I’ve been writing this blog for…what…seven years? Eight? Something like that. The WordPress history says that I started sometime in 2012, but the stats only show heavier readership in the next year. But really the amount of time is not that important – just a placeholder to put an emphasis on time. See, every few years, I wind up with someone asking me if I ever thought about publishing my own book. In the life of the blog, its happened more than a handful of times. And success-averse me always responds in the same manner – “who would want to read it?” Only this year has the answer not been – “right.” Instead, I wound up with a different perspective: “You’ll never know until you write it.”

These days, I have found myself challenging a lot of the perspectives I have built up over the years. 2020 proved to be the year that my perceptions were massively annihilated right before my very eyes. The very foundations of everything that I had been holding close vanished, and I found myself in a deeper sea than I had ever envisioned. It took a while to regain solid footing underneath me again. Once I managed that, I had to re-evaluate everything in my life. And I mean EVERYTHING.

The first was my perception relating to what I did for a living. My tendency has always been to make my job an integral part of how I define myself. What I found out was that I am not my job. My job is what I do for someone else. Work has been sparse. Without that anchor, I had to locate a stronger way to redefine who and what I am. For me, that meant an even deeper turn to my Druidry. I sought a better approach to rebuilding myself – not just in terms of defining myself, but in living what I believed. I had already done a rather foolish breakdown and re-evaluation of my Druidry, which proved – in the end – to be a complete waste of time. This time I didn’t need to rebuild. I needed to reinforce my Druidry. I needed to make sure that my Druidry was an integral and important part of me. I stepped back to doing ritual at appropriate times of the year, not just doing things “whenever.” I kept some of the impromptu aspects of what I do, but I added back more structured elements of ritual. I took the time to re-institute specific times for my meditational work. I pulled journal writing back into my daily practice. In the course of doing so, I find myself enamored with my Druidry again, and not resenting its pull away from other things, such as playing on the PlayStation. Now that the Easy Bake Oven summer of Texas has been lessened, I am getting back to walking again. Yeah, the distances are not anywhere near where I used to be, but it takes time and routine effort to get back to that point.

As I have been re-doing all of these things, and reconnecting with what makes Druidry beautiful, useful, and part of me, I have been wondering how many other people are coming out of that same rut. Let’s face it, COVID has sent us all scrambling indoors to try and avoid becoming ill. COVID has disrupted much of our daily lives and routines. For some who were just starting to enter the wider Pagan community and beginning their own personal steps on their Pagan Path, they may have felt all alone – like the community abandoned them, which it didn’t. We all did what was natural: we went into survival mode.

Yes, I write about stuff like that here on the blog. I write about a lot of other things that have taken place along my own Path. Once again, I feel that calling to write about my own journey, so that I can detail some of the darker aspects of what I went through, so that others can see that their journey may also follow into the shadows, but eventually, you will find the sunlight again.

I sat and discussed this a long time ago with a publisher, who quickly nixed the entire idea. “Books about personal journeys don’t sell,” is what I was told. I can understand that. I was aimed towards self-publishing, as an alternative. That sounds great, except that requires funds, which I don’t have. So, all of this still sits by the wayside. It might never see the light of day. Still, I write.

Am I an author? No. Am I important enough to be read? ::shrug:: I have no idea. But I still say the same thing when asked questions like this – I’m just me. Just an average, every day, Pagan Druid. Just trying to make my way through daily life. With Abnoba to one side of me, Coyote to the other side, and Crow on my shoulder. Constantly telling me all kinds of stuff. 😊

As for the blog, I have a few constant readers. I attract some traffic to the site. I only hope that folks who read what I write get something out of it. Because that’s the real reason I write. To help that one person get that one spark that fuels their inner passions and drives them on to be who they are meant to be. Just that one person. That would be more than enough for me. Maybe there’s a book in all of that. If I stop writing, I’ll never know.

–Tommy /|\