Journey Through The Obsidian Dream

Although I have not managed to make it every year, I have been attending the Heartland Pagan Festival since 1998. In that decade-and-a-half I have seen good rituals and bad. The bad were mostly just ineffectual: theatrical rituals that did not involve or connect the audience. The good were spectacular: cauterizing and salving old wounds, presenting divine dramas in which the audience participated, and opening new avenues of thought. This year’s main ritual, though, was the first I had seen to leave people wounded by the experience.

Early this year, when I made the decision to attend the festival as a work exchange minion, it was only partly about the money. I have been participating in the festival for over a decade, doing my mandatory community service, but otherwise a largely passive spectator in what has become a large part of my spiritual life. The time for such passivity has long past. It had been my intention, going in to the festival, to join the HAS and perhaps participate in the Sacred Experience Committee if my work exchange experience went well.

The work exchange went fabulously. I made friends, contributed to the community in a meaningful fashion, and—although I was a little disappointed in the schedule management, and lost an unfortunate amount of time with Camp What The Fuck—overall felt that the experience improved by my participation. On the merits of that experience, I was convinced that joining up was, indeed, what I wanted to do (something that those of you who know me in meatspace might find that shocking: I have never been a joiner). The violence of the main ritual, however, shook that new-found conviction to the core.

To say the least, I was deeply conflicted. Like most feminists, I have generally found that people (who are not already feminists, themselves) find deconstructions of their actions to be unappetizing at best. Still, I was not going to give in without even trying.

At the end of the festival, when I sought out the head of the Work Exchange Committee to get my deposit back, I also asked how to get in touch with the head of the Sacred Experience Committee. She told me that she’d forward my contact information to the appropriate parties.

The next three posts in this series will detail the exchange that followed that contact. Although all of this email exchange is publically available on Facebook, I have here redacted the legal names of all parties in accordance with my standard practice. Ultimately a mediated in-face meeting was arranged and executed, but most of the contents thereof are bound by a confidentiality agreement required by the mediator. The concluding post will detail my ultimate thoughts on the matter. I will say here at the outset that despite the very rocky start, these negotiations ultimately concluded positively. Although the outcome did fall short of a hypothetical ideal (I can be a pretty hardcore idealist and utopian sometimes, despite my bitter and cynical tone), it far exceeded both what I had thought reasonable to consider a victory.

These posts will be coming approximately daily—hopefully in addition to actual magical posting—but the final post may be delayed as some of the things I secure permission to discuss some of the finer points of the face-to-face negotiations.

In witchcraft

An Alchemical Experiment in Fiery Protection

Satyr Magos26/06/2012

Despite my good intentions, I didn’t do much for the Solstice this year. My planned trip out to Gaea the weekend before, with Aradia, Pasiphae, and Aidan, was cancelled due to a conflicting event[1]. The Solstice proper was mostly consumed by Sannafrid’s arrival, insomnia, and napping. Hell, I didn’t even manage to do my usual monthly reading.

I did, however, manage to start my own batch of Fiery Wall of Protection Oil. I used Polyphanes’ recipe, but my process ended up being a bit different. I didn’t have all of the ingredients I needed on hand, but I really wanted to take advantage of the astrological conditions: it was the Summer Solstice, the third day of the Dark Moon, and the first day of the Lunar Month and the waxing moon. So I ultimately split the construction and consecration of the oil over three separate occasions.

Wednesday, at the Hour of the Sun, about two hours after the peak of the Solstice, I put together about half the ingredients[2] in solution with the olive oil. The charge the oil took was very Solar, with a a Fiery heart.

Friday, at the Hour of Mars, I put together the remaining ingredients and added the castor oil[3]. The oil took on a much more frantic, fiery character. In between sessions and after, I left the bottle to rest on Aradia’s altar.[4]

In witchcraft

Talismans vs. My Learning Curve

Satyr Magos14/06/2012

The contents of this post will come as no surprise to people who’ve been working with talismanic magic longer than I have. Nor, possibly, to people whose studies have been shorter but more organized than mine. Maybe my learning curve is a little shallow, or maybe I just haven’t read the right sources yet, or maybe it’s this trial-and-error for everyone and they never talk about it.

