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dreaminghopeI am a little overwhelmed by the task I have set myself: summarizing one of the biggest events of my year. Every year I go to a long-weekend Pagan camp, The Gathering for Life on Earth. This was my ninth Gathering. Every one of them has changed me in some way; some ways have been more subtle then others. I haven't really processed this weekend yet.
The new site is beautiful, and I think that once we get the quirks worked out, it will be even better then Sassamat was. The lake is gorgeous and warm. The trails are beautiful and lush. There's so little light pollution that the stars are bright (at least, they were until the full moon rose to block them out).
The food was pretty good, for camp food anyway. I always had enough to eat, and the "vegetarian options" menu instead of the exclusively vegetarian menu used in the past did not affect the quality or variety of the food I received, which was a small concern for me going in.
I did a lot of shleping and assisting this weekend, which was actually a lot of fun, though also a lot of work.
After Elaine and her assistants, including me, were done, Aphrodite's Temple looked fabulous. It amazed me that Elaine, with Cindy and ED's design assistance, created such a beautiful and sensual space out of a tent (that was missing half a pole and a wall) and some boxes of fabric and random bits and pieces. I knew they were good... but that was amazing.
The Grotto, the new party space, was also an amazing place when it was done. I look forward to much more dancing and singing and silliness there in future years. Hopefully next year won't be such a dry summer, and there will be a fire to dance around. Also, I hope next year we're smarter about the light stringing process... the group of us running the Xmas lights along the path strung them the wrong direction the first time, so the wrong end was at the power cord, and so the whole path had to be taken apart and flipped around, strand by strand. I believe that there were about twenty strands of lights along that path, twisted around trees and run through plants.
There were lots of new people there, as well as some of my favourite previous fellow attendees. As always, I never got a chance to catch up with everyone I wanted to, and I never got a chance to get to know all the new people who seemed so cool and fun. But I did get in lots of conversations.
This is going to take a few entries and possibly a few days... I have a lot to remember and process.
The new site is beautiful, and I think that once we get the quirks worked out, it will be even better then Sassamat was. The lake is gorgeous and warm. The trails are beautiful and lush. There's so little light pollution that the stars are bright (at least, they were until the full moon rose to block them out).
The food was pretty good, for camp food anyway. I always had enough to eat, and the "vegetarian options" menu instead of the exclusively vegetarian menu used in the past did not affect the quality or variety of the food I received, which was a small concern for me going in.
I did a lot of shleping and assisting this weekend, which was actually a lot of fun, though also a lot of work.
After Elaine and her assistants, including me, were done, Aphrodite's Temple looked fabulous. It amazed me that Elaine, with Cindy and ED's design assistance, created such a beautiful and sensual space out of a tent (that was missing half a pole and a wall) and some boxes of fabric and random bits and pieces. I knew they were good... but that was amazing.
The Grotto, the new party space, was also an amazing place when it was done. I look forward to much more dancing and singing and silliness there in future years. Hopefully next year won't be such a dry summer, and there will be a fire to dance around. Also, I hope next year we're smarter about the light stringing process... the group of us running the Xmas lights along the path strung them the wrong direction the first time, so the wrong end was at the power cord, and so the whole path had to be taken apart and flipped around, strand by strand. I believe that there were about twenty strands of lights along that path, twisted around trees and run through plants.
There were lots of new people there, as well as some of my favourite previous fellow attendees. As always, I never got a chance to catch up with everyone I wanted to, and I never got a chance to get to know all the new people who seemed so cool and fun. But I did get in lots of conversations.
This is going to take a few entries and possibly a few days... I have a lot to remember and process.
