Dragons, Faeries, and Pagans, oh my!

If your friends page is like mine, it will soon be filled with reports from a week of lots of gaming and little sleep at GenCon. But let me tell you about the festival I attended from August 7th to 11th: Dragonfest, which is sort of a Pagan-themed camping trip with 900 of your best friends.

In a way, it started on Tuesday night (Hiroshima Day, BTW). Originally I said I'd like to be initiated as a witch and priest at Dragonfest, but several people who needed to be there for initiation weren't going to be at Dragonfest, so we decided to do it the night before (though, because of the Dragonfest Time Extending Magick, that seems like a month ago or so). We met in the early evening after a day of rain and decided to proceed inside, since sitting in mud and wet grass in ritual garb sounded like a bad idea. We made masks, had dinner, and then performed a ceremony I'm not at liberty to divulge. I managed to walk a couple blocks blindfolded and then got into an excellent state of no-thought, complete spontaneous peace and clarity. Not remembering that I was supposed to come up with an oath in advance, I created one on the spot. I knew the password, which all the other members had had trouble with. I was able to share myself spiritually without first planning what to say, which I consider the true sign of my being initiation-worthy. I had fun with my tools (my wand is a combo spoon and pen), I looked smashing in my new mask, old wizard hat, and the cloak I recently made. Oh yeah, I made a cloak over the weekend. It's made of wonderfully smooth and flowy nylon, black and white reversable. My mom quipped "When you were little, I never thought I'd be teaching you to sew at 22, working on a cloak for initiation into a coven." I have a new-found respect for garment makers and the engineering of sewing machines.

So with initiation as a prelude, my dad gracously drove to an undisclosed location in the Colorado mountains me, Andy (who smartly decided not to walk 40 miles to Dragonfest this year), Aria (whose car wasn't going to make the trip), and Lydia (Aria's cute 4-year-old daughter). Even with camping gear for four people, we still could've packed the White Rhino with just as much stuff again. We arrived and set up camp just in time for an hour-long deluge, which I walked around thoroughly enjoying. It had rained there every day for the previous several, and I was preparing to accept another rain-drenched year like last year, which would have been quite disappointing after an entire summer with hardly any rain at all. However, the rain gods decided to pass us over for southern Denver, and we had four gorgeous and warm days to enjoy.

On Thursday, I joined Andy's workshop of improv games that he intended to turn into a wandering Dragonfest performance troupe. We had a lot of fun and became fast friends. Among other things, I put forth an execellent performance in Story, Story, Die! in the Encyclopedia genre and was the storyteller in typewriter of the story of the ape with unrequited love for Tarzan. We also got a bunch of weird looks from folks while flocking. Various subsets of the group later performed in the merchants area (not a great audience) and for kidsfest (a completely marvelous audience). Whereas getting improv suggestions from adults is often like pulling teeth, any time you ask for a suggestion from a group of kids, they all stick their hands up, even if they don't know what you're asking for yet. We also performed in the talent show, telling a story titled (from the audience) "The Egg and the Witch." After having a witch hatch from an egg and see a chicken approach, I said "And the witch asked the chicken..." and the woman playing the witch said "Witch came first," which set the whole place cackling. That was one of the finest improv moments I've ever seen. It needs to be on a bumper sticker.

On Thursday I also participated in a couple drumming/chanting/dancing workshops. I have trouble percussing well, but I had a lot of fun dancing and got some tips on integrating movement with the drumbeats. I had a lot of fun dancing at various drum circles -- dancing with a cloak is a lot of fun. Since there was a fire ban, we had propane logs for fire, which provided good light without the sparks and overpowering heat of a wood fire, and without burning down the forest to boot. The first night we ended up dancing around a couple flourescant lanterns, which was really neat and haunting. For some reason there were about 20 drummers, 50 or 75 onlookers, and between two and 10 dancers that night. It had a rather unworldly feel. Subsequent circles had more folks and, thanks to Doug's workshops, the drummers played around with variation, pace changes, and other neat tricks.