Last night I met with several people to negotiate a resolution in regard to the fallout from the main ritual at Heartland Pagan Festival. In order to make my case better, I prepared a talisman at the Hour of Mercury, employing the Seal of Ophiel, the Planetary Seal of Mercury[1], the Planetary Talisman of Mercury, my Glyph of the Moon, and a set of five sigils produced using the Kamea of Mercury. I blessed the talisman with the Orphic Hymn to Hermes and an offering of a tealight and sandalwood incense. I also brought with me my talismans of Jupiter, Venus, and the Moon.

The negotiations went better than I ever could have imagined. I was able to convince the responsible parties of the harm done, of the necessity and appropriateness of a formal and public apology. The meeting went well enough, in fact, that my desire to become actively involved in the festival and the HSA has been renewed. This post isn’t actually about that, though. That post will come later. This post is about the talismans.

When I got back to Aradia’s apartment, I put the talismans back on the altar and thanked them verbally, as well as making an offering of incense and a candle. Prior to this, the Jupiter and Venus talismans had been “fading” some: although I could still feel their effects I my “sphere” (to use the Hermetic terminology), they felt wan and then to my magical senses. When I lit the candle and incense, all four talismans erupted with power. The Jupiter and Venus talismans now “feel” almost as strong as they were when I first made them. I’m not really sure how to parse the changes I feel in the Moon talisman, or what to do with the Mercury talisman whose highly specialized task has been achieved.

I will be thanking the Jupiter and Venus talismans again at their appropriate hours this afternoon. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.

1 – Please don’t judge me on the source. It’s the only pretty version of the seal that I can find.

ETA: edited for formatting error and some links.

In Uncategorized

Welcome to My Personal, Political, Magickal, Clusterfuck Life

Satyr Magos12/06/2012

[Warning to the people who know me IRL: this gets personal at the end and might be a little awkward.]

So …. I’ve picked up a few new readers in the last weeks. Welcome to the Obsidian Dream, folks: it’s good to have you along for the ride. As of last week I know have more “followers” here than I had back on blogger, and (although I know there’s some overlap between the two, and that many of my beloved readers don’t use those buttons for whatever reason) that feels pretty damn good. My monthly hits aren’t quite what they were, but I haven’t actually been keeping up with the posting that well these last couple months, either, and I suspect those facts are closely related. I’m grateful to have you all.

Things have been interesting here in the Satyr’s life: working in the mall to cover rent and summer spending money, living with Aradia for the summer, studying my Attic Greek (but not enough), the whole HPF main ritual drama and the continuing fallout, researching my planned switch from disposable razors to a straight edge (not because it’s superbutch, which is almost creepy enough to be a reason not to do it) but because it’s more environmentally sustainable), my car breaking down earlier this week, getting ready for Sannafrid coming out to visit next week, and getting ready for the giant fucking party we’re going to have while she’s here.

I’ve been doing some visionary work, but haven’t yet reached a point where I can provide an interesting narrative about it. The Moon has a lot to teach me, but it seems like I have to fuck shit up for the correct information they’ve imparted to rise to the surface (“No, man, like this: like I showed you already.”)

I’ve been working images of Venus and the Moon, inspired by my work with the Moon Talisman at Heartland and based on more of the descriptions from Christopher Warnock’s Picatrix translation. This has been a technical challenge, but super-fun. I plan to do at least one Picatrix-based image for each planet. Posts for each of those are forthcoming upon their completion.

Progress in my ceremonial studies has slowed greatly. Partly because I’ve been resting, partly because I’ve been researching, and partly because I’ve been devoting a lot of time to try to actually understand what I’ve already learned. The biggest things I’ve gotten done in this regard, lately, is downloading AstroWin and Morinus Tradional as potential alternatives Astrolog. Further, my studies have also been slightly hampered by the ever-clearer knowledge that, while many planetary magic techniques are really interesting and awesome (electional talisman construction, for example), my own talents slant so hard toward visionary work that ceremonialism, Hermetics and astrological magic will always be peripheral to my practice. They’re good, solid tools—fun to use and especially to make–but never my favorites.

Two things have consumed the last week more than anything else, though: emailing back and forth with the HSA Sacred Experience Committee regarding the horrible ritual, and getting ready for Sannafrid’s visit.

