Today, I was informed by WordPress that seven years ago today I registered for their service.  By extension, this marks the seventh anniversary of the founding of Of Axe and Plough, which I launched immediately after registering here.

Truthfully, it doesn’t feel like I’ve been around that long, and my post-count certainly doesn’t scream to my successes of blogging for seven years.  I migrated, initially, off of LiveJournal because I wanted something a bit more professional looking.  And I had forgotten my password.  Ahem.  This blog sat fallow until about 2011 with only a smattering of posts, and almost all of those posts were not something I wanted to keep around.  So I purged this space at least twice and realigned it into something more productive.

I’d like to think that, by in large, my words have had a positive impact within the circles I travel.  I really do not have much in the way of drama here, and I am content with my little space.  It’s odd to see my posts being shared by people I do not know, to be recognized by people around the ‘net based on my words.  I am absolutely not a Big Name Pagan blogger, or even a second or third stringer.  But I do try to hold myself to a higher standard.  At least for blogging.  When it comes to social media I tend to still get rough and tumble.

However, this blog seems to be migrating in its orientation.  From the onset, I had always envisioned it as a way to really work through my religion.  I’ve been doing this for a long time (Pagan, 19 years or so) in theory, but very infrequent in practice.  But it always seemed to default to community critique, or speaking to wider themes that I have opinions on.  I’m trained in the Social Sciences (specifically History and Anthropology, and I won’t brook an argument about how History isn’t a social science.  It is in Europe.), so I tend to analyze cultural themes and social groupings.  I’ve always written from a perspective of a polytheist Pagan who interacted with the community, observed the community, and dealt with aspects of that community.  My actual practice writing is few and far between, although I still intend to do it.

But I’ve become convinced that we still need more visibly polytheistic bloggers out there, and I’d like to help fill that void.  The dust up that happened which spawned the Polytheist Movement and initiatives like Polytheist.Com is still relevant today, although I feel that a lot of what has been said is being lost in a political back-and-forth between a few bloggers associated with that site, and other groups like Gods & Radicals.  Misunderstandings and mischaracterizations abound, which tend to be applied to all the writers of a particular site.  Even Patheos has only a handful of dedicated polytheistic blogs, the rest of their polytheistic bloggers are wedged into two columns.  And if I ever end up writing for Polytheist.Com, or Patheos, then, whatever.  But for right now, I can be a more visible independent polytheist blogger.

I’m a Heathen, and I’m a Roman practitioner, and I’m a Pagan.  But I’m also a polytheist.  And perhaps that’s one of the core facets of my understanding, and I think at the moment that’s what I want to explore more.  How I express myself in society.  How I interact with society.  And how I can help other people through my lessons.

But it’s just a thought on the nature of this blog.  It probably will continue as business as usual.  Although I’d like to keep up posting.  I have an update to make tomorrow about that, however.

For now, hooray seven years!

[sad confetti]