The Spicy Cauldron is back, but different…

…and just look what I’ve done to the place! I have suffered from the most horrible depression this week and I mean seriously mega-bad. There have been problems close to home to perplex and frustrate and make me scream and cry, and all my friends and some family members have been dealing with dreadful things in their lives as well. It seems as if nobody I love and care about is immune from the wintry chill invading so many hearts and minds as the year draws to a close.

It all got too much for me. I apologise for doing a virtual Stephen Fry* and buggering off, but I think there are times when that kind of demonstrative and dramatic action is necessary if we are to strengthen our energetic reserves and refocus our lives. There ain’t much festive cheer in the air, I’ve noticed. And nobody I know is a Jacob Marley. They—and I—have our failings in common with all but I’m blessed to be able to say my friends and family are sweet, generous, lovely people.

So what’s going on? Well, the winter solstice turning of the wheel seems particularly vicious this year in weeding out dodgy relationships, crappy jobs and emotional detritus. If it was just the bad going out the window for many of us, we might be celebrating—but inevitably there are dilemmas and crises to face up to, and a great deal of angst and pain. We are all getting through. We are all enduring. In the process we are learning but they are tough lessons, I can tell you that much. My personal winter, described in my last post—now made private, more on that in a second—continues, only I am now feeling better able to wrap up as warm as possible against its most brutal effects. I feel more able, if not entirely better just yet.

Now, the site. As well as a complete design overhaul, the archives have gone. Whoomph! Well, they haven’t, not really. It’s just that you can’t access them anymore because I’ve made everything that went before private, accessible only to me, and I’ve backed it all up offline for posterity. I will, over time, make selected old entries public again but obviously that’s going to be a long-term goal because there were over 2,500 of them going back over five years… and I’ve got things to be getting on with, like cracking on with my bardic coursework now that I’m a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD). I’ll be letting you know how that goes, of course I will, and I’m very excited to be starting what is for me a new chapter in my spiritual journey.

I made the archives private because I want this to be a new beginning. It’s no surprise to say that in over five years I have grown up. I am a different man today looking back at the man who first sat down to write a blog entry in August 2004. I have gained new strength and vigour, I have developed new interests, I have grown just a little wiser. As one chapter is closed to the public and committed to my memory (and private reading at my leisure), so another chapter has begun.

I do hope you’re willing to stick around at least for a little while to see if you like the new flavours I’m bringing to the table. I’d like to thank all those of you who wished me well in the comments section on what turned out to be the final entry of The Spicy Cauldron Mark I. Your kind, sweet words meant the world to me, they really did. And still do. You helped me. Undoubtedly. If I can ever do the same for you, in word or deed, I will. Unreservedly.

So. What’s next? I’ve no idea. Brilliant! Let’s see, shall we? You light your candle to get through the long night, and I will light mine. Spring will come again. I know it.

*In the early 1990s Stephen Fry famously walked out of a West End show he was performing in, and vanished for days. A media frenzy ensued.