The Kalends of August

Today is the second anniversary of this blog. So, before I get into the particular significances of this day, a few moments to reflect on what has occurred here over the last year would be (in my opinion!) useful and appropriate.

IN THE LAST YEAR, I HAVE:

–Written (including the present post) 400 new posts, making this the 955th; that’s down from the previous year’s 555 total, but considering I’ve had more “paid” work this year than that first year, and thus haven’t always been able to write three or four posts a day, it’s acceptable–though not all days between now and this time last year had posts, there are at least 365, so that’s good.

–Started Academia Antinoi, which had its first term and first two students thus far. The next term is about to start on Monday, so there’s still time to register for a class, with full-eight-week term classes at $200, and four-week classes at $75. Don’t delay!

–I’ve written and published three books with The Red Lotus Library:

Devotio Antinoo: The Doctor’s Notes, Volume One;

All-Soul, All-Body, All-Love, All-Power: A TransMythology;

and A Garland for Polydeukion. But, I had honestly hoped to have had that number be “four or more.” I’m hoping to get at least one, and likely/possibly two, more relatively short books done this month (or, at latest, early next month), so we’ll see how that goes…

–Had a total of seventeen poems published in the anthologies When The Lion Roars: A Devotional to the Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet (ed. Galina Krasskova), Queen of the Sacred Way: A Devotional Anthology in Honor of Persephone (ed. Melitta Benu), Mandragora: Further Explorations in Esoteric Poeisis (ed. Ruby Sara), and Unto Herself: A Devotional Anthology for Independent Goddesses. I’ve meanwhile submitted at least ten further poems to other anthologies that have not been released yet.

–Had three pieces of fiction published (my first published fiction, really!) in The Scribing Ibis: An Anthology of Pagan Fiction in Honor of Thoth, Eternal Haunted Summer (both edited by Rebecca Buchanan), and Etched Offerings: Voices from the Cauldron of Story (ed. Inanna Gabriel and C. Bryan Brown). I’ve since written a further piece of fiction that I have submitted, and hopefully it will be published before the end of the year.

–Had four essays published in Queen of the Sacred Way: A Devotional Anthology in Honor of Persephone, Mandragora: Further Explorations in Esoteric Poeisis, and Unto Herself: A Devotional Anthology for Independent Goddesses. I’ve written and submitted at least six others in the last year, which I hope will be appearing in the near future as well.

–Written a whole pile of “Queer I Stand” columns for Patheos.com’s Pagan Portal.

–Been mentioned around 23 times on The Wild Hunt–which averages to almost twice a month. Is there a certain number one must hit in order to be a “Big-Name Pagan,” I wonder? (In fairness, most of them were either Patheos.com Pagan Portal roundup posts, or “Unleash the Hounds” posts…)

–Written tons of poems that I’ve posted on this blog that aren’t currently planned for publication anywhere else.

–Honored many gods on daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly bases as occasion demanded.

–And, in general and hopefully otherwise, had a cracking good time of blogging!

You can compare this post to my one from last year…progress has been made, I feel, dear friends!

In my attempts to honor Disciplina throughout the month of July, and to finish as much as I can of things I’ve started previously, I was fairly successful. I had a list of nineteen things that I wanted to get done during the month that I made up at the very end of June, and had a few other things I wanted to get done “informally” that I didn’t actually add to that list. Of those nineteen “official” things, one was cancelled, but I managed to get fifteen of them completely done. The ones that didn’t get done were the writing of two essays, and the compiling of one book–but, you may say (if you had seen the list, which none of you have!), “But you revised two essays, wrote a whole new one, and got an entire book out in July–I’d say that’s pretty successful!” Yes, it is, and I am happy about that; but, it’s not quite up to what I had hoped I might be able to do.

Thus, I have another list going for August already, which runs to twenty-two items currently; two of them, which I didn’t think I’d get done before the end of July, were on that list, but have already been scratched off. So, I’ve got a good start on it, sort of!

In any case, that’s my brief evaluation of where I’m at for the present as far as this whole blogging, and wider spiritual activities, matter is concerned. Stay tuned for more honoring of gods in the immediate future/before the end of today!