{"id":633,"date":"2012-05-30T21:59:20","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T02:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.wordpress.com\/?p=633"},"modified":"2012-05-30T21:59:20","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T02:59:20","slug":"hpf-2012-the-blessings-of-dionysus-upon-you-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2012\/05\/30\/hpf-2012-the-blessings-of-dionysus-upon-you-all\/","title":{"rendered":"HPF 2012: The Blessings of Dionysus Upon you All"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\""Bacchus"<\/a>
“Bacchus” by Caravaggio. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Flannigan\u2019s Right Hook<\/a> was playing their cover of Paint it Black as Aradia and I stumbled back from one of the furthest-flung encampments at Gaea, still high from our first shamanic journey.\u00a0 That was Friday night of HPF 2009, our first year together; they played again the following year on the Sunday night main-stage, to which they returned\u00a0 this year.\u00a0 I missed the first part of this show, too, eventually abandoning half of my encampment to their face-painting shenanigans.<\/p>\n

After the quiet of rest of the festival, walking up to the stage was like running face-first into a cacophonic wall of neon light and raucous sound.\u00a0 A beautiful, much-needed wall, the impact with which brought me back to 2k9 and \u201810, returning to those moments in cyclical time.\u00a0 The guitars, the cello, the electric fiddle \u2026 it was catharsis, pure and powerful.<\/p>\n

I needed it desperately.\u00a0 The festival, to that point, had had its ups and downs.\u00a0 The main ritual, the day before, had been an utter disaster from which we were all\u2014despite the passage of twenty-four hours, multiple cleansing rituals, and the completion of the public closing ritual just hours before\u2014still recovering.\u00a0 Even the land was stained.<\/p>\n

So I stood there, vibrating with the music, and trying to let go.\u00a0 To let go of my frustration with the Sacred Experience Committee.\u00a0 To let go of my frustration with my camp-mates, most of whom had not yet made it to the pavilion[1].\u00a0 To let go of my desire for the festival\u2014which I have been attending since I was eighteen years old, to which I have introduced probably a dozen people at this point, and to which I had brought three \u201cvirgins\u201d this very year\u2014to be perfect<\/em>, and just enjoy it as it was<\/em> in the then and the now.\u00a0 Perfection doesn\u2019t exist in this world.\u00a0 I\u2019m skeptical that it exists anywhere<\/em>.\u00a0 \u2026. So why, then, do I get so upset when things turn out to be less than perfect?<\/p>\n

The music was amazing, the light show was a blast, and I was drinking thoroughly-blessed wine.\u00a0 And yet, I was still struggling to find the fun.\u00a0 My ambivalence must have been clear.\u00a0 When Aradia asked me if I was alright, I didn\u2019t lie.<\/p>\n

Aradia and Aurora had been to one of the workshops I\u2019d missed on account of my work exchange obligations.\u00a0 The workshop was on aura cleansing and chakra balancing.\u00a0 Together, as I stood there listening to the music, they worked over my energetic bodies until I was almost in tears.\u00a0 Finally, something inside me broke loose, the tears came, my aura opened up, and I was able to let go and find the fun.\u00a0 Power filled me, and a few sudden insights.<\/p>\n

The band was clearly having the time of their lives, too.\u00a0 Somehow, bottles of mead kept finding their way on stage.\u00a0 At one point, the band stopped to toast the audience.\u00a0 I raised my glass and toasted them back: \u201cThe blessings of Dionysus upon you all.\u201d<\/p>\n

My wine, as I said, was well-blessed.\u00a0 Recognizing that I was not the only one in my encampment stained by the miasma of the previous night\u2019s ritual, I took the box of wine Aurora had offered for the purposes, and called upon Dionysus to bless it so that all who drank of it would be purged of the stain and incited to sacred revelry.\u00a0 I wish I\u2019d thought to wright down the specifics, but I kinda got lost in the moment.\u00a0 I completed the blessing by pouring a libation in a circle around the box; suddenly, it was \u201chot\u201d to the touch.<\/p>\n

\u201cHoly shit,\u201d said Aradia.\u00a0 \u201cWhat did you just do?\u201d<\/p>\n

When I toasted the band, my blessing spread to their bottles.\u00a0 But one of the things about working with gods and spirits, I guess, is that once you start talking to them, they\u2019re listening more than you realize.\u00a0\u00a0 And I had said \u201cupon you all<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Little lights started going off in the audience as the blessing spread to those bottles.\u00a0 And then little bells started ringing in my head as other bottles throughout camp were lighted with the same blessing, too.<\/p>\n

It was about that time that the rest of our encampment showed up, beaming and with faces painted.\u00a0 The wine flowed liberally and, when the concert was over, we found a secluded place to load a bowl while they lit the bonfire.<\/p>\n

The tenor of the evening was changed, radically, and for the better.<\/p>\n

\n

1 \u2013 I love you guys, but you can\u2019t spend five days camped with anyone and not end up a bit frustrated at some point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Flannigan\u2019s Right Hook was playing their cover of Paint it Black as Aradia and I stumbled back from one of the furthest-flung encampments at Gaea, still high from our first shamanic journey.\u00a0 That was Friday night of HPF 2009, our first year together; they played again the following year on the Sunday night main-stage, … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,1,5],"tags":[65,94,100,149,258,265],"class_list":["post-633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedonism","category-uncategorized","category-witchcraft","tag-dionysus","tag-gods","tag-heartland-pagan-festival","tag-magic","tag-stories","tag-talking-to-spirits"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-ad","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}