I know many people are anxiously awaiting news on the release of Worshiping Loki. Truth be told, I was waiting around for news, too. A hitch in communication delayed a final approval by a couple weeks and I was left in the dark wondering what was happening. Things have been worked out and, if everything goes as planned, I’ll be holding a sample copy of the printed book sometime tomorrow. Again, if things go as planned, I’ll have around half the original print run produced by Wednesday, which means I can take a bunch to PantheaCon with me. The rest will be listed on Etsy for easy sale there. I’ll certainly keep you updated.

It’s too simplistic to say that things involving Loki will get messy and complicated and chaotic. That’s not exactly how it works; He’s not like a five pound weight that directly and obviously affects any scale He’s placed on. The Powers add tendencies, patterns, flavors to situations. People seek to magically shape circumstances with the help of the tendencies, patterns, and flavors of things like herbs, crystals, colors, and moon phase but the rosemary and the full moon phase do not cause a spell’s success. These energies, directed by the witch, influence tendencies that are unfolding. The Powers similarly influence tendencies. In Loki’s case, tendencies are affected through the addition of destabilizing factors.

People sometimes wonder aloud how it’s possible to live in close proximity to the Powers and still have a stable, functioning life. I wondered that too for a long time. While it’s probably not a great idea to look at another person’s life and declare it more functional or stable than one’s own, I remember how terrible it was to always feel destabilized and a breath away from disaster. Crawling out of that was very, very hard and I’m not sure there was any one strategy that worked. Even now as I have the privilege and luxury of enjoying a measure of stability I’m often petrified by the awareness of how precarious everything about my life actually is.

But the thing is – everyone’s life is pretty precarious. We are all a single car accident away from debilitating injury – of ourselves or someone we love. As a junior in college I fell on sidewalk hard enough to permanently damage my knee; that’s why you see me walking with a cane sometimes. I just fell. Illness, disability, loss, poverty, and death are always a breath away. Skipping successfully from one moment to another is not guaranteed. As the investment commercials helpfully remind us, past performance is not an indicator of future success.

Given the fundamental uncertainty about the future, I decided to toss my lot in with Loki because why the hell not? If there are no guarantees in life, no promises that can be counted on, no material safety net that will protect against any threat, and no way to prepare for the dangers of life why shouldn’t I let myself enjoy the things I actually want? Acknowledging that I wanted Him – in worship, proximity, affection, and sacrifice – helped me clarify my priorities. If all health, all jobs, all affection, and even all divine grace are fleeting and uncertain I could see no reason to delay present satisfaction.

Currently, my strategy for achieving and maintaining some measure of success is to have very modest needs and desires. Simple living (or simplified living, at the very least) has been good. I’ve known people who set very high standards for their personal success and had very clear ideas about what success looked like and how to achieve it. Those people were never very happy. Scaling back expectations can be a healthy thing and it’s something I often engage in. See, there are things I’d like to change in my life, there are forms of success I long for if only because these would allow me greater freedom to do the things I want to do. But living in that future someday is to invite profound dissatisfaction with Things As They Are. I don’t want that. I don’t want to feel dissatisfied with my cozy apartment, my minimal jobs, or my simple means.

But anyway – Worshiping Loki will soon be available. It’s a small book and producing even a small book reminds me of just how hard authors actually work, especially those of us who oversee all aspects of production ourselves. Having done this one, I’m even more confident of being able to do it again.

I have shop updates to make and I have other projects on my table waiting for focused attention. As I make progress with these I’ll announce them. For now, just know that very exciting things are happening and I can’t wait to share them with you.

Remember the fancy handbound books I was offering a while back? That book, Worshiping Loki, is a simple introduction to honoring Loki inside a general polytheist context. I’ve been working hard for the past several months getting this manuscript ready for general distribution and I’m happy to report that I should have the paper copies in my hands in just a couple weeks.

