Dreaming and Waking

The season is really getting started now. Friday evening was kiting, Saturday morning was slope soaring, Saturday afternoon was kiting, Sunday morning was slope soaring, and Sunday afternoon was... first flights! All weekend, Russ and I, and sometimes Craig, were with the new batch of P1 and P2 students for iParaglide. This weekend, they were doing their first training sessions and their first flights ever.

The wind was a bit wild on Saturday morning for their first hill training, so Russ, Craig, and I ended up packing our wings up and spending the morning helping the first-timers. When the wind is higher and is cross to the hill, there's a lot more work involved in setting up and keeping everyone safe. I spent my morning running around, cheerfully ordering people around ("Mind that tip! Pull the brakes! Step back! Step forward!") and cheering people on as they made their attempts. This became a bit of an issue when I got home (late) to run a Beltane ritual that was also the rehearsal for the Gathering's main ritual and ended up bossing all my friends around too. Luckily, they took it well ("You ordering us around is kind of hot, actually...").

Sunday morning's wind was lovely: laminar and just the right speed. I helped with set-ups a lot again, but also did four of my own practice launches. I'm still building my confidence, so Russ called the commands* for me twice, Dion did it once, and the last one I did it all on my own.

At about 4 that afternoon, the whole class was on the mountain launch at Mt. Woodside. There were seven people with our school doing their first flights, plus me doing my twelfth. Russ opted to do the driving instead, as his knee was bugging him, and he took some video and photos too.

I was the last of the class to launch, so I got to watch every one of the first flights. They were a remarkable group: every single launch went smoothly (no aborts) and we cheered each other on. One student sang a bit of an aria for us when he was at 3000 feet. Even though we were mostly strangers to each other before the weekend began, there was a great sense of support and camaraderie. Dion, the senior instructor, sets a good learning environment: he is very energetic and motivating and gets everything going fast until each student steps up for their first mountain launch. At that moment, he slows everything down, triple-checks everything, and calmly inspires the student. You can hear him a little bit in the following video of my launch:

Shaking off the cobwebs on Vimeo.

Sixteen seconds from ground to air. It wasn't a perfect launch, but it was a good one - quite possibly my best yet. You can see that I bring my wing up evenly, I stay low to keep the wing loaded, I keep my arms up to let the wing fly at its best, I turn my head to look at each wing tip to check that it's in the correct position, and I keep my legs pumping the whole time to reach launch speed. Solid. Next up: doing it on the mountain without anyone else calling for me.

My wing and I turn beautifully together. The Icaro Instinct tends to turn quite flat anyway (doesn't lose a lot of altitude with each turn), and I have gotten pretty good at weight shifting, which means smoother turns than pulling more brake. I remember how nervous I was to weight-shift on my first flight: even if you know that you are safely strapped in, leaning way over to one side feels very weird until you've done it a couple of times. You can see a bit of me weight-shifting and turning in this video (please excuse the music; I woke to the chorus of this song on Monday morning and couldn't resist using it to cover up the wind noises that dominated in both video clips):

Flying on Beltane on Vimeo.

On the LZ, one of the apprentice instructors, Degas, was doing the landing coaching. I am getting closer to not needing a coach, but it was still very reassuring to have a voice on the radio reminding me of every step. I was anticipating each movement, so I was able to respond very quickly. During the debriefing, he said: "It was like having a radio control paraglider: as soon as I would say something, she was doing it." I got a high-five from Dion for keeping my feet during my landing (I used to stop moving my legs so instead of walking off the momentum of the landing, I'd fall to my knees a lot).

Overall, a fantastic weekend of shaking off the winter dust and getting my body and head back into flying. Hopefully both Russ and I will be flying again this coming weekend.

* The launch commands: Ready? 3-2-1-tension - release and stabilize - load and run.

Monday morning. Breakfast isn't until 8 AM, and I packed most of my scattered sarongs and glittery bits the night before, but I'm up before 7 AM anyway. I leave all of my cabin mates mumbling in their sleep - they all made it back to the cabin last night; some for the first time all weekend - and grab my towel and head for the swimming dock. It's empty; the first time in years that I have gotten the dock to myself.

I sit for awhile, wearing only my cloak, and watch the mist race across the surface of the lake and the sun reach above the tree tops. I probably look meditative.

