So, here we are at the end of 2019, all of us headed into a new decade in less than thirty days. It seems to be all the rage on Twitter and Facebook to do an end-of-decade recap, so I figured I may as well pitch in with mine. This was originally going to be a tweet thread over on my Twitter, but it turns out that Twitter won’t allow threads over a certain maximum number, and 2010—2019 was…well, quite the decade for me, and I wanted to do it justice as some of the most formative years of my life to this point. So, let’s try this over here on this, my beloved website and blog, that has seen me through all these years and, God and gods willing, many more years to come. Now that I’ve written all this, it’s…kind of astounding everything that’s happened to me, for me, by me, and with me over just the span of ten years, how much I’ve changed, how so much has happened that I would never have dreamed of happening.

Ten years ago, at the end of 2009, I was wrapping up my penultimate semester in undergrad at UVa. (I still have old photos from my old laptop, long since sold off, of me in the 24-hour library studying and partying with friends.) That semester was the most difficult and credit-intense of them all; the semester after that was the easiest and most fun of them all. I wrote my undergraduate thesis for my B.S. in computer science on using software metrics and variable name uniqueness to predict bugs, and how software engineers are awful at using metrics for actually engineering their products.

There was an unfortunate issue with an unofficial subletter we had in my apartment who, while the rest of us were out of town for winter break 2009—2010, ended up exploding the fireplace (and damn near destroying the rest of the apartment) while drunk and drugged up. He and one of his friends thought it would be a good idea to have a fire in the fireplace and start throwing shit into it: potatoes, bottles of cleaning products, rolls of toilet paper, cans of food…and one can of chickpeas was built exceptionally sturdy, and failed spectacularly. None of us, especially our landlady, were thrilled about that. We were finding bits of charred potato, melted bottles, and ash across the place for weeks. He dropped off the face of the map, but we were able to track down his family’s contact information and pass it along to our landlady for restitution.

While I had begun my blog, “The Digital Ambler”, early in 2010, I didn’t really do much with it. It was originally a devotional space for XaTuring, the Great Worm, god of the Internet. It fell stagnant and quiet for a while. I got Twitter and deleted Facebook in the spring of 2010, around the time when I graduated college. Cesspool that it is, I’ve met some amazing people on Twitter since that time, many of whom have become lifelong friends in the process.

I was living with my then-boyfriend (who graduated one year earlier) at the time. We were together for less than a year after this; we moved in together upstate after I graduated, then we broke up and he went to be with someone else. He moved out, and I had the place all to myself for about a year—while he was still paying, no less, for his share, which was great for me, and gave me the space I needed to eventually begin my magical and spiritual practices. (It also gave me the wonderful time to just be home naked all the time without a concern in the world.)  We met about two years earlier at our rival college through the furry community, ultimately through my ex, who was on-and-off-again president of the furry club; through them, I met the local furs upstate where I moved and made friends with them, too, even after my breakup.

It was in the final weeks of my last semester at college, literally during the study period before finals, that I got my job acceptance call with the federal government. I was skipping down the hallway to my Proto-Indo-European Linguistics study session in joy. The job was slow-going, but eventually the work picked up for me. It was quiet and enjoyable.

By this time, I was already good with geomancy, having studied and practiced it for about two or three years by this point. The Geomantic Campus Yahoo! group was alive and well at this point. For a long while, I had only wanted to just be a diviner, keeping magic well out of it, but…well, in 2011, after finally settling down into the idea of Actually Doing Magic, I had the choice between one of three alternatives. After doing a reading for myself, I got into Fr. Rufus Opus’ “Red Work” course, and I restarted my blog as a place for my Hermetic research and rambling. I didn’t stop writing or let the blog stagnate this time—or, at least, not for as long.

