For now I've set teaching aside. My current foci are music and writing. This pursuit has been made possible by the continuing support of the musicians I've met through the FAWM and 50/90 communities over the past few years, and my husband's willingness to support my exploration of a new and uncertain path.
As much as I resist being labelled, there are a few I've picked up along the way that comfortably remain: musician, writer, teacher, philosopher, artist. I still have a pagan worldview, love the natural world, and value honesty, integrity, intelligence and self-awareness.
I have a bookcase of Celtic texts and a wealth of knowledge waiting to be used again. I have cabinets filled with craft supplies and paints, sketchbooks and specialty tools. I own more instruments than I can play regularly, and a mind I can rarely shut down.
There are short stories to be edited, poems without music, and an unfinished novel sadly neglected on my hard drive. I have difficulty taking on one project at a time and seeing it to completion, not because I haven't the stamina, but rather there are so many plans presenting themselves at once that it's hard to block out all but one voice and listen clearly.
In the winter of 2010 Karl and I completed my third CD, Snips and Snails, and I recorded an EP of instrumental piano music, Shades of Winter, with the help of Bob King. At present I am recording tracks for my fourth full-length CD, Relinquish, produced by Kristian Børresen, to be released in 2012.