We’ve been back from Orlando and SMF 2024 for a few days now and Selene and I were just talking about how hard it’s been to reset. I was telling her that our spirits got a dose of pleasant energy and now they’re in withdrawal again from being in reality. This is a pretty common feeling with all festivals, though.
But just in case you’ve never heard of Summer Magick Festival in particular, it’s a collection of workshops, rituals, vending, and family that takes place each year at a hotel in Orlando, FL.
In their own words:
Summer Magick Festival is an earth-based spirituality convention with workshops, celebration, and community in a comfortable hotel setting. Headliners, rituals, and musical entertainment have been chosen to encourage tolerance between the many different earth-based faiths and foster planetary stewardship. We are a family-friendly event with programming for our young ones as well as close proximity to all the wonders of the Orlando theme parks. Join us for a new kind of Florida festival!
-SummerMagickFest.Org
For any of you folks who haven’t spent much time in Florida, let me explain why it’s in a hotel. If you tried to camp outdoors in Orlando during the summer, you’d die. Or you would wish you were dead. At the very least, it’d be a very unpleasant experience.
Hotel-based pagan events give us all an opportunity to connect and focus on learning while staying comfortable.
Want to hear more about the whole experience? Read on!
Headliners
There were truly some excellent presenters at SMF this year. I was lucky enough to be able to speak with most of them, so if you’d like to learn more about someone in particular, click their name in the list below!
The Experience
Sometimes I write festival recaps as more of an overview or summary or everything offered, but this time I’m going to walk you through my personal experience attending. Unlike last year, I actually remembered to take pictures, so you’ll even be able to see some of what I saw!
I will tell you up front, however, that this was kind of a crazy trip for us. Selene’s father was having his 80th birthday party on the same Saturday evening as main ritual. Also, this was the first time we’d taken the kids on any sort of festival trip. Our time had to be carefully balanced between festival family and… well, normal family. We had to drive back and forth across Orlando like a thousand times, but we did it! And I would personally rate this as a successful test of time management skills.
WEDNESDAY
We arrived early on Wednesday so we could stop by Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
Kisses and Elephant Butts
We took the obligatory picture in front of the big tree thing at the entrance and then saw an elephant butt; therefore, it was your typical Disney experience. We spent the night at a random Orlando hotel.
THURSDAY
The next morning we went to the Polynesian Resort for breakfast. It’s a little too much Disney for me, but the food was good. And they have this “jungle juice” thing that is a tasty mix of passion fruit, orange, and guava.
Now I’m Getting Hungry…
Then we relocated to the DoubleTree Hilton Orlando hotel, where we spent the rest of our time at Summer Magick.
The front of the SMF 2024 Program…
The hotel was kind enough to give us a very early check-in, which was nice. We still had quite a few hours to kill until festival registration officially opened, so we welcomed the opportunity to settle in, unpack, and relax for a little bit.
But as soon as we walked in, we saw tons of our spiritual family sitting at one of the tables in the hotel restaurant.
It’s amazing how you can show up to a place like this and then… all of a sudden, it automatically feels like home because of the people that you meet there. And that’s one of the best things about festival.
At 3PM, all festival attendees were greeted by these bright and smiling faces at the registration desk.
Registration!
To the left of this picture, just outside of the shot, is a box marked “Book Donations for Prison Ministry.” I say “a box,” but later, this had to be upgraded to multiple boxes. And a bag. Which is awesome. We’ll come back to that at the end, though.
I was pretty happy to be there, so I took an obligatory happy picture.
After the obligatory selfies, greetings, and hugs when seeing friends, I believe we used some of this downtime to run to Walmart and stock up on supplies for the week. We got tons of snacks since the kids were choosing to spend most of their time in the hotel room.
But at 4PM, it was time for the first workshop!
All the Cool Kids Were Doing It
Plant Spirit Magick by Ivo Dominguez, Jr.
Ivo’s workshop on Plant Spirit Magick was fantastic. We talked about the “greater earth,” including our planet’s energy field and all the overlaying realms. He gave us a Planetary Seal of the Earth as a 10 x 10 magick square of his own design, which was awesome. Have I ever mentioned how much it sometimes bothers me that lots of planetary magick stuff doesn’t include the Earth? Well, now some of that has been remedied!
Opening Ritual
The Butterflies and Mt Shasta Priestesses ready for opening ritual
Opening ritual is always beautiful. The elements, deity, land spirits, and ancestors are all called in and asked to help create a container for all of the events that will follow over the next few days. Each participant walks around and greets every single person. It felt like there were twice as many people as there were for SMF 2023! It’s so great to see that the festival was growing.
