arethinn: glowing green spiral (froud sidhe)
Okay, so, like, this is long, and stuff.

workshops/talks/rituals attended

Chaos Magic within the Hypnosis Paradigm
Kind of interesting; mainly about how parallels could be drawn between magical technique, and therapeutic techniques of hypnosis and NLP and such, for example how "modelling", where you pretend to be someone who has a quality or skill you admire as a way of gaining that skill yourself, is similar to invocation. Briefly got into sigils. I was annoyed by the fact that the deities chosen for the invocation and evocation visualizations were taken semi-randomly by audience suggestions, thus we wound up with Ganesha and Isis. Not what I would characterise as a dangerous mix, but this sort of thing is a peeve of mine.

Neglected Aspects of Wiccan History
Quite informative entertaining talk by Allyn Wolfe of the New Wiccan Church about the various historical threads that lead into modern Wicca, centred on the movements of the various cultural and ethnic groups in European history from ancient times through the medieval era which culminated in the mish-mosh we call the English people and English language, and how these are neither "pure", nor particularly Celtic. Suffered from pacing difficulty which meant that the 20th century got about the last ten minutes of the hour and a half, which is a shame because I think that was where the meat was, and the rest of it should have been in a bit less detail, just for the background understanding. Very interesting bit about the lineage of the Central Valley Wiccan traditions, based on textual analysis of their Books of Shadows versus the Gardnerian ones, which seems to indicate that they are "siblings", both descending from a common ancestor, rather than being somehow traceable into the Gardnerian line (as are the majority of traditionalist Wiccans).

Dancing in the Dark: Accessing Trance States Through Movement & Music
Ducked out of this one after the first twenty minutes or so. I had thought it was going to be about what ritual movements would achieve what effects, perhaps about ecstatic body postures, etc. Rather, it was a quite freeform thing where the participants were kept moving for about 60 minutes straight, the idea being to achieve a trance state through the exertion. Wasn't up for that.

The Triple Soul in Feri Tradition
Faboo workshop done by T. Thorn Coyle. Brief explanations of the nature and function of each of the three souls, a good deal of movement, breathing and exercises like the Ha and Flower Prayers. I told her that night that it was the best workshop I had been to so far, and I think it still was now that the con is over, in terms of which workshop did I really get the most out of.

Sacred Marriage: A Queer Feri Dance Ritual
Dance ritual where Thorn Coyle and Anaar did belly-dance inspired embodyings/portrayals of the Divine Twins as brother-lovers, while a priest whose name I don't know (the troupe's name is Painted Fan) was the Star Goddess, thus incorporating not only the same (multi?)-sex love aspect of "queer", but also the gender-play part of it. While I enjoyed it, I wasn't as groovin' on it as [livejournal.com profile] devafall seemed to be. There is something un-jiving about myself and the Feri directional guardians and gods. In some ways this is really not a judgement I have been very qualified to make, because I lacked direct experience of either, and was making this assessment based on reading names and descriptions and my own attempts to reach out to who I thought they were, which is kind of all wrong (but really, what else could I do short of starting training, which I've have various reasons not to do). Devafall guesses, I think probably correctly, are "outer court" names, if you will, and that different ones would be used in an initiates' rite. However, I would like to counter with the fact that many people seem to work Feri for quite a few years before receiving initiation; initiation isn't the "induction ceremony" the way it is in Wicca. The presences are real and they would be interacting with a student well before they were initiated. In fact, I speculate that evidence that the student has this connection might be one of the criteria of whether initiation was indicated, although maybe it is rare for it to be "spontaneous", and would normally be developed precisely through that Feri training; I don't know. As for the context of the ritual itself, I would think that even if the names are the "outer court ones", that the initiate calling them would still be invoking the "actual" ones, just not in "full view". Perhaps that wasn't the case in this particular presentation. But what I'm getting at here is that while I still have no experiences with the Feri gods, I (at least think I) now have at least one with the guardians, and the lines of communication just aren't there. So while [livejournal.com profile] devafall finally turned into a breakfast burrito by expressing to Anaar his desire to become a Feri student, I remain a very undercooked waffle about the whole thing.

