Kyril's Journal -- July 2, 2005

Freedom Fest

Saturday July 2, 2005

I took the time to use the heating pad and Faol called while I was doing that. It was good to hear from him and we had a nice chat, almost our usual hour, though it was clear from the conversation that he had really expected that it would be much briefer. Afterward I got dressed, helped load the car, and we were off. I drove to Sweetwood in the morning so that Tom could drive home later with his better night sight.

It was nice to see the changes, the new shelter built by the members last summer, more campsites prepared, flowers planted, the electricity in. And of course, to reconnect with people I haven’t seen in a long time, like Urth and Mary, Brian and Bella, and Jamie, as well as many of our friends that were also at BelSummer.

We got there just before the Grok Fellowship meeting. I thought it went very well. I had created a document of the things we had already agreed to and the things we had sort of agreed to, and some of my ideas, and changes that I believe are necessary. I presented it to the members and friends present, gaining agreement that we could accept it with some changes offered by the group. It needs a little bit more editing and work but will shortly be ready to put to the list. The basic idea is that we will use this structure to operate by for the next 18 months then re-evaluate and make changes if we wish at that time. This would give us a lengthy period of time when we could move past procedures to some meatier things or at least give that a chance. So we will see what happens when I finish the document that 5 of the 11 members have now agreed to. Two other members have largely said they would agree to what I came up with so we could move on, though they may have a quibble here and there that I will need to address. A couple of the Friends have also been positive about it so I am hopeful that we will be able to give it a try without having to give up on the current group.

After the meeting I was able to spend time with Larry and we have renewed our old relationship and agreed that we want to spend time with each other more frequently. I am happy about that and look forward to growing closer again.

Jack Chocolate generously gave my shoulder a massage. He is a massage therapist so this is a skill that he has developed quite a bit and usually gets paid for. I was very grateful for it. He made sure to do it again a second time later, which really helped. I find the pain interesting. It is quite different from pain involved in injury or getting hit. It is a healing kind of pain, still quite painful. I was trying to describe it to Faol and called it an exquisite kind of pain. It really made me quite giddy – endorphins, I imagine and the awareness that it was relieving the bad kind of pain. Faol is a massage technician though he hasn't done it as a profession and suggested that we see about making me giddy.

I spent some time at Kim’s fire and we had a chat then it was time for the Symposium, which is a kind of group discussion with watered wine. The topic was divinity and self-knowledge. I experienced a drop in energy with it though. I am not sure why. Tom also felt it and ended up feeling over-loaded and very tired so we left as the Symbosium was breaking up. But not before we both got a few swigs of Urth’s Apricot mead, really a melmel, wow, yum!