Friends,

Happy New Years and hello again!

Lately I’ve been lurking in my socials, reading posts and various shared articles, bookmarking interesting things I might like to share or write about, giving myself some time to rest and renew at the closing of one year and the dawning of the next. I’ve also been trying to contemplate or discern the deeper meaning of the phrase “The Light Persists”, which as you may remember came to me in a period of dark despair and doom-filled thinking when I was profoundly moved by this news item about the lighting of the Posner family menorah in the window of the home of the President of Germany.

I’ve also spent some time processing and engaging in some discernment around my most recent bought of Depression. Engaging in the same work around the many personal, and professional, and cultural and societal and emotional ups and downs in my life in 2022, and over the last few years.

The seemingly massive and widespread resurgence of outright racism, homophobia, anti-science, anti-vax, conspiracy cults, and fascism. The Pandemic and lockdowns, deaths on a massive scale, and that in so many cases they seem to be waved off as unimportant or unworthy of note. The continuing nature of the Coronavirus Pandemic, and the natural uptick in viruses and illnesses floating about as large portions of society have reopened within the last couple of years after masking and social distancing have prematurely ended. Fear and anger, grief and shock.

We find ourselves in a time of trials. A time where the forces of hatred and intolerance and tyranny seem to have conspired with the forces of a changing climate and nature itself in an ongoing onslaught against all hope and stability and decency. A time of individual and communal and collective trauma. Tower Time as writer, Witch, and Pagan Elder Byron Ballard has been calling it for years in her writings and work. Among other things Ms. Ballard is a Tarot card reader, and in calling the times of change and upheaval we are going through right now Tower Times she is referencing the 16th Card of the Major Arcana of a standard Tarot deck, which like a lot of the cards with intense and intimidating imagery is not as doom filled an omen as it might first appear.

Ms Ballard works extensively with the Tarot. As a writer here, I work regularly with the metaphors of the transformational process and of the journey. Increasingly in my process as both a Witch and writer I have been working more and more with the metaphor and powers of The Crossroads. I have long been a proponent of the idea that part of taking up the mantle and practice of Witchcraft is to accept responsibility for one choices. A Witch chooses their actions, and reactions. Ideally this is done carefully and with a willingness to own ones actions and accept ones consequences, to pay the coin as some traditional Crafters will say.

I have also worked with and written, imperfectly, about the concept of the Acrostic Eye. The phenomena where as one learns and develops as a Witch, learning the lore and techniques and symbolisms of Magick and engaging in the practice of it, one begins to view the world around oneself and its events differently.

The lessons of The Crossroads and The Acrostic Eye are that there are seldom if ever simple truths or easy answers. Truth is complex and honest answers are complicated.

I believe that this year, and over the next few that follow we are all standing at a crossroads, the intersection of the times and tides of History and Culture and Technology. The choices we make and the actions we take, individually and collectively, in the next few years will help determine the survival and potential for humanity going forward. I have been reminded, indeed to one degree or another all who observe and celebrate the Solstice-tide and Yule have been reminded, that even in the longest nights and in times of turmoil filled with all the evils that humanity can perform, the light persists!

At this Crossroads with these Tower Times let us choose to join together. Let each of us rekindle the fires of Will and hope and hospitality and compassion and community and justice within ourselves and within this still Holy World. Let us serve as beacons for others who are lost and fearful and believing themselves alone and without hope. Let all of us living through such times, the people of conscience and courage and many faiths, come together to bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice once more. We have done so before and we can do so again.

May each of us be a part of the light that persists.

Bliss and Blessed Be,
So Mote it Be,
Pax / Geoffrey