Before going, my son (the sprogling, to many readers here) made sure to tell all his friends that he would be donning his armor, and heading off to Protect the Beautiful Fairy Princess that weekend.   Here’s a great picture of the leader of the Mountain Tribe, calling on the spirits of her direction (with the beautiful Princess in white with orange face-swirls beside her).

He also made sure we brought “his drum” to the festival and carried it so that he could participate in the drum circle, and have a little video of it here.   Kinda bad quality as it is two short clips mooshed together, but I’m slowly learning the camera movie functions.  He drummed for a good half hour, and was rather intent towards the end.  Really getting into the energy of the thing, rather than “just making noise”.  My wife, Anne, and I seemed to have similar visions of him in his teens, at festivals, drumming all night, and surrounded by a throng of cute adoring fans.  (*oh my)

All together, a great weekend, and I can’t wait until next year!

The rock wall has been buried by dumploads of composted pony-poo and mulch and other filler, to eventually be a steep, safer, slope of garden/grass, but this process will take a few years due to compaction of the soil and the sheer volume of wheelbarrow loads we’ll need.  Still, the vision in my mind is pretty nice.

I’ve decided to clean up this spot over the course of the summer, and make a (hopefully) semi-daily meditation while sitting in the area, after doing a few chores to clean it up and such.  I’ll eventually be setting up a little outdoor altar, somewhat inspired by the Bored Gods “Shrine of the Mists” in spirit, but with a bit different ‘look’ physically.

I’ll post pictures soon, but think that starting with the Superfull moon this coming weekend, and Beltane just past us, this is the perfect time to start a Big Project, that can be done it tiny little steps over a long season.

Wish me luck. 

Before that though, I’m also happy to report another win FOR SCIENCE.

(warning: bugs and bits below.  You have been warned.)

This weekend, after a good day of playing around at a nearby farm, and being locked into the chicken coop by playful cousins, we discovered a spider mite or louse in the kid’s hair.  Now of course mom has a bit of an overactive “eww bug!” reaction, but after a recent purchase of a microscope at a yard sale, I figured “why not check it out”.

Of course, the kid was completely boggled by the fact that we “had a REAL microscope like the science labs?!”, but I assured him that it was a recent purchase and may be a bit blurry or entirely non-functional, but it was worth the attempt, for this particular Teachable Moment.

So, we grabbed a blank slide, wiped the copious dust from the lenses, and smacked a cover slip on top of the bug (it was a louse) and peeked through the eyepiece.  The little teeny hard-to-see spec was flailing it’s little legs around, and when the kid peeked through, his shriek of Joy was contagious.   OMG, MOM MOM, LOOK! IT’S MOVING! LOOOOOK! YOUCANSEETHEEYESANLEGS, and EVERYHING!

The afternoon then filled up with further micro-curiosity.  I plucked a hair by the roots.  The kid hesitantly yet stolidly plucked his own to compare (FOR SCIENCE!), and we brushed the dog to get a third hair sample.  A bit of lettuce leaf, an onion skin, the wing of a dead fly.  Sugar.  Salt.  Gourmet Salt flakes (not cubes). Water from the pond. Dust from under the sofa.  … all this flickered across the single “blank” slide that was included with the microscope kit. (a LEGO brick did not work, sadly, which I expected, and was a good lesson in optics and transparency necessary for Micro-viewing)

I’m sure we would have continued with flour, skin samples, and such but dinner time came and there were other chores to do.   Still, I’ve added microscope slide kits to my Amazon WishList, because my son already plans on trying more stuff to look at this week.  It’s pretty awesome.

As for the geeky Rites, I am also happy to report that we have just finished watching the Fellowship of the Ring, and  The Two Towers,with plans to complete Peter Jackson’s amazing trilogy at the end of this week.  We were a bit unsure if he was ready for it, but after being assured (by the kid of course) “I am eight, and Oh Yeah, I love epic battles.“,  we tried the first movie with a finger on the pause button just in case.

We shouldn’t have worried.

So far, Legolas is his favorite character, mostly for the action scenes with rapid-fire arrows.  He thinks Gimli is silly, especially during the battle for Helm’s Deep.  Aragorn is a good king, but dreams about his elf-love too much, but overall, the Ents attacking Isengard were the high point in both movies.

