Wild Magick Report

Sep 21, 2006 19:15

By Friday morning my illness had left me enough that
faeryshaman and I were able to leave for green groves of Lothlorien and the revelry of the Wild Magick festival.

We packed up in the morning and headed out after lunch, arriving in the afternoon to find
langs_place in the car ahead of us and
elision already set up and eagerly awaiting company.  After a joyful reunion we set up camp in our sacred cove within the trees.  I took off my watch, that usual omnipresent reminder of the monotonous passage of time, and began settling in to the festival magick complete with blue celtic-print sarongs and matching nails.  After that, time becomes a blur.  Over the course of the festival I blissfully became unaware of what time it was or even what day it might be.  I became totally immersed in the present, slept when I was tired, woke when I was rested, ate when I was hungry, and generally lived in the natural tide of life...

The evenings were filled with drumming and dancing about the bonfire in the dome, complete with copious amounts of wine and the legendary magick dancing elixer.  I met with friends I have not seen in ages. 
midnytefae was there with her husband and their glorious new baby, wide-eyed with wonder, gazing at the fire and tapping his tiny hand with the rhythms of the drums.  It is an incredible thing to see bright-spirited pagan babies being raised in lovingly nurturant pagan families...


pandara was there as well, now living in Indy with
salamander42 and glowing with happiness.  It was good to get to talk with her again, to renew our friendship with a peace and ease between us.  It was good as well to see her free and unburdened now of the oppressive job that she's been under.
Yvonne was there, this time with her muslim husband who had recently opened himself to understanding this wild pagan side of his spouse and was finding a rekindling of their marriage along the way.  She told me that the scintillating "Blue Lady" that I painted at Elf-fest '05 had divorced her husband six months later and disappeared back east to pursue her own stars path...

Friday afternoon my friend Joe joined our merry Goat Clan circle, and on Saturday my friend and fellow therapist Scott also joined us.  In the afternoon we made our collective Goat Clan stew, this time constructed with a great shoulder of venison in a huge iron cauldron hanging over the fire.  A new friend, the slyph-spirited Holly, joined our meal and completed its flavor with a touch of red Thai curry paste.

While Friday night's revelry at the dome ended a bit early and merged into a quest for warmth against the chilly night, Saturday night we drank and danced and blew bubbles in raptuous joy til almost dawn.  The sky was so clear that the stars seemed to be dipping down from their constellations to shine upon us.  A midnight run back to the camp for the remainder of the stew kept us well fueled, as did the Discordian dog roasted by Acorn over the sacred bonfire flames as blue light neared.

Sleeping late into Sunday, we woke to find Joe and Scott already disappeared back into the mundane world. I spent the day relaxing, just sitting or walking around the circle while my beloved napped.  I realized, just sitting there listening to the songs of the forest, that I was completely relaxed- that sort of relaxation that seeps down through to your bones- and that I had not felt so relaxed in a very long time.

Sunday night was purely magickal.  Most everyone had already packed up and left, leaving the circle feeling empty.  We walked down to the dome in the twilight, noticing that the sky was sparking with the reflections of far-off lightning.  At the dome, one solitary figure was there- a Native American woman who lives on the land but whose name has slipped my mind.  She was kindling a fire from the embers from the night before.  As the flames began to build,
faeryshaman,
langs_place, and the fire-tender began to slowly circle around the fire-pit.  Watching from the ridge of the dome, their silhouettes passing in the darkness around the fire, I felt I was watching something ancient and primal.  Finding a drum, I began to add my own slow rhythm to the night.  The women began a soulful wordless song chant.  We sang and danced and drummed there around the fire beneath the lightning-flashing sky.  We wove magick...

As the magick faded back into the night, Lilith came and told us Jeff had called her with the message that a massive line of storms was approaching and we should all batton downthe hatches.  We headed back to the camp, packed everything away, and moved our matress into the Taj-tent with
langs_place and
elision.  As the rain began to fall, we settled in with drinks, snacks, and much laughter.  We played memory games that included such proud moments as a frenchman in a leotard cooking in a iron wok and a counting monkey with an abacus, and then drifted off to sleep to the sounds of the rain.

Monday dawned wet and rainy with little promise of clearing.  Moving slowly, we began reluctantly packing up- a dismal task at best and complicated but the rain and developing mud.  With sad farewells and wet hugs we took our leave and on the drive home a deep aching fragility of emotion began overtaking me.

The past few days have been a slow return to mundania and a trudging through of that peculiar emotional frailty that comes after the intense openness and closeness of Lothlorien festivals.  I've been immersed in some deep reflections on what I want in life, what sort of life I want to live, and where I am in terms of those dreams.  I'm trying to resist the slow insidious return of the stresses of mundania, trying to hold on to that deep and abiding calm that sank into my bones.

festival, wild magick, lothlorien

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