So, I realize that I haven’t made a post since, yikes, mid-October?  Has it really been so long so quick?  According to my posting records and how many notifications Facebook gives me about updating my Digital Ambler page, apparently!

Normally, when I go into these slow periods when I don’t post much, it’s because I’m usually not doing much, since a lot of my writing is based on what I’m actually doing, studying, debating, researching, ritualing, and the like.  And yet, this time, that’s not as much the case.  While I haven’t been up to much proper ritual stuff, that’s not to say I haven’t been busy.  Besides the usual stuff like keeping an orderly household or keeping up with my full-time software engineering day job and visiting family and whatnot, there’s been a lot of stuff going on, too, not least of which I received several major further ceremonies in La Regla de Ocha Lukumí (a.k.a. Santería) to further my own abilities, license, and spiritual fortitude as a priest of Ogun.  (That, frankly, knocked me on my ass for a good month or so.)  Besides that, I’ve been doing plenty of research and reading and other legwork for a whole bunch of things:

• Continuing to learn, study, and practice further elements of La Regla de Ocha Lukumí
• The Akkadian/Babylonian anti-witchcraft ritual Maqlû, which I want to analyze and redevelop using a similar framework into a Hermetic or PGM-style curse-breaking and witchcraft-warding ritual
• Investigating the origin of the letter- and name-divination techniques using Western geomantic rules (which I’ve previously written off before but may have a good lead to figure out where they came from and how to improve upon them)
• Continuing to edit, improve, and add on to my geomancy textbook “Principia Geomantica” (yes, it’s still in the works! no, I don’t know when it’ll be ready!)
• Preparing new tools for a Delphic Maxim oracle for my own use with Apollōn and Hermēs
• Preparing consecrations of astragaloi sets and four coin sets for Hermaic divination
• Preparing for a Mars consecration of carnelian bracelets as wearable talismans
• Spending more money than I’m strictly comfortable with on academic books on various topics for niche and specialized research
• The usual bullshit on Twitter

I also note that today happens to be Christmas Eve, which is also the feast of Adam and Eve.  Since I consider Adam to be the Earthy Forebear of geomantic practitioners (along with Daniel as the Fiery, Enoch as the Airy, and Hermes Trismegistus as the Watery Forebears), I wanted to share a prayer or invocation of Adam, but I don’t have one in a presentable format yet.  In the meantime, go read Dr. Cummins’ post about Adam and Eve and how they relate to magical praxis and theory and history; it’s a lovely read, especially for so fitting a day.  Perhaps by April 4th, the feast I give to Hermes Trismegistus, or March 24th, the feast for Gabriel the Archangel, I’ll have a set of prayers ready to share for geomancers with a more devotional bent to their practice.

And that’s all on top of the client work I do, fielding questions for guidance and doing readings for those who need it.  Speaking of, I’m also getting ready for 2019 yearly geomantic forecasts; stay tuned!  I’ll be doing a several-week special, to be announced later this week once Christmas itself has passed.

I’ve also been drawing up ideas to start a kind of subscription service; something small in exchange for a collective forecast every New Moon, plus communal discussions or impromptu teaching sessions on Discord every month or something.  It’s an idea I’d like to explore and see how it’d be received; if you’d like to give me your thoughts on that, feel free to comment below!  It wouldn’t affect the blog posts or pages any, at least not that I can think of, but if you’d like that little extra push from my end, it might be useful and worth your time and mine.

I’m not in the habit of apologizing for not posting; after all, it’s my blog, and it’s up to me and me alone to update it when I feel like it, however I feel like it.  That said, I do know that a good number of people are wondering where I’ve been, so I just wanted to let you know that between everything going on, everything I’m gearing up for, and a good deal of indecision about what to write about next (seriously my drafts folder is filling up with ideas, none of which are immediately appetizing for me to write about), I haven’t forgotten about you or the blog, nor have I fallen off the face of the earth!

Never a dull moment, indeed, but at least I’m doing well.  (Though I would like to go to the gym again at some point, had I enough time to do that on top of everything else plus commuting plus working plus sleeping etc.)  I hope the end of this interminable year is treating you all well, dear readers, and that the dawn of 2019 looks brighter than anything you’ve seen lately.