Tonight I am going to a celebration of the Solstice, and tomorrow to another where I will be acting as the High Priest.  It will be a wonderful end to a year that, for me personally, has been very very good. Hopefully the return of light will bring with it renewed rays of illumination to our larger world where we have long since lost any sense of cultural optimism.  As the days cease growing shorter and begin their slow turn around to ever more flourishing on the earth, they remind us that no end is ever complete, for something always carries over into the new year, new day, new life that will follow.

When I returned from my long planed drive to the Tundra above the Arctic Circle I arrived with renewed energy and insight to finish my book, so long in the writing, on the 60s, the Culture Wars, and the return of the Divine Feminine.  I have thought about little else, even on my second trip, to the east coast for a conference and then Thanksgiving in Kansas, with my scattered family.  While on the road still more insights fell into place.

But now I am polishing the final three chapters.  They are complete except for the final word-smithing.  It is exciting to be so close to the end, and fitting that it will be completed as the sun returns.  But my focus has led to not so very many posts here, and similar literary slowness at Patheos.

Like the close of the year and the dawn of the new, the close of this project, some 6 years in the research and writing, has opened up some new vistas for exploring more deeply the insights on life and love and the land that come from Pagan spirituality.  We, all of us, whatever else we may be, are pioneers and spiritual archaeologists alike, recovering and treasuring what we can gain from our Pagan past, but also adapting it and learning from the new world into which it is re-emerging.

May the joy of the Solstice bless you all,

Blessed be.