Upcoming Appearances - Fall 2012

This is always a busy time of year for me, because there are specific events I am traveling to and presenting workshops at (or vending). Below is a summary of where I'll be. I hope to see some of you at these events!

Esoteric Book Conference

I will be vending at the Esoteric Book Conference (no presentations) in Seattle, Washington on 9/15 and 9/16. You'll get to see the entire lineup of Immanion Press's nonfiction books and if you want to chat about magic or other esoteric topics, I'd love to speak with you.

Pan-Pagan Gathering

I will be presenting two workshops at the Pan-Pagan Gathering on 9/29 and 9/30.

Basic Space/Time Magic: In this workshop, we will look at the elements of space and time and their role in magical work, as well as how we can work with space and time as active principles of our magical practice. I will also provide a list of space/time magic entities you can work with, if you want to explore space/time magic further. $5 Suggested Donation

Ley-lines, Power-Spots, and Communicating with the land: In this workshop we’ll discuss what leylines and power spots are, the different between an artificial leyline and a natural one, and how leylines can be used to connect with other planets and stars, as well as how to communicate and develop a relationship with the land. $5 Suggested Donation

Crucible Convention

I will be presenting the Basic Space/Time Magic class at the convention on October 6th. However I will be doing this presentation remotely, from Portland, Or. The convention is occurring at the Hyatt Regency Hotel Princeton in Princeton New Jersey

Presentation skills and magic

Recently Donald Michael Kraig made a post about workshops and the need to develop more better presentation skills. He made some good points about the need to practice your presentation skills, and not rely too heavily on your visual aides. I agree with him completely, but I also think that there's another level to be explored when it comes to workshop presentation and that's the magical level. When I get booked for a workshop, one of the practices that I do involves creating a mental mansion for the workshop. I create talking points and exercises for the workshop and then what I do is create symbols I associate with those talking points and workshops and I place the symbols into the mansion. When I rehearse a workshop I visit the mansion and access the symbols to draw on the stored information. When I present the workshop I can use the same technique to access the information. This helps immensely with confidence for the presentation.

Another practice I do involves some energy work and personas. When I'm getting ready to do a workshop, I think about the energy I want to project to people. Are there specific emotions I want to draw on? If there are, then I'll draw on those emotions for the presentation. For instance I like to draw on confidence and charisma. they are excellent emotional energies for a presentation. I also draw on personas for my presentations. I'll think about people, pop culture characters, deities, etc that personify professional speaking. I'll then visualize myself drawing on the characteristics of those people, pop culture characters, etc to create a "suit" to wear. I then imagine that I'm wearing that suit and drawing on those characteristics while I'm speaking.

Of course what helps the most is to practice your professional speaking. You might consider joining a toast masters or similar organization where you need to speak, or taking on a part time teaching opportunity so that you can practice speaking to people. You might even take acting classes. If you want to become a better speaker there are lots of ways to do it, some mundane and some magical. I recommend using both.

Esoteric Book Convention day 2 and pictures

I've been meaning to post this all week, and finally got to it today. I did go to a presentation on Sunday: Brandy William's talk on Chaldean Oracles. It was a really interesting talk and gave me quite a bit of appreciation for Brandy's ability as speaker and presenter.

The lighting on that picture isn't great, but there she is, just about ready to do her talk. The rest of the day was spent talking to various people and selling books. What stood out to me about this convention was the intimacy of it. There was a nice crowd of people, and everyone was there to look at (and buy) books, as well as go to the presentations. I got into some wonderful conversations throughout the entire convention.

Here's a picture of John Coughlin, with his wife Nicole. I met John years ago at Winterstar, but only finally saw him again in person at this event. Needless to say the opportunity to connect with him again and talk at length was really something I appreciated. John's sense of humor, in particular, is something I've always liked and he was just as funny this time as the last time I saw him. He also was a co-panelist with us about small press publishing.

Here's another picture with Erynn and Bill:

And another picture with Brandy and Phil in his furry Fez

The organizers of this event did a wonderful job. William Kiesel, Michael Kolsun, Catmara Rosarium, and Josh Madara put a lot of effort into this conference as did all the volunteers. The volunteers did a great job of making people feel welcome and the organizers put a really good program together for a first convention. Here's a picture of the four above mentioned people:

Finally here's a picture of Lupa and I at our table of books. We definitely left with a lot less books, which made both her and I happy, and from the look on various faces, made other people happy as well. I definitely look forward to going back next year.

Esoteric Book Convention pt. 1

I've taken some photos today, and will take more tomorrow and do a picture post. So far I've really been impressed by this convention. It's one of the more occult leaning conventions I've been to and is focused primarily on scholarly presentations and occult books. I've liked the handbound work I've seen as well as the diverse range of books. One's even caught my eye. I wish I had gone to some presentations besides the immanion panel and will make it a point to go to one or two tomorrow. But I have really enjoyed catching up with John Coughlin of Waning Moon Publications about his work and also speaking with various other people I'd met today. It's always a pleasure to speak with people who are really serious about their practice. I've also enjoyed staying with Erynn and Phil as well as catching up with them.

