CI Pagan Pride Update

All in all, CI Pagan Pride was a success. I was too exhausted to come up with a solid post on Sunday, but I’m sure some of you out there wondered how it finished up.

We ended up running late. It was a combination of late arrivals to the pre-departure meeting at my house and a family emergency with one of the members. The upshot is we blew into Normal five minutes before my first event was supposed to start. After a couple of shout-outs by me and those coordinating the event, a few showed up. We had called elements, when about six more appeared, so there was some integration of energy that had to be done at that point. But over all it went off smoothly.
Essentially the ritual was designed to help you connect with any goddess of strength who wished you to learn or gain something, which everyone seemed to do all right.
My second workshop was an hour later, after an unnerving run-in with my ex-girlfriend at the single vendor selling crystals. Nothing happened exactly, the energy in the booth was just…strained to the point of discomfort. I bought one stone I was looking at and decided to come back later. This stone, called river quartz, has fossilized plant material inside it, so its pretty cool. I was able to use it in the crystal workshop I teach. This is the fourth time. I taught at Pagan Pride the first time to years ago. I worked two events last year, and each year I get a few more attendees, so its nice.
We cover the origins of various crystals; choosing, cleansing, and charging stones; wearing and carrying; bags, dolls, and elixirs; candle spells and setting out; layouts such as the crystal pentagram; and how various traditions insist on giving certain ones a gender, and how its okay to have alternate views on that.
It was a relief afterward to finally do whatever with no time constraints. I found a really cool charm, of which later ordered enough for my entire circle here in Champaign. She’s a goddess with an oak leaf, for strength and wisdom.
This week has also been one of interesting developments. That’s for tomorrow’s post. Things were just crazy leading up to CI Pagan Pride, but everything seems to have leveled off since then.