Remembering the Soul
Neat idea: Quest to gather the lost parts of your soul (here represented in the Egyptian scheme, ka, ba, etc), which other people are holding, and when you find them, get words of power from them which will aid you in recovering that piece or somehow give you a pointer. The physical representation of the quest was that we had a small square of card which was the physical body, with a number on it. The five parts of the soul were represented by matching cards in other colours, all with the same number, and someone else out there had one of each, by grabbing a small handful out of a bowl which had them all mixed together. (I don't know if anyone got any their own numbers there... it certainly would have been possible!) We had to roam around the room trying to find our other pieces, one at a time, without speaking - speaking was to be reserved for the giving of the "boon words", to give them power. Really didn't work well in such a large group. Lots of tedious walking around the room trying to read all the numbers, and of course there was the possibility that you could simply endlessly be circling on opposite sides of the room. They had to stop each cycle long before everyone had found that piece, and move on to the next. This was covered pretty well, "sometimes that part of the soul isn't ready to be found", but all in all the ritual was empty. Good music, though - live musicians.

Erisian Ritual - Breaking the Curse of Greyface
This was [livejournal.com profile] tyrsalvia's thingy. Like the Feri ritual, other people seemed to be getting a lot more out of it than I was, although it was fun. Any ritual that includes bubble wrap has got to be spiritually significant. Or something. (Molasses!)

The White Wand: The Artist in Feri
Listened to this for about half an hour before deciding I just wasn't that into it and going to have some lunch and read for a while. This is just one of those topics I have a hard time getting into because I don't have experience to self-identify with. I wasn't originally going to go to the Queer Feri ritual because I thought it was going to be something else, and not being queer myself I am ill-equipped to really get into "queer mysteries"; that sort of feeling is what I'm referring to here. As a non-artist, I have no artist experience which enables me to understand and get excited about "artist mysteries".

Something about folklore and second sight whos exact title I forget, since it wasn't in the program originally and I only saw the name on posted signs. Stumbled into this one after leaving the White Wand panel, by vaguely browsing the auction items and then noticing that RJ Stewart was sitting behind them talking, along with another man who turned out to be Orion Foxwood. Very interesting stuff about the importance of ancestors and communicating with the dead, and how people who actually have "the sight" are generally confounded by people who say they want to become seers, because it is not a pleasant experience by any means.

Direct Faery Healing Ritual: Opening the Well of Earth Light
A bit too many people in this one for the right kind of focus, but the visualization was great (well in the ground, out of which comes a pillar of earth light, and various beings such as Shining Ones; sending this healing out to the Four Directions). Didn't get anything really out of the healing-those-in-attendance part of it. Woman sitting next to me was really annoying and kept commenting on petty stuff (such as the position of the chairs) in a slightly snarky and bossy manner, out loud to no one in particular sometimes. (Not during the ritual itself, but after and especially before.) Best bit for me was the calling of Faery allies and Creature allies, because I had an interesting experience of being a tripartite consciousness ([livejournal.com profile] enotsola: like the two-part one we got a really strong taste of you-know-when), and when I talked about this after the ritual, I got a laugh out of the audience by stumbling over needing a pronoun that was We/I, and approval from RJ who said "exactly!" This is called the Threefold Alliance in his work, and is basically, therein, what it means to be a single whole being - the three Allies form one, in a way. (I have my own thoughts about where otherkin fit into this; are otherkin (of some types, at least) perhaps beings who have already managed to fuse faery and human? Might weres and therios be the ones who have the human and animal parts together?) I was also quite pleased that another person spoke up saying that when the harp had been playing while we were seeing the Shining Ones issue forth from the well, each note had seemed to be one of the myriad points of light forming a shape that was spoken of in the guiding of the imagery, which was precisely what I had been seeing myself. So validation was good there.

Druid Underworld Ritual
Two-part thing, first part being a ritualised "sacrifice" of a sacred queen, and the second being some kind of experience where half the participants died and their impromptu partner was left behind. Bark more satisfying than bite, here. Interesting talk about preparing for death and visions some people have apparently had about the next incarnation of the Christ being not only female, but already born. The first part was obviously powerful for the person who was the queen - she was on the verge of tears a lot of the time - but didn't make for strong response in me, at least. Didn't feel interested in the second part and slipped out during the opportune disrupted moment when people were milling about finding partners.

