I’ve been a bit scarce this month because I’ve been pretty wrapped up in work, job-related writing, and book making. I started drafting a post on my experiences at Many Gods West but haven’t quite finished it. I’ll get to that sooner or later because there are a few things I’d like to share about it.

I also haven’t quite gotten around to talking about some recent shifts that have happened in my own practice. I’m not going to share a lot of details but put simply, I’ve entered a new stage of practice that I’m both excited by and intimidated by. The shift has also not been without its share of sad aspects. My work with Loki’s feminine aspect has sadly come to an end for the time being. Loki’s masculine aspect is also pulling back for the foreseeable future because I need to give some very focused attention to other Powers who I haven’t mentioned on this blog before.

For several months now I’ve been working with the Tetrad++, a group of six (and growing!) Powers that chose PSVL as their first channel into this world. PSVL is not the boss of the Tetrad++ nor any kind of spokesperson; e has had the opportunity to introduce these Powers to us and They’ve done the rest. To say that the Tetrad++ is a group of transgender and gender-variant deities is a rather unfair abbreviation of who They are; each has Their own personality and each highlights different features that we humans might regard as variations in form, sexuality, and gender expression. I’d suggest browsing PSVL’s Tetrad++ tag for some more information on these Powers and Their presence in this world. Merri-Todd’s blog also has a number of lovely prayers dedicated to the individuals within the group.

Two of the Tetrad++, the twins Panpsyche and Panhyle, have been on the outer edges of my spiritual life for nearly a year. They arrived when I did (what I expected to be) a small ritual of ancestor elevation for the gender-variant and transgender dead. Their sudden and very distinct arrival smacked me hard, and They didn’t come alone. I’ve never had a ritual so well attended or so powerfully, tangibly crowded. I was wiped out for a couple days afterward and that kind of fatigue hadn’t been part of my life for a while. They never left, though They pulled back to some degree. I began working on a craft project with Them in mind. I’ll share more about that another time.

Loki informed me on Saturday that He was leaving and so was She. Though He dropped by later that evening with a final instruction, that was all the good-bye I got. This actually isn’t that unusual. Loki just fucks off sometimes and doesn’t come back for a while. It’s sad, but I’ve been too busy to be sad. As Loki walked off into the distance there was a rather stern looking Panhyle waiting for my attention. He’s been a bit of a taskmaster for the past several days. His sister has been spending time seated on my ancestor/beloved dead altar tending to the spirit of a rather traumatized young woman who followed me home on Saturday night. Part of the shift that took place unlocked some interesting new spiritual skills; I believe this spirit is just the first of many.

Panhyle is making sure that I take care of building an altar for Panpsyche and Himself, along with the rest of the Tetrad++ (who I’m less familiar with on a personal level). I’m also changing up my beloved dead altar to make it more accommodating for the spirits of the human dead I’ll be picking up along the way. I’m actually quite excited about building a little house for the spirits, though it’s going to take a lot of time since I get the impression that second hand/repurposed items are going to be the first acquisitions.

Oh, and I’ll also be looking for the most elaborate chalice-like item I can find because I have the great and intimidating pleasure of working with our mother of abominations, Babalon Herself. 😀 And She’s going to bring all Her friends! 😀 😀 I really am thrilled about this. Intimidated – but oh, so excited.

I have a lot more to say about the amazing spiritual process that has run parallel to this book project. I have a lot more to say about Panhyle and Panpsyche and my poor dear spirit guest. I probably have some weepy statements about missing My Lord and His inimitable feminine side. (I miss them both already, so much. Weep, weep.) I have more to say about my endless list of writing projects, all of which are exciting and not getting nearly the attention they deserve because I’m busy trying to keep up with my jobs. I have a few things to say about my travel and presentation plans in the next several months. I also have a very little to say about my health stuff, which has sadly not improved. Nothing is known at this point but I’m following up on my doctor’s instructions to make an appointment with a neurologist, which I’ve finally requested. I’ll schedule one as soon as I’m contacted so perhaps I’ll have some more information soon.

When it became clear that the writing project that would become Worshiping Loki was going to be made available as a handmade book, I rather knew that it would have some pointed spiritual consequences. That’s because books – like many other objects – have the potential to function on spiritual and metaphysical levels. This extra-dimensional functioning is driven in part by the animating spirit of the project itself; the Loki and Odin devotionals have their own energy currents that they are part of, too. The Worshiping Loki project was a little different, though. It was a little more potent, a little more discrete, a little more dangerous.

