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Stress and blah aside, there was some good stuff this weekend. I got to see both of my nieces, which was fun. I haven't seen Ashlyn in...gah...was it 2005 or 2004 that I saw her at Christmas?

Hmm...would have been 2005, because it was AFTER Mike and Anthony brought her and Samantha down to go to the aquarium, and I was living a few blocks down the street then.

Kid is huge. She's 5 but she looks like she's 7 or 8. Almost as tall as Samantha who is 7, but she also looks older than 5 in the face. And she talks older than a 5 year old.

And I got to go camping with friends on Saturday night at the Highland Farms Beltane campout.

I wasn't particularly impressed with the ritual, but I've never been a fan of Wiccan ritual structure, and mixing ADF with Wiccan just does wacky thigns in my mind. I understand why it was done, but I don't like it. I'm glad there was no circle casting.

I was one of the first people at the top of the hill, since I rode up in the truck with Dennis, Anna and a couple of others. And there were a couple of people drumming up there...so I had fun dancing for a good half hour before the ritual started. Everyone expected it to get super-cold, but it didn't. Good thing, since I was wearing a tank top and skirt.

There was a nice little bonfire lit as part of the ritual. It wasn't huge, but it was nice. And whenever the wind blew up, it would stir up plumes of sparks. I kept getting closer and closer to the fire...and then right at the end of the praise offerings, I made my way a bit closer, just as Caryn was asking if anyone yet had offerings. I hadn't planned for any, I was just getting closer to the fire, but I think Caryn mistook that for an indication that I had somethign in mind, though I didn't realize that she was talking to me at first because I didn't think I'd done anythign to draw the attention to myself. I'd not planned to do anything for several reasons- the nature of the ritual, community building, is not somethign that I wholly object to, but of that particular community, I have so far been a rare visitor. Also, I like to do somethign tangible for offerings. I have no objection to others speaking in praise, but I personally prefer to be making an actual offering of some sort- which may or may not be accompanied by some speaking. And also because I was just so scattered this weekend.

Well, I was kinda put on the spot. And I had nuffin'. But (ritual briefs aside) I am reasonably good at speaking off the cuff in public. And I was on the spot, and people were looking at me, so I said "Okay, sure, I'll go."

And at that point, a couple of people asked me if I was going to spin fire (more on that in a minute)

So I thought for about half a second, and said something like

"I speak in praise and thanks to Apollo, for bringing me to the point where I am in my life,
And to Hestia of the hearth, who is not only the hearth, but who is the fire itself, and to Polyhymnia who inspires out sacred words, and Terpsichore who inspires us to dance...and to the gods, I give praise to the gods."

So...at the point when I said "and to Hestia...", a huge flurry of sparks blew up from the fire. Which was really cool.

Oh, and Tracy made chocolate runes for everyone. My rune was sigel (not sure if I spelled that right...? The one that looks like a lightning bolt.)

And then later on waiting in line for food, I saw two former coworkers- one whom I'd not seen since Samhain 2005 who told me that he'd started to cry a little when I'd spoken. (I didn't know what to say to that, I don't think I've ever made anyone cry in a good way before) and then a bit later, another former coworker, Adam, came up and said hi, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out who he was. Very familiar face, but no name came to mind. When he told me who he was, it was really obvious...but the problem was that he didn't have 8-inch-tall spiky blue hair sticking out in every direction as he did when he was in the office. Ah well, it's nice to run into people sometimes.

And there was lots of dancing and drumming around the smaller fire afterwards. I danced so much that my abs still hurt. Not far from the fire, under a shade structure, someone had set up a little travelling Hindu temple with altars and shrines and carpets laid down, and incense and candles, and was offering Sanskrit blessings of prosperity and wealth and inviting people to drum and dance inside the "temple". It was quite magical.

And I really, REALLY wished that I'd had the staff with me.

Speaking of which....

So, I spin fire. Everyone knows that. And I mean everyone knows that. Apparently, that would include people I've never met or even seen before.

I mentioned how people asked me in the circle if I was going to spin. BEfore the ritual started, when I had just gotten to the circle, I walked past a small group of people who were some of the few folks up there. I didn't know them, never seen them before, but I heard as I went past "That's the girl that did the fire invocation or something like that last year at Beltane at Cedarlight grove. I heard she had fire in the middle of the circle."

All Saturday night, people were asking me when I was going to spin. Much as I had wanted to, really really wanted to, it would have been a massive inconvenience to drag the firestaff and a bucket of fuel with me to work and then to PA. So I found myself constantly telling people that I wasn't, and fairly constantly being followed with an inquiry as to why I didn't have it with me.

Okay...so I love the fact that people like seeing me spin. Much as I love to do it for myself, I admit, I like that people like to watch me. I like the attention. Yes, I like hearing how cool it is. I can talk about it forever. When I was little, I wanted to be a dancer, but I never got to take any dance lessons because my grandparents refused to let me do anything like that, and my mom never had the money(though if she had, she'd have signed me up in a second)

This is me getting to be a dancer. This is me getting to perform. It's fun. It's amazing. If I do it long enough at a stretch, I get high. I'm addicted to the sound of the flames. I love it.

But I don't want it to be expected that if I show up to one of these things, I'm gonna spin- at least not to the point that people I don't know are questioning me about it when I don't. Excuse me, I don't know you, it's not really your business. And really, do you have to yell across the circle in the middle of ritual? (I have no idea who it was that did that) chironcentaur said yesterday that it's my gimmick. Gawds, I hope not.

And it wasn't so much that everyone expected me to do it that bugs me. Hell, I'm sorry to have disappointed friends (and if you're reading this, you fall into that category, unless you've just stumbled across my journal for the first time five minutes ago. Then I don't know you to be able to say that I care or not). What bugged me was people I might have met once for three seconds, or never even met but somehow knowing about me expecting me to light up and perform, and then wanting to know why when I didn't. I appreciate that people want to see it...and I'm sorry that I couldn't. Hell,

I was hoping that there might be another spinner there who would let me borrow their equipment- staff, poi, fingers, fans, whatever. But there wasn't.

But I did dance plenty, and surprised several folks with the fact that the only bellydance classes I ever took were Sara's tribal class in Catonsville a few years ago which was only for about 2 months.

I still need to find a decent bellydance class. We'll see what my options are next month when my schedule changes and my raise takes effect.

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