Concert with RJ Stewart: Magical Songs, Celtic and Original Music
Hearing RJ himself sing and play was very neat. He is an extremely good songwriter and quite skilled at playing the guitar (we didn't get to hear the psaltery). There were two which I really thought were best of all... "Hide in the Thorn" - "red, white and black / are the colours of her / red for the blood / and white for the bones / and black for the earth / red, white and black" was the refrain, which was quite powerful and chantlike - and another one whose title I don't remember, but was like "my curse on the man who shoots a deer in the snow... my curse on the ones who send children to war to fight other people's children... my threefold curse on the fat cat who lives off such acts... maybe he thinks he's a hero, maybe he thinks he's a man, maybe he thinks he can do what he wants with his plan" which ended with the great verse, "if you're not sure about cursing, look for the deer in the snow, look for the children on the stained desert sand... and you'll know!" RJ is also a blues guitarist, which was unexpected, and several of his songs were quite bluesy. Hearing him sing the traditional ballads "The Wife of Usher's Well" and "Young Beichan" was quite the experience. He already has a Scottish accent, of course, but for these ballads affected something rather more in the dialect, which I imagine has importance, being a requirement of a traditional performance if nothing else, I should think, but since the imagery in the ballads is meant to act directly on the consciousness of the hearer, it's probably important for that reason too. A two-person act called Dreamchild (may be spelled another way) did a short set in between two sets of RJ, and while I like their music just fine - very nice guitar and harp - I really wasn't thrilled with the woman's voice. She also had an odd way of pulling her lower jaw to one side when singing certain sounds which made it hard to watch her because I was creeped out by it (shallow as that is, since it really has nothing to do with the music itself).

parties attended
  • [livejournal.com profile] devafall and [livejournal.com profile] tiggrrl's room party on Friday night. "Apples to Apples" is such a fun game.

  • Absinthe party on Saturday night. Much coolness and some quiet chatting afterwards with a vaguely otherkinny person met previously, who expressed relief at finally finding someone he didn't have to explain himself to.

  • Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn party on Sunday night. Lots of cool magiciany folk and interesting talk with [livejournal.com profile] tyrsalvia as well.


people met for the first time

There may be others slipping my mind, but I browsed through my friends list and nobody else stood out, so let me know if I met you and just forgot already *heh*.

people spotted at more of a distance
  • [livejournal.com profile] faerywolf.

  • Robert Anton Wilson. Well, not very much of a distance; he was right behind me picking out food from the breakfast buffet as I sat eating soup and salad, but I didn't speak to him at all.

  • RJ Stewart. Went to a bunch of the things he was at, but in only one instance were there words exchanged between us, and that was in the context of "so everyone, share your experiences in the working we just did", so its lack of social content makes it non-"meeting" to me.


booze drunk (tee hee)
  • Tullamore Dew and Jameson's.

  • Two-buck Chuck of Sauvignon Blanc and Shiraz varieties, and some other red wine whose label I don't recall (nothing I was previously familiar with). For the uninitiated, "two-buck Chuck" is stuff from the Charles Shaw winery in Napa, which costs $2 a bottle at Trader Joe's. While you sometimes get a bottle which isn't that great, overall it's really pretty good, definitely a lot more than one would expect from hearing that it costs $2, and has become a bit of a phenomenon. (I seem to recall a woman from Chicago saying that there, it is called "three-buck Chuck" (guess why). I guess trucking it to Chicago adds to the price.)

  • Gin and tonic, and also some Bombay Sapphire neat.

  • A small quantity of ... er... how should I spell this... well ok, I guess uisce bee will suffice, which is Irish whiskey (in this case specifically Tully) mixed with Brenjger. (Beatha I think would miss the point here. I note with amusement that beithe would also be almost possible, except that would be some kind of birch liqueur and not honey, so rather loses the "bee" pun.)

