Pantheacon

Pantheacon is a pagan conference held in northern California for the last 15 years. This year I had a little booth. It was really cute and I hope to have pictures soon from Rees, Carla and Sheree, the people who were selling witch hats next to me. I tried on a hat called Rodeo, which was fun!

At the conference I met up with my friend Diana Disimone who owns Tree of Life Bookstore in San Diego, California. She's been expanding her herbal line and is going to donate a recipe to our book. Rabbit, a storyteller, herbalist and owner of Sacred Wells in Oakland, California has been creating different herbal oils and is also going to give us a recipe. I love expanding the wealth of knowledge by having many people offer recipes to the book. Jeff Winters taught classes on making Damiana fruit elixers. I tried blueberry, blackberry and peach Damiana. YUM! I hope Jeff decides to give us a recipe. Send your mojo his way, cuz these were some fine drinks!

I also had the Rose Geranium Hand Salve available for sampling. I've been putting it on so much, my nails have begun to grow. Gotta love it!

I love going to conferences, fairs and festivals to sell my books or give talks. At these themed events, whether faerie, renaissance, Celtic or pagan, I feel surrounded by my kin folk – other people who have chosen a life of passion and I drink deep from their eyes, where I am honored for singing my heart song, for being true to myself. Then perhaps most importantly, looking deep into my own eyes, I find unconditional love for my individual spirit. When I bask in this acceptance, I find deep appreciation for life’s gifts that surround me and move through me. In fact, I feel so at home in my own skin that I become unzipped.

To be unzipped means that you shed the masks you wear that make others comfortable, the guises that make you look like everyone else. You are authentically, screamingly, uniquely you. Unzipped means that you’ve let out your free, childlike self and are living in the present moment, in love with life and all that it has to offer. Being unzipped means releasing fear, dissolving blocks, eradicating excuses. To each, being unzipped looks different, but I would venture to say it all feels like you’re riding the back of the wind, at peace with life and ready to make whatever changes necessary to live this way every day, not just on Faire Day.

Writing this book makes me feel unzipped.

Fiji Magick

This is a picture of Fiji. It is it’s own little ecosystem in a jar. How cool is that?
The significance of this image is remarkable.

It represents organic growth and self sustainability.

Now the really interesting part is this is a gift from my friend and co-author Jamie Wood.

When we met we worked together. Then drifted apart, then back together. In the back together phase Jamie had done this very amazing women’s retreat in Fiji that inspired so many women to “let themselves out”. It was raw and of the earth and pure spirit.

She brought back from this experience a rock. And a jar of water. Then she gave it to me.

One day I was looking at them and they kept scattering and just falling into the abyss in my house so I decided to drop the rock into the water.
No intention. Just Instinct.

Then I let it go.

Out of that has grown this self sustaining eco-system that frankly, won’t die. I’ve stuck it in boxes, it’s been shook up, my children have handled it and nothing has killed it.


This is such a powerful symbol of releasing all expectation and fear. Of following instinct and watching the outcome when we get out of our own way.
Whenever Jamie and I get stuck in a box, we remember Fiji. The magick created on that journey. The magick created by instinct. And what happens when we step out of our box …created by fear and control and analysis…and just let the rock and the water do their trick.

That is how we work together. She provides the rock and the water. I drop it in the jar and let it grow.

How freakin’ amazing is that?