This book was published in 2012. When I first read it in 2015 I was delighted to find a kindred spirit who shared my deep devotion to the Gods and practices as a spiritworker, albeit in the Hellenic rather than the Brythonic tradition.

It is a collection of essays covering diverse topics from relationships with Deities, land spirits and personal spirits to practices such as oracular trance and possession and the use of entheogens. As the author states, it ‘isn’t geared towards beginners’ but is a record of ‘thoughts and experiences’ that serve to ‘inspire and stimulate’ ‘anyone on a devotional and / or spirit-work path’.

In the introduction Winter notes the term ‘spirit-worker’ is recent and is ‘not well defined. But it generally indicates a polytheist and / or animist who serves the gods and spirits directly in some capacity, and with a level of intensity and devotion above the average worshipper… They might serve a community, but unlike a a shaman they don’t necessarily have to. A spirit-worker traverses the road between humans and gods, between this world and the otherworlds, and they do this because they must, because they are called to, and because it is quite literally their work in life.’

She says, ‘devotional polytheist’ ‘was coined partly as a counterpoint to strict reconstructionism’. The differences lies in placing ‘a high level of importance on personal and direct experience of the holy powers’ and the devotional practices of ‘prayer, ritual, offerings etc’ whilst remaining respectful of the historical sources rather than attempting to reconstruct past traditions.

The rest of the essays form an exploration of these ‘twin paths’. A piece that particularly still resonates is ‘Mysticism as Vocation in Modern Paganism’. Here Winter rails against the view not only of secular society but ‘the majority of pagans’ that ‘spiritual vocation’ ‘is a luxury to be fitted around daily life’. Why cannot ‘home, family and career’ ‘be fitted around spiritual vocation?’ With no state support for Pagan religious vocations here in the UK those of us who share such a calling are left with a constant struggle to balance the need for financial security with fulfilling our calling from the Gods and spirits.

Those who follow Winter / Dver’s blog ‘A Forest Door’ will know she writes beautifully about her relationship with lands spirits. Here, too, she describes her practice, traversing her ritual landscape, carrying a ‘beeswax taper’ ‘like a ritual torch’, following crow feathers, making offerings of ‘mandrake root’, ‘an old and crackled coyote’s tooth’, ‘fly agaric’, for a local land spirit.

In ‘Evolving Patron Relationships’ and ‘Two Decades with Dionysos’ Winter talks about how He crept into her life ‘in bits and pieces’ with poetry, red wine, the Doors and how she became a Hellenic Polytheist and served her God ‘in the community at large’ before seeming to withdraw in order to lead her elsewhere – into ‘entanglement’ with the spirits. She prompts the reader to ‘recognise the possibility that a patron relationship might end’ or one might find it ‘evolves in a new unexpected directions’ ‘to where you needed to be all along’. I cannot imagine my relationship with Gwyn ap Nudd ending but do appreciate the warning of that potential and for unexpected change.

‘The Gods Are Real and Trance Isn’t Just Visualisation’ is important in stating that argument in relation to the writings of Diana Paxon and others who fail to point out the difference between ‘visualising a pre-set series of events’ and ‘actually meeting the gods and spirits in a foreign land’.

Of immense value are the pieces documenting Winter’s reconstruction of her oracular practice for Apollon based on the traditions at Delphi. Winter visited Delphi in 2003 and performed ritual and ceremony and a night long vigil. She was later inspired to take up the practices of the Pythiai after seeing similarities between her landscape of Cascadia and that of Delphi. This inspired a pilgrimage to the source of her local headwaters and to setting up her own adyton andtaking to the tripod on the seventh day of the month. In ‘On the Tripod’ she describes emptying herself to receive Appollon’s words.

‘Lord Apollon,
enter into this place
made only for Your entry
and no other’s.

I have emptied out my skull,
and await your voice to fill it.’

Eight years on I have found this book to be packed with wise words and inspiration and to be incredibly relatable as someone still walking the ‘twin paths’ of devotional polytheism and spirit-work as a polytheistic monastic. I would recommend it as a core resource for anyone wanting to learn more about these paths or delve more deeply into the issues that confront modern practitioners and the struggles and joys of building sacred relationships.