Sorry, No Microbison This Time

So I had another dream last night. I told it to Thora this morning, so let’s see how many details I can remember now.

I was in a grocery store. I think there were some CAYA people there; I’m not sure. What I do remember for sure is that there was a room in the grocery store that was separate from the rest. Inside the room, it looked like a grocery store pharmacy, with little bottles, etc., on the shelves, but it was not actually a pharmacy; it was the Sacred Well section of the store. LOL. Iris and Rha were both working there. There was some CAYA-related task I volunteered for; I can’t remember what it was now (and I couldn’t remember when I told this dream to Thora this morning, either), but I know it was delivering something somewhere. I know this because somehow I now had a bike. I had to talk to Iris and Rha, because I needed to get lights for this bike, and a helmet. (You might not know that, in waking life, my actual bike was stolen a few weeks ago, with my bike lights and helmet, too.) The Sacred Well portion of the grocery store was about ready to close, but Iris and Rha were still willing to help people if they formed a line. So I got in line at the door to the room. I was third or fourth in line, but the people ahead of me would go up to the door, but they wouldn’t go in. So I kinda pushed my way past them and into the room, and was about to ask Iris and Rha about getting bike lights and helmet (I’m really not sure why the Sacred Well would have that stuff, but whatever), but somewhere right around there was when I woke up.

This one was certainly not as exciting as the last one, and I think I remember less detail than the microbison dream. Still, wearing this kyanite seems to have made some difference. I’m not remembering a dream every single night, and I’m not remembering dreams in full detail, but certainly quite a bit more than, say, a month ago.

I actually didn’t mention earlier; a couple weeks ago, I was briefly lucid in my dream. I frequently wake up in the early morning hours, and just lay there until I go back to sleep. That had happened to me this particular morning. I found myself laying awake, on my left side, as usual, but for some reason, I got the impulse to do my dream-check. (I pinch my nose, and try to breathe through it. If you are awake, you won’t be able to, because your nose is pinched closed. If you’re asleep, however, your dream body breathes along with your physical body, so you will be able to breathe through your pinched nose, assuming your physical body is, in fact, still breathing. Generally a safe assumption.) So I do my dream-check and discover that I am, in fact, dreaming. I’m dreaming of laying in bed awake in the early hours of the morning. So I very slowly and carefully roll over (I sometimes have a hard time moving when I’m lucid in a dream), holding my nose pinched closed the whole time so I can continue to prove to myself that this is, in fact, a dream, and I haven’t woken myself up. So I roll over, and Thora’s there in bed with me. She takes her shirt off, and there’s a red line painted across her chest above her boobs. From that line down, she’s painted white. Suddenly and instantly our positions in the bed are switched; she’s now on the east side of the bed and I’m on the west, whereas a moment ago, it was the other way around (which is how we usually sleep). But it didn’t feel like we instantly switched or anything; it was more like a continuity error from one shot to the next in a TV show or movie, you know, like when a glass is full in one shot, mostly empty in the next, half-full in the next, and full again in the final shot of the scene. When the scene was shot from one camera angle, I was on the east and she was on the west, but when it was re-shot from a different angle, she was on the east and I was on the west, and those two different takes got edited together in my dream. Anyway. From there, we ahem take care of some dream business, and as soon as business is taken care of, I find myself laying awake in bed, in the exact same position, on my left side. Yes, I dream-checked, and yes, I was actually awake that time. So – not lucid for long, and not very lucid, but still something.

Next time I’m lucid in a dream, I want to be prepared with an idea of what I should try to do, like go somewhere, create something, work a spell, do something I can’t do in waking life, like fly or something. I want to have a goal to accomplish in a lucid dream, rather than just wandering around trying to figure out what to do. I have had these goals in the past, but they’ve never worked out because I don’t remember them when I’m actually in the dream. But that will come with experience. In the meantime, I don’t currently have a goal for something to accomplish in a dream, and I want one. Any suggestions?

P.S. I thought this was set for me to moderate comments by default, but I guess that’s not quite accurate. I only moderate a comment the first time a certain person comments. So anyone who has commented on this blog before can comment and it will show up immediately. If you have not commented before, I need to approve it before it posts. So if you have experienced a delay from when you left your comment to when it shows up, that’s why.

P.P.S. Greywolf, yes, absolutely, we should market magical microbison cookies!

