Thursday, July 16, 2020

Divorce, Relocation ... Pandemic!

*tap, tap, tap* Is this thing on?

Seriously, I pretty much abandoned all my blogs when Glaux (Natalie) and I divorced back in 2015, and I feel like I owe my readers an apology. I'm sorry, folks. The road got wonky, and I laid down some of the load for a while. I hope you'll walk along with me as I carry on. 

My husband (Joe -- the other partner in our then-poly triad) and I turned our attentions for a couple of years almost entirely to relocation to another city, grounding ourselves in work and my kids' schooling, and seeing ourselves move from "surviving to thriving." I continued to write -- just not on the blogs (this one and AFW Craft -- which is now an archive, as she and I have gone in slightly different directions with the Tradition and are keeping our work separate). 

What have I been writing? So glad you asked!

Back in 2012, we put out a set of Book of Shadows pages in my Etsy shop that were pulled from writing we had each done for the AFW blog, as well as some staples from grimoire lore.  We led with 100 BoS pages back then -- available in print versions. I've expanded that set to over 630 pages (now available in PDF form) -- all my own writing. I've even gone back and replaced Nat's writing and graphics, which was an agreement we came to after the divorce. Nor am I finished yet! I have a grand total of about 1,100 pages planned. (This was Joe's idea, that Nat initially curated from our combined work, and that I have continued to manifest in BIG ways. I continue to be proud of it -- and grateful for it.)

I also released To Call Ye Forth (Witches' Rune, book 1) since my last post. That was the novel I was working on. It's good (and affordable)! You should totally check it out! 

My grieving process from the divorce has been intense, though, and it has made writing harder than usual for me. Non-fiction has been easier. BoS pages (as well as the Red Thread Academy Foundations course, which I also made available about a year ago) have been easier to complete than baring my soul in fiction.  But really, even writing about the Craft tradition we created together opens wounds and feels intimate and dangerous in a way I have a hard time defining.

Add to these feelings the fact that I have been helping to run a Pagan festival space/community since 2014 (which always presents its own set of intense interpersonal dramas and logistical nightmares), raising teenagers (on graduated 2018, the other is due to graduate 2021), was the president of the PTSA for two years, found my perfect "real-world" career only to have my employer file bankruptcy while I was on vacation in 2018, for which my response was to start my own business doing the same work in 2019 (with stunning success, I might add ... except now there is a pandemic! (And I can't complain too loudly, because my writing and my business  -- and Joe's job -- have given my family a cushion. We're going to be okay, even if my little business doesn't recover from the pandemic.)

But ... it's been a lot. And I let things slip. 

Not my actual practice.

I'm still sorcerous as fuck. I'm still talking and working with Spirits daily. I still move in the Unseen. I just haven't been blogging.

I'm ready, though. I have so much to write, and I'm anxious and angsty about the quality (low/toxic) and quantity (high) of interaction on much of social media. So, I am going to focus my own efforts on creating and sharing. (Not so much THIS from now on. This "let me catch you up" BS. No. I want to share actual substance.)

Hope you're around for the ride, friend. I'm ready to dust this ass off and get back in the saddle. Let's go.