Pagan Unity Festival - Dorothy Morrison, MR Sellars, Clare Vaughn, John Michael Greer, Tish Owen - Friends Reunited

I am back from my recent trip to Nashville, TN where I attended Pagan Unity Festival. I was able to spend significant time with Dorothy Morrison and MR Sellars। Morrison and Sellars were a wealth of information and personal experience about publishing dos and don'ts. I could not be more grateful for their time and attention. I learned much that I will be putting into action and feel like I have met people who were as excited and passionate about publishing the written word as I am.

The festival itself was smaller than I had thought it would be। It was held at a beautiful location and was extremely well organized and run. Stone and I found ourselves a bit un-prepared when it came to feasting; however, the pleasant pagans there helped us out and we found both plates and silverware to get by with. We had a minor moment of unpleasantness caused by hard working volunteers colliding with needy festival goers. I learned a lot about what I won't do if I ever attend again. My advice? For Goddess sakes, bring your own water and don't go in the kitchen.

Other than that, however, it was extremely pleasant, well set up and well run. Tish Owen, the festival owner and organizer has written a book covering how to present a great event. I strongly recommend it. It is obvious that Owen knows what she is talking about! Chasing the Rainbow is a accumulation of Owen's experience. You can read a book review here।

Merchant Row was very small। I was disappointed that I didn't find the 3rd Degree pendant I am currently in the market for; however, I ran into Wilma, an acquaintance from Chattanooga, who owned the first metaphysical bookstore I ever stepped my big toe into. She had a small booth with great stuff and hasn't changed a bit!

The workshops were varied and I was extremely disappointed that I had missed the majority of the workshops presented by John Michael Greer on Druidry. I made the wondrous acquaintance of Myrddin and Narthariawen a few years back at a Pagan Pride Day। Up until this weekend, they were the only Druids I knew. Honestly, we hadn't ever actually discussed Druidry so I learned a lot this weekend about their beliefs. I finally got to ask about the validity of a workshop I went to a few years ago about the history of the Ancient Order of Druids in America. I was pleased to find that Greer was very forth coming and honest. There was no thinly veiled assumptions that the Order of Druids in America actually was "ancient" in terms of being many, many hundreds years old. I enjoyed Greer's background in history immensely and thoroughly enjoyed being among his caliber of intellectual study and skill.

I attended workshops by Morrison and Sellars and enjoyed the practicality of their approach, the depth of their knowledge on the subjects they presented and the easy manner in which they presented them। The only disturbing thing was how much alike Morrison and I were in appearance. The last time I saw her I was really taken by how strange it must be to have two short-silver-haired witches about the same height hugging each other. Take that and the fact that we are both tried and true Taurus, it was a bit eerier for me. Sellars was a delight as well. I appreciated how uplifting and supportive they both were. It was inspiring and refreshing. I came home ready to continue to chase the manifestation of publication.

There is a new book written by Clare Vaughn with some information contributed by John Michael Greer called, Pagan Prayer Beads. The book was unveiled at this gathering. I did not attend the workshop due to time constraints. Those of you who know me, know I have been making different types of pagan prayer beads and charms for years and years. The prayer bead section was the number one referenced section on the FWTI website for a time. I was interested to ask Vaughn and Greer about the relationship between their work and the work done by Reclaiming. Greer told me he was unaware that some publication had already covered something about pagan prayer beads. For general information, in The Pagan Book of Living and Dying by Starhawk, M. Macha Nightmare and the Reclaiming Collective, Donald L. Engstrom covers pagan prayer beads on pages 40 through 44, first published in 1997। I found Vaughn to be passionate and genuine and as equally brilliant as her husband. It is obvious why they are a match.

In addition to food, workshops and good information, I ran into Cherie, Leslie and Timothy, old acquaintances of mine from my days in Chattanooga। It was nice to see them looking well and happy. They were thoroughly engrossed in everything Greer had to say. It was fabulous to listen to Timothy discussing his various views on things once again.

I also finally caught back up with Sharon, my friend from my days in High School in Tucker in the mid '80s। She has two lovely children, a fabulous home and is a hard working small business owner these days. I am so proud to call her friend. She inspires me to do and be things I have yet to accomplish. Her support and love overwhelm me and her beauty is unchanged. If it hadn't been for Sharon, I would not have attend PUF in the first place. She goes to the Goddess and The Moon in Nashville to shop (Tish Owen is the store owner). I really enjoyed seeing Sharon. I even slept in the same bed we used to sleep in as teenagers. It was really funny and felt an awful lot like coming home. It is great to be loved unconditionally and accepted without prejudice.

