In Which I Survived the Elements

Last updated on: July 5, 2017 at 7:07 am by Laura Tempest Zakroff

In Which I Survived the Elements 2017-07-05T07:07:23-08:00 Laura Tempest Zakroff

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It’s hard for me to process the event right now, especially since we’re now into just week two of a 6 week long tour, but I wanted to capture a few thoughts before it’s suddenly August. The first week of the tour was covering a lot of long distances and covering new ground. We had stops in Boise (6/17), Salt Lake City (6/18), Denver (6/19), and Omaha (6/20) before swing down to Vienna, IL for Pagan Spirit Gathering. It was wonderful meeting new folks and seeing some familiar faces as well.

Photo of The Mechanist & The Star Goddess by Arthur Hinds

We managed to make it down to PSG from Omaha in one day, with some breathing room before the gates closed at 7pm. We had a great spot reserved for us next to our dear friend S.J. Tucker, and got right to work setting up camp – our booth and our camping tents. When we finished, we ready quite ready for dinner – only to find out that the food trucks had closed (I think it was just a little after 7pm?). Since we were on tour and short on space, we were planning on buying food versus cooking it, so that was a shock to find out the trucks closed so early. Luckily, our friends Celeste and Loren came to the rescue with sandwiches, olives, pickles, and other protein goodness. YAY! Shortly after, I passed right out in our tent and got some sleep. (We had a hotel room the night before, but it seemed to have an invisible squirrel trapped inside of it, that tapped all night long, keeping me up…)

Thursday morning brought us some dubious weather that caused our main stage show at noon to be cancelled. We were able to still perform in the food court stage, under the tent – with a great audience. Later, I taught “The Authentic Witch” in one of the workshop spaces. When we drove in the day before, I thought I saw tables and chairs set up under the workshop tents, but I must have hallucinated them. So I failed to bring a chair with me to my own workshop, so I stood for 1.5 hours, but hey, I teach dance classes for hours on end, so it wasn’t a big deal. (I just know better for next time.) At the end of the workshop, a small bunny hopped out of the woods and joined us, so that was delightful.

Thursday into Friday brought us a full-on deluge. Water had managed to seep between the tarp and tent floor, so we got fairly damp. The rain held on for most of the morning. To keep myself from going nuts, I sat down in the booth and worked on some art until it cleared.

(so about here is where I stopped working on this post about a week ago to go teach a workshop….so I’m going to speed things up as I’m remembering less now…)

The weather cleared up, and things started to dry out! And it looked like the second storm cell that was predicted to hit about the time of my workshop (Sigils In Motion: Ritual Movement), was nowhere to be seen. Left the camp pretty much nearly dried out to go teach down in the ritual space. The ground we were working on was a mix of mud, dirt, grass, and roots, so I couldn’t do a lot of active movement without worrying about people getting hurt, but we still managed to do a lot without moving too far.

Of course, just as we finished up the workshop, the storm showed up (2 hours late) and poured down on PSG. Things that didn’t get soaked the first time, definitely got wet. Thankfully not my computer, but my tarot deck took the hit instead due to how my backpack was situated. (And my backpack HAD been hanging out in the nice dry van, but I took it out to get stuff for the workshop…and it didn’t go back into the van, so my bad.)

Nathaniel & S.J. Tucker practicing one of Nathan's song.

Nathaniel & S.J. Tucker practicing one of Nathan’s songs.

Thoroughly a drowned rat (again), I was not in the best of head spaces, so I opted to take a hot shower (there was a shower trailer, solar-heated), and get my body temperature up…and have dry clean feet in socks and boots. It meant I missed helping out Jason with his ritual but it sounds like that went over great. I got ready-ish for the Pan’s Ball, but ran into folks heading to Arthur Hind’s concert at the food court, so diverted off that way to enjoy the show. We all headed down to the Ball…but had forgotten our IDs…derp. Walked back and did more socializing and meeting folks, which was lovely. Got some time down at the fire circle before folks arrived post-Ball, and turned in for the night.

Saturday was a crazy, busy day. I performed with Sooj at her concert, joining her for “La Siren” – then vending, and getting ready for the Hekate at the Crossroads Ritual….which was scheduled for 3pm. I wondered how this would go over, because I’ve only done this ritual either indoors, in windowless hotel rooms (where time/light shifts out of the normal) or very late in the evening. Doing it in the open outdoors in the middle of a sunny day was certainly different. Again, the surface of the ritual space also was prohibitive for the kind of movement it normally requires – not only from me, but also the participants. So it was different, but still highly effective and profound in the end. It allowed for personal one-on-one interactions with the attendees and the goddess, where time seem suspended as she visited 20-30 people.

Afterwards was more vending, getting some food, and then participating in the big ritual on Saturday night – which involved burning a wicker man, which was cool. Alas, the sun was nearly set when it was time for me to dance around the space to raise the energy (prior to lighting the man), and I realized afterward it would have been more effective for everyone to instruct them on some hand/arm gestures vs leaving the dancing mainly to me, since it was hard to see me, and I’m not sure how well folks could hear Nathaniel and Davis. Oh well 🙁

And then we headed out to get ready for Bardapalooza – which is a great big jam where all of the featured bands come together and share the stage. It was pretty darn awesome (despite the rapidly dropping temperatures). Afterwards, thanks to Damh the Bard (and I think Mankey too, because it’s fun to poke Jason), I was deep into Arthur’s margarita mix and excellent conversation and suddenly it was 3:37am. Oops.

Of course, I woke up by 7:30am the next day. Vending in the morning was great as folks grabbed last minute CD and arts…and we packed up under a baking sun, heading out to our next stop in St. Louis. I got about 20 more minutes of sleep in the ride over, and somehow taught a two hour workshop in a fairly coherent manner, despite the lack of sleep.

It’s currently July 5th, and I’m still processing the PSG experience. (Though to be fair, I’m in the middle of a tour, it’s hard to process ANYTHING right now). Definitely had a wonderful time, especially in terms of meeting new people and seeing friends. I liked the vibe and the setting was lovely. I have to seriously consider how to improve my outdoor camping experience though – and I may not want to do a camping event in the middle of a big ass long tour again. But perhaps on its own (or flanked by a couple of stops to/from). We’ll see.

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