This year in particular was exciting because I got to see my beautiful wife dressed all in white and helping to run ritual with all of the other priestesses! She’s right in the center of the picture above!
The altar, with offerings and flowers
We were all also given a pretty flower from the altar.
The Magickal Marketplace
If you walk around the hotel for long enough, you might just encounter the Queen of Hearts pointing you toward you next destination. In this case, she’s helping people navigate to the workshops and Magickal Marketplace.
There were a ton of awesome vendors in this year’s marketplace, but unfortunately we only had a few minutes to walk around between other events.
Queen of Hearts points the way…
I can tell you that the room was absolutely packed with tables! It’s also open to the public, so any unsuspecting muggle might unsuspectingly find themselves wandering into a room filled with crystals and friendly peeps.
Meet-n-Greet
Right after opening ritual, we all headed to the hotel lobby for a meet and greet.
I don’t recall Thor being invoked during the ritual, but nonetheless, the sky opened up in a ridiculous storm. The light fixtures were actually dripping water — I can’t recall ever seeing anything else like that. Huge puddles started forming all over the floor. Instead of putting “wet floor” signs up, staff just started throwing white towels all over the ground. It was certainly an interesting technique. Lightning struck somewhere, the power flickered several times, and apparently the hotel cable system was destroyed. I know this to be true because when I went to look for an episode of Friends to watch at 2AM, I was only able to find static. They had to go around to every room the next day and “upgrade” things.
The Oracle at Delphi – Know Thyself By Yeshe Matthews
In this workshop, we went over three of the Delphic maxims:
- Know thyself
- Nothing over much
- Give a pledge and trouble is at hand
Yeshe split us up into small groups and we had some great discussions.
After that, it was time for bed!
Friday
We slept in a bit on Friday. If you know me, then you know that my ability to function drastically falls off the chart in the morning. I honestly have no recollection of what we spent our time doing, if anything. I’m sure we ate something.
The History of the Golden Dawn – Chic Cicero
I’ve got to say that a lot of people were really pumped up for classes by the Ciceros. I was pretty excited too! Chic and Tabitha gave a great lecture on the Golden Dawn.
Always an interesting discussion when my notes start to take shapes like this…
At one point, Chic shared some beautiful experiences of doing certain rituals as a group — things that I’ve normally read about and practiced solo. It made me want to try them as a coven. We grabbed one of their books: The Essential Golden Dawn. Can’t wait to read it.
After that, we had to pop out for a family lunch.
Magick with the Natal Chart – Ivo Dominguez, Jr.
But of course, we made sure to be back for Ivo’s next class, which was awesome.
I’m always hesitant to give out natal chart information. Some people might think I’m a little silly for that, but as Ivo explained, it can be used against you. Among other things, he gave us a method to ward our charts against unscrupulous peeps. I’m sure you know by now, but he’s the anchor author for an entire series of astrology books, which you can read all about here.
Right after this, we popped out again to take the kids to a legendary anime store. It turned out to be not so legendary and quite lame. But we also got some ice cream… and ice cream is never lame.
This is “Superman” flavor. I was unable to determine what that really means…
Auction
I was asked to help out with the auction, so basically I announced items and handed them to Eric, who made them fun. There was a bunch of really cool stuff — collections of books donated by authors, artwork, god and goddess statues, and Selene even donated a shawl that she made.
Live Concert by Ginger Doss & Lynda Millard
After the auction, we changed into our “flower power” threads and headed to the concert.
Ginger and Lynda rocking out…
Ginger and Lynda gave an amazing concert. People were dancing and having lots of fun, and at some point we all got dragged into a big spiral dance around the room.
Itzel, Selene, and Me
I did mention that the theme of the night was flower power, didn’t I? The level of tie-dye in the room was off the charts. Some people even went all out with wigs and fake mustaches.
Selene and I had some fun hopping around thrift stores to collect items for this purpose over the previous couple of weeks. That’s where I found these amazing pants.
Peace and love, y’all. Peace and love.
Alchemical Symbols and Sexual Magick with Jason Newcomb
Afte the concert, it was time for another late night workshop.
Jason Newcomb, who was dressed to the nines in a fancy suit, posed a stark contrast to our hippy threads as he jestfully explained how he pulled the workshop title out of his ass. He invited us all to sit around his giant circle cloth.
Jason Newcomb’s awesome circle cloth
We talked a little about alchemy and a lot about sex. His book, Sexual Sorcery, seems really cool. Once my pile of required reading (yes, it is a pile) gets a little smaller, I think I’ll add it to the stack! I personally think frank and open discussions about sex and sexual magick should happen more often in environments like this… without taboos.
That was a pretty long night and we were super tired!
Saturday
We had to sleep in a little bit. And again, I have zero recollection of how we spent our morning.
