Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Erynn at PantheaCon

Time once again for the Great Assigning announcement of PantheaCon's official schedule.

The home page for PantheaCon has the official schedule up now. Here's my schedule for the weekend in San Jose:

Saturday, February 13

3:30 - Silicon Valley: Warrior Return Ritual panel
7:00 - San Jose: Constructing CR Ritual

Sunday, February 14

1:30 - San Juan/San Carlos: Immanion Authors panel
7:00 - Santa Clara: Women's Voices in Magic panel
9:00 - Fir: Yes they are! Meeting the Queerest of Gods (backup for Hanuman)

Monday, February 15

1:30 - Fir: Ekklesía Antínoou Lupercalia/Communalia

I'll be there for the entire festival, as usual, and will have 10 copies of my book with me for sale after my sessions, thanks to the generosity of one of my readers. I don't currently have any book signings scheduled, but that could easily change -- I signed up for two of them while I was at the con last year. I may sign up for a reading slot and do ogam readings in the merch room as well. I haven't decided yet. I hope to see many of you there!

Monday, January 18, 2010

The Warrior Return

This past weekend the local schmooze folks held the Warrior Return Ritual for one of our number who returned from Iraq recently. We held our vigil at the house of a friend of mine, who has a yurt temple in the back yard, a hot tub for the dunking, and a goodish sized area for the vigiland to choose from in setting up their "camp".

Having been through the ritual myself as the vigiland last summer, I had a reasonable idea of what to expect, though I knew participating as support staff would be a very different experience than that of vigiland. That supposition turned out to be quite true.

I'm still recovering physically from the overnighter, but that's my usual modus operandi for vigil rituals. Overall, it seemed successful from our end and the vigiland said that morning that we could talk about his experience sometime soon. I really want to do this before PantheaCon, as the schmooze is presenting a panel on the return ritual that will bookend the sending-out ritual from last year. It will be good to be able to discuss it from the perspective of having both performed the vigil and supported the vigil.

Given that I'm still recovering, I'm also still processing my impressions and experiences. By the end of the week I should have something together to share with everyone about this ritual and will be posting it both here and on my LJ. All-nighters are always a bit mind-bending. This one was no exception.