Overall I'm impressed by the quality of the books, the convention itself, and everything else I've seen. Assuming this occurs again (which seems a bit likely) we'll definitely vend and participate again, and I highly recommend it out for the variety of books and perspectives on magic, the convention offers.

On another note, this is the kind of occult culture I like participating in. It's focused on magic, it's focused on small press, and it's focused on people in a very intimate way. I like talking magic with others, and also like that there's no branding going...simply people sharing in their passion for magic.

Northwest Fall Equinox Festival

This last weekend I went to the Northwest Fall Equinox festival sponsored by 9 Houses of Gaia. I had an amazing time there, and came away feeling that I'd attended a festival on the East Coast or Midwest, because the sense of community was similar to what I'd found at such festivals. More importantly, I felt that I connected a lot more with my community out here. I saw a lot of people I already knew and met many more, and I spent a lot of quality time with different people. Festival space is its own special space. It's a Temporary Autonomous Zone created for people to come together and share their experiences and fellowship. I participated in the Lakshmi Ritual for this event (and will discuss that in more depth in my emptiness post for month 11), and spent a lot of time at the Tantric temple connecting with different people over conversation about magic and other mutual interests.

I enjoyed the food, which the cooks made. I also enjoyed the drumming and the concert. Mainly though, I enjoyed being at this festival and feeling like I had come home to my spiritual community. I definitely plan on going each year to this festival. It's a good break from everyday life and is a good way to connect with my spiritual community.

Heartland

Lupa and I just came back from Heartland, a pagan festival that occurs every year in Kansas. I had a very enjoyable time there. I got to co-present workshops with Lupa, as well as share the festival experience with her, and also got to meet a lot of wonderful people. I even got to reconnect with some old friends, which was a bonus as I haven't seen these people since 2005. It was quite pleasant to re-connect with them. It's definitely a festival I hope to present at again, and one I highly recommend going to, if you live near it or can easily drive to it. I enjoyed presenting the workshops a lot. We had great audiences...good questions, good comments, and a lot of interest....that and being back in the midwest...I have to admit I did feel a bit of homesickness for the midwest/East coast Festival scene. I don't really miss the midwest itself, but the festival scene out there is very dynamic and active, much more so than the festival scene in the pacific northwest. I reflected on that for a while...

Larger population, but also a population in a conservative area or this country. For many of the people who attend such events it's their only opportunity to really be in a place where they will be accepted unconditionally, whereas Portland, OR at least is so liberal that the subcultures don't really have a pressing need to gather together.  That's not to say they can't get together, but in general they don't have to hide that their pagan or worry that they'll lose their job if they get outed as poly (and I say that last remark  on the basis of a friend of mine who works in a corporate environment here who was told it was perfectly ok to be poly).

Now I know not all the pac NW is a liberal bastion. Go to the Oregon coast for example and you'll see a fairly conservative environment, depending on where you are on that coast, but having lived in the Midwest for a while, and now living in the PAC NW region, I still have to say that people here do have it a bit easier comparatively speaking, and consequently the cultural differences that show up are rather interesting to observe.

I remember a daughter telling her mother about she'd told kids at school about dragons and magic and her mother cautioning her not to tell the kids in school about her beliefs, because they might not understand and it could lead to some problems, and thought...in PDX, she wouldn't have to tell her kid that, more than likely. And honestly, it made me grateful for the fact that I live where I live now, but it also showed me once again why festivals, which occur in places where it's conservative, are so essential: It gives the people living there a place to be accepted and open about their beliefs, lifestyles, etc. and it can be an experience they only get for a limited time.

And then, in the end, I think it won't stop me from appreciating what I do have here, both in terms of festivals and communities I participate in...it just makes me appreciate all the more what I do have and where I live.

Pantheacon 2009 update and a book Review

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I'll be presenting a workshop at Pantheacon as well as being on two panels. On Friday Feb 13 at 3:30 Pm in the Carmel room I will be presenting my workshop on the Elemental Balancing ritual. In this workshop I'll explain how elemental balancing works and how to create your own balancing ritual as well as the risks and rewards involved in this kind of working. We'll discuss the application of using pop culture entities or traditional entities for your balancing ritual and do a pathworking at the end so you can find your element to balance your life with.

at 9 Pm Feb 13 in the Carmel/Monterey rooms I and fellow Immanion Press authors Lupa, Tony Mierzwicki, Kenny Klein, Frater Barrabbas, Brandy Williams, and Erynn Rowan Laurie will be answering questions about our books, Immanion Press, and what it means to be a publisher of cutting edge occult books.

At 11 Am Saturday in the Monterey room, Lupa and I will be part of a panel on the pagan publishing industry, hosted by Llewellyn.

So if you want to meet me, look for me at those venues and otherwise just keep an eye out for me as I'll likely be wandering around a lot.

