Ms. P and I returned on Sunday evening, then spent Monday having all of the appointments we don't normally get to have because of that working 9-5 thing (dogs to the vet in the am, cats to the vet in the pm, appointment for vitals for life insurance, chiropractor), and then yesterday was just an intense, flat-out day at work. I didn't really even stop to breathe until it was over. But more on that anon.
Despite my skepticism, the conference was great. Not all of it, of course: there's an amazing amount of starfuckery at things like this, one plenary session was nothing short of abysmal, there's a large number of crazy people around pagan events, and the ritual was not my deal. But the workshops I went to were transformative, we got to spend time with some friends, and we did a good job taking care of ourselves and lounging around a really awesome, comfy hotel room. Vacation indeed.
Brief thoughts, in no particular order:
- I appreciate a focus on movement as a method of doing or supporting inner work. Several of the workshops I went to used music and/or dance and movement as methods of aligning oneself with the divine, integrating one's disparate parts, and focusing on a particular working. I can be so head-oriented that I can't get out of my logical brain without the help of physical movement.
- The focus on physicality and the divinity of our physical selves right alongside our spiritual selves was really welcome. Sometimes the tenet that we are all of us divine in all of our parts--including our physical parts--can be expressed only in sexuality and not in loving our imperfectly perfect bodies just as they are in all of the things they can and cannot do.
- Tribal dancers who improvise synchronized dance-prayers to the divine? Yum! And oh, Goddess, I'd love to do that!
- It's really, really fun to share a teacher-crush with your partner.
- I don't appreciate being someone's ritual battery. I mean really. If you want me to contribute my energy to a ritual working, please involve me somehow. Don't stand me in a hotel ballroom for an hour and a half with minimal decoration to distract me from the fact that it is a hotel ballroom and then basically do nothing else with me other than ask me to give you my energy. It makes me very grumpy.
- There's a fine line between connected to spirit and just plain plumb crazy. One presenter was over that line and I could not avoid her fast enough.
- King-sized beds are awesome.
- It is perhaps inadvisable to stay inside the hotel and get neither air nor sun for three straight days.
- Somehow we never made time to go to the pool. That kind of sucks.
- I LOVE qigong. Love it. Okay, so I only learned "Eight Pieces of Brocade," but I love it. And just doing that made my thighs a little sore. Shows you how much I need to do more of it!
- I will never be an alchemist.
- My longing for a teacher can be really acute, and the repeated disappointments I get in that department are disheartening. Still, I continue my personal practice and sooner or later the teacher will appear.
- A dog accidentally trapped in the ritual room will respond by making a cat door. If the dogsitter had not returned when she did, I'm sure Gracie would have made a doggie door. [pictures to come!]
- Friends who know when to call (and when not to) and tell you that the dog has freaked out in your ritual room and made a hole in the door: priceless.
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