Books are objects that carry ideas around inside them.

Crafting magical objects of any kind leaves the maker open to all kinds of interesting side effects.

There’s been some deep psychic shifts in my life just as the final .pdf file of the book was going to print. It’s being printed now as I’m feeling out the new spiritual architecture and wondering what all these changes mean.

I have underestimated the transformative power of art. These are changes I didn’t expect.

********

The book had, perhaps not surprisingly, a ten day printing delay when my first option became suddenly unavailable. This required me to seek out another cost-competitive printer and then reformat some of my files to meet their standard. Going with this second option has required a great deal of faith on my part since I won’t be able to oversee any of the actual production. Being forced into a sort of intellectual darkness while this process occurs is perhaps fitting.

Assuming everything goes according to schedule, I’ll pick up the pages from the printer tonight. Folding, punching, and binding the text blocks should be completed by Monday; all the text blocks should be set by Tuesday night. The glue should be done curing by Wednesday and the rite I’ve prepared will be performed at that time. Each copy will be signed and numbered, then packaged and brought to the post office. The final packages should go out on Saturday. Shipping notices will be sent.

All told, the ten day delay is not so very terrible; shipping is scheduled to take place before the last day of the month and circumstances have lined up very neatly to expedite the last stages of this work. I thank everyone for their patience in this work. It’s going to be worth waiting for, I’m quite sure of that.

This weekend has been mostly taken up with book binding. Here’s what I’ve been up to.

The premium red book cloth is cut into strips. I did the math and this stuff works out to about $1 / inch. I work carefully because I can’t afford to waste any.

Here you can see the red book cloth forming the visible spine of the books. The inner portion of the spine is reinforced with some plain weave cloth which is firmly attached to the text block.

This is the decorative paper used to wrap the cover boards. This forms the visible cover of the book; the plain brown boards can’t be seen.

Here’s what the covers look like when the decorative paper is added.

Decorative paper makes a big difference!

Ten cover boards are complete; ten still need decorative paper.

I’m taking a break for a couple hours because I need to do some work in order to meet my deadline in the morning, though I’ll probably get another few cover boards completed before bed. My glue brush is seriously diminished; half the bristles have broken or fallen out. I’ll need to get a new brush or two before I tackle building all these text blocks.

The cover boards have all been cut – that’s forty individual boards – and now they’re getting marked for binding and text block placement. This morning’s book making session ended with cutting the final few pieces of moire-texture book cloth. This is what will cover the spine of the books. It has a lustrous appearance that you can’t really see in the picture.

The rest of the day will be spent gluing book cloth to the cover boards, then covering the cover boards with the decorative black and gold paper. I’m not sure if I’ll finish the stack of 20 today but that’s my goal.

This weekend I’ll also be sitting down with the finalized manuscript copy and making a few minor changes to the format. Once that’s done, the final printing can take place. That probably won’t happen for another four or five days at least, but I’m on top of it.

Once the manuscript is finalized, I’m going to contact the print designer who I’m working with to produce the open edition. I won’t know anything about this until I meet with him, though I’ll keep you updated on what I learn.

Alright, break’s over – back to marking and gluing cover boards. I’ll share some more pictures throughout the weekend as things get a little more interesting. I can’t wait to see the pile of finished covers; they’re gonna look so good. 🙂

Alright – last night’s Loki statue turned out quite nicely and I’m confident enough in it overall to list it for sale. This figure is made from a neutral brown polymer clay with gold clay details. She is just shy of 5 inches tall (about 4 7/8 inches or 12.5 cm).

She’s tipped so She can look up at you. 🙂

This figure can be easily adorned with small crowns, necklaces, or shawls. She’d make an excellent addition to any altar dedicated to Loki or any space you’d like to prepare for Loki’s feminine aspect to settle.

Here’s one of those things I don’t talk much about: I am a psychic contaminant.

This little feature of my make-up isn’t my fault in the sense that I didn’t do anything deliberate to make myself this way. I woke up like this (no, really; I did). Nonetheless, it is an important part of what makes me tick, energetically and spiritually speaking.

Being a psychic contaminant has some particular effects on how I interact with the world, especially in spiritual, magickal, and religious circles. On a purely physical level I simply have to take precautions not to get my blood on things; other fluids are also treated with caution to a varying degree. Hair is less of a problem and so far I haven’t noticed any contamination leaking on to the things I make for other people (so you’re still safe to buy things from me! The books are dangerous in their own right, but that’s just because they’re books. You understand).

