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omorkaI dropped by Houston Pagan Pride Day this afternoon, mostly to see Ginger Doss, a fabulous Texas musician who was playing about mid-afternoon (more of that a couple of paragraphs down). I hadn't thought it was particularly well-organized or well-advertised this year, but it was crowded, so at least some of the advertising found its audience all right. The venue, a fairly large pub, wasn't great as far as size and layout went, but they were friendly and well-staffed, which counts for a lot.
I didn't buy anything from any of the vendors, which was a little disappointing for me. There just wasn't anything I really needed. Partially that was because most of the jewelry was not terribly Pagan-themed, and an awful lot of it was steampunk. There was some votive art, but most of it was two-dimensional, and at this point I'm looking for three-dimensional pieces - a votive painting has to be stunning to tempt me at this point, and while what was there was largely very good, none of it reached that (perhaps unreasonably high) expectation.
There was a drum circle going on when I got there, which was pretty good for its size; I think the local drumming community has gotten better in the last five years or so. Ginger got started about five minutes after the drum circle cleared out, and her first few songs were from her last album (which is good but not my favorite) and the one she's hoping to release next spring (I really liked one of those; the others I'll probably have to hear again). Then she started to work backward into her Hand and Hammer album, which I highly recommend if you're into Pagan-Hindu Nerd Folk Rock. The last two songs were ones she wrote in her Velvet Hammer/DreamTryBe days, and despite the foot issues I got out on the dance floor. The first was "Four Directions," and traditionally the dance floor does a grapevine circle into a Spiral Dance during the long outro. Somehow I managed this with cane in hand. If it wasn't consecrated before, I'm pretty sure it is now. :-) Then she called up another former member of VH/DT, Tabber, and a guest vocalist whose name I didn't catch, and went into "Come Down," which is essentially a song about Drawing Down the Moon. Without getting too much into personal details, yeah, it worked - I'm pretty sure there were about a dozen deities dancing with/in us on the dance floor, and I can absolutely vouch for two. Lots of energy, and it wasn't even technically formal ritual! (Well, maybe in the Spouse's religion.)
Then I ended up in a conversation about the local CUUPs groups. I still support CUUPs, of course, but I'm pretty sure my experiment with Unitarian Universalism is over - I'm certainly not the former, and I'm the latter only in a rather perverse way at the moment. (Developing a relationship with one of the Queens of Hell will do that to you.) What I need is . . . something else. I'm glad for my sojourn there, but that's not where I need to be now.
Anyway, it was a better event than I was expecting, and I'm glad it came off okay. Hopefully next year will be more organized, and hopefully either Ginger or one of the other VH/DT ladies will be able to be there - it's always great fun to hear them perform.
I didn't buy anything from any of the vendors, which was a little disappointing for me. There just wasn't anything I really needed. Partially that was because most of the jewelry was not terribly Pagan-themed, and an awful lot of it was steampunk. There was some votive art, but most of it was two-dimensional, and at this point I'm looking for three-dimensional pieces - a votive painting has to be stunning to tempt me at this point, and while what was there was largely very good, none of it reached that (perhaps unreasonably high) expectation.
There was a drum circle going on when I got there, which was pretty good for its size; I think the local drumming community has gotten better in the last five years or so. Ginger got started about five minutes after the drum circle cleared out, and her first few songs were from her last album (which is good but not my favorite) and the one she's hoping to release next spring (I really liked one of those; the others I'll probably have to hear again). Then she started to work backward into her Hand and Hammer album, which I highly recommend if you're into Pagan-Hindu Nerd Folk Rock. The last two songs were ones she wrote in her Velvet Hammer/DreamTryBe days, and despite the foot issues I got out on the dance floor. The first was "Four Directions," and traditionally the dance floor does a grapevine circle into a Spiral Dance during the long outro. Somehow I managed this with cane in hand. If it wasn't consecrated before, I'm pretty sure it is now. :-) Then she called up another former member of VH/DT, Tabber, and a guest vocalist whose name I didn't catch, and went into "Come Down," which is essentially a song about Drawing Down the Moon. Without getting too much into personal details, yeah, it worked - I'm pretty sure there were about a dozen deities dancing with/in us on the dance floor, and I can absolutely vouch for two. Lots of energy, and it wasn't even technically formal ritual! (Well, maybe in the Spouse's religion.)
Then I ended up in a conversation about the local CUUPs groups. I still support CUUPs, of course, but I'm pretty sure my experiment with Unitarian Universalism is over - I'm certainly not the former, and I'm the latter only in a rather perverse way at the moment. (Developing a relationship with one of the Queens of Hell will do that to you.) What I need is . . . something else. I'm glad for my sojourn there, but that's not where I need to be now.
Anyway, it was a better event than I was expecting, and I'm glad it came off okay. Hopefully next year will be more organized, and hopefully either Ginger or one of the other VH/DT ladies will be able to be there - it's always great fun to hear them perform.
