Maebius Musings

We just returned from Starwood (as frequent readers of this blog have been hearing about recently) where we camped with some friends of ours and their little 3yr old son. Not must spiritual musing here, but if you are interested in “The Life of Maebius” read onward. WARNING: Epic Wall O Text below…..stretch that scrolling finger…..

I will try to outline the highlights, but, as with all week-long camping trips, there was just so much little stuff going on all the time, that it is impossible to mention everything. If the others who attended are reading this, please add your comments to help fully flesh out your thoughts and experiences! Generally, it was a fun, relaxing time…but was noticeably different than the first time in 2002.

We arrived on Tuesday after a drive through horrendous monsoons, which suddenly cleared as we got closer to the final destination county line. I’m talking one of those freaky summery storm systems where cars on the other side of the road are completely dry, and you have your blinkers on and driving 35MPH. But, we made it there to Brushwood around 5:30pm or so.

Drove around the campgrounds looking for an appropriately sized empty space, as our friends have a huge 16x20ft canvas pavilion tent to go alongside our huge green thingy. One thing that stood out was the huge lack of empty space. Our first Starwood we arrived a day early during another festival, and had plenty of spots available. Arriving late Tuesday posed a slight problem. However, we eventually found our way to the far south of the campgrounds, and a nice flat spot near the road, and conveniently adjacent to 3 porta-castles.

Wednesday, our friends arrived, and we helped set up the huge tent of theirs, and generally toured the encampment to show them around. Granted, we were in no way Starwood veterens, but having at least been there once, we could safely lead the basic tours. Did not get to the roundhouse that evening, mostly due to rain and general tiredness, and pre-sleeping preperations for the rest of the week.

Thursday, we did much wandering, shopping, and casual exploration of the place. Up in the side fiend beyond the Arches and Sanctuary, there is a very nice labyrinth cut into the tall grasses, and was lined with luminaria. This place was the “Spirit Shrine“, the center of which was large enough for a sizable collection of peopel, and featured a tree decorated in all manner of chimes and bells. Next to this was a large silvery bowl of water with crystals in it, ringed by feathers tied to sticks, andsuch. I left a rock I had painted especially for Starwood there, among a small caern of stones and other small offerings.

The other elemental shrines were more familiar to me, and perhaps I merely missed the spirit shrine last time. The Earth shrine was an open spot where the kid-fires were held, with a workshop pavilion nearby. Just northfrom the “Pufferdome” if you were keeping track. I didn’t feel any strong earthy energy, but then by the time I found it late in the week, I was rather ungrounded and rather unreceptive to such things.

The Air shrine was near the main concert stage, consisting of a circle of stones with a large structure inside it. The structure was part gigantic Dreamcatcher, part “God’s Eye“, and part organically be-ribboned freeform thing. Our sprogling loved to jump on the rocks, and dance around the circle, even when concert events were not currenty playing. So cute!

The Water Shrine, of course, was near the lake beside Arches campground where we stayed in 2002. It featured a large rowboat planted upright by the shoreline, and painted deep blue, and decorated with a creative collection of watery-reminiscent tid-bits.

Last, but certainly not least, was the Roundhouse, Fire Shrine, where the evenings filled the space with drumming and dancing. And seeing the various small plots of landscape marked by either elaborate structures, or simple signs, made me want to build up a few such ‘shrines’ on the Everthorn Acreage. Nothing fancy, but to simply dedicate a place for a particular element or intention, and channel Intent and energies to it throughout the year’s mini-rituals. I’ll probably post moon-musings to this effect over the next few months, since I felt surprisingly strongly that This. Needs. Doing.

