Panmankey

I just noticed that people can "join" my site.  I have no idea what advantages this presents to anyone, but to those of you who have, thanks!  It's kind of cool and flattering. 

Thoughts on various festivals the last couple of weeks.

Wiccan Fest (an hour or so north of Toronto Canada)

Wiccan Fest was my favorite festival this summer.  Just full of nice people, enough to do, and a couple of really great stories that I will end up sharing over the next few months.  It's great when a festival knows what it is.  Wiccan Fest is a small festival designed for 300 or so people with an emphasis on community and shared experience.  It's the only festival I've ever been to where people have yelled at me "We love you Jason" for no real reason.  A little validation now and then goes a very long way.

It's not a very busy festival (though I was kind of busy) but there was generally enough to do to keep Jason entertained.  There were small concerts every night, and mostly featured music familiar enough that I didn't hate most of it.  For those of you who know me well, you know that such a ringing endorsement of Pagan music means that there were no bands or performers featuring a "dash of funk."  ("Dash of funk" is generally the kiss of death when any band adds that description to their festival bio.)  

The best part of Wiccan Fest is their drum circle.  It's not that the drumming is leaps and bounds better than the drumming at any other festival, it has more to do with the community that gathers there.  You can dance, you can drum, you can just sit and observe, and people will be friendly towards you no matter what.  I was camped near the drum circle and the community that camped around there was just freaking fabulous.  Great people, great drinking, great other things for most of them, and everyone was nice.  

I did five workshops at Wiccan Fest in three days, which is a pretty good amount of work.  It all went well, and I sold a decent amount of Horned God books as a result of it.  I did miss the late night rituals that have generally gone on there in the past, but that's a small point and nothing to quibble about.

One of the things I noticed this year at Wiccan Fest versus other festivals was how accessible the staff was.  I can go to some festivals and never run into an organizer or anyone with any authority or ability to offer me assistance.  At Fest I had people fetching me power cords and doing everything in their ability to help a blonde boy out.  Nice.

Starwood

I really enjoyed this year's Starwood.  Going in I thought I it would be a giant clusterfuck, and while some things didn't work out quite right, for the most part it went very smoothly.  Wisteria (the new campground) is great, lots of beautiful trees and hills, and I can see why Ari totally fell in love with the place.  It was nice.  That's not to say it was perfect.  The showers were rather dirty, and there were no flushable toilets.*  I was also a little bit disappointed with the restaurant on site.  After eight years of the Blue Lady and Phil's Grille at Brushwood it was difficult to adjust to something new.  (When it's 95 degrees outside, bottled water should NEVER cost 2.50 a bottle.)  And in a lot of ways I didn't even get the chance to adjust since they closed the kitchen rather early, 8:30 or so.

As far as the festival its self goes, what I loved the most about it was just how laid back it was.  After tension so noticeable you could cut it with a knife at the last few Starwoods (held at Brushwood), it was nice to visit a Starwood where that was blessedly absent.  Everyone seemed to check their ego at the door this time around, and the whole campground seemed to delight in each others company.  I did things I've never done before, like sit in the ACE (Association for Consciousness Exploration-the organizers of Starwood) tent, talk to other presenters, and just relax.  

When I said there were problems, I wasn't kidding.  Starwood Radio barely got off the ground.  The area picked for midnight rituals lacked any sort of lighting, and was extremely inaccessible that late at night.  Raquy and her Cavemen thought that drumming over Ivan Stang's annual devival showed good manners, so yeah, problems, but they were overshadowed by the good that was there.  

Some of that good was Ivan Stang making fun of me and my workshops three times over the course of a rant, what an honor!  Seriously, that made my day.  The drum circle that people went to (I think it was called Paw Paw?) was gorgeous if a little cramped.  Camping and dancing in a small clearing surrounded by trees is simply magickal.  Hell yeah that was a good spot.  My workshops were pretty well attended for an outdoor festival too (especially after I heard the average attendance was about five people, I was lucky enough to score about 20 per talk).  

Starwood featured some of the best music they've had in awhile.  I managed to sit through an entire show for the first time in forever as Ari and I really liked the band Coyote Run.  Coyote Run is mostly a Celtic-type act, and they played with energy and passion and were just a delight for their entire two hour set.  We really liked them.  I hope they come back one of these years.

So all in all, a very good Starwood spent with lovely friends in a beautiful setting.

Brushwood's Summerfest

Brushwood will probably always be my favorite Pagan (or Pagan friendly) campground, though Summerfest was my least favorite festival of the last few weeks.  Visiting Brushwood is always special, I have so many friends who are seasonal campers there, and the lank speaks to me in a way that few others have, but with very few exceptions I found myself bored a lot of the time.

