The Summer Solstice Launch of Elk Lines!

My dear and blessed readers—today, as you know, is the longest lightest day of the year, the fullest flowering of the great spinning of our earth as she dances around the sun. "Earth the vagrant, the flagrant minstrel, singing out her songlines to the universe. Earth the revelry, Earth the circus [...] Earth the nomad, Earth the maenad, Earth the shaman, Earth the clown in boots too big, walks the wild way, the curly way, curling the stars, on, on, in fecund riot and feral grace," as Jay Griffiths writes on the last page of her Wild. On this day of flowering and dance, of fecund riot and feral grace, I bring to you, as I promised, the open blossom of my new Epistolary project, and I do so hope you all come to taste of its strange and golden nectar like so many bees, taking it into your lives to make your own honey.

Ring them bells, the Elk People have come! And with them, a maiden without hands. Yes, my friends, this next project is a retelling of the old Hungarian version of "The Handless Maiden." I've been wanting to wade all the way into this story for so long, and it seems that now is the time! You have all been reading about the many strands of inspiration threaded through this tale, so you already will have a wee bit of a feel for it. And since you have met the narrator of The Yellow on the Broom, Sophia of The Summer Book, Juliette de Bairacli Levi, the philosophies of Jay Griffiths and Robert MacFarlane—well,  throw in Nan Shepherd, author of The Living Mountain, which I just read this past week, and you already know, to some degree, the heroine of Elk Lines, Eda Crost. 

And yes, in case you were wondering, Elk Lines is rooted exclusively on the Point Reyes Peninsula, beloved landscape of my heart, wandering nomad-scrap of granite and shore, home of elk, mountain lion, snowy plover and dairy rancher alike. I am so excited to spend a whole wheel of the year walking with Elk Lines, and Eda, and the Elk People, and you, through this place.

I have created a new website to house this new project, and all of my old ones as well:  www.wildtalewort.net ! So, without further ado, I will send you over there to read more about Elk Lines, and to subscribe, if you so please. Your first installment will arrive on Lughnasadh, the old Celtic harvest holiday. Here, the blackberries will just be ripe.