I still haven't fully unpacked though I did get the festival laundry done. It is a sunny day today so I can put up my tent and clean out the inside. I packed it up without doing that and I really hate to set it up at the next festival with all the dirt still inside. Tom found the leak in my air mattress as I knew that he would but it took him more than an hour. After using soapy water and a sponge and examining every inch for increased size in the bubbles he finally took the hose to it. That didn't find anything either, so he got in the hot tub with it and carefully dunked it inch by inch. By the time that he had done one side completely, turned it over and nearly finished the second side, he finally found it. There have been times in my life when I have regretted the fact that he was so thorough and could not be distracted from a task in the middle:) but it definitely has its upside as well. And as I sleep on an air mattress that does not require pumping in the night at Grow Closer I will be thinking of him.
Last night I was researching Hecate Triformis for my clergy challenge ritual next year. It was really quite interesting. I had no idea that she appears to have been a maiden early on and an attendant on other deities before she became associated with being a crone. The ritual I want to do is about the Goddess becoming a crone prematurely and being renewed as maiden. I wasn't at all sure how to do that with Hecate as the Goddess but the ritual I was gifted with in my vision quest was clearly organized around Her. Now it seems that it may not be inappropriate to think of Her that way after all. We also have a trail called Hecate Dreambringer and since that is one of Her aspects we could also call it Hecate Antea, I believe. I collected about 6 pages of info from the web to put in some semblance of order. Then I want to look at the library and see what I can find on myths associated with Her. I have almost a year to put this together so there is plenty of time to do research and let it all lie within for a time. I also want to meditate, do trance work, and ritual in Her honor and see what other bits come to me for inclusion in this ritual. One place suggested that the two torches that She carries in many of the representations of Her, which she uses to lead people in and out of the Underworld might be Venus as the Morning Star and Evening Star, an interesting speculation. Of course, she is also an important figure in the Eleusinian Mysteries being one of two who saw Persephone carried off. The other is Helios. I recently met someone who carried the Helios energy in the CAW Mysteries, an interesting synchronicity.
Today I am hoping to actually get back to some of my routines. The webzine, Dragon's Breath, which is our StarDragon Branch zine is due by Lammas, so I need to get moving on it this week. I think I have been writing more in my journal due to the decrease in contact with others after Starwood. I feel a need to communicate, to share who I am with others, and a definite need for actual conversation and not this sending out of myself without return. I think it is a little like masturbation without the orgasm sometimes.
Copyright © 2001 Kyril Oakwind