Seeking turns 10 years old this week! Tomorrow, in fact. (The oldest file on the site was set up on August 12, 2010.)

I’ll be talking a bit in the coming week or three about why I started it, what I’m hoping for it, and maybe highlighting some pieces.

Last week

A book launch week, so a lot of my time and energy went toward the very many steps involved in that. (I will say that an offering to Mercury for the tech side of it going smoothly and quickly has been doing very well for me.)

It was also my best launch and best day of sales yet, so that was delightful. (In absolutely terms, this is not a huge amount of money, but every bit helps, and every book people buy and enjoy is a delight in the world.)

At work: However, there were also complicated things. A very long-time staff member at work died of a heart attack, and he will be hugely missed by so many people in the institution. I always loved each and every one of his phone calls, which always made my day brighter, and always were about interesting topics.

As part of my job, I spent Thursday pulling together details about his life and work for memorial information, and then was asked to write a profile of him on Friday. It’s one of those weird places where my role as librarian, my writing skills, and the fact my religious life includes psychopomp work on occasion got tangled. I don’t regret any of that, but it was a lot of emotional heavy lifting, on top of my own grief.

Saturday: Last Dedicant class for my current Dedicants, discussing initiation. We’re not in a position to do initiations immediately, due to the pandemic, and there is a two week waiting period before they can request initiation, so there’s that to sort through yet. But it’s a definite change in cycle.

(We did not have Seeker class, due to an emergency for one of the Seekers.)

This week

I am on vacation at work, and head down in a bunch of wiki editing for my writing work. (So many projects, so little time.) My farm share has produced tons of corn and squash and other tasty things, so I am looking forward to cooking that this week, and I have nascent tomatoes on my tomato plant! (So excited: I did not manage either flowers or tomatoes last year)

Saturday: Initiate discussion, and we now have a plan for the next year (while we’re in initiation and other limbo for a bit) that I like, should be manageable time wise, and should be flexible enough to adapt as we go forward.

(I’m trying to get us as a coven to roughly doing things every two weeks, both to give me a bit more of my weekends back – when we have coven stuff on Saturdays, I get very little else done – and to have a reasonably predictable schedule for everyone to plan around. There are exceptions when that makes sense, but we’ll see how this goes.)

Look! I remembered it was Monday!

Last week

Tuesday: As I’ve said elsewhere, my community supported agriculture share (from a local farm that’s been in business since the 1870s, about 8 miles from me), went from “Hello, here are some vegetables” to “HELLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOO HARVEST!” Very energetically.

(Nearly half of that, by both volume and weight is corn, but wow is it tasty corn. I made a corn and zucchini salad last night, with feta cheese, red onion, and cilantro, and I am a very happy camper.)

Friday: Baking bread for Lammas (and Lammas ritual). I made a cottage cheese dill loaf with bonus scallions, which was an excellent life choice. (I’ve been eating it with whipped cream cheese, also a recommended life choice if you like that sort of thing)

Saturday: Our coven Lammas ritual, via Zoom – we each made or acquired interesting bread, and shared stories either about bread and our traditions around it, or folk or fairy tales involving bread and its ingredients, which was great fun.

I’m missing the community Lammas hosted by friends rather a lot (they did it, but obviously, just for their household…) but we carry on.

I’ve also spent a bunch of time watching videos from CoCoVid, where a bunch of historical costumers who would normally be at Costumer’s College, a historical costuming convention, got together to post things on YouTube.

There are some great panels, and a lot of videos, ranging from discussions about diversity, disability, and inclusion in costuming to the (probably more expected), “how to make this particular thing”. The program’s here – a couple of the live panels will be coming down as of the 9th, but most items will be up indefinitely.

This week

Working on getting things ready for the next book launch (hopefully to be out Friday, and I have several last tasks to work on before that…)

Laura Tempest Zakroff has launched a series of short dance-based Witchual Workouts (first one was posted today) that I’m looking forward to trying out.

