Oddly find myself more busy now than I’ve ever been in my fucking life. All great stuff, though really, I think I’m currently living the lives of four people at once.
Towards that end, I’m gonna be pulling back my addiction to full-time waged work soon. Addiction’s the right word for it, actually. Despite the brilliance of being nomadic and throwing yourself to the magic of the world, security and a stable income is a bad habit I’ve let myself succumb to.
Seems always a fair-deal at first. You give ’em 40+hours of your life, you get some money to make up for the time they take. And the most valuable resource of a writer or artist or spirit worker or really anyone is time, and my writing’s suffered from it.
Reminds me of a quote from Utah Phillips, which I listened to this weekend returning from the Hoh Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula:
“You are about to be told one more time that you are America’s most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources?! Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen a polluted river? Don’t ever let them call you a valuable natural resource! They’re going to strip mine your soul. They’re going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist, because the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked!”
Speaking of the Hoh Rainforest, have you ever been there?
I was there 2 years ago with a friend, and it was the first time I understood what Brân was on about, standing in a Red Alder Grove after playing recorder to two crows on an island I forded a river to get to.
That’s this grove:
I also visited the Hoh a few months before all the gods showed up. It’s…it’s a strange, darkly magical, numinous-as-all-get-out land of breathing gates, and I can’t help but wonder about whatever got into the heads of those who named the mountain along which the forest clings “Mt. Olympus.”
Also, my companion and I had picked up a hitchhiker on the way back. A beautiful soul, one of those sorts you desperately hope the world is full of, and are happy at least to share a journey with at least one of ’em.
We travelled from the rainforest to Olympia to take a brief tour of the hotel where Many Gods West will be happening. The conference spaces are perfect, but beyond this, the space where this gathering will happen is fucking amazing.
Across the street is a park. Behind the hotel is a lake-front park. One block away is a coffeeshop called Burial Grounds where you pretty much want to take every cool awesome polytheist friend ever to go get coffee, and then you suddenly realize, oh! I get to do that.
Also, they make skull art in their foam.
There’s actually about 8 cafes within 5 blocks, 20 restaurants, a gay bar (someone come gay-barring with me!!), like 20 other bars, an open public Artesian spring, a couple of ritual supply stores, art stores, a worker’s co-op breakfast cafe. Then, a bit further, there’s a beach with bioluminescent sand, forest walking trails, and views of Mt. Rainier for pretty much everywhere.
So, uh, yeah. Kinda awesome, and that’s not even accounting for the people who will be there:
So, hey. You should come hang out with us, if you haven’t already decided to.
Other stuff
I’ve an upcoming piece in Walking The Worlds, along with some other really awesome people. Information should be coming out soon, and you can subscribe to the journal at a discount rate through the website.
And speaking of journals! We’re about to announce the call-for-submissions for the in-augural Gods&Radicals print journal. I’m awfully excited ’bout this, particularly since writers will be paid (there’s a committee of writers deciding the pay-rate this week). More stuff on that soon.
And, heh…I’ll be doing another pilgrimage early next year, but this time not alone. I’d already realized I needed to go back to Bretagne and Wales for a bit, and had mentioned this to a close friend who then told me she’d been demanded by a goddess to attend a veneration in France roughly the same time I’ll be there. So, awesome, I’m thinking, I can travel with her a bit and show her stuff. Then, a couple of days ago, another close friend mentions he needs to attend a veneration in France for a goddess (he knew nothing of my nor my friend’s plans), so…yeah.
And oddly, I woke up with the name the Roma have for that goddess in my head a few mornings ago, so loudly that I actually had to say it aloud to make it quiet. This’ll be interesting.
Be well, you wonderful people.
Rhyd Wildermuth 
Olympia. From the mountains of the gods. I love living here. It is perfectly fitting that we venerate the gods here. I cannot wait.
And not only that: in Olympia in Elis was the most famous panhellenic event, namely the Olympic Games, that brought the whole diversity of the Greek world together, and the spaces between such events was a popular method of reckoning time (i.e. Olympiads of 4 years).
Just think: by having MGW in Olympia, we’re the heirs to all that! No pressure, though! 😉
Loving that Utah quote and the notion that resisting well involves becoming as crooked as possible!
I always enjoyed U. Utah Phillips. Bought a Little Red Songbook at one of his concerts. I find that quote apt but sad, darn it.
That forest looks as if it smells wonderful–I adore the scent of redwood forests. I love the scent of spruce and first, too, but no forests of that round here in the Bay Area. Have to go farther north. I love the idea that MGW, which I hope to attend some year, is in such a beautiful, peaceful setting. Forest waling trails, oh my!
I’ve never seen bioluminescent sand–just waves. Claremont CA, where I lived for 16 years, had quite a few wild artesian springs, and you’d hear about it when they were present. Never saw one, only heard of them springing up willy-nilly. After college, I had a gay friend who went to the bars, but didn’t like going alone. I often joined him, and had a good time–I was there for the dancing. Are poppers still popular? Couldn’t stand the smell of them, but then pot smoke makes me quite nauseated. Go figure! I don’t know where the gay bars in San Jose are, but if you’re at PCon next February, I’ll look into some.
I met Nathaniel Johnson at a TribalFest 3 or 4 years ago, before he and Tempest, who I’d met years before and love to watch, married. He explained RBG vs C-whatsit color use to me in a way I could easily & thoroughly understand. I forget what he explained to me (but it was musical) two PCons ago. They’re good folk.