Ori: Tapping the Power of Your Personal Divinity by Iya Funlayo
After some breakfast, we headed to the first of Funlayo’s workshops. She explained Ori, our personal divinity, and explained some details about our head, gut, and feet.
Funlayo giving us some questions to ask ourselves…
This workshop was some background information to help prepare us for her next, which was a ritual. Like everything else we attended at SMF 2024, it was fantastic.
Ori Activation and Alignment Ritual by Iya Funlayo
Funlayo’s next workshop, the Ori Activation and Alignment Ritual, was equally as fantastic. She sang, chanted, and played her rattle. She gave us oil, shea butter, and cotton to apply to our heads. While we meditated, I found myself totally lost in some cave sitting around a bunch of monks. I loved it.
Big Tarot!
At some point, in some other workshop, people made these awesome depictions of tarot cards. You can see the sun on the left and the moon on the right, with the tower in the middle. They were huge!
Right around this time, I started realizing how nervous I was about giving my workshop. Everything I had learned so far had been so amazing. It’s kind of nerve-racking to teach amongst such excellent teachers.
Fluid Condensers by Aerik Arkadian
But finally, it was time! I plugged my laptop in and started my presentation. There were more people than I anticipated — I ran out of handouts. I guess next time, I’ll have to print some extras.
Me, teaching about some alchemy stuff…
Overall, I think it went pretty well.
Unfortunately we had to skip main ritual because of a family obligation — this was the night of the birthday party. I won’t comment on it any further because I’m sorry we missed it.
We got back to the hotel sometime after 11pm and were able to hang out for just a little bit. It was really the first time we were able to sit down and talk to some of our spiritual family for a few minutes. There was certainly a lot of running around for the past few days.
Sunday
Sunday is a short day plus checkout, so we had to get an earlier start.
Panel on Being Non-Binary and Transgender in Modern Paganism Today by Oracle Hekataios
The last workshop we attended was the panel on being non-binary and transgender in modern paganism, lead by Oracle Hekataios. It’s always great to hear people’s experiences and learn how we, as a community, can be more accepting.
The panel, sharing experience and wisdom
Closing Ritual
Once the panel was over, it was time for closing ritual — a quick ceremony to wrap up the festivities and tidy up the neat bubble of energy we had created for festival.
Community Networking Lunch
This year, we did something a little different. There was a community networking lunch right after closing ritual. A bunch of us met in a conference room and gave short summaries of the type of things we do. It was a great opportunity to meet new folks.
Even if you’ve known people for years, it’s always useful to hear the updates on what they’re involved in. There were a couple of people seeking information and referrals, too.
The back of the SMF 2024 program…
The Book Drive
Finally, let me just show you the awesome results of the book drive. We were able to collect about 80 books to donate to incarcerated pagans. That’s double the amount as last year. As the SMF community grows, our power to make a difference grows with it!
Stacks of donated books…
We couldn’t be happier with this outcome. What’s even better? We’ve also had some inquiries from people that might want to start a prison ministry of their own. If that sounds like you, you can always contact us or read a little bit more here. I think we might end up doing some sort of prison ministry panel at SMF 2025, so be on the lookout for that!
By the way, if you haven’t yet met the triple butterflies, our amazing hosts that organize all of Summer Magick and help make things like this possible, then you’re missing out — and you can hear a little bit more about them in the spotlight article that I wrote a couple of months ago.
Final Thoughts
Because of all the running around and driving back and forth across Orlando, festival this year was a little chaotic for us. But despite the rush and the things we missed, we still had such a wonderful experience. There was no place I would have rather been.
Oh, and can I tell you one of the coolest things that I just realized? At SMF last year, I was very sheepishly talking to Jason Mankey about my desire to write a book. Outside of conversations with my wife, it was the first time I had spoken those words out loud to another person. His advice for me was simple: write as much as possible, all the time, and everywhere. So here we are. A lot can happen in twelve months.
If you’d like to see more pictures of the event, or stay connected for updates on next year’s festival, be sure to check out Summer Magick’s Facebook and Instagram.
See you next year at Summer Magick Festival 2025!
Congratulations to you. There are over 2000 words on this page and you have somehow found the finest. What I mean by that is that you’ve found the fine print. Do not be alarmed. This is just where I tell you that there are some Amazon referral links on this page. If you use one of those links to make a purchase, Amazon will pay me a very tiny and insignificant commission. Hopefully that doesn’t stop you from clicking. In fact, if you’re bored, you could make a game out of clicking every link. And then click every link on those pages. And then just keep going. Eventually, you’re reach the end of the internet. Once you get there, report back immediately. That is all.
Aerik Arkadian 
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