Through my furry friends in the area, I met a particularly fascinating magical practitioner and priestess. She put me in contact with others, and by them through others, and by them through others. Abundant adventures ensued, as well as a few visits to some tattoo and piercing parlors: I got a caduceus on my left forearm, a Rod of Asclepius on my right forearm, the Golden Chain of Homer on my spine, and several piercings in my ears and one under my lip. I’ve yet to get any more, but I’m looking forward to it when I can; I’ve only had to take out my labret piercing (it was wearing down the gum on my lower teeth), and while I later got nipple piercings, I took those out too and never bothered putting them back in.

My mother’s mother passed away in late spring 2012. The worst part of it all was the long trip to my ancestral state for her funeral—and watching my brother blab on in his eulogy about her lung cancer, which she had kept secret from others all this time (hilariously enraging my mom in the process). My mother still has yet to go through all her records and files, but she’s making progress again.

Looking back on it and given how complete it was (though never as complete as he set out for it to be), I would say that Fr. Rufus Opus’ “Red Work” course has two main objectives: contact with your holy guardian angel/supernatural assistant, and induction into the eighth sphere of the fixed stars. I accomplished the first objective in early summer 2012.

Lots of adventures with furries and magicians and pagans in this time. I miss a lot of it, debauched and dramatic as it sometimes was. I still get to hang out periodically with some of those friends, but it’s a lot less common nowadays. Those adventures, stupid as they sometimes were, were at least memorable enough to provide some much-needed learning experiences, not just about magic, but also myself. Through some of my magical contacts, I began doing readings and teaching an occasional class at a local new age/occult shop.

After a weird amount of online dating and hooking up, I met a new boy towards the latter half of 2012; we met through OkCupid after rating each other highly, and we commented on the weird grammar used in the automatically-generated message it sent out. I was attracted to his profile because of his impressive back tattoos (large arachnidian-demonic wings). He later admitted that he did a bit of a candle spell to find someone—he got a candle from the same new age store I did readings at, on a day when I was teaching a class. He recognized my voice when we went out for the first time and got drunk at an Irish pub down the street from me. It’s also because of the boy that I got a Facebook again, to prove to his friends that I actually exist. It’s been useful in other ways since, too, especially for creating and maintaining the Geomantic Study-Group I admin. Lots of other social connections, too, as it turns out.

Through my branching internet and magical friends, I learned of a mages’ convention a few states north. Great antics were had, even if I don’t remember them all; I learned that drunken prophecy was a Thing for me (who knew?). It was at this convention that I not only got to meet Fr. Rufus Opus in person (as well as Jason Miller and a bunch of others), but I also got to meet the man who would become my bromancer, my partner-in-crime in the occult, with whom I’m still excellent friends. (At one point I even shoved God into his head, which was fun. Neither of us remember that event clearly.)

It was around this time, in 2013-ish, that I began working on a draft for a textbook on geomancy. Also this year, the husband and I spent a lot of time with our first godfamily and spiritual community in another state, people I met through my earlier contacts. Lots of fun times were had and lots of learning. I also learned that I look pretty good with a buzzcut.

In the autumn of 2013, there was a lengthy government shutdown, which put me on temporary enforced vacation. I used that time wisely, constructed a fantastic ebony Wand of Art (the wood itself a gift from a friend), and, after more than a week straight of heavy conjurations, achieved the second objective of the “Red Work” course: induction into the eighth sphere of the fixed stars. It changed everything for me.

The boy and I moved in together in early 2014 with another friend. I still miss that house with its abundant fields, problematic though it was in the long term. Because of the distance involved and how much further I moved away, I had to stop going to the new age store I was doing readings at; I want to visit again, but the time never seems to be there. The housemate eventually moved out when she got into a relationship of her own, and though she and the boy are good friends, she doesn’t come around much anymore. In fact, many of the friends we had in the area in common we haven’t seen much; they were all really tight when they lived together, but I guess time is an amazingly busy knife for so many people.

In the summer of 2014, I made a trip back down to my alma mater for an academic conference, “Tracking Hermes/Mercury”. I was probably the only non-academic attendee, but that was fine. It was great to be back, even just for a short while.

