April is a special month. You know why? Because both my website and I turn one year older.
This is just a normal birthday for me, but it’s a very notable birthday for my website. In fact, it’s the very first one. Yep. My website turns ONE years old.
According to Google, by this age, children should be able to use a few words, stand, and maybe even take a few a steps on their own!
Well, I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure my website can do all of those things.
I couldn’t be more proud. Just wait until it turns 2. I’m also seriously considering a new career in creating comic strips.
As such, it seems like a fitting time to look back over the past 12 months and see what, if anything, was accomplished.
I’ve started so many projects recently, it’s actually kind of hard to keep track of where everything is, but the VERY first thing I did was create this website.
I published my first article here on April 6, 2023, but I didn’t write it with the intention of posting it anywhere online — I wrote it for an “initiates only” publication that is internal to my tradition. But then I thought, “Hey, that was kind of fun. Maybe I’ll write more.”
So write more, I did. And since then, I’ve posted just shy of 100 articles here. Some are short life updates, but others are so ridiculously long that they had to be split up into several parts.
Here are some of my favorites:
Not to mention the Sabbat series, which started out fun but then became something I just had to painstakingly finish. But now it’s done. Forever.
The most popular post, by far, has been the Fluid Condenser series.
After posting a few articles, I started toying around with the idea of making a YouTube series. I actually had several lengthy conversations with Selene about how I did not want to make videos, but then ultimately decided it was one of the best methods of exposure.
And now between shorts and longform content, there’s 80 videos on my YouTube channel. I’m not quite sure how that happened, but it did.
The most popular video, for whatever earthly reason, is on steel tongue drums. And by “most popular” I mean it has 10x the amount of views as everything else. Why is that? I don’t know why. YouTube is a weird collection of algorithms.
While we’re on the topic of weird YouTube things, here are some of my top favorite search terms that have, for whatever reason, brought people to my videos.
- it burns burns burns
- zungentrommel spielen lernen
- alkemy
- don’t talk put your head on my shoulder
- how to clean the tongue
But some of what I’ve done doesn’t necessarily involve algorithms, it involves places, people, and groups of people.
I’ve had the pleasure of playing shows and teaching workshops at festivals, which I’ve spoken about in highlight articles like these:
I’ve made 9 full episodes of M3, each featuring a different awesome person. And each one of them is my favorite.
- Episode 1: Ivo Dominguez, Jr.
- Episode 2: Christiana Gaudet
- Episode 3: Jason Mankey
- Episode 4: Oracle Hekataios
- Episode 5: Coby Michael
- Episode 6: Me
- Episode 7: Thorn Mooney
- Episode 8: Deborah Lipp
- Episode 9: Christopher Penczak
Seriously, I don’t think I could have come up with a better list of guests if I was actually paying people. But I’m not. For whatever reason, each of the above individuals agreed, of their own free will, to take an hour out of their busy schedules and come chat with me. I’m grateful for that!
Speaking of being grateful, have I ever told you guys how grateful I am for my wife? Selene is amazing and she’s always here supporting me and encouraging me. I couldn’t do any of this without her!
I’ve learned a heck of a lot about website management, YouTube practices, video editing, audio engineering, graphic design, and other stuff. I now possess curious skills like knowing how to remove barking dogs and meowing cats from the background in audio files. I can mask strange interruptions or pauses in interview footage. I’ve started to grasp the fundamentals of lighting and color in videos. And I’ve got a pretty good handle on making thumbnail images.
Since the start of just 2024, I’ve written more than 60,000 words here. That’s basically the length of a book.
And, very excitingly, I’ve been able to book some appearances for workshops coming up on the calendar. I’ll be teaching at Summer Magick, StaarCon, and WitchCon. More details will follow when we get closer to those dates.
I very much appreciate anyone who has taken an interest in what I create — listening to my music, watching my videos, or reading my writing… and people who have shown that interest by subscribing to my mailing list, following on social media, or even supporting me on Patreon. One of my goals for next year is to have raised enough support to cover things like the cost of hosting this website. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m definitely making progress!
I have a lot more to create and share with everyone. And it’s all coming soon! If you want to see more, this page is littered with my social links — go and follow or subscribe somewhere and you’ll get all the updates!
Aerik Arkadian 
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