Conference report
PF Devon, Cornwall & C.I.
Penstowe 7th March 2009
Conference Report
from PF Wessex
Glastonbury 18th April 20009
Did you go ? Did you see ? What did you buy etc. These are the excited tones of conversation of many of those people who attended the recent PF conference in Cornwall. For, as usual, a good time was had by (as far as I could tell) all.
Held at Penstowe Holiday Park in the small town of Kilkhampton, which has become its regular venue over the past few years, this must surely be one of the most popular of the Pagan Federation’s regional conferences. Organised by a team of hard working pagans headed by Levannah Morgan this years event certainly didn’t disappoint.
Starting on Friday evening with the now regular occult quiz night with the ever exuberant Cassandra Latham as quizatrix, the team “Happy Birthday Cassandra” scooped first prize (I wonder why) in a close run game. Anyone out there who didn’t know is was Casssandra’s birthday that Friday ? Certainly not by the end…….
On the Saturday the Conference opened with an interesting guided meditation led by Levannah which settled the attendees nicely in preparation for the first lecture by Damh the Bard. This was a great talk about how Damh gained the inspiration to be the artist, entertainer and pagan that he is. With a splendid re-enactment of the Cerriddwen legend (ably assisted by some very amusing members of the audience) and a fantastic cascade chant he enchanted us all.
Rae Beth gave a most informative talk based around her work “The Green Hedgewitch”, in which she talked of working magic “on the edge” as she calls it, between our human world and the realms of the wild spirits, and the casting of spells to heal the breach in the human relationship with nature.
Merv Davey talked of Ritual Dance in Cornwall including the Snail Creep, the Farandole and others with their history, locations and evolutions within the county. With demonstrations of the Broom dance and others performed by his wife while he played various different sorts of bagpipe Merv presented a fascinating insight into the art of the Cornish Dance.
The last talk of the day was given by Prudence Jones. Prudence is a most respected academic and often presents some of the most interesting talks on pagan matters that can be heard. Although this was an old subject for Prudence she delivered a fresh perspective on “The Goddess and the Grail” with an interesting side journey into Astrology thrown in for good measure.
For light amusement there was also the regular fancy dress competition. This year’s theme was “Familiar Spirit” and was good fun even though it would have been nice to see more entrants. It was won by Phil Pembridge who came in full amour representing his famous ancestor; Sir Talkalot. I’m only sorry nobody turned up as a bottle of Jack Daniels.
As usual the conference was closed by a visually stimulating ritual followed by the serpent dance led, once again by Merv Davey and evening entertainment provided by Damh the Bard who was on great form.
There was an good array of stalls this year with both new and old faces. Lots of really nice goodies to spend your money on.
Many thanks to all the organisers and hosts for another great event. D.J.
Conference Report
Pagancon, Preston 4th July 2009
Held in Preston, Lancs. Pagancon is the regional Conference for the area and is presented by “Shared Earth”.
It’s unusual for us to get to a conference this far out of our own region but some friends of ours were giving one of the talks so we decided to go along and heckle a bit.
First let me say; I thought it was a great venue. When I discovered it was going to be held in a football club (as it has for some years) I wondered what we had let ourselves in for. But the format worked well. The main room was big enough to hold a sizeable audience and still have room for stalls around the perimeter. Workshops were held in a side room with further workshops and stalls outside. Food and drink were available throughout the day.
As is common in these times the conference was started with a blessing which I reproduce below. I wouldn’t normally but I thought it was quite nice and appropriate for the season;
May the energy of the Sun glow in your hearts,
Breeze through you minds and energise your bodies.
So your spirit rises, fear and foes be banished.
We are the light. We are the life. We are the love.
We are the Solstice sun.
Helios, Bel, Apollo, Sol.
First up were Mike Brandwood and Steve Brown discussing the Role of the Priest in the Craft.
Mike and Steve are two of the “biggest” Priests of the Craft around today and they began with a brief history of how they both “came in”. They gave us a potted history of Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders and the concept of “God Energy”. Then they took us on a whistle stop tour of the god in the seasonal year. Discussing each of the festivals in turn and the role of the priest in those festivals.