Pantheacon Part 3 – Sunday

I’ve spent all afternoon doing work that I won’t have time to do during the week. Kind of a lame way to spend a Sunday afternoon, eh? Anyway, I’m done with all that now, and it seemed a fine time to continue talking about Pantheacon. I’m still processing the whole weekend in my head, and if I’m going to post blogs about the first two days, it only seems fair to finish it up.

I think Sunday was the longest day at Con. This is not at all a bad thing; in fact, it’s quite a good thing. I remember on Sunday evening, I would think abou tthings that I thought happened “yesterday”, only to realize that no, they had actually happened that morning. It just seemed like so much had happened since then, that it had to be a different day. Saturday was somewhat like this too, but not nearly as much as Sunday.

CAYA did their third-annual Wake Up To Spirit ritual Sunday morning at 9:00. The Candy ritual and Yoga for Everybody were both also going on at the same time. I thought about going to all of them and was having a hard time deciding which one I’d go to. (Yes, I did, at least briefly, consider the Candy ritual to some extent of seriousness. I’m a kid at heart.) Of course, I was also considering the possibility of not going to anything at 9:00, and in the end, that one won out. We set the alarm for 8:00, and when it went off, we decided to re-set it for 8:30. Who needs a shower or breakfast, anyway? Then, at 8:30, we decided that really, maybe we should just keep on sleeping. So we missed it all. I heard the CAYA thing was good, though.

Anyway, so Thora and I get out of bed, get ready for the day, and head downstairs to try to get a muffin or croissant or something from the coffee stand before going to an 11:00 presentation. I had made some coffee in the room, luckily. After standing in line for about 10 or 15 minutes without actually moving up in line at all, we figured we’d better just head off to the presentations, so we split. I went to Drew Ward’s Psychic Techniques workshop, which was pretty interesting. I’ve always wanted to be psychic, and I probably am a little bit, but not as much as I’d like. We talked about several different exercises and techniques that you can work on developing. The first was grounding, which I’m going to skip over here. Next was seeing, a visual technique. This called for audience participation. We were instructed to pair up with someone we didn’t know well, so I turned to the guy next to me. The instructor timed us for three minutes as we gazed into each other’s third eye to see what we could see. The idea is that you might see people’s aura, or their face might change, you might see a color, etc. Then, with experience, you begin to analyze what you see, based on first impressions. I sort of saw the guy’s face change somewhat, maybe to what he looked like when he was younger. I remember his eyes kind of going black, but being sparkly somehow. I have no idea what any of this meant. It was a bit hard, because I was wearing my contacts, and I’m used to wearing my glasses, and I was blinking a lot because my contacts were irritating me, when the instructor had specifically mentioned to try to avoid blinking. Not so much so your eyes get dried out or whatever, but blink infrequently. So it was hard for me to concentrate. Anyway, the guy told me that he saw wrinkles appear on my forehead, then they looked kind of like curtains, and I was peering out from behind them. He asked if I was shy, and I said, yeah, kinda. So that was interesting.

Next, we also talked about radar, which is sensing your surroundings, people, etc., by projecting energy out from the palm of your hand, and shileding, which is protecting yourself and surroundings from negative energy, as well as rendering yourself invisible to enemies or onlookers. He had a couple interesting stories about that, involving people not seeing or not recognizing someone they should have seen or recognized, due to the person’s shielding intention, etc. He also showed a very interesting picture. He had gone to Tilden Park late in the evening one time several years ago, and set his camera up on a tripod, and set the auto timer. Then he walked out into the camera’s field of view and did some shileding exercises. The end result is a picture of this meadow. There is essentially a dark shadow on the picture where his legs would have been, but you could still see the grass behind. The shadow lightened and lost form somewhat as you looked higher up his body. I couldn’t make out arms at all. Basically, above the legs, there was a larger, lighter shadow for his torso, and a smaller, maybe slightly darker shadow for his head. Very interesting. Anyway, continuing, we learned about whta he simply called energy work, which is passing your hands down and up someone’s body (not actualy touching them, just reading their energy), to see what you can feel. Useful for finding physical ailments, reading emotional states, etc.

