PantheaCon is a unique event - I will attempt to explain this unique gathering. Follow this link for a wee bit of history about it.

I'm currently working on a soon-to-appear blog entry that summarizes my spiritual journey thus far, to make it easier for friends and family to understand where I am now and where I am going, and how my path has taken me to the annual gathering known as "PantheaCon" (or "P-Con," or simply, "the Con.")

A brief aside. The metaphor of "Life as a journey" is an interesting one, because it presupposes a beginning (birth) and an arrival at the destination (death?)

"Life as journey" is complete in some metaphoric realms (e.g., experimenting with different things is like walking through a doorway, into a room from a place where you were unfamiliar with the new experience). It doesn't seem to me to be a proper metaphor it a spiritual sense of the word, because I believe that one's spiritual journey is never really over - it evolves, is subject to greater clarity and times when things are not so clear.As a former student of a renowned scholar of metaphor (UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff), I have always found the use (and misuse) of metaphor in English fascinating (Note to myself to blog on THAT topic one day).    

So... PantheaCon is an annual conference/convention of 1500-2200 souls held on President's Day weekend. Attendees come from a wide range of established pre-historic or pre-Christian philosophies. Some attendees come from newly emerging polytheistic philosophies they and others are co-creating.  

We are the Druids, Dianics, Witches, Voudouns, Asatrus, Eclectics, Solitaries, Followers of Freya, Hermetics, New Reformed Order of the Golden Dawn folks, Reclaiming Witches... dozens and dozens of traditions, paths, covens, groves, affinity groups, and "kindreds" (that's a new one for me). And a number of those who practice along (known as "solitaries").

The purpose of PantheaCon? To share information, to commune with like-minded souls, to enjoy brother/sisterhood. According to 30 years of study by NPR reporter Margot Adler, we are growing rapidly. And it's no wonder why. Many of us were disappointed and disillusioned with the faiths of our birth families. Some of us cannot accept the lack of acceptance of social diversity. Others don't care for the objectification of the Earth as an object to exploit.

The DoubleTree Hotel in San Jose is ours for the 3-day weekend. At first, I thought it strange that P-Con would be held here - why not San Francisco? But it's really not that unusual. While attending my first Con three years ago. I asked a friendly DoubleTree hotel staffer (they're all very friendly!) what they thought of us as a group. Generally, if you were to gather us all in one room (all 1800 of us) you would see a wide range of eclectic clothingf people who read a lot, think a lot, and have very eclectic tastes in clothing, we're clad in many types of dress - flowing cloaks, tophats, white Druid robes, leather and boots, goddess robes, stunning jewelry, and other adornments (I'm the only one sporting ribbon leis from the Crafty Bear in Kaimuki (absolutely no connection with "the Craft") in my recently acquired Jewish "black hat" I got at an estate sale in San Francisco. Some of us carry swords and ritual knives (called "Athames" used in conducting rituals, "peace-bonded" in sheaths) as we wend our way through the hotel. A number of people have dogs (one woman I see every year has a Schipperke - the very first time I saw one of these in San Francisco 16 years ago, I had to ask a stupid question - "What *IS* it?" I didn't know it was a dog! It looked like a teddy bear. So, the desk clerk turned to me, smiled, and said (with no intended slight to our community) "This is nothing. We host a large Science Fiction convention and we have the S&M and BDSM (Sado-Masochism and Bondage/Domination Sado Masochism) convention as well, so we've seen it all."

All of this in San Jose?

Apparently.

I spend a good bit of time catching up with my old Reclaiming friends and others I've met and hung out with at previous Cons. I need these people in my life. I hope they like being needed by me. We are at the same time very ordinary people, yet our "beliefs" and world view are either held in contempt or suspicion, or we're simply not taken seriously.

The contempt, confusion really used to bug me, but not anymore. Fortunately for me, everyone takes my spirituality seriously - people like my wonderful boss at work, my colleagues, my friends. They all know I'm involved with the Fire Tribe, especially with the explosion of musical instruments at our house!

Before you knock someone, you need to get to know them - if you depend on journalists re are absolutely WONDERful people here. People like me, who experience life like much of the rest of the world, but we relate to the world around us differently.

What I love about the Con, and something that isn't limited to the Con, and happens to me at other conferences, are those serendipitous unexpected conversations I have with strangers waiting in line, in elevators, at the poolside, cruising the exhibits or markets. We begin as strangers, and end up as acquaintances - our thoughts, jokes, and feelings, our shared experiences bringing another piece of community to this village.  

For example, Cathy and I met in William's wheat weaving class. William is a fellow graduate student at Cherry Hill Seminary. William plays a mean harp, majored in philosophy, enjoys weaving stalks of many different kinds of wheat into astonishingly beautiful artifacts (and likes it enough to teach 40 people on the mezzanine one afternoon), and loves old dusty books.

Cathy was there with her service dog Jesse, who was wearing one of those "Pet me I'm friendly!" vests. Jesse was happily munching on a rawhide bone while mom and I were making Harvest Knots and Brigid's crosses, weavings made Irish country folk for centuries. PantheaCon has something for everyone - rituals, music, instruction, academic talks. I like to mix and match my activities at PantheaCon, especially ones that sharpen my ability to use my hands to make crafts while following directions by the presenter. I need as much exposure I can get to spatial kinds of projects like this one. of activities to sharpen my ability to take direction in doing a craft where there's spatial orientation required. (Jesse was in doggy heaven, and polished off the bone in about 45 minutes!)

I inquired about Jesse's pedigree, and was quite surprised to find out she was half pit-bull. My immediate reaction to pit-bulls is reulsion. They injure people, and some men make them mean and parade them around as an extension of  hypermasculinity (a substitute for their lack of masculinity in their boxer shorts)... but I digress.