Being a psychic contaminant means that I am deliberately careful about situations that have anything to do with energy work, deeper spiritual operations, magickal workings, and so forth. Even worship-oriented rituals can be a problem. With a very few exceptions, the people running the ritual simply can’t give informed consent to the impact that I will potentially have on their work and on the aftermath. The only ethical solution is for me not to participate. This limits things like membership and participation in most magickal and spiritual groups, as well as things like simply showing up and doing ritual and magick with other people.

(That said, I nearly never *wish* to do these things with people unless I happen to know them fairly well and feel comfortable with the way they work. A friend of mine says she’d rather fuck a room full of strangers before doing ritual with them and I can’t say that I feel dissimilarly. Ritual – for worship or magick – is a very intimate, very sacred space for me. My emotions rise up fast and hard and I have experiences in ritual that I simply don’t wish to share with strangers. I desire emotional privacy; I especially desire emotional privacy with my gods are concerned. I feel entitled to this privacy and I believe that others are entitled to it, too. I sometimes get a little upset at myself for *not* participating in more rituals locally or at events – shouldn’t I want to show my affection for the High Ones? Shouldn’t I want to share space with my fellow worshipers and celebrants? Well, yes; these are very special things but I have to remind myself that I would never question someone else’s dedication to the High Ones simply because they didn’t participate in some ritual or other, so why am I holding myself to a different standard? Why am I so willing to grant others the space for emotional privacy when I criticize myself for craving this? I must remind myself to be gentle, very gentle, with this sort of judgment. Moving on.)

I don’t use this contaminating characteristic to bother other people or to disrupt what they’re doing. I could, I suppose, and there might be a time when such a thing would be justified, but I prefer problem solving through empathy, compassion, and forgiveness first. Nonetheless, this isn’t something that I can control – or if I can, I don’t really know how to. Avoidance is my best solution. And no, shielding and wards don’t seem to have any effect on this characteristic, either.

See, I do very occasionally participate in various rituals. I attend a local Gnostic Mass semi-regularly. The Thelemic current is strong enough that it seems to mute my particular brand of contamination. The currents of well-established traditions seem a little more compatible with the level of contamination I bring; plus, in the case of Gnostic Mass, I’m not doing anything except attending as a member of the congregation.

And sometimes – well, sometimes I forget. It happens. It happens and when it does I’m always reminded that contamination is a potentially dangerous characteristic. Sometimes I think that it won’t matter. Sometimes I think, nah – I can’t possibly be that potent.

There’s no way to tell, though; you can only observe the effects and wonder about what precisely brought it all about.

It’s never my fault – not exactly. I do have to remember to be careful. I just don’t know my own strength.

This whole week has been spent trying to catch up with all the sleep I lost at and prior to Many Gods West. I also gave in to the impulse to do a bit of sculpting with clay that I’ve been strenuously holding back for, um, several years. (Don’t ask why; some projects just don’t get to be done right away.) So I’ve been quite deep in little blocks of polymer clay making little figures that I might post about soon.

Instead of any deeply meaningful or nuanced post, I’ll talk a little about some of the projects on my plate.

First, I’ve submitted a proposal to present at PantheaCon 2016. I won’t know until closer to the end of the year if I’m accepted, so here’s hoping. I’m actually thinking of submitting a second proposal – yikes!

I’ve been working on an article for about 5 months that was initially intended as a submission to Witches & Pagans. I didn’t take 5 months to write; it took 3 months to think about and 2 to write. At the end I had a piece that I wasn’t too ashamed of – but it turned out not to be a good fit for the publication. However, thanks to Ms. Niven’s suggestions, the piece might just find a home in another publication. I’m working on a different submission for W&P now and this one is going much faster. You just might see a little article from me in the February edition! (Just to be clear, no submission has been accepted so I’m not making any promises.)

Of the many fruitful and engaging conversations I had at Many Gods West, a few of them provided some ideas for future writing projects. One might at some point appear on polytheist . com, which would be a real treat. Again, I can’t say anything for certain right now but I am working on something that I’m going to toss their way.

The proofread manuscript for Worshiping Loki has been returned to me, so the next step is integrating the necessary changes into the print-ready file. The stack of cover boards is growing! I’ll take some pictures when the light is a little better.

