pantheacon……

i had a fabulous weekend. it took some serious focus to be cheery and bright for meeting one of the ladies from a message board i am on friday. we left thursday night for pantheacon, and before we were really out of town, it started snowing. luckily, it was just beginning to come down, so we made it through the snow before it actually began to stick or get slippery. that was a huge relief. we tried to find the place we stayed last year on thursday night, but in california, things change so rapidly, we never had a chance of finding it….so we ended up at motel crack instead, complete with police car and shady parking lot activity. good thing none of us tried to walk alone =) our traveling companions even found condoms behind the bed!! at least it was still in it’s protective sheathing and not used. ew. ’nuff said about that…heh.

we stayed, reasonably unscathed, and headed our early the next morning, before the crack ho’s and dealers could wake up and greet the day. we made it to san jose by noon, and waiting in line, patiently to check in. ***WARNING*** soap box time….heh…you have been warned =) so, we made our reservations for this conference back in AUGUST. at the time, we asked if we could have adjoining rooms, and they said there was no problem. we checked back TWO MORE TIMES before the con, the most recent time being LAST WEEK and were assured there would be no problem. we finally get to the checkin line, and the little ray of sunshine working there tells us there’s no way we can have adjoining rooms. we try to explain to her that we had called several times and confirmed that this was possible. she then told us that the only way we could have had adjoining rooms would have been if we had prepaid for the rooms. she told us that was the hotel policy, but they aren’t allowed to tell customers that. ummm, no. no one told us we had to prepay for the rooms. we would gladly have done that if it had been necessary, but no one said anything like that. after being insistant for awhile, they finally agreed to give us adjoining rooms, but told us there was another convention leaving that day, so our room wasn’t going to be ready until after dinner. then, they put us on the 7th floor at the very end of the hall and one of the ladies with us is handicapped and walks with a cane. assholes. the whole incident left us feeling tired, grumpy, and feeling unsettled. we couldn’t bring in any of our things, we had food and clothes and all our stuff in the cars, and the con was starting.

interestingly enough, the first workshop i attended dealt with advanced meditation techniques, so i was able to focus towards clearing my mind of all negativity and focus on starting fresh. it was a great workshop. the entire con was absolutely amazing for me this year.

around 7pm, my friends were headed off to workshops of their own and i was headed down to the lobby of the hotel to wait for my friend. i was nervous. although we had spoken on the phone and been talking online for a few months, it’s still nerve-wracking when you finally meet someone for the first time. add to this the fact that i wasn’t feeling my best because i hadn’t had time to shower or change, and i was feeling a little on edge. it was great to meet her, though, and we had a great time at the gordon biersch. the four martini republican man was amusing enough, i suppose. kind of like the bug on his back that keeps struggling to turn over and you kind of laugh at it until you don’t feel like being mean anymore. hehehehe. poor conservative =) the friend was lovely company, though, and the meal flew by too quickly, then we were on our way in the drizzly san jose night to find the car! it was an adventure, then we had to weave our way through downtown san jose back to the highway and to her town to get her hubby. they were both very nice and wonderful to me and i will always be grateful for how nice everyone was to me. i felt like a celebrity at the bar because the band all came over to say hello and get introduced. i ordered a drink, what i thought was a pretty tame bourbon and diet coke and was actually served a bourbon on the rocks with a dash of coke for color. i don’t drink a lot, so when i looked all misty, it wasn’t the music, which was awesome, it was the cocktail =) she dances well, and we had a good time.

the next morning, there was a 9am workshop i wanted to attend by the author of the book i am studying right now. i had met him before on our previous couple of trips to pantheacon, but now, having read and studied some of his material, i had new appreciation for him. it was awesome and he’s as talented and engaging in person as he is in his books. he was nice enough to sign our books for us, and the talk was awesome. he did a guided meditation that dealt with finding our magickal place that was very meaningful for me. it was a great class.

