Dude. I'm working as fast as I can here! :-)

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*cracks whip* Haha. You'd better be! :)

I realize I'm on the inside, looking for more people to do the DP and to get working on it, but I was a bit shocked that the publications seemed to ignore aspects of the DP. I did, on further review, find one other article set that would be useful to a Dedicant, in issues 17, 18, and 19. It was one by romandruid regarding Roman Holidays, but nothing else really seems to fit, and even [Unknown LJ tag]'s articles are designed for a DP user, I don't think (no fault of hers, just not her primary audience). No essays on piety, none on patronage, none on taking your DP Oath, none on how to do a solitary ritual. . . It was like people doing the DP couldn't get help to save their lives.

There's lots of poetry and interviews and bardic stuff, bot not a lot of "meat" in my eyes. Not much designed specifically for people working through the DP or any specific study programs.

I'm finding that those issues of OL didn't serve the reader, so much as the writers. Not altogether bad, but it should be more of both, less of one or the other, I think.

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I've come up with a Norse-based daily runic meditation/blot to the gods and ancestors that's been very valuable to my daily practice. Would a write up for it be useful?

I've also got a bunch of notes on Norse ritual worship in general, and intend to write a bunch of it up, but everything is in an early stage - it needs to evolve a bit more before I would feel comfortable writing it out.

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Yes, I think such a write up would be very useful. It'd give me something more to point to when it comes to meditation. Actually, I'm going to go make a note of that here, too :) Thanks!

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so i should get dp stuff in the mail soon right?

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Um, I would say that, assuming the mails have calmed down from christmas, it shouldn't be that long.

Probably, erm, 10 days? That's often a pretty good guess, if you just sent it in. Your check has to get there, and then they do a weekly mailing to all new members, so it all depends on when it arrives and when the weekly mailing goes out. You should get members' only acccess to the website shortly, via email.

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Oh, btw, did you subscribe to Oak Leaves?

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i did acutally

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Excellent :)

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Yes, but I was at home when I posted, and so I had to rely on the issues I had hard-copy of.

Now, however, I can go grab all the .pdf's and read through those :)

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There's obviously a reason we weren't having loads of people complete the DP. Our publications simply weren't supporting it.

Eh, I have a hard time believing that's the reason, or even one of the main reasons. It's hard for me to believe that people would be motivated enough to finish the DP, if only we had more DP-related articles in our publication... especially since subscribing to Oak Leaves is now decoupled from membership, so you have lots of people doing the DP who don't even get OL.

I think having more articles on the DP will be helpful in terms of people actively starting the program, and might be slightly helpful in terms of people finishing it. But I think finishing it really boils down to knuckling down and going through the requirements one-by-one. That kind of "home stretch" slogging and determination doesn't come from reading articles, it comes from within.

Some things that might help more people finish the DP could include having them publicly post their completion goal date (so there's an element of pride involved); this could even be a page in the Wiki (e.g., DedicantGoalDates or DedicantCompletionGoals).

I hate to say it, but I'm guessing more hand-holding (or stern task-mastering :) by mentors (i.e., more mentors) would probably also help more people finish too, again fitting into that social thing (sometimes people will work harder for others than they will for themselves).

More OL articles on the DP would be great, but I don't think that's one of the main ways we'll improve the number of people that finish the DP.

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There will be more hand-holding. I'm several weeks into a complete course for finishing the DP.

But in the end, I really think that a copy of OL reminds people of where they were headed. And a copy of OL that has a DP article in it will help more get over the humps, give them ideas.

I dunno. Like with the DP books, I really feel that a physical connection is what brings people back and keeps them going. The OL subscription is a big part of that, I think.

Articles that help people move through the DP can only help, and a lack of tangible help in the form of articles can only hurt. At least, that's my theory.

Since OL started up again, we've had a huge upswping in the number of completions. I was about #36 of all DP completions since 1997 when I finished in 2003. We've had 30 or so more complete since then.

There could be other reasons, and I'm positive that there are other factors, but really, I have to think that a lot of it has to do with the number of OLs that have gone out, and I really think that the number of DP-related articles is only going to increase that.

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Like with the DP books, I really feel that a physical connection is what brings people back and keeps them going. The OL subscription is a big part of that, I think.

But as I said, not everyone in the DP gets Oak Leaves. Incidentally, this is a good example of why I felt the publication should remain tied to membership, to make sure that everyone got that physical connection. But, IIRC, I was out-voted on that, which I still think was a case of throwing the baby (physical connection) out with the bath water (OL problems at the time).

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