The pleasant times the boy and I had with our out-of-state godfamily all blew up horrifically in our faces in late 2014; I’m still bitter about it, honestly, so it’ll be for the best if I never have to cross paths with them again. That blowup with the erstwhile godfamily really started at that year’s mages’ convention in the autumn. I never went back after that, and the convention itself fell apart not a few years later. Oh well. Memories are memories, sweet and hollow as they are.

Towards the end of 2014, I did a month-long magical working, in which I made the most rookie mistake ever: I didn’t actually read the full ritual text in detail that I was going to work from. It was…a harsh learning lesson, and it brought up and opened up a lot of things for me that I thought I had locked, chained, and cast down to the bottom of the ocean. Some things you just can’t escape or hide your head in the sand from; it’s a lesson I’m still learning. I suppose it was still a successful operation, though I question whether I would have done it if I actually had read the text itself beforehand.

I took my first step (well, a lot of them, really) into Lukumí (Afro-Cuban orisha religion, aka “Santería”) in 2015, receiving my Warriors, Hand of Orunmila, ilekes, and Olokun throughout the year. My godfather turned out to be one of the people I had met through that magical practitioner from before; his godsister, the boy’s godmother. I still find it hilarious how the furry community ultimately got me into this religion.

In summer 2015, I took a new job offer to be a team lead in a different program, same building and agency, right down the hall. It was a year of suffering; I developed panic attacks in an utterly horrific office that I could not fix. It was a mess of micromanagement, poor coordination, and a terrorized staff. It was awful.

In autumn 2015, the boy became the husband. We had already been headed that way for some time, but plans fell through, we couldn’t get the money scrounged up in time, and we just decided to leave it be. But then the gods themselves intervened and brought everyone and everything together at the right time, on the very day we wanted in the exact context we wanted, for us to get married anyway. I had no intention of visiting my (not-yet) godmother’s house to get married, but it happened anyway.

At the end of 2015, our landlord told us he was going to sell the place we were living in, so we had four months to GTFO. Thus began months of house-searching and freaking out. We were pushing right up into the limit—and over it. But we made it, and me, my husband, and our new housemate bought a house together at the start of summer 2016. After months of chaos and anxiety, this worked out exceedingly well and in our favor in so many ways—sometimes as if it were by magic or divine intervention. (Imagine that.) Now we just need to keep improving it, fixing what was leftover from the previous owners, and making it more livable and sturdy for as long as we’ll be here for it.

In summer 2016, after exactly one year in that horrible team lead job, I left it and went back to my old job. I’ll always be grateful to my supervisor for helping me get back there; I’m perfectly happy with my team, my work, my workload, and my position where I am, and though it was helpful to get that team lead experience (and a pay bump), I’m glad it’s over with. I’m happy being at the top of the career ladder and quite content with my position where I am; sure, the money from being a team lead or supervisor might be nice, but it’s not worth the stress of the position, nor is it worth giving up the work I already enjoy so much. Looking back, it seems like my work life has been the most stable thing about my life, which is frankly surprising.

In autumn 2016 (coinciding with his and my Saturn Return), my husband and I went to Cuba to be initiated fully into La Regla de Ocha Lukumí, him as a priest of Oshún and me a priest of Ogún. Everyone got giardia in the process, but I was the only one who didn’t have to take Cipro to get over it. (I also learned that dairy and intestinal parasites don’t mix too well. At least I didn’t have to worry about caloric blowback from those milkshakes on the way back.) I lost 15 pounds from our Cuba diet and our gastro-intestinal affliction, but I also gained a new life, a battery of orisha, and such divine guidance and support that I cannot but be honored and humbled by it all every day.