The whole thing was delivered in a light-hearted conversational mode and concluded with the rather tongue–in–cheek the pronouncement that fewer men were coming to the craft these days “because it was such hard work”.
It was an interesting talk which, with a little more rehearsal and polish might have the audience “rolling in the aisles”, or at least chuckling along. I suspect they’ll be doing this elsewhere (probably somewhere in the West Country !).
Thorskegga presented the “Heathen Goddess”.
Heathenism seems to be one of the more popular pagan paths just now so this was a good opportunity to get more of a handle on what it’s all about.
We were first introduced to the variant forms of the father gods; Wodin, Odin and Wotan. Then to Holda, a winter goddess associated with housewives and mothers and how her customs were linked to christmas time. Her connection to Frigg and the magic of spinning. Of Skade, the snowshoe goddess, of Freya who taught the Aesir magic and had the aspect of a shamanic goddess depicted as she is with a cloak of feathers. Of Hella, goddess of death and of the underworld and of Eostra, goddess of the dawn amongst others.
In amongst all this came the tale of the necklace of Freya. Made by the Dwarves to seduce her to their will this was called “Brisingamen”. A name which immediately invokes memories of Alan Garners worthy tale, and visions of wizards, elves and other magical folk. And of how wells are held to be gateways to the otherworlds and of the importance of spinning in the heathen mythology.
It was a good talk but perhaps the most interesting thing to come from it was a question from the audience, the gist of which was; “Have the gods continued to evolve since the myths were recorded?”. A good question. If our gods are living beings, would they not ?
Martin Robinson gave us “The Charge of the Goddess”
After a brief personal history Martin proceeded to discuss the origins of “The Charge”.
He started by reading, what he felt was the oldest
“full” version and then proceeded to trace the various sections to their
origins. Quoting Crowleys “Law of Liberty”*, Apulieus “The Golden Ass”, Seymour
“The Old Gods”, Leyland, The Golden Dawn, Milton, Plutarch, The Bible
and of course, Doreen Valiente.
* Thank you Martin for the correction here.
By the time Martin had finished he had dissected every word of the charge and with visual aids showed us his interpretation of the who, what, where and when of it’s composition. All of which was very interesting but for my money was in danger of stripping away any vestige of magic that those famous words hold for the initiated and detracted from the beauty of the words for those who aren’t.
Afterwards we were treated to The Charge in song by a lady whose name, I’m sorry to say, I have forgotten. Nicely done but again, for me, the words need naught to beautify them.
Interestingly, at the beginning of the talk Janet Farrar interjected to tell us that Doreen, who is generally credited with putting it all together, came to “hate” The Charge and explained why this was.
After lunch we had Jon Cole on the subject of Witches in Fairy Tales (this wasn’t the title of his talk but it was definitely the thrust of it).
Jon talked about the history of fairy tales as we know them today. How Grimm and Anderson had significantly toned down the nature of these tales from their original content to the point where they were almost anodyne in comparison.
In these modern versions the witch always gets a bad press but in their original form the witch might be considered more neutral or even “good”. Jon gave examples from such well known tales as Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretal and the Little Mermaid where the witch was caring and honest or at worst, wronged by the central characters of the story.
Jon concluded with a look at the purpose of the witch in these tales in their original form suggesting that the role of the witch could be seen as mother, initiator or entrepreneur and that in reality, witches are actually the mechanism by which the story is created. And the purpose of fairy tales ? As teaching tools, to “help us triumph in the realm of the fantastic”.
I think this was my favourite talk of the day. Jon’s delivery was confident, exuberant and amusing whilst being well researched and informative. I hope to catch other talks by him in the future.
The penultimate talk was by Rhys Chisnall on “The Dark side of the Craft”.
This was a well worded, very academic delivery concerning the nature of death and the concept of evil within our everyday magical (or craft) lives. Jungs “shadow” and the Lucifer effect were just two of the concepts use as illustration for this purpose.
