I’m back from the Esoteric Book Conference (and other stuff) “weekend pilgrimage,” and it was, on the whole, a successful event, and an enjoyable one for me.
Apart from some minor travel annoyances (in addition to the fact that I had around 80+ lbs. of baggage in three bags that I had to lug about with me), I can say in general the following…
The Good: Seeing lots of old friends; meeting some new friends; having a large group of Mystai of Antinous in one place together and them feeling as though they’ve deepened in their knowledge of Antinous and the Serpent Path as a result; hearing some good presentations; trading some of my books for the books of other cool people. Further, the wedding ceremony that I performed on Saturday went pretty well without a hitch, and was universally appreciated, applauded, and enjoyed by everyone who attended, and most of them told me so afterwards.
The Bad: Certain presentations were abysmally awful for various reasons (which I’ll describe in my full debrief post on the EBC in the next few days) in manners that ended up impeding further aspects of the conference, including my own presentation. I sold enough books to pay back my investor, but the sales in addition to that pretty much paid for dinner last night and my trip back today. And, the family members who so loved and appreciated my wedding didn’t pay me as much as I thought we had discussed several months back, and in fact paid me less than they tipped their wedding planner (who they also had to pay a fee to), which basically means that as far as paying the bills next month goes, I’m going to be hounded by my debtors until my first paycheck from resuming collegiate teaching comes in, because I won’t have enough money by the time the bills are due.
Because of the latter matters in particular, the following will be the situation on this blog for the remainder of the month: I’ll be posting on my experience of the EBC, and on another matter which has come up in the last few days (don’t worry, it’s something fun that I think you’ll enjoy!), and a short post on the Ekklesía Antínoou holidays for the rest of the month; but, apart from that, I won’t be posting, because I’m going to need to do anything I can meanwhile to beg, borrow, steal, or sell stuff for enough money to pay my bills and meet other obligations I’d made, thinking that my financial situation at present would be more stable than it is. (If you end up buying any of The Red Lotus Library’s books in the meantime, it’s certainly appreciated, but it won’t help me out now, because sales from September won’t actually be paid to me until November…so, no need to buy anything from me now to help me out of a tight spot.)
Unfortunately, the time and effort spent on this blog, as much as I enjoy it, and as much as I think it is useful for some people (who have told me so, which I appreciate!), could often be better spent doing other things. My spiritual practices in devotion to Antinous, Polydeukion, and many other deities do not cease when I’m not writing this blog, so it’s really an adjunct to my devotional activities rather than a mainstay or the foundation of them, and as a result, when crunch times come, something has to give, and this blog is that particular “something.”
So, with any luck, more tomorrow and perhaps the following day on the EBC and other things, and then our Eleusinian Festival on Friday, and a few other things during the month. I hope everyone else is well in the meantime, and is not in the shit as bad as I am, by any stretch of the imagination!
Hi Lupus,
good to hear a few details about the conference. I look forward to hearing more in the coming days.
Given your current (temporary!) financial difficulties, perhaps you’ll allow me to pre-pay at least half of whatever course I’ll be
taking from you in November. Please.
Be well, and welcome!
Fondly, Duffi
By: Duffi on September 17, 2012
at 7:02 pm
Thank you so much!
We shall discuss this more in e-mail when you have a moment, eh? I must get back to some of the work now…but, we’ll speak further soon!
By: aediculaantinoi on September 18, 2012
at 12:15 am
This is a true shame. May the gods smile upon you, dear friend, and may you prosper as a result.
By: thehouseofvines on September 17, 2012
at 7:35 pm
Thank you, dear friend!
I thought of you at the conference rather a lot, but particularly when something happened right before my session: Leon of Travelers made this Hermes shrine in the back of the presentations room, which I’d looked at but not “used” until right before my presentation. We were supposed to take a rock from a bucket, charge it with our intentions, place it on a small herm/pile at the base of the shrine, and then if it fell off right away, that meant we were supposed to get our wish soon. I picked up my rock, wanting to be in good with Hermes before my talk–as well as with Antinous (to whom I had just finished my private prayers)–and the rock I picked up had a small, live spider scurrying around it/upon it! I didn’t move the spider away, and it just kept going around and around on the rock while it was in my hand, and I did my thing, and the rock fell off the herm immediately. I don’t know what happened to the spider, but I took it as a good sign in general, given Hermes, spiders, and Antinous’ various connections…
I can say, though, that my intentions/wish didn’t get fulfilled, because–Hermetic (or at least Mercurial) indeed though my wish was–I only sold three more books after my presentation, rather than selling as many as possible so I wouldn’t have to carry them back to Anacortes via four buses and two ferries the next day.
By: aediculaantinoi on September 18, 2012
at 12:19 am
I enjoyed the conference a great deal and would definitely go back again. For me, the highlights were the presentations on Haitian Vodou and The Occult in Modern Art. I heard the panel on East/West stuff was pretty good, but I missed some of it because my back was hurting. I also enjoyed the first talk on John Dee, and Erynn’s talk on the Ogam. And, of course, yours. Overall, the majority of presentations were well done and worthwhile.
But there were 2-3 that had great potential, but were marred by poor presentation skills. As a rule, don’t read your entire presentation. If you are just going to read a paper you wrote, then you could have handed it to me and just let me read it myself. And then on the other extreme, don’t just ad lib everything. Have at least a structure and basic outline. Just showing pictures without any concept of an overall flow and talking disjointedly about those pictures.. well that’s not interesting either. The best presentations are somewhere in the middle. They have structure, the presenters knows where they are going with the talk, but not so structured that it feels canned and boring. (You have good presentation, skills, btw)
And I am sorry to hear about you continued financial difficulties. I know how stressful that can be, having been there myself rather often.
By: Kurt Granzow on September 18, 2012
at 8:02 am
Yes–totally agree with your assessment. (I really wish I could have been there for Erynn’s…it got very good reviews indeed from lots of folks.) I loved Mambo’s talk, as well as Pam Grossman’s; William’s on John Dee was also quite interesting, and the panel (which I didn’t hear all of either) was interesting too, though I’d heard both of the panelists speak last year, and a lot of what they said was repeated from that occasion…even though Craig Williams made the point about repeating things in India isn’t frowned upon, nonetheless, we’re not in India!
But, it was useful, especially to those who hadn’t heard some of those things before. I am also sorry I missed Austin Coppock’s talk, as I chatted with him briefly the night before, and he was very nice and had a lot of interesting things to say.
But yes, both Robert Fitzgerald and Paul Hardacre were abysmally bad for various different reasons. I’ll be saying as much in my evaluation of them in my write-up tomorrow…
I’m glad you thought mine was all right, though! I do try and have an engaged and varied presentation, and I think having the non-PowerPoint visual aids and other things (like Mambo did with her invocations) helps a lot…hopefully!
By: aediculaantinoi on September 18, 2012
at 5:48 pm
Random question here… are you familiar with Welsh mythology and religion? Do you happen to know any solid resources for such? Specifically, looking for information on Gwyn ap Nudd, but you know how it is, the internet is untrustworthy and I don’t know the subject enough to discern real from BS.
By: Dver on September 20, 2012
at 10:37 am