One day, I decided to be a wizard

It’s hard to say exactly why.

I guess I didn’t have anything better to do. No joke – I had tried a lot of other things first, and they were definitely worse than becoming a wizard.

I didn’t skip any steps. I started off as a lowly apprentice, same as anybody else. My early work was amateurish, but it was sincere. I believed then – as I do now – that there’s so much we are missing in our “ordinary” lives, that the world is magic, that life is worth celebrating, that hope is real, and reality flexible.

I messed around and experimented. I tried to make up a weekly office holy day. I followed and examined the seasons. I studied the I Ching and dabbled in many forms of meditation. I tried my hand at myth-making.

Eventually, I wrote a couple of mediocre books (which I’ll still encourage you to read). The experiments and exploration continued. I discovered the religious side of the Grateful Dead and the wonders of Chaos Magic. I deepened my relationship with Monadnock Mountain and became a devotee of the sacraments of our time.

Not long ago (it seems like last week but it was really about a year ago), I realized I wasn’t an apprentice anymore. Relax though, I’m not a master or anything yet. I’ve got a ways to go. I’m actually a journeyman wizard now. That’s still a pretty humble position, but the difference between apprentice and journeyman is significant. Last October, for the first act of this new phase, I launched the Wizard of Monadnock Radio Hour podcast, a monthly exploration of the meaning of life and the universe conducted in several different formats. Concurrently, I added video composition to my repertoire – and we haven’t even scratched the surface of that yet.

So what’s next? I mean, not to be all coy about it, but you’re really just gonna have to stick around if you want to find out. It’s like the old hymn says, “All the things I planned to do, I only did halfway.” In the case of my early I Ching project, that’s literally what I did – I made it just past halfway through the hexagrams before I stopped (I’ll start again one day, I swear). But the point here is to say that if you plan to do a shit-ton, and you only end up doing half of it, you still probably did kind of a lot. It also means I have a pretty large backlog of unfinished projects and even unfulfilled promises in addition to the whole new level of vision, production, and content gained with journeyman status.

I’m trying to get better about making regular posts on this actual site again. I don’t wanna forget were I came from, you know? But the realities of being an unknown blog and podcast on a crowded internet being what they are, I reach an exponentially larger audience through Facebook posts and podcast apps than through web traffic, so it’s often easier to tend to those channels and leave the website sulking and half-neglected. That’s just the way it is! So if you want to be sure you’re always up on the latest and most from the Wizard, give us a like and preferential treatment on your Facebook feed. Search for Wizard of Monadnock on any podcast app (yes, including Apple, SoundCloud, whatever – any of them) and you’ll find it. There’s only one. And if you really want the real exclusive wizardry, you’re gonna have to bribe your way into the Patreon for that (it’s probably maybe worth it).

I mean it, though – my intent is truly to be on here as regularly as the other platforms. You’ll find me somewhere. Actually, no promises yet, but it’s entirely possible that in the near future you may even find me in real life. But only, of course, if that’s what our fates do hold.