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Wow, I am totally word-dumping on PantheaCon. I think I'm going to have to split into several posts. Alakazam!
Seeking the Center -- Orion Foxwood
I love Orion. He has a great vibe that turns anything into part story, part stand-up comedy, and part heartfelt downhome advice, and generally he's just a riot to listen to. Most powerful concept for me, which has harmonic resonance with the human-faery-animal alliance material RJ Stewart teaches: a "human being" (in the sense of a person standing in front of you) is not just that alone, but a group or association of beings of various spiritual races with a mutual agreement to fulfill some soul purpose. The theme of "you are not alone" came up a few times for me this weekend. Also, "pulling your power back" was almost spot-on the "dance" move, concept, and visualization that Thorn did in an Iron Pentacle weekend I went to a few years ago.
Black Magic and Dark Paganism -- Clifford Hartleigh Low
Cliff is the dude who runs the Green Fairy (no relation to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wildelf, although that Cliff does have a doppelganger with longer hair wandering around!). This was a wonderfully written essay that just didn't go that well as a presentation. It might have been okay as a formal speech, but that's not really the vibe that works well at PantheaCon (even if they have to save questions for the end, people still want to be talked with, not at). Some interesting personal techniques that he had cooked up, although I wonder how much he was preaching to the choir on dark magic being just as worthwhile as light.
The Rollright Ritual -- RJ Stewart (and, as it turned out, Caitlín Matthews, and some other priest and priestesses I recognised from other work with RJ but whose names I forget)
I had such high hopes for this, but asr_monoxide remarked, it turned out to be a reading rather than an actual enactment, or even a historical talk/analysis. I think I'm less annoyed by RJ's "old boys' club" type stories than she was, because I do like hearing personal accounts of how the world of paganism was different before I was born and RJ has a pleasant voice to listen to, but while that was all right for me, I did not feel any "charge" off the ritual itself. Usually you do more in an RJ Stewart workshop and I was disappointed. Hearing a 35-years-younger RJ on the recording was a hoot though.
Ascension Magick -- Chris Penczak
Only listened to part of this. I had sushi first and came in partway through. He has an engaging way of speaking so it was all right hearing about Theosophy and common threads in spiritual systems and a metaphorical pendulum swinging between "too intellectual" and "too New-Age feel-good", but it didn't thrill me (I might or might not buy the book of the same title) so I wandered away to get ready for the Pyrate Party.
Kindling Ancestral Hearths -- Caitlín Matthews
Beautiful working. This made me cry. Part of it was a visualization of female ancestors stretching out on the right and male ancestors on the left of a central fire, and walking down the row between them.
The women seemed pleasantly indifferent to me, but one of the men stepped out of the line and approached me. I'm not sure when he was, or if he was even recent enough in our perception of time for that to be a sensible concept (as opposed to somewhere in the dim depths of pre-history). I had an inkling of somewhere in the 16th-18th century but I think I am second-guessing too hard. He was rather ordinary in appearance; brown hair in a cut almost a bowl-cut but not that, well, dorky-looking, blue eyes, fair skin; a few inches taller than me; vaguely somewhere in the age range of 25-35 (weird to think about this person being my who-knows-how-many-greats grandfather).
All this is very well and good. What I am totally flailing trying to think how to describe was the expression on his face. It was love and forgiveness and but child, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you just how you are and this isn't a family without you. I just... yeah.
This was topped off with my mother showing me a photograph on Monday night that she didn't think I'd seen, of family members on my dad's side, taken when he was about 9 years old. I had actually seen that photo before, and recognized him immediately. He was sitting next to his grandfather, John Robert, who for some reason was called Jack (why you need a nickname for John when it's already only one syllable, I don't know). This is the great-grandfather of mine that drank Drambuie, of which my grandmother apparently profoundly disapproved. He was somewhere in his mid-sixties in the photo, but otherwise was a passing aged-up of the man I saw in the vision. I don't get the sense that they are the same person, but of all the relatives I have that died before I was born (which is a large proportion of them, including one of my grandfathers), he's the one I feel the most affinity with.