Speaking of cover boards, now that my break is over I’m going to get back to slicing. 🙂

Oh – and check out my friend Jolene’s Patreon page. Jolene writes pagan-inspired fiction that’s just lovely. Setting up a Patreon campaign was a big undertaking for her and I’m so proud that it’s a real thing now. Visit her page and consider checking out her work.

I finally arrived home from Many Gods West last night around 9pm, after once again getting stranded by my city’s non-existent evening bus service. Thankfully a neighbor was able to give me a lift. My cat is, to all appearances, no more excited to have me home than she is every time I come home but she is quite keen on having me close to the bed which she regards as snuggle central.

There are lots of things I could potentially write about the weekend but I’m not quite sure which I want to talk about and how I wish to talk about them. Indeed, any write-up regarding the event and my experiences are likely to occur later this month since it’s going to take a while for the effects to settle in and become obvious. That said, I did have a largely positive experience and the problems were of my own making and/or related to my own subjective experience and not to the nature or organization of the event itself.

Though I don’t personally feel myself to be a creature distinct from a big tent assemblage of pagan identities, it is a refreshing and healing experience to be in a place that prioritizes polytheist belief, practice, and experience. It is a good thing, a very good thing, to feel accepted at face value as a Loki worshiper instead of having to simply leave it out of conversation. (My experience of identifying as a Lokean has been problematic enough in the past that I find it easier to simply not bring it up under most circumstances.)

I treated my attendance much like a business trip, because in many ways it was. This is part of my job as a writer (and part of my job as a spirit worker). I came away with a number of new writing projects as well as a venue for one particular article I started not too long ago. I’ll fill you in on these projects as they move forward.

For the moment my attention is focused on catching up on the several hours I missed from my day job as well as the several days I missed from my freelance job. This weekend I’m making a final supply run for materials required for the hand bound copies of Worshiping Loki; I’ll also spend some time cutting the rest of the 40 cover boards and getting them ready. The pre-order was very successful and I’m very excited to move into the next stage of this project.

The end of July approaches, which means that the pre-order sale of hand bound copies of Worshiping Loki: A Short Introduction is nearly over. The price will rise on August 1st. There are only six copies remaining. (Follow the link for information on how to order.)

I know things have been really quiet around here; sorry if you’ve missed my content. Travel, even for positive things, is a big source of stress for me. Though I enjoy being other places and exploring new locations, the process of getting there and back again is a big challenge. I’m really excited to be sharing material I care about with other polytheists at Many Gods West, though the prospect of meeting new people is also a cause for some anxiety. (I’m socially awkward in that “you don’t get out of the house much?” kind of way.) Curiously enough, I’m quite happy speaking in front of people, so at least that part is a beacon of relative calm.

All this stress has made me quite self-absorbed; I’ve been very focused on my jobs and on preparing my presentation (it’s done, yay!!). I haven’t had much desire or energy to blog. I’ve not doubt that as MGW passes out of my mental radar I’ll feel more chatty here. I’m actually working on a post about discernment right now; hopefully it’ll be finished really soon.

To thank everyone for all their support during the pre-order and the madness of conference prep, I’m doing a flash sale on my Etsy store. From now till August 3rd, you can use the coupon code ENDOFJULY15 for 10% off anything EXCEPT custom devotional books (this coupon also can’t be applied to Worshiping Loki pre-orders, as that isn’t being done through Etsy). I’ve got lots of prayer beads and deity icon necklaces available, as well as Odin and Loki devotionals. All orders will be processed on Monday and Tuesday. Tarot readings *might* be able to be done over the weekend, as I’ll have at least one deck of cards with me at MGW, though I’ll communicate with clients individually to process these orders.

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing some of you at Many Gods West this weekend. I encourage you to show me pictures of your kitties and puppies and birds and snakes. This has been a wonderfully exciting month. Not only has Worshiping Loki moved forward – I have a stack of prepared cover boards here on the table! – I’ll be working with a local Thelemite with print design skills to prepare the paper edition. I should have the edited manuscript soon so I can begin formatting the electronic versions, too. I’ve had loads of work at my freelance job, which has given me the financial power to pay down some of my medical bills and help out some friends and colleagues along the way. Traveling is always expensive but I think it’ll take me weeks to recover rather than months and that’s a major improvement.

So thanks again, everyone.