Deborah Lipp

Wow, I never finished the diary, and almost a month has passed. Well, when last we left, it was …

Thursday night. There was a big dance party, “The Rumble in the Jungle.” I went down but I wasn’t feeling it, so I wandered over to the Roundhouse and as I approached, the drumming slowed, which hardly ever happens, and just as I reached the gate, it stopped completely, which really hardly ever happens. So I sort of took it as a sign and visited at Dalton camp for a bit and went to bed early. I kind of had an epiphany: Hey, Deb, you’re not a night owl. It’s rough not being a night owl at Starwood, because there’s so much night life, but there you are.

Friday: I’ve got my rhythm, now, and can make a big pot o’ coffee, brush my teeth, and get myself ready for the day with some facility, but the thing I like least about camping is mornings. Wander across half the campsite in a state of dishevelment in order to get to the shower, or pretty up just to take it all off and redo it? Or shower in the afternoon and hope no one is displeased by the aroma? But anyway, I make coffee without fail, although by the last couple of days, I’m thinking I could just bag this French press racket and run down to the cafe and buy coffee.

At 11:30 I taught Part Three of Spellcraft. This is my workshop class, in which I ask people to bring spell ideas and we brainstorm them. It’s always incredibly rewarding, because people share pretty deeply about what concerns them, and we can be intuitive in finding their needs, goals, and spells that will work for them. One gentleman in particular stuck out. He was a documentary filmmaker and was feeling stuck and overwhelmed by the way in which you didn’t really know, with a documentary, what film you were making until after you filmed it, because you didn’t know what would happen, and then you had this enormous amount of material you had to edit into a movie. But it was all empty space, filming without knowing exactly why, and he was just stuck. This was fascinating because I’m such a film buff, and I’ve wondered exactly those things, but I never had the chance to look at it magically. (Plus the guy was charming, with deep, evocative eyes.)

So I talked about creating a Water spell, and talked about To Dare, and we worked on using Water to empower “going with the flow” and letting the creativity just happen.

There was also a woman whose bird had flown away. Should she do a spell to bring it home, or a spell to have it be safe where it was? We talked for a bit, and I asked what kind of bird it was. A cockatoo, she answered. Well, that changed everything! Cockatoos can’t live safely in the wild in Massachusetts, where she’s from! So obviously the spell has to be to bring it home. And it was a great lesson for everyone in making sure you have enough information and ask enough questions. So we talked about constructing these and other, more complex, spells, and it was a very productive class.

After lunch, I attended a “Pagan Speed Dating” session, which didn’t hook me up with the love of my life, but I had fun meeting new people.

In the evening I attended Don Kraig‘s talk on Sex Magic. It was a good class, Don’s a consummate speaker, using the right amount of information, humor, and interaction. I was a little disappointed because I had somehow gotten the impression that this was a new lecture, not his usual sex magic lecture. Now, I have no objection to speakers re-using lectures, we’d all collapse if we didn’t, but I simply hadn’t expected it.

At nine o’clock was the healing ritual for Frank Barney that I’d been asked to High Priestess. (Yes, High Priestess is a verb. Deal with it.) There was a lot of chaos in putting together ritual materials and an altar, a lot of rapid meaningless motion the last hour, a lot of holy shit we forgot to have water on the altar sort of thing, but we pulled it off. Just as the procession into the ritual was assembling, Dave had to go to the bathroom! So we kept them there, chanting and drumming, at the gate, and when he came back, we let them in. About 50 people, which was quite a lot for something that wasn’t on the schedule.

We explained what we were going to do, and cast a circle. I kept quarter callers who were well known to me at their quarters so I had a sense of being held by magical adepts. I got people saying yes by asking “Who here has loved this land?” “Who here has built a fire on this land?” And so on, until I finally asked “Who here will heal Frank Barney?” “I will!” they all shouted.

Now I had ’em.

We brought Cate Dalton into the center of the circle, and she invoked the energy of Frank Barney. We made sure she was good and connected to Frank, so that giving power to her was giving it to Frank. The key to addressing his Parkinson’s was connection, we’d decided; neural connections, connection to life and love and the will to live. Love and connection. We raised this power and sent it into her.

Then we brought Elspeth in to speak about the Barney family, and their commitment to the land, and to one another. We talked about the healing needed for all of them, to sustain them as a family and keep them loving one another and caring for one another during this difficult illness. By the end of this second power raising everyone was in a giant puppy pile, a huge group hug, in the middle of the circle, holding Elspeth and one another and sending love, love, love.

Next we just talked about healing. I asked people for stories. Orien talked about Orien Rose and the healing we’d been doing and what it meant to be a part of the healing circle that sustains his family as his daughter miraculously recovers from a devastating accident. Oberon talked about the enormous healing given to Morning Glory, such that healing networks were springing up on the web, because it was too big for just one person. Frank Dalton’s stroke. Hell, my knee! (And how connected was that, because Oberon and Frank Dalton were two of the three people who picked me up, got me out of the circle, and put me on a stretcher when my knee snapped at Starwood, and here we all were, at Starwood, healing together.) It became a circle of sharing the miracles of healing we could achieve, and I closed by saying, “Look around you. If you want to know who the healers are, you’re standing with them. And if you need healing, know that. And if you didn’t count yourself among them, know now that you can.”

