Pagan Blog Project

Pagan Blog Project

The Pagan Blog ProjectWhile taking some time to reflect on 2011 I began to naturally find myself thinking about what 2012 would bring. During this meditative period I started to find I was being guided toward doing something very specific for the new year, but it took a little while to figure out what it was. The ideas were coming to me in bits and pieces with each one feeling a little incomplete, as though it had a friend it was trying to bring along too but they were stuck in traffic. So after a week of trying to figure this all out it finally came together. This is how The Pagan Blog Project 2012 came together. What is The Pagan Blog Project? (The Short Answer) This project is a way to spend a full year dedicating time each week very specifically to studying, reflecting, and sharing your spiritual and magickal path. The project consists of a single blog post each week posted on your blog each Friday for the year of 2012 that will involve a topic that relates to Paganism, Witchcraft, magick, spirituality, and so on. You can use your posts to share your views on a topic, to talk about your own personal experiences, or to act as a catalyst to research a subject that you may not know much about and then share what you learn and how you feel about that. Each week there is a specific prompt for you to work with in writing your post, a prompt that will focus on a letter of the alphabet each week providing you a framework for your writing as well as a common thread for all participants to share in. Now, the details… When would I be doing these blog posts? In order to keep a feeling of togetherness and community on this project, we’ll all do our posts on the same day, which will be Fridays. Naturally you can write your post when it’s convenient for you, but we’ll all post our writing on Friday’s together. We’ll be starting our posts on Friday, January 6, 2012. How do I know what to write about? There is a structure to how the weekly blog posts will be done in order to help stay on track. The Pagan Blog Project is set up in a bit of a unique way. Each week you’ll have something to prompt you in your writing; the key to each post is to keep your posts and topics focused specifically on Paganism, Wicca, Witchcraft, Goddess spirituality, the occult, and so on. Rather than giving you a specific topic to write about, and as a way to make these posts more personal to you and your path, we’ll be working with a letter each week. There are 26 letters in the alphabet and 52 weeks in the year. That means we’ll use the same letter for two weeks. We’ll start with the letter A for two weeks, then for two week’s you’ll do posts with topics that start with the letter B, and so on. Here’s an example of how this will work. The first post will be done on Friday, January 6th. The letter for the week will be A. You could write about things such as: affirmations altars athames amulets animism Aradia Asatru Alexandrian Tradition and so on… Let’s say you decided to write about altars. You share pictures of your altar, talk about how and why you arrange your altar like you do, or what it was like when you created your first altar. If you feel called to explore altars in more of an academic way you could do research on the use of altars through history and share what you have learned and how it might have changed your view of your own altar. If you are new t o the Craft and you’re still working on figuring out your first altar you can use this post as a way to explore your thoughts and ideas about altars as well as share your questions about them. Through comments on your post you may get helpful information and advice. Then on the next A week you can pick another topic that starts with an A to write about, or if you feel that you haven’t quite finished your topic from the week before you can keep working on that. Ideally you’ll have the chance to explore 52 different topics over the course of the year. What if I run out of ideas? Ah, not to worry! This is where the two community aspects of The Pagan Blog Project comes into play. Sign up for the Pagan Blog Project Weekly Inspiration newsletter! You’ll receive weekly emails each Wednesday with different ideas, suggestions, and inspiration for that week. You might never really need it or you may find the inspiration for the week sparks something in you that you can use for your weekly post, but the weekly email can be a useful tool to motivate you during the year. The other great community aspect that we have is the Pagan Blog Project Facebook group! This is a space where you can meet others who are participating in the project, share posts, and offer comments and support to one another, all while finding some other great blogs. When you’re feeling stuck or challenged the group will be a place you can come to for guidance! Do I have to have a blog or can I do this on my own in a journal? You can absolutely do this on your own! And you’re more than welcome to still join both the newsletter and the Facebook group even if you’re not doing this on a public blog in order to get the inspiration and support you might need as you take this journey. What if I do a video blog? You can do it this way too! Post your videos on Friday’s with “Pagan Blog Project” as part of the title and you share your thoughts through video posts! I’m still really new to Wicca/Paganism/Witchcraft. Can I still do this? Not only can you, it’s ideal for you! If you’re new to the Craft this project will be a great way for you to study and explore the path with purpose and intention on a regular basis. This can help you not only grow in your practice and understanding of the Craft but also give you a sense of routine with regular practice and study. Another way that the Pagan Blog Project will be helpful for beginners is by giving you a jump-start at creating a Book of Shadows. Many beginners want to create a BoS straight away but don’t know how or where to start. At the end of the year you’ll have 52 items that you can print out or transfer to another medium to use as either the beginning of or an addition to your BoS! Great, I love it! How do I sign up? 1.Sign up for the newsletter. If you would like to share you blog with the world and others that will be doing this project, provide your blog website address in the space provided. There will be a list here on the page of all blogs participating who wish to be known. 2.Then join our Facebook Group. Introduce yourself and your blog to everyone in the group. 3.Grab one of the buttons or banners below and post it to your blog! Right click and select “Save As” to save the picture to your computer. Then upload it to your own website or blog and link it back to this page (http://www.onewitchsway.com/pbp2012). 4.Tag your posts! When you post your weekly post as part of the Pagan Blog Project, be sure to tag it as “Pagan Blog Project”. If you share your posts on Twitter be sure to use the hashtag #PaganBlogProject.