This is not a traditional publication venture so there’s no ISBN or distribution through Amazon or Lulu. I’m handling everything myself in order to deliver a good quality book at a low price. Since this is a very small book (it’s subtitled “A Short Introduction” for a reason) it just makes sense to do it this way.

While privately printing and distributing this book has numerous advantages, the up-front costs are steep. I’ll have to sell half of my original print run just to cover production costs and the faster I can do that, the better.

As soon as I’m confident that the paper copies are going to look the way I want them, I’ll set up a pre-sale so that a whole bunch of copies can be sent out before I leave for California. This will be the fastest way to get your hands on a copy; I’ll also have copies for sale at PCon if you’re going to be there.

I can’t quote a price quite yet *but* I’m doing my very best to keep the price of the book + US shipping at around $10. I’ll also be doing some kind of promotion once the pre-sale starts, probably a drawing for a handmade Loki devotional or a signed copy of Heartroad or something like that.

But wait! There’s more!

In addition to the inexpensive paper copies of the book I’ll also be doing an audio book release of Worshiping Loki. Finally, finally something for people who prefer to listen to their books. This mp3 album will contain an unabridged recording of Worshiping Loki as well as the additional material on Loki’s feminine aspect.

I’m not yet sure what the cost of the audio book will be. I’m only now finally getting my recording equipment put together and I’m letting my voice recover from the three week cold-pneumonia thing I had. I would like to have the audio book version ready around the same time as the paper edition but we’ll see how my recording sessions go. I’m teaching two classes this weekend in addition to working so I don’t have loads of time to dedicate to this project; hopefully only a few takes will be necessary to get the bulk of the content recorded. But at any rate, I’m thinking the audio book will be something like $4 – $7; it depends a lot on what kind of fees are involved.

(And yes, now that I have some audio equipment I’ll be bending my skills to other audio productions. I’ll be doing an audio release of Heartroad at some point in addition to all the other writing I’m doing. I’m also hoping to partner with a few other pagan/polytheist writers to produce audio books of any publications they  hold the rights to. If you’re interested in this sort of work let me know and we can talk.)

Whew! I’ll keep you updated on these projects as they move forward.

Vision boards are a popular way of making resolutions and setting intentions for the New Year and many magically-minded folks I know make them or participate in making them in groups. I’ve never enjoyed making vision boards very much. They smack too much of the kind of self-centered prosperity-mindedness that infected our greater pagan and magical communities not too long ago. I had to dubious honor of sitting in on conversations when these ideas were introduced to complete newbies. Yes, setting intentions are key to magic but so is cultivating a strong sense of personal ethics and responsibility. None of that is ever covered in conventional thought-powered prosperity manifestation nonsense and so I tend to be a bit cautious about engaging in anything that hints at pulling from the wrong well of power.

I also don’t have any magazines laying around just waiting for me to cut up. I also have loads of other projects waiting for my attention. I’m not inclined to make a brand new mess on top of approximately three other messes just to create a thing that I’m going to tack on my wall between the much-loved “I ❤ Mormon Pussy” photograph and my Morbid Anatomy Museum calendar.

Maybe I’m disinclined towards vision boards also because my magical training has largely been to let go of intentions rather than continuing to feed them. Forgetting a working and letting it, you know, work is fundamental to several magical paradigms. At the very least, it doesn’t make good magical sense to me to continue doing one spell over and over again if I’m not getting results.

Another big reason why I don’t do vision boards is because there’s not very much that I actually want. Over the years my actual bone-deep desires have gotten fewer and fewer. When I’m in the living presence of the wish-granting goddess what do I ask for? The same thing that Swami Vivekenanda asked for, the same thing that caused Sri Ramakrishna to call his would-be disciple hopeless.

Such a desire cannot be put on a vision board.

Of course, there’s other things. I ask – beg – for the means to meet my material needs. That list of things is numbered close to my heart – a safe place to live for me and those I’m responsible for;the nourishing food I need to stay well; the medicine I need to stay healthy and active; enough money to meet my obligations, to live quietly, and to share with others. Past that, what do I need?

