KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Solstice in Brittany Newsletter Dec 20-21, 2024
Solstice in Brittany I spent a recent Winter Solstice in Brittany, moving from Chartres to Pont-Aven to Carnac, awaiting the Sun’s last days in the Underworld and the beginning of her return to the World. It’s easy to see how this magical region inspired Paul Gauguin and his circle of Breton painters. The inspiration is […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Resurrection Newsletter August 1, 2024
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SResurrection NewsletterAugust 1, 2024 Resurrection Lilies As we enter the Eighth month of August (named for Octavian, the first Emperor of the Roman Empire) my Resurrection Lilies are happily blooming. These are a member of the Amaryllis family and love their life beneath my Gingko trees, mingling with my Japanese Ginger plants. With so […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S 4/4 Newsletter April 4, 2024
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S4/4 NewsletterApril 4, 2024 Birthday at Baie des Singes One day, long ago, I was having a birthday lunch with a group of friends at Baie des Singes (Bay of the Monkeys), along the coast of Tunisia, when a group of chattering monkeys came down from the cliffs to the port for a visit. […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S “The Art of Life” Newsletter Dec 29, 2023
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S “The Art of Life” Newsletter December 29, 2023 Setting Off into the Miraculous This year of “The Eight” (2+0+2+4=8) marks the conclusion of a cycle that began in 2015, and it is the dawn of a new cycle. We are stepping across the threshold of a world we think we know, and into […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S August Moon Newsletter August 1, 2023
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S August Moon Newsletter August 1, 2023 “Shine on, Shine on Harvest Moon up in the SkyI ain’t had no Lovin’ since January, February, June or July…” *(1908 Ziegfeld Follies, various credits) Harvest Moon Today is the Full Moon of August–which this year happens to fall upon the same date as the ancient Gaelic festival […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Lantern Festival Newsletter Feb 5, 2023
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SLantern Festival NewsletterFebruary 5, 2023 Bringing Back the Light Here I am, skiing into the New Year! Today marks the end of the Chinese New Year Festival, a time to celebrate the return of the light and the dawn of a new year. I am celebrating the return of my new book from a […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S ‘Tempus Fidgets’ Newsletter Dec 22, 2022
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S‘Tempus Fidgets’ NewsletterDecember 22, 2022 Tempus Fugit Time Flies (or ‘Flees’ like a Fugitive) as Virgil pointed out: in Latin, Tempus Fugit. But there are different kinds of Time. There is Chronos–chronological time–the number of hours, minutes, and seconds on record since we first began recording them. Then there is Kairos–the opportune moment, the turning point. The […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S “As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap” Newsletter Oct 14, 2022
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S “As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap” Newsletter October 14, 2022 The Fire Today, October 14, marks the 14th anniversary of my book, The Fire, sequel to The Eight. Interestingly, long before one could predict current events, the book’s plot dealt with Russia and Ukraine, as well as the legends of those two […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Augustus Newsletter August 12, 2022
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SAugustus NewsletterAugust 12, 2022 The Eighth Month More than 2000 years ago, on August 12, the queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, took her own life. This month was subsequently, in 8 BC, named “August” in honor of Octavian (Julius Caesar’s great nephew and adopted son), who’d been dubbed the first Emperor of Rome, with the […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S June to January Newsletter June 21, 2022
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S June to January Newsletter June 21, 2022 Solstice Gates of the Year June is named for the goddess Juno, benefactor of marriage and families (perhaps why so many weddings are held in June.) While January is named for the god Janus–the familiar two-faced image, whose name in early Italian meant ‘door’ or ‘gate’–from […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S St Jordi Newsletter April 23, 2022
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SSt Jordi NewsletterApril 23, 2022 George, Will, and Miguel’s Day Today, April 23, Saint George’s Day, is commemorated as William Shakespeare’s birthday and as the date when both Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died. (Although the “dates” seem to match, at that time the calendars of England and Spain were still ten days apart, […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Summer Solstice “Shibui” Newsletter June 18, 2021
Katherine in Brittany KATHERINE NEVILLE’SSummer Solstice “Shibui” NewsletterJune 18, 2021 Koyannisqatsi: Life Out of Balance This weekend, as we descend into the “dark half” of the year, was marked in ancient times as the date when Delphi’s Sun God Apollo would depart for the south, and the Lord of Misrule and intoxication, Dionysus, would take […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S St George’s Day Newsletter April 23, 2021
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SSt George’s Day NewsletterApril 23, 2021 St George: Patron Saint Some of the many places that claim St George as their patron saint include England, Georgia, Ethiopia, Catalonia, Aragon, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Portugal, Rio de Janeiro, and Moscow! I was present for the 850th birthday celebration of Moscow (1147-1997), when the city was festooned with […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Cherry Blossom & Chess Newsletter March 22, 2021