Leland, Maddalena, Aradia, et al. -- Raven Grimassi
Mostly materials towards proving that Maddalena was a real person and a real magical practitioner, and that Leland may have been some sort of initiated practitioner as well. Ran out of time towards the end where he started talking about which parts of the Aradia text he believed constituted authentic tradition and which did not (long story short, the first four chapters out of 15; some Leland himself says are not in the text he got from Maddalena, and others can be shown to have material appearing in other earlier works of his).
Fairy Lore in British Folk Music -- Kenny Klein
Fun to hear him sing, but again liker_monoxide said, this was kind of a letdown. The stuff he said about Tam Lin and Thomas Rhymer ballads half-contradicts stuff I have learned from RJ Stewart (I guess they are approaching it from very different perspectives); he seemed to subscribe to the materialistic "the fairies were the Picts" explanation and not have much, if any, belief in a spiritual reality for Faery; and for the most part he was quite bad about saying what his sources were, i.e., what songs were traditional and which were modern based on traditional material, and indeed had he written stuff himself or learned it from elsewhere, even. Overall it was a rather shallow treatment of the lore, too, just giving examples of appearances of fey critters rather than talking about what any of that meant, even folklorically speaking (never mind esoterically speaking).
The Well of Song -- Sharon Knight and Amelia Hogan
Improvisational singing with a visualization. Not really what I was expecting (dunno what that was, though). The circle was split into parts and led in various overlapping strings of melody and harmony. Meh, it was okay -- which is pretty much what I thought of last year's "Circlesinging" that I went to, pretty much the same thing but without the ritual component. I keep hoping for a "charge" of being in the middle of a wash of song from many throats, which is an image that greatly appeals to me (one of those "I swear I have a memory on the subject tucked away somewhere" things), but *shrug*. I think it's that the vocalizations tend to be semi-verbal and rhythmic, rather than just open vowels sung in chords, that is putting me off.
Seeking the Center -- Orion Foxwood
I love Orion. He has a great vibe that turns anything into part story, part stand-up comedy, and part heartfelt downhome advice, and generally he's just a riot to listen to. Most powerful concept for me, which has harmonic resonance with the human-faery-animal alliance material RJ Stewart teaches: a "human being" (in the sense of a person standing in front of you) is not just that alone, but a group or association of beings of various spiritual races with a mutual agreement to fulfill some soul purpose. The theme of "you are not alone" came up a few times for me this weekend. Also, "pulling your power back" was almost spot-on the "dance" move, concept, and visualization that Thorn did in an Iron Pentacle weekend I went to a few years ago.
Black Magic and Dark Paganism -- Clifford Hartleigh Low
Cliff is the dude who runs the Green Fairy (no relation to
wildelf, although that Cliff does have a doppelganger with longer hair wandering around!). This was a wonderfully written essay that just didn't go that well as a presentation. It might have been okay as a formal speech, but that's not really the vibe that works well at PantheaCon (even if they have to save questions for the end, people still want to be talked with, not at). Some interesting personal techniques that he had cooked up, although I wonder how much he was preaching to the choir on dark magic being just as worthwhile as light. The Rollright Ritual -- RJ Stewart (and, as it turned out, Caitlín Matthews, and some other priest and priestesses I recognised from other work with RJ but whose names I forget)
I had such high hopes for this, but as
r_monoxide remarked, it turned out to be a reading rather than an actual enactment, or even a historical talk/analysis. I think I'm less annoyed by RJ's "old boys' club" type stories than she was, because I do like hearing personal accounts of how the world of paganism was different before I was born and RJ has a pleasant voice to listen to, but while that was all right for me, I did not feel any "charge" off the ritual itself. Usually you do more in an RJ Stewart workshop and I was disappointed. Hearing a 35-years-younger RJ on the recording was a hoot though. Ascension Magick -- Chris Penczak
Only listened to part of this. I had sushi first and came in partway through. He has an engaging way of speaking so it was all right hearing about Theosophy and common threads in spiritual systems and a metaphorical pendulum swinging between "too intellectual" and "too New-Age feel-good", but it didn't thrill me (I might or might not buy the book of the same title) so I wandered away to get ready for the Pyrate Party.
