On demons and rattlesnakes and other things best left alone.

I took another unscheduled week off from the blog last week. (Did ya miss me?) I had a friend visiting for the week, so things last weekend were a little hectic.

It's too bad, too, because I had a topic all ready to go and everything. But it might even be better for this week, since today is the fall equinox in the Northern Hemisphere -- some Pagans call it Mabon -- which means we're progressing into the dark half of the year. Our attention may be turning not just to pumpkin spice everything, but toward ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. Like, say, demons.

blueringmedia | Deposit Photos

Why am I using a graphic of a rattlesnake when I just said demons, you ask? I'm getting to that. 

My go-to Druid priest, John Beckett, recently wrote a post on Patheos about the Pagan view of demons. You can read his post here, but basically he says that demons exist in many cultures and religions around the world, not just in Christianity, and they take on different roles in other cultures and other religions than they do here in the West. But in general, he says, "demons are spiritual persons who are generally antagonistic toward humans." He says it's possible to do magical work with them, but it's best to do it from a place of mutual respect. Starting off, as many old texts advise, by puffing yourself up as a "mighty sorceror" and demanding that a demon appear and do your bidding is probably not going to end well for you.

I mean, think about it. Say you're a spiritual person, kinda crabby in general and an introvert anyway, especially when it comes to interacting with humanity, and some human gets hold of your name and insists that you appear before them and do whatever they want you to do. I sure wouldn't be inclined to play nice with the idiot. Would you?

This put me in mind of the way sane humans ought to treat rattlesnakes and other critters that can hurt us: treat them with respect, and don't rile them up if you can help it.

After all, snakes aren't evil. A rattlesnake in your path is just a snake doing its snake thing. Leave it alone, and you'll be fine. Same holds true for demons.

But Christianity has scared us into worrying about demons -- specifically, about being possessed by one. (Not to get political, but MAGA world has been freaking out, ever since Vice President Harris won the Democratic nomination for president, over the idea that she is a demon whose election would usher in the Apocalypse.) Beckett says the number of cases of actual demonic possession is pretty small historically, and we're talking centuries here. So the odds are that if someone is calling someone else a demon, they're just trying to scare you.

To sum up the Pagan view of demons: Yes, they exist. Yes, you can make one mad enough to give you trouble. But no, they're not going to possess you for funsies. Give them a lot of respect and a wide berth, and you'll be fine. Just as you would a rattlesnake.

***

Fair warning: I may end up taking next weekend off from the blog, too. We'll see how it goes. I just don't want anybody to think the demons got me if I don't do a post next Sunday.

***

These moments of reassuring blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Check your voter registration here! I just did!

Moving into autumn, Ruth-less.

Yurumi | Depositphotos.com

In early August, not long after I arrived in New Mexico, I posted about all the things I planned to do this fall. I was going to design new covers for the Pipe Woman Chronicles omnibi and start working on audiobooks for all of my novels and I forget what else.

So here we are at Mabon -- the autumnal equinox -- and I've done none of those things.

I did start writing a new short story. It's about half done. Haven't finished it.

I could beat myself up over it, but what's the point? Guilt has never been one of my stronger motivators. I'm more interested in why it's happening (or more accurately, not happening). And I think it's because I'm just flat exhausted.

I've been working for 40 years -- first in broadcast journalism, then as a legal secretary. Sure, there have been times I wasn't showing up at a job every day, but during those breaks I was: on maternity leave, which is so not a vacation; or laid off and looking for a new job; or going back to school for my paralegal certificate. Even when I was on sabbatical from WilmerHale, work was still on my mind. On my first sabbatical, I got a call from work asking me to take on additional duties when I got back. On my second sabbatical this spring, I couldn't hand in my work laptop and phone because the office was closed due to the virus.

And then in July, when I was supposed to be done working, I got talked into staying on for another three weeks. By the time I mailed all the equipment back, I had just enough time to pack the car and hit the road for Santa Fe.

On top of that, for almost the past ten years, I've been writing and publishing three books a year. 

And on top of that is all the political upheaval of the past four years. 

Long-time hearth/myth readers will recall that back in 2016, right after the last presidential election, Amy and I created a dumpster fire ornament. We hung it on our Yule tree that year, never dreaming that things could get worse than 2016 had been. But then 2020 looked 2016 square in the eye and said, very clearly, "Hold my beer."

This past week, we surpassed 200,000 Americans dead from COVID-19. We have a decently-performing stock market, but a limping economy in all other respects. We have a president who is apparently incapable of making any of this better. And now we've lost Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the Court's stalwart liberals, and it looks like the Republicans in the Senate will gleefully break their own rule from 2016 and replace her ASAP -- regardless of the fact that we're only 43 days out from Election Day and early voting has already started. 

I'd make another dumpster fire ornament, but honestly, who wants a 2020 keepsake? 

For Pagans, the equinoxes are all about balance. Day and night are of equal length at this time of year, and that encourages us to find balance in our own lives. Now is the time to begin to take stock of our personal harvests and set aside what will sustain us through the winter.

So I'm taking stock. 

