Pagan Pride Day L.A. 2010
by V.E. on October 7th, 2010
filed under recap/review, spirituality
Despite not being able to get a ride to Pagan Pride Day this year (see also my tweets about it), I was able to work out a deal to take the train and bus down to Whittier Narrows Regional Park on Sunday morning, September 26, and have someone pick me up at the end of the day.
I got there early and walked around the park while I waited for the festival to open. It was free to all, but food drive donations (non-perishable food items) were being accepted. I gave them two cans of tomato soup and a cap of chicken broth.
Shortly after 11:30, Tribe performed bellydance routines for the crowd.
While I waited outside the gate for the festival to be open to the public, I met another young woman who was waiting. I learned she is 17, still in high school and living at home with her dad, who is a conservative Christian. She keeps her ritual and spell supplies underneath her bed, where he doesn’t usually look except to shoo the dog out from her room. I didn’t tell her my name and she didn’t tell me hers, but I told her a little bit about myself, too, until the gates opened. (She actually told me a lot more about herself, but I thought it might seem creepy if I wrote down what she was telling me, so the result is that I remember less of it.)
We went inside and I gave the front table my donation. We walked around looking at vendors until I noticed one of Octaveleap‘s friends running one of the booths. I was surprised to see her, and I didn’t even recognize her at first, but I remembered her tattoo from one time I was visiting Octaveleap. (Dice was staying with her while she was in town from New York, and the three of us were having lunch at O’s place.) Anyway, we said our “hello”s and “wow! I didn’t think I’d see you here!”s, et cetera, before I turned around and the girl I’d met outside the gate had disappeared. (No great loss, I suppose, since we never exchanged names or other serious details.)
One of the day’s more creative (colorful!) vendors trying to keep out of the heat.
I walked around the vendors for a while and even got a couple of pictures. It was blazing hot by the time the opening ritual began. It was presented by the Circle of the Sacred Flame. I also attended the Raven’s Cry Grove ritual and the Fall Equinox ritual, presented by Fellowship of Druidism for the Latter Age.
Three members of the Raven’s Cry Grove clergy during their ritual.
Actually, taking pictures became somewhat awkward for me because I was acutely aware that if I walked into a church on a Sunday morning and took pictures of the service like a tourist, I’d be shunned and possibly even kicked out. This held the same principle (they were religious ceremonies, after all), so it felt like I was being rude to photograph during a ritual, especially when I was also taking part in it. (On the upside, the guy in the white ritual garb in the above picture, Mike, either didn’t notice my surreptitious photography or didn’t mind it; he remembered my green shirt afterward and introduced himself at the next ritual we both attended.)
One of the dancers of Kardia Mortis.
I floated from the vendors that caught my eye to the entertainment (including Kardia Mortis, one of the dancers of which is above). I didn’t manage to get to any of the workshops, though a few looked interesting. As I passed the vendors, I picked up their information to look at more thoroughly later, or at least their business card. (Of the 35-ish business cards I collected, I’ve looked twice at about ten; I’m keeping them all for future reference.) There was even an area for kids and a story time by the author of ABC Book of Shadows.
Overall, I had a good time and really enjoyed myself, despite the near-record heat. I would have preferred to go with friends, but it was okay by myself, too. The deal I worked out to have someone pick me up was good, too, and I was even able to catch an early ride because it was just too hot for me to sit around for another entire hour after having checked everything out as thoroughly as I was going to. Good times all around, and I’d have stayed longer if I wasn’t dying of heat exhaustion, but weather is weather, so there you go.
An example altar created by the Apprentice Class at Raven’s Cry Grove.
See more photos of Pagan Pride Day, including larger sizes.