Kindling Ancestral Hearths -- Caitlín Matthews
Beautiful working. This made me cry. Part of it was a visualization of female ancestors stretching out on the right and male ancestors on the left of a central fire, and walking down the row between them.
The women seemed pleasantly indifferent to me, but one of the men stepped out of the line and approached me. I'm not sure when he was, or if he was even recent enough in our perception of time for that to be a sensible concept (as opposed to somewhere in the dim depths of pre-history). I had an inkling of somewhere in the 16th-18th century but I think I am second-guessing too hard. He was rather ordinary in appearance; brown hair in a cut almost a bowl-cut but not that, well, dorky-looking, blue eyes, fair skin; a few inches taller than me; vaguely somewhere in the age range of 25-35 (weird to think about this person being my who-knows-how-many-greats grandfather).
All this is very well and good. What I am totally flailing trying to think how to describe was the expression on his face. It was love and forgiveness and but child, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you just how you are and this isn't a family without you. I just... yeah.
This was topped off with my mother showing me a photograph on Monday night that she didn't think I'd seen, of family members on my dad's side, taken when he was about 9 years old. I had actually seen that photo before, and recognized him immediately. He was sitting next to his grandfather, John Robert, who for some reason was called Jack (why you need a nickname for John when it's already only one syllable, I don't know). This is the great-grandfather of mine that drank Drambuie, of which my grandmother apparently profoundly disapproved. He was somewhere in his mid-sixties in the photo, but otherwise was a passing aged-up of the man I saw in the vision. I don't get the sense that they are the same person, but of all the relatives I have that died before I was born (which is a large proportion of them, including one of my grandfathers), he's the one I feel the most affinity with.
Leland, Maddalena, Aradia, et al. -- Raven Grimassi
Mostly materials towards proving that Maddalena was a real person and a real magical practitioner, and that Leland may have been some sort of initiated practitioner as well. Ran out of time towards the end where he started talking about which parts of the Aradia text he believed constituted authentic tradition and which did not (long story short, the first four chapters out of 15; some Leland himself says are not in the text he got from Maddalena, and others can be shown to have material appearing in other earlier works of his).
Fairy Lore in British Folk Music -- Kenny Klein
Fun to hear him sing, but again like
r_monoxide said, this was kind of a letdown. The stuff he said about Tam Lin and Thomas Rhymer ballads half-contradicts stuff I have learned from RJ Stewart (I guess they are approaching it from very different perspectives); he seemed to subscribe to the materialistic "the fairies were the Picts" explanation and not have much, if any, belief in a spiritual reality for Faery; and for the most part he was quite bad about saying what his sources were, i.e., what songs were traditional and which were modern based on traditional material, and indeed had he written stuff himself or learned it from elsewhere, even. Overall it was a rather shallow treatment of the lore, too, just giving examples of appearances of fey critters rather than talking about what any of that meant, even folklorically speaking (never mind esoterically speaking). The Well of Song -- Sharon Knight and Amelia Hogan
Improvisational singing with a visualization. Not really what I was expecting (dunno what that was, though). The circle was split into parts and led in various overlapping strings of melody and harmony. Meh, it was okay -- which is pretty much what I thought of last year's "Circlesinging" that I went to, pretty much the same thing but without the ritual component. I keep hoping for a "charge" of being in the middle of a wash of song from many throats, which is an image that greatly appeals to me (one of those "I swear I have a memory on the subject tucked away somewhere" things), but *shrug*. I think it's that the vocalizations tend to be semi-verbal and rhythmic, rather than just open vowels sung in chords, that is putting me off.