(Guest post by Peg Aloi)

Brushwood Folklore Center

Sherman, NY

July 2009 (Sirius Rising and Starwood)

The origin of the witch’s cackle: people sitting in the woods at night around campfires, telling stories, and lobbing good-natured barbs at each other, laughing with loud, lusty abandon, their voices raspy with smoke and gravelly from drink, barley bread and wine, stones and water, bleating into the night among the mist-shrouded in dew-soaked copses. This laughter is in fact indistinguishable from the screams of witches burning on byres or twisting under thumbscrews, their knowing humor indistinguishable from their cunning spells or wily seductions, the disruption of forest silence indistinguishable from the shattering of families and homes, atunement with nature indistinguishable from communion with the devil. Comedy is tragedy plus time; neo-paganism is the witchcraft of antiquity plus mod cons. Persecution? It may still exist; but witch wars are worse. Our laughter is wiser now, but also meaner.

***

We retreat to the woods for rustic pleasures; but now the forest has wi-fi and cellular service. We compensate with archaic food and drink: home-brewed ale and mead, spit-roasted meats, potatoes baked in the embers. Likewise, we dress in anachronistic clothing. Someone oughta start an organization celebrating this spirit of inventive nostalgia, a society for creative anachron–oh, wait.

***

Jogging offsite today, I saw two birds I’ve never seen in this area, where I’ve been camping for a decade and a half: a scarlet tanager (which I at first mistook for a red-winged blackbird) and a bluebird (which I mistook for a bluejay). Buebirds, the state bird of New York, are in fact becoming quite rare. In this week’s event, Sirius Rising, daily elemental rituals are held. Today, Tuesday, is Fire day, so the red bird sighting is a thrill, followed by tomorrow’s color, blue for Water. I won’t see yellow birds, signifying Air, until Thursday, whn I spy two goldfinches. So far, a week later, no green Earth-appropriate birds have been sighted.

***

Decadent tastes, textures, scents and sounds abound at any pagan festival. Today (Wednesday) I tried Dickel Tennessee Bourbon: it has a sweet, sugary, syrupy burn to it, an aftertaste of an Appalachian Hades. Other firsts this week: legally-obtained absinthe, and bacon-infused chocolate.

***

I am always amazed at the sheer lack of preparation for the weather that is on display here. We’re camping, after all. People who have lived in the Northeast all their lives come here for a festival and don’t appear to know what wool is or what shoes are; thy wander around in a sarong when it’s a damp 50 degrees outside. I have thus formulated the following hypothesis, hereafter referred to as the  Wet Rayon Corrollary: The amount of clothing worn on a chilly night by certain pagan gathering attendees  is directly proportional to the temperature but inversely proportional to (fill in the blank with whatever you think is appropriate).

***

A chipmunk, upon discovering the nectarine pit covered in juicy pulp I threw onto the forest floor to compost and perhaps eventually sprout into a glorious fruit tree: OH NOM NOM NOM.

***

The mist is a carnival, enhancing and amplifying our meanderings through the night landscape. Lights are softened, facial features made fey, words and footsteps jumbled and rearranged with new meanings, new recognition. The memory of this night is now living in the mist, inaccessible in the parched heat of afternoon or the clearheaded consciousness of morning, or even at the sultry zenith of midday. The mist is dismembered by such heat and clarity. At dawn, at twilight, as the sun scatters it, as the encroacing night summons it, the mist remembers its place, and us, and we re-member ourselves.

***

Dream: I’m in a college photography/film class. Our assignment is to make a short film on the theme of “nature.” We only have a day to do this. I come up with some simple ideas: a rose in the sunlight, a tree with birds. I don’t finish my film on time but go to class anyway, where completed assignments are shown. One female student’s film stands out: a female scarecrow/goddess figure standing in a field, skirts made of cornhusks, waist wreathed in flowers, her face a giant sunflower. She appears to dance in the field, and then there is a circle of people standing in a pool of water, flowers floating all around them. I’m shaken by the beauty of this short visual feast, the power of its themes, its pagan simplicity and intricate colors. I feel jealous and awed, my own ideas so paltry compared to hers. I awaken from this dream, the images still fresh, and realize, in that odd hybrid state between dreaming and wakefulness, that the creative vision that inspired the film within my dream is actually my own. This reminds me of an ongoing discussion that’s been happening this week, about originality and creativity in the pagan community, and the irritating and demoralizing practice of stealing the ideas and words of others: plagiarizing workshop titles, book ideas, ritual texts, website code and images…is there really such a lack of ideas and ethics in our community? For such a creative and vibrant spiritual movement, this dishonesty and mediocrity is disheartening. I want more scarecrow goddesses, an endless array of them, lined up like acres of corn, but I want them all to have a separate persona and all the flora and colors of the known universe. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

***

There’s been a great deal of rain. The last time it rained this much during festival the event became known as “Squishwood.” Three truckloads of gravel bought and delivered today to deal with the muddy roads. Many tents on the field are surrounded by water. The porto-potties are becoming, if not dangerous, horrifying to access. Still…pagans stay positive. Chanting the names of the sun gods at the cafe. Applauding when the sun finally poked out from behind the clouds. Last week at the labyrinth ritual during Sirius Rising, some kids started chanting that old classic, “Rain, Rain, go away, come again some other day.” Alas, it didn’t work. I am always amused at the degree to which pagans, witches and other magical types think they can control or influence the weather. Maybe they’re capable of picking up on weather vibes and display an uncanny knack for timing. But I think that may be the extent of it. Still, I’ll take the intermittent sunshine to dry out our duds and watch people cheer up as their living situations improve dramatically. I’ll even chalk it up to the chants for Chango, Ra, Apollo and Helios. Hail to the sun gods! Suns for us and rains for us and dry beds for us. A dry place to sleep; funny how little we really need to feel satisfied…and magically accomplished.