When I finally drop the cloak and slip down the ladder - fast; if you stop halfway, the cold water on your ass or breasts may convince you not to get in at all - it's simply because I can't sit still a moment longer. I do a shallow but rapid breast stroke back and forth to warm up and to out-swim thoughts of Pagan politics and bad pick-up lines.

It takes a dozen short laps, but I finally relax into the water and the trees and the sky and the mountains.

Finally, I get cold. After floating for so long, my body feels heavy under the relentless downward pull of the air. I feel like I weigh twice as much when I pull myself up the ladder as I did when I went down it.

Friday night. This is my twelve time at this Gathering, making me an old-timer here. It's like a family reunion; a very dysfunctional family reunion. It's the fourth year that this camp has been at this site and the paths, lit by long strings of Christmas lights that twist off into the woods to temples and lairs and docks and grottoes, are familiar. I even remember some of the tricky sections where the roots seem determined to twist the ankle of anyone not paying enough attention.

Saturday. We're still arriving, mentally and spiritually, to this place out of place. I hang out in the shade, too lazy to go to any workshops. I catch up on gossip and share some dirt of my own.

I envy the person I was my first year at this place, when I arrived alone amongst the Pagans as a naive seventeen year old and found a sense of community. Some part of me is still that sweet and naive.

A new friend calls me "Snow White" and teases me that little birds sing just for me and squirrels frolic at my feet. I think of a certain Snow White scene from "Shrek 3".

I say something a little nasty about a difficult member of the community and get rewarded with a big laugh. It's funny because it's true, and because it's sweet little me that said it.

Don’t mess with Snow White.

Saturday night. Or Sunday morning; I'm not wearing a watch. There's a fire, hot in the cool night, warding off the damp and the exhaustion. The drummers are maintaining a beat well despite scotch and wine and beer. I dance in the circle of dirt between drums and fire until I'm too hot, then I remove my shirt and dance some more. My hips know the beat my hands can never quite find. All around, the shapes of other dancers and the drummers' hands in the firelight. Through half-closed eyes, I see the half-round moon rise above the trees and shimmer on the lake.

As the night wears on, some of the drummers leave the fire, and the less experienced drummers left stumble more often. I begin to feel the ache of my legs from the length of time I've been dancing. An hour, two hours? I've lost track. I trance out and return over and over, never quite reaching the other state but always close. My body flirts with the drummers, trying to re-create the rhythm when they falter.

There's need and desire in the night, and it isn't all mine.

A young woman - 21, she says - with a carrying voice and too much to drink tries to lose her virginity. She pursues one man for several hours, flattering and teasing awkwardly, even as he tells her over and over that he is not going to sleep with her. He tries to spare her feelings, but she simply does not stop until he actually leaves the fire on an invented errand. He leaves her on the lap of a sweetly monogamous man who tries to soothe her ego only to find himself on the receiving end of her attentions. He talks about his wonderful girlfriend a lot.

Two people at the far side of the fire dance around each other, gradually becoming intertwined. They leave for the shadows before the rating reaches X, though she is topless.

An intoxicated pirate rawly propositions a friend. It seems that he'll take any to his bed, but none seem eager; we laugh at him in the morning, both for his behaviour and for his well-deserved hangover.

Sunday morning. Around the campfire, people cradle their coffees and their heads. I get a few (mostly mock) glares for my cheer. The young woman from the night before pokes at the embers and casually drops that she did get someone to bed the night before, though she doesn't say who. I fill a large garbage bag with cans and bottles and carry it to the main lodge. I pass a cabin mate who is heading to bed.

Monday morning. The closing ritual is simple and bittersweet, and followed by a whirl-wind of packing up our own cabins and the rest of the site and trying to say good-bye to as many people as possible. Garbage and recycling gets gathered up and all the Christmas lights and tent decorations are bundled into plastic bins. From magical space to just another children's camp in just a couple of hours.

Some of us caravan off site and meet at a White Spot restaurant in the nearest town. Over burgers and milk shakes we start processing, decompressing, and planning for next year.

It takes time to pull myself out of the Gathering mind space. My spirit feels heavy under the relentless pull of the real world. I feel twice as heavy coming out as I did going in.

Saturday dawned clear, with a red glow around the city's skyline. I know exactly how it started because I was there, drumming on a beach at five in the morning.