And finally, we learned about reading energy from objects. Several people in the audience put objects into the bag, including myself. Then people would draw a random object out of the bag, feel the energy for a little bit, and announce what they read. I drew a small pendant out of the bag and felt it’s energy for a few moments. I’m pretty good at feeling something’s energy, but not so good at reading the energy and knowing what it means. So I just said what I could be sure of, which was that it had a lot of energy in it. The owner claimed it and said that yes, it had been charged at his Initiation. Time got short, so the instructor read the last few objects himself. He drew one out, felt its energy, and said it felt of unsureness, lack of clarity, something. I don’t remember his exact words, but that was the general idea. I identified the object as my wedding band, to much laughter. Heh. I said we got married young, and at the time didn’t have much idea what we were going to do with our lives, so maybe that’s what he was feeling. Now that I’ve thought about it more, though, I wonder if he wasn’t reading the present more than the past – we are currently pretty unsure of what we will be doing in the relatively near future, although things might be becoming more clear now than they were a few weeks ago at Con. We’ll see. But that’s beside the point.

Went back up to the CAYA room after that for some general hanging out, and more importantly at that particular time, some excellent food. There were a few things I was considering going to at 1:30. There were a number of things that seemed like they might be cool, but nothing that really caught my eye or drew my attention. In the end, I went to the Faerie Fotos/Fae Transformation workshop with Thora, Pixie, and Rebecca. It was interesting. There were a lot of people packed into a single hotel room. One wall of the room had a cloth draped in front of it and a projector pointed at it that displayed various images of nature, celtic knots, all sorts of interesting and cool stuff. People used the woman’s supplies including clothing, wings, makeup, etc., to transform themselves into faeries, then they posed in front of the picture being projected onto the cloth, and also onto them, and the woman took pictures. We are supposed to get copies of our photos, but we haven’t yet. I kinda hung around for a while trying to figure out what to do, and sort of waiting until the crowd had died down a bit, the first rush of people had finished, etc. In the end, I decided that I didn’t have to do too much to become a faerie. I was wearing my more “hip” pants, and my horns, so I just decided to take my shirt off, get some decent wings, and get Pixie to sparkle me up. I ended up snagging a decent pair of red and black wings, and Pixie, as always, did a fine job with the sparkling. I got my photo taken with Thora after something interesting happened to her, and then got a couple taken of just me. It’ll be fun to see them when they come. And Pixie and Rebecca, I expect to see your photos, too.

I think we went to the vending room that afternoon. I’m looking over the schedule here, and there was nothing I went to at 3:30. Sorry, it was long enough ago that all the vending room trips have sort of blended together, so I can’t tell you any specifics. Suffice it to say that throughout the weekend, I got lots of cool stuff, including horns (both for wearing and for drinking from), stones, a kyanite bracelet, and a Celtic jacket-thingy. I also placed an order for leather arm cuffs, but she didn’t have the style/color I wanted in the size I need, so she’s going to make them and mail them to me. I should have them … probably within the next couple of weeks, actually! Rock! Anyway, check it out. This is already a pretty long blog post, and I haven’t even gotten to the evening yet. See what I mean about how long Sunday was?

After conversation and dinner in the CAYA room (both of which were excellent, I’m sure), it was time to do the evening stuff. I had a few decisions to make. At 7, I was deciding between the Druid ritual with Danse Macabre or the Ekklesia Antinoou Lupercalia ritual, and at 9, I was deciding between the Erisian High Mass and Yes They Are!. I was a bit disappointed, honestly, by the Discordian.com ritual the day before, so I kind of wanted to go to a good Discordian ritual, but I was also hesitant that it wouldn’t be so good either, and I didn’t want to have two less-than-stellar Discordian experiences at Con. Besides, I knew Yes They Are! was going to be good. So in the end, I went the Ekklesia Antinoou Lupercalia ritual with a cohort of CAYAns, and then on to Yes They Are!.

