I guess that if I need a break, then I need one, and boy howdy do I need one, and a more dedicated break than what I gave myself last time.

It’s been a crazy time, as y’all know, for one reason or another, and I need a bit of a break.  I already pulled a bit of a break earlier this year to focus on my Salem presentation, which went great, but this time, I need some time to just do nothing at all except relax and enjoy myself.  Between a busy year of writing, translating, teaching, the Reign of the Lady of Crowns, taking an online Sahidic Coptic course (and several other courses, including Jack Grayle’s excellent PGM Praxis course to buff out my own stuff), and just the usual day-to-day stuff of full-time software engineering to pay the bills and household management to make the most out of it all, I’m gonna be taking a bit of a vacation for the month of October for my birthday.  I won’t be taking on any client work or consultations during this time, and though I’ll still be replying to emails for access to the Red Work Course and Geomancy in the Reign of the Lady of Crowns courses I administer as well as PayPal purchases directly through my website for my ebooks, but any requests for readings, consultations, geomancy chart reviews, coaching sessions, or the like will be on hold until after November gets here, at which point I’ll pick up on those emails and requests again.  My Etsy page also has an announcement to the same effect; although all ebooks and divination tickets through Etsy will be sent automatically to your account/email as normal, I won’t get back to requests until after my vacation.  So, if you request a reading or another service between now and then, then I humbly ask for and will sincerely appreciate your patience until I get back to such work.  Although I’ll still be semi-available by email, those who are a member of my Red Work Course or Geomancy in the Lady of Crowns class mailing lists are encouraged, when and as possible, to ask questions and discussion topics to those forums rather than to me directly in case a more urgent answer is desired from your colleagues.  If there are any big updates or newsworthy things that come up for this blog between now and then, you can be sure I’ll post them, but otherwise, I plan on giving my (excellent) keyboard a bit of a break from writing, editing, teaching, and consulting, and instead will just relax for a well-deserved staycation of my own.

We’ll pick up again soon after I’ve caught up on naps and enjoying myself.  Taking time to rest and recuperate, after all, is as much a sacrament as anything else, and even Hermēs Trismegistos in SH V.4—7 notes that sleep is a blessed thing that keeps us fair, fit, and fine (Litwa’s translation):

Since our bodies are weak, they are in need of much assistance. To be sure, how would the connecting link of our bodies resist even occasional harm if it did not maintain the ingestion of foodstuffs made from the same elements which daily reinforce our bodies? Indeed, an influx of earth, water, fire, and air flows into us which renews our bodies and holds together this tent. Consequently, in the face of commotions, we are incredibly frail and cannot bear them for a single day.

You well know, my child, that if we did not rest our bodies at night, we could not withstand a single day. For this reason, the good Craftsman who foreknows all things, created sleep for the continuance of living creatures, which is the greatest cessation from the fatigue of motion. Moreover, he ordered an equal measure of time for each state—or rather, he allotted more time to repose.

Understand, my child, the magnificent activity of sleep; it is opposed to the activity of the soul, but not inferior to it. Just as the soul is an activity of motion, in the same way, too, bodies cannot live without sleep; for there is a relaxing and loosening of the connected limbs. Sleep operates within, making ingested matter into bodies, distributing the proper elements to each bodily part: water to blood, earth to bones and marrow, air to nerves and veins, and fire to vision. Accordingly, the body intensely enjoys sleep since it activates this pleasure of the body’s reconstitution.

With that, I hope you all have a blessed October in every which way, whether you have a birthday this month or not (but especially if you do, too)!