blessings

It rained almost nonstop for the entire span of Pantheacon. Pretty much every conversation contained expressions of gratitude, as most Pagans were cognizant of the serious threat of drought hanging over California. The rain fell as a blessing on the land and as a blessing on this year’s conference.

This year was a significant one for me. It marked the anniversary of my diagnosis of Type II Diabetes. I’ve kept my blood sugar within normal levels for a full turn of the wheel by making big changes in my diet and by keeping moving. I am healthy, and that has been a major magical working. Shifting consciousness by going into trance and working between the worlds is a breeze for many of us Pagans. Shifting consciousness to brussel sprouts and a brisk walk, not M&M’s and a good novel, being what the body wants, is a heck of a lot harder.

But, I’ve done it, and I kept it up at Pantheacon, where the easiest food to obtain is chocolate chip cookies and pizza and the exercise room is one of the few rooms in the hotel not teeming with Pagans. Working out is a great way to get some solitude, and the hotel is hospitable enough to provide a lot of comfortable seating areas where you can spread out picnics you’ve brought in. Judy wouldn’t eat in the area where she’d witnessed a woman holding court with her five snakes, including a massive white constrictor big enough to eat one of us. My guess is that even next year she’ll give that area a wide clearance, she’s that snake phobic.

I’m a lover of panels, of watching a variety of folks discuss a topic and then taking questions. This year was no different, and going to the panel with the wonky title of ”The Non-Dual, Polytheism, and Magic” led me to become enamored of Lon Milo DuQuette. It true synchronistic fashion, he turned out to be the author of the only book my non-Pagan partner bought. Who can’t resist a book called “The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford”? The title grabbed her (being a lover of all things chicken) and then he impressed her mightily by answering the very question she was thinking when he signed her book. He drew a little picture of himself with the caption “No, Judy”, he wrote, “I am not the Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford”, thus making her sure that he is, indeed, a mighty magician. I’m for any mind-reading magician who says “I can change only one thing with magic – myself”.

There were well over 2,000 Pagans at Pantheacon, with a breadth of workshops ranging from Tibetan Buddhism to a Jim Morrison ritual. One of my friends almost lost her 20 years of recovery at the Morrison ritual, and another is all geared up to start studying Tibetan Buddhism in earnest.

There are lots of stories to tell, and perhaps I will be telling them here now and then. But, at the moment there is a break in the blessed rain. Gratefully, I know exactly what to do with it. Time for a walk! It’s such a darn fine thing to be healthy.