This weekend I am off to teach Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft and spend some significant time with my Family Coven. I can't wait! I am, however, going to be very busy this week, consequently.

Book Proposal Finished, Junk Food & Stress, Jerry Falwell Farewell

I finished the book proposal for Family Coven: Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft। I couldn't have done it without Cam and Crystal - they are my girls! Cam worked hard at the editing, which is nice since she edits a newspaper for a living and Crystal wrote a Family Coven perspective I was missing, which was also nice.

I can't believe it is done। I was standing with Stone talking about sending it off and my heart felt like it fell right out of my chest and onto the dinning room floor. All I have to do is run it to Staples and have it printed. Then I am off this weekend to get some wise advice from published authors. Next week I may make changes and then I am mailing it off.


This stress has caused me to abandon my diet completely. At least I am still walking everyday. Does anyone have any suggestion about how to avoid junk food eating during times of stress?


In other news, Jerry Falwell died this week। I read an excellent post by a woman I know and respect about not bashing Falwell. She support a view that was pity on Falwell and all he didn't learn this lifetime. I have thought about this a lot this week. I even went and read some death articles about him. Then I found out one of my very good friend's mother passed away after a long battle with a serious illness. I never had the pleasure of meeting the Mother; however, you can't met her daughter without knowing mom was a powerful woman.

I considered these two deaths so close together and light years apart spiritually। Mom and daughter were close and loving. Mom was supportive and tolerant. Daughter is grieving a genuine grief of the one who has lost much. The grandson is now without an opportunity to know that part of his legacy.

Jerry Falwell was instrumental in legislating hate. Worse still, he preached it from the pulpit condemning to hell anyone who would dare challenge his theology. He was an oath breaker of large proportions. He would be happy if people like myself would shut up and die.

I have asked myself how fair it is to feel such pity and sadness when I think of my friend and her Mother, then turn around and feel a since of relief that a man who advocated hate and damnation is gone.

I've decide it is fair। Men like Falwell, when left unopposed, spread like wildfire। They burn down religious freedom with the same deadly consequences as the forest fires have done in my home state of Georgia। I can't help but think of the memoirs I read of people who were just regular Germans during the rise of Hitler. One professor wrote that he said nothing when national pride seem to mask prejudice and he said nothing as signs went up that began to slide the dials of prejudice to utter hate. He sat silent when they fired his Jewish colleague. When the government demanded the Jews wear stars, he hung his head and remained silent. When rumors spread of death camps and killing of Jews and those who sympathized with them, he rushed home at night and locked him and his family away, an attempt to bar the door from the truth. When they drug his neighbor into the street and shot him in the head, it was too late for any word to be said. He goes on to say that regular Germans didn't hate Jews or even want them dead. The crime of the average German was apathy.

I do not reveal in the loss of life; however, I will not be silent about any man whose hate and bigotry inspired others to the same. I will not pretend he was some nice guy with ideals that were off. I will not be apathetic. I hope his death is a sign that we are now moving toward less organize religion involved with our government, that the United States is moving away from the theocratic state President Bush has all but endorsed from his Oval Office. I hope this means that when people feel the need to object, they will have one less person condemning them to burn in hell forever simply because they do not agree with the "Moral Majority."

Plastic Bags - Picasa - Mother's Day - My Birthday

I am really excited today about two different products I just happened upon in the past 48 hours. One product saves the environment at a great price and the other product helped me find photos I had lost in the vast space of my own hard drive.

My girlfriend, Penne brought a ton of things over to celebrate my birthday on Saturday in re-usable grocery bags from Kroger. I asked her how much they were and she said they were $1 at Kroger!

So, today, on my way to do my bi-weekly shopping, I stopped in and bought six bags to try them out. I have been using canvas bags that I bought from Hobby Lobby and Ingles. I have already ripped the handles right off some of the Ingles canvas bags and, because of the color, the other bags are beginning to look, well, yucky. My Ingles bags cost me $4.99 a piece. I bought them over several weeks of shopping when I decided to cut my own grocery bag dependency.

When I sat down to write about them, I went to the website advertised on the side of the bag called Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB). I was ecstatic about the website, the great information they give and the idea in general.

These BYOB bags are the greatest! They have a true rectangular bottom, a little zipper pocket on the inside and sturdy handles. I took my six BYOB bags and didn't use any of my other canvas bags at all - now that is my bi-weekly shopping trip there. Further they fit into the cart so nicely. They are just the right size! I know I sound like an infomercial. I don't care. I love the environment and I love the fact that this is now available and for such a great price! Let me give you some statistics that I have learned from BYOB.

