Pagan Elevator Rides

Greetings from ConVocation 2015  Journey's End: A New World Begins!

We promised updates during the convention, so here's one! There will be SO much more coming, because this year's session offerings have been especially synchronicitous (yeah, I think I made that word up). I mean...we literally just decided on the drive here that we want to write a book, and when we got here we found not one, but two sessions being offered on pagan publishing! But more on that later. This is a brief story about loving our pagan peeps.

So, there we were. We stood in the fourth floor hallway of our hotel, waiting for the elevator. I flipped through the program to figure out what room our next lecture was in, pausing to admire my new garnet Goddess ring. He shuffled in his combat boots while hitching up his kilt to fix his kiltpin. Elevator traffic seems to escalate between scheduled sessions and meal time was just winding down--so we had to wait five minutes or so.

When the elevator door finally opened, it was full to bursting. An awkward moment ensued, while we decided whether to push and shove ourselves in or wait. We could tell the folks already on board were here for ConVocation, and not only by their nametags. They accessorized like pagans. A very tall man in the back wore a black three-piece suit with no shirt under the vest and an ankh large enough to choke an aardvark on his necklace. A heavyset lady wore a long, silk skirt with a corset and roughly twenty dozen bangles on each arm. Six or seven others in colorfully, wonderfully odd attire stood half smiling at us, probably amused at our conundrum. The corseted lady forced the standoff to a conclusion:

"There's always room for kilts!" she yelled, waggling her eyebrows at Mr. Moonyak.

Everyone laughed and we shoved on in. It was almost like hugging. It smelled like hippies. We felt right at home, knowing that our welcome into the little remaining space was entirely sincere.

"At least it's warm in here," remarked someone else...which is funnier if you know that it's been below zero and snowy in Detroit this week.

"That's me reaching under your kilt!" I think that was the first lady again.

The elevator pinged on floors three and two, but at floor one there was no ping. Everyone could feel everyone else waiting for the ping, but the seconds passed and the doors stayed closed. Then came the voice of my beloved--his best melodramatic War of the Worlds radio voice:

"And there was a dramatic pause, as they waited for their release..." Everyone giggled.
Someone intoned, "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!"
 Now all bets were off.

"Let my people go!"

"Release the Kraken!"


That's all. The door opened and we all went our separate ways, smiling. I just wanted to write the incident down as a sort of paean to my community. I mean, how many times have you been on an uncomfortable elevator ride, even if it wasn't so crowded you could lick three people by just turning your head? Welcoming acceptance, THAT is where it's at.