The “nuts and bolts” of this talk was to lead us to the understanding that the “dark side” is very much a part of our lives and that we should embrace this without fear.
And finally; the big guns of the conference, as it were; Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone on the “Evolution of Modern Witchcraft”.
Janet and Gavin started by giving us a short history of their coming to “The Craft” and Janet went on to talk of the early days of Alex and Maxines coven, of how she had met Stewart and her first encounter with “the great white trouser snake”.
They gave us a brief history of Gerald Gardner and how Gerald had brought the Craft to the middle and upper classes whereas Alex had brought it to the middle and lower classes. They talked of the contributions made by Stewart Farrar and Doreen Valiente. Of how the “great change” in Wicca came in the 80’s and the evolution of “training” during that decade.
They talked of the gods and espoused the differentiation of the deities as essential and in an interesting aside suggested that the formation of modern Craft since the seventies could be broken in to three main areas of concerted study and concentration being the Book of Shadows (70’s – 80’s), Rituals (80’s – 90’s) and Deity (90’s – 00’s)
Three phrases stood out from the latter half of their presentation which were; “Witches are the saviours of the world.”, “A grand crusade of modern witches.” And “The future is with the young and we need to bring them in.”
The last of these is, for me, a self evident truth and indeed, looking at the rather high average age of attendees presents a good illustration of this fact. The young are not coming to the Craft as they did in previous decades and this issue needs to be addressed. As for the two former statements; they are obviously out of context to some degree here but I leave the reader to make up their own minds concerning their value.
Earlier in their talk Janet and Gavin had spoken on the subject of “lineage” suggesting that some folk have become too obsessed with this issue in recent years (I concur) and that lineage was irrelevant since true initiations are given by the gods, not mortals.
Overall a most interesting talk with both overt and underlying messages for witches and pagans alike.
The rest of the show:-
Workshops included;
The Middle Pillar – Shelley Rushton
Chanting and Intoning – Tasha and John
Tree Lore – Chris Wand Making
Yoga Magic – Jayne Morrisey
And a range of Heathen based workshops which took place outside.
The whole thing was wrapped up by a heathen ritual held outside which was followed by a performance by the proverbial Damh the Bard which, as always was excellent.
I really enjoyed my visit to Preston. If I had one small criticism it would be that at times there was to much background noise in the main room due mainly to trade at the stalls, bar and food servery but it didn’t detract from the overall quality of the event.
A big thank you to Tasha and John for putting together a great event.
DJ
In spite of predictions to the contrary, this turned out to be a great day for a trip to Glastonbury. After a slightly murky start, the sun shone all day and even the traffic was, for the most part kind to the attendees.
In a change to the published timings Christina Oakley-Harrington opened with a most interesting talk about Grimoires. She explained about their history, their content and evolution. How, historically they were always handwritten and copied from one mage to another much like the Wiccan “Book of Shadows” is today. She talked of the construction of tools and of temples, of spirits (both planetary and unredeemed), the orders of sprits, their evocation in which they should be beseeched, threatened and finally commanded to appear and do one’s bidding and preferably without scaring the socks of the magician (assuming they’re working robed of course). Oh yes, and banishing. And how, in their final chapters they would often contain some pretty lurid instructions as to what operations might be carried out using the procedures contained within their pages. She talked of how the copying of a Grimoire was a form of meditation, a Tantra if you will. In conclusion Christina spoke of how, both the ancient and modern Grimoires redeem themselves in her eyes by; being a book, being secret (not so much now of course) being handwritten and by being a personal embodiment of the mage and his art, committed to paper and hopefully to the future.
Next up was Nathaniel J. Harris. I know nothing of him and so was genuinely interested in what he had to say. In an enthusiastic presentation he spoke of the magicians code; To know, to will, to dare and to remain silent and gave his interpretations of this creedo, the “stopping the internal dialog ” as a means of focusing one’s energies, of the use of sound and gesture in the magical arts, of the Kabalah and Jesus as a magician and many other things, all of which were interesting. But this was billed as a talk and workshop on Trance & Magick, “of value to complete beginners and advanced practitioners alike”, so you might be forgiven for expecting there to be some fresh perspectives on the art magical but I’m afraid that as far as I’m concerned, there was nothing new here. I suspect if Nathaniel had been talking in the 19th Century he would have gone down a storm but in the 21st ? the verdict must remain out for the time being.