Thursday evening was a Pirate-themed burlesque strip show at the Babylon encampment. Our friends stayed to watch a bit, but after one act, it reenforced my own feeling about such events…namely: Meh. It was entertaining in a sense to see the “feats of strength” of the girls and the pole. Such acrobatics were awe-inspiring, but not really “erotic” in my own definition of the word. I could hear the roundhouse in the distance, behind the jazzy rock-music of the babylon party, and much preferred being there. Not to insult the dancers, who were talented and graceful, but hips gyrating in other’s faces while collecting bills under a thin string never has been my cup of tea. Non-model-thin Roundhouse dancers are FAR sexier than that, in a primal, magical way.
Sadly, either I was totally unreceptive to the undercurrents of roundhouse alchemy the three nights I drummed and danced, or the energy of the place was completely different than I remembered. Mind you, energy was raised, and intentions were poured by a few into the ground, and the logs, and the light. The fire burned each night, casting mingled shadows and sparks throughout the crucible container, yet it seemed more casual, and unfocused. My friend danced, and said the music and the heat were quite energizing, allowing him to feel lighter and stress-free, banishing tired sleepiness with ease. Yet, still others commented within my hearing that while sleeplessness was good, there was a much deeper level to the Roundhouse, which seemed vaguely missing those nights.

While trying to refrain from negative attitudes, because the entire weekend was wonderfully cleansing and welcomed, I left on Sunday with more than a slight sense of anticipation, as if the rituals of the week had been cast, but not quite released. Perhaps a mundane analogy would be to cook rice Al Dente when you wanted soft pudding.

I’ll also admit that one evening, I brought some sacred brew in order to tap into the undercurrents and energies of the festival, which was moderately successful. I drank with Intent to release some nagging stress and doubts I had in my mind regarding certain matters, and with a blessing to the little helpers of the woods. That evening, the stars shone brightly, and I drummed at the roundhouse, losing myself for a few hours in the pulsing beats. I did see a new facet of the issues I had meant to work through, which was good, but I also noticed with sharp surprise an effect of alcohol within the dancers of the fire shrine. I never saw bottles, cans, or such, nor were there stumbling fools endangering themesleves or others, but in that meditative clarity I smelled/sensed/felt fair number of people who bottlenecked the flow of Light. (this is difficult to describe of course, barring overt cliche references and too-personal-for-here revelations, but further discussion can be had via email if interested).

Unfortunately, we were unable to attend the firework and island displays on Friday evening. We setup chairs, kept our little guy semi-sleeping on our laps, for about 2 hours while listening to an amazing Didgeridoo player, but he started to get cold and cranky. Eventually they announced there would be an additional hour delay (thus starting at approx midnight) and so we packed up and slept so as to enjoy our Saturday better.

Saturday, with warm lovely weather, and much kid-playing, was probably the best day of the entire fesitval. I wore a fancy new pair of wrap-pants with my fancy vest, we swam in the pool (or was the pool on Friday?!?) and the wife and I got to spent some quality time wandering around together. Earlier in the day, the torches were wandered through the campgrounds, for all to “add their mojo” if we wanted. I wished for happiness and health to all who attended, that the goodness and peace felt through the campgrounds would spread back “home” as thefestival was over. Of course, it all climaxed at the Great Bonfire that evening.
Tam stayed ‘home’ to watch the sleepy boys, as she had seen the opening festival and our campsite was situated thus that you could see almost the entire woodpile from the tent anyway. A procession entered the clearing, bearing the six torches. These were followed by a line of faeries and flowers, giant puppet-like creations, and a collection of fire-spinners and flame-dancers. A group of the teenage “fire-tribe” kids enacted a fun little skit that seemed to recreate a battle between pirates and ninjas, but I didn’t see who was victorious. Then, with Poi, fiery hula-hoops, and fans, these fire-folks danced to the drums and encircled the fire a few times, while the tempo and energy of the drumming built up. Finally, the bonfire was lit, after a bit more ritualized posturing from the torchbearers. Being stuffed with hay/straw, the fire quickly blazed up, and lit all manner of sparkling firework fountains and glittering rockets as it was engulfed.

Amazing!