the second workshop i attended was called "sex and the black heart" and i am not sure what i was expecting, but it isn’t what i got. the facilitator talked a lot about how western society makes sex and our being sexual beings seem a shameful and unnatural thing and so she wanted to start some healing in this direction. she did some meditative techniques and showed us how to open chakras and breathe through our sex. it was really amazing…for the first time in a long time, i felt whole and unmistakably ALIVE. we all walked around and greeted each other with new eyes, and then we sang a chant that in the context of the workshop was profoundly helpful for me. the chants first line was "i am innocent" followed by "i walk without shame" then half the group sings "i am free" and finally everyone choruses together with "i am beloved". the energy in this experience is beyond description. i can’t even put it in to words, but i know that should i encounter anyone who was around me in that workshop, i would welcome them as a family member because we shared something, some healing, some connection during that space in time that will always be special to me. words truly fail me and make me feel very inadequate in being able to express how meaningful this was for me. as a survivor of child abuse, i didn’t realize i was still hanging on to some shame…there was shame around that and also around the lack of sexuality lately with my husband, that i had somehow been blaming on myself, thinking his lack of response was somehow a failing with me. i realized that i don’t have to be ashamed of being a sexual being and that i am responsible for my own health….mental, physical, and sexual.

after the amazing experience at that particular workshop, i went to another one that was very special to me. last year at pantheacon, i took a yoga class from a really awesome lady who ended up becoming my friend. i went to her yoga class last year, and she invited me to watch her bellydance elsewhere at the con, and i told her i would try to make it. i did make it, and she is who ignited my interest in bellydancing, although it would take me another six months to actually sign up for a class. honestly, at the time, i thought that i would never bellydance because i thought i was too large. when i emailed this friend, she told me to dance if i wanted to dance, life is too short not to do things we enjoy. i realized the wisdom of that when i started to dance. this has been a big year for her…she had a baby!! they sent me email when the baby came, so i had seen pictures of her, but i actually got to see her twice this time! it was great, i got to hug my friend, see the gorgeous baby, meet her husband, and reconnect with someone who believed in me when i did not. not to mention that her class was awesome, as always, i got to realize how far i have come with physical strength and endurance since that yoga class a year ago, and it made me feel good, damn good.

after that workshop, the time had come to enact a ritual we have participated in the last couple of years at the con. we drove to this chinese restaurant called 4-5-6 that has these absolutely AWESOME dish where they make dumplings and cover them with a peanut sauce that has chili oil in it. not exactly on the diet, but still very, very awesome. we ate waaaaayyy too much, and returned to the hotel spent and bloated, but strangely satisfied =)

when we got back to the hotel, it was time to go to a dianic ritual. the northern california group that branched off of here had one of the ladies from there participating in the ritual. she was absolutely amazing, as was the ritual. i had never been in a strictly dianic ritual. that means it’s an exclusively female group and they tend to be more radically feminist. the beautiful, wonderful energy that existed in this space was awesome! there was such a tremendous amount of love shared with the women in that room. they had drummers, and the entire feel was animalistic, and tribal, and primitive and fabulous. i am really glad i participated in it.

sunday morning was another really awesome ritual. this one focused on kali ma, who is a hindu goddess often called "the dark mother". i believe she is misinterpreted in the western world. her love is fierce, but it’s protective, the way a mother will fight for the lives of her children, not vindictive or mean. the ritual was respectful, very well organized, and red, one of kali’s colors.

following that was another talk by the author of the books i am studying and he was amazing again. i took a workshop by this young man three years ago, and there were maybe 20 people there. for this workshop, there were well over 100 and it was great to see so much support of him. this time he talked about finding and making piece with the shadow self. interesting stuff and made me interested in buying yet another one of his books.

after lunch, i went to another workshop about warrior goddesses of israel that was given by this fascinating woman who i have listened to before. she is so smart and speaks so interestingly and intelligently, i am always impressed with her. i had actually started out in a different workshop, but it didn’t speak to me, so i got up and left before it began. after that, there was another amazing workshop that’s pretty personal, so i am not going to go into it much. that was about it.

monday morning was another yoga class that was very enjoyable. this lady was interesting too. she had been in the peace corps for the last two years and had been in samoa and helped formulate a yoga class for large samoan women. for them, being of large girth is a status symbol, so they couldn’t make it too strenuous. there were some really cool move modifications, however, that had been developed with larger women in mind. also very, very cool.

the ride home was kind of somber, just because i had done so much during the weekend. i felt the need to decompress and think about all that happened to me. it was an amazing weekend. since i have been home, it’s been freezing here!! to hear my family tell things, it snowed a lot on the valley floor all weekend and there is still snow on the ground. san jose was somewhat cold, but nothing like reno with snow. my teeth have been chattering all day!!

so, that was my eventful weekend. i am still exhausted, and tomorrow my daughter goes to court, so i think i might just take the chance to sleep in. that’s all for now, i am all written out.

peace.