Remember Pete Jennings ? Paganism with attitude ? He’s been around for years but I’ve never had the opportunity to hear him talk before. Pete is a published author and has in the past been President of the Pagan Federation. Here he talked of his beloved Vikings and the Heathen religion and its diversity and culture.
Heathen is an adopted term for all those following Norse traditions. Pete explained how this came to be and illustrated the concept with an amusing tale of aliens in Glastonbury (who’d notice ?)….
He spoke of the Norse gods and how Thor tended to be more popular with the common people whereas Odin was more for the nobs, of their ritual toasts; to the Gods, to the Wights, and to the ancestors and of how the matter of Oaths was a most serious business.
In what might seem strange to many he told us of how they have only two elements; Fire and Ice. That there is not one heaven “Valhalla”, but many, all serving different functions. Of the three yearly festivals rather than the eight which most pagans are familiar with and of how the heathen temples were rectangular.
Pete told us of how it was possible to know what the ancient heathens were doing in their folk traditions by studying the laws laid down by successive kings in the 10th and 11th centuries and what these laws were forbidding.
He also talked of how poetry was regarded as absolute truth and the trouble someone might get into as a result and of how the Runes were used in magic.
A good talk delivered with love and enthusiasm.
The rest of the afternoon was due to be taken up with Patrick Jasper Lee and the Jal Folk Theatre. Shame they didn’t turn up, whatever the reason. Still it meant that instead we got;
Damh the Bard. Is there any pagan out there who hasn’t come across Damh yet ? He’s been entertaining us now for some years but I haven’t heard him talk much until this year.
In a last minute improvisation Damh introduced us to Druidic tradition, relating its apparent history from ancient times to its modern revival. He paid particular attention to Ovates whom he believes were (and I guess are) the “magic users” of the Druid traditions and how this fitted into the overall scheme of Druidry. He continued with an explanation of the Bardic tradition of storytelling (of which he is without doubt a master) and then went on to cover some of the influential characters in Druidry today. Damh wrapped up his talk with some personal experiences and some information relating to Druid seasonal rituals but I think the point he was really wanted to get across was; Druids do magic !
Damh was due to entertain later in the evening. Although I couldn’t stay for that, I’m sure he wouldn’t have disappointed then either.
The last talk of the revised program was presented by Levannah Morgan. Levannah is a well respected figure in the pagan community and is herself the organiser of the Devon and Cornwall PF Conference. Here she presented an overview to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. From a hugely complicated subject she extracted the nature of the Sephira, their positioning and relevance to each other, the interconnecting pathways and how the “power” of the Tree flows. Levannah spoke of the history and some important figures in the occult world who have had an influence on our understanding of the tree and of how the Tarot became associated with it.
In a talk which was presented in difficult circumstances; no props, failing pa system and frequent interruptions from a member of the audience who had obviously had to much to drink, Levannah delivered some good and helpful information, particularly to those who are relatively new to this path of knowledge and also in a refreshing way to those older seekers like myself.
A couple of things struck me about this conference. The first amused me. It was the number of times the Bible was referred to. Secondly, and perhaps more seriously, I was concerned by the enaction of several different magical acts involving an audience who could not be assumed, in their entirety, to have working magical knowledge or experience, and the failure, at least in one instance to ensure that the magical act was deconstructed properly after its use. If you are asking an audience to accept that magic works, then you must surely adopt an attitude of responsibility towards it.
Having said that, I think on the whole this was a good conference. I thank the organising team for putting the event together and keeping things going relatively smoothly in the circumstances. I’m sure most attendees (and I include myself) will have had a good time and be looking forward to next year.
Hats off to the PF Wessex Team….. DJ