Friday night at Sirius Rising, I ran a seidhr for a small number of us.  Throughout the week, many things were weighing on our minds.  We were all still processing the Troth kicking Diana Paxson out over things that happened many decades ago and a more recent series of events nearly a decade ago.  We also were processing the question of "Why can't we worship the 'others'?" which are examplified by Loki's children.

The last half of this week, I'm going to be funny an amazing hike up in the 'Daks with my friend Gretchen.  Our goal is to reach Lake Tear of the Clouds, the highest headwaters of the Hudson river, and the highest standing body of water in New York.  That in itself is not a horrific hike, if you break it up into a couple days.  Our current plan:

Hike into lake Colden from upper works parking lot on Wednesday.  I hope to get the lean-to on Colden, but there are plenty of other places to camp there. 

In March of 1999 I attended my first ADF ritual for the Spring Equinox run by Bill Elston in Elmira, NY. When I attended that ritual and learned more about ADF, I was full of excitement. I felt at home with the ritual format and appreciated focus on scholarship. I saw an organization that had survived its first change in leadership as Isaac had stepped down only a few years earlier. I saw an organization that shared my values, and eventually I would start and lead a grove under that organization. In the subsequent 21 years, I would even serve in the highest levels of leadership.

With pride month coming up in a few days, I think it was timely that I was made aware of another study, related to what I posted about in 2017.  This is a new study about LGBT+ people and cyberbullying.  The study can be seen at: https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/lgbtq-guide-online-safety/

The topline results, per that link, are:

In light of the many, horrific, recent events (Trump administration looking to erase transgendered people, bombs sent to prominent Democrats and CNN, shooting more unarmed black people, shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue) I feel that I need to make my stances perfectly clear.

I stand with the minorities, be they racial, religious, or sexual orientation and gender identity.  I fight with them where I can, and when I can't, I try to raise awareness.  I stand against all who do not, and denounce those that attack any of them.

From July 28 through August 4, I had the pleasure of attending the 4th triennial International Asatrú Summer Camp (IASC).  This year it was held in Gerolstein, Germany.  Getting there was a small adventure.  I took Amtrak from home to NYC, then Subway/air trail to JFK followed by a flight to Frankfurt.  This all went smoothly, and about as good as I could expect.  Landing in Frankfurt, I had to get a rental car as I was planning other driving after the trip.  Got upgraded to a SUV which was useful, but more expensive due to costs if fuel.

On the evening of June 1, 2018, my groves senior druid, MJ, and myself gathered in my house to try doing an online oracular spae session.  Before we began, we had many questions on if this would work.  Would the people on the other side of the monitors get anything out of this?  What would happen on our end?  Would the seer actually see?  Would the guide get the usual overflow the seer gets?  Would the technology work?  Would my cats interrupt us?  We did it anyways, and to our surprise it worked.

Over the past few weeks, I can't help but see that the Board of Directors for ADF (aka Mother Grove, MG) is going down the same path that caused major headaches only a few short years ago.  What I have seen is that once again, the MG is not living up to the reforms they stated they were making.  They are once again doing what they please, and not involving the membership in significant decisions for the organization.  They are also not approaching the membership with calls for resumes for open appointed positions, as they said they would.  I wish this was an isolated ins

Over the weekend of October 5 through 8 2017, over 30 people from around Europe and America met in Werder, Germany for the first Frith Forge conference.  In attendance we had leaders from 10 different countries (UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Netherlands, United States, and Canada) representing 16 different organizations.  From my understanding this kind of event has been tried before, but it hasn't worked well, and hasn't attracted people from the Americas.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of being invited to Thornhaven to teach oracular seidhr to 6 Canadians, all women. The trip North was rather uneventful.  I drove up through the Adirondacks to reach the border crossing at Ogdensburg around 10 Friday night.  Easiest border Cristina I ever had as it was only me.  I arrived at Thornhaven shortly there after and spent a couple hours socializing before bed.