Saturday: Our last Dedicant class (about initiation), and then Seeker class about ritual theory and practice (this is the shorter version, designed for ‘things you might want to know before being part of a ritual’)

I’m taking the week of the 10th off for vacation, and very much looking forward to catching up on my writing wiki, doing some things to my bookshelves (and organisation of my ebooks) and generally bringing a bit more order to my life.

Again, I forgot it was Monday yesterday. (In my defense, I had a nasty headache all day. Weather plus outside construction are not a good combo for me.)

Recent additions to the site

• Finding Groups
• Getting in touch with a group
• Ethics (rewrite from scratch)

I also did cleanup on both the Beginning section, and the Concepts section (there’s two articles that actually live in other categories linked from there: I’ll be getting to them in due time.)

Last week

Saturday: Approximately all the teaching on Saturday (Dedicant class about covens and coven roles, Seeker class that I refer to as “Playing well with others”, about ethics and etiquette. The latter feels a bit weird to do right now, given we’re not likely to have larger community events

I am slowly working my way through other reading and learning project. Emphasis on the slow.

Next week

Friday: Baking bread. For…

Saturday: Our (socially distanced) Lammas ritual. I’m very sad we don’t get to go do Lammas with friends as well as the coven ritual. That features the best ritual pig sacrifice ever: a pinata filled with all manner of things, including divinatory tokens and tokens for things that should not go in a pinata (books, bottles of mead…)

It’s great for including kids (toddlers and up), and a lot of fun. But not this year, alas. (They’re still doing one as a household, but no guests, for the obvious reasons.)

Anyway, I am probably baking cottage cheese dill bread (with scallions, because why not scallions).

(In which I sort of forgot yesterday was Monday, despite calendars and it being a work day and all.)

First, I realised that Seeking turns ten years old in August! I have some plans for highlighting and celebrating things, but if you’re reading this and you have an idea for how to do that, let me know.

It’ll probably be six weeks or so of highlighting different stuff and maybe some fun new page launches depending on what I get written, running from August 12th (the earliest page on my site) to my birthday at Mabon (because why not.)

Last week

More on my astrology notetaking.

Saturday: Great discussion with my initiate, some plans for the coming year that are adaptable around the current physical weirdness and limitations, and plans for our Lammas ritual.

Later, a conversation with a friend about organisational tools, and then me asking him some questions about what it’d take to do a staff the way I want. I have a really good idea what I want to do right now, though it’ll take some time for me to get it pulled together (and, um, build the skills to do the thing I want.)

This week

All the potential Seekers coming out of the woodwork, interestingly. (Which means more email for me.) There is something of a time crunch involved, since I’d look to start Dedicant classes

Saturday: Both Dedicant class (our penultimate one, about covens!) and Seeker class. Lots of teaching for me, and not much planned for after.

I’m starting to work through some editing of pages on Seeking (I’ve done the Beginning pages so far, if you want to take a look – standards for formatting, cleaning up some header issues, and adding some pale grey boxes calling out things that are specifically parts of my practice and how I do them, plus a more thorough Resources section at the end as relevant.

Next up, the Concepts section.

Last week

During the week:

My week was sort of chaotic with a set of annoyances – nothing hugely awful, just a pile of weird. My internet went out (I get it via my landlord), of course on the day when I had a full day online meeting. (My phone data plan is not happy with me now, but my landlord went and got a replacement modem before lunch, and it’s been much better.)

I had a weird mess-up in my order of diet Coke (I got lime seltzer instead, which I will actually cheerfully drink, but which does not solve my caffeine intake problem.) A new set of headphones is refusing to behave (currently waiting for a reply to the support request). They’re doing construction on a patio for my landlord’s family, which means there are construction noises approximately 3 feet from my head at 7:30 in the morning (and these days I have been getting up at 8.) None of these are huge, but in combination…

Actual productiveness: More working on astrology monograph notes. And working on the writing productivity class I’m doing, which is producing some useful insights about the witchy side of my life, as well.