Those exceptions were some of my favorite nights of July though.  I loved Brushwood's "Party Like a Rockstar" and for two and a half hours i had a blast playing Marilyn Manson, Weezer, Snoop Dog, and Dio.  What was kind of a bummer was starting a good solid hour later than planned and being moved to a new location just six hours before our start time.  It gave the whole thing a very unorganized feel, and that's not something I'm used to from the folks at Brushwood (who are generally on top of things).

The other thing I loved was the Bellydance Showcase Ari (and our friend Laura) put together.  I also get to MC it.  How can you go wrong MC'ing an event full of hot women?  That's great.  The attendance was great too, they had fifty or so people show up, more than what showed up for the big concert going on at the same time that night.  The only downside was that it was held at 10:00 pm, in a location without any real lights.  Hopefully that'll change next year.  

In a lot of ways Summerfest felt like a continuation of Sirius Rising, which is the festival at Brushwood the previous week, and that was either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective.  I was hoping that it would be a little more Starwood-like:  midnight rituals, some parties, etc.  I can certainly understand Brushwood's desire to distance themselves from some of those elements** but to move away from all of them might be a mistake.

It was a good three weeks on the road, but right now I'm happy to be home.

*There are just certain things I do not like doing in port a johns.  It wasn't a deal breaker for me about going back, but no place can be my favorite campground without some flushers.

**People have constantly described Starwood as a "rave" for the past ten years.  I have never felt this description was accurate, or even close to accurate.  Starwood has attracted a few undesirables over the years, but the amount of parties and overall craziness has been exaggerated. 

Every once in a while someone will ask me about the kind of books I enjoy reading.  I'm a very multifaceted reader, I consume both fiction and non-fiction books with equal relish, and my reading habits are often dictated by whatever project I currently find myself working on.  If I'm prepping a workshop my reading tends to revolve around that.  If I'm in "hibernation" mode I tend to read more fiction (or at least not books about Paganism/Religion!).  

When it comes to fiction I mostly read the "fantasy" genre.  That's not to say I don't read other things, but when I'm fiction reading I'm often looking for escape, and worlds full of magic and elves tend to supply that.  The last few years have supplied a treasure trove of fantasy, so I thought I'd write about my favorite series from the past ten years or so.  Some of the authors I'm going to mention have been releasing books for the better part of a decade, some of them for just a year or two.  All of them have now entered the realm of "Jason must read these authors right now!" which goes along with me fretting over release dates and making sure I get my reading started within days of release.

So all of the books and authors in this post have the Jason seal of approval.  With summer coming along don't you need something to read anyways?

I just finished "The Warded Man" last week and it's been banging around in my head ever since.  There were two things about this book that really stood out for me.  The first was just that the characters rang true.  Their reasons for being who they are, and doing what they do, didn't feel forced or contrived.  I've read a lot of books where characters become heroic (or villainous) for reasons that just don't make any sense.  That doesn't happen with Brett.  There were also several amazing moments of suspense, worry, and tension.  When an author leads you down a path where you actively worry about the main character . . .that's great writing!  Brett did that to me a handful of times in under 500 pages.  This is the best first novel I've read in four years or so.  "The Warded Man" is also just the first book in a trilogy (the second book "The Desert Spear" came out in the last two weeks), so much more great reading to come!

Brent Weeks' "Night Angel" trilogy is like a video game translated into a book.  It's full of gratuitous killing, and this kind of unconventional "Ninjas in late medieval Europe" thing that was absolutely gripping.  While Weeks' main protagonist Kylar is good character, it's the side stories of the secondary characters that steal books two and three.  So many authors have trouble telling one good story in a book, Weeks tells two or three in each book!

I did kind of feel that the third book was a bit sloppy.  It could have benefited from some tighter editing, or even by being split up into two books.  Even with that criticism, Weeks tells such a gripping story that you don't mind the problems too much.  Night Angel was recently optioned for a movie too, so read the books before Hollywood spoils the story.

That's Vin, the main character in Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn" trilogy, and she's just so hot and the picture is just so stunning that I stole the original painting that makes up the cover to the first book.  Just like Weeks' "Night Angel" trilogy, "Mistborn" was optioned for a film back in January.  And while i can see "Night Angel" as a movie, "Mistborn" is another thing entirely.  Unlike most fantasy worlds, the world of Mistborn is absolutely unique and original, and like nothing I've ever read before.  The story is dark and depressing, but the writing is bright and engaging.  There are a good dozen solid characters in Mistborn too, and I have a feeling that the Mistborn trilogy will become one of those "Must Read Essential" fantasy serieses.

Sanderson is currently finishing up Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, and having read "Wheel" I have to say I think Sanderson is a better writer than Jordan.  The characters, the magical system(s), the totally out of left field plot twists, and new fantasy creatures (kandras rule!) are going to make Sanderson a household name like Tolkein.  (OK, maybe it won't go that far, but people will know who is!)