I think when I announced those goals in August -- Write ALL the things! Make ALL the book covers! Record ALL the books! -- I was still in go-go mode. I didn't realize how tired I was. Now, I'm beginning to. And to be honest, I'm relieved to be off the damned clock for once.

Eventually, the book covers will get made and the audiobooks will be recorded. Eventually, I'll finish that short story I started. 

And eventually, we'll have a vaccine for the virus.

What's most important to me now -- and especially so, since Justice Ginsburg's death -- is to see Joe Biden elected as our next president. 

And by the way, the Constitution doesn't specify the number of Supreme Court justices. We have had as few as six and as many as ten -- and there's no reason we couldn't have ten again. Or more, even. Merrick Garland could still get a seat on the Court. And additionally, I think Justice Barack Obama has a nice ring to it.

Blessed Mabon, you guys.

***

These moments of balanced blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. For the love of all the gods, VOTE!

On balance.

The fall equinox -- known to many Pagans as Mabon -- has kind of crept up on me this year. It still feels like summer in DC (today's high was 92 degrees Farenheit; tomorrow's is forecast to be 93, and we may get another 90-plus-degree day next weekend, ugh), and we were in Europe on Labor Day, which has been the calendar marker for summer's end for me since I was a kid.

But the autumn equinox hits here at 3:50am tomorrow, so fall it shall be, regardless of whether I'm able to don a sweater without boiling to death.

Thank the gods we have more than cooler temperatures associated with Mabon. As I mentioned three years ago, Mabon is the second harvest, and as the fall equinox, it's also one of two days of the year when day and night are in balance. Which means it's not a bad time to consider how well our lives are balanced, and whether we should consider making any adjustments.

For me, this year has tipped toward travel to far-off lands. There was the Rhine River cruise I took in the spring, and the Mediterranean cruise with the girls just a few weeks ago. I've packed a lot of sightseeing into these past few months, and I expect to tip back to more normal travel levels from here on out. Which is to say I'm unlikely to do any more European travel for a few years -- although if I get an interesting offer, I might hare off somewhere. You never know.

I'm also looking with increasing anticipation toward retiring from the day job in less than a year, and the move that will accompany it. I'm balancing that with plans to hit some of my favorite places and events here on the East Coast one last time. Of course I made a list, and I've actually managed to knock a few things off of it, but I won't beat myself up if I don't get to them all. I want to be mindful of balancing my day-to-day life against all these "last chance" opportunities, and of not making myself crazy trying to do them all.

My writing life, too, needs to be in better balance. At the beginning of the year, I promised myself that I would write and publish all four Elemental Keys books this year. My original timetable had me publishing Molten Trail this week, but it's not going to happen -- I just sent the manuscript to my editor a week ago, and the book still needs a cover. So I'm expecting now that I'll publish it next month -- hopefully in early October, but certainly well before Halloween. Then I'll be drafting book 4 during NaNoWriMo in November, and I probably won't publish it 'til after New Year's.

This has been a valuable lesson for me. Some writers can churn out ten or more books per year. I've known for a long time that my best pace is three per year, but I wanted to push myself this year to do four. I know now that was a mistake -- I've spent too much of 2019 feeling guilty for not keeping to this accelerated publishing schedule, even though I knew I'd be doing a lot of traveling.

So! The new, more balanced plan: Molten Trail should be released around October 15th, and the final book will be out around late January 2020. I will let you know if that changes.

And looking farther forward, I may write a stand-alone novel in early 2020. I don't want to commit to another series, as late spring and summer will be sucked up by packing and moving. But I don't want the whole first half of the year to get away from me, either. We'll see how things are going once the final Elemental Keys book is out the door.

Blessed Mabon to you all! Here's hoping your life is in better balance than mine...

***
These moments of balanced blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Mabon's coming, or: posting in the Dark.

It's been several years, it turns out, since I've done a post about Mabon, a.k.a. the autumn equinox, which is coming up on Thursday. In 2011, I talked about its significance as the second harvest. Pagans recognize three harvest festivals in our Wheel of the Year: Lughnasadh, at the beginning of August, for grains mostly; Mabon, at the equinox, for the last of the summer fruits and veggies; and Samhain, at the end of October, for apples and pumpkins and things that go bump in the night.

Well, okay -- we don't often set out deliberately to harvest the things that go bump in the night. But maybe we should. And if you're going to begin, Mabon is the time to do it.

The equinox is all about balance, as you know; we have two each year, and each has an equal number of hours of daylight and darkness. The difference is in the trend. In the spring, we are heading into the lighter half of the year. In the fall, we are heading into the dark.

It's easy to chirp about balance in terms of our personal harvests -- the things we've done in the light. What's not so easy to talk about is the dark side of the equation. That's where the scary stuff is: the parts of our lives we'd rather not think about. Our dark nights of the soul. Time's toll on our lives. Death.

