Exhausting, rewarding trip. Did I mention exhausting?
No Monday Movie Review today; I’ve been in a lovely campsite with no television or movies for a week.
Arrived at FSG on Tuesday morning in 95+ degree heat. Got set up. Complained about heat. Said hello to old friends. Complained about heat.
At dinner time a tornado warning caused an evacuation of the entire camp into buildings. Which is, by the by, not the safest tornado protocol, but hello? Tornado! Warning! I also discovered that, despite my efforts to let go and treat my son more like the grown man he’s becoming, when there’s a Tornado! Warning! and I don’t know where he is, I am scared and cry.
Wednesday I had two classes to teach, and no one showed up for the first. Which I understand was widespread across camp; people wanted to play after a miserable Tuesday. Shame, too, because it was a good class. Also on Wednesday I got an absolutely amazing massage. Like, unbelievable. Holy cow. My body!
Thursday I took Arthur to Baltimore to his Freshman Orientation, which is a weird thing to do in the middle of a festival. Set an alarm, get to Baltimore in rush hour traffic, all that. Mostly relaxed and visited during the day, because I knew I had to leave site to pick him up in the evening and it was hard to commit my time to anything.
Thursday night this amazing band, Incus, performed. With bellydancers. Just thrilling.
Friday I taught a very well-attended class on The Study of Witchcraft and got really good feedback on that. After that we did sacred tattooing. Only not me this time. For his 18th birthday, I got Arthur his first tattoo. It was very…continuous and symmetrical to have Abraham do it, and Abe is someone who totally embraces that the role of tattooist is that of initiator and priest. It was really beautiful. At Arthur’s request, I was with him, helping him ground (and by the way, he was awesome; brave, centered, focused, peaceful), and then at the halfway point, Abe asked Arthur if he’d be willing to have me step out, and have this be about himself as a man, and not have his mother there, so that’s what we did. It was a beautiful experience, and Arthur has a small but extraordinary tattoo that reads
The First Amendment
Congrefs shall make no law…
Friday night (aided by the miracle of the nap) I attended the Alchemical Fire Circle, which is really quite a thing. The commitment to energy flow is so high; it’s not a fire circle-cum-party, it’s the real deal.
Saturday, though, my class was at 10am, so I didn’t stay at the fire all night. I was pretty damn tired. I’m in the midst of a massively changing sleep cycle, which made FSG kind of challenging. Up at dawn sort of thing. Anyway, that class went well, and I enjoyed teaching it. At one point, Arthur walked past and I pulled him in and showed everyone his tattoo and then resumed teaching.
In the afternoon I was again really tired, so I took a shower and lay down for a nap. I napped through an awful lot of noise; kids playing loudly next to the cabin, shouting, cheering, whatever. I slept. And then the storm came. Now, I knew a storm was coming, and I figured, good time to be in the cabin; it reinforced the nap concept. So I slept for about 45 minutes to an hour, and then the storm came. And this was a rattling, shaking, booming, banging thunderstorm of epic proportions. It woke me up, so I decided to read, and then it immediately knocked out the electric. Turns out that was because trees went down and pulled down power lines, and also landed on THREE CARS in the parking lot, two of which were totaled. Holy cow! I could feel the cabin shake. Tents blew away. I drifted in and out of sleep (since I couldn’t read and it didn’t seem wise to leave).
Since the camp was kind of blown away, I ate dinner in the dining hall sans electricity.
The fabulous magic show of Jeff McBride and Abby Spinner was delayed by the electrical problems, but finally began a little after 9:30, and was certainly worth the wait.
After that I attended a wine and cheese and chocolate “Sacred Decadence” tasting hosted by Arianna Lightningstorm of the band Kiva. From there I went to the fire circle and stayed up way too late. Making the ride home Sunday kind of grueling, because I was REALLY flippin’ tired. But here I am.