I started reading David Coe's "Winds of the Forelands" series about five years ago and once I got through the first two books I thought it would be huge!  I has a feeling that every new book he released in the series would be a fantasy event!  For reasons I don't understand, it didn't happen, but I still love the series.  If you like "dense" series like George R. Martin's "Game of Thrones" or Jordan's "Wheel of Time" you'll love "Winds of the Forelands."  It's full of big battles, politics, and a huge cast of players.  The best thing about is that it's only five books long and it's all done!  Unlike Martin and Jordan, Coe was able to write his epic quickly so you don't have to wait around for a decade to finish up.

Coe also recently finished a second series with a few of the main characters from "Forelands" called "Blood of the Southlands."  While not quite as epic as "Forelands" it's still a good read, and the eight books in total should keep you busy all summer long.  

Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" trilogy is the dirtiest, grittiest, and most adult fantasy series of last twenty years.  Now I'm not using adult here to imply sex, I'm using it to imply that these books are for adults.  There's no illusion that "First Law" is for teens, or is "cute."  It's a violent, cut-throat fantasy series, full of petty characters that you'd be hard pressed to call heros.  They're certainly "real" people in that they are believable, but they aren't all good, or even sympathetic, and as soon as you have one of them figured out they either do something reprehensible or surprisingly noble, sort of like real humans.

Abercrombie is the book I most pass recommend to friends these days because it manages to avoid nearly every major cliche that haunts the fantasy genre.  While Abercrombie's books lack the cliched "orphan who grows up to realize a great destiny" tangent, there is an executioner named Glokta who has become one of my favorite characters in the history of fantasy.  When you are ready to read a fantasy book that doesn't feel like a role-playing game, pick up "First Law" you'll be glad you did.  

A first in my continuing effort to update the panmankey blog on a near weekly basis.

I guess I should start with a personal update.  I'm in the middle of planning the summer festival season, and have already begun to confirm events.  Right now I'm 100% sure I'm going to be at Wic-Can Fest in Ontario Canada.  It also looks like I'll be at Circle Sanctuary's Beltane Celebration over the weekend of May 1st.  I'm also planning to go back to Starwood, and then to Brushwood's Summerfest (which is being held the week that Starwood used to occupy).  Most of this is not set in stone, but I'm pretty sure I'll be doing all of those things.

Now, off to deep Pagan thoughts .  . . . 

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I came across this little nugget on The Wild Hunt blog (http://wildhunt.org/blog/, if you don't read the Wild Hunt at least once a week, I urge you too.  It's great):

“Raised in violent ghetto neighborhoods, Ramirez grew up despising his father for his careless disregard of his family. He learned to live like a street animal to survive the cold, harsh streets of the South Bronx. Looking for love and validation, he eventually found it in a new “family” of witches and warlocks who groomed him to become a high priest in their occult religion. Ramirez’s plunge into the dark side reached a boiling point on the night he sold his soul to the devil in a diabolical, blood-soaked ritual. With renewed fervor–and the mark of the beast now cut into his right arm–he actively recruited souls into this “unholy kingdom,” haunting the bars and clubs of NYC by night to find his next victims, including those who professed faith in Christ. His life continued on this dark path for 25 years until God intervened through a larger-than-life dream, revealing Himself for who He really is and snatching Ramirez back from the pit of hell. Out of the Devil’s Caldron walks you through the dark alleys of the occult religions of Santeria, Palo Mayombe, and espiritismo (spiritualism) while exposing the hidden secrets of darkness.”

Now I don't know Mr. Ramirez, but I do know that the tale he's spinning here is just not true.  A quick reading of the paragraph above almost confirms that Mr. Ramirez knows nothing about Santeria or any other occult practice for that matter.  I've never met a Santerian who claimed to be a "witch or a warlock," those words are just entirely absent from the Caribbean/Latin American-Pagan lexicon.  That's the first obvious lie in the piece, but there are several other whoppers.  It's true that Santerians occasionally sacrifice a chicken here or there (and not all groups do this), but I would hardly call that a "blood soaked ritual."  It's also difficult to sell yourself to the Devil when your belief system doesn't have the Christian Devil in it.  

I'm not sure what this "mark of the beast cut into his right arm" nonsense is about, maybe he got a tattoo?  I would hardly call that the mark of the beast though, and again, that's a Christian term that I'm guessing is missing from Santeria.  I'm also kind of surprised that any Pagan group in New York City would haunt the bars and clubs of that great city.  Pagans don't really proselytize, and if they bother to, it's far more likely to be done at a bookstore.  

I suppose it's possible that Ramirez believes these things happened to him, perhaps he's succeeded in deluding himself for the past 25 years.  That's not out of the realm of possibility, but what's more likely is that he's trying to cash in on the lucrative Evangelical Lecture Circuit.