I’m sure some people who say that I have no ambition, no drive for greater things. Am I really content with a very quiet life? Don’t I want anything better for myself? Am I really content with settling for the very minimum of what life has to offer? And the answer is – yes, I am content. I’m content because the things that I want to achieve and experience can’t be accomplished by doing anything except more or less what I’m already doing.

My ambitions include refining my personal practice of devotion, service, worship, and love. I want to dive deeply into knowledge and experience and bring up treasures from a mental ocean that will enrich the lives of polytheist worshipers today and tomorrow.

I want to become a better person – which to me means being more honest, more charitable, more compassionate, more responsible, and more kind.

I want to increase and magnify the things I share with others.

I want to pursue my art and writing and creative endeavors with passion and success.

I want to provide the care and love that I’ve committed to.

None of these desires require me doing a whole hell of a lot different than I already am. That’s pretty remarkable, when you think about it. I don’t require more than a modest apartment and a reasonable paycheck and a really good pharmacy to accomplish these things. Aside from the paycheck part, I’m actually doing pretty well – but perhaps the Gods have blessed me with low expectations.

****

I’ve spent nearly three weeks in bed with a massive cold/flu which took a detour into pneumonia country. I’m recovering slowly. I have an Etsy update that has been waiting since mid-December. I found a stash of beautiful teacups with perfect, lovely sprigs of mistletoe painting on the inside. They’re Christmas themed cups but if Loki has been a gift-bringer then these might be perfect for you.

The cup and saucer sets will be sold for $12. I haven’t determined shipping cost but they should probably be around $4.50. I’ve got three sets, one of which is fairly yellowed; it’ll be marked less.

I also found a small stack of Loki devotionals that I’ll be offering at a discount. These were from the very first batch I made and there are two small typos (specifically an instance of swapped letters and a missing space). If you’ve had your eye on the Loki devotional books but haven’t been able to afford the $30 price point, these might be perfect for you.

This month I’ll be busy preparing for PantheaCon in February. I’ve got just a few weeks to finish my session notes and pack, etc. Next week I’ll be presenting my session at a local venue as a trial run of the material and to give folks in my area a taste of what PCon has to offer. I’m looking forward to this class.

I’ve got a FB event page for my PCon session. Check it out and share it if you like!

Speaking of PCon, as a presenter I have the opportunity to sell copies of any book I’ve written. I’ll have a few copies of Heartroad with me along with – I HOPE! – paperback copies of Worshiping Loki. I’ve been trying to contact the designer I was working with to find out if we are still on target for a first-week-of-February deadline. Once those copies are available I’ll have them for sale on Etsy. An ebook version will follow. I’ve also got a special project in the works for this book. More about this special project as things develop.

The last two months have been primarily focused on preparing my session for PatheaCon. Yes, I’ve happily had my most recent programming submission accepted and I look forward to presenting again. Last year I had serious reservations about presenting at PCon again, primarily because the expense associated with getting me there is difficult to manage. I also wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to present on. I’ve enjoyed doing my devotional ritual session but I wanted to do something new. But by the time proposals to present were opened up I had a new idea that I was quite on fire about.

The result of this effort is a session called Advancing Devotional Practice. It will be held at 9am on Monday morning. You can find more information about it here: https://www.facebook.com/events/211650729169389/

I’m very excited about doing this session. It’s been cooking in my mind for several years in one form of another, so getting the material out of my head at last is a big step towards the completion of the follow-up to Walking the Heartroad that I’ve been v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y. working on.

If you happen to be attending PantheaCon in San Jose, CA, this year I would love to have you drop by my session and say hi. It should be an interesting session, if only because I’m going to open up a little bit about my own practice and the challenges I’ve encountered along the way. The presentation is designed as a combination lecture and discussion, so I’m hoping other people will be willing to share a little bit about their practice, too.