Of course, then the drumming shifted to a more free-form jam and the field becvame awash in bodies all circling the flickering light. It was as magical as I remembered it, and during the initial pre-lighting wind-up, I finally felt a deep, subtle, and powerful current of WOW-power flowing through the campground. The magic still worked.

…
Our neighbors were a large collection of family folks. The neighbor who we wound up befriending most was “Flec“, which could have been initially possibly caused by the parental intonations coming from our camp, calling his name. “Hey!” – “wha?..oh, you were talking to the sprogling. HeHe“. Flec also is a very accomplished contact juggler, hula hooper, and all ’round awesomesauce performer. Was very pleased to make his aquaintance, and take a workshop he taught on contact juggling. (AKA: “That thing David Bowie Michael Moschen does in Labyrinth with crystal balls”).

Most of the time was spent either cooking, eating, resting at camp, shopping, and generally hanging out at Kid Village with the sprog or our friends. Our little guy really got along with the other kids, and totally looked forward to the playtime socialization. I think I probably put in around 10 hours there, (am supposed to mention “but never wound up writing my name down for most of the time as ‘official barter’ time”). Heck, it was more about playing with the kids and helping out than ego-taming philanthropy anyways, right?
We also met far too many individual people to name here, but on the off chance anyone finds this post, Blessings and hugs to Jenn from CT, the sprog-friend Rocco and his family, little Eva and her family, Michelle the 8yr old palm-reader, and all the parents and helpers of Kid-village. I had my most fun there among the little ones, chatting with you all, though I know most by face and not name.

All in all, Starwood was great. Next year, I’d like to see if we can attend the sister-festival at that location, known as Sirius Rising. If we can’t, Starwood is still a wonderfully inspiring and spiritual place.

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Random update: I’m back from vacation, and the full posting should go up on Friday once I get caught up from the work backlog which greeted me yesterday.

This post, however, is a result of Bringing Up Salamanders‘s recent meme-tag.

The rules are:

• Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
• Open the book to page 123.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the next three sentences.
• Tag five people.

My results:

the book nearest to me at work was either “The Druidry Handbook” by John Michael Greer, or the “Staples office supply 2008 catalog”. I figured the catalog would not be the best choice.

He challenged the magicians to explain why the walls fell each night. When they admitted their ignorance, he told the king to have his workmen dig beneath the site, foretelling that they would find an underground pool containing two fighting dragons – one red, one white. The workmen uncovered the pool, and the dragons soared up into the sky and battled one another until the red one conquered the white.

This passage was part of a larger story of Merlin, as related to the tales of King Arthur.

Hmm, as for taggings, Nettle, Wren, and anyone else who reads this, since the other folks I have friendlisted may have already done this meme.

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First, a Happy (semi-belated) anniversary of birth to one of our good friends. In honor of the festivities, here’s a song with animals, and plants, because it’s all ‘nature-like’. *wink*

Hippo, Birdie, Two Ewes,
Hippo, Birdie, two Ewes,
Hippo, Birdies, Deer, Urtica Dioica,
Hippo Birdies. Twoooo Ewwwwees!

Ahem….Anyways.

This weekend, in the midst of a final stint of swing-shift working, and packing for Vacation (leaving in about 20 minutes! W00t W00t!), the wife and I went on an actual date!

Just the two of us, to the movies, no sprogling. We saw “Journey to the Center of the Earth” in wonderfully exciting 3D, and staring her pretty-boy Brendan Fraser. It was a lot of fun, and while the movie wasn’t what I’d call Emmy-award-winning, it was sufficiently entertaining, and the full 3D experience made it extra fun.

On the way to the movies, we passed a field of green beans being harvested, and chuckled about the line of cars waiting by the side of the road filled with people all set to glean up afterwards, including one late middle aged woman who was almost “following” the combine machine, picking up beans.

We returned after the movie with whatever bags we had in in the car, and even after tossing about a third of them out at home due to rust, squishy spots, or general un-fitness, we had quite the bounty of beans!