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SCherry Blossom & Chess NewsletterMarch 22, 2021 The Cherry Trees of Montglane The opening scene in The Eight is set in a cherry orchard, just at this time of year: around Spring Equinox, when the buds here turn from red to pink as they open. These past two years, I’ve written Cherry Blossom newsletters: March 2019 and March 2020 about […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Sacred Fire Newsletter February 16-17, 2021
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SSacred Fire NewsletterFebruary 16-17, 2021 Meat on Mars’ Day Carnival (Fat Tuesday or “Tiw’s” Day, a Norse god–or in French, Mardi Gras = Mars Day) is the last day, as the name “Carnival” suggests, to eat carne: meat! After that, we have forty days of Lent–‘quarante‘ in French–from which we also get the word ‘quarantine‘–to be isolated for forty days during a […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S 12 Days of Christmas Newsletter Dec 30, 2020
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S12 Days of Christmas NewsletterDecember 30, 2020 Solstice Sun Stops: 21st December, 2020 In ancient times, in Greece and Rome, the Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year) was celebrated as the “return of the sun,” the day each year when the solar god (Apollo) is “reborn.” This is the turning point when […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Queen’s Gambit Newsletter November 30, 2020
Grandmaster Susan Polgar, Black Queen, & me KATHERINE NEVILLE’SQueen’s Gambit NewsletterNovember 30, 2020 The Black Queen Here I am, with Chess Grandmaster and World Champion, Susan Polgar, at our book launch party for The Fire, (sequel to The Eight) held in Washington, DC! Grandmaster Polgar was one of our co-hosts for that event; she also found for […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S “Time Out” Newsletter October 30, 2020
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S“Time Out” Newsletter October 30, 2020 Three Days Out of Time As I mentioned long ago, in my 2009 Hallowe’en Newsletter: tomorrow–beginning at Sunset on October 31–we enter a period of Time that resembles pushing the “pause” button on a video or musical recording: “In the ancient Celtic calendar, so it is said, All […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Autumn Equinox Newsletter Sept 21, 2020
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SAutumn Equinox NewsletterSeptember 21, 2020 Equal Day and Night The Equinox (“Equal Night”) is the event that comes twice a year, when day and night are equal in length. The autumn equinox (in the northern hemisphere) marks the turning point when our daylight hours grow shorter and darkness grows longer. Read more about this […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Lammas Newsletter August 1, 2020
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Lammas Resurrection Newsletter August 1, 2020 My Lammas Resurrection Lilies My “Resurrection Lilies”–which first pop up in Spring, then die back, and then bloom after midsummer–always begin blooming tonight, the first night of Lammas, August 1 (see my 2014 Lammas Newsletter). Today marks the Eighth station of the Celtic year, when “first fruits” […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Lunar Society Newsletter June 10, 2020
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SLunar Society NewsletterJune 10, 2020 The Lunaticks As a former technological person myself, who’d participated in the early commercial phase of the computer revolution, I had long been fascinated by its predecessors: that handful of scientific entrepreneurs who, inspired by the Enlightenment and living though the American and French revolutions, had then gone on, […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Paean to PAN Newsletter (Don’t Pan-ic!) May 15, 2020
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SPaean to PAN Newsletter (Don’t Pan-ic!)May 15, 2020 The Great God Pan In Greek myth, the “Great God” Pan–whose name means “All”–was one of the most ancient gods, perhaps the most ancient, existing since pre-Greek pagan times. Pan is a wild, goat-legged nature boy, born in the craggy mountains of Arcadia, in central Greece. […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Cherry Blossom Newsletter March 20, 2020
Katherine in Esalen garden, Big Sur KATHERINE NEVILLE’SCherry Blossom NewsletterMarch 20, 2020 Early Cherry Blossoms In the opening scene of my novel, The Eight, the cherry blossoms bloom early: “Some said it was a good omen that they had bloomed so soon, a symbol of rebirth after the long and brutal winter. But then the cold rains had […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Sagittarius Newsletter December 2, 2019
Photo: Philippe Matsas / Opale (Fr) KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Sagittarius Newsletter December 2, 2019 The Centaur of Volos Project In the early 1990s, due to my historic research into world mythology, (or perhaps due to my swashbuckling adventure novels) I was invited by professors Beauvais Lyons and Neil Greenberg to participate in the “Centaur of Volos” […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Toussaint Newsletter November 1, 2019
Katherine at a Hallowe’en book signing KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Toussaint Newsletter November 1, 2019 Toussaint-Samhain My favorite holiday is the three-day period called Samhain in the Celtic calendar: October 31, November 1-2 — combining Hallowe’en (All Hallows Eve), All Saints and All Souls Days. This is the ‘three days out of time.’ For fifteen years I lived […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Assumption Day Newsletter August 15, 2019
Katherine in Brittany KATHERINE NEVILLE’SAssumption Day NewsletterAugust 15, 2019 Here I am in Brittany, where they celebrate today’s date with great festivities, as the ‘Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven.’ Mary: The Lady In Blue The ‘Lady in Blue’ was the topic of a wonderful book that I blurbed (wrote an effusive quote for) some years […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Japonisme Newsletter June 21, 2019
