October 31, 2024
It's Halloween. Today I woke up and chose to put on my gardening gloves, as I was instructed to yesterday. Metaphorical ones. I have not taken up gardening in the real world yet, but it is on my list of things I want to do, and hopefully be good at. With my gardening gloves I grabbed my seed pouch and took inventory. There's a lot of small seeds in here, and the all important dark one.
Some are the seeds left behind by my previous endeavors. I learned a lot while I involved myself in the music industry because I was too fucking dumb stubborn to admit when I was over my head. Nowadays, at the greying age of thirty-nine, I know I'm over my head. I've come to realize that is how I live. In the music industry I somehow made lasting friendships and acquaintances, and a lot of those friends and acquaintances are still in those trenches of war. They make and do amazing things that I enjoy and want to shout at people from rooftops about.
Since leaving music I rediscovered my love of reading via Bookstagram and as a result have made a lot of friends and acquaintances in the world of books and publishing. I have a feeling this happens to a lot of people when their biggest passions are music and books. Especially the ones with ADHD and undiagnosed but peer reviewed autism (hi). This has given me another ton of small seeds, some of which have become either a couple finished short stories, infinite works in progress, stunted mockeries of life, or are still waiting to be planted. This has also given me an endless supply of amazing things that I enjoy and want to shout at people from rooftops about.
The thing is, it's almost 2025. If you shout at people from rooftops nowadays the cops will arrest you if you're white lucky, or shoot you if you're black not. So instead of rooftop shoutery, I shall engage in internet typery, which is still kind of the same thing but with less damage to my vocal cords, and possibly less bullets.
Then there is the dark seed here in my pouch that I've had for as long as I can remember. I had no idea what it was for the longest time. It is mostly small, like most seeds, but will occasionally grow massive. Not in size, mind you, but weight, like trying to hold a black hole. Maybe a black hole is what it is, really; because it is the colour of dread, black as night; sharp as a razor; double edged like a sword. It can be used to take out a grown man's heart. It can be used to heal one, too. After consulting a few of my dreams and a lot of my thoughts, I knew for sure this was what I was afraid of: this was the seed of desire, and I knew it's name.
And so I have sat on this seed for a year almost, but not knowing what direction I wanted the seed to grow. I moved it around, held it, sat with it, hid it in the darkness of my closet, yelled at it, whispered. And finally, on October 30, 2024, the seed cracked open a tiny bit and the burgeoning plant inside whispered to me:
"Just fuckin plant me, asshole!"And so here we are, at the site of the planting of seeds. This is Hermit Rites. I am Dustin Ekman, and these are my stories and poems, as well as my thoughts on books and music, possibly movies, possibly other things barely tangentially related to any of the above. I am going to try my best to bring my love of the macabre and gore to the forefront with Hermit Rites, but also my love of whimsy and cottagecore. I am also hoping to open my hermitage to others in the future, to give space to other stories, poems, and thoughts. Whether I succeed at that or not is up to future Dustin to decide, and whoever else reads this (thank you, by the way). But who am I? The following is my official writer's bio as of 31/10/24:
Dustin Ekman is a writer from Edmonton. This is not exactly his fault, but he did choose to move there from a small town that was even worse than Edmonton.
Dustin is a former record label owner, music critic, and metal promoter (founder of Funeral Rain Records, Crown of Viserys, and Black Mourning Light Metal Festival), as well as a fan of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Before the CoV website came down, Dustin published several hundred music reviews.
He lives with his cat, a roommate, an addiction to caffeine, various works in progress, and an increasingly shaky mental stability.