Ekklesia Antinoou is a “varied and highly syncretistic” group, dedicated to Antinous, a Roman man who was later deified. It was a very interesing ritual. Lots of really cool Latin chants and tunes. (I studied some Latin in college, so it was fun to see it actually being used. ) Anyway, we got blessed upon entering the room, then there were a few short prayers, then a processional of the image of Antinous around the ritual space. Offerings were then made to him. Then we invoked the four side of the Obelisk of Antinous, by chanting the vowels A, I, O, E, and U (the five vowels of Antinous’s name (yes, he has five, because of noun declensions)) as the priest read invocations. I’ve always liked toning in groups, and chanting a single vowel is basically toning, so that part was really cool. Then there was essentially a “prayers of the people” section, and they moved into the Lupercalia business. This part was pretty interesting. Three young people, who were all naked or nearly so, but all had on some sort of “animal” covering, whether it was fur-legs, a wolf’s-head hat, tail, etc., all went up to the front where they were anointed with “hound’s blood” (pomegranate juice) and milk, and “flogged” on the hands by what looked like a wolf’s tail or something. Then we all participated in ritual laughter. This was followed by a footrace between two of the young people, which was won by the guy wearing shoes, rather than the naked and barefoot girl. It was a shame, because the winner took a victory lap around the room “flogging” the hands of everyone, and I was looking forward to getting flogged by her; she was pretty cute. Even if the flogging itself throughout the ritual was completely lackluster. Following that was an honoring of ancestors, which included anyone who wanted going up and saying a prayer or whatever to the Antinous statue for their ancestors. I have to say my Amazonian sisters put on a good show when they all went up at once and got down on the ground to honor their ancestors in true CAYA fashion. After that, they did a thing I thought was really cool called Communalia, where they formally made and recognized alliances with representatives of other Pagan groups, including CAYA. Anyway, time was running short, so it pretty much got wrapped up and devoked after that.

And then, it was on to Yes They Are! Meeting and Greeting the Queerest of the Gods. And I have to say, this was quite an experience. Several people aspected various deities and told their stories, talked about their sexuality, or taught the audience some lesson. I can’t even begin to describe it. Some highlights (they were all good, but these are some I remember still after a few weeks ) were Hapi, Loki, Aphrodite, Dionysus, and Pan. I’m not going to go into details here, because this post is already getting long and I still have a bit more to talk about, besides there are details elsewhere on the internet. Suffice it to say, it was a very powerful and charged show.

So, did I mention Pan? He was aspected by our friend Marcus, and I must say, Marcus did a fantastic job of it. That whole night, including the show itself and back in the CAYA room that evening, I don’t think I saw Marcus at all; it was all Pan. However, Marcus, I think, had good control over himself and Pan, and I did observe a few moments that I’m pretty sure were Pan acting on Marcus’s impulses or desires. But wow. He really brought the energy with him all night, and you knew it when he entered the room. Someone said later that it was only due to Marcus’s self-restraint that an orgy didn’t break out that night, because really, Pan could have had whoever he wanted in that room.

Anyway, long post, and I’m running out of steam here at the end, and the quality of my narrative, as it were, has certainly dropped since the beginning of this post, as has my level of detail provided, so I might as well just wrap it up now and sign off. Monday coming later.

Microbison

So I had a bit of an interesting dream last night. The kyanite bracelet I’ve been wearing seems to be working at least to some extent; several nights since I’ve started wearing it (much more frequently than before), I’ve remembered dream fragments. Nothing at all substantial, just an image here and there. Nothing really worth reporting here; I don’t want to bore you all with stuff like “I dreamed I was in this room last night. There were some people there.” What little I remember from last night is a bit more than that, although still not much. I dreamed that I, along with several members of the CAYA tribe (sorry, don’t remember specifically who, with one exception that I’ll mention in a bit), went to another con, sort of like Pcon, but not really. This con wasn’t rituals, workshops, presentations, vendors, etc.; rather, it was contests. Again, sorry, I don’t remember specifics about what the contests involved, although I do sort of think they had something to do with the magickal prowess of the contestants. I do remember that CAYA was totally kicking ass and winning them all. As can be expected.

Later on, still at the con, Greywolf and I were in this room with a big chest-of-drawers on one wall. The drawers were all probably about a foot high, a foot wide, and a couple of feet deep. I don’t remember if the drawers had labels or not, but somehow, we knew which one we wanted to open. So we opened it, and it was filled with … not quite sure how to describe them at this point … they were about the size, thickness, and color of gingerbread men, maybe a bit larger, actually, somewhere around say 5″ x 8″, but they were shaped like buffalo. You might think this sounds pretty cool, but Greywolf and I were actually slightly disappointed, because they were supposed to be live microbison, not cookie-like-things. I take one and shake it back and forth a little bit, then set it on the ground. (Somehow, even though they’re only like half-an-inch thick, like gingerbread cookies, they still stand on their feet.) So I set it on the ground, and Greywolf and I are both watching it, and after a few moments of it just standing there, all of a sudden, it “puffs out” to full, proportional microbison width, simultaneously developing hair, etc., and becoming a real, live, walking-around microbison. It was awfully cute. Imagine a buffalo the size of a kitten. A young kitten, at that. The size where they can comfortably sit one one of your hands and be pet by the other. Greywolf and I were no longer disappointed.