I have, to date, exchanged nearly a score of emails with the head of the Sacred Experience Committee and a couple other people involved in the ritual planning and execution. The initial emails were heated; since we have begun negotiating a face-to-face meeting (moderated by the former head of the SEC, an individual whom I respect greatly), things have calmed a little. The meeting will take place tomorrow, and a full report on the exchange will be forthcoming, as will be analysis of how I feel this event was exemplary of what I feel to be one of the greatest failures of the neo-Pagan and magical communities today: a deep and unexamined investment in the patriarchy which poisons all of our lives.

Although an altogether happy occasion (as opposed to the other, which might turn out well or might finish ruining Heartland for me), Sannafrid’s visit will be, in some ways, an equally iconic rejection of the mainline narratives which dominate our lives as people with one foot in the “Muggle”[1] world: I’m not just involved in deeply loving relationships with two different women. Although they have never met, they have always known about each other, and next week my “girlfriend at school” is going to come visit me while I’m living with my “girlfriend at home”. I don’t even know where to begin counting all the “rules” we’re breaking, let alone deconstructing them, so I’m just going to go for the lulz: Sannafrid is actually going to arrive while Aradia is away on a business trip.[2] Yeah. We’re all emotionally mature grown ups, capable of negotiating such potentially treacherous waters, but there is a lot of negotiating and triple-checking that needs to be done (in addition to all the housecleaning) to ensure that everyone’s on the same page about what is and isn’t going down, and that everyone’s anxieties are being allayed and that everyone’s needs are being fulfilled.[3]

The fact that both of these events are happening (and could only happen) while Venus is fucking retrograde is … interesting. Also: this shit. WTF, life? Man, am I glad that I made those Venus talismans.

All of this is to say that, while I’ll be doing a lot of magic in the next ten to twenty days, and finishing out some Big Shit Already In The Works (including at least one more write-up from HPF), it’s probably going to continue to be a month of light posting. Welcome to my wild and crazy life.

1 – Referring to people who don’t practice magic, see ghosts, or talk to spirits. On the one hand, I hate this Harry Potter-born neologism. On the other hand, it’s so much less problematic and idiotic than any of the alternatives I’ve heard or used: normal, once-born, cowan, mundane, uninitiated, blind, mortal.

2 – The best part is that, although it will work out for the best in some ways, we didn’t plan it that way. The dates for the business trip came down weeks after the dates for the visit were set.

3 – Wondering how this is related to magic or to my spiritual practice? Click here.

In hedonism, witchcraft

HPF 2012: Bonfire Dancing—Riding Fire and Ridden By a God

Satyr Magos06/06/2012

Please allow me to preface this story with another. For a few years now, I have been working with a set of three masks I made over the course of a couple months at the end of 2009. Perhaps the crown jewel of the three is the Sun God Mask.

Originally intended to be the focal point of Solstice rituals, it has been calling for more attention lately. In particular, it took an unexpectedly prominent role in my Beltane festivities, and since then it has been much more aware. As an experiment, I took the mask with me to Heartland.

For those who haven’t been to Heartland Pagan Festival, one of the major attractions are the nightly bonfires, surrounded by drumming and dancing. The last couple years I ended up spending so much energy on the radically healing and transformative workshops and rituals that I didn’t actually have any left for dancing. This year was different, for better AND worse, and I think I spent more time around the bonfire than the previous two (and maybe three) years combined. I know I spent more time dancing than the last several years put together.

For me, this year, there were three modes of dancing. I danced by myself. I danced with the mask: letting it experience the mortal pleasures that incorporeal creatures seem to find either intoxicating or abhorrent. I danced with the fire, treating it as an idol of the Elemental Powers of Fire.

Dancing alone was an exercise in the pure, hedonist pleasure of my body. Reveling in the feeling of muscle and sinew moving against bone, of the heat of the fire contrasted with the cool night air, of the thundering drumbeats moving through me, the rough sand under my bare feet. Gods, I’ve missed it. Even if I could stand the music they play at dance clubs, it wouldn’t be the same. The drum circle produces an aIchemy of earth, air, and fire that, in my experience at least, is absolutely unique.

Although, to the best of knowledge, I’ve done more mask-work than anyone I know personally, I can hardly call myself an expert. I’ve worked with exactly three ritual masks, only two of which have personalities. Dancing with the mask was an experience unlike any I have had yet. Although Phil Hine tells me that half-masks are difficult to keep quiet[1], I actually find it incredibly difficult to speak while wearing it. I don’t know if my dancing was perceptibly different to anyone who is not me, but I definitely felt like a back-seat driver in my own body as the mask and I moved around the fire Friday and Sunday nights. One person complimented me on the mask while we were dancing, and it was all I could do to say “thank you.” I don’t even remember what she looked like, even though we were close enough that I could see her without my glasses.

