2011 has at (long) last drawn to a close.

No matter how you look at it, this has been a tumultuous year. 2011 was a year of widespread upheaval and numerous challenges facing the global community and many of us personally. In practice, the two are hardly as unconnected as we might sometimes like to imagine, speaking both materially and spiritually.

My December silence notwithstanding, a product of being unwell physically and mentally, 2011 was a strong year for Notes From A Barking Shaman. There were forty-one posts this year, which also included the move from Blogger over to WordPress and the launching of my personal website. Those posts covered a fabulously diverse range of topics that included: consent in magical practice, ordeal spiritually, BDSM, ancestor worship, LGBT rights, free speech, crises of faith, polyamory, geopolitics, and most recently, reconciling UPG and lore in pagan practice and culture (more on that topic to follow shortly). Some of the essays here have been intensely personal, while others have been commentarial. Hopefully they have left those of you who choose to visit my little corner of the web feeling enriched and challenged.

There are even more changes coming for 2012. For the foreseeable future new essays will be posted every Saturday. Additionally, each day I’ll post a link to the blog, somedays something from the news, often with some commentary of my own. Other times it will be another blogger’s piece that I thought worth sharing, and once in a while I’ll give you a humorous and/or relevant bit of fun to lighten the mood.

This blog got its start over five years ago, at a significantly different time in my life, and it has grown, changed, and dare I say, matured over that half-decade. Whether you’ve been reading since NFABS launched with a post cleverly titled “Post #1,” or you only started reading recently, I want to say a heartfelt thank you for allotting me a portion of one of the most precious resources you have to offer, your time.

I hardly think it pessimism to say that 2012 is not likely to be dull, globally or in our own lives. Moving forward, I’m going to do my damnedest to ensure that the time we share here continues to advance our understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the world and work around us.

Thank you again and stay tuned.

Wintersong Tashlin
January 1, 2012
Gorham, ME