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.
