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*drags self out of bed, pours coffee, yawns*
Wow. Quite the day yesterday...
The Earth Spirit Festival went well, with thirteen vendors in the Merchants Row, workshops on subjects such as herbs and labyrinths, fortunetelling in Divination Alley, and a book exchange table where one could make a donation or bring books in exchange for other books. I was able to set up my shrine at the end of the book exchange table, where people paused to make offerings of incense throughout the day. One fellow used the altar setup to cleanse a crystal he'd bought at one of the vendors, and was pleasantly surprised by how well the smoke from raw dragon's blood resin worked as a cleansing agent as compared to the incense sticks he was used to using for that purpose. :-)
I was able to get a ride out to the site in the park and home again with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
whyte_witch, the Festival organizer -- and a good thing, too, considering that I had a wooden altar and a huge carry-bag of ritual equipment. (Thanks again, Jazmine!) When we arrived at the covered picnic shelter which was to be the site of Merchants Row, a problem immediately arose: there was a huge banner for Big Brothers and Big Sisters already suspended from the roof, although there was no one from that organization actually present to hold the shelter. Since Jazmine's layout had counted on having ALL the picnic structure available for the vendors, the thought of having another large group crammed in there with us produced an immense headache! Still, we were able to rearrange things so that all the vendors fit into half the shelter, and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organizer, when she showed up at the site, found this an equitable arrangement. Whew! Crisis averted! (And in fact, it worked out well for the vendors, since curious folks from the Big Brothers and Big Sisters picnic ended up coming over to see what they had to offer.)
I do wish I'd been able to get out to some of the workshops, but unfortunately I was obliged to keep an eye on the shrine I'd set up. I was able to pass some of the time by helping watch the book exchange table, where I ultimately picked up four books for myself: Great Love Poems, edited by Shane Weller; Magic Spells and Incantations with an introduction and notes by Elizabeth Pepper; The Dragon Hunter's Handbook - a Field Guide to the Paranormal, by Lori Summers; and The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, by Theodore Roszak. Magic Spells and Incantations was of interest not only because it is a lovely little chapbook but because the material within is for the most part taken from ancient sources and folklore, rather than being of modern invention. The Dragon Hunter's Handbook I picked up simply because I knewcockatiel_art would like it. :-) And The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein is a trashy paperback, plain and simple -- perfect for reading in bed or in a bubble bath. Everyone should have at least one book like that hanging around, no?
There were also a few books on the table that were interesting but which I did not pick up, in part because I had already arrived at the site heavily laden and simply couldn't have carried them away. Among them, a complete compilation of the Myth and Man glossy pamphlets collected into six immense volumes, as well as The Witches Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar (which I could have carried away, but ended up letting go to a new student of Wicca not five minutes after it arrived).
Also on the table was a fairly wide selection of Wiccan books by Silver Ravenwolf -- the joke being bandied about early on that you didn't see any Cunningham or Valiente or Buckland books on the table because people wanted to keep those... and glancing idly through the Ravenwolf books, I could see the truth in this. For one thing, in Teen Witch she (a) misspells the word witchcraft in the second paragraph, styling it as "WitchCraft" *groan*, and (b) includes a spell for getting a school bus driver fired (hello? the Wiccan Rede? hello?). For another thing, her rituals often seem ill-conceived. For example, at the Festival I ran into Kathy, for whom we'll be doing a "belly blessing", or blessing for a pregnant woman, at the Full Moon ritual next weekend. She brought Solitary Witch: The Ultimate Book of Shadows for the New Generation, which is a Ravenwolf product, which contained a ritual which she wanted to use. Well, even a cursory reading of the ritual revealed problems, including instructions early on to "be careful not to set flowing robes on fire with the candles" at the points of the pentacle traced on the floor, when in fact the candles had not even been LIT yet (there was a specific instruction to do so later in the rite). *groans again* More troubling, the ritual had a counterintuitive energy flow; in the end, I simply ended up re-scripting it with Kathy's approval. We'll have to see how it goes.
Highlights of the day:
1) Several people complimenting me on the shrine setup. Yes, I know it's petty, but such things still give me a glow of pleasure.
2) The henna tattoo of a Goddess that I purchased from one of the vendors.
3) The ice cream truck that decided to pay a visit to the covered picnic structure. My first (and probably only) ice cream cone of the summer! Yay!
4) A teeny-tiny puppy that one of the attendees brought along with her, an absolutely adorable and squee-worthy bull mastiff cross, SO wee and always encircled by people charmed by his puppy ways. When I knelt to stroke him, he actually wobbled over to my side and lay down on the hem of my dress (which was soft brown velveteen and must have felt attractive to the tired little fellow)! EEEEEEEEEEE! SO KYUTE!!!!!!!
*cough* Okay, I'll stop now. ;-)
5) The meat and soy burgers that Jazmine's group brought and cooked on-site, as well as the food various folks brought to contribute to the potluck. Thanks, guys!
6) The evening ritual -- it's always wonderful to be able to worship out of doors with like-minded people. :-D
7) One unpleasant event: a piece of my altar set-up, a painted plastic Earth Goddess tea-light holder which I'd been using to hold raw frankincense resin, getting broken when we had to shift the shrine a couple of feet and the altar tipped, sending it to the concrete floor of the picnic shelter. The good news: it broke at the upraised arms, which will make it easy to repair with Superglue. So, not such a tragedy after all.
I got home exhausted, had a good long soak in a bathtub scented with a lavender and vanilla bath preparation I'd purchased at the Festival, and got started on The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein before falling into bed. All in all, a very satisfying day. I'm already looking forward to next year's event. :-)
Wow. Quite the day yesterday...
