Exeter LitFest 2024

April 5&6

The first weekend in April is always LitFest weekend, and another one is just around the corner. My team has been busy busy busy making plans – they are a fabulous group of talented volunteers and I appreciate them. Truly.

We are also fortunate to have many local partners as well like; The Word Barn, The Water Street Bookstore, and the Exeter Public Library. They are all busy getting ready for this year’s festival weekend, too. So much fun!!!

Here’s some history – Back in 2018, I had an idea to create a town book festival and a group of us did so in 2019 on a shoestring budget (aka NO budget). A couple of years later, I was able to register our little homegrown festival as a NH 501c3 non-profit. We held some super fun fundraisers over the years – like the Death by Chocolate chocolate shop crawl and murder mystery, the Exeter Goes Gatsby jazz dance party, and the Spooky Folsom historic tavern Halloween costume party, to name but a few. (There is a photo gallery on the website if you want to check out some: EXETERLITFEST.com)

Today, I am happy to announce that this year we have received a healthy grant from the Dan Brown Charitable Foundation, so we are able to take the fest to the next level. Thanks Dan 🙂 (Dan was our first keynote speaker.)

Today, also, I announce that I am stepping back as prez of the LitFest Board on May 1, 2024. I’ll still be on the board, but I think its time to give the leadership to people who are professionally in the literary field. (As you may have surmised over the years, my passion tends toward community organization and civic projects.) I will announce the new LitFest prez just before the keynote speech on April 6th.

It has been a pleasure to work on this project that helped to raise up the diverse voices of Exeter, and now the region. May it bloom and grow for decades!

RM Allen

PS Profound gratitude to my husband, Lew, for his patience and love.

PSS Here is the 2024 poster – see you there 🙂

Respect The Pie (excerpt from New Hampshire Goddess Chronicles)

The intersection of spirituality and sustainability
The book cover

Respect the Pie

by RM Allen

(excerpt straight out of my 2011 book, New Hampshire Goddess Chronicles, available at www.nhgoddess.com)

Well, that was quite the spiritual experience. But I would not call it religious. Religion seems such an outdated word to me, full of dogma and rules. Religion is like a pie, and true spirituality/love is the sacred space in the center of the pie. That is my philosophy.

You don’t understand? Well, let me expand! Simply put, imagine a pie cut into pieces and still warm in the baking dish. The many, many slices represent Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Native American Spiritualism, Wicca, and etc., ad infin. Then there are the folks who find it own their own through Perennialism, or a twelve-step program like AA or by having a near death experience, or maybe a freaky out-of-body-experience. They are all slices too. And let us not forget the fence-sitters who say, “I don’t know what it is, but there is something out there.” They are a slice too, as undefined as they are. At the very center of the pie, all the pieces touch. That is the sameness. Right where the pieces touch, this is what they all have in common. What is the common factor?

Recognition of a benevolent creative force.

In other words: recognition of Love/Energy. This benevolent creative force is all you need. It goes by many names: God, Allah, Buddha, Awareness, Spirit, Magic, “Something out there,” etc. Forget about all the other tasty and various pieces of the pie with their singular crusts. The crusty ends can get caught up in dogma, discrimination, arguments and wars. At the very center, at the warm core, all slices aim are the same thing, they all meld into one. They all come from the same place. Love is the center. Why not skip the human imposed dogma, and the various holy texts and names, and get right to the heart of it? 

Respect the Benevolent-Creative-Force pie, but stay away from the crusty edges and head for the softly vibrating center. Each slice of pie is a different path to walk to arrive at the same spiritual destination. None is the only way, none is the wrong way. Each slice does work in its own way, if you walk that path to the sacred space in your heart, honestly and openly.

Walking to the center of each slice brings you to love, which gifts you with peaceful personal heaven/enlightenment.

True spirituality is love energy. Simple.

John Lennon was damn right when he said “All you need is Love.” 

(and now a worksheet for you to ponder) 

*TORCH TIME 2: Use your flame to bake a pie. Gather only the finest ingredients. Create your own orgasmagical recipe:

Meet the goddess: Nemetona is the Celtic goddess of Sacred Spaces. Make your own sacred space both inside and outside your heart. This is the oven where you will bake your beautiful pie. Go to that softly vibrating place often. 

1. What slice of the religion pie is yours, if any?

______________________________________________________

Are you happy with your piece of the pie? __________________________________________________

2. If you could change it, what would it look like? Write three traits of your custom religion pie.

___________________________________________________

3. List three small steps your inner goddess can do now to remake your current piece of the pie into something warm and delicious.

_______________________________________________________

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Hello sister goddeses! If you enjoyed this blog please sign up for my monthly (small & simple) Green Goddess Orgasmagical eNewsletter by sending me a note to say hi   info@nhgoddess.com  Thanks! ~RM Allen, author (www.nhgoddess.com)

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The Translucent Path 2011

The Translucent Path

by RM Allen, 2011 www.nhgoddess.com

Greetings sister goddesses!

