I've been in the pagan community for some years now and since the beginning of that time I had been hearing about the Ancient Ways festival - usually with a rolling of the eyes and a leering of the lips. So I was interested. Then the weekend was presented to me as a birthday present. Yay! Being a Gemini has so many benefits....
As with any good adventure the challenges started before we thought they would. Rental Cars, for one, are just wild to us folks who don't own cars and bicycle everywhere. "Hey, I can go really fast! What's this button do? Was that one of the speakers going? We do want to head for Fresno, right?" And so on.
Once we got in the neighborhood of Harbin all we had to do was find the 76 station and turn left at the only light in town off of the highway and onto Lake Ave. This turned out to be a veritable Gordian knot of map mysteries. There was no 76 station, but there was a long abandoned building that used to be one. There were three lights in town, none near the abandoned gas station, and none that intersected Lake avenue. Lake turned out to be a teeny residential street with no sign on its highway end. The right and proper turn was onto another highway, a fascinating fact left out of the brochure. It was the Willetor's dowsing skills that saved us; Ancient Ways indeed.
[Note: I just checked the map on the website (www.ancientways.com) and it looks nothing like the route I remember. Beware! You might want to allow for this and leave a bit earlier to compensate. Say, a day or two.]
So. We arrive and are confronted with an interesting interface: People who have spent the last 5 hours going 90 mph with Dixieland/Death Metal blasting vs. people who have spent 50 of the last 72 hours in a hot tub.
"Hi. Hihihihihi. Which way do we go? Where do we park? Where we can camp? Where do we register? What's this work exchange stuff? And where's the bathroooom......?!" (pause)......."Oh. Hi there......Welcome........That's a lovely pendant.............Hi........You'll probably want to go up there a ways........."
We were arriving early Friday evening and folks had been there since Tuesday. We had no trouble finding a campsite however, for we came equipped with the Willetor's tiny, skinny, 1+1/2 season tent. We set up quietly on a non subtle grade between two of the sleeping platforms by the river. The one nearest us had two small dome tents on it and three blue sleeping bags laid out in front, probably because it was still deucedly hot, even after dark.
The Willetor's first order of business was a vitally necessary nap which lasted all night. I was likewise bushed but decided to take a "little walk" before turning in. I took my doumbek drum along to keep me company. I followed the dirt road down to where the pools were and instead found an odd little modern village, with health food store (closed), gazebo with fountain, dorms, bookstore, labyrinth, etc. All in tasteful matching colors, charming little statuary at every turn, and friendly, cheerful signs to empower your sense of direction. I was either in New Age world or I had somehow stumbled onto the set of 'The Prisoner'. The labyrinth was my first, and was surprisingly powerful, perhaps because I walked it in the dark, with no one in sight. Saw a skunk the size of a bulldog drinking from the fountain. Never did find the pools that night. Back in the pagan half of the Harbin acreage I was now officially tired, but reluctantly talked myself into checking out whatever was making all of the racket up at the big fire circle.
The scene was reminiscent. I had heard it described many times, always by preachers in pulpits who were waving bibles above their heads. It was the cast party for the movie version of Dante's Inferno. A large bonfire was blazing in the center, a surprisingly tight pick-up band of 20-odd drummers was along one edge, and in between the sound and the light were 150 semi naked folks dancing up a storm. Hair was flying free, bodies were painted, a rainbow fountain of clothes was spouting in the air and couples of all types and numbers were running away to the woods together. When I found my conscious brain again I thought back to my young Sundays spent dozing in Lutheran church, where scenes such as this had been described, but obviously by folks who had never been there/here first hand. Wow.
I joined in with the drummers who were a courteous and talented bunch. Tempos were watched, solos divvied judiciously, endings were clean: Joy. After one particularly raucous number a time of absolute silence emerged. For perhaps two long minutes the fire had the floor. This was perhaps even more powerful than the primeval mosh pit. Then one voice sang a single note. Other voices joined in with their own particular note. Between an 'OM' and a cheer is a chord made up of 150 different single, continuous notes. This was yet again more powerful than the wondrous silence. I think even my atoms were happy. Then someone started a chant which tastefully grew to another drum epic. The point here was that this was a conscious event. Aside from leering, people were also watching themselves and each other. This was still a Circle, still protected space and that meant protecting each other. An it harm none, dance naked all night.