Saturday: We had Dedicant class (our second from last class), on the tradition history, what makes a witchcraft tradition, and our “meet a deity” meditation. (The latter went successfully for everyone, so that’s nice.)

This meant I ended up rounding up a bunch of notes about the history that I had somehow lost in the intervening year and change, but now I have them securely in multiple places.

We were supposed to have Seeker class later on Saturday, and Initiate discussion on Sunday, but the former got cancelled (one of my two Seekers had a job interview, which is a great reason not to be at class, but I do not like teaching class twice if I can possibly avoid it)

Next week:

Writing productivity class is ongoing (through July) and I am expecting that to eat a chunk of my time this week.

I am working on revamping part of my shrine (related to the writing projects – I needed a bigger bulletin board to pin things on), and will be doing that for the new moon. I also have some things on order for something else for my bedroom to balance my shrine there.

Saturday, we have the rescheduled initiate discussion, and I should do some final notes before that.

Last week

You may have noticed that things look a little different around here. I spent time (about 8 hours, oy) doing graphics revamps, moving some things to the archive page, and taking notes on what things I should really get around to writing sooner than later.

(If there’s a topic you wish I’d write about, now is a good time to tell me. I give priority to things that are part of my own practice in some way, but I’ll also sometimes talk about things I don’t do if they’re things that come up enough.)

I also have plans to go through the current articles, update the formatting (including adding a Pinterest-friendly image to the bottom), and some other cosmetic things.

Other than that, I spent bits of the time during the week doing some astrology reading and notetaking, had a very low-key full moon Tarot reading, and did a bit of cooking. All good.

I had Friday off work for the holiday, and today off work (a carry over from a day everyone else had on the 26th).

Next week

Saturday: Dedicant class (tradition history, what makes a tradition anyway, and some deitiy-focused work), and Seeker class (the one I refer to, not quite jokingly, as “Plays well with others”, ethics and etiquette.)

Sunday: Initiate discussion on tools.

Also a lot of work-related meetings including an almost all day one on Thursday, whee.

A quieter week this week.

Last week

A lot of steady ongoing work in my book of shadows (mostly the digital version.)

Thursday, we got the news that my work is cutting about 5% of the staff, and I found out on Friday that that includes people in my larger department, and others who I very much like and respect and want good things for. That’s been hard all over the place, and it’s bringing up my own history with job cuts (even if it’s not me this time.)

Saturday, I had Dedicant class, on Pagan arts and music, which was a great discussion, and also got me to do some updating on the list of Pagan musicians in the relevant article here. I then taught the first of our Seeker classes for a new cycle. The Seeker classes are chance for people potentially interested in the group to try some low-commitment interactions with me (and in a little, other group members) and see how they feel about that.

That made for a lot of Zoom call (about 11-1 and 2-3:30), but I think I prefer stacking it on the same day (and being sort of useless after), than spreading it out, because teaching makes a big dent in other stuff I want or need to get done on weekends. (A worthwhile dent, but I do like keeping Sundays a day on which I do not generally do anything on anyone else’s timetable…)

This week

I want to do some more notetaking for the Book of Shadows, and I’d like to get back to doing some art and distillation of information into the handwritten version.

Saturday, we have coven chat, if anyone shows up for it.

Sunday, I’ll be doing something for the full moon around household well-being (in the sense, in my case, of “doing things to make my home in an animist sense happy”.)

I’m also hoping with the long weekend to do a graphics update around here, and look at some longer-term plans for some reorganising, figuring out which articles I really want to update, and look at some formatting standardisation across articles (like doing some highlighting to call out specific summary contents).

Last week

So many things! I took Friday (and this Monday) off from work, due to close timing of summer solstice, the new moon, and an eclipse. (This was a good call, self!)

Friday: (And the days previous). All the cleaning. I also baked this honey cake on Friday evening with the addition of a tablespoon of orange extract, a splash of rose water, and a good sprinkle of cardamom. Cardamom makes everything better. Here’s a photo of the result.

