October Letter From The Forests of Arduinna
Lots of updates, including an upcoming live stream and new projects.
It’s now Diwali, which is one of my favorite times of the year. I’m not Hindu, of course, but I’ve kept this festival (the Laksmi Puja) regularly for more than a decade. Briefly, it’s a festival of light celebrated by lighting small lamps, cleaning your house, buying new clothes, making elegant feasts (and especially desserts), and generally renewing everything (including familial bonds) to celebrate the triumph of good over evil or light over darkness.
I first encountered Diwali during a very, very dark time of my life. I was living in Vancouver, British Columbia with my then-partner. I wasn’t happy to be there, was extremely poor, unhappy in that relationship, unable to find work, and also couldn’t walk without a cane because of a severed anterior cruciate ligament. That day, we’d decided to spend the little of our very minimal money at a resturant in the Indian neighborhood of that city.
We found ourselves in the midst of unlooked-for light and joy. Children played in the street, lamps were lit everywhere, everyone was dressed like royalty, and then there were fireworks. It was light in a very dark time, and I’ve never forgotten it.
I make a pretty incredible Gulab Jamun, by the way. They’re basically doughnuts made from milk powder and soaked for hours in a cardamom, saffron, and rosewater syrup. I’ll try to film or at least photograph my recipe when I make them this week so you can try, too.
Upcoming Live Stream
Speaking of India and things for gods, I’m both pleased and honored to announce that I’ll be appearing in a live discussion with Dr. Edward Butler Sunday, the 30th of October, 2022.
The title of our discussion is “The Polytheist Revival: Present Issues and Future Prospects,” and it will be hosted through Indica, the Indic Academy. My longtime readers will already know a little bit about Indica and Dr. Edward Butler, as there was quite a little controversy over Butler’s work with them. A handful of social media addicts declared him a dangerous fascist, and me alongside him (hardly the first time!).
The conversation should be fantastic, and you can watch it live by registering for it at this link. Here are the local times for it:
Melbourne, Australia Mon, 31 Oct 2022 at 00:00 AEDT
Kolkata, India Sun, 30 Oct 2022 at 18:30 IST
Paris, France Sun, 30 Oct 2022 at 14:00 CET
London, United Kingdom Sun, 30 Oct 2022 at 13:00 GMT
New York, USA Sun, 30 Oct 2022 at 09:00 EDT
Chicago, USA Sun, 30 Oct 2022 at 08:00 CDT
I believe it will be recorded. If so, I’ll make sure to post the link for the video afterwards here.
Other Notes
My upcoming essay collection, The Secret of Crossings, is available for pre-order here. Because shipping and distribution in December is very unpredictable, it you’d like to make sure you get a copy before the end of the year I highly suggest pre-ordering. And you save $2 by doing so.
Also, paid subscribers of From The Forests of Arduinna will also get a free PDF version of the book when it’s released, because it’s their support of this substack that made most of those essays possible. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, you can subscribe annually for 10% off until the end of October with this button:
Upcoming Essays
In a few days, I’ll be re-releasing one of the essays that is in the book as a public essay, originally published only for paid subscribers (“Soap Has Always Been With Us, and Longer Still.”) Look for that re-post here.
I have two more essays coming this month. One will be posted on Halloween, and it’s on the dead (of course). It’s called “The Forests of the Dead.” Also, I’m now working on another essay that is a bit of a follow-up to “Not Peace, But a Sword” thanks to the really fascinating conversation it led to (see particularly the exchanges with Paul Kingsnorth and Jeff Alexander in the comments).
New Projects!
I’ve mentioned it a few times already, but I’ll be starting a monthly podcast hosted here. I’d planned to start it in October but, well, life. Instead, it will start in November, and the first planned guest is Gordon White. These will be released in advance to paid subscribers and then made public after a week.
Also, in January of 2023, I’ll start a book club for paid subscribers. January’s book will be Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch, which we’ll read together and I’ll write weekly essays about it. Subsequent books will be chosen by vote. Look for an official announcement on that in December.
Other notes
I’m currently finishing a third round of edits for Here Be Monsters. I asked the editor and the publisher and they both thought this was a great idea, so I’ll be looking for some test readers of the manuscript in November. I’ll be contacting a few of you soon to ask if you’d be willing to do this.
Also, I’ll be closing my Patreon in November. I know most of my supporters there have already migrated to here, but I’ll send those of you still supporting me that way an update this week and will make sure you get migrated over with the benefits from there.
And I finally got around to re-working my Wordpress site (RhydWildermuth.com) to reflect the fact that I now write primarily here. It now looks kind of neat, actually. Sometime before the end of the year, I’ll be migrating the best of my essays of the last 9 years from there to this substack, and they’ll be available as a permanent archive for paid subscribers.
Hope you’re well, and happy Diwali!