Catching up - deep in the belly of winter

Skies are gray today and the rain comes like a continuous sheet. At least it beats snow. I'm sitting here alternately staring moodily out the window and staring moodily at the blank page in front of me. My writing gears need to be greased. I've been playing hooky. I'd love to say that I've been taking a break and collating, but that's not necessarily the case. The truth is somewhere towards the end of November my inner ferret took the wheel and adventure was on the agenda.

Believers of the Unpure. Events are set in motion. (photo by Marnie Shelton Klein)

I spent the first half of November in Los Angeles creating the beginnings of another monumental project (and something I've never tried before) with the guerrilla style old school video shoots and off the cuff film shoots. It was chaos and improv brilliantly working together. It was bold, sometimes sloppy, and always majestic and some of it still doesn't make sense... and yet it does... I start to see glimmers of the bigger picture I've been subconsciously striving towards. It's the dream which always returns. Or perhaps the personal obsessions I can never shake. But its creative time has come and it needs to get out there into the world.

Then I left for London. Beautiful, surprisingly warm London. How lovely to be in the heart of it all. A million meetings. Hopes and dreams that spin on a dagger's edge. The dream is so close at times it's only a hair's breadth away. London is affluent again and reawakening like some groggy beast. There's a creative spark in the air that is hard to deny and it feels good. It feels like things are getting done. I like this London. I like the people and the projects, and I adore the quirkiness of it all.

May I take your coat? (photo by Joel Westendorf).

Onwards, onwards to the West Country. Secrets of the craft. My first pair of wellies. Avebury. Glastonbury - all of it desolate and rain lashed. Mumps, tumps, barrow downs and ancient temples. Secret passageways and some things which would be better left alone. Standing in the inner circle of stones with the other Druids on the winter solstice in Stonehenge (thank you, Una!).

Self with arch-Druid, Rollo Maughfling the morning of the winter solstice (photo by Una Woodruff)

The first inklings of real power and the dawning realization that I can have something I have always desperately wanted. The answer was sitting in front of me all along and I just needed a shove from a wiser soul to make me actually see it. Avalon, dragon's eggs and glowing rabbits. I've fallen in love with this place and don't want to leave. I can feel magic here all around me and I want to go deeper and keep searching.

Conjuring on the full moon with arch-Druidess and artist extraordinaire, Una Woodruff. (photo by Richard Stanley).

Across the tumultuous channel to Ireland. Skies so gray and monotonous you can never tell what the time is. A chill which never recedes once it sets in your bones. Caffeine is nowhere to be found. The mission is accomplished, but this dour countryside seems obsessed with death. Death shines through candlelit windows and the stone cutters are the only business in town. Unexpected kindnesses and old friends. Christmas comes and goes with a whimper (question: Is anyone out there actually really good at celebrating Christmas? Just curious because despite some half-assed efforts, I seem to super suck at it.). Dead foxes on the road still in mid-stride. Being stuck in the middle of a horse race and watching through my fingers because they've decided to race on the pavement in the rain like total idiots. I wasn't a fan last time I visited this place and I'm still not a fan.

Trains, boats and more trains back to London. Late night soul talks in Camden Town. Templar churches. Learning Jack the Ripper's secrets. And then the heralding in of a New Year in a sort of drunken style. It's going to be another wild ride of a year, and although I can wish for peace and calm and smooth sailing, I really wouldn't have it any other way. Here's to continued adventures and successes in 2014!

Self and Richard Stanley in front of the cursed Fonthill Abbey while the daemon watches over us. (photo by Una Woodruff)

I owe debts of gratitude to many friends who took such excellent care of myself along the way and reinstated my faith in the human race. Love, love, love you guys...
California: Michele Bigler, Melissa Saint-Hilaire, Yvette Lera, Jeremy Graham, Molly McGee, Joel Westendorf.  London: Richard Stanley, Simon Boswell, Lola Gunn, Andre Price, Eski Thomas, Aimimage. North Country: Kt Mehers, Cobweb Mehers, Russell Cherrington, Sam Henderson. West Country: Una Woodruff. Ireland: Vicky S. and Jim the kilt.

Much love from where the worlds touch,

S - xx

Making wishes under the Goddess trees in Avebury. This time they're coming true... (photo by Richard Stanley).