I’ve never actually gleaned so recently after a harvest, and was a bit hesitant about it, since there were literally tonnes of beans leftover in the fields, perfect for picking! I was a bit surprised to learn how much actually gets “wasted” but had it explained to me that the amount we gathered in a short hour of hand-picking, filled the dump-truck via machine, so on a time/cost ratio, it did not make sense for hte farmers to go through and hand-clear the rest of the field.

Back in Lititz, I distinctly remember gleaning through crops after a harvest, but us locals were always the “third wave”, as church groups or the local Amish generally took first crack at hand-clearing, so while I rememberd it as a fun activity, I don’t recall thinking it could be a self-sustaining practice to pad our pantry.

However, (to keep this brief as the car’s about packed for vacation now), after we cleared a section easily reached from the car, about 20×30 in size, and spending a good 45 minutes, we have enough beans to eat for the year, based on our general frequency of green-bean-feasting. The pressure cooker canner ran for a few hours, in the background of other chores, so it was not a huge time-hog last night.

The result: 14 quarts of regular green-bean chunks. 4 quarts (plus one jelly-jar) of larger beans which I pickled whole, (or in tiny single bean-bits for the small jar to use up the last drops of pickling brine I made).

That’s a quart of beans a month, all year, plus some extra. All for a grand total, canning included, of about 4 hours work, in between other chores. I’ve never had such a definitive example of how easy it is to prepare for winter, live “off the land” in a sense, and as a side-note, how wasteful modern agripractice is. I saw enough beans to feed an army, destined to be turned under as compost next week.

Almost makes me want to organize a phone-tree of like-minded folks here, and have “Gleaning Parties” with spies at each harvest-able field in the county. Heck, I could easily imagine setting it up as some sort of charity, where the excess that my helpers don’t take, would be donated to a food bank or shelter. Hmmm….

I’ll be watching the other fields aronud here a lot closer, and we already spoke of making this an annual event if possible.

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I tend to avoid overly gaming related comments here, since this Blog is more to get a peek inside my head and ponder things, with a smattering of vacation news, and My Life events…but playing World of Warcraft is a steady part of my life as well sometimes. I’m feeling chatty, so will gush a bit about the game I love….You’ve been warned.

I play in the evenings, casually, and socially. I have one max-level character after about 3 years of playing, while most sites online say that milestone can be reached in a solid three months with daily, focused playing. Meh. I play to chat, to explore the world, and to unwind after work. Spending a solid 40 minutes to swim around two zones instead of walking through the roads, just to see if they stuck any cool little landscape things on the otherwise cliff-like shoreline is my idea of a time filler, instead of killing boars.

And so, I claim no title as “Raider”, or even “hardcore” in my playstyle. This flagrant disregard for the XP system boggles some friends of mine, (possibly even one reading this) and does impose some limitations on my gaming. I may never see the end bosses of end-game dungeons, though I would really like to peek at them once, someday, before dying horribly and quickly. To this effect, even my high-level (and non-maxed) characters take an evening every so often and solo the dungeons I never really explored. The survival may be easy, but I like seeing the layouts, and noticing the nifty abilities and object-textures used for the bosses.

This casual aspect of gaming, also has recently resulted in my guild (which I became leader of due to my dazzling social powers, and generous nature) recently fragmenting and losing quite a number of players. This has happened before, where people join us fun friendly folk, level up to end-game, then realize that we do not have the numbers to properly Raid Instance, and leave for “proper” end-game guilds. The tough part is trying to keep people in the guild so we DO have those kinds of numbers….but that’s a whole ‘nother topic. For now, Kanandi, my main priest-character is leader of that bunch.