Occasionally different folks would thank us drummers by spraying or pouring water on us. This was certainly refreshing but caused drum tunings to violently dissipate. One minute taut and responsive and then splash! you're playing mashed potatoes. Ooooh well. Eventually my newly awakened calluses told me that fun time was over. When I left the party (Ritual? Service? Heaven? Hell?) it was still going strong. Hallelujah.
I crept by the tent platform on the way to my tent and noticed that there were four sleeping bags now, and two of them were green. Hmmm. I crawled in beside the sleeping Willetor who promptly pinned me against the side of the tent (it was quite a slope.) I laid there listening to the drums, the yelling and the laughing and thought that I would never get to sleep, but before I could complete the thought I conked out.
Saturday Morning we decided to check out the pools before breakfast and before the day really started to sizzle. On our neighbor's platform was a jumble of perhaps half-a-dozen full sleeping bags of various colors. Hmmm.
The pools were lovely. All of the recent renovations to Harbin (The "coat of Sedona" let us say) had thankfully stopped short of the main attractions, which still retained a hand-crafted 1920's feel. The New-Agers down here at this early hour were smiley and peppy and had combed hair. The few pagans in the pools looked like they had just woke up there. As we walked back to our neck of the woods, the pagan game preserve, we watched the blasted sun creeping down the steep canyon walls towards us. Ugh. We passed several campsites and saw lots of sleeping and sleepy folks. Perhaps they retained some of the signs of their Dantean debauchery of the night before as they all looked like Hell. Only one thing could save us all now:
Coffee. At the meadow building the Java hounds were slowly congregating. You could see them coming from all directions, in hastily assembled sarongs, camping hair, and stunned expressions that said either "What did I do last night?" or "Who are You?" which is actually the same thing. All were carefully cradling their personal, elaborate coffee mug, or thermos, or pony keg. The fifth element may be Spirit, on a morning after like this the top of the pentacle was most definitely the holy bean.
It was already too hot to cook a breakfast, so we pecked at fruit and trail mix and watched the next picnic table where a gorgeous man in a teeny sarong was making blueberry pancakes from scratch. The Willetor and I agreed that here was a personal ad come to life: "Must be unselfconscious in a sarong and make a damn good blueberry pancake." Soon he was joined by his equally eye popping girlfriend who kept trying on her sarong different ways. The day was off to a good start.
First order of business for me was a nap. The Willetor went on a wandering expedition (Read: more coffee and sarong action). I awoke to serious heat. The tent platform was minus a couple of sleeping bags and all of them were empty.
I investigated the shopping district of the camp which was extensive and informative. I saw some old friends, made some new ones, and saw many more that I wouldn't mind getting to know. And amazingly you get used to naked shopkeepers pretty quickly. A few small workshops and seminars followed, all excellent and all sparsely attended. There were hundreds of people here and only a small percentage seemed to be going to the classes listed in the brochure. What was the reason? Could it be the triple digit temperatures and the negative number humidity? At one point I found myself standing underneath an outdoor shower, which eventually cooled me off enough to realize that I still had my clothes on. And there's your answer.
This particular shower was adjacent to the fire circle, the scene of Friday night's primeval moshing. Now it was sporting an awning and was the scene of a pagan baby shower, which seemed appropriate. When they called the East a wind came up and blew the awning over. Yea team!
I had lost the Willetor again but was not unduly concerned. I figured I couldn't be the first guy to have lost his Partner at Ancient Ways. I couldn't find her, but I did find a pool shuttle leaving. What a great idea. The pool scene was oddly unchanged from the morning. Pagans who were moving slow this morning due to last nights revelry were now moving slowly due to the heat. The New-Agers meanwhile were smiley, peppy and their hair was combed.
