. I’ve just submitted General Bardic and have one more class to go, IE language. I will be studying Lithuanian, so you all will get to hear me record liturgical phrases in Lithuanian, you’re so excited, right?!  Once I have the classes done for the Initiates I will go back to our regularly scheduled adventures in feminism, swan maidens, and what the heck were people thinking letting their sacred feather garments sit around on the beach anyway??

I’m continuing to write blog posts as ideas come up. The Sun story came out of an email question from an ADF member and I’ve been asked to write about mourning and grief in non-death experiences so I’m working on that now too.  If you have a particular topic you’d like me to research or talk about let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

I will be continuing my work with the Flame of Hope, and intend to do a reflection post where I ponder what it’s been like to do this for a year. I will say it’s a slog sometimes and i’ve certainly missed a lot of days. It’s the most digital devotional I’ve ever attempted. Nothing like showing your inability to actually do something daily in a super public way.  But I believe it’s a worthwhile project, especially when I am able to respond to difficult topics in the news, attempting to reframe issues as something we can respond to in a positive and useful way.

I’ve also had my workshops accepted at Convocation and will be leading a ritual at Wellspring as well, so stay tuned for more info on both those events. You all will of course be getting class notes, and I’m really super duper hoping I will have recording equipment so I can start recording classes.

If you’re interested in getting access to my work, extra materials and art, please consider supporting me over at Patreon, as I continue to create materials, rituals, and find paths for a more sustainable planet.