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Japonisme Newsletter June 21, 2019 Exposition Universelle Paris, 1867 Japan under the Shoguns was isolated from the world for over 250 years, from the early 1600s — and then emerged into the world at just the right moment. The Universal Expo of Art and Industry (Paris World’s Fair) opened on the Champ de […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Merry May Day Newsletter May 1, 2019
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Merry May Day Newsletter May 1, 2019 From Maia to Mary Today is the date that lies between spring equinox and summer solstice, one of the eight Celtic Fire Festivals since early times. In Greek myth, little Hermes was born to Zeus and the nymph Maia (she was one of the Pleiades or ‘Seven Sisters’) at her cavelike home in the mountainous Greek region […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Cherry Blossom Equinox Newsletter March 21, 2019
Katherine in Kyoto KATHERINE NEVILLE’SCherry Blossom Equinox NewsletterMarch 21, 2019 Cherry Blossom Time! In 1912, the Japanese government gave 3000 cherry trees to our nation’s capital, which were planted around the Tidal Basin on the National Mall in Washington DC. These now-legendary cherry blossoms of Washington are visited each Spring by more than one million […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Japanese Journey Newsletter June 29, 2018
Katherine in Tokyo KATHERINE NEVILLE’SJapanese Journey NewsletterJune 29, 2018 Yin-Yang When I first rescued the Japanese house, created in 1965 by the legendary Japanese potter, Teruo Hara, the place had been in disrepair, vandalized, and finally shut down and boarded up for a great many years. Once I’d purchased this wreck, I wandered around within […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S ‘A Calculated Risk’ 25th … Newsletter Dec 1, 2017
Neville tries on the coat of many colors KATHERINE NEVILLE’SA Calculated Risk 25th Anniversary Newsletter December 1, 2017 A Calculated Risk Turns 25! November, 2017, marks the 25th anniversary of the hardback publication of A Calculated Risk! In celebration, starting this month, I’ll be giving away 25 autographed copies of the original first-edition paperback, with a beautiful cover […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Autumn Adventure in Art Newsletter Sept 21, 2017
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SAutumn Adventure in Art NewsletterSeptember 21, 2017 Happy Autumn Equinox Happy New Moon of Autumn! On the equinox (the time each year when day and night are equal) we’d better get stocked up for the winter — which already proves, this year, to be a long one, ushered in by hurricanes, earthquakes and tidal […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Hazel Month Newsletter August 4, 2017
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SHazel Month NewsletterAugust 4, 2017 Lammas Night In ancient times, Celtic months were named for trees. Today, August 4, is the last day of Tinne, the Celtic Holly month. Tomorrow, Coll, the month of the Hazel tree begins, kicked off each year on August 1 by Lammas, the Eighth and last Celtic fire festival […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S April Pilgrimage Newsletter April 4, 2017
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S April Pilgrimage Newsletter April 4, 2017 April Arrives According to one of my favorite poets, TS Eliot, April is a scary month that brings unwanted feelings: APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Twelfth Night Epiphany Newsletter Jan 6, 2017
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Twelfth Night – Epiphany Newsletter January 6, 2017 Twelfth Night Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas, is one of my favorite holidays: traditionally, the night when the three Magi, bearing gifts from afar, following a star, came to visit a baby born in a manger. But the Magi were not the first powerful […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Autumn Equinox Newsletter Sept 21, 2016
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SAutumn Equinox NewsletterSeptember 21, 2016 Autumn Equinox Equinox (the day each year when day and night are equal in length) is the time to sow and plant, to prepare for us to reap next Spring! Today is one of the eight Celtic Festival Days, when it is time for us to plan for the […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Lammas Newsletter August 1, 2016
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SLammas NewsletterAugust 1, 2016 Lammas-Lughnassadh Today, August 1, is the Eighth and last station of the Celtic calendar. It is called in northern lands Lammas (‘Loaf-Mass,’ baking bread from the first crop) or Lunasa (Lughnassadh, Festival of Lugh, the great Irish warrior and leader, for whom the later Roman town Lugdunum was named, “fortress […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Midsummer Night Newsletter June 20, 2016
KATHERINE NEVILLE’SMidsummer Night NewsletterJune 20, 2016 Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary! I am just back from England & Belgium, finishing the last bits of research for my New Book! While in London, I was staying on Stratford Place, which reminded me that 2016 is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. I mentioned, while lunching with my wonderful […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Carpe Diem Newsletter May 1, 2016
Katherine on Pike’s Peak, Colorado 1980s KATHERINE NEVILLE’SCarpe Diem NewsletterMay 1, 2016 May Day Eve on the Mountaintop The eve of May Day is called in German “Walpurgisnacht” (the night they purge the woods), and in the Celtic languages it is called “Beltaine” (the fires of the hero-god Bel). One of the oldest pagan festivals – […]
KATHERINE NEVILLE’S “News”letter Flash: Art & Literature March 21, 2016
Literary award judge William Woodward, Katherine Neville, and author Mary Lynn Kotz KATHERINE NEVILLE’S“News”letter Flash: Art & LiteratureMarch 21, 2016 The Art & Literature Award Over these past five years, while ramping up research for my new book about artists, I was also instrumental in ramping up the creation of a brand-new literary award: Art […]
