New offerings for 2025; eternal thanks for 2024

Hello to you glorious humans who made my 2024,

How the hell are you? I hope this dreamy, squishy part of the year is treating you well.

I’ll get to the point(s).

Here’s the headline: as of January 1st, the URL for this Substack will be changing to eleanorrobins.substack.com. I can almost physically feel myself growing up. (It only took forty years.)

So: if you go to ellierobins.substack.com after January 1st, you won’t find me. Please don’t do that! I will miss you terribly. (If you only read these posts via email, you don’t need to do anything. They’ll come through to you exactly as before.)

And! I’ve been hard at work dreaming up ways to be in closer contact next year. Finding you all has been the great joy of 2024 for me. I still can’t believe my luck. So here’s what I have planned for 2025, to help us all deepen into this rare moment of expanding consciousness, and this community:

For all subscribers

• One long essay per month. I wish I were organized enough to have written a publishing schedule, but the truth is, I just have to go with whatever I happen to be hyperfixated on in a given week (scroll to the bottom for a pic of this week’s). But expect more pieces in the vein of 2024’s most popular essays:
  —This moment needs your deep weirdness and your intellectual rigour

  —Reading is a psychedelic drug, and medieval monks knew how to do it best
  —Democracy was founded on the legal suppression of grief
  —My friend’s Self dissolved and stayed that way for two weeks
  —The weird is biting back
  —Maybe I will also learn to write a title that isn’t 982374987 words long.

• Two 297-word essay-spells, designed to constellate a new reality out of this very Substack. Read about this experiment here; submit the ideas that won’t stop tapping you on the shoulder here. I’ve written one of these already and pals, I think this 297-word thing might be A Thing. I’m so excited to share it with you.

For paying subscribers

• Please note! I’m in the process of transferring (OK, I’m uselessly trying to figure out how to transfer) all my Stripe subscriptions from a US to a UK Stripe account. If you’re already a paying subscriber, this shouldn’t really impact you, but I’ll let you know when it’s happening anyway. If you don’t yet pay to subscribe, but you think you’ll want to based on the following offerings—please hold off until I let you know that the new accounting system is set up and the offerings are beginning. Pretty sure Hildegard of Bingen never had to say things like this.

• Next year, I’m committing to practising what I preach. Meaning: I’ll be documenting a year-long devotion to deepening practical explorations of the imaginal realm. Expect reports on my practices, experiences of expanded reality, recommended reading, valuable frustrations, etc.

• One monthly live video call. Mostly, I just want to hang out with you all, but this will also be an opportunity to discuss the themes I’ve been writing about in the month’s essays, plus any topics you suggest.

• If I can figure out what the hell it is, I’ll also open the chat function thingy. Look, I remember the sound of dial-up internet, cut me some slack.

• The chance to suggest topics for deep-dive essays.

• My eternal gratitude. This has been an incredible year of creative expansion—and also a very lean year financially, as I’ve put so much time into the essays I’ve published for free on here. My hope for next year is to make these explorations financially sustainable. (As soon as I’ve figured out Stripe...)

William Blake deep reading

• The William Blake lectio divina/deep-reading group I mentioned here is going ahead. Thank you so much to all those of you who have expressed an interest. There have been lots of questions about the process and the commitment, so I’m making an explanatory/introductory video with the brilliant Dr. Valentin Gerlier, who will be leading the sessions. Watch this space.

• Practicalities: six 90-minute sessions over six weeks, likely beginning in late January or early February, spent deep-reading The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Group of 12–15 participants. There will be a fee, amount tbd depending on participant numbers.

And if you want a sneak preview of January’s essays/hyperfixations, here’s this week’s reading:

All that leaves to say is THANK YOU. I’ve been dreaming for decades of the kind of conversations I’ve had with you all in the past few months. Imagine finding such a ferociously curious, wise, intellectually adventurous, spiritually committed, discerning, witty gang. I couldn’t have. Thank you.

More soon,

xx Ellie