Saturday: Coven solstice ritual, which for our tradition is often a look at what the group vision looks like for the coming year (as opposed to our own personal goals). We drew Tarot cards, talked about them, and had a great conversation.

Sunday: Bottling some infused oils, and my new moon Tarot reading and other work.

Also a lot of book editing, in my ongoing fiction writing. (I’m getting better at the process, but having four days to focus on editing without the day job was fantastic.)

This week

I just posted two more parts of my Coven in the time of Coronavirus series, one on risks and considerations, and one on activities and alternatives.

Saturday: Dedicant class on Pagan arts (including music) – always fun! And then the first Seeker class. (Note to self: have plenty handy to drink, that’s a lot of talking.)

Last week

Tuesday: My first CSA pickup of the season. (Carefully socially distanced, of course.)

It was my second time talking to people in person who weren’t a medical appointment for me or my cat since mid-March (bar a couple of brief in passing nods at my landlord or his family.)

I got a bunch of tasty vegetables, tried a new recipe (rhubarb and beet salad) and have a bunch more tasty things to eat. I’m looking forward to what tomorrow brings me.

Saturday: Dedicant class on Pagan history, and then some extensive work wrangling categories in my wiki-of-shadows (I’m almost satisfied with the current set up, and will share more about it when I get it cleaned up.)

I also did the colouring work for the front page for my physical book of shadows, and I’m very pleased with how it came out. (I used the Inktense watercolour pencils: I love how vivid the colours are, and how magical it is to activate them with water.)

Sunday: More work in the wiki-of-shadows, plus some moderation work on one of the Pagan communities I admin which ate more of my afternoon than I wanted.

I also sent planning emails about our Litha ritual for the coven.

This week

Today: My local library posted the adult summer reading bingo charts, which are right up my alley, since they describe the theme as “Imagine Your Story, a celebration of fairy tales, mythology, and fantasy.”

A couple of the bingo squares will be amusingly challenging. For example, “Learn both the Greek & Roman names for 8 gods & goddesses.” (Can I find 8 I don’t already know? Let’s find out!)

Another is to start learning a language through their Mango Languages database. This does not have Welsh (which I periodically putter through attempting to learn more of), but they do have Ancient Greek (which I have three years of in college-level courses, but is decidedly rusty.)

It is however, hilarious to see them attempt fit that into a modern language model, because they start out with “Here is the conversation we will be starting with: ‘Goddess, sing the ruinous wrath of Achilles son of Peleus'” (aka, the opening of the Iliad) where in other languages you get “Hello, my name is…”

(I learned my Greek with a text book transliterated best as Athenazde, which begins with such gems as “Dikaeopolis is farmer. He is an Athenian, but he does not live in Athens. He lives in the fields with his wife, his son, and his daughter.” (going on memory here…) before working around to short excerpts from classic works by the end of the book.)

I am thinking I may take the opportunity to actually work on reading through Emily Wilson’s fabulous translation of the Odyssey at the same time.

Anyway, sometime this week, okay, apparently, actually this afternoon, I need to sit down with some lists (I’ve had some books I’ve been meaning to read that fit some of the themes), and decide what I’m reading for this, and put the whole list somewhere where I can check things off and remember what I had in mind. I have some great reading ahead of me.

Tuesday: More CSA! More local foods! Yay!

Friday: Between the solstice, the new moon, and the eclipse, I took a couple of days off work (Friday and Monday) to have time to prep, do things, and recover. Between now and Friday, I need to do some cleaning so I don’t have to do it all Friday.

I’m still working on what some of my plans look like, but Friday definitely involves some baking (for ritual food for the next day).

Saturday: Coven Litha, plus whatever of my own work I want to do.

Sunday: Probably some extended meditation and book of shadows time at a minimum – I’m looking at how to detach some old habits that aren’t helping any more, especially around some household things and some money things.

Also, a lot of reading in there, because I have been unhappy with the number of books on my TBR list that I am not reading. And lounging around on the couch (or maybe outside on the patio) reading seems like a good addition to my summer, as well as the other necessary and important things going on.