Over the past month or so, I’ve run with a few PUGs (pick-up groups, ie: random folks who get together for a quest of dungeon who are not in the same guild) and befriended some folks in an actual honest-to-Myrgatroyd Roleplaying guild, who is just starting the 10-man raids (entry-level end-game stuff). They like the fact that I RP even while regular questing with a bunch of random strangers. They invited me to join their guild.

So, my second highest character left the main guild I’ve been struggling to keep together, and is now a member of Serendipity. As part of the interview/acceptance process, I had to supply a backstory. A few readers here will have gotten emails with my over-the-top backstory which greatly impressed and surprised those folks requesting a simple paragraph or so.

The issue now is, over the course of the last week, every evening with Serendipity has been refreshingly awesome. We ran some high-level dungeons, using my priest as main healer, (plus speed-racing my lower level hunter Nookni through over-hard content for some nice gear upgrades and fast XP). It was challenging, it was frenetic, and it was a whole tonne of fun! I’ve made three virtual friends, and got involved in a massive guild-related RP event, which bodes extremely well for my chances at staying involved with that guild.

My main character, the Guild leader of The Refugees, now has a problem. I don’t like playing with that guild anymore, due to the abandonment of it from my original friends there, and the still-leveling drama-whores who are current members. I really like playing with this new guild, which matches my playstyle much better, and involves considerably less responsibility as a “new recruit” with them.

However, my own guild no longer has the mix of trusted officers, who I could pass the reigns of leadership over to in a smooth manner. Two of the original active folks are still there, and have been talked with in depth regarding this topic, yet do not with to be saddled with the responsibility. They enjoy just playing the game on their own, and are active donators to the guild bank, and use it to help others. As officers, they are all I could ask for, in terms of helping lead a casual “Leveling guild”. But they do not wish the title of Leader.

As for myself, I’ve pushed aside my character’s own development for the benefit of this lack-lustre guild as well. Personally having donated about 1200 gold to buy bank slots and such, as well as bags for all the officer’s alts. I’m too generous it seems, as those groups either play far too inactively, or moved on to progression guilds now. *sigh* I don’t say this to invoke pity, or stroke my own e-peen, but merely to describe how invested I am with this old guild, and thus feeling a certain loyalty to the old ways there.
So, it is with mixed feelings I play the game this week. On one hand, if not for the ties I put on myself, I would transfer my other characters to the new guild, and join the fun RP. They match my playstyle much better, and are quite willing to run dungeons and such, with the intention of dying if the content is “bleeding edge” and we are not yet geared for them. Of course with this outlook, there WILL come a time when some impossible boss falls down dead, and there will be much rejoicing. I’d love to (even vicariously) be a part of that experience, glad of my cohorts and their victory.

I’m not sure what the overall point of this posting is, anymore, other than to act as a stream-of-mind writing to help my brain consider the options. As a network of friends, it may be just a game, but it is so much more. I’m glad to be a part of it.

I just need to figure out which part I am best suited in.
Strength and Honor!

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Unrelated Intro: Ever have one of those mornings where you get paged to come in night-shift, it’s about 2am, you went to bed at 10:30 or so, and you sit down at your desk with a nice fresh cup of coffee? You know the one, where you’ve just added the tiniest pinch of sugar, and a touch of actual cream (not those sterilized little flavour-cups)….You set the lid back on the cup, tip it to your lips, and enjoy the warm comfy feeling that spreads through your stomach, your waist, ..your legs?…and your nether-regions!, only to THEN realize you never actually Secured the lid properly to the cup, and you are now a dripping sod of “peed-my-pants-feeling” at work, with no spare clothes? Yeah, that was my morning…. *grin*

Otherwise, I’m sure most of the people reading this blog have seen various movies, shows, and books where a character partakes in some amazing adventure, only to return, once completed, to the beginning of the story and finds that no (or little) time has past. It seems to be a staple of sci-fi and fantasy archetype. Narnia did it, a great episode of “Star Trek:TNG” did it, and there are a myriad of other stories and shows that I can’t quite name right now which had similar endings. Even popular culture tells of reliving one’s entire life the moment before dying, or the slowing down of time in accidents.

