New beginings and updates

Good morning magical folk. It’s been just over a week since I exited stage left from Instagram, How are you all doing?

It may seem like nothing has been happened in this time but this isn’t the case. I’ve been beavering away working on this blog and I wanted to give you some insights into what I’ve been up to. Which would be too long for the monthly newsletter.

I’ve spent time this past week scratching my head as to the best way to order the posts and content. It’s not enough to just randomly put things here, it needs to be easily accessible. Not just so you have a clue as to what it’s about but so Google and other search engines do too. (More on Google later.) The other thing is the main menu was so cluttererd it became un-navigable and looked a mess. (The main menu is the green bar with the pages on it.)

Initially I couldn’t for the life of me work out how to fit everything in I wanted to display. Not least as the blog is essentially in two halves. The half which is about me and the half which is about you. There are things I can do within the mechanisms of the theme and things I can’t. So it does have limitations but that applies to all themes. I can only have two menus unless they’re put into the widgets area. If you’re wondering what the heck widgets are and where they live, they’re in the side bar. The side bar is the coloumn on the right hand side which has the quarters now listed, tag cloud, archive and so on. A widget is a just a block of content you can add to a side bar, header or footer.

I’ve spent time answering my own questions about who this space is for beyond myself and what values and ethics I have regarding it. As mentioned it’s no good randomly putting things on here. It’s important not just because of wanting to make things interesting for you but also for whoever else may find this space and again Google. I can’t ignore all of Google given it’s the biggest search engine out there. Having decided who the blog is aimed at, which is the pagan, witchy community, I’ve then gone on to think about the layout. Initially I just started this, just to start. To get over the hurdle, the imposter syndrome, the many and varied fears. Now its out there it needs organisation.

You will find the blog has now changed.

The central theme for this space is that it’s ‘An Almanac’. It’s a journey through the year, the Celtic Quarters. And as it says on the front page “with a sprinkling of magic.” As such it’s arranged into these four elements. (see what I did there?) Under each quarter you’ll find posts, videos (eventually) pictures, bibliomancy words and so on pertaining to that season. There are now season pages on the main menu with a brief introduction. They are also listed on the sidebar. Links to posts are listed here under the relevant season with the tag cloud also taking you to posts.

This follows my journey through the seasonal year, my magical path and my discoveries and insights along the way. More or less similar to Instagram. I will be adding a shop when I’m ready to but more on that in the future. This is the first half which I mentioned above.

When it comes to the second half, this is about community and you folks. I think when I’m clearer on the format I want to take with this I’ll post about it more then. But for now what I will say is this space has become something more than just being about me. It’s about growing something beyond that. A space where all voices can feel safe, supported and nurtured. Wild voices is part of this. I consider all of you who’ve registered or signed up to the newsletter to be part of this community which I want to grow and all your voices are as important as the next.

This is very important to me. When I was on Instagram I was Initially going to ask others there to be a Wild Voice but as I’ve left this now isn’t possible. Having thought about this I actually think it’s more appropriate to share the voices of you folks. Those who I consider to belong to this community. As such I will be working on another Wild Voice article with another fabulous witchy person who is here. I’m very grateful that she has agreed to do this. I hope to post this in December. It’s my intention for Wild Voices to be posted every two to three months.

My thanks and gratitued to Bee for her post and if you haven’t read it yet, go check it out and give her your support. https://wildbiophilia.co.uk/category/wild-voices/

There’s so much more I’ve been doing behind the scenes here like reaserch into keywords, meta description, file links, SEO, alt text and all the web stuff that comes with doing this and making a site functional. I don’t want to bore you with it all but I feel a brief word on Google and privacy is necessary. It’s important to me to be as honest and transparent as possible.

I left Instagram for many reasons one of those was to do with privacy, the information gathering and third party sharing. The last thing I want to do is be part of the same thing. It goes against my ethics and values. There’s no denying Google is no different. The reason for having a blog is to reach folks with what you’ve got to say even if writing for it’s own sake is a good thing in itself. The trick is to tread the line between knowing you’re reaching people but protecting and valuing their privacy. Data gathered in the form of analytics allows a person like me to know that what they’re doing is getting out there and being seen. It covers things like which country a person may be in, what device they’re using and how much traffic a site has. This is important whilst I know you folks are hopefully interested in what I’m sharing. I have no idea if anyone else is. What I don’t agree with is third party sharing of data, IP addresses and all the other stuff which they then use to target ads and the like.

I have a plugin on this blog which is privacy friendly. I specifically chose it to protect your privacy, as such it does not collect personal information, it does not share information with a third party, it does not store cookies, as I understand it gives an option to you. But I’m still getting to grips with it. It basically just lets me see how many visitors have been here, how they got here, what they looked at, how long for and various other simple things. After all what is the point of doing this if you don’t know who you’re reaching. If this thing starts to become intrusive I WILL remove it to protect YOU. I want to be clear about that. And as for Google I will be keeping it at arms length. Only using what I must use to make the site function and reach people.

I know this is a long post and thank you for reading this far, I think these things are important to share.

Lastly I want to share my love, gratitude and thanks for a person, who you folks don’t see or hear from. But he’s always there in the background doing stuff. That’s my partner Geoffrey. He’s spent countless hours researching topics, listening to me, supporting me, giving guidance and advice, contacting people when things don’t seem to work right, approving your comments, being a sounding board, encouraging me to go for things, dealing with backend stuff behind this screen, sorting out problems, proof reading, being the voice of reason, being devils advocate, at times driving me mad and at times keeping me sane. There are so many more things I could say but regardless of what happens he is always at my side in the good times and the bad. We are one half of a team in so many ways and for this and more I am truly grateful. Thank you from the depths of my heart for all that you are and all that you do. x