Did you know? (these facts are from BYOB)

P It takes plastic bags 15 to 1000 years break down in the environment

P Plastic bags photodegrade ~ breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways, polluting our soil, rivers, lakes and oceans.

P Production of plastic bags requires vast amounts of oil.


P North America goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually.

P Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals dies every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.

P Each year an estimated 500 billion - 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That translates to over one million per minute.

P If 1 person uses BYOB bags, they will save the use of 250 bags per year.

P If a family of 3 uses BYOB bags, they will save the use of 750 bags per year.

P If a family of 4 uses BYOB bags, they will save the use of 1000 bags per year.

P If a family of 6 uses BYOB bags, they will save the use of 1500 bags per year.


Another great thing BYOB does, is a form they have on their website that you can print out, fill out and give to your local grocers. My only complaint is that the form is done in color with lots of graphics. BYOB obviously isn't remembering how much color ink costs the average consumer and forgetting the impact empty cartridges have on the environment. Still, you can print it in black and white or simply copy the letter itself into Word, or whatever you use, and print it plain. This is such a simple thing that we can all do. You guys get to Kroger and buy those bags! For $10 you can physically contribute to saving the environment. The environment is worth $10 to you, isn't it?

The second product I am excited about is FREE! That's right, complete free! Picasa is a program I downloaded after following some links on Blogger। I downloaded the file initially to make it easier to put pictures up on Blogger. Unfortunately that feature is no longer available because of incompatibility between Picasa and the new Blogger programs.

HOWEVER! The program completely rocks! It will scan your hard drive and download any jpg you have. It places these pictures in a library that shows thumbnails of the pictures and allows you complete management. You can delete files completely from your computer or simply tell Picasa to ignore a file you know you won't need to reference.

The greatest things is this: it puts your pictures into the Picasa library BY DATE! That means my Birthday pictures are the first ones I see and then the other pictures are available by year and folder. With the Manage Folder tool you can manage the folders your pictures are in and manage the way they are saved. You can edit pictures in Picasa, too! Easily set your favorite picture as your desktop background or order prints right from the program! Using a program called Hello! you can share your pictures with friends via the Internet. All in all, I have been really pleased, even though I can't use the program the way I wanted to.

Mother's Day was today and my family went grocery shopping with me, helped me make my favorite meal, cleaned the kitchen, water my plants and let me take a nap, all in all, a very nice day indeed. A friend of mine found out she was loosing her mother to her fight with brain cancer today. I can't get the frantic sound of her voice out of my head. I could feel her panic at the thought of not having a mommy anymore. I have been sending her lots of energy and experiencing the feelings of overwhelming sadness I felt in her soul.

My birthday celebrations are officially over. Yesterday my girlfriend, Penne, threw me a wild party. We had a beautiful piñata that was shaped like a star. We had bubbles at the party along with balloons and a helium tank which is just fun anyway. Tony, Connla, Penne and I all took a whack at the piñata. Since we were outside, we attracted a crowd of kids so we invited them to whack it to. It took Tony taking his cedar staff to the thing to bust it open. It was a sight! I got glow-in-the-dark bracelets from the piñata. I can't wait to share them with my friends at gathering we are all going to at the end of May!

Investing in Yourself


So today I was paying bills and looking at this next check. It is one of those 'free checks' where we use it to put money in the bank in savings, car maintenance and in general get ahead.

I always make a list of expenses for these checks before we get them. This time we are putting tires on the Focus and sending Connla and Tony to Webeloes Camp. We are also paying for the Harriet Austin Writers Conference.

I got to adding it up. The hotel will be $175 for two nights. I need to go to both nights so that I can go to the conference receptions and dinners. The whole point of this conference is to meet agents and editors and get some momentum and encouragement about Southern Stories and Family Coven. The receptions and dinners both cost money so that is going to be another $45. Then you add workshops and conferences for both days and you are at $250. Then add a fee for entering a synopsis of Southern Stories and Family Coven and you can tact on another $100. That is $570 and doesn't include gas to get there and breakfast and water.

I turned to Tony and said, "It is just so much money and I don't want it to be a waste of time or a waste of money." Tony said, "You have to invest money to make money."

It struck me. Invest in myself? Wow. Think about that. How many of us have dreams we are unwilling to invest in? Isn't this exactly why my mother and my grandmother never continued on, never got published themselves. They didn't really believe in what they were doing enough to invest time, money and sweat.

The cost is still a lot for this one income family to handle; however, I am a good investment.

ConVocation, Pagan Unity Festival, Harriette Austin Writers Conference

I have applied for ConVocation 2008 in Michigan. I offer the link here; however, they have not yet updated the entire site for the 2008 theme. We'll see how my application is received.