On Thursday night I headed to Men's Mysteries, an anual ritual where guys learn what it is to be a man. (It's a lot more deep, meaningful, and powerful than that summary sounds, but what happens each year is unique, so it's hard to generalize. There is, of course, a corresponding Women's Mysteries.) In this iteration, we were lead to various archetypal women who probed us with questions. We were asked to share about a woman who gave us wings, a woman who had shown us love, what we have give and what we sacrifice, and what emotion we fear to express (at which the crone told us what we had to do about it). We then gave our tokens from these women and had to cross a bridge with the help of all these women (the logs were tough enough that it did require assistance). We then each met with the goddess (through a vessel who had drawn down) who told each of us something... she said "She is strong within you" and that I am the keeper of the trees, though she didn't know what that meant. From the meeting about wings I'd been feeling the tingle of love-without-object which I've discussed here previously. At some point I realized that feeling is the energy Divine Feminine, which is probably why the goddess/vessel recognized that She was strong within me. It also occurred to me on the following night that this same inner tingling occurs with mlechan but not other girls I've had crushes on, enjoy the company of, etc. because MLE is to me the incarnation of this Divine Feminine. I have seen in her energies of all feminine aspects - maiden, mother, crone, and others beside; she introduced to me many parts and ways of womanhood, and has seemed to me at many times to be me in another guise. She'd be my fag hag if I were gay. Thanks, doll :-) So anyway, as it turns out, that was a very unusual Men's Mysteries. Usually it's all guys, and what the organizers had done was put the men through Women's Mysteries and the women through Men's Mysteries. It was an imensely powerful experience for all of the guys -- I think we were all crying at some points, and all the guys were finding and revealing a lot of deep stuff. This would have been an amazing and intensely valuable ritual for the countless men who would never voluntarily attend it. It was so much more and so much deeper than a bunch of guys in the woods getting in touch with their feminine sides. It was a bunch of guys getting in deep contact with themselves and how they relate to the Feminine and Masculine Sides of the World. Reports I heard from the "women's" mysteries were somewhat more disappointing, and some women had also left right at the beginning when the leaders said "Welcome to Men's Mysteries." The organizer noted that they'd overlooked things like providing tissue... he said "Guys, if you have a powerful meeting with the God and walk away in tears, do you expect someone to hand you a tissue?" Of course not. But fortunately, the women had brought tissues, 'cause that's the way they are. Humorously, after the rituals ended, the women all left to do other things, while a bunch of guys hung around and talked about it. Go role reversal!

On Friday I participated in a trance workshop. The leader wasn't a great teacher and I was having brain bloodflow issues, but I got a couple good ideas of things to use for trancing in rituals we do at home. In the afternoon I put in an extra workshift as a herald, wandering about camp to announce important news. I got lots of positive comments about my projection, enunciation, and humor... I was announcing things like "This just in... witches are sexy" and "News flash: the Earth is our mother." In the evening I participated in the Multiple Drawing Down. We got to watch an excellent show of the plains getting a thunderstorm as we were silly in line waiting for our turn. I got spoke with Artemis and asked what my focus should be for the next few years. She said I should seek out friends in lots of places and seek many different teachers, for each can teach in only one way. She summed up her recommendation as "self-knowledge," though a lot of it was about other-knowledge. It wasn't the way-powerful experience that a lot of people have, but I didn't bring a way-powerful question or situation, and I figure that half the power of such an experience is in what the seeker brings. But I will work on the experience, I think it was helpful. I also helped comfort Aria after her k-way powerful experience with Spider Woman. There's going to be some major emotional storms ahead for her, and we'll have to help as well as we can. As she talked about the experience with Heather I played quiet games and told fairy tales to Lydia to get her to sleep. I was surprised how few fairy tales I could recall, even though I've been reading Joseph Campbell this summer, so could have gone on at length talking about all the possible fairy archetypes. But little girls will enjoy any story told if it's got a princess. The fact that she'd seen the Disney versions several times of the stories she requested meant that she could help me at the parts I was unclear about. We also played games with fingers and voices (I tried to introduce her to hand llamas). The whole week was a great experience for Lydia... she had a bunch of surrogate dads... several people had assumed that Aria and I were married after watching Lydia make me wrap her and Aria up in my cloak while standing around on Wednesday. She also broke a couple hearts of guys when she revealed that she was married and not interested in dating.

