badstar

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."
( A bit ranty... )

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.

So I left work a couple hours early today. And came home and broke out the firestaff. I didn't light up though...much as I wanted to. There was much construction going on nd what smelled like all sorts of combustible fumes in the immediate vicinity due to construction next door.

So I didn't light, but I did spend plenty of time spinning unlit. Contact stuff even. Towards the end, I came up with this brilliant something or other which involves tossing the staff straight up from a palm-down position, letting it land on my wrist, roll down my arm and fall down behind my shoulder to catch behind my back. The one time it fell together perfectly, it rolled all the way down against my neck and I spun my body in the oposite direcion (Rolling down right arm, turned myself leftwards), it fell diagonally across my back and caught it at waste level on the left.

There was also the one which I've been working on for a while which involves fliping the staff over the back of my hand, and letting it rest there intead of circling back to my palm, and with it staying there, bring my hand up over my head and flip it around so that my hand is palm up and the staff rolls around my wrist(Actually, it's more like my wrist rolls around the staff) to rest again in my palm. It's really far less complicated than it sounds. It's Two very simple movements combined.

I will stop attempting to explain staff moves that I am making up. I can demonstrate upon request.

I know that I need a longer staff. Probably close to my height, instead of shoulder height. and if I want to do contact work, it'll have to be at least as thick as the current one, not thinner....I really prefer thinner- Much easier for me to grip in a manner that I like. It will need to be cushioned. Hello, tennis racquet grip. I need to get wick.

Contact stuff...yeah. I see this being a spring and summer of hurting from that. It'll be fun though

Happy Neay Year people.

I was much happier once I left work yesterday. I hopped in the car with Jackie, and we dropped Wes and Sean off at Lutherville, then proceeded onto towson to pick up Matt and stop at a grocery store, where I ran into Chris. After picking up what we needed in the grocery store, where Matt and I proceeded to show Jackie no mercy in our high-spirited good humor we continued onward in source of alcohol (for Matt and Jackie) and lamp oil (for me). Found them in side-by-side stores- how convenient...and made our way to the Grove. A little after arriving there, Kessa gave me ride home to pick up the firestaff and when we got back, more people had shown up. Around 11, I decided it was time to light things on fire...but not before smacking myself squarely in the elbow. And yelling loud enough to wake up anyone who may have been asleep. Caryn reiki'd my arm a bit and I lit up.

I spent the next couple of hours wandering between spinning and haging out inside. There were some surreal and interesting moments which I won't go into because they were not my moments, I was simply a bystander who happened to be there. I made it through one bottle of oil...my wicks were lasting a VERY long time last night. I didn't worry about executing every trick in my repertoire, I wasn't performing for others, I was in it for the fire. I did a lot of just spinning in circles in front of me, listening to the sound, watching the light, and from time to time just holding the staff in front of me, as close to the wicks as I could without burning myself, feeling the fire. That's not something that you can get away with so much when people are expecting you to perform (Not that I mind being expected to perform when I light up. But as I said, I wasnt performing for anyone last night.)

I did make it to the point where I could no longer spin. It was well after 2 a.m. and I finished the first bottle of oil. My arms and shoulders are very sore. Everyone else was either gone, or sleeping. I spun off better than half the bottle outside, on my own with no one watching. It's been so long since I've lit up without anyone saftying...it's so much easier to get lost in the moment alone. (Rhi told me later that she had watched me fron inside for a while before going to sleep and it was like having fireworks go off outside the window)

I feel a lot more like myself than I have in a while.

I don't do new years resolutions, but I've decided that it would serve me well to try to burn off about a bottle a week (as long as the weather is conducive). I think it wil go far to do much for me on many levels. I say it so many times, it's like neededing to breathe air and drink water, but I don't really understand it until I haven't picked up in so long. I thought the staff would be retired after last night to make a new one...but it will last me at least a few more weeks until I construct the new one.

Slept at the Grove last night, as did a few others...Had some eeeenteresting dreams. And then Caryn and Will returned and a few showed up that weren't there last night and we spent the day just sitting around, drinking coffee, reading magazines, telling stories, being silly...just hanging out and having a good day doing nothing in particular.

The most amusing moment came at one point where I was talking about something that I had noticed oast night when I was outside by myself, and a few other people started talking about other things...I lost my train of thought and commented "I have a short attention span...oh look a bunny!" No sooner did the word "bunny" leave my mouth when 4 or 5 people broke into a perfectly unanimous round of "Little Bunny Foo Foo" They sang the entire song, and my the time they finished, I was laughing so hard that my stomach hurt and I was crying.

Good times.

The last roughly 26 hours or so have been...magical. I feel completey different now...physically, emotionally, mentally...than I did when I left work last night. I need to sustain this.

And now, it is time to get down to work on my Dedicant's program. Well, not this exact instant, but in general. Actually, I did work on it yesterday while at work. So I have started.

It's going to be A Year.