When I say "death," I don't simply mean shuffling off this mortal coil, although that's part of it. Many of my indie author colleagues and I have spent this week mourning a friend and fellow traveler, Rich Meyer, who died unexpectedly earlier this week. Rich was a trivia whiz who wrote and published a bunch of trivia quiz books -- but he was also a top-notch e-book formatter who was always willing to help authors with their problem children. He saved my bacon last year while I was in Denver and trying to get a book published. Plus he was hilarious. I miss him.

But physical death isn't the only challenge. I'll be honest -- even though it's been more than a year, I'm still reeling a little from losing that job in Denver. I'm coping; I've been spending time with good friends, and I ticked the last big trip off the bucket list in April when I visited Ireland. But every now and then, I remember, and the memory still feels like a punch in the gut. I suppose it will for a while. Grief is like that.

Time's passage is another one of those Dark Side things, particularly for women. Pagans have this thing about threes, as I've mentioned before, and one way we express it is to split women's lives into thirds: the Maiden years are all about attracting a man; the Mother era is when we bear and raise our children (and sometimes raise our husbands, too, but I digress); and the Crone years are when our looks are fading, but our wisdom and life experiences make us valuable in a new way. Crones have been the victims of bad press for centuries, of course -- see that picture of Baba Yaga above -- so one of the aims of this triplicity is to remind the world at large that older women deserve not derision, but respect.

About five years ago, I suggested to some Pagan women friends that I was thinking about declaring myself a Crone. My 50th birthday had come and gone, my kids were in their 20s, and I felt ready to move on to the next stage of life. My friends were kind of horrified. We were pretty close in age, but none of them felt anywhere near ready -- partly, perhaps, because none of them had had children, but also I think partly because society has us programmed to want to be desirable Maidens forever. (Never mind that Mothers must have sex, too; they don't harvest those babies from a turnip patch. And never mind a chief benefit of Cronehood: birth control measures are unnecessary.)

Anyway, after that, I dropped the idea. Maybe it's time to revisit.

A blessed Mabon to each of you, and may your harvests be bountiful.

***
These moments of Dark blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

A little autumn flash.

It's been entirely too long since I've had time to be a regular at JD Mader's blog for his #2minutesgo feature on Fridays. I hate that. The writing challenge is fun, yes, but it's also fun and awe-inspiring -- and a little daunting -- to read the great pieces everyone else in the group turns out.

I had to go this week, though, because Leland Dirks used a photo I'd shared on Facebook last week as a prompt for a poem that he posted on JD's blog on Friday. Not to be outdone, I wrote a little flash fiction piece of my own. Here's the photo (if anyone knows who the photographer is, please let me know -- thanks!) and my story. For Leland's poem (and everybody else's work), you'll have to click here and head over to the blog.

Happy autumn (the equinox -- the holiday known as Mabon in some circles -- was this past Wednesday), happy last weekend of September, and I hope you get a glimpse of the supermoon eclipse tonight. Stay warm...

***

At first, all I saw was a leaf on the warm, late summer sidewalk. But then the leaf spoke.

"Chilly enough for you?" it said in a rich contralto, parting along the spine to form lips.

To say I was taken aback would be an understatement. "I..." I could manage nothing more. But as I stared at the apparition, a sharp breeze blew across my knees, revealing black eyes slanted in merriment, a hint of a nose, curls the color of aspens in the fall.

Her mouth parted again. "Just wait," the leaf said. "It will get colder." And indeed, the crimson lips were now tinged with black. Frost rimed her golden curls.

"Who are you?" I managed at last.

But she didn't reply. Instead, she laughed and said, "Stay warm." And as I crossed my arms against a sudden chill, a gust blew the leaf away.

***
These moments of fairytale blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

It's harvest time again.

Happy autumn!  Yesterday was Mabon, the second harvest.  I wrote a post about it last year, so I won't go into a lot of detail.  But basically, this is when we bring in the final crops of the year. 

I'm writing this post well ahead of time because, if all goes as planned, I'll be celebrating the autumnal equinox aboard a river cruise ship somewhere on the Danube, having ticked off one of the destinations on my bucket list -- Prague, the ancient home of Šárka and Ctirad -- and visited a bunch more places, too.  I'll tell you about the trip and post some pictures when I get back.

This has been quite the year for me.  Since January, I've published two books and have completed the first draft of a third.  I've joined the staff of Indies Unlimited and am contributing a monthly post to the Indie Exchange.  I've met a ton of new friends -- authors, editors, and book bloggers -- and I think I've even picked up some fans.  And I've become committed to using the Oxford comma, after years of eschewing it.  (I bet you noticed, didn't you?)

It's been a fun ride, and I'm looking forward to what happens next.  Now that Fissured is out and the first draft of Tapped is in the can (yes!  I finished it before I left on my trip!  Lots of work still to do on it, but I'm over the big psychological hurdle), I am looking toward the last two books in the Pipe Woman Chronicles with a better idea of what comes next.  Oh, I've always known where Naomi would find herself in the end.  But I have to admit that, past book 3, I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to get her there.  Now, I've got a better idea of the road she'll have to travel.  And by this time next year, I'll know whether this new map will work.

Hope you're enjoying the season, wherever you may be, on land or sea.  Blessed Mabon to you all, and I'll see you next week.