Crucible! And Stuff!

Wow, I am in a super busy time of my life.

Crucible was October 26, and Harper and I had a blast! I got to hang out with a couple of my favorite Thelemites from Dove and Serpent in Atlanta Friday night, and then in the morning we got to meet Deb at brunch! Sister Deb is every single bit as graceful and charming in person as you would think from reading her blog and her book. Also in attendance were at the pre-Crucible brunch were Jason Miller and Jason Colwell, Andrieh Vitimus, Shawn and his lovely wife Liz.

Then ...

Heh heh heh...

Then after that, Harper and I were ordained as Priests. More on what that means to me, you, and the rest of the people on the planet later. Jason, Shawn, and Liz put together an awesome rite for Harper and I and it was beautiful and powerful. I left all a-buzz, and eager to inject the Light of God into anything that didn't move out of the way quickly enough.

I was on a couple of panels then, and they'll pop up on Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole. I got to see Maggi Setti speak on relationships, and Jason Miller speak on sex magic (of course), and Andrieh's intro to information-based magics.

And in the midst of that, I got to give my presentation on Ecstatic Hermetics. I confess, I was super disappointed in my presentation. I had some technical difficulties I couldn't quite shake, and I couldn't manage to tap into that ecstatic Hermetic current I was so full of the year before. I thought it would just come naturally, and be on when I wanted it, and it just... wasn't. It was not the Earth-shattering kaboom I had wanted it to be, for sure.

In part it was due to the technical issues, and in part due to Mercury retrograde. Mostly, though, I was nervous through the whole thing because I hadn't planned it very well. I had planned on candles and incense for the rite, which isn't allowed in the hotel. I had planned on using a projector for the presentation, and I couldn't find the right cable for the computer I had. I had planned on being slightly drunk for the drunken magus style presentation, but didn't have time to hit the bar because of technical difficulties. So I was a little disappointed through the whole thing.

The worst thing was that I was trying to put about two and a half hours worth of dense, advanced material into an hour-plus presentation while leaving enough room for the conjuration of Hermes Chthonios at the end. Poor planning, for sure. But I really wanted to give that presentation, so I'm breaking it into two parts and recording it now. Part One is now available on authorstream, and I'll make it available in a separate blog post.

And we had a conclave of Gents for Jupiter this year. Pretty much. There were about 8 of us at Crucible, and we had an amazing time! It was great to hang out with everyone in person. Sam and Justin, Jesse and Jessica, Harper, Jason, Andrieh, and myself... I think that was everyone that was there. It was heavy.

There are pictures of me at Crucible on my facebook page. I'd like to post pics of the Gents and the ordination, but there are folks who need to be discreet about their involvement in the occult in the photos. Let me just tell you it was amazing, and you'll have to take my word on it for now.

And it was a learning experience. I've been putting off launching the ROpocalypse in full because I wanted everything to be perfect. And I realized this year at Crucible that things don't have to be perfect to get going. They just have to get going to get going.

So that's what's going to be happening around here over the next few weeks. Things are already set in motion, and it may not be perfect right out of the gate, but it'll be movement towards the goal. And that will do nicely.