Here

Yes, I'm here, and hope everyone has survived the holidays just fine.

I don't know what I'm doing with this blog, or my art, or any of this. Perhaps I shall just make quilts for the rest of my life. Or perhaps I have simply been a bit chilly since the autumn and come spring I'll be obsessing about gardening, who knows. Seasons are what they are, after all, and we Pagans know it.

So I don't know what I'm doing here at Amused Grace. But what I do know is that this is the season for finding out, for visioning, for going into the dark places, for there is time enough dark on our hands, on our minds, to explore it in depth.

And I am doing work, or rather, Work; but much of it is internal, of course, and what is coming out, the Working in the real world (ha! define 'real'), is not particularly Pagan-related, though one could argue it all is, as it's about me, and I am Pagan.

I seem to be in an aniconic phase. The altar in my bedroom is dusty and unmaintained, I have not done anything special for a Sabbat in I don't know how long, it's been ages since I've done a spell, and I've never been interested in any kind of daily practice; but it's not as if I'm having some sort of spiritual crisis or major rethinking. I am Pagan to the marrow of my bones. I am simply keeping it close now for some reason. I feel gathered into myself, looking out at the world with a sharp eye, and though I'm reading plenty of blogs I somehow always stop myself from commenting or participating. I've never been much for community, it's true, as I favor the model of the Witch living alone on the margin of the wood rather than the college of priestesses one.

The holidays do sort of bring out the bah-humbug curmudgeon in me, I admit. These last few years especially the frantic lighting of lights and cheeriness seem forced, seem rooted in denial. This is the dark time of the year. Let it be dark, then, and quiet, and still.

I can't see with all the noise.