  • A small quantity of absinthe, because even though we showed up to the absinthe party too late to get our own glasses, I happened on a circle of people passing around a kapala of some of the last of it, and another fellow had brought a homemade batch (not self-distilled, it was one of the "cordial" variety, but was actually quite interesting in flavour, not at all harsh and bitter like homebrew absinthe can be, and curiosly not anisey, either).

  • A small quantity of a few different single-malt Scotches, courtesy of [livejournal.com profile] devafall's personal collection.

  • A sip of Stag's Breath, which I'm certain (wink-wink) gave me back my voice on that night, as what had been sinus-area congestion for much of the week had decided to migrate and remove my ability to speak without croaking.

(No, not all on the same night. Dear gods, no! Although I did overdo it with the whiskey a bit on Friday.)

stuff bought
  • Small drinking horn with green knotwork on black on leather band.

  • Bottle of perfume oil "Dark Star" which is kind of ambery.

  • Three scents of incense sticks... Golden Myrrh, Golden Sandalwood and Meditation (these from the "Incense from India" line).

  • Some of the faery incense and oil from the Dreampower booth. (I asked Arisha if it was the same recipe for Faery Incense that can be found on the site and she said it was somewhat different.)

  • RJ Stewart's Magical Tales (been meaning to for a while, it was just a convenient time) and The Well of Light, just published this month; it's further material in the Underworld Initiation, Earth Light, Power Within the Land, Living World of Faery strain of his work. The work done in the Well of Light ritual was actually this stuff.

  • Orion Foxwood's The Faery Teachings. This came with a nifty small set of cards which appear to be of some of the large faery Powers.

  • Victor Anderson's Etheric Anatomy, which is a new posthumous book.

  • A silver ring with a labradorite cabochon. I've been wanting a kind of "power ring" or "witch jewel" for a long time.

  • Small green velvet pouch with an embossed spiral which is probably going to become a faerie dust pouch.

  • Crystallized "essence" of sandalwood plus styrax scent.

  • A piece of vegetable pizza, a bowl of soup, a house salad, a boxed salad (WTF is up with the Coffee Garden's Italian dressing? I swear it has horseradish in it or something), a bottle of water (having put down the one I was carrying so I could pick up the boxed salad with two hands, and forgetting to pick it back up again) and a "Southwest burger" which was underdone and reluctantly served. I had brought food with me, but it got kind of monotonous munching on granola, dried fruit, nuts, sesame crackers, pita bread and rye crispbread most of the time. One night in the Hospitality Suite they had some great brown rice and cucumber/cauliflower/parsley salad of a vaguely tabbouli-like flavour, but that was free.


lessons learned
  • Big Name Pagans are not only generally also Real People, but unless you've seen a photograph of them before, make absolutely no assumptions about what they will turn out to look like; even if you have seen one, make as few as possible.

  • You don't have to put up with the sun in the morning. The opaque flowery drapes close just like the gauzy white ones do.

Date: Feb. 17th, 2004 12:32 am (UTC)From: [identity profile] metaphorge.livejournal.com
Thanks for the recap! I look forward to this next year.

Woman sitting next to me was really annoying and kept commenting on petty stuff (such as the position of the chairs) in a slightly snarky and bossy manner, out loud to no one in particular sometimes.

Ah! A Ritually-Correct Grayface! *grins*

Date: Feb. 17th, 2004 01:29 am (UTC)From: [identity profile] saizai.livejournal.com
Would you happen to know [livejournal.com profile] emberleo?

Re:

Date: Feb. 17th, 2004 02:17 am (UTC)From: [identity profile] tyrsalvia.livejournal.com
I do, even if she doesn't.

Date: Feb. 17th, 2004 02:03 am (UTC)From: [identity profile] m0usegrrl.livejournal.com
i'm so looking forward to attending next year...

i like your theory about the Threefold Alliance and otherkin/therians; it really makes an awful lot of sense. i'd be interested to find out what other faery 'kin think about it [well, like [livejournal.com profile] rialian -- i really respect his views and opinions on otherkin matters]. for the record, i identify as otherkin, and as therian; i don't go on about it much primarily because most 'kin and therians embarrass the hell outta me. [present company excepted, of course. =)]

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Arethinn

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