As he said loudly last night… “See, now THAT is why you don’t mess with Nature, right?!”    

That is all.

Purchased thorough the following Merchant:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/LunaRana

Thank you, thank you, thank you to my lovely friend Nettle, for the loaning of cash since the merchant could not accept plastic.   Almost settled the tab, but it was worth the temporary debt!

This resonated with me all week, in light of our barn collapsing, which makes the property look decidedly less ‘Green-natural’ and more ‘trash-heap’ until it gets cleared up. In true microcosm/macrocosm fashion, this just keeps reminding me what a mess we’ve made of things, and how nice it used to, and will look again.

I helped create the BP oil spill after all, by continued use of petro-commercialism, as Anne said recently. I also helped set aside a patch of yard to be tended respectfully and minimally, and am looking into composting toilets and rainwater collection barrels. Each of us has potential for Change, both good and bad.

So, it seems this moon cycle is one where I find myself musing upon Pan more often than not. Pan in his many facets of untouched wilderness, his voice of Panic, and his [pro]creative drive.

Strangely, I have never been one to ascribe to any particular Pagan-themed diety in this manner. After a solid Lutheran upbringing, with appropriate Christians-tinted faiths, my own Pagan path has tended more towards generic elementalism, pantheism, and non-specified Druidic leanings. (Plenty of explanation of my spirituality on this blog’s archives.)

I had a brief stint of Faerie-slant which still sticks with me a bit. But the Gentle Folk are no gods. Otherwise, I’ve generally paid mere lip-service to other cultures’ Deities in acknowledging their existence on some level, but never joining their ranks. I liken this to knowing the Governor of Minnesota exists, but living in New York, if that makes sense. Yet everywhere I’m looking lately, I see horns. My own facebook page photo, for example, then wearing those self-same horns for fun while working outside last week “to be silly”. Looking back, are those silly head-decorations becoming something totemic? I don’t think so, but still, I’ve had them for years and never worn them much before now.

I even found my penny-whistle while cleaning up our closet on Thursday, and enjoyed waking some sleepy half-memories in my muscles by trilling a few songs out off my fingers. It’s no pan-pipe obviously, but the symbolism is surprisingly apparent when seen in retrospect, as they weren’t done with Pan in mind at the time. It’s interesting.

Did any of you readers with a more personalized relation with a particular Higher Power approach things in a similar manner, or were you off searching for a name specifically? Or, I suppose in other words, did you find your connections, or did They find you?

I also wonder if I’m just reaching for synchronisms that aren’t there. A bit of spiritual Apophinia, perhaps?

I also wonder if the webmistress of “The Gods are Bored”, or a Druid’s Apprentice, could get me a proper interview with Pan? *chuckle*

So, while I’m musing on all things goat-boyish, here’s two songs to entertain you. I just re-listened to them at work, which brought me merrily through that afternoon doldrum that hits around 1:30.

Enjoy. (and thanks to Nettle for sharing the songs initially with me recently!)

http://www.youtube.com/v/uxCPkg_Ee3Q

http://www.youtube.com/v/hztAzxNdL8c

However, I had dreamed about this patch twice now in the past week.   The first, was the night I was trying to find a good location for a small Faerie Garden, or place to build a small Faerie-house.   In that dream, I was a rabbity creature caught in the thorns nearby and eventually settled into that spot to rest and recover, before hopping “home”.   The second time was last night, after a meditation on the Gulf Oil Disaster and lighting a candle to honor those beings who will lose/have lost their lives already for our greed.

In that second dream, I was not not there physically.  I merely watched, an invisible witness, as that patch of land grew from bare soil, filled with clover and sorrell and yellow dock, then got choked out by Motherwort, and eventually became an impossible full forest of minitature trees, with tiny fae-homes like the Ewok’s Village, or Lothlorien.

Thus inspired, I am in the process of trimming the thorns, slightly, but otherwise going to leave this parcel of dirt untouched.  It will be cleaned up of any litter and trash over the next week or two. (There’s a few bits of garbage from ancient farm-days in the crevices between the rocks. Rusty nails, broken glass and the like.  Not much, but some.  Folks from rural properties know the sort of thing I mean here, probably.)