The Earth Spirit Festival went well, with thirteen vendors in the Merchants Row, workshops on subjects such as herbs and labyrinths, fortunetelling in Divination Alley, and a book exchange table where one could make a donation or bring books in exchange for other books. I was able to set up my shrine at the end of the book exchange table, where people paused to make offerings of incense throughout the day. One fellow used the altar setup to cleanse a crystal he'd bought at one of the vendors, and was pleasantly surprised by how well the smoke from raw dragon's blood resin worked as a cleansing agent as compared to the incense sticks he was used to using for that purpose. :-)
I was able to get a ride out to the site in the park and home again with
whyte_witch, the Festival organizer -- and a good thing, too, considering that I had a wooden altar and a huge carry-bag of ritual equipment. (Thanks again, Jazmine!) When we arrived at the covered picnic shelter which was to be the site of Merchants Row, a problem immediately arose: there was a huge banner for Big Brothers and Big Sisters already suspended from the roof, although there was no one from that organization actually present to hold the shelter. Since Jazmine's layout had counted on having ALL the picnic structure available for the vendors, the thought of having another large group crammed in there with us produced an immense headache! Still, we were able to rearrange things so that all the vendors fit into half the shelter, and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organizer, when she showed up at the site, found this an equitable arrangement. Whew! Crisis averted! (And in fact, it worked out well for the vendors, since curious folks from the Big Brothers and Big Sisters picnic ended up coming over to see what they had to offer.)I do wish I'd been able to get out to some of the workshops, but unfortunately I was obliged to keep an eye on the shrine I'd set up. I was able to pass some of the time by helping watch the book exchange table, where I ultimately picked up four books for myself: Great Love Poems, edited by Shane Weller; Magic Spells and Incantations with an introduction and notes by Elizabeth Pepper; The Dragon Hunter's Handbook - a Field Guide to the Paranormal, by Lori Summers; and The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, by Theodore Roszak. Magic Spells and Incantations was of interest not only because it is a lovely little chapbook but because the material within is for the most part taken from ancient sources and folklore, rather than being of modern invention. The Dragon Hunter's Handbook I picked up simply because I knew
cockatiel_art would like it. :-) And The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein is a trashy paperback, plain and simple -- perfect for reading in bed or in a bubble bath. Everyone should have at least one book like that hanging around, no?There were also a few books on the table that were interesting but which I did not pick up, in part because I had already arrived at the site heavily laden and simply couldn't have carried them away. Among them, a complete compilation of the Myth and Man glossy pamphlets collected into six immense volumes, as well as The Witches Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar (which I could have carried away, but ended up letting go to a new student of Wicca not five minutes after it arrived).
Also on the table was a fairly wide selection of Wiccan books by Silver Ravenwolf -- the joke being bandied about early on that you didn't see any Cunningham or Valiente or Buckland books on the table because people wanted to keep those... and glancing idly through the Ravenwolf books, I could see the truth in this. For one thing, in Teen Witch she (a) misspells the word witchcraft in the second paragraph, styling it as "WitchCraft" *groan*, and (b) includes a spell for getting a school bus driver fired (hello? the Wiccan Rede? hello?). For another thing, her rituals often seem ill-conceived. For example, at the Festival I ran into Kathy, for whom we'll be doing a "belly blessing", or blessing for a pregnant woman, at the Full Moon ritual next weekend. She brought Solitary Witch: The Ultimate Book of Shadows for the New Generation, which is a Ravenwolf product, which contained a ritual which she wanted to use. Well, even a cursory reading of the ritual revealed problems, including instructions early on to "be careful not to set flowing robes on fire with the candles" at the points of the pentacle traced on the floor, when in fact the candles had not even been LIT yet (there was a specific instruction to do so later in the rite). *groans again* More troubling, the ritual had a counterintuitive energy flow; in the end, I simply ended up re-scripting it with Kathy's approval. We'll have to see how it goes.
Highlights of the day:
1) Several people complimenting me on the shrine setup. Yes, I know it's petty, but such things still give me a glow of pleasure.
2) The henna tattoo of a Goddess that I purchased from one of the vendors.
3) The ice cream truck that decided to pay a visit to the covered picnic structure. My first (and probably only) ice cream cone of the summer! Yay!
4) A teeny-tiny puppy that one of the attendees brought along with her, an absolutely adorable and squee-worthy bull mastiff cross, SO wee and always encircled by people charmed by his puppy ways. When I knelt to stroke him, he actually wobbled over to my side and lay down on the hem of my dress (which was soft brown velveteen and must have felt attractive to the tired little fellow)! EEEEEEEEEEE! SO KYUTE!!!!!!!
*cough* Okay, I'll stop now. ;-)
5) The meat and soy burgers that Jazmine's group brought and cooked on-site, as well as the food various folks brought to contribute to the potluck. Thanks, guys!
6) The evening ritual -- it's always wonderful to be able to worship out of doors with like-minded people. :-D
7) One unpleasant event: a piece of my altar set-up, a painted plastic Earth Goddess tea-light holder which I'd been using to hold raw frankincense resin, getting broken when we had to shift the shrine a couple of feet and the altar tipped, sending it to the concrete floor of the picnic shelter. The good news: it broke at the upraised arms, which will make it easy to repair with Superglue. So, not such a tragedy after all.
I got home exhausted, had a good long soak in a bathtub scented with a lavender and vanilla bath preparation I'd purchased at the Festival, and got started on The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein before falling into bed. All in all, a very satisfying day. I'm already looking forward to next year's event. :-)