Have you ever sat one full year with a single word and explored every aspect of it? I did, and you can read it here! Below is the text of my article in the Apr/May edition of Inner Tapestry.  The style of writing is very similar to that of my book; The New Hampshire Goddess Chronicles. Later I will post excerpts from the book, but for now, check this out!

Enjoy!

RM Allen

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My poetic friend, Tara Wrobel, wrote an inspiring piece, A Meeting of Opposing Ways, about two paths meeting in the woods. One path was her private self, what gave her joy but she hid from others, and the other her public self. She stood at the point where the two paths met and felt the emergence into her authentic self.

Another path was written about by poet Robert Frost he wrote in his The Road Not Taken: “ two paths diverged the woods, and I – I took the one less traveled by.” Most of us are familiar with Frost’s taking the authentic path, and all the difference it made for him.

Then there is also the long brown path made famous by the poet Walt Whitman, a man who was in touch with his Divine Feminine. This “long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose” is featured in his spectacular Song of the Open Road, which has been a favorite of mine for many years. I like to think of Whitman’s brown path as a metaphor for life. As I progress on my own orgasmagical spiritual journey. I visualize a long brown path, lit only by a goddess torch.

The goddess torch I speak of is a symbolic light, held up high, to light the way on the dark and misty path we journey to become our authentic selves. The torch illuminates hidden truths and treasures and other boom-shaka-lucky things. We are not alone on this path, no not at all. We travel with other women we meet, and sometimes men too. We are all searching for the Divine Feminine, our inner wisdom, our inner goddess. Sound familiar? The more we search on this winding path, the stronger our flickering light becomes, and the more we emerge into our authentic selves. There are many helpful tools and resources and people hidden along the way.

One of my annual tools is to pick a word-of-the-year in early January, and explore it for the next twelve months. By the end of the year I hope to be able to sum up my findings in one short sentence that rings true for my particular essence. Last year I found that Gratefulness produces abundance. The year before I found that modern day Humility is voluntary simplicity. These findings are now part of my DNA, as is anything you sit with for an extended period. My word for 2011 is Translucent. Where will it lead me?

Are you ready to pick your word-of-the-year? First you need to think about possible words for a few days. These words must be in a certain category, which is “things I am deficient in.” Ouch! Who said this was going to be easy?

Allons, let’s go. Are you ready to step onto the winding and shadowy brown path with us? Coming to light will be introspective tools and resources, hidden in the nooks and crannies of the path. Appearing will be things like; labyrinths, meditation, happy places, shamans, wise-women, herbs, books, Artist’s Way morning papers, Zentangles, prayer touchstones, spirit guides and sister goddesses. And much more! You will see what you were meant to see. And sometimes it will be scary.

Scary? Yes, you will have to face your fears head-on. For example, what are my fears if I were to walk a more translucent path, if I were to let the private me and the public me merge into one true self? I can think of a whole list of sucktastic things; fear that I would lose my job and therefore my home, fear that I would disappoint my mother by being a different religion other than that which she prefers. Fear that my boyfriend will see me as a rigid feminist and break up with me. Fear that my kids will think I am a little odd and not love me. Fear of strangers invading my private life at inappropriate moments. The list goes on.

You start by making a list, too. Then we will have the next twelve months, in between fun romps on the path, to sit and stare down these fears. They will end up irrelevant, like they always do, and in the end it will all be for the emergence of our highest and best self. And this will make the world a better place too.

But there is always that self-induced drama in the middle of the process, which is so sucktasticly uncomfortable. Why make ourselves swim through another big bowl of ugly, when things are okay as they are right now? Why? To get to the shore of outrageously-happy, of course! To rest on a driftwood log of peacefully-Zen, and breathe the clean air of at-one-with-the-Universe. To dance drenched with Belovedness and joy around the bonfire of the Divine Spirit.

Allons, ready? Come just a little closer… Whoosh! Your torch is now lit. Watch out for your hair, the sparks are flying all around us in a smiling golden shower. A most excellent characteristic about fire and light is that you can give away all you want, and you never have less for yourself. The flame of my own Divine essence now combines with yours in a celebratory dance. You are now initiated, and you emerge as a goddess of your particular Divine essence. Step boldly onto our long brown path, leading wherever you chose. Welcome! Enjoy your adventure, Beloved.


  http://www.innertapestry.org/articles/april-may-2011/820-the-translucent-path-2011.html 

RM Allen is a green goddess who lives simply in Southern New Hampshire and works in a very traditional church office in a quintessential New England village. She holds a masters degree in business communications and is on orgasmagical spiritual safari. The combination of all of the above contributes to her fun and unique writing style, which is inspiring to her sister goddesses. She is the author of The New Hampshire Goddess Chronicles from Peapod Press. Order the book for $14.95 at www.NHgoddess.com

 

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Hello sister goddeses! If you enjoyed this blog please sign up for my monthly (small & simple) Green Goddess Orgasmagical eNewsletter by sending me a note to say hi   info@nhgoddess.com  Thanks! ~RM Allen, author (www.nhgoddess.com)