Today’s night-shift work involved a strange lapse in temporal physics, where I would swear a week went by, in the course of about 2 minutes.

I was mentally planning Starwood stuff, like what to pack, thoughts regarding picking up some hand sanitizer for the porta-john trips, and such. Then, I was out hiking in the woods, at “My place“. (the mental landscape I like to ground and start meditations from)

From there, without going into a huge long post full of rapidly fading details, I’ll summarize the story as me finding my way out of the woods to a nice pseudo-replica of my real life land & house, but not having any furnishings or garden, or other signs of habitation. I vividly recall having to go BACK to the woods, track down a neighbor a good mile or two away, who could do carpentry, haul logs one by one to the clearings near my house, and carve it up into a proper bed, chairs, and such. Then, we hand-dug the garden, tilled it under with a pile of well-aged manure compost, and planted seeds and moved some wild herbs from the wooded edge, to a more convenient spot on the land.

A few days passed, and the first sprouts were peeking up (a bit faster than normal reality, obviously) in the garden, and my bed was finally finished, when I laid down to rest, and “woke up” to being at work again in this reality. Glancing at the clock, about 2 minutes had passed, and the job I was printing was just finishing up.

Throughout the “dream”, the only other person I remember seeing is a strange neighbor with a saw and lathe. The face I could not describe accurately, and was more an “everyman” figure, more than a specific person. Otherwise, there was nothing overly unusual to key the experience in as anything ‘dreamlike’, other than a strange, yet normal, life.
It’s odd to think it, but I honestly felt like a few days passed, and even “dreamed” that at least two full nights passed. I fell asleep, I woke up, did chores, and fell asleep again. Very disconcerting now that I’m thinking back and writing it all down here for the blog.

I’ve had those epic-feeling semi-lucid dreams when I was actually asleep in bed at home, and always assumed they lasted for a sizable chunk of time (even though I have read that dream-state REM happens in short increments). Yet this is the first time I could say, unequivocally, thatmy perception of time passing was at such great odds with the usual chronological progression.

Strange, and probably pointless, but it was kinda interesting to think about today, and thus, worth posted Musing here.

Comments are welcome….for now, I’m going to sleep.
…zzzZZZzzz…zzzzZZZzzz….zzzzZZZZzzzzz…

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Inspired (if not directly taken from) by this posting from Crafty Crow, and to avoid actual cooking in the house last night, the Everthorn Men made bread-cookies!

(sorry, still can not find Digital camera in the house or under sofas…no photos from us.)

The sprog insisted he was not hungry, and since I was too lazy to whip up something in the oven or grill, and had a huge salad for lunch, we made our rendition of those adorable bear thingies. I toasted the bread, grabbed a few appropriately sized cookie-cutters in the form of a big Star, a Gingerbread Man, and a Pooh-bear.

Toppings were arranged in those little glass bowls that all cooking shows use for ingredients. Rainbow sprinkles, assorted unsalted nuts, mixed raisins, toasted wheat germ, tiny apple chunks, and mini marshmallows were available as toppings.

On standby in their respective containers were creamy peanut butter, Nutella, home-grown Elderberry/Grape Jelly, and local organic honey. Also, two stainless steel butter knives for spreading the aforementioned sticky stuffs.
Mise en place.

We toasted eight slices of wheat bread, and each picked out choice of shapes. The individual “cookies” were spread with whatever toppings, with me preferring a PB & Nutella combination, and the sprog trying just about everything (one topping per toast, which surprised me).

All in all, while I could technically answer the question “What did you have for dinner?” with the simple reply of “peanut butter on toast“, it was a helluva lot more fun that that sounds! Definitely something to do again at parties, or camping, where even the simple ingredients turns into a full 45 minutes worth of “play time”!

And I managed to avoid any actual cooking, (beyond the toaster)!