Pantheacon Part 2 – Saturday

Saturday morning, I slept until about 9 or so, then got up and took a shower. There had been a couple things I was vaguely considering attending at 9, but nothing that really spoke to me enough to get me out of bed any earlier, plus I figured with the Brotherhood thing coming up at 11, maybe I shouldn’t do anything before that. So after my shower, it’s maybe 9:45 or so, and I decide to head downstairs to get some breakfast. I ended up running into, and eating with, Rowan, Indigo, and Turtle. The food was decent, but it took a looong time to arrive. By the time it came, I basically scarfed it down, then rushed off to the room in which the Brotherhood would be doing it’s thing. Greywolf was there, starting to get things set up, and he let me know that the previous group had just let out, so our setup was a bit delayed. I decided to head upstairs to see if Mawi needed help carrying the drums. Didn’t see him on the way to or from the elevator, down the sixth floor, or anything. So I headed back down to the room, where we finished setting up.

Jack and Greywolf did a few quick bullet points for the group about who CAYA is, and who the Brotherhood is, and why we need men’s sacred space, and then we actually got into things. I cast the Circle, as my first official public priesting duty. We had drumming going on, which really helped build and channel the energy. Then we stopped the drumming to call the elements, with each one of us calling an element, and referencing the archetypes we had tied to that particular element. I called the South, Fire, with the archetypes of Warrior, Lover, and Healer. We called the ancestors, and then we called the deities using a great chant Greywolf came up with. We had decided that our work in this Circle was going to focus on the Warrior and the Lover, so Jack led us into the Warrior work. Mawi and I arranged the Circle into two ranks, one inner circle and an outer circle. Jack grounded us, and then guided us through an active meditation, where we held up our swords and shields and did another good chant. Greywolf and Jack exchanged a few points about the key similarities and differences between the Warrior and the Lover, and then Greywolf led us into the Lover work. We turned the inner circle around to face the outer circle, and made sure everyone was paired with somebody. I stepped in to fill a blank spot in the circle. First we spent a little bit of time just looking into each other’s eyes to recognize the divinity in the other person. Then (let’s see how well I can describe this), we held our arms out and clasped the forearms not of the man across from us, but of the two men diagonal to us, so our arms were actually crossing the arms of the man across from us, and the men on either side of us. We formed a braided double-helix kind of circle, set an intention, and begain to chant some more. This part was really interesting, because the braided circle arrangement brought everyone in the room within maybe 6-10 inches from the face of the man across from them. Men in particular are very space-sensitive, and this definitely involved being in each other’s space. As we started, there was certainly a fairly awkward time period, where no one’s really comfortable doing this yet, but no one wants to be the one to not do it, so everyone is just going along with it. But then there was a moment where the whole group just passed that, and got into it, and all the awkwardness went out the window and everyone was just in the moment. We raised some incredible energy and sent it out into the world. That concluded our work, so we dismissed everything, and sang the Sun God song as I opened the Circle.

This Circle was hard for us to plan, because the Brotherhood is used to having small groups, but we knew this would not be small. It turned out really well, though, and I think it was definitely among the highlights of the weekend, not only among those of us who actually put it on, but also among many of the attendees. Both immediately after the Circle, and throughout the rest of the convention, men would come up to me and thank us for putting it on, and tell me how much they enjoyed it, how it was just what they needed, how much it inspired them and gave them ideas for their own group back home, etc. I think Mawi, Greywolf, and Jack all had similar experiences. I must say, as my first official priesting experience as a Wildflower Initiate, it was incredibly cool.

After that, I just went back up to the CAYA room and hung out for a while, had some lunch, etc. There wasn’t really anything that interested me much at 1:30, so I didn’t go to anything. If I remember right, Thora and I went down to the vendor room for a while then. I did end up going to something at 3:30, though. I went to a storytelling presentation called Days in Midgard. The guy told four stories, all of which were pretty cool. My mind was still in a few different places at first, so I kind of missed parts of the first story just because my mind would wander, and then I would realize that I wasn’t sure what was happening in the story, but that didn’t last for too long. By about halfway of three-quarters of the way through the first story, I was in a good story-listening space, and quite enjoyed the rest of the performance.

