Life Lately

A big mug of Earl Grey tea to start the morning // The biggest strawberry I have ever eaten! // Miss Gay Arlington 2013 at the Capital Pride Parade // I went to a gay pride parade and a spontaneous dance party erupted (imagine that! ;)

Excited about...
The new chant I just wrote on Sunday!  It's been almost 2 years since I wrote any kind of music and it felt AMAZING to channel deity and compose again.  It's a chant I wrote for with the Morrigan, that she's been asking for since Sacred Space.  Once I record a cleaner version I'll post it up here :)

Looking forward to...
The annual picnic for a local pagan social group I belong to is on Saturday.  There's going to be crafts, canoeing, lots of good food, maybe a ritual, and maybe drumming?  I haven't been to many events, but I know a few folks in the group, and I'm looking forward to meeting the others I don't yet know. I think it will be a great time!

Reading...
I recently finished reading Dingo by Charles de Lint.  It's a YA novel in his "Newford" series, about 2 teenage boys who fall in love with twin teenage girls who are, for lack of a better word, were-dingos, and they all have to work together to save the girls from a big bad.  Delightful characterization for such a short novel, and while it's definitely YA in tone, it was still so wonderfully de Lint.

I've actually been thinking about cross-posting my reviews of pagan-y books from Goodreads onto my blog.  Is that something you would be interested in seeing on here?

Making...
It's been a long time since I've picked up a needle and thread - over a year, I think.  But I finally started a new cross-stitch project!  I overcast the fabric a week or so ago, and spent several hours stitching last night.  It was delightful.  I sure needed my zen back.  I can't wait to keep working on it!

What I'm loving online right now...
* Unless you're living under a rock, I'm sure you've heard by now that today the SCOTUS struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Prop 8!!  I cried ample tears of joy and relief this morning.  Love between consenting adults is always legitimate, and finally the federal government has begun to recognize it.
* Elizabeth over on Delightfully Tacky talks about the myth of bloggers' seemingly "perfect" lives.
* Anna on And Then We Saved has a great list of 17 things to do today that will make you proud of yourself in a year.
* This tumblr never ceases to make me laugh my a** off, especially now that it's wedding season.
* Teo on Bishop in the Grove has a great post about building a contemplative practice.  I really love the tree graphic - I might have to post that up on my wall near my altar.

* And of course, I continue my obsession with bunnies!

More Reviews of Sacred Space

Hey ya'll!  I am so excited to tell you that my blog was quoted on Witchvox recently.  Caroline Kenner, one of the organizers of Sacred Space, wrote a fantastic overview of this year's conference.  With my permission she quoted from my review of the conference,* as well as several other folks' reviews.

A few other bloggers have written reviews of this year's Sacred Space Conference as well.  Some of these reviews are quoted in Caroline's article.  Go check them out and leave them lots of comment love!

• The Pink Pagan Priestess talked about how the conference helps break through the "Wiccan wall" and had a number of take-away thoughts from the workshops and rituals Sacred Space, many of which were also pretty key lessons for me as well.

• Literata over at Works of Literata gave a pretty well-rounded review, with a nice discussion about each of the workshops and rituals she attended.

• Maria over at It's All Elemental wrote about our roles as lifetime students, and how wonderful it was to see students learning from teachers, teachers learning from other teachers, and teachers learning from students.

• Lonely Coyote over at Tales of a Shamanic Healer posted about her experiences at Sacred Space and how the energy of Coyote was particularly powerful for her this year.

*Caroline refers to me in the article as a member of the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel, but if you've been following me for a little while you'll know I left the Assembly a year ago and am now a solitary.  I've requested a correction, but I'm not sure if that's possible on Witchvox.  Just wanted to mention that in case anyone was confused.

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

Sorry for the dearth of Monday Music Break posts lately, folks.  November and December have turned out to be pretty rough on me, both at home and at work.  Hopefully January will be less stressful and I'll have the energy to work more on this blog.

I did just learn that I will be taking on some new and exciting responsibilities at my job, which should hopefully make work less stressful and more interesting.  It will give me the chance to flex my writing and editing skills some more and work on social media stuff.  I'm pretty stoked about it.

In the meantime, please check out what some of these other awesome pagan bloggers are posting about:

* Jason Pitzl-Waters just posted the Best of 2012 Show for his podcast, A Darker Shade of Pagan.  If you don't subscribe to that podcast, by the way, you should - the music he plays is kick-ass.

* My dear friend Awenydd has been writing some lovely poetry over on Stories from the Cauldron

* Teo wrote a really powerful post about cleaning up ritual space as a way to find stillness and renewal.

* Lonely Coyote wrote a neat post about working with rosemary.

* This post is few months old, but I wanted to draw attention to it: Finally the hurdles were overcome, and Literata (one of the local pagan leaders in the DC metro region) was recognized by the Arlington County Court as a clergy member, and thus able to perform marriages.  Awesome victory for the local pagan community!


Also, I have had this song stuck in my head for the last couple of days.  HALP.