Polyamory: The Beauty, The Pain, The Commitment, The Challenge

I was still rather depressed when I woke up Saturday morning.  How, I wondered, will I ever market my poly-pagan novel when my friend who wrote the gay novel says there’s no market for that?

But I get up and head for the local park for another friend’s Ceremony of Commitment.  She and her lover are committing to a life together.  Not a simple wedding, since they are each married to someone else.  But the spouses are there and fully participating in the ceremony, conducted by a man who looks the part of a Rabbi (I don’t know whether he actually is or not).  Family members are also present.  I hear friends speaking of their own poly experiences, or of their newness to the poly concept.  It is moving to hear people speak of opening their lives to include their spouses’ lovers.

Then I’m off to a Pagan Beltane ritual, which begins with a May Pole dance.  Then comes the actual ritual, with much talk of flirtation and merriment and rutting, the season of the Lady and the Goat.  And in fact the weather has turned warm and inviting.

Nevertheless, I’m still absorbing the news of the Cleveland women imprisoned for ten years, and other people’s stories of rape and abuse.  I’m still thinking about the Pantheacon workshop on Sex Positivity.  How do we promote sexual health and sanity in a world where sexuality is so often and easily turned to abuse?

And that evening I watch the film Pariah with my girlfriend.  It’s the story of an African-American woman coming to terms with her attraction to other women, and society’s reaction to it.

Well—we must find our way forward, together.

Pantheacon (11) – Tantra!...(?)

So off I went to the Tantra workshop, at the other end of the hotel.   A lot of people were crowded into the room when I arrived—I had to grab one of the few remaining empty seats, next to an acquaintance of mine.  I tried not to be overly distracted by the pretty faces and bodies I saw as I came in.  Since this was a Tantra workshop, I was naturally thinking about sensuality, sexuality, sex—because that is what everyone first thinks of when someone mentions Tantra!

 

Now it turned out that the person originally scheduled to facilitate this workshop had cancelled,; the presentation was going to be given by a last-minute substitute.  The new facilitator had to ask for a review of the class description from the Pantheacon brochure.  The description had referred to the intersection of Paganism and Hinduism.  

Given that the facilitator had volunteered for this assignment at the last minute, I really can’t fault him for appearing a little confused about how to present his material—which of course he had had to pull together at the very last minute.  He was an experienced presenter about Tantra; he just hadn’t been planning to present this workshop.

He began by asking what we thought Tantra was about.  People mentioned duality, breathing, enlightenment through sensuality and the physical and the material—and I waited for the instructor to tell us that Tantra wasn’t really about sex; that this is just a western misconception.  As I recall, he didn’t do that.  Instead, he contrasted Tantra with sutra.  This completely surprised me.  Of course the Kama Sutra is a sutra about Tantra, it would seem.    But for him, as far as I can recall, “sutra” meant something like the theory of something, while “tantra” meant the practice.  He also mentioned “vajra”, which I recognized as a word for lightning—generally I would interpret this as the Lightning-Bolt of Enlightenment.  But I don’t recall that he connected it to enlightenment.

He led us in an exercise.  Choosing a partner (mine was my somewhat handsome acquaintance), I placed my right hand upon his heart (the middle of his chest), and he did the same for me.  Then we looked into each other’s eyes.  We did this for one or two minutes.  A little later, the presenter suggested a different exercise.  We moved away the rows of chairs and walked around the now open space in the middle of the room, looking for someone we did not know that we might talk to.  I was conscious of being perhaps the oldest person in the room.  I was reluctant to look anyone in the eyes.  Several times I spotted someone I found interesting, but they were not looking at me.  Several times someone appeared to walk towards me; but I was trying not to look desperate or lonely or needy.  It felt like a dating exercise.  As it turned out, I never did find someone to work with.  And I felt lonely  

What did I take away from this workshop?  I think the feeling that I was not connecting well with people at the convention; the fact that I was feeling disconnected and lonely, a little depressed.    Also an awareness that I was feeling quite self-conscious.  I spent a lot of time worrying about the people around me.  I was feeling old and unwanted.  I felt detached from the crowds of people surrounding me at the hotel.

And I wasn’t sure I’d learned anything about Tantra.  I wasn’t sure what the presenter had been trying to tell us.

But then, the exercises had caused me to pay more attention to myself and my surroundings.  And that was a good thing!  My increased discomfort was increasing my attentiveness.   A good thing!

So ended the second day of Pantheacon.  I left after this workshop, not staying past 11 pm, not staying for the final workshop of the evening.  That way, I could get a little more rest than I had gotten the previous evening.  I would hopefully be better rested for the third day of the conference.

Introducing Pantheacon

I spent the U.S. Presidents Day weekend (especially long for me, since I got both Friday and Monday off of work) attending Pantheacon at a hotel in San Jose, CA—only about seven miles from my home in Sunnyvale.

I’m not sure how to describe Pantheacon to folks who know nothing about it.  It’s a four-day convention…and I think I’ll say that its focus is contemporary American Paganism.  If that sounds puzzling, superficial, or immoral to you, I’ll add the word “religious”:  American Religious Paganism.  If you’re the type who say’s you’re “spiritual” not “religious”…then let’s say “American Pagan Spirituality” or something.

Pantheacon (this was its 19^th year) has described itself thus:  “We are a conference for Pagans, Heathens, Indigenous Non-European and many of diverse beliefs that occurs annually over President’s Day weekend. Well over 2000 people attend more than 200 presentations that range from rituals to workshops and from classes to concerts.”

I arrived on Friday afternoon, after lunch.  My wife also attended.  Every day we drove over, spent part or all of the day there, and returned home to sleep.  We left finally around 4 p.m. Monday afternoon.  I guess that’s only three days, elapsed.

I’m pretty sure I’ve at least dropped by to visit friends attending this conference over the past 19 years.  However, I can’t swear I actually attended any workshops until 2011, when I dropped in long enough to watch a documentary and have dinner with friends.  Last year, as far as I know, was the first year I more or less attended the entire weekend.  My main memory of last year, however, is of looking for everyone there who I had met previously only on Facebook—which turned out to be a sizeable number of people!

This year I must have been wandering the hallways at totally different times.  I didn’t meet any “Facebook People.”  And whereas in 2011 the hospitality suites were crammed with people, this year whenever I went to the suites, the crowd was sparse.

I’m planning to spend some time now summarizing the events I experienced.  We’ll see how far I get!