Back up to the CAYA room for dinner and hanging out, and then back downstairs to watch the Oracle of the Living Tarot! It was very cool. Basically, they draw Major Arcana tarot cards, each to represent a different period of the year, and as they draw them, actors on stage, one per card, perform their prepared pieces about their particular card. It was very cool. You can see the lineup of what cards go for what parts of the coming year here. Some of the highlights: well, everyone, really. I was going to name a few, but then I realized that if I named a few, I would end up naming a lot, and then I would feel bad for the few that I didn’t mention, so I’m just not going to mention anyone in particular. They were all quite good. I got some photos of everybody; some good, some not so much. I imagine at least most of the good ones will probably be available online at some point.

After that, it was back up to the CAYA room to decompress, hang out, and decide what was going to happen next. Nobody was really going to much at 9, but there were a couple things going on at 11 that people were interested in. There was the Hauk concert, and there was Transforming Technollogy with Discordian.com. When I first read that title in the Pcon schedule, I thought it might be kinda cool, but I wasn’t sold on the idea. Then they posted the schedule with descriptions, and that made it sound better, because it said that it was actually a ritual, not a workshop or discussion or whatever. So Jack and I decided to go, while Mawi, Branwen, Bran, and I think maybe some others went to the Hauk concert. Well, the Discordian thing was … how to say this … short. They very briefly called the five Discordian elements, they said a few things, played a few sound clips on their computer, and showed a few video clips on their computer, mainly taken from the Transformers animated movie. We sacrificed a planet to a giant Transformer, who ate the planet, and then somehow … upgraded us? I’m not entirely clear on that part. Anyway, that ended around maybe 11:30-ish, so we went down the hallway to the Hauk show. I danced a little bit, stayed for a few songs, but I wasn’t really into it that much, so I headed back upstairs to the CAYA room, where, if I remember right (and who knows, eh?) we pretyt much stayed up late having a jolly time, then went to bed.

One thing I want to mention – at home, we don’t have cable TV. In fact, we barely have broadcast TV. We don’t use it any more. We use our TV for the VCR/DVD player, and to watch things on my computer (which has a cord connected to the VCR). So, being in a hotel room with cable, whenever we’d get back to our room after leaving the CAYA room late at night, I would tend to click the TV on and flick through channels some. And I gotta say, cable TV at 2 in the morning – pretty pathetic. We did see a good show about ghosts on the Travel Channel, though, but I think that was earlier in the day one day.

Kyanite and Dreaming

So at Pantheacon, I bought a Kyanite bracelet. Kyanite is a stone which is supposed to enhance psychic powers, as well as enhance dream recall and dream healing. Dreams are something I have always been interested in. In spite of this, I remember far too few dreams for my tastes. I would be happy if I remembered a dream or multiple dreams every night, but I rarely do. I will sometimes go through a period where I remember bits of dreams for a few nights in a row, but usually I’ll remember bits of dreams maybe one night in a month. Not only am I interested in remembering my dreams, but I’m also very interested in lucid dreaming. This is something I have achieved on a small scale a few times, but never for more than a few dream-minutes. Anyway, so the day after I was talking to Jack about dreaming and telling him basically what I’ve just typed here, I happened to be browsing the vendor room at Pcon and found this Kyanite bracelet. I figured, since it’s name is quite similar to my name, and since it was supposed to help with psychic and dreaming stuff, I should buy it. So I did.

I wore this bracelet to bed for the next few nights (really, every night since I’ve had it), and I must say, I don’t know if it was coincidence or not, but damned if I didn’t remember little bits of my dreams for at least the next few nights. I don’t really remember as much any more as I did the following mornings, but I certainly remembered bits of my dreams for the next few nights. One night, I was at Long’s Drugs, needing to buy something. I don’t remember what. All of the shelves in the store were gathered into about 60% of the store, with metal bars around them, so you couldn’t get in except through this gate. They weren’t opening the gate for a little while, and you needed to fill out an application to get through the gate into the part of the store with actual items for purchase, anyway. The rest of the store was empty, except for a bunch of people, milling about, waiting to get through the gate. It was strange. Another night, there was something to do with an old friend of mine, whom I haven’t seen since elementary school. He was there, we were both adults (even though in waking life, I don’t even remember what he looks/looked like), and we had brown-bag lunches. I think we were trading them or something. I really don’t remember. Anyway, as I said, I don’t remember much of them anymore, but strange stuff.