After a sort of purification of the place, it will be allowed to grow and florish, as Nature deems suitable.   In times of extreme drought, I will spray it with the hose lightly, if we need to hose for our garden-proper.   If random winds blow refuse into it (roadside trash is an ever-present problem on our backwater street), it will be removed.    Otherwise, I promised the land it would be Wilderness.

To passers-by, no one will notice it.  Just another rough patch behind an old house.  I doubt I’ll feel called to decorate it with baubles and fae-toys (but am leaving the possibility open)  For now, it will be sanctified.

I’d still like to find the perfect spot to create my own “Shrine of the Mists“, with a different name.  Something formal, and such.  But I’m feeling kinda awesome about seeming asked by our land to “Leave this alone, and Love it”.

I’ll have pictures once it’s cleaned up properly, and walked away from on the New Moon.

Photos and pictures to come later, but we returned from a really fun time in Boston for a whale watch.  I’ll summarize here, and post links and photos in a second blog entry this week.  Work’s busy and the evenings are still filled with barn de-construction. 

The bus left at 4:30am on Saturday, and we returned home just after midnight.   Loooong day.

Once we arrived at the harbor, we boarded the large catamaran boat and headed out to sea.   I liked all the little islands we passed in the harbor, and the view of Fort Warren.  The trip out to sea took about an hour or so, and the waves were somewhat choppy (2ft chop, they said) so there was a bit of a mini-game we played inside the seating area.   I’ll simply describe it as anti-Twister, where you tried to Avoid putting hands and feet in the coloured spots on the floor.  (I was surprised just how many people get seasick, since it is exciting to me, not illness-inducing at all)

When we got out approximately 25 miles from shore, we saw whales!!!!   The humpbacks were feeding, which was really neat.  They would blow little ‘bubble nets’ underwater, to encircle the schools of krill and little fish, then swim up into the circle of bubbles and fill their mouths before diving back down and doing it again elsewhere.   All told, we saw what the captain estimated at 15-20 whales in the surrounding area,  and at least 7 individual whales in our immediate location.   They identified one as “Anvil” but did not have too many clear fluke-shots from the bridge to positively ID others.

On the way back, around 1pm, the kid slept after finally crashing from being up since 3:30am.  The return trip to shore was much calmer as we were traveling with the waves, and a steady tailwind. Returned to port around 2:30.

After this, we went to the Boston Aquarium.  That is a really neat place, with a huge, HUGE tank in the middle, full of fish and sharks, and a few eels, and the usual “big tank” sort of occupants.  (video of shark to come!)

All around the bottom were four species of penguin, which was really neat.  The African penguin sounds almost exactly like a burro/donkey, which was very funny.

After the aquarium, we played in a big fountain in the area, which was probably my son’s favorite part of the whole trip.  Shows once again that the best things are [relatively] free!   The fountain was a big flat tiled area, with little holes all around it.  From time to time, jets of water would come shooting out of the holes, in somewhat random patterns, to heights around 15 feet or so.   The kids in the area loved running through the jets, or dashing under the spouts as they rained down again.   Luckily, we had spare clothes in the bus, but for a short time, the kid got to wear my wife’s very over-sized sweatshirt in order to cover his soaking bottom.

After the fountain, we realized we had about an hour or so before the bus arrived to take us home, so we visited Kitty O’Shea’s Irish Pub.  I had the most delicious Fish&Chips I think I’ve ever eaten in my entire life, topped by a frosty Guinness from the tap.  YUMMM!!

The bus arrived a bit late (around 7pm instead of 6:30), and most of the scouts drifted off pretty quickly.   I fell asleep for a little bit, but very restlessly due to the uncomfortable seats.   Still, when we arrived back home around midnight, I consider the trip a successful adventure.

And that real bed felt extra-welcoming when we finally sprawled into it at, fast asleep almost before our heads hit the pillow.

