I still can't answer this. I can only tell you some of what I've done, am doing, and hope to do, but what can I say about who I am? Sometimes I feel like a wave, moving through the sea with great froth and splutter, but subject to being blown about - or even flattened - by the winds that blow where they will. "Who am I?" is a very cosmic question, which is subject to constant reinterpretation, and I don't think I'll try to answer it.

Oh. Another tough question. I think I can answer this one, though...
I can't seem to help it. This is just my way of thinking things through - even this page - perhaps even especially this page. I keep hoping I'll understand things, and writing them down seems like a way of getting to that goal. So far it isn't working all that well - there are still a very great many things I don't understand. Naetheless, the following might give you (and perhaps even me) some idea where I am at the moment. Or it might give you some ideas about where you are or where you want or don't want to be yourself. Whatever...

My current projects:

Creating a home for myself and the cats and keeping the fae there happy. (You can read much more about this at BlessingCairn.com)

Writing another Otherworld book, to be called something like The Green Woman: Faery Healing & Earth Magic. The title pretty well explains the book. This is an especially appropriate project for me at this time.

Plant more heather and lavender in the meditation garden. Pile more rocks on the Blessing Cairn. Plant blueberries in the kitchen garden and strawberries in window boxes. Build birdhouses. Paint the interior of the house-to-be.

Play with some miniature construction projects - build some gnome houses, do the faery godmother's garden, finish the dining room of their castle, et cetera.

Work on Taisgael, my "autobiographical fantasy" - this is the most terrifying writing experience I've ever had. It has been on my list for years now, but I hadn't done anything on it at all until just lately. This shows you how unnerving I find it. However, I've been nudged and pushed into writing the intro and first chapter. Hopefully, I can do it one chapter at a time without really noticing that I'm doing it.

Go out and keep the mountains company more often. I have an underused notebook computer so I can work on "field trips" and do my faery research and writing in high places, as well as among the trees at home.

What Happened to Last Year's Goals?

Not much. I've been trying to get established on my land and that is an amazingly slow and energy-consuming process.

A while back I wrote here: "For many years I've been trying to work out what I'm going to do when I grow up. I've now given up on that. I have come realize there is no particular danger of this happening. I'm just making life up as I go along. For the first time in my life that I can remember, I don't have a five-year and a ten-year plan. In the last year I also finally gave up trying to catch up on my paperwork and gracelessly fell farther behind, so I'm evidently making progress in letting go of unattainable goals. This feels good, but perhaps a little scary - what is it that does happen to people who don't keep up on their paperwork?"

Now I can answer that question. The paperwork piles up in stacks and gets knocked over by the cats. It covers tables and desks, until one puts it into boxes. Then it sits in the boxes, glowering.

Natural magic. Healing. Intuitive feng shui. House healing. Energy clearing. Earth magic. Spiritual counseling. Psychic fun and games. Taking people for walks in magic places to help them to access the magic in themselves more freely (journeys of the spirit).
Teaching most of the above and some related things. I used to classify myself as a spiritual teacher and healer - but only if forced to classify myself, which I really didn't like to do. (I still don't - we are all so much more than the sum of our nameable parts.) I suppose 'teaching' also includes most of the writing I did - and still do. (see Spiritual Teachers, Advice to Prospective Students, Schedule of Classes and/or Services and Appointments if you are interested in more information on the teaching and counseling I do.

Of course, I still do some of the above, even though I have semi-retired from professional counseling and healing. Natural magic, meditation, healing, learning, and thinking are, hopefully, not things that one only does when being paid - or that one ever stops doing. They are a part of who we are, not just what we do. I still teach once in a while, but not often, and will do the occasional journey of the spirit. I write more now, and I have more fun with it than I used to.
In my case, writing more also means spending more time playing with the fey folk - the people of the hills, the woodlands, the streams and the meadows. I think I am very fortunate to be able to do this and consider it high priority "work" and "research" at this point in my life.
Other things I do that I've been doing a long time include hill watching, wild pool making, wild rock gardening, moon bathing, and wild shrine building (see Shrine Building). I also spend time admiring wild flowers (who do enjoy the attention), conversing with trees, puttering in my gardens, and having interesting encounters with a wide variety of beings, human and otherwise.
Avocations include fantasy doll house design, history, construction, and interior decoration. Small scale sculpting. Painting (and usually tearing up the results). Embroidery. Singing and dancing when no one else is around. Pottering around in small boats (when I get a chance, which hopefully will be more often now that I'm living in a genuine seaport with fleets of sailboats). Sauntering.
Telling stories. Although I sometimes write things, I am not really a Proper Writer, as such, but only a storyteller who occasionally writes down her fables, poems, and assorted other stuff.
Reading a wide variety of things. A Terry Pratchett addict.
Desktop publishing on a very small scale. My 'imprint' is An lios na bean bhochd (Scots Gaelic doesn't capitalize things). An =the, lios =garden or printing press (Gaelic is a wonderful language - I wish I knew it), na =of the, bean bhochd =female beggar, freely translated by me as 'bag lady'. Thus, we have The Bag Lady's Garden or The Bag Lady's Press, depending on my mood.
Miracle watching. I do too many things to do them all well, but I'm pretty good at this one. There are a lot of miracles about, and I'm a noticing person.
I suppose my own rough and ready style of fairy godmothering also fits in here. Also, rattling the bars on people's cages. It's amazing how often they collapse when you do this - the bars that is, not the people. Well, to be honest, sometimes the people do too, but only temporarily. Don't worry, I don't do this to people who haven't specifically asked me for it.
Learning stuff. This, I am not quite as good at. However, the universe is patient and does not seem to mind repeating lessons again and again and again until I get them. I'm attending some local writing classes, for one thing. And meditating at the local zendo. And just listening and thinking and gardening.
Wandering. Watching. Being. Smiling.
In the interests of balance (yes, I'm a Libra [Pisces moon, Pisces rising]), I have also made a page on Things I Don't Do. At least, I usually don't. At least, I try not to and often... well... sometimes I succeed.

I am managed by two Abyssinians cats, a gentleman Siamese, and an elderly black witch's cat, who run the house and attempt to order my life in the way that best suits them. However, as I am fundamentally a disorderly person, they have thus far been defeated in this. They are Samantha Callinish (Senior Cat), Marigoldthebeautiful (yes, it's all one word), George, and Natasha. I promised them a page of their own and here it is.
Actually, I am not precisely disorderly. I have organic order, like a natural forest. It may look disorderly to some, but it makes sense to me.

Well, I did the pneumonia thing again this winter - and was left with some other damage. I'm again reconsidering my life, and re-establishing my priorities. These things make you think about what you're doing and where, if anywhere, you might be going. This last year has had lots of Interesting Times - I'm hoping the year to come might be just as interesting, but more fun.
All of this has prompted a lot of thoughts about living and dying and reasons for doing either. I'm still in the midst of this process, but if I discover anything that seems like it might be helpful to others, no doubt it will turn up somewhere on these pages.

In my next incarnation I' like to come back as a fairy godmother, complete with a properly working magic wand by Wendy Froud.

. . Jesa Macbeth's Coracle - the Home Port
. . Thoughts on Rocking the Boat
. . The Otherworld of Faery

Things Happen
Practicing for the Spiritual Olympics
Myths, Fables, Stories, and Lies
Some of My Poems
Books, Booklets, & Free E-mail Discussion Groups
Scheduled Classes
Services & Appointments
My personal pages (of which this is one)