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First, sorry for this being quite a bit late for official New Moonage. Been a busy month, both at work and at home. Sit down, grab a drink, because this is going to be Epic wall O’ text time… I’ll wait…..

We watched a movie “What the Bleep!?: Down the Rabbit Hole” with friends of ours, and got into a rather enlightening discussion about reality, my concenpt of magic, and such. The movie and big debate happened at Watkins Glen (briefly mentioned here) with the frineds we are going to Starwood with, and we plan on re-addressing it further there.

Essentially, the movie tries to explain reality in relation to Quantum mechanics, and add a sort-of meta-scientific aspect to the metaphysical/spiritual world. It seemed (to me) to go out of it’s way to avoid the word GOD, but implied that we are all capable of a vague divinity because we create our world, and are all interconnected. Not in the sense of our souls or spirits as most neopagan or spiritual religions describe, but by the mere fact that our atoms and molecules are governed by quantum mechanics, where time and space break down. Of cours,e it is MUCH more complicated, but that’s the summary I took away from it, funneled down to a single short paragraph.

We also discussed the book/movie “The Secret“, which follows similar teachings about creating your world, and altering reality to conform to Will. …Sounds awefully like Crowley’s definition of Magick, doesn’t it?

The Secret tends to focus more on the “self-help” aspect of conforming reality to your will, and is almost a better “scientific magickal primer” in the fact that it tries to show a method and “ritual” way of viewing the world so that beneficial things happen to you. Concentrating on the Law of Attraction, whereby one surrounds himself with good people and good places, and good thoughts, so that good things happen, is rather similar to a basic description of spellcasting from a wiccan perspective. Remove the spiritual cues and concept, and you’ve got The Secret.

The movie “What the Bleep” tends to focus more on a holistic quantum worldview, and is meant (again, to my perception), to shift how the average atheistic person sees the world, and enable reconciliation of scientific paradigms to the social/ethical questions of “why be good to each other”.
While on the surface, and described in such brief and general terms, both of these movies I can agree with, to a point. However, I feel that they specifically seem to avoid the concept of an Otherworld. Granted, quantum states and such (almost by definition) point towards alternative dimensions, but this is not what I mean. Quantum dimensions are still described as scientific “mundane” levels of reality that are too small to see, yet have an affect on reality. They exist in my personal paradigm, but are still just mathematically relevant structures that comprise the current view of the fabric of reality.

What I think is missing from both of these ideas, is that they avoid questions of Faith, Spirituality, and the like. It’s wonderful to teach a way to improve your life, by stressing personal accountability, yet it still seems a bit selfish. God may not be a man in a white robe and flowing beard, nor may she be a naked dancer leaping around ancient bonfires, but in both these visions of divinity, there is the concept of Other. God/dess exists to the spiritually aware as ‘something outside’ your own soul, though often part and parcel of it as well. The Divine embraces, and is embraced by, reality. It may only be a vague animism, or a full fledged Creator. Yet, to me, is an important aspect to consider.

In the discussions regarding these two movies, my friend posed the hypothetical situation of waking up for work, and Knowing there will be no traffic to delay him. He phrased this idea in terms of The Secret. Asking the universe there be no traffic, sending out his energy to prevent traffic from happening, and then driving to work Believing he will not run into traffic, and then Receiving the drive without the hassle of other cars on the road. Essentially, he cast the spell to prevent traffic, and there was none.

I countered why he didn’t jsut do that every day, and thus never encounter too many other cars, since his 45 minute commute would greatly benefit from such a ritual. He said us humans arent quite perfect yet at “Truly Believing” in such a power, and thus it only works every so often, and sometimes he can’t “raise the energy” properly and convince his brain that “It works”. The more we practice, the less traffic he will get into. It’s only a matter of Will.
My take on the situation of waking up Knowing my drive will be quick and care-free is less active and more reactive. I may go to sleep sending energy out to prevent traffic, but those rare days when I wake up with an honest Knowing, and finding the roads all but empty, are a more complex inter-play of my own energies, and the current State of Reality. In my worldview, I am tapping more into the subtle energies and ripples of Here/Now so that I leave my house at precicely the right time to avoid traffic. I have, in some sense, actively nudged probabilities in my favor, but there is still a reactice/receiving aspect of this “magick” so that my life benefits from my wishes, with minimal disruption of the flows around me.