They say a good way to improve your memory of dreams is to record them when you do remember them, so I’m going to try that, theoretically. This blog seems as good a place as any, since once I have a better memory of and control over my dreams, I plan to use them for magickal purposes. We’ll see how much I actually do record them here, since if I wake up at four in the morning and I have actually remembered my dream, it’s more likely that I’ll go back to sleep and hope to remember it later than it is that I’ll reach down the side of the bed, boot up Thora’s laptop, and type something out. Who knows, maybe I’ll stick a notebook and pen into my bedside bag. That would certainly be easier than booting up the laptop. If I just jotted down a few quick notes at four in the morning, maybe they’d be enough to remind me later when I actually felt like typing the whole thing out.

Anyway, if you’re going to read my blog, I hope you don’t mind reading about some of my dreams.

Pantheacon Part 1 – Friday

So I started this blog to talk about Pagan / magickal stuff. I don’t want to talk about that sort of thing on my other blog.

This was the first Pantheacon I have been to, and I have to say, it was awesome, in multiple senses of the word. I guess the best way to do this is just to go right into it. I’ll break the posts up day by day. So I took Friday off of work, we got Monday off for President’s Day, and I took Tuesday off as well. Friday morning, we finished up the last-minute packing, picked up Maia, and drove down to the festival. I hadn’t eaten much in the morning, so I was pretty hungry by the time we got there. After sorting out registration, getting into the hotel room, etc., I had some quick food, and rushed off to go to a workshop at 3:30. I hadn’t decided if I wanted to go to Men’s Spirituality and Men’s Mysteries or Psychic Hygiene and Defense 101, so I figured I’d just check things out when I got down there. I got to the Men’s Mysteries room first and saw Greywolf there, but it was a bit crowded, so I thought I’d run down to the Psychic room and see what it looked like there. The door was closed, though, so I figured they had already started, and headed back to the first thing, where one of the few empty seats in the room just happened to be next to Greywolf. Since the Brotherhood was going to be doing our Archetypes of Masculinity ritual the next day, I figured it was probably good that some of us were there to see what these guys had to say. Well, as it turns out, it was not that great. They made some good points about why there needs to be men’s spirituality and stuff, but a lot of it was just talking about the dude’s book, and this whole mysterious camping trip they go on. Apparently it makes you into a man, but they didn’t really say what goes on on the trip, since it’s so mysterious. So yeah. Some interesting stuff, but mostly “We do this really cool thing that we can’t really tell you much about, but you should buy this book, even though it doesn’t really tell you that much about it either,” with several stories and anecdotes thrown in (most of which were fairly entertaining, so it wasn’t totally lame).

After that was finished, I new that Thora was planning on going to the Welcoming the Sabbath Bride thing, so I headed to that room to meet up with her. I didn’t see her there, so I just left and headed upstairs to the CAYA hospitality suite. The CAYA hospitality suite was always a great place to hang out, because there were always cool people and interesting conversations going on there. Never a dull moment. Anyway, hung out, had some soup, found out I must have just missed Thora, etc., etc., until she showed up, we hung out some more, and decided what to do in the evening. We decided to go to Silk and Honey: Erotic Tales from the African Diaspora, and honestly, it was okay, but not really what the title would lead you to believe. I didn’t hear much folklore, it was mainly stories from this woman’s life. Which is not to say that they weren’t interesting, but I’m not sure I’d necessarily call them “from the African Diaspora.” And frankly, they weren’t all that erotic. I don’t even really remember them any more. She kinda rambled, shuffled papers, talked about this and that, etc. After that, we headed back upstairs for a while, because there wasn’t really anything at 9:00 that either of us was that interested in. Then a little while before 11:00, we parted ways. Thora went off to the Grove of Artemis’ Amazon Priestess Ritual, while I went to the Pomba Gira Masked Fete. And you know, it was really cool. There wasn’t much to it. A big dance floor, plenty of water to go around, a bunch of women up on stage drumming and chanting, and a massive crowd of people dressed in their finest red and black, dancing and chanting. I haven’t danced like that since … probably since the Balkan Beat Box concert a while back. It always takes me a little while to get over my lameness and get into a dancing headspace, but once I do, I tend to enjoy it and have a good time, which is exactly what happened here. I ran into Mawi and Jack, and sometimes Greywolf and Puck, and we all just danced and danced, chanted and chanted, drank water, and danced and chanted more. It was a great time.

Headed back up to the CAYA room after, where I met up with Thora, who said the Amazon thing was awesome. We hung out for a while, but didn’t want to stay up too late that first night, so we went to bed.

More later.