Dancing with the fire itself, this year, was perhaps the most powerful experience of the three. My plan, going in to the festival, had included a lot of visionary and ritual work aimed at pursuing elemental and planetary initiations. None of it happened. After the concert and its coincidental epiphanies, however, I was ready to try. I had already danced by myself. I was dancing with the mask when the sudden calling came to me to put it back down and dance with the fire. I rode the drums into the fire and rode the heat and light back into myself, bringing Fire with me. I haven’t really talked about it here on the blog—I should, but I haven’t; it’s easier to talk about how I was an idiot back in the day than how I’ve fucked up lately—but I’ve been having some trouble with Fire. My elemental journey to Fire, taken as part of my work through Penczak’s Outer and High Temples, left an open portal to the Elemental Realm of Fire in my Inner Temple that would draw me in against my will if I wasn’t extremely careful. Dancing with the fire, becoming One with Fire, I asked it for it’s Elemental Initiation. The fire told me it was already mine. When I returned to my Inner Temple for Monday’s journeywork, the portal was tamed: mine to enter or exit at need, no longer a sucking maw.

1- Phil Hine, Condensed Chaos, (Tempe, AZ: New Falcon, 1995), 153. Maybe he just hasn’t “learn[ed] to speak” yet.

In witchcraft

Resuming My Visionary Practice

Satyr Magos05/06/2012

Putting Will to Word, I began the process of resuming my visionary practice last night. Because it was Monday, and because my most recent successful journey was to the Moon in Yesod, I chose that as my destination once again.

As always, I began by visiting my Inner Temple, where I finished up some business between myself, Tsu, and ZG, regarding help they had given me at Heartland. Then I called down night over my Inner Temple, where the sun is almost always shining. To my surprise, constellations have begun to appear in that sky: Scorpio and Gemini, so far. The Moon hung full in the sky above my Temple, and I flew up t meet it.

Once more, I found myself in the nine-pillared Palace of the Moon[1] The two figures were both lucid and moving, and when I asked them to instruct me in the Mysteries of the Moon, they took me between them and filled me with the light of the Moon. When I had been filled to bursting, they took me to the Astral mists, pointing the way to the more familiar Void, and to other “geographical” features I don’t have names for or quite know how to describe. It was not an “initiation”, per se … but, then, I haven’t asked for one yet. When they had finished their imparting what they would for the evening, I thanked them and departed.

Filled to the brim with Lunar power, I descended to the elemental realm of Water. Rather than seeking out the Powers of Water, as I have before, I sat and waited for my presence to draw their attention. Soon enough, it did. Although I could sense them, this time I saw nothing but the vast depths of the ocean bottom. First, I asked the Powers of Water to heal and cleanse me of the damage done by the main ritual at Heartland Pagan Festival this year; despite my best efforts, a lingering miasma has remained. A powerful current of water washed over and through me, scouring and soothing way the lingering damage.

When that was complete, I once more asked for the Initiation of Water. I was refused again, but more gently this time. I asked what I needed to do to prepare myself for that initiation. They told me to ask again while I was in the water, filling my mind with an image of Lake Onessa under the light of the moon. I thanked them, and asked leave to depart.

Returning to the waking world, Aradia—who had been doing journeywork of her own—had instructions for me that had been imparted to her: I was to make Moon water with which I would make chamomile tea to use as a kinder, gentler flying potion than the absinthe. I did so, blessing the water with an incantation of the Orphic Hymn to the Moon.

1 – I’ve been there since last I wrote about it, actually. The story just wasn’t interesting enough to share: the male figure was still comatose; the female figure talked to me briefly.

In Uncategorized, witchcraft

Of That Which Has Been Put Off : My Full Moon Reading

Satyr Magos04/06/2012

Sun = 14*Gemini – Moon = 16*Sagitarius – Venus Retrograde

Aradia and I had Pasiphae and Aidan over last night for some Full Moon socializing. The place was a little too messy for a full-on Esbat (the Battle of Mount Laundry has yet to be won), but we did spend quite a bit of time with our tarot decks. Aidan purchased his first deck at Heartland, and Pasiphae managed to get her hands on a copy of the out-of-print Rohrig deck she had been coveting for years. After I gave Aidan a reading, he spent the rest of the evening playing with his new deck, trying to grok the Celtic Cross and the internal logic of the cards. Pasiphae as equally eager to break in her new toy.

