Success!

I'm one of those Type-A perfectionist people. I set a high bar for myself, higher than I set it for others (and that's pretty high too!). So how would I measure the success of this blog over the past year? We have almost 25k hits on the blog. We have a few hundred followers.  We get about 2,000 hits a month. We have posts in the top 10 on google searches. Those are nice, but they aren't the real measure of success.

Success to me, besides meeting my daily commitment to blog (well, really to study and to find magic every day and get my voice out there), has been the conversations that have been started. Success has been found in the personal connections made and to be honest, in the personal connections which were severed too- those relationships would have otherwise dragged on to the detriment of all parties.  I am now surrounded by wonderful, magical people that I am thrilled to know and excited to be working with. In the past year I have connected with my Ancestors and Patrons in a way that has not happened previously. I have learned more by posting than I ever did by sitting back and taking notes.

I'd apologize for the meta posts, but it's time to pause for the year in review and take a look back. That's what this blog as been about from the start: Looking back at where we've been as a community, looking at history, looking at ancient practices, trying to discern the zeitgeist of different ancient societies, all in the name of relating them to our modern world and modern practice. Pre-christian practices are a big tangled ball of yarn and I have been trying to unwind the threads. Sometimes my blog might seem xenophobic, but that is only due to my attempt at unwinding a specific thread from this great tangled ball. Who knows, it's probably all just one long thread and the jumble makes it look like there are many when we are really one and the same. How's that for a top o the mountain analogy? ;)

Sometimes you have to look back to figure out where you're going. So where are a we going? As a community? As magical practitioners? As individuals? Have we learned anything from ancient history? From recent history? Sometimes I think not at all. Sometimes I'm quite impressed. Are we successful as a community? Can we come together when it counts? Are we a community, or are we just a bunch of individuals whose common enemies of discrimination and prejudice make us friends?

Deep questions to ponder! I'm off to do that now. But! Don't fret! Not all of this week's posts will be of the year in review variety! We will continue to look ahead, to discuss magic, plans for next near and a new year ritual to honor Janus and to either leave the last year behind or to build on it!