Then we closed the circle. It was beautiful.

So I totally forgot to tell you how we moved the entire campsite eighteen inches.

We arrive Sunday, and Barb & Charlie are already there, with their pop-up, awning/kitchen, and Sylvia’s tent, and they’ve marked tent spots on the ground for the rest of us. Craig puts his tent kind of much closer in towards the kitchen than need be, but as I said, we’re all racing the sunset, so whatever.

Then the next day, we’re looking at how the campsite is set up, and we know that Christine is arriving Tuesday with a tent and a screen tent, and we’d like to use the screen tent to create a continous area with the kitchen, and maybe there’s not enough room.

And I say to Craig “You could move your tent back about a foot” and he says something really snotty, like “Yeah, right” with a very sarcastic tone. Later he said he had no idea I was actually serious. Well, my theme for Starwood was communication and miscommunication, so of-fucking-COURSE he didn’t think I was serious.

Then Tuesday, Christine arrives, and we start helping her set up. Craig’s not around, but me, Charlie, Barb, and (I think) Arthur are more than enough helping hands. We lay out the screen tent, and there is just not quite enough room. At which point, I am totally willing to pick Craig’s tent up and move it myself, but there’s now someone camped about six inches behind him.

(We were on high ground. There was a shitload of room just a few yards away, but after Squishwood, smart campers avoid that area. We were jammed together on our little spot.)

So, with Craig’s tent as an immovable northern boundary, we had to go south. But in order to move the kitchen, we had to move all the furniture and cookware and coolers. And the awning that was attached to the popup. And the first time we moved it a foot and then we had to go back and squeeze out another six inches.

It was totally worth it. It gave us a kitchen/living room effect for the rest of the week that was comfy and cozy. But we moved a campsite eighteen inches.

Part One

Back to Tuesday.

Tuesday afternoon I was asked to be the Priestess of a ritual to heal Frank Barney, owner of Brushwood (the land on which Starwood is held). Frank has Parkinson’s. I consented, and while I was busily making dinner, the ritual was announced for Friday night during opening circle. So that was 300 people who heard about it. And that was pretty intense.

Thing is, after Free Spirit, where I was the Priestess for a ritual on behalf of Orien Rose, I apparently got a reputation as a “healing priestess” and now I guess I’m accountable for that reputation. Well, they say Witches Heal, so it’s up to me to step up.

Tuesday was also where I had the first instance of being the go-between in an awkward communication, as I’ve written about.

Wednesday was the first day I actually had to be responsible.

As ever, I wake up fantasizing that perhaps I’ll take a morning class. Hah! After all these years, I don’t even fantasize that much, I know I won’t make it. The truth is, I’m always up early, but camping doesn’t lend itself to up and out, in my book. Making coffee, brushing teeth, washing up…all these are leisurely and/or clutzy at camp. I don’t really mind; it’s only troublesome if you over-schedule. Which I don’t so, no trouble.

Update: I knew I attended a class on Wednesday, but I couldn’t find it in the schedule before. It was called Curses and Binding Spells (of ancient Egypt) by an Australian guy named Tony Mierzwicki. He’s been working with Graeco-Egyptian magick and has a very interesting body of material. The presentation was a little dry but he had a lot to say and he really knew his stuff. He had us do a brief ritual (we didn’t curse anyone) and I found the technique powerful. That was from 11:30 to 12:45, plenty of time for me to poke around the camp like a zombie and still get to the workshop clean and fresh.

At 4pm I taught Structure of Spellcasting Part One: Sources of Magical Power. I had about 10–15 people at a wooded site. My students were impressively focused and attentive, I almost felt intimidated.

Wednesday’s dinner was courtesy of Christine; great honking quantities of pasta and chicken. Very satisfying. Wednesday night Christine & I went to a party in the “Dark Moor;” the woods waaaay in the back of camp. I got to spend quality time with my dear friend Larry. Eventually I roamed away, and just as I was leaving, a staffer with a golf cart was also leaving and offered me a ride. Which was delightful, because REALLY it’s a long walk. I asked him to drop me at my camp, because even though I was warm enough walking in my velvet minidress and light shawl, driving in the cart kicks up the wind and I realized I wanted another layer. After another hearty round of Throwing Clothes In the Tent I headed off to prowl, and ended up hanging with Orien & Christine and their crew in the RV camping area until three in the morning. What a gorgeous RV they ended up with! They all look so fab and luxurious to l’il ol’ tenting me.

Thursday afternoon found me in the “downtown” area of camp when all of a sudden, WHOOSH. Major rain. The morning had been hot and I’d taken a noonish nap and left the windows open, so I ran back to camp to seal up. Well, it was getting on time to go teach Structure of Spellcasting Part Two: What Are Spells? anyway, but I was teaching at four o’clock, and a 3:30 downpour didn’t bode well for attendance. I shouldn’t have worried. A brave crew consisting of almost everyone from the day before, plus one or two newcomers, were extremely focused on class content and weather be damned! By 5:15 when class ended, so had the rain, so the walk back was fairly pleasant and my giant Hefty bag of a rain poncho had a chance to dry out.

Thursday night Craig made ham steaks, with a fancy salad and side dishes and pretty extreme presentation; I mean, not just tasty but pretty.

To be continued.