I actually haven’t had anyone else do a reading for me in quite some time, so I took advantage of the opportunity. Bought gently used, she’s still getting to know the deck and attuning it to herself. It’s already got quite a personality: it doesn’t want to deal with piddly shit. It told me the same as I shuffled it; it also demanded a specific question rather than a general reading.

So I asked it to talk about the direction my magical practice is taking.

The central thesis here seems to be “Good job; now get to work.” The Moon (which was central to my monthly reading as well) and the Hanged Man tell me that there’s some important work I’ve been dodging around.

“What am I avoiding?” I ask. “I’m hip-deep in the biggest thing I’ve ever avoided in my magical career.” I was speaking of the planetary and ceremonial magical studies I’ve been doing, of course. I put that shit off for fourteen-odd years.

Aradia knows me well, though. She knows the answer. “When was the last time you visited the Underworld?”

“I … uh … don’t know.”

And … that’s unfortunately true. The deeper into the planetary magic I get, the more my visionary work has been left by the wayside. I could blame that on the fact that it’s not really a part of the system I’m studying—even if it is a major component of Penczack’s High Temple, which I’ve been using as an outline for my studies—but the fact of the matter is that I’ve just run into one too many things that have scared me when I’ve visited the Underworld.

Between the unsettling demands some of my newer spirit-allies have made of me, and my seeming inability to explore new territories without incurring new alliances and their attendant obligations… Well, let’s just say that I’ve become very, very good at finding reasons not to do Down. Smart people can be disturbingly good at lying to themselves. And with all the Work I have been doing—planetary talismans, the Stele of Jeu, puzzling my way (oh, so slowly) through Agrippa and my newfound relationship with my Natal Genius, and even the continuation of Deb’s New Year, New You, which I have fallen so far behind on in the last month—it’s been particularly easy.

“But wait!,” you (my dear readers) ask. “Didn’t you work your way through that already?” Yeah, I thought that I had. Apparently I hadn’t. It’s that bastard Dweller at the Threshold again.

So I’m setting myself a new goal: to descend to the underworld every Sunday and/or Monday night, regardless of whether or not there’s Work I think needs to be done. It’s time to face the Moon.

Tarot card from the Rider-Waite tarot deck, al... — Tarot card from the Rider-Waite tarot deck, also known as the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In witchcraft

HPF 2012: When Public Ritual Goes to the Bad Place

Satyr Magos03/06/2012

[Trigger Warning for discussion of gendered violence in a ritual context.]*

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not categorically opposed to cutting-edge ritual. I think anyone who’s read this blog for any length of time knows that I’m willing to take magical risks … sometimes just to see what will happen. Frankly, when done responsibly between consenting adults, I’m pretty much down with any sort of boundary-pushing you can think of. But I don’t think many of you are going to argue with me when I say that the main public ritual at a festival is not the place to try being edgy or experimental. That’s how people—unwitting bystanders—get hurt.

In art, witchcraft

HPF 2012: Rites of Magic

Satyr Magos02/06/2012

Not counting the public rituals, which are a disaster I will get to soon, I did three major rituals at Heartland Pagan Festival this year. The last, I have already described. The first was the creation of a Moon Talisman, taking advantage of the Lunar Election; the second was my most effective performance of the rite of the Stele of Jeu to date.

Friday morning there was a window of opportunity to create a lunar talisman. Due to a variety of factors (idiocy on my own part chief among them) I was not able to print out a copy of Christopher Warnock’s lunar talisman to assemble and charge at the appropriate hour. Instead, having the pdf on my phone, I transcribed the invocation into my sketch book and reproduced a crude sketch of the general figure and the characters above him. When the hour came, I expanded upon my crude sketch from memory, using my nice fountain and brush pens.

The invocation was potent, and I felt the familiar Lunar power flow through me as I incanted. I had to leave my ritual jewelry sitting on the talisman when I was done, because it was tingling too much for me to continue wearing it (as is my wont at ritual occasion such as the festival.

I think it turned out nicely. One of these next days, I’m going to produce a nicer version, as well as Lunar images from the other sources Warnock quotes above.