(If you don’t happen to be attending PantheaCon, I’m hoping to make the material available sometime in March in an alternative form. Of course, this alternative release won’t include the amazing discussion that will certainly be part of the actual session but you’ll still get to have a taste of it. And of course, if you happen to be in the Salt Lake City area in mid-January, I’ll be doing a local trial run of the material.)

There are other things advancing, too. For the past five years or so I’ve been focusing much more intently on the development of a ritual worship practice. Ritual training is part of my background but my pursuits since I finished school have been more detail-oriented, more theoretical, more hands-on, and more focused on the achievement of a more refined expression of worship. To that end I’ve pursued education and guidance from ritual experts of various stripes and invested a considerable amount of time to improve my own work at home.

For many years I’ve made use of an astral temple to Loki that I created (found?). I know what it looks like – at least in part. It’s grown more concrete the longer I  use it. Not long ago I experienced a distinct superimposition of this temple and its vision on top of my physical worship space at home. This was not what I expected to happen but of course this was the next step in this work: the manifestation of an astral location in a physical one through the manipulation of physical objects specifically intended to channel astral markers. So this is the next step in my advancing practice of temple and icon worship.

The next stage of this on-going worship project is to develop a more precisely designed worship space in my home. It will still be primarily altar-based but the addition of particular elements and items will help establish the temple and reify its astral presence.

Part of this effort will involve the creation of a Loki icon as a dedicated spirit vessel, a “body” of sorts that will be more than just a visual representation and an enhanced version of the “window” that my icons have always acted as.

There are lots of layers to this work and lots of layers to my growing understanding of it. I don’t know how much I’ll feel like sharing over time but for now, it’s exciting to know what the next step is.

Blessed Yule to you all.

One of the good people who purchased a hand bound copy of Worshiping Loki let me know that their edition had a binding error. Some of the copy appears out of order because pages were arranged incorrectly. Although I see and handle these books at every stage of their construction, occasional errors are regrettably inevitable.

If you have a copy that has been bound incorrectly, please let me know. I’m sick in bed with a cold so I may be a little slow to respond but I’ll follow up with you as soon as possible.

As the mirror to my hand
the flowers to my hair
kohl to my eyes
tambul to my mouth
musk to my breast
necklace to my throat
ecstasy to my flesh
heart to my home
as a wing to my bird
water to fish
life to the living
so you to me.

But tell me,
Madhava beloved
who are you
who are you really?

My blog’s gotten an unusual number of hits in the past couple days, so – welcome! Things have been quiet here because, as usual, life keeps me busy with a great many other things.

One of the things I’m occupied with at the moment is my acceptance as a presenter at PantheaCon 2016! I’m very much looking forward to presenting a brand new session, Advancing Devotional Practice. This session will take a look at some of the challenges and questions that come up in a long-term devotional practice. Note that this isn’t “advanced” devotional practice because I hold that there isn’t really such a thing. Rather, there are patterns, trends, and concerns that only develop in the long term and some of these will be explored in the session. Advancing Devotional Practice is scheduled for 9 AM on Monday morning; I’ll certainly do my best to make sure the experience is worth getting up early for. 🙂 I’m also specifically hoping that we can have some open discussion and question time, so I’m not going to develop a super lengthy Powerpoint or anything like that.

I did a bit of traveling in October for family stuff. That was good but heavy, as family stuff usually is. I didn’t get much time to do personal writing while I was away from home, but I did finish up an article draft. I still haven’t done much with a book manuscript I’m very slowly working on. I haven’t done anything about the new book on devotional practice.

My project table has been filled up with various projects but very little progress was made until quite recently. I spent a couple weeks finishing up some book binding and so now there’s fresh blank books on my Etsy store. (Click the pictures to be taken to the listings.)

