Central Illinois Pagan Pride Day

It’s five A.m. This is how wonderful, and kind of insane, my life has become. I am awake this early because I need to prepare myself. For what, you might ask.

Today is Central Illinois Pagan Pride Day, hosted by Pagans out of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, where I’m originally from. I have not one, but two, workshops there today.
The first I have done many times. This is a crystal workshop. I take everyone through choosing, caring for, understanding, and the many ways of using their stones. I have done it at three events, with bigger audiences each time. I have actually found the less script I give myself, the better I do.
The second is my first public ritual, where I’ll be leading people, most of whom I probably won’t know. “Awakening the Goddess,” designed to help them link to the goddess of wisdom or strength within them, should be fairly simple. Inside a town park, I cannot use candles, nor my athame, a favorite tool. So I have to work around that.
I actually am up this early because while I planned for this ritual much earlier this year, I am not ready at all. My first outline vanished so I have to come up with something new, and pack supplies accordingly.
You may ask, why am I starting so late? Well, in truth, I have a better time if I only do a basic outline for formal rituals, and don’t worry about it much. But there is a more basic reason. Actually there are several of them.
In addition to this blog, I also am the main writer for the Savage Cauldron, formerly the Crimson Crescent. I manage a blog called the Good Witch’s Cookbook as well, though it is very informal. I am working on a volume of Goddess-inspired poetry, editing material for an Immanion Press anthology, and managing a group of thirteen, which has expanded from eight members in just over a week. The interviews, the preparations for Samhain, the plans for meeting this morning before we all caravan out to CIPPD, have kept me very busy.
Honestly, I created CASC as a group of friends that could build a community and learn together. Two months down the road I have found myself heading up one of the healthiest active groups in the Champaign-Urbana area. So far, anyway.
The powers are piling on the pressure. Not only all this, but I’ve got a sinus headache, that is refusing to back off. Actually I ended up ignoring it so long it turned into a migraine. I was out looking for a new autumn dress and I have lived with various forms of chronic pain for so long I didn’t even realize I was having a problem until my vision got a little worse, kind of fuzzy. I got home, took something, got a hot shower, and now I’m up, but I can feel the pain killers wearing off.
I have arthritis in both knees, and I begin to suspect it in my shoulders and wrists, based on pain during weather changes. I deal with chronic headaches, mostly mild, from stress, my period, or light sensitivity. The ladder are usually in migraine form, and come with nausea, balance problems worse than usual, fuzzy vision, and its as if I got hit with a hammer, except the level of pain from the impact does not dissipate, as though the blow is continuous. So I’m used to dealing with a great deal of pain.
We’ll have to see how today goes. I’m excited, but nervous. It’s a challenge. I will follow up tomorrow with how this turns out. I hope to see some of my readers there.
The Savage Cauldron
www.feministelemental.wordpress.com
The Good Witch’s Cookbook
www.flavorconjure.wordpress.com
Cross Quarterly (Where I will have a couple of poems published next week in their autumn edition)
www.crossquarterly.webs.com
Central Illinois Pagan Pride Day (I used to be known as Ruby.)
www.cipaganpride.org/workshops/