Saturday night, after the main-ritual-gone-awry, Alopex and I went back to Camp WTF to decompress. The sun was setting, Alopex went for a walk, and I’d been wanting to perform the Stele of Jeu since I arrived, but hadn’t quite found the right moment. That seemed to be the right moment: Memorial Grove, Camp Gaea’s small graveyard was near the encampment, there was a trivium crossroad on the way, and the sun was setting. I made the walk and found a stone slab of an altar in the middle of the grove. Beside it was a fist-sized rock, ideally shaped for me to paint the Beneficial Sign upon it.

I opened with my Pentagram Rite, and made my offerings of pomegranate mead. The wind, which had stilled for a while, rose as I incanted and just kept rising. I really don’t know how to describe the effect of the ritual except to say that I was high, and that I stayed high for hours. I was going to leave the stone, except that it insisted I take it with me.

The next night, while Aradia and Aurora combed my aura and I tried to let go of all the accumulated pain and bullshit I hadn’t quite managed to deal with and/or banish over the semester, shortly before I performed my overzealous blessing, I was struck by my first real insight into the Stele.

Although one source gave the rite explicitly as an exorcism, the other people I’ve talked to about it insist that there’s more to it. And there is. The first two thirds seem to be an exorcism or banishing of sorts—“Mighty Headless One, deliver him, NN, from the daimon which restrains him”—but the final portion suddenly identifies the magician with the Headless One he has been calling upon:

“I am the headless daimon with my sight in my feet; [I am] the mighty one [who possesses] the immortal fire; I am the truth who hates the fact that unjust deeds arc done in the world; I am the one who makes the lightning flash and the thunder roll;/ I am the one whose sweat is the heavy rain which falls upon the earth that it might be inseminated; I am the one whose mouth bums completely; I am the one who begets and destroys; / I am the Favor of the Aion; my name is a heart encircled by a serpent; come forth and follow.”

Suddenly, after months of practice, this seems to be a ritual which first hollows out the magician—blasting him free of “negative” influences and forcing his aura into the shape of a vessel—in order to make room for the Headless One to fill him. In a very loose sense, the Stele of Jeu may be the badass great-great-great-grandparent of Drawing Down the Moon. It is an exorcism, and simultaneously a literal invocation. Or seems to be, anyway, at this stage in my practice. Would anyone who has experimented with this more care to comment?

In hedonism

HPF 2012: All Hail Camp WTF!

Satyr Magos02/06/2012

For most of my career as a Heartland Pagan Festival attendee, I had camped either alone or as an attaché to a larger encampment. I partied with the Big Damn Heroes (a now-defunct band from Oklahoma and the various friends and lovers they brought with them) and with Camp Taco (several women from St.Louis, who I would party with when I moved there in 2k6), but otherwise kept to myself. When Aradia and I started attending together in 2k9, we continued the pattern except as a couple.

This year, as the most experienced festival attendees with the most supplies to share, we found ourselves as the heads of an encampment. Though Pasiphae ended up working closely with Aradia on the shopping and packing lists, she and Aidan had formally appointed us “Camp Mom” as early as Beltane. We were also joined by Camp Taco’s Aurora, a couple of her close friends, and Alopex, and old friend of mine from the early KU Cauldron days, as well as a couple refugees from the Big Damn Heroes. There were eight of us, officially, and three or four more “satellite” characters camped with us. Between this (unofficial) leadership role and my work exchange arrangement—20 hours of time to helping run the festival in order to get in for free—contributed to the very different tenor this festival had for me.

The transformation from a pile of Satyr’s and Aradia’s friends into a coherent encampment of festival family was an impressive one. Unfortunately, on account of the work exchange, I wasn’t there for several key portions of it. The credit, if such a thing is due, must go to Aradia and her meticulous diplomacy, and to the fact that we just have really, really awesome friends.

We dubbed ourselves Camp WTF, in part an acknowledgement of our diverse backgrounds and arrangements on the one hand, and the utter disaster state the camp was in at the time we were having the discussion. They took the Rogue Potato as our mascot, and a Blanket Fire[2] as part of our heraldry.

The symbols and rituals we developed were all Great Moments In You Had To Be There, and they were all beautiful. I’m working on drawing up our heraldic crest and designing our flag. I can’t wait to see the madness that will grow out of this. Everyone in camp was family by the end of the festival.