New Beginnings

Tis’ the season for new beginnings and fresh starts.  Imbolc is one of my favorite holidays, and in my group we make candles and discuss plans and hopes for the new year.  Here in Florida, we are spared the bitter cold of winter that grips most of the Northern Hemisphere at this time.  However, the heaviness of the dark time of the year is still present, and the months leading up to Imbolc are an opportune time to unwind from the adventures of the previous year.  I find this a fruitful exercise, as a means to sort through the lessons we have gathered, and to plot a course through the following months.

In the spirit of looking forward, I would like to introduce myself, as I realize my previous post was a bit light on who I am and why I am here.  I am the author of The Priestess and the Pen, which can be found at my personal blog, http://www.sonjasadovsky.com/.  I lead a Wiccan group located in Florida, and am a 3* priestess in the Alexandrian tradition.  I have traveled throughout the United States and Europe, and have met some wonderful people and witches throughout my journeys.  I have a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing, and a Master’s in Religious Studies. Jason Mankey happened to like my book, and asked me to start writing for Patheos a couple months back, so I decided to give it a shot.

I have decided to take a new direction with this blog series, and hope to use this space to play with some ideas and different formats than I have used in the past.  I am approaching this space as kind of a thought experiment, in which to unpack some concepts that we enjoy debating within my personal circle.  The content is a bit darker than what I typically toss into public view, but I feel that this could be a good time and place to share these things with others.  The tagline that I think of when I envision Messages from Pluto is something like “Chaotic postcards from the edge of the universe.”  Not exactly sure where we will end up with it, but I know it will be fun getting there.  Weird yes, and possibly hilarious.

Even though I have had a personal blog for some time, I still feel green to this process.  Some of my posts have no pictures, some of them are too long.  I hope this exercise will strengthen my skills as a blogger, but truthfully, my greater desire is to create conversation and encourage others to write and participate in the dialogue of Western Esotericism.  In the language of religious studies, this label includes many currents such as Paganism, Occultism, and other spiritual offshoots of more dominant religions.  I hope that by by adding my voice to this forum, others will be encouraged to examine and explore the multitude of concepts throughout the history of ideas.  By sharing experience and trading stories, we are writing the future by co-creating the present.

With that thought in mind, I do need to mention that the following content of future blog posts will include some controversial topics and explicit dialogue.  This is in part due to the fact that some painful experience will be explored for whatever useful content that can be shared.  Those who are interested in authentic conversation are welcome to comment or reach out, but appeals to modify the content will not be considered.  Part of the point of this experiment is to see how psychic lead can be rendered into something pure, something golden.

In the spirit of Imbolc, may these words become sparks, to be a light against the dark.  So mote it be!