Firstly, I would like to wave hello to all my readers who have been visiting and reading my blog despite my really rubbish attempts to actually make posts. I hope that you're enjoying all the existing content and I will endevour to make some more frequent articles.
However, as we all know, life frequently gets in the way. At the moment, my husband and I have our lives kind of turned upside down due to a major home improvement project (I say "project", we had the entire house extended). We're nearing the end of that now and it will soon inspire a set of blog posts describing my attempts to "witchify" our back garden. I have many plans!
Today, however, I am posting a long overdue review on the third Staffordshire Pagan Conference, which took place in Rugeley on Saturday 27th May 2017. It was actually the last one... because it's merging with Witchfest and becoming Witchfest Midlands. You can find more information on the new Witchfest Midlands 2018 here.
This was my second year attending the Staffordshire Pagan Conference and I was very excited indeed. So much so that I forgot to double check my route and how long it would take me to get from Bedford to Rugeley whilst also avoiding the M6 Toll... which resulted in my scheduling to leave about 20 minutes later than I should have... and then the dreaded M1 reared its ugly head and was a jolly good car park for a while. So, sadly, I missed Louise Whotton's talk "Reclaiming the Crone", which was one of the talks that kicked off the day.
When I finally stumbled in, I was welcomed with smiles and waves from my CoA friends, who were all aware of my travel woes. My apologies to those enjoying Kevin Groves' talk on Egyptian Magic and were briefly interrupted by us greeting each other! Whilst I only caught the end of his talk, I found it informative and gave some good food for thought. Egypt was a big love of mine as a child when we studied mythology, so I really do need to read more about the magickal side.
The food bar was announced as open, so Jenny and I rushed to get some food. We ended up eating much more than we should have, I think! But the food was good, made fresh on the premises and nice and cheap too!
The next talks had me conflicted- now that Staffs has grown in size, there were two talks happening in each slot. I was left with the choice of a talk about herbs with Lynne Tann-Watson or Practical Magic and Real World Ritual by Cat Treadwell. In the end, Cat won- partly because I was already in that part of the building and also because I discovered her work last year (through Jenny) and really enjoy listening to her talk. And she most certainly did not disappoint. She talked about ways to incorporate magick and ritual into everyday life- advice I think we all sorely need in today's culture. I swear, as a teenager, I had a lot more time on my hands to set up and do a proper ritual (if you didn't mind a sister walking in to borrow a CD or a cat pushing the door open to see if I fancied some cuddles). Despite being older, being self employed and having a husband that respects privacy for rituals... I just rarely have the time. Cat gave some really fascinating ideas, for example blessing your lip balm/lipstick as you apply to help with public speaking. I believe she also mentioned something about mobile phones, which is when I remembered I have a notebook application on my phone. So thanks for that, Cat!
We had a break for lunch so, after stuffing our faces again, Jenny and I went shopping for a bit. And parted with a fair bit of money! Now that the Conference has spread out between the original Garner Suite and the Pavillion, there are more stalls to enjoy. So there was much to explore, from the staple CoA stall (where I also had some woven ritual belts on sale- I will have more at the Artemis Gathering) to artwork, to Anna Franklin's books, all the way to homewares, jewellery, plants and- one of my favourites- Spirit Visions, run by Flavia Kate Peters and Barbara Meiklejohn-Free.
Which takes us nicely to the next talk I attended: The Dark Goddess by Flavia. I had done a couple workshops on the subject with Jane Meredith in the past (who was inspirational and I really hope she returns to the UK for Witchfest one day) so I was curious to see Flavia's take on it. She was captivating and a joy to listen to, and she even took us through a meditation. I won't share my experience of it, as it was very personal, but I will say it was very intense and something that will stay with me.
The next talk was one that I have been eagerly anticipating: Hearth Witchery by Anna Franklin. As I mentioned last year, I have admired Anna's work for a long while, since I read her book about Handfasting back in 2007 (yes, Mr Shanti didn't actually propose until 2010, but we were talking about Handfastings for a long while before and this book was one of the reasons why). Since last year's Conference, I friended her on Facebook and have the privilege of reading her posts about magick and witchcraft all year round. This year saw the release of her latest book The Hearth Witch's Compendium, which I bought and can't wait to properly dig into. Her talk touched upon the content of her book as well as discussing how to approach plants in regards to using them in one's magick. She mentioned a couple of well-used tips that are often found in beginner guides, such as asking the plant for permission (which she dismissed as being highly subjective as when permission was "granted") and the subject of offerings- tangible versus energy, where she landed on the latter. All in all, really interesting and definitely the highlight of my day.
Originally, Jenny and I had planned to attend Barbara's talk on Shamanic Witchcraft, however she has a bit of reputation of her talks running over. Usually because she leads very intense meditations which cannot be interrupted if the slot ends. So we decided to shop a little more, and then we got sucked into Pete Jenning's talk on Medaeval Elves. We had initially decided to give it a miss as it wasn't particularly a subject that grabbed us, but Pete's style and the talk's content itself ended up pulling us in. That'll teach us not to judge a book by its cover! I usually enjoy Pete's talks so this didn't come as a huge surprise to me. If he ever winds up covering this subject again, I intend to listen from the beginning to take it all in.
In true Witchfest style, the day was wrapped up with a raffle. And, nope, didn't win anything again. I'm pretty certain I exhausted all of my raffle luck that time at Witchfest South when I managed to win about 4 times. Congratulations to all those people who did win- I promise my grumbling was all in good nature!
This year, I made an effort to stay for the music, although Jenny and I needed more food. Of course. The venue for the Conference was a short walk from the local Wetherspoons, so that seemed like a good place to go. There were some other promising choices nearby as well, which we may explore next year. Whilst the venue for Witchfest Midlands is different, it's not too far from where we were this year.
After eating our combined weight in pub grub, we headed back to the Conference to catch the end of Green Fortune, who were pretty good. It was a shame we had to make the choice between food and them, but Jenny had a train to catch after Damh the Bard and I had a 1 hour 40 minutes drive ahead so we couldn't really eat after.
Damh the Bard was on next and he didn't disappoint. Mainly because Elric put out a list of all Damh's songs that people could vote on. Which meant that my personal favourite, Raggle Taggle Gypsies, made it onto the set list, which made me very happy indeed.
After a good hour of dancing and singing, I poured myself into my car and made my way home.
It was an absolutely fantastic day and I greatly look forward to the evolution into Witchfest Midlands. Although next year, I will be ensuring I book a hotel stay for the weekend!
Blessings,
Shanti
xx