That began one year and one week of wearing only pure white clothing, every day, all day, inside and outside, publicly and privately. Not a lot else happened publicly or otherwise due to religious restrictions for our initiatory year; mostly just quiet processing. It was rough, but it was also worth it. I understand now what other priests say when they say they’d go through the entire process all over again, hard though it is to believe. There was some nasty drama during the year, however; our house didn’t explode, but our household nearly did. The Year in White is never easy, and it’s never the same for any two given priests. We made it, by the grace of God and the gods. I gained those 15 pounds back over the course of the year.

My father’s mother passed away in 2017. I can’t be sad about it; the woman basically won at life in every regard. She had a quiet and easy death in her 90s surrounded by family, after living through World War II, being married three times, inheriting a business fortune, traveling the world, and even having a short stint with the Jewish mafia. She’s earned not just a good rest but a whole throne and pavilion just for herself in the afterlife.

Since coming out of my Year in White in autumn 2017, it’s just been a lot of learning, studying, practicing, writing, experimenting, divining, casting, praying, meditating, and on and on. Routines get set up, fall apart, and set up again. Projects come up again and again, and some even get worked on enough to actually make it somewhere. The Work never really ends, thank God and the gods. There’s never a dull moment, even in the downtime.

Our husband’s cat Isis, which he had for over a decade, whom we took in from his grandmother’s in 2016, fell ill and died in early 2018. It was…hard, especially for him. She’s in a decorated resin canopic jar now, watching over us and the house. We got a new cat later that summer. Well, I should say, he wanted to get a cat, and I ended up getting one. Nephthys is…well, she’s a cat. And, more recently, thanks to the husband’s mother, she has a new brother now, Set, whom she is not yet a fan of. (At all.) It’s a process. My husband recently pointed out that Nephthys is much like him in personality, while Set is more like me. And Set is very much his cat. (Funny how that works. And yes, the husband picked all three names for the cats.)

I took on students this past year in 2019; it’s not my first time having a student, but this is the longest and most thorough arrangement I’ve ever had, and helps me as much as it helps them. It also gives me a good way to experiment and check in on some of the stuff I myself do. Not to make them my guinea pigs, of course, but it does point out to me better ways to teach and instruct some of the things that I myself have been taught, or that I’ve had to teach myself.

I was invited to speak at another magical conference up north this past summer; it was a great time, and I already look forward to this next year’s. I just need to figure out what the hell I want to propose to talk about this time! In fact, this whole summer was weirdly high-profile for me, getting to meet a bunch of big names from across the country.

After being in credit debt since 2013, the husband and I finally finished paying all of it off this year. We’re finally able to start saving money—and up our monthly allowances. Still need to keep a tight rein on our spending, but that shouldn’t be too difficult at this point. Besides, our credit scores are high enough that we can get most anywhere we need. (And sure, I’ve taken out a loan or two since then, but those are household expenses, so I’m not half as worried about them.)

Over the past decade, I’ve gained a bit of weight and I smoke more than I did in college, and though I don’t drink as much as I did, I’m not as physically active as I was, either. I’ve done things that I would have thought impossible for me, and though I didn’t set out of college with some big overarching plan or design for how I wanted my life to be, if you had told me that this would be my life as I took off my graduation gown, I would have laughed in your face. I’ve met countless people, some of whom I’ll probably never meet again and others with whom I look forward to meeting again time and time again. I’ve traveled to places that I thought were only stories, and I’ve done things that I would have considered to belong in the realm of fables. Heck, somehow, after writing more words than are in all the Harry Potter books put together, I’ve even ended up making a small name for myself in the occulture, which is as shocking to me as anything else. Sure, I’ve made mistakes, I’ve stepped on toes, and I’ve fucked up, yes, but I’ve also grown a bit, or at least I think I have. All told, I look forward to everything this next decade has to bring. If this past decade has been any indication, then things should only get better from here. When I raise my glass for this upcoming New Year, I’ll be sure to raise it, my voice, and my spirit for all that has gotten me here and all those who walked this road with me, whether or not they’re still at my side.

And yes, the geomancy book is still in progress.