In the course of these events, we cleared out a small cement ‘pit’ approxinately 2 feet deep and 4×5 feet, which is within a few feet of the well. Our guess is this is a trough of some sort from when the well had a hand-pump. Our plan is to use it to grow worms or other compostable critters, since is is moderately self-containing.

As we cleaned out the decades of trash from this pit (which had bits of pipe, broken bottles, barbed wire fragments, and lots of rooty weeds) the kid decided to do a bit of archeology himself with the last few bits of stuff found at the bottom amongst the dirt. Since this past Monday, he has been actively pondering these artifacts and asking the grandparents, his teacher, and random strangers what these clues add up to.

There are NO wrong answers here. (I’ll post the best theories he came up with later this week, and unfortunately, our camera is broke, so no photographic evidence. you’ll have to settle for MS Paint!)

Can you solve the mystery, using these clues?!

Clues:
1) A small glass ‘tiger claw’, (actually: shard of broken window glass) approximately 1 inch in length.

2) One strangely shaped bone, approximately 4.5 inches long (broken scapula? Skull fragment?)

3) A small dark blue, 2-hole button (such as on a shirt)

4) A small length of chain, with fat 1/2 inch links, un-rusted, approx a foot long found buried in the dirt.

5) A very rusty fork, with four straight tines and a simple pattern.  (cheap flatware)  One of the middle tines has 1/4 inch missing from the end.

6) A handful of sandy dirt.

“Beware the JohnsonAnne, my friends!
The smile thats bright, the hugs that catch!
Beware the Jubjub Spare, not shun
The wonderous Mountain Clan[ch]!”

We took our crystal shard in hand:
Long time the manxome Tribe we sought –
So rested we by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought we stood,
The JohnsonAnne, with eyes aflame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as she came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The Tribes all chanted snicker-snack!
We joined in song, after not long
and Galumphing echoed back.

“And, has thou enjoyed the Faerie Fest?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
We chortled in our joy.

Twas beltaine, and the fairie grove
Did shine and sparkle like the waves:
All mimsy were the kiddie troves,
And the mom sats in shade.

This past weekend, I went firewalking with Andrew Steed with a wonderful friend of ours.  It was Awesome.  It was Joyful.  It was a hug-incarnate.  It was all sorts of good happy things that words seem pretty cheesy for when typed out, but still don’t come quite close to the actual Experience of.

Our young son attended, as well, and appears to have had some of the wisdom and Healing that happened there sink in much deeper than it did to curmudgeony old Maebius.  He still talks about building the fire with Intent, and growing your personal energy and Love, and SHAA!

One thing that resonated to me though, was surprisingly NOT the actual walking on coals.  For as much as I love fire, and as awesomely energizing that act was, I was most moved by events before the gathering around the embers.

Prior to the walking, Andrew led an empowering ritual where people broke wooden arrows with their bare throats!    While I’m sure our friend would have loved to see me participate, I was not called to, and was basking in the Witnessing of the whole thing.     After the arrows, they bend a 6ft rod of steel rebar!!

Now, let me tell you, I can repeat the mantras of Witnessing others, and can psychologically try explaining how it’s likewise empowering to support people doing such powerful spiritual acts, but I also admit it’s a heck of a lot of fun to do them yourself too.

This time, I surprised myself by being so caught up it the moment, so viscerally Present, that when each arrow broke, I clapped and smiled like a kid in a candy store.   There was just So.  Much.  Love!  in the room I couldn’t help myself.    When the rebar bent, I don’t think I could even really see it due to misty-eyed, tingling-spined, AWE that was radiating in that room.  I had some profound Piloerection events (mind out of the gutter!).

Even today, almost a week later, and having felt a bit of that Joy slip away over the work-week, the mental thought of that room, with those people, just shines in my heart and makes my feel 10lbs lighter.   I’m reminding myself to carry that feeling all the time, even while at work, because “I’m doing my job Anyway”, and am very grateful for the experience.

Still, the musing of this post is a new, deep-rooted realization that Witnessing, in the sacred context, is absolutely Empowering.  It is impersonal,  non-ego driven, and Participatory.  It’s potent stuff indeed.

I have a much better appreciation of that Avatar Movie, too, so to all my readers….

I see you.   <3