There are dozens (and dozens) of individuals out there with crazy stories about Satanism, the occult, Witchcraft, and Santeria.  A girl I work with was once absolutely convinced that every Halloween Satanists came together to sacrifice babies and perform abortions.  These sorts of crazy stories are circulated in many Evangelical Churches, without anyone to refute them.  If there really were Satanists sacrificing people and aborting babies every Halloween there would be a pile of evidence (literally, all the dead bodies) supporting the assertion.  To this day there's no evidence that even one person has been ritually sacrificed to Satan in the United States (or Great Britain)

I picked up a book called "Wicca:  Satan's Little White Lie," published the by the Chick People (creators of those ridiculous little comic book tracts) about ten years ago.   If the allegations in that book are true, I've never really risen very far in the occult ranks, and this is after fifteen years of trying.  I've never been offered the initiation into Satan's inner-circle, or even seen a glimmer of him!  Most Satanists I've ever met hate my guts for being a namby pamby Wiccan, they certainly don't want to initiate me into anything.  "White Lie" though states pretty emphatically that third degree initiation in the Alexandrian Tradition involves the selling of one's soul to Satan.

What can be done to fight the idiots who spout this garbage?  The internet is full of good information refuting all of this crap (though none of it yet is specifically about Mr. Ramirez, though someone will probably get around to it one of these days).  I will tell you from experience that arguing with people about it does very little good.  It's best to let people live their own lives and learn from experience that the world is not littered with dead babies.  If you do feel the need to "argue" your best bet is to probably just print something off of the net, from a site like paganlibrary.com  

February has become this crazy month for me the last couple of years.  It's almost as good as June-July when it comes to festivals.  As most of you know I hit Pantheacon in San Jose CA every February, and then four days later I hit Convocation in Detroit (or as I like to think of it, my backyard).  This year was no exception of course, and I rocked both festivals.  Sure there were no official Morrison events on the schedule of either festival, but I did get to do two new workshops:  one on ancient Druids, and one on Cerunnous/Green Man/Herne. 

Both workshops were well receieved (on both sides of the country) but the "Horned God of the British Isles" workshop grabbed people by the horns, or so I've been told.  Not to sound like a jackass, but it was one of my better presentations the last couple of years.  It was so much fun to do, especially getting to use a laser pointer and wax philosophical about Old Horn Head.  Just a great workshop to present.  At Pantheacon I had over 100(!!!) people at it on sunday afternoon, which is a really great number.  Convocation isn't nearly as big, but I had a good turnout there too, and no one fell asleep!!  I always like that.

I had low expectations for the Druid workshop, but it went fairly well.  It was certainly longer than I had anticipated (90 minutes both times, and it could have been longer), which was a relief since I was worried I might breeze through it in 50 minutes.  I didn't have the giant crowds for it that I had for the other workshop, but some of that might have been due to timing.  It was in the first block of workshops on friday at Pantheacon, and was on friday again at Convocation.  I always get solid turnouts, so I'm pretty sure I'll be presenting at both festivals next year.

At Convocation I got to do a Horned God Ritual in addition to workshops, and that was fun.  I did a ritual for Pan/Dionysus/Cernunnous/Green Man, and though it ended up being pretty short, I got good feedback from it.  I'm always hesitatnt to plan anything that's going to last very long on saturday night at Convocation.  The Masquarade Ball there has such a hold on people that they'll skip your stuff if it interferes with their opportunity to dance to horrible rap and pop music. I do have to tweak it for future festivals and make it a bit longer, but it was a fun saturday night thing. 

Even more than being able to present stuff, it's the peopel that keep me coming back to festivals year after year.  BIg thanks to Kenny and Anna Klien (be sure to pick up Kenny Klien's new book on the Fairy Realm!) for their friendship and for hanging out with me at Pconn.  You guys rock.  This year I also got ot hang out some with Kenn Day and Selena Fox from Circle.  Somewhere there's a picture of me kissing Selena floating around the internet, I hope I get a copy of it soon.  Big thanks goes to everyone who shared their scotch and/or absinthe with me at both festivals.  I wonder what a sober friday night would feel like at a Pagan festival?  I hope I never find out.

To all of you who bought Horned God books, thanks!!!  It made travelling a lot easier on my pocketbook this spring.  I'm sorry about the small print in the books, that will be fixed in the next edition.  For those of you wanting a book with large print, those are coming.  Drop me an email and I'll let you know how to get one sooner than later. 

New rule too, I'm going to try writing in this thing every monday from now on.  I'm sure I'll fail, but enough people asked about the blog last month that I think it's something I need to do.  I should have a lot of festivals and things on the agenda this spring/summer, and it should all shake it in the next month or so.  I'll probably be at Starwood this year, and at Brushwood's SummerFest.  I'm possibly going to do an event at Circle Sanctuary too, and lots and lots of Pagan Pride Days.

Happy Springtime!
-jason