I finally arrived home from Many Gods West last night around 9pm, after once again getting stranded by my city’s non-existent evening bus service. Thankfully a neighbor was able to give me a lift. My cat is, to all appearances, no more excited to have me home than she is every time I come home but she is quite keen on having me close to the bed which she regards as snuggle central.
There are lots of things I could potentially write about the weekend but I’m not quite sure which I want to talk about and how I wish to talk about them. Indeed, any write-up regarding the event and my experiences are likely to occur later this month since it’s going to take a while for the effects to settle in and become obvious. That said, I did have a largely positive experience and the problems were of my own making and/or related to my own subjective experience and not to the nature or organization of the event itself.
Though I don’t personally feel myself to be a creature distinct from a big tent assemblage of pagan identities, it is a refreshing and healing experience to be in a place that prioritizes polytheist belief, practice, and experience. It is a good thing, a very good thing, to feel accepted at face value as a Loki worshiper instead of having to simply leave it out of conversation. (My experience of identifying as a Lokean has been problematic enough in the past that I find it easier to simply not bring it up under most circumstances.)
I treated my attendance much like a business trip, because in many ways it was. This is part of my job as a writer (and part of my job as a spirit worker). I came away with a number of new writing projects as well as a venue for one particular article I started not too long ago. I’ll fill you in on these projects as they move forward.
For the moment my attention is focused on catching up on the several hours I missed from my day job as well as the several days I missed from my freelance job. This weekend I’m making a final supply run for materials required for the hand bound copies of Worshiping Loki; I’ll also spend some time cutting the rest of the 40 cover boards and getting them ready. The pre-order was very successful and I’m very excited to move into the next stage of this project.
The Road, the Walker, and What Comes Next 
It was great to meet you, however briefly, and the presentation on devotion had a lot of interesting, thought-provoking content.
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It was a real pleasure to meet you; I certainly hope we can talk more in the future. Thanks also for coming to my session. It’s a brand new presentation so there’s still lots of things to work out so I really value having people show up and let me share what’s important to me.
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Happy to see this post. I was concerned that I had to leave while you were not feeling so well! Glad you made it home without too many extra hassles.
It was such a pleasure to meet you and chat with you! I’m way behind on my responsibilities due to the time I spent at MGW, so I need to keep this short so I can catch up. I’ll be in touch later about the prayer beads and such. And thank you SO much for the beaded necklace for the shrine! I love it. Take good care of yourself, OK? More later!
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Sunday was rough health-wise; I suspect it was in part because I was operating on so little sleep. 😛 (That said, yeah, I am going to go see that neurologist sooner or later.) I’m so happy we got to catch up! Yes, take care of yourself and then get in touch about your beads. I picked up some beading wire this afternoon as I was just going to contact you myself about them. You can email me at salinespirit@gmail.com if you like.
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Thanks! I’ll e-mail after I get caught up. I, too, was operating on minimal sleep all weekend, and it’s only today that I finally feel like I’m back to normal energy levels again!
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Feel better soon. Get lots of sleep!
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Many Gods West was definitely a very fun weekend. I think my favorite parts were the following panels: The Ancestral worship one, talk about devotion, the talk about Monsters, and the ritual held by the Coru Priesthood.
Definitely a fun weekend
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It really was a great weekend. I hope the event will be annual, I’d love to go back.
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