Every year, as close to the Summer Solstice as we can manage it, my immediate and extended spiritual family gathers for a night of junk food and caffeine, followed by sunrise drumming and ending with a homemade breakfast. I was cursing my past self at dawn, as she is suspected of having invented this tradition many years ago.

The drumming is an act of unfaith: Maybe the sun won't rise after its shortest nap of the year if we aren't there to wake it up.

Luckily, our skill does not determine the sun's fate. If it did, the world would be a dark and cold place. Though we have some very talented drummers amongst us, there are a few of us (me) who are rhythm-challenged. While Russ is going ta-ta-taka-taka-ta-taka-ta-taka-ta-ta, I have trouble with ta-ta-ta-ta. I'm better with less sleep. On the beach, I managed to follow along for whole minutes at a time; that's a reason to be proud of myself, unfortunately.

The rest of the event is an ongoing act of self-torture in the name of community building. Up to eight sleep-deprived people yielding knives and hot pans in a small kitchen at six in the morning can get interesting. The "extended family" quickly learns to hide elsewhere until the food emerges from the chaos. Now that I am fully awake, the whole thing seems like a disaster waiting to happen, but the only casualty was the first batch of waffle batter, which resulted in a soggy crêpe thing.

By Saturday afternoon, after the last departure, Russ and I find that we've acquired some chocolate sprinkles, two cans of whipped cream, and a bag of dill pickle chips. The only non-food "left-behind" was an orange Starbucks mug of uncertain origin and contents.*

I had an accidental nap yesterday afternoon, to my dismay. I don't bounce up after getting up at four in the morning the way I used to. The sacrifice was ultimately worthwhile: the sun rose again. I want to take some credit, for it was a particularly beautiful sunrise.

*I get the most interesting left-behinds from my events. Past events have resulted in the temporary acquisition of a box of dice, a very nice bra, a pair of glittery horns, a strip of blue fabric of uncertain origin, a cardboard exclamation mark attached to a headband, a pile of Mardi Gras beads, and other interesting bits and pieces.

The next post in my many posts about renovating my house simply must be one about my family and community, without whom nothing would be done.

I cannot believe how much time, effort and energy people have been putting in. I am deeply touched and incredibly grateful for all of it. I cannot express how awed and humbled I am by the work other people have been willing to offer. I had workcrews of up to nine people in my house at a time, all putting in amazing efforts.

Though I've tried to thank everyone as we go, and I plan on thanking everyone again at the house warming, here's my list of heroes* so far, in no particular order:

( My heroes )

Please, please tell me if I forgot anyone or any major tasks. I really want to remember everyone's hard work and I want to keep a record of how far this house has come and what it took to do it.

A huge, public thank you to all these people. I expect there will be more thank you lists before this is all done.

*Please don't hate me if I forgot to thank you for something, but please do let me know so I can keep records of the work that went into this house.

Today we had a beautiful park ritual by cinnamonsqueak (in the gorgeous summer-like weather), which reminded me about how much I have to be grateful for and how much I like myself (something all too few people can say), and how much I love being with these people. I feel very appreciative and appreciated. I love that ED says she always feels better after spending time with me, no matter how bad her day/week/month is going: that made me feel great! And I loved hearing other people say good things about themselves and each other.

It was very beautiful and touching; thank you cinnamonsqueak!

The ritual went well - yeah me!

The ring Russ made for Cindy looked gorgeous and fit her perfectly - yeah Russ!

Cindy cried (with joy) when we gave the ring to her - yeah Silver Spiral!

The apartment is all back to normal, despite the weird set-up for the ritual - yeah me!

The Silver Spiral community is now celebrating its sixth anniversary - yeah us!

A quick scan of my life of the last week or so:

- My computer had a virus, but now it is better (probably).

- The Silver Spiral all-night Litha went well. We got some police attention at the ritual, but only because they were worried about the potential fire hazard of our altar candles. Our sunrise drumming was powerful, though I am still "way behind the class". Shannon's berry sauce on ED and I's pancakes (I made the batter, she cooked it up) rocked the sunrise feast, though Russ's lattes were what got many of us through the night at all.

- Many foam and suction cup arrows were shot during the Canadian Election Day party. Conservative candidates were booed, as was anyone who annoyed us. Newscasters and candidates we didn't like got arrows stuck to their chests and heads.

