One more year down

Hello, everyone! Happy New Year…? I feel the question mark is warranted, if nothing else, just to fit in with the ongoing zeitgeist of pessimism and fear. Who said I’m not a team player?

So, I guess it’s time for our annual catch up. I’m currently in the second year of my PhD studies here, at the University of Liverpool, and it feels as if I’m only just getting into the deep end of researching the history of ancient religions, mystery cults, philosophies and Middle Platonic / Graeco-Egyptian ceremonial magic. In other words, I’m spending quite a lot of time with my homies, Iamblichus, Prolcus, Plotinus and the rest of the Theurgist gang of Late Antiquity. It’s a fun and exciting time to be me, let me tell you.

On top of that, I’m also balancing a day job or two, like everyone else. After all, I’m an unfunded PhD student in a foreign country. Wasn’t something like that a whole circle of its own in Dante’s inferno? Well, it should have been.

Writing-wise, this past year I’ve been focusing heavily on my translation work and will continue to do so up until summer, at the very least. Hopefully, a couple of really unique and intriguing projects will see the publishing light of day this year. As an appetizer to these, I’ve just published on Amazon my translation of History, Traditions and Legends of Koroni – an antiquarian’s handbook to the villages of Messenia written by my great grandfather, back in the late 1950s. Feel free to check it out in the ‘books’ section of the website.

On the lyrics-writing front, business is also booming. To be perfectly honest, I’ve kind of lost track of all the work I’ve done; but suffice to say that it’s at least three or four albums worth of material. Keep an eye out for new releases from DOWNCAST TWILIGHT and DIMLIGHT. They’re bound to literary rock your world… see what I did there? No, it’s not a typo. You see it’s literary instead of liter— oh forget it. If I have to explain it, it’s not funny anymore.

All in all, I’ve been keeping as busy as the limits of sanity allow. And though it has been (and continues to be) a rough ride, I wouldn’t change it for the world. Per aspera ad astra.

I sincerely hope that all of you are staying safe, well, and inspired in these troubled times. Keep in mind that we’re all together in this plot hole of reality that we call life.