Camp overall was a much better experience than last year - no horrible sunburn, no hacking cough, not much trouble with the tailbone, no attacks by fires or bees. I was plagued by rampant travel complications, miscommunications, crossed wires, small mishaps, and numerous challenges that forced me to be flexible and fluid - two things I can be but don't particularly enjoy, especially not when trying on new responsibilities and roles. I spent a great deal of time feeling useless and trying to sit back and just enjoy being idle; sometimes this worked, other times not so much. I did get some trigger point therapy for my neck, which helped a great deal, and may even forestall a trip to the chiro. Yay!

I discovered some very cool things over the week: I'm a heretic anarchist knitter who refuses to be bound by convention when it comes to making scarves; I seem to have more impact (for the good, thank all the gods) on more people than I ever would've thought; people seem surprised by generosity, which makes me sad; apparently my smart mouth is something many people appreciate about me; while I don't feel a strong personal connection to her, I do feel a certain reverence for Brigid, and I predict many future offerings at her well; there is something really precious about the connections formed through camps like this - I truly believe that supporting them is one big step towards changing the world.

Meanwhile...I'm ridiculously tired. I can't seem to stay awake past 7 p.m., which is early even for me. I guess all that sun and fresh air and climbing of giant hills wore me out. Kinda sad actually. Hm.

To whom the Goddess thus: O sacred rest,
Sweet pleasing sleep, of all the Pow'rs the best!
O peace of mind, repairer of decay,
Whose balms renew the limbs to labours of the day,
Care shuns thy soft approach, and sullen flies away!

- Ovid, "The House of Sleep" from Metamorphoses, Book Eleven.

The entire week of camp, I was surrounded by spiders. That sounds a little creepy, especially considering the dreams I've had lately that featured creepy pipe-cleaner spiders so prominently. However, the spiders I kept seeing again and again didn't creep me out, or really bother me at all (though I admit the Daddy Long Legs that crawled up my leg in the middle of a conversation freaked me just slightly). I think I understand why they were around, though.

When I first became involved in Reclaiming, a call went out for people to trance to the "Clan House," an etheric construct built as a sort of out-of-body meeting place for the whole tradition. Now, I dunno how I feel about the tangible usefulness of such a thing, but I did my own version of a trance to the Clan House, and had my own interesting experience while there. I had a long conversation with Grandmother Spider...who was not a spider, nor a Grandmother. She spoke to me about various things, and it was only much later that I started to suspect that that was the first connection I had with Skuld.

I first encountered the Weavers (one way I think of the Norns) in the final ritual of my Elements class in the summer of 2004. As I began forming a connection with them and studying more Norse culture and mythology, learning runes and bonding with Skuld in preparation for aspecting her for a group ritual later that summer, I suddenly saw spiders everywhere. Now, I'm sure they were always there....but I had never noticed them so strikingly before. I saw them at home, in print, around the city, on the train, movies....everywhere I turned, I saw spiders. When I was younger, this would've absolutely scared the bejeezus out of me....a little later, it would've incited me to get the Boot of Death and go on a rampage...but suddenly, instead of freaking out, I saw them as reminders and messengers and connections between Skuld and me and nature.

I recognize that spiders are not a traditional Norse symbol...Scandinavia doesn't seem like a particularly hospitable place for them (though the scientific part of my brain insists that there must be some sort of insect life, and where there are bugs, there are spiders - but I digress). I know that nowhere in any legend or story or song of the Norns are spiders mentioned. I know that it seems an odd connection between Spiders and She Who Cuts - but it's one I make, and feel very strongly. I guess that's tied to my relationship with and understanding of the Divine - that it comes in innumerable forms and is best interpreted by the individual for the individual.

The point of this ramble is a reminder to myself. I dedicated myself to Skuld over a year ago, in a small, very personal ritual. Part of that dedication was finding a way to show my commitment to her, and to formalize that dedication in an unmistakable way - a tattoo, a symbol marking me irrevocably. For various reasons - time, money, fear - that hasn't materialized. I think the spiders are her way of saying, "get on with it already!"

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

  - Robert Frost

The story for this camp, the myth being used as a framework for path and ritual, was Briar Rose (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty). The story itself didn't particularly call me, but the way it was used in ritual as a metaphor for apathy, exclusion, all kind of -isms, various global atrocities and epidemics....well, it was masterful. The last big ritual was the one where it finally hit me - all week, I'd been feeling a sort of amorphous emotional unrest, with no clear reasoning or explanation or even well-defined emotion....just sort of a blob-like unhappiness sitting on my shoulders. Friday, as we came together as a community to work with the intention of waking up our Selves and our community and our world(s), I was suddenly struck with the world's suffering, as if I could feel the heartbreak of children growing up too soon as their parents succumb to AIDS or malaria or war or famine; as if I could feel the shock of homes and villages and cities destroyed by hurricane or tsunami or earthquake; as if I could feel the epidemic of preventable disease and reasonless poverty taking life after life after life; the daily wrestling match between life and death, freedom and the illusion of freedom, consumer-driven corporate greed and honest hunger. I don't pretend that any human being could experience the entirety or the world's suffering and stay sane....but I felt a great deal, and it left me exhausted and terrified and furious and crying for most of the night.

It is not fair and it is not right, in a moral sense, that so many people look Death in the eye on a daily basis, while others face no decisions more earth-shattering than whether to sip scotch or champagne while lounging beside the pool. I have been wrestling this sense of the world's hurting for months now, searching for a way to support sustainability and healing. I think a big part of the problem is that those who have the power to change things, the power to *give* don't even see that there's a problem. The interconnected systems of power that keep the majority of the world's people powerless....do a really good job of keeping those who might have the resources to enact change busy with consumerism and self-esteem issues and personal greed.

But now is the time to wake up, to commit to change, to desire a healthy planet, a healthy world, a healthy country, a healthy community, a healthy home, a healthy family. And to take steps toward those things. I'm not sure what that means or what it looks like or how much of it can be done in one lifetime....but I'm joyously embracing the adventure I'm sure comes with trying.

Today's Playlist:

"Ode to an Ass Clown" - by me (so I listen to my own music, shoot me)
"Gold Digger" - Kanye West
"Sucker" - John Mayer
"Friends" - Cowboy Mouth
"Stacy's Mom" - Fountains of Wayne
"The Real Slim Shady" - Eminem
"Star Wars Disco"
"The Hate Song" - Paul Sanchez
"The Pharmacist" - Hot Rod Circuit
"Goodbye Earl" - Dixie Chicks
"Donald Where's Your Trousers?" - Brobdingnagian Bards

Recent entries...
27 December 2007: 2007: Finis.
17 December 2007: A ruse, a rant, and a poem. It's short.
11 December 2007: Music & falling....story of my life.
08 December 2007: Briefly...ish.
29 November 2007: A poem, a rant, a lesson.