What a weekend!

I’m still just buzzing from the energy. We had a great turn out of folks at the camp on June 18th ‘011, 17 for the entire day with 9 staying over for the fun overnight. We had great lectures/seminars by Mike, Christina and 3 great subjects covered by Phaedra Bonewits. I think around 8 people got readings from Phaedra during the day and were able to buy a couple of her books too. We opened to a short meditation and Druid’s Prayer.

As everyone may have noticed in the pictures, we had our grove familiar (aka mascot) ‘Hoot’ the bobble-head owl overseeing the camp. Stephanie furnished the camp whistle in which he wears around his neck.. Mike was the first to raise awareness in his lecture of the crow connection in our camp.. we were receiving a few signs from the natural residents that were uncanny. I imagine that the critters, including squirrels were a little skittish having Hoot watching as well :-))

Phaedra illustrated that a) your energy body is ‘something’ and also can be easily felt through basic exercises, and b) that you can manipulate that energy body by actually detaching it from the physical. I have not had the energy body demonstrated quite that way and it made for a very interesting experience with alot of  ‘now, what can I do with this’ thinking.. especially in regard to ritual. The quote of the day was “Your mind can practice what it knows physically, but the reverse is not true” which simply means that actually DOING ritual work is incredibly powerful and you can meditatively do it after you’ve developed the experience. But how many of us read through the gwerse and say we’re doing the ritual in our ‘inner grove’ and taking the shortcut of not actually doing it for real? Powerful insight in basic magic…

The grove had lunch and relaxed with conversation, setting up tents etc. I tested out a dehydrated backpack meal.. Tasted ok, but only if you are without anything else.. Didn’t take me long to dig into all the other food that Steph, Ione and Marsha brought for the group!

In the afternoon we started with Christina who gave us an astrological overview of the energies we are experiencing. The peak of this energy is due to be at full force in early July – be sure to manage this and transmute it for a force of good in your life, avoid trying to bottle it up, as its a bit too powerful for that and may ‘pop’ out elsewhere if not handled with care!

Phaedra went through her next seminar on magical implements. This was really good in that it helped to ground our thinking on why we use and for what purpose – the focusing of the mind around 4 basic archetypes. Wands, swords, cups and shields – we matched them to natural occurring items and it made me more comfortable with them.. alot less foreign to the mind.

Everyone went for a swim in the lake to cool off – great sand, all the way out into the water… Wonderful camp area with easy access to the lake. Dinner was accompanied by heavy thunderstorms blowing into the area. We had heavy wind and I had a pine cone hit me on the head.. I need someone to interpret that for me please… and we scrambled to get items protected before rain hit. The wind died down and as we watched on an iPhone, we realized that the storm split and went around us to the north and south..

We got a few sprinkles during Phaedra’s ‘Life and Times of Isaac Bonewits’ talk around the fire pit. This was a moving biographical piece from Phaedra full of interesting pagan history, Isaac’s role in it and the tragic illness that Isaac went through before his death last year. The sprinkles of rain toward the end were very fitting and I dare say that they whole episode of a blustering entry of heavy winds, a knock on my head and the tears at the end made for a drama that only Isaac would have had the flair to devise! We had a great grill going that evening and by 8pm we were listening to celtic music by Tommy, Elaine and Tom. We got the fire going, went swimming a few more times to cool off and had a great drum circle. And I mean a great drum rhythm too! I think Awen’s Light Grove has figured out how to get a great drum circle happening and it would be worthy to polish that in over the coming months as we do our ritual work!

If you haven’t seen Tommy perform his songs, you’re missing out – we have some really great music talent and Tommy is definitely our Pendragon of Harmony.. Camp quieted down by Midnight, with the air cool and the Scotch gone. The s’mores all eaten (ask us about ‘s’more scotch’ its a new drink..) we hit the tents. Luckily Tom set a wake up call for 7.30am and we were all up to the sound of his car alarm.. :-)) We cleaned up, broke camp and ventured again into the world.

Solstice Blessings of Star and Stone to our Grove, the Community and the World.

Sundruid
Awen’s Light Grove

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