- The credit card program at work is still broken, and has been for about two weeks. I hate running the credit cards through manually. I have probably worked 6 hours of overtime in two weeks due to this problem alone.

- Rob and Linday, our friends and neighbours, are moving. They are staying within the city, but I'll miss having them right upstairs. The moving hasn't been easy from what I've seen of them. I bet our heat wave is not helping.

- I am still really enjoying my new job (except for the credit card problem). But our Toronto "sister office" is going to be annoyed at me when they find out tomorrow morning that I accidently messed their site up while trying to update mine. Sigh.

There we go, all caught up!

I went to Silver Spiral's divination night tonight. I gave a lot of readings, which was nice because it got me out of my own head a bit. I don't know if anything was helpful, but it felt good to try.

Cindy gave me a reading. It was a little vague, as she was trying a new deck for the first time on someone besides herself, but a few things stood out for me:

- A sense of an impending ambush: I worry that I am walking into a nest of vipers tomorrow at work. I don't know what's being going on in my absence, but things are rarely clear, transparent and straight-forward at work.

- A need to check in with people: Two things come from this for me. First, a need to check in with my team members. Second, a need to check in with Russ and Jamey. We've been anticipating having another "check-in" for awhile, so maybe it would be good to make that time soon.

I am not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow morning. I'm not sure if it will be better because I'll be going in rested and refreshed, with some fresh perspective, or whether it will be worse because I have been gone and am not as numb anymore.

This whole week, I've forced myself away from thoughts about work. Today's really the first time I've begun to let myself think about it at all. And I realize that I have come to certain decisions and realizations sub-consciously. There's a bunch of things I need to do this week.

It seems to be all about choices right now.

I need to choose between two applicants for the one job opening I have. They are both friendly, nice, educated with work experience. They both already know and love our products. I am going to need a second interview and my external sales manager's help to choose between them.

I also need to choose how much to help a struggling employee. Whereas the Big Boss used to manage this man himself, he is giving up. He has handed management of the employee over to me. Though this team member is really a nice guy, he just isn't good at some very important parts of this job. So, I try to choose how much energy and work I want to put into making this guy work for the company, and at what point I am ready to give up and let the company "let him go".

I hate these decisions as they directly affect so many lives beyond mine. The applicants, the employee, the other team members, the other Omega employees who work with members of my team, all affected by my choices.

There's more personal choices coming up now too. Duke's wonderful Imbolc ritual called for choosing something to give up, something to have a victory over. I chose "insecurity", as I think I am undervalueing myself at work and at other times as well. I think I need to remember that my worth is about who I am, what I know, what I can do, and has no relation to other people's worth. My value, or lack thereof, is not measured in comparison to other people. That is hard to remember, especially during crisis, when I need that knowledge the most. But I choose to be secure in my own worth, even when faced with challenges to that belief.

The Imbolc ritual also called for us to choose goals or positive things to bind to ourselves. I wrote "CONNECT", "LOVE", "REST" and "PRAY" on the paper.

I want to choose to connect more often to the people, places and things that really matter to me. I also want to choose to connect more frequently to the world. To connect is to be present; to be in the moment, in the emotion, in the real space. It is to not check out or space out; it is to really listen and then to speak from truer places inside. It doesn't have to be about people I love either; I want to connect more at work too.

I want to choose to love more. I want to express the love I already have for individuals more often. I want to choose to act from love more often. I want to learn how to love more and better. I also want to enjoy more sex.

I want to choose rest. I need a vacation. I have three weeks of vacation time saved up at this point. I need to take some of it soon, or risk getting sick again from exhaustion.

I want to pray. I choose to have faith, and express this through a variety of means of prayer. I choose to connect with the world through spirit as well as through the physical.

These are, in some ways, harder choices. For one thing, they haven't been forced upon me. I could ignore the choices I made in the ritual, however sacred those choices may be, and no one would force me to act. At work, people will force me to choose and will even assist me in the choices. In the sacred choices, I am choosing for myself and must act of my own accord, with my own willpower and energy being the only driving forces.

These are also more abstract choices. Applicant A or Applicant B is a concrete, real choice. To act from insecurity or to act from security is a different choice. I will make a plan to make these choices more concrete... tomorrow.

Now I will forget that I have choices waiting to be made. Instead, I will choose to love Russ (and hopefully connect with him too).