On Saturday I participated in Drawing Down the Sun, a sun god equivalent of Drawing Down the Moon, and a skyclad ritual. It was neat, though I didn't get a chance to speak with Him, and I only got slightly sunburnt on parts of me which receive little sun. (PreSun didn't go off the market, it's just now available in spray bottles. Spray sunscreen is a dumb idea, though, since you have to rub it around anyway and can't spray it on your face. I'd do much better with a puddle of goo in my hand.) After that wonderfully warm experience I went swimming in the lake. It's a great pity that so many Americans don't have opportunities to stand around naked with a bunch of other naked people and do something normal, unusual, or just hang. Seeing lots of naked people gives you an appreciation of human beauty, even among those you don't consider at all sexy. It makes you feel better about your body too, seeing the way other people's bodies are. Various feminists complain that porn is wrong because it gives men unrealistic expectations of women's bodies. This is like complaining that authors create unrealistic expectations of adventurous life. I think that the fault is rather with society for not providing opportunities to develop realistic expectations of other people's bodies. Hanging around naked also disassociates nudity and sex, which is psychologically a Good Thing (tm).

Saturday afternoon also featured Geezer Confab 02, where I was one of very few relative newbies to come and listen to stories of Dragonfest in the old days. Then it was off to Stone Soup, a completely nummy collection of creations created from everyone's donations. After the talent show that night, the College of Wicca and Old Lore (from Denver) put on a theatrical/participatory ritiual of the story of Cerridwen and Taliesen. It featured full-body costumes of the animals Taliesen transformed into, narrative, and insight. Everyone then walked about an infinity sign, holding two parachutes and shaking them up and down, undergoing the transition in Cerridwen's belly. It was so awesome.

The Perseids meteor shower was k-hella ultimate beatings from Middle of Nowhere at 2 AM on Saturday night. Lots of good tales, lots of activity. Beside a lake is a great place to watch meteors.

On Sunday morning I lead a non-verbal ritual for about 15 folks our group had met and invited. After non-verbally calling the directions and spirits I had folks pair up and have wordless conversations. Everyone had a lot of fun with them, and then slowly gathered back to the group and picked each others nits, hugged and danced. Quarters were then dismissed and we had cakes and wine sitting in the shade, still not talking. As the sustinance was passed around the circle, one guy got Lydia to push his nose; he then made a sound, inducing Lydia to cackle. After a few more pushes, Lydia started going around the circle pushing nose buttons. Everyone came up with one or several. It was hillarious. Spontaneously generating nose-buttons! Even as we closed, nobody wanted to speak for a while. We all felt a very tight bond with each other. As we headed back to the main area and encountered other people we pushed their nose buttons, but there wasn't near the same willingness to spontaneously create them, even after we all demonstrated our own nose buttons. Interesting. I encouraged everyone to spread the seed of nonverbal experiences, and if I have a chance to get back to Dragonfest next year I intend to run a workshop on nonverbal ritual. Hopefully I'll be able to use what I learned from this experience in the paper I need to finish for cognitive science. At Merchant's Row I picked up a Green Man and a Green Woman coffee mug for our already impressive stock (proceeds went to Artantone), a purple sarong, and a beautiful reflective/refractive glass ornament with humming bird. We also got a couple cowbells for my dad's studio, which I got to play with as others drummed for closing ritual. I managed to keep up the rhythm with them. It was lots of fun.

So now I'm all frazzled with all sorts of wonderful energy, not enough sleep, and used to odd things. (Frex: as we got into Boulder I saw an a woman who looked to be in her 60s or so watering her lawn, wearing a pink shirt. I had to do a double take before I realized she wasn't topless. I was also so tired that I got pulled over around midnight for not signalling before changing lanes (I was a little late going from one lane to two on Iris) and then, after my mom asked me to repark, I nocked the plastic off the blinker by scraping by the truck's bumper.

Some miscellaneous notes:
Dating service for the elderly: hags to hitches. (Modeled on a used clothing store.)
Try aural, rather than visual, guided meditation, since some people don't think well visually.
I like the word "otherwhere."
Create a ritual with two-person challenges -- things that take cooperation to overcome. (This was done many years ago at Dragonfest and I heard about it at the Geezer Confab.)
Proper government is one which facilitates things so that most people are able to meet most of their goals, whatever they may be. This makes a place for positive and negative rights, takes advantage of people's tendencies, and gives a good framework for resource distribution discussions. I'll talk more about this later.
One wonderful thing about Dragonfest is the wonderful people. When you forget something, people leave it just where it is or return it to the lost and found. People are willing to try just about anything if you ask them. People respect your space, but don't keep to themselves. People are genuinely open and accepting, inclusive without thinking about it. People say hello when you walk by and offer what they have to share. We shared a lot of magick, a lot of smiles, and a lot of wonderful energy. Now it's up to me to run with that.