Eventually I found the Willetor napping in the tent and clutching a neat little dream pillow that she had made somewhere along the day. We stood in the creek and admired the balanced rocks all around us until it was time to head for the Meadow Building and see what the Work Exchange entailed. (The tent platform had lost several sleeping bags but had picked up a napper.)
My job was to watch the pools for a couple of hours. Oh foul toil! Actually Security was not without its Drama or Comedy. My job was limited to keeping tabs on the pagans - the New-Agers had their own folks, thank you very much. My instructions were simply to keep the quiet pool quiet and the silent pool silent. My work though turned out to be a few other tasks:
1) Get replacement towels for New-Agers who had lost theirs.
2) Find the nut who parked his car sideways across the road (probably after listening to Dixieland/Death Metal music).
3) Diplomatically uncouple couples who were coupling in the pools. Yes these were pagans, and no, they were not just couples. Several severals.
4) Make sure that the folks who were on the tables in the hot room were breathing.
The toughest part was telling the difference between dizziness and Transformation. Hot tubs can bring about both, and to a stranger like myself they can look remarkably similar. About the time I got to their side telling them to put their head between their knees there would be a friend on the other side saying, "It's not your fault. It's not your fault." Whoops.
On the way back to the pagan game preserve I met up with another Security person. She had her own neighboring colony of sleeping bags in constant flux and we compared notes. It was hard to tell if this was flirting because by this time my flirtation circuit breaker had long since overloaded and burnt out.
The Willetor and I capped a food day that was as sparse as it was bizarre with a two course dinner of chocolate mousse and ice cream. The blazing sun had finally retreated by this time and the pagan game preserve was slowly filling with pagans. Now that the night was here the day could truly begin. Next up was the Saturday night ritual: The apex, the climax! of the whole Ancient Ways week. I had been looking forward to it throughout this whole hot, exciting, exhausting day. On our way over to it we stopped off at the tent and slept all night. Oh well. No sleeping bags at all on our neighbors platform. Hmmm.
Sunday was low key. The week had been well seized but now it was time to pack up and contemplate acting civilized again. Ick. The platform next-door in the early morning was a mountain of zipped together sleeping bags and dusty heads of hair. The java hounds were out, but the leering and flirting was absent. The festival was tired and spent and just wanted to roll over. We paid a farewell visit to the pools. The pagans there were frowny, nursing sunburns, nonexistent sleep patterns, and broken vows. The many New-Agers were smiley and peppy and had combed their hair.
A few lessons learned:
1) Beauty seems to have as much to do with Grace and Attitude as it does with skinniness. Overweight people who are healthy, happy in their skins and free in their dancing trump model thin folks who are uptight.
2) Pagans and New-Agers are both interested in saving time. Pagans are big on seizing the moment, acting spontaneously, and going with the feeling. Even if it involves a trip to the clinic next week. New-Agers are not content with wandering for 40 years in the desert or meditating for 40 days under a Gingko tree. They want enlightenment in 40 minutes, and will buy any book that promises things like this.
3) Eating like a bird is a fun and viable diet alternative. Kinda Spring-cleans your system too.
4) New-Agers are scared of European statuary. Harbin is loaded with Eastern Gods and a few Native American motifs. Lift up any palm frond and you'll probably find some tubby, smiling figurine, but Pan? Artemis? The Green Man? Any sort of Goddess image? Symboligaia Non Grata.
5) Harbin and Ancient Ways are best suited for Sun worshippers and nocturnal folks, neither of which I am, and I still had a blast. Celtic and Norse descendants bring #80 sunblock and be prepared to nap.
6) Some of the best times are the unscripted ones. Do the workshops that you want, but allow plenty of time to just Be. That's when the Magick happens.
When the Willetor and I left the platform next door was still littered with snoring sleeping bags. And I never got to see who the site belonged to. And now I kinda wish I had.
Angus McMahan
3/18/02
2565 words
vesica@cruzio.com