Another metaphor for our different views is a fish in a stream. Does the fish swim wherever it wants, and leap waterfalls because it’s strong tail allows it, or because the fluid currents allow it to pass through them?
Do we make reality in our own image, or do we make our image into reality?
It’s quite a deep and interesting topic, and one we plan on exploring further during a late-night bonfire and drinks. I think both answers are correct, and diversity is a wonderful thing. I can’t change someone’s worldview with my own, just as they can not change mine. However, compromises and discussion often opens unseen doors to perception which expand our own insights. I’m sure quite a few spoons will be bent as we exchange concepts and thoughts….We’ll see how much each of us bends as well.

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This year, we are returning to the Great Festival that started my love of drumming, and fully cemented, solidified, and otherwise convinced me that this Path of mine was ‘Me’. Yep, Starwood. That bastion of revelry and fun, which can be described, as the website so reads: A place where Scientists sit with Shamans and Druids dance with Deadheads. Where African drums jam with bluegrass fiddles, and political activism meets Earth spirituality – where theatre and life meld – where days are spent in exploration of inner and outer space, and nights blaze with laser lights and bonfire flames.

I found this image form the last time we went, in 2002, thus proving my existance there at the opening spiral dance ‘ceremony’. That guy in the white shirt and black shorts? Yep, me. That cute chick in the green shirt and flowery purplish skirt? Yep, the wife. (this is pre-sprogling times of course) The guy in the robes and blue scarf? no clue, but friendly!

This year we are going with some friends of ours, who generally attend the S.C.A. event known as Pennsic. While this wonderful festival is over ten times the size of Starwood, and has all sorts of cool costumes, workshops, and such, I am totally looking forward to the more laid back and spiritual festival event this year. It may not be the most serious spiritual gathering, and have more of a party flair, but I’m really really looking forward to “coming Ohm”.
All night drumming bonfire circles, fireworks one night, and the freedom to go skyclad if one so chooses, is simply indescribable for those who have not attended. (Heck, even this usually conservative person felt no real hesitation to joining the spontaneous “dance naked in the rain shower” that happened last time.)

There are 18 days left as of this posting, which means our next weeks will be full of meal planning, double-triple-quadruple checking the packing lists, and otherwise getting things in gear to spend and entire week living out of our tent with a bunch of strange folks, many hours from our land.

Otherwise, there’s no real deeper meaning to this poist, other than to say…I can’t wait!

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An interesting pictoral randomness, I discovered over at “Bringing Up Salamanders“.

Here’s my mosaic, organized as you would read text, top left -> -> bottom right.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Type your answer to each question below, into Flickr Search

2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image.

3. Copy & paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

THE QUESTIONS:

1. What is your real christian/first name?

2. What is your favourite food – right now?

3. What school did you go to?

4. What is your favourite colour?

5. Who is your latest celebrity crush?

6. What is your favourite drink?

7. What is your dream vacation destination?

8. What is your favourite dessert?

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. What is one word that describes you now?

12. What is your Flickr/Blog name?

Here are the image credits:

1. Nathan Fillion @ the Flanvention, 2. frozen taco, 3. Non-Active, 4. Emerald Green Thigh Highs., 5. feliciaday, 6. innocent pure fruit smoothie 3, 7. Dolphin Bay Esperance, 8. Ice cream, 9. This is the forest primeval., 10. Tammy’s bowls of light., 11. a puckish whistle12. Not available

I tag, anyone who reads this…

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