Many Blessings

Hi there, Readers,

I don't have time for a full update or topic post right now--as you can imagine, I always have a lot of things to talk about and never know where to start or when to get to what!--but I wanted to take a moment just to share some disparate thoughts and give a brief account of some things that have been going on. Then you know what you can expect in the near (or distant) future.

Reading:
Firstly, just now I caught up on the happenings of author Lenora Henson's life via her blog. See, I was updating my "witchy book recommendations" post, specifically the "Fiction with Pagan Themes" section, because it did not yet include The Wicked Garden series by Lenora, nor The Cassie Rivers Adventures series by Christin Keck, book four of which I have just finished. And it occurred to me that I still need to get copies of Lenora's books two and three, and I wondered when book four was coming out. I thought I remembered her saying, at the same I interviewed her back in February, that she wasn't going to be writing book four right away. However, as the website revealed, her fourth book in the series, Aurora's Wake, was released in July! Now I have three of her books to catch up on, and both she and Christin Keck are currently working on Book Five of each of their respective witchy fiction series. While Lenora's Wicked Garden is deep, rich, archetypal, and ancestral, Christin's account of the Cassie Rivers Adventures is lighthearted, ridiculous, and hilarious. Both are relatable in their own way, and I cannot wait to read more from each of these fabulous ladies.

The end of the year approaches, and while I have already smashed my reading goal for the year into pieces (I had much more free time to read this year than previously, I guess!), I'm STILL reading pretty much constantly! Besides Cassie Rivers, I've been still slowly reading Women Who Run with the Wolves all year long, and I've just gotten some new books from my friend Sheldon when I visited him in Arkansas (more on that in a bit). You can expect another "Books I've Read This Year" post at the end of the year, to accompany the one I already did on everything I read from January-July.


Travel:
As I mentioned, I recently traveled to Conway, Arkansas as a guest of Sheldon Slinkard, President of Pentacles of Pride, International. I was a featured guest for Conway Pagan Pride, the first EVER Pagan Pride event in Arkansas to be affiliated with the international Pagan Pride Project. S. J. Tucker, independent pagan singer/songwriter/storyteller was the other featured guest, and though we only had a few hours with her before her next adventure, we made the most of it.

cutewitch772 and S. J. Tucker at Conway Pagan Pride

I learned so much in that one week in Arkansas, not just in the formal settings of attending a class on mythology, or my semi-formal talk with the UCA pagan student group, but also in the casual interactions with people everywhere we went--we even ran into the mayor at a local coffee shop and chatted with him about religious tolerance. Mayor Townsell came to the event and supported us, even doing an interview with Sheldon for his vlog of the event. My vlog(s) from the event are not posted yet, but you'll know when they are, especially if you're subscribed to my YouTube channel (cutewitch772) or follow me on Twitter @cutewitch772, or if you Like my Facebook page. The talk I gave at the event was on religious tolerance, prejudice reduction, and so on, and will be posted in full in its own video, as well. (Again, make sure you're subscribed or following and you'll find out right away!)

I had a great time, and I just want to thank everyone that was involved, in every aspect, from Pentacles of Pride to the Conway Pagan Pride committee, The Locals, Cinemark (Fagan, thank you), and even Pizza Hut who offered to put one of our event flyers on every pizza box that went out the day before, to spread last minute awareness of the event. Thank yous also to the Little Rock meet-up group, UUCLR, Shannon, Robin, Ryan, Trent (my SM!), Allison, Tim, now I'm just naming people who aren't inherently included in the aforementioned groups or who spent significant extra time with me at least one day, haha. That's part of the whole thing--there are so many people involved, and the community is larger than I think any of us realize. It's such a great thing they're doing there in Little Rock and Conway, and I'm so glad to have been able to be a part of it.

There will, of course, be more videos and blogs about it later. =)


Samhain:
This Samhain I stayed in and finally did something I've been wanting to do for years--a dumb supper. It was a simple, late dinner (at the witching hour), just me and a place for my ancestors. More on that later, as well!


I think that's enough of an update for now, and time for bed for me anyway.
Thanks for reading. =)

Blessings~
-C-