My New Portal to Magic: Starting a Patreon

Try explaining to someone that your biggest dream in life is to see magic, be magic, prove magic to your skeptical brain. It’s not as straightforward a career path as a doctor’s dream of healing the sick, or a musician’s dream of stirring the heart. And yet no one ever seems to question the doctor or the musician with the single complicated word “why?” I believe that my motivation is similar to theirs, though. Why try to bring magic back to the world? Because it is good. Because it is healing. And because there is some part of my heart that aches when I read a sentence about a murmuration of starlings spelling out messages in the sky—or the story of a woman who washed her face with dew gathered on Midsummer morning, after which no one could take their eyes off her all day. Stories of the hidden patterns of things, of inanimate objects having their own desires and wills to bring joy to the universe—they make the world seem less random, less vicious, and more healing and purposeful.

I have to believe that to be a part of this world means more than walking through it untouched. I have to believe that if we reach out to nature, to the universe, to the patterns and magics in even the smallest of daily moments and experiences, that there will be a hand reaching back.

And this is the thread that winds through all that I do, the reason behind it all. To share magic, to touch magic, and to bring the hope that wonder instills to as many people as possible. It’s what I dream of. And that dream makes itself tangible in many different ways: through my blog posts, my stories, my art, my crafts, my decorating, my parties, my exploration of magical fashion, and my journeys through the woods that I photograph and document. (And so much more!)

But that dream also takes time, and that dream takes hard work. I love creating and sharing with you. Every time someone contacts me to tell me that they found hope, wonder, or magic in what I’ve done, shared, or made, it fills my heart with joy. But I also only have a certain amount of hours in the day available for this mission, and it’s never enough. I work a full-time job at my local library, helping connect people with books that can touch their hearts. And writing my blog posts and keeping my Instagram updated with moments of faerie magic and crafting weekly newsletters and new content of various kinds all take up a very large portion of my remaining time. It’s truly what I love to do, but I also work hard to make it happen. And I’ve started to wonder—might you want to support it too?

Toward this end, I have created a Patreon page. All of the content I share on my blog, my website, my Instagram, and so on—it is all free to explore, and will continue to be so. But perhaps some of you might want to show your appreciation for the work and heart and soul I put into these mediums by indulging me in the good old-fashioned concept of patronage. And in gratitude, I would share exclusives with those who wanted to join me there. Sneak peeks at upcoming photos, chances to give input on forthcoming content, videos and Q&As and tutorials and discussions.

Thanks to Ian for letting me use his photo for my “Elf Enthusiasts” level of Patreon.

It is never easy to hold something so dear and private and cherished out to the world for it to judge. Every artist and creator feels that trepidation, and I do too every time I share a raw and personal blog post with you all, or offer up a secret magical moment or discovery in the forests, or any number of things. It is even more difficult to step forward and to say “You know, what I do has some value, and even though I offer it all for free, I think maybe it’s worth asking to have that value recognized too.”

This is what I am doing. Please consider supporting me, and joining a community of kindred magical spirits over at my brand-new Patreon.

Click here to explore.