Monthly Archives: December 2014
Starting the New Year Off Right
“What wickedness takes place during this feast; fortune-tellings, divinations, deceptions and feigned madnesses. On this day, having been seized up by the furies of their bacchant-like ravings and having been inflamed by the fires of diabolical instigation, they flock together to the church and profane the house of god with vain and foolish rhythmic poetry in which sin is not wanting but by all means present, and with evil sayings, laughing and cacophony they disrupt the priest and the whole congregation applauds for the people love these things. (Richard of St.-Victor, Sermones centum 177.1036)”
In keeping up with good polytheist tradition, I’ll be doing divination on the eve of the Kalends — New Year’s Eve. In a day or so, I”ll be posting a ritual that I shall also be doing.
If you would like to have divination done, please contact me at krasskova at gmail.com. I am charging for this: $25/person. (My normal rate is $80). I am limiting this to two questions per person. Please have your questions to me by 9pm EST December 31. Folks may paypal me directly at tamyris at earthlink.net, but please include your questions and email address.
Walking the Worlds Journal Update
Copies of Walking the Worlds, the first journal of polytheism and spiritwork, have been ordered and should be in the mail to subscribers and contributors by late next week.
I received the proof today and issue 1 looks fabulous. 🙂 We will be making the journal available on amazon, but it’s cheaper to subscribe, either for one issue, or for the full year (two issues).
To learn more, check out the journal site Walking the Worlds. There you can find information on subscribing, advertising, and the themes for upcoming issues.
I now have a twitter account
I’ve finally taken the plunge and set up a Twitter account. Folks can follow me @GalinaKrasskova.
No One is Free Until Everyone is Free
The title of this post is a quote by anti-slavery activist V. Pandik. I found it on the website for Lifeway Network, an organization dedicated not only to ending human trafficking but to providing safe shelter to women fleeing such abuse. I stumbled upon them while I was doing some leisure reading. One of the books I’ve been ploughing through the last couple of days, mentioned an activist nun, a bad-ass woman Sister Joan Dawber. Her ministry involves helping to free women who have been sold into slavery—and in NYC alone, recent estimates point to upwards of twelve thousand people, mostly women who are survivors of human trafficking. That’s only those who have survived. It doesn’t take into account those who are living in degrading, painful, abusive, humiliating, and dehumanizing conditions against their will now.
I was moved intensely by reading about some of the things Sister Dawber had encountered, and by the sheer terrifying statistics of human trafficking. I checked out the website and decided to donate to them (and i may look into becoming more involved in other ways too). I wanted to post the info and link here for others who may be so moved. It really brought home again, something that I know in theory, but have the luxury and privilege of not dwelling on daily: slavery is in no way a thing of the past.
Anyway, here is the info:
Lifeway Network. (Donations are probably tax deductible).
Literary Matters
The inaugural issue of “Walking the Worlds” is quite close to being ready and I am very, very excited about it. It’s an amazing issue with some truly remarkable pieces, including articles by P.S.V.L, Edward Butler, Rev. Tamara Siuda, Beth Lynch, Jason Pitzl-Waters and more. I’ll post here when it’s available but in the meantime, check out the journal site. Once the prep work is completely done and we’re waiting for our proof, I’ll contact those contributors contributors whose articles have been accepted so we can get you the monies. ^_^ For those whose work wasn’t quite suitable for this issue, please don’t be discouraged but check out our upcoming themes and try again.
In the meantime, we are also prepping an anthology of articles based on the presentations given at the recent NY Regional Diviners’ Conference. I’ve already received some great contributions and we are hoping to have that out in the spring.
So stay tuned, folks. There’s lots of neat stuff happening and as my Thracian colleague often intones, it’s a damned fine time to be a Polytheist.