Crucible Report

A fabulous time indeed!

I had one of the best weekends of my magical career this weekend. I finally got to meet Jow and Deb, excellent people, and I had a really interesting conversation or two with Andrieh Vitimus. I got to meet Kenaz at long last and hear him speak. Totally different than anticipated, still totally inspiring. I met Frater Servitor Lucem and his lovely wife Lavanah after years of correspondence and exchanged magic over the distances, and I am so relieved to tell you he is much better looking in real life than in his online pictures. He sent me a picture once that scared my son. I think he had a Palpatine lens on that camera.

I had long and interesting conversations with one of my Gents for Jupiter fellow members (who also happens to be among my top favorite students) and her wife, and she's awesome. Truly. I bet you solid money she's the only one of my students who could draw Kammael's seal from memory. Except maybe Victor. Absolutely brilliant.

There were several logistical issues that came up for me. Traveling plans will be better planned in the future. And I will hopefully not forget my laptop next time. Thanks Mr. Miller for letting me use yours. And thanks Mr.s Salem for introducing me to DropBox, which allowed me to have my presentation all available when I needed it instead of stuck on a hard drive two and a half hours away.

Perhaps the highlight of my trip was getting to sit in on three of Jason Miller's classes. I think it was three, anyway, the details are already fading into a blur of pleasant enjoyment and good times. Ok, two and a panel I shared with him. And we finally got to sit and talk for almost an hour uninterrupted. I plan to do that with him more frequently.

I've gotten to see Jason speak publicly four times now, and I've gotten to compare his teaching style to my own and those of other presenters. If you ever get a chance to attend a Jason lecture, you should make every effort to go. He drives the main points home without being an ass. Highly enjoyable, enlightening even. 

I was nervous, but probably shouldn't have been. I wanted a noobier audience for my presentation than I got, it turned out to be the people I didn't need to cover basics with, so half my presentation was something I could have skipped and moved on to the meat of daily practice and beyond.

Quick note on if you're the only presenter there in a tie: Don't be surprised when the conference members ask you when desert and coffee will be served, the only other people in the hotel wearing ties were, after all, waiters. Still, I think it was necessary for me to wear one. For personal reasons.

Oh, and the final lesson I learned: an hour and a half is not long enough to cover the entire Great Work and the role of the magician. I figured I'd have that bit done in half an hour and we'd have plenty of time to talk about projection and strategy. By the time I got to the Strategy part, I was reduced to... "Read Jason's book, and do it, it works."

Feh.

Anyway, there is video, and if it's as rough as I think it will be, fuck you you don't get to see it. I was rushed on the parts I wanted to take my time with.

But the good news is, now that I've presented publicly a few times, I'm more comfortable standing up in front of a camera and giving lessons in person. Expect video to play a stronger role in RO stuff in the future. So much fun.