About
About
This is a project of writer, artist and folklorist Elisabeth Carol Harvey McCumber.
If you’re curious about me personally, I suggest you find me on Mastodon, where I share daily personal thoughts and news and enjoy connecting with folks.
While you’re at it, join my Patreon! You can choose any subscription amount and get full access to a metaphorical attic of eclectic, artistic finds, and support my work in the world at the same time. (Thank you.) If you want to know what else I’m up to, take a look at my Linktree.
Anyway, about this website. I started it in 2009 because I was feeling disconnected from my faith and I wanted to begin again, using study as a form of prayer. Over the years, the essays have morphed into five main topics: mythology and mysticism; homesteading skills; real food; DIY; and parenting and homeschool. These days I use the blog to process ideas that interest me and try to engage in conversation around them, while continuing to build the skills—the making, homesteading and human skills—that I think we all will need as our society continues to decline and we find ourselves ever more pressed to generate our own abundance and self-sufficiency within our own communities.
But I don’t post nearly as often as I mean to.
In other news, I’ve been writing stories since forever, and you’ll find some of my fiction on here too. I believe that stories are the thing. In fact, one of my professional goals is to change the popular understanding of what myths can mean for us and contribute to the field of study on the stories that make us human.
To that end, in December 2022 I earned my masters in cultural anthropology and history, studying the intersection of storytelling, place, and meaning. (Check out my speaking events for a sampling of what I’m up to, or read my works as a scholar on ResearchGate.) Before returning to school, I spent about a dozen years as a communications consultant, focusing largely on copywriting and brand strategy; along the way I’ve also run a theatre company, driven a school bus and rehabilitated horses. Once again, I don’t know where this will lead—the road is rambling—but I believe in it.
So as always, I am beginning again.