Book Review: Kaostar! by Francis Breakspear

This is an intriguing book that is mostly focused on practical applications of everyday items to results driven magic. The author offers amusing stories without being pretentious and more importantly includes tips and suggestions that the magician can use to effectively apply the concepts to practical workings in his/her own life.

Something I do wish the author focused a bit more on was the business of being  a magician, i.e. charging people for services. He hints at this throughout the book, but doesn't comment much on it at any length. That said, however, this book does challenge you to think on the edge of the magical kaostar. I really enjoyed it and will definitely take the suggestions and run with them in my own practice.

4.5 kaostars out of 5.

Pantheacon 2009

Tonight I received notice that my workshop on how to do elemental balancing work has been accepted for Pantheacon 2009. Pantheacon is a big pagan festival that occurs in February that occurs in California. If any of my readers happen to attend the event, please come up and say hello or feel free to come to the class (I'll post specific details when I know more). Also if you're curious about how the elemental balancing ritual works, and you've read some of my entries on this blog about it, that workshop will present an excellent opportunity to ask questions. Additionally, I and other fellow Immanion Press authors will be doing a panel about Immanion Press, where people are welcome to come and ask questions about our books, publishing, and other details. More details when I get them, but it should be a fun event.

Esozone

This year's Esozone has actually come together pretty good, which I'll admit I was a bit skeptical about. It still has a lot of the same energy as last year, but this year's incarnation is also its own being and it is an intriguing being. About my only complaint about esozone was that the scheduling could have been handled better, with topics spread out a bit more instead of grouped together, but for a second year, overall everyone really pulled it off. Let me break it down day by day. Friday

Friday's opening address was done By Wes Unruh, who did an excellent job of introducing esozone. I also got to meet Ben Mack in person, and we ended up getting into some intriguing discussions about marketing. Also Met Michael Skrtic, when Bill Whitcomb brought him by. I knew we'd get along well, when he said, "I want to talk to you about Space/Time Magic. You're the only other person I've encountered who's worked on those kinds of techniques" I also ran into Nick Pell, Edward Wilson, Nemo, Kara, Brian and many other people I hadn't seen in a while. The night itself was spent listening to the Pranks talk by St. Mae and St. Fox, the Forestructuring of 2012 by Clyde Lewis, and Trevor Blake's excellent lecture on Buckminster Fuller (Can I just say I love the sound of Trevor's voice...very melodic).

Saturday

I walked in on the esotech panel, which was pretty intriguing. They seemed to be focused on radionics technology. I listened for a bit while setting up my vending booth. After that ended I managed to get some books signed by Antero Alli, Edward Wilson and Wes Unruh, and Ben Mack, which pleased me greatly, on general principle. At 1pm, Antero Alli had his eight circuit lecture, which I unfortunately had to miss because I was also doing my workshop on Neuroscience, Identity, and Magic. Amazingly enough I actually managed to acquire an audience, and a decent one at that. My lecture was almsot two hours long and ranged from neuroscience, to lingusitics, to memory to memes and much more. For those who are interested, I'll be presenting an abbreviated version of it on Monday night on my radio show. After I finished my lecture, I got to listen to Rex Church's discussion about the Ragnarok Engine, which looks rather intriguing. I also saw Oryelle's conjunctio performance and ened up swapping books for one of his framed works and his book on time magic.

After all that, Lupa arrived and after we socialized for a bit, she did her workshop, which I attended for part of the time. Really fascinating discussion of 21st century animism. Afterwards, I listened to Dennis McKenna and chatted with various people. I've met so many people at this event that I hope to follow up with.

Sunday

Today was the day that wasn't as smooth as Friday and Saturday. The six hour lecture by Paul Lafolley, as well as a one hour workshop expanding into a a four hour workshop (I think he was trying to compete with Paul), made the day's offerings less dynamic than I hoped. I'd really wanted to hear Wes Unruh's workshop on cut-up, Edward Wilson's meme workshop, and Ben Mack's workshop on making an elephant appear in the room. This unfortunately didn't happen. I did get into a nice chat with Antero Alli and hope to speak with him a bit more tomorrow night.

Overall: Esozone was really good. It encouraged a much needed spirit of community in the occult community. I look forward to it again next year.

I did get some really good loot. Some art and a book on time magic by Oryelle, A book by Antero Alli on paratheatrical work,, a few cds I intend to listen to and one I'm listening to now from Hekate, and a couple of interesting magazines on fringe science. I also met a lot of really cool people and re-connected with others. Awesome time overall.

Upcoming Workshops in Oregon and other administrative matters

I rarely post about administrative issues so to speak, but here's a table of contents: Upcoming workshops in Oregon

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Upcoming Workshops in Oregon

I'll be presenting workshops at Portland Pagan Pride, The Pan-Pagan Gathering, Conflux, Esozone, and the Body Mind Spirit Expo. Full details about what workshops I'm presenting can be found at this link. If any of you are going to these festivals, come up and say hello.

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You can get an email subscription to this blog!

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That's it! I'll be posting stuff of a more occult flavor tomorrow.