Pantheacon - Learning to listen

Pantheacon unpacked it's pagan suit cases and moved into the Doubletree hotel in San Jose again this weekend. If you've never attended "P-Con" it could be described as a pagan education program, gathering of the tribes, glorious party, and a colourful circus inspired masquerade ball. It's simultaneously loud and boisterous, intimate and contemplative, personal and collective. There are skilled witches leading rituals, pagan authors and artists lending their voices to their work, panel discussions on the future of pagandom, politics, civil rights and just about anything else you could imagine (and at least a half a dozen things you couldn't imagine, but they are there as well!).

There's also a sound, a rhythm, a pulse to Pantheacon that's as much a part of it as the sights and smells and that's what I was interested in exploring.

Ivo Dominguez, Jr lead an interactive discussion called "Empowering the Magikal Voice". The class focused on the ability of the voice to elicit different sounds that resonate on the physical and subtle plains. A key to understanding this work centered around listening. I'm always impressed when a presenter "gets" that sound is made up of the noises made and, importantly, the silences in between. Listening is the action of hearing with intent and when one listens with all of the senses, feels the rhythm of the room, sees how the sound bounces around a circle, it's transformed from just vibrations felt in the inner ear and translated to patterns in the brain to something more visceral and tangible. As a drummer and musician creating sounds that deeply affect the people I'm in circle with is highly important. I want the songs I sing or the beats the drums pound out to reside in the body and soul equally. What Ivo Dominguez, Jr was able to communicate through this workshop was that sound (his emphasis was on the voice, but I think it's safe to say that it can be expanded to music as well) is enhanced when it is applied with conscious effort, emotion and aligned magical intention. Those sound goes beyond hearing and travel through the ether, as it were, to rest in another plain. Sound a little too "woo-hoo" for you? Try this...make a sound with your voice, pour yourself into it. Stop making the noise. Can you still hear it? Can you feel it in your body? Can you reach out and touch that sound "somewhere"? That's a glimpse of the work Dominguez does and it really set the foundation for what I heard and felt at P-Con. For more on Ivo's work check out his site www.ivodominguezjr.com.

Later in the conference I found myself sitting in a large circle, maybe a hundred people or so, with Margot Adler leading us all through a series of songs and chants. The class was called "Chanting as Part of Seamless Ritual". Margot focused on the constant hum, growls, exhalations, shouts, yips, chanted words and harmonies that make up so much of the ritual song experience. What I found most interesting though was her explanation of listening. It matched, practically word for word, what I'd heard earlier on. She directed the circle to listen before adding in our voices. She cautioned against making noise for our own sake and finding the places where our sounds would add to the presence of the song, to the bulk and magic of the song. In short, she said that the most important part of a chant/song was knowing how to listen and not sing. We made collective noises for over 90 minutes, seamlessly and effortlessly moving from piece to piece, allowing for swelling and silence and it happened organically. As we listened, it seemed obvious how the voices should blend. And for my part, I could "see" the sounds and "feel" them in a way I hadn't before. And they reside there still. Margot's information is all over the Internet and she's a prolific personality. A good spot to start if you are unfamiliar with her is www.witchcraftandwitches.com.

And finally, and close to the heart of Pagan Sounds, were the drum circles - thirty or so drummers from skilled musicians to the "bang on pots and pans" variety all showed up for some rhythmic fun. Belly dancers, trance dancers, folks that just wanted to shake their tail feathers came to add their flair to the music. What makes a drum circle work, especially an ad hoc one, is the cooperation of the drummers to settle in, find their drum's voice, expand or contract the beat as it calls and to let "it" take over so the sounds become more than the some of their parts. And this of course, is exactly what Ivo and Margot were talking about. That moment when separate sounds become one sound and that one sound moves through the ears, through the body, into the soul and then out, out to where the god/dess can hear it.

Happy drumming...