I am scheduled to go to Pagan Unity Festival (PUF) and meet with an author. He has graciously agreed to look at my book proposal and sample chapters. I am going to take extra copies with me and give them out to any other authors who will agree to take them. Maybe I can get a forward for the book this way! I am also going to meet with my long time friend, Sharon who is going to experience PUF with Tony and I. I am hopeful that our friends, Leslie and Timothy will agree to lunch with us. It has been too long since we have had a chance to hang out and talk.

I will send out my book proposal by the end of May. Pray for a good publisher, with a good offer. An agent wouldn't hurt either.

I am also working on my synopsis of Southern Stories to turn in at the Harriett Austin Writers Conference in July. I hope to secure an agent while I am there and present my fiction work to some publishers. I have never done a synopsis before so this should be interesting.

Keep good thoughts and energy moving toward the manifestation of a good publisher who offers a good deal and a good agent who knows what s/he is doing!

Lydia's Birthday, Still Missing Tony

My birthday went well. Penne came over as did my new friend Bobbie. Penne brought snack foods that I am still eating on for lunch and red velvet cake. It is tradition that I eat red velvet cake on my birthday. Penne also gave me a lovely hummingbird feeder and a hook to hang near my back deck garden. She had remembered that I didn't have one because it was broken. Now - that is a good friend!

I miss Tony terribly. His being gone is getting old. Even Connla is missing him.

Today is My Birthday - Let's Reflect

I have debated about blogging today. However, this day has turned into 'Dia doing what she wants to day.' I decided - what the hell!

It is my birthday.

I am older.

My husband is traveling, my son is at school and a crazy friend has made it her mission to make sure I have a birthday cake (Thanks Penne).

I am suppose to be reflecting, right? I have been all day and have come to one main conclusion.

I am different.

I am changed.

I know people say that all the time; however, I AM different. Something has changed in my soul. It is like I am finally being re-born from the sickness that used to consume me and the person I am on the other side of illness isn't who she was before. Need proof?

I have a crush. It's o.k. Tony knows all about it. However, I haven't had a crush in years, so this is pretty amazing. It is almost like I have reconnected with my Maiden some how and she is the one with a crush...bad. I still love Tony. I still only want to have the sacred rite of marriage with Tony. My crush hasn't killed my love. Isn't that cool? You can crush on someone and love someone else - who knew?

I am walking nearly everyday and I like it. Seriously, I mean I have come to depend upon my hour of walking around with my headset on, listening to my music (U2, LIVE, Solas, Dave Matthews, Joss Stone, Emerald Rose, and the odd songs here and there), sweating and holding my stomach in to strengthen those stomach muscles.

I do not drink Coke. I have the odd Sprite now and again; however, I do not drink Coke, Pepsi, Diet Coke...nothing. For those of you who don't know, I had a six pack a day habit of coke. Not diet coke either, regular coke. Not the mini cans - the big ones!

I have cut back on fat. This is pretty big too. I charted my fat intake and discovered it was 85% of my total dietary intake. 85%! So I have cut back and am eating more protien.

I am nearly always going to bed by 11 PM. I KNOW! She who used to sit up for hours. I am nervous about the upcoming gatherings because I know I will be staying up late to run my mouth. I am worried about getting out of the habit.

I have slowed down and not in the bad ways. I am not as in a hurry. I am not as worried about everything in it's place and a place for everything. There is a major gathering at the end of this month and I haven't even thought about it. I don't know who is cooking what. I don't even know if everyone coming has a tent. Further, I am not worried about it!

I know I am going to get published. It is just a matter of time, persistency and patience. I don't say this in a bragging sort of way, I know this, that's all.

I have all these friends and their support around me. I don't know if I was blind to it before or if they weren't there before. Maybe I was reluctant to allow my heart to know this before. Maybe I was worried that I would screw it up or make people mad. Goddess knows that has happened plenty enough to me. Maybe the caliber of people I am getting to know is just a better more mature group of people. I don't know. My inbox is filled with praise for this site. People are writing me and asking to camp with me and my husband at an upcoming gathering (Go Reclaiming!). I am meeting people and for the first time I sense mutual admiration. I even had Otter tell me I was 'glowing these days.' She wants a picture of me on this site to reflect it.

It is like I woke up and my life was being fully lived. I am so blessed. I am a Priestess to the God and Goddess. I am a wife and a mother. I have friends and I am other people's friend. I am doing what I love. I matter.

For the record, I have a crush on Kiefer Sutherland. It's that damn Jack Bauer. Who wouldn't have a crush on that?

Happy Birthday Me! Life is good.