You should see my bedroom right now. It looks as if all of the magical clothing from every magical clothing store decided to leave the comfort of their lovely racks and shelves and start a squatter's collective in the middle of my bed. Apparently they also called the "make-up" fairies and the "don't forget all of these accessories" gnomes and said, "hey you should all come over here and see what Gwion is trying to stuff in his suitcase. It's a laugh riot!"

In all seriousness, I love going to PantheaCon and there's a certain amount of ritual that goes into preparing for this one of a kind, four day event. 

I thoroughly enjoy getting the program schedule months in advance, and going through the list of presenters, workshops, rituals, panel discussions and meet & greets to see what piques my interest. There are usually half a dozen offerings that speak to me immediately and I spend the months leading up to P-Con wondering how the discussions will go, or how the priestesses will choose to hold this particular ritual. Invariably, as the dates for P-Con get closer, I go back through my schedule and realize that there are always events that I somehow missed the first time around and I'm faced with the agonizing task of choosing which one of the two events that are happening at the same time, I just can't live without.

There's also the community ritual of "Who's going to PantheaCon this year?". This high ceremony usually involves invoking the "car pool" deities, the Guardians of "can I share a room with you?" and the drawing down of "are you going to be wearing that bodice/leather jacket/dress/hat I saw you wearing at Yule and if not, can I borrow it?"

I also practice a lesser known, very repetitive ritual know as the Great Rite of "oh my Goddess, I forgot to buy dog food, arrange for someone to check on my teenagers, and I don't know where my car keys are, wait, where's my bodice/leather jacket/dress/hat"

But in just a few hours, literally just a few hours, I'll be packing everything into my car and heading down to San Jose, California to witness the best ritual of all - 2500 Pagans coming together to talk, to commune, to break bread with one another, to discuss, to debate, to simply be in each other's presence and to revel in the right/rite to do so.

Oh Crap! Where's my cool hat with the feather in it?

Oh yeah! There it is. Right in front of me.