Deborah Lipp

Festival of Souls was fun. Tiring. A little chilly.

FOS is a smallish event. There were about 150 people this year. I’m told it’s down about 100 from last year. Apparently, they had a dispute with the State Park about camping, which limited attendance. Seems like it’s been straightened out and they should be able to open registration wide next year.

It’s a very homey, everyone-knows-everyone-else affair. Easy for an out-of-towner to feel left out, but fortunately, I made new friends and so I felt pretty cozy. The camp has heated cabins, which is a great blessing, and my hosts went out of their way to make me feel comfortable. Maybe it was the combination of chilly weather and warm cabin, but I slept a lot. These people must think I’m a complete slug. They have no idea that I can be Total Party Girl®. Maybe I shouldn’t tell ’em?

Workshops and rituals are one-per-timeslot, which is in keeping with the low-key feel of the thing. Everyone does seem to want to be in the same place at the same time.

The rituals I attended were a simple, solemn (and tearful) Ancestor Rememberance, and a Labyrinth walk.

The Rememberance was good for me; because of planning Memphis many months in advance, I had to miss my friend Winnie’s Memorial Service, and this was an opportunity to honor her memory at more or less the same time (at least the same day) as the Memorial.

The Labyrinth followed immediately; it was meticulously laid out with hundreds of tea lights. I think if it had been straightened out, it would have been about 2 miles of walking. A very beautiful experience.

I got some super bodywork from Jamie & Paula Cassidy, not a perk normally provided by festivals, but boy howdy do I encourage it to any organizers reading this! I felt fresher and more functional and able to face the flight home.

Which was grueling. Well, only the last leg, which took me from Dulles, in D.C., a genuinely scummy airport, to White Plains, NY, which is a nice airport, and Home Sweet Home. The D.C. to N.Y. plane wasn’t the smallest puddle-jumper I’d ever been on, being as I could stand, but I was seriously squished into a squishy seat which sat up at an odd angle. I was seated next to an ENORMOUS man, and I was seated behind another ENORMOUS man who was trying (unsuccessfully) to lean back. I am a big girl and I don’t normally feel squished and small but I swear by the time I got up you could have fit me in carry-on.

Plus, to add insult to injury, when we got to the airport, they wouldn’t let us off the “plane” for about ten minutes.

Oh, and on the flight from Memphis to D.C. I sat in front of a woman who was quite the Chatty Cathy. I learned a lot about her. One thing I learned was that she had a “friend from A.A. named R____ G_____.” Some people are maybe unclear about the anonymous part of Alcoholics Anonymous. But if R.G. was, indeed, anonymous, he certainly ceased to be to anyone within three seats of Chatty C. R.G., Chatty told us all, was recently deceased, but does that really free one from the bonds of anonymity? Geez Pete.