Paperback copies of Worshiping Loki are in development. I’ve been working with a designer for a couple months now and everything will be ready before February; the idea is to have a bunch of copies to take with me to PCon but they’ll be for sale online and in ebook format, too.

October and November are very busy months for me in lots of ways. It’s a major period of ancestor work, like it is for many other people. Navaratri occurred in mid October so I recognized that, too. My dead folks were celebrated during All Soul’s/All Saints Days and I felt my Green allies pass from this world. This is a time of mourning and celebration and these are experiences that leave me very worn out.

And of course, my ritual observances continue. I’m brewing a blog post on the subject of purity and the emerging effect its had on my practice; I’d also like to write about divine absence. There are lots of things I’d like to write about. All my writing energy goes towards my job though; I don’t have much left over and I’m sorry.

At any rate, have a good month and stay safe and warm or cool, depending on what you need.

My perennial inquiry into Mirabai blossomed into an intense interest in Sri Andal and Akka Mahadevi a couple years ago. Researching each of these amazing women has posed a different set of problems but applying myself to this task has been immensely rewarding. Throughout this effort, certain questions started to arise in my mind. Specifically, I started to wonder why, despite so having such similar narratives, Sri Andal was regarded as a goddess and why Mirabai was regarded as a saint.

This simple question doesn’t even begin to capture the nuance of the information being considered. It is not a question that can be taken at face value. It is a question that shifts profoundly depending on which framework it is considered in. It is a question asked and answered by absolutely everyone who might engage with one or the other of these figures – and the thing is, none of these answers are incorrect. There are therefore innumerable correct answers and innumerable frameworks that will yield new perspectives when applied to these two remarkable lives.

Therefore, I have many, many possible right answers to provide to people who might be curious about this subject. None of these answers are ultimately satisfying and this is because I haven’t found the answer that’s right to me. I don’t have my own answer for this question. What I’m seeking is an answer that makes sense to me.

At the moment, I’m rather thinking that I have to engage with this question poetically, through aesthetic lens. Perhaps in the contrasting feelings evoked by Akka Mahadevi, Mirabai, and Andal there is a logic that will clarify the contrasts into a meaningful pattern. Narratively, their respective stories have considerable similarities. Poetically, emotionally, artistically – the stories are quite different.  Considering their similarities has not won me the kind of answers I’m looking for. Perhaps focusing on their contrasts will be more fruitful.

Each woman suffers a bit from the imposition of retroactive creation. She is each individually created anew again and again through our contemporary telling and engagement. All the tellings that have been expressed since their death to this very day is retroactively applied to their lives and the meaning of their lives; each woman is swaddled in a cloud of meaning, symbol, thought, and doctrine to explain her existence only after the fact. Though we are left with bodies of writing attributed to each of them, their words and beings sometimes seem to be disparate entities. By analyzing the words can we analyze the woman? By understanding the poetry can we understand the poet? These things leave us only with an outline deliberately created by an individual who wanted focus not on herself, but on her divine beloved. Scholastically, this is more frustrating than can be put into words. Spiritually, this is the only possible way to understand them.

It’s been pretty quiet around here, hasn’t it? Since the final push to get the hand bound copies of Worshiping Loki out the door I’ve pulled back in order to focus on job-writing and other work. The effort left me pretty wiped out as you might imagine and I’ve still got the logistics of printing standard copies to think about. The person who I had originally planned to partner with on this effort had to pull back for job-related reasons, which I totally understand. He’s a freelance designer and though I would have been paying him, he had other clients come up in the meantime that had to become a priority. He’s provided me with some references but so far nothing has panned out. I’ve also put myself to studying formatting for bound material printing just in case I have to do this all myself – which I really, really hope I don’t have to do. My intention is to have paper and electronic copies of Worshiping Loki available by the beginning of February, just in time to head to Pantheacon.