Cathy then talks to me about how gentle these dogs really are. Her sincerity confronted my prejudice. Deep down I believe she is right, and she most probably is. Jesse is actually cute now, because she's *so* tuned in to Mom. Cathy goes up and gets a few more stalks of wheat, and Jesse immediately stops gnawing and follows Cathy, as if to say "May I help you?" Cathy reassures Jesse that everything's okay, we're not ready to go yet.

I actually enjoy the confrontation of my prejudices. It's something I believe each of us need to work harder on to move toward a more peaceful. We all need to work harder to overcome that which binds us and holds us back - to minimize and destroy their control over us.

That's an old line from the past. As with most things nowadays, you can now view a person's bookshelf virtually.

Do you "LibraryThing"?

I do - it's a great service developed by a fellow named Tim Spaulding. He's a library guy who had a vision that people could easily catalog personal book collections online and make them available (or not) publicly. One can search his or her own personal collection of books from anywhere - even from one's cell phone. (Please don't do it driving though, 'k?)

It's so simple to use. Enter title words, or author names - the bibliographic databases polled to find the bibliographic records include Amazon and the Library of Congress. Click on the title that matches with what you have, and bingo! The record is now part of your collection!

You can review your books so others can read them. You can "un-suggest" books for books you wouldn't suggest ANYone read!

LibraryThing is a social networking service for people who read books! Totally cool. You can see who else has the books you do - a statistics feature shows a whole bunch of things.

Tag your own books with your own keywords to find them easily.

And totally free for the first 200 books - after that you have two options. $10 a *year* or $25 for a lifetime subscription. Either way - SUCH a deal!

I don't know Tim personally, so these are only my own enthusiastic endorsements. Tim, from one librarian to a librarian - ya done good!

Here is a glimpse of my profile on LibraryThing and my bookshelf - as one might suspect, I have very eclectic tastes in reading - I have approximately 24 percent of my collection cataloged at the moment.

Brace yourself.

If all goes well this summer, I'll be off to SpiritFire near New Lebanon, New York. SpiritFire's Web site cogently explains what fire circles are. Here is a snippet from their Web :

So what kind of festival is SpiritFire? Is this a pagan festival?

SpiritFire is a retreat gathering, as opposed to a public or open-ended festival. We are non-denominational festival based upon music, dance, voice, art, and the many pathways that connect to them. We honor and welcome all paths, and recognize that in the circle, we are unified through our song and our joy. So the answer is, no, it's not a Pagan festival at all - but you'll find Pagans present, as well as Sufis, Buddhists, Hinduists, Yogis, Christians, Atheists, African traditionalists, and everything in between. You'll also find people who aren't following any particular path at all, and just enjoy the groove and friendly community of SpiritFire. So whatever your belief system, as long as you enjoy sharing sacred space with others around a fire with respect and an open mind, you are welcome!

Are SpiritFire circles "staged" performances, or can I drum and dance as I feel called?

Parts of the night-time rituals are pre-organized, such as the fire lighting each night. But the general course of the evening is meant to be a container in which you are encouraged to sing, recite poetry, dance and drum as your spirit calls. Every gathering has it's unique set of aesthetic and artisic agreements, and we try to make those things as explicit as possible via this FAQ and at the opening circle, or at meetings for drummers, etc. during the event. Both experienced and newer participants will all benefit by taking time during the night to breathe, view what is going on, and get a feel for how everyone is interacting with each other. You are welcome here, and we encourage you to ask questions of any of the staff or teachers. We only ask of each other that voices be honored and heard as each of us would want from our community, in a respectful and conscious way.

For more information:

http://spiritfirefestival.org/faq.php

Thanks to all who attended the Alchemical Fire Circle Drum Experience held at PatheaCon today in the San Simeon Room.

As promised, here are some important links for you to explore drum practice:

1.  This attachment shows 20 popular drum rhythms [pdf]: D's for Doums, T's for Teks, and K's for Ka (upper and lowercase often illustrate how notes in the various rhythms can be accented to "embellish" rhythms) -You can also see a "pulse line" that shows 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 pulse rhythms.

2.  Alchemical Rhythmatism - Joshua Levin and Deborah Nervig's developing tradition, available at http://www.mythfits.com

3.  Jas's Middle Eastern Rhythm Page - http://www.khafif.com/rhy/ - an excellent source of history, technique and drum rhythms. You can even enter in a rhythm and have his Web site play it back for you.

4.  If you're really serious about developing a practice, downloading a drum machine program really helps - they're free and easy to set up. You enter your rhythms, and they're a tireless teacher to listen and play along with. I like Drumflow myself.

I will add more to this site over the next few days. Please email me with questions, comments, and suggestions!

At PantheaCon, I met with my good friend Victoria Slind-Flor. She's fabulous, and more on her soon. She told me of a once invisible insular world now available on YouTube.

Of all of the Haredi (Observant) Jewish sects, the Lubavitcher Hasids have my respect. Instead of tuning out the entire secular world as bad, they've taken to technology to strengthen their practice of trying to bring Jews back into a more observant, but not stifling, practice. They're a fun bunch to talk to - the Satmars, Bobovs and other sects do not talk to outsiders.

Lubavitchers embrace them.

This is an example of ChabadTube's News Service - the newsreader - Mendy Pellin - oy vay voy! :o)  Is he a terminally cute Jon Stuart or what?!?



Continue the story by following this link:

I will be attending PantheaCon next week and will deliver two presentations:

1.  An orientation to Middle Eastern Drumming, followed by 60 minutes of structured play with doumbeks, tars and bendirs, riiqs, and other "quieter" drums. No djembes, ashikos, or dun-duns please.

2. An Introduction to the Alchemical Fire Circle.

Stay tuned for more details.