I think I’ve also alluded to some major shifts in my personal spiritual landscape. It’s taken several weeks for these things to settle into place and I expect there’s still some settling taking place. I don’t want to share many particulars but one of the most interesting changes has been that dealing with the dead has suddenly been a much more significant part of my practice. Though my ability to communicate with spirits and Powers has gotten pretty good over the years, the dead have never had much to say to me. Even communicating with ancestral powers has been a lot of ehhhhh. I wasn’t sure if they simply didn’t have anything to say to me or if I just wasn’t able to communicate on their wavelength. Now they do and now I can and so I’ve had to expand my hospitality a little bit.

I’ll admit, I’ve had to work at ancestor veneration for, um, a really long time before I got any sort of discernible results. Years went by without much response. For a long time I had a collection of old women and gender variant sex workers living on my ancestral altar but after a couple years they moved on. The ancestral altar was pretty quiet for two years or so but it wasn’t empty, if that makes sense. It wasn’t until last fall that my ancestors of blood finally showed up – and even then, it’s the folks from the Mexican/indigenous side of the family that took the long walk over the western mountains to have a seat on the altar. The other side of the family has been much more elusive.

Since then the ancestral altar has been a little more lively, especially once my paternal grandmother in particular was identified as a spiritual force in my life. Things got shaken up a little bit once Panpsyche decided that She was just going to sit Herself on the ancestral altar and take care of the dead woman who followed me home one night.

Having a new spirit in need of hospitality showed me the gaps in my practice for the dead. I had food and drink and light and incense – and that was about it. The altar wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t a place where a spirit could hang out and be sick for a while if it needed to; the altar wasn’t a good recovery ward and healing was what some of these folks clearly needed. I decided to create a spirit house furnished with items that would suit the needs of visitors. I played with several ideas before settling on a shelf full of dollhouse furniture.

A lot of people would think that it’s a terrible idea to set up hospitality for strange spirits. In some paradigms, even ancestors get unruly and have to be handled firmly. And yes, this is always a possibility but I’m confident in my ability to solve this kind of problem should it arise. There are many strategies to address the question of unruly spirits and a simple list of house rules has actually worked out perfectly so far.

But see – my paradigm is a little different. To me, it is entirely absolutely OK to offer some basic hospitality to strange spirits in order to foster a healthy community. Having traumatized dead folks wandering around is actually a problem on lots of levels. I’m certainly not equipped to handle a wide variety of problems but I can handle some unseen houseguests so long as they don’t overstay their welcome without pulling some weight around the place. I also trust Panpsyche and Panhyle to help keep the dead in line should anything start to go wrong. They’re the ones that figure prominently in this work and I trust them both.

So for a few weeks I’ve been looking diligently for the materials required for a spirit house. I found a shelf with a small railing that looked rather like a balcony; it was perfect for the space I had available. A piece of art featuring the bony Lord and Lady of Death was centered just above the shelf like they were presiding over this new house. Digging through thrift stores finally paid off with a haul of new-in-package dollhouse furniture, which I immediately placed on the altar. I explained to my dead folks what it was for and they instantly settled in. The feeling at the altar shifted noticeably. The real estate “earthed” the dead, for lack of a better term. They felt more tangible, more settled, more calm, more quiet even. I couldn’t have been happier with the result.

Once that first dead woman moved on, Panpsyche pulled back – until another dead person showed up a few nights ago. He’s much more timid and much harder to discern and he might have moved on entirely by now but having a little guest room for him to stay in made a huge difference in the kind of boundaries I was able to draw. Though the idea might not immediately make sense, the dead seemed to be happier, better behaved, and more content once they were given real estate of their very own.

I have additional plans for the spirit house. I’ll make some tiny pillows and blankets for the bed and couches. I’d like to make a very smol altar to Santa Muerte just for the dead. A couple small rugs and that’s pretty much it. In the meantime, it’s wonderfully attractive. The spirit house is a lovely addition to the niche in my home primarily dedicated to ancestor work and Saint Death. It’s been a very rewarding project to work on.