Posts Tagged ‘festivals’

I will be away for about a week as Bren and I are off to Kaleidoscope Gathering. Bren has a couple of workshops, a ritual drama to run and a concert and i am also involved in a couple of workshops. Plus there’s volunteering and vending to be done!

Crash the dog will be coming with us as part of a pilot project for allowing dogs at the fest. So please folks, don’t pet the dogs without permission and keep your puppies on leash

We will be bringing our recording device for the podcast with us and hope to get lots of content for the podcast.

I won’t be around to post on the forum but moderators will be lurking. People are always so well behaved at the Wild Geek Hang anyways!

In the mean time, here are some articles, essays, blog posts and even videos worth checking out:

Channeling Deity vs. Regressive Trance

Archaeologists have discovered a second henge at Stonehenge

Land Spirits, Ancestors and Gods, Oh My!

Practice Practice Practice Daily or Regularly

When The Drummers Were Women

Sacred Weeds

An American Witch Bottle

HedgeCrossing

Care for the caregivers

The Private Life of Plants

Zen: The Best of Alan Watts

Pagan Roots in the West

We honour the Flower Maiden,

who blesses the blooms

Who is made of meadowsweet,

oak-blossom and broom

We are the ones who dance

with the Blooming Bride

Ancient and modern rites

to celebrate May-tide

We gather here, to witness your wedding

Where two sacred fires aid winter’s fading

She who dances in the springtime dew

We welcome you here,

to help the land renew

Flower Maiden dance with us,

here on this May Eve!

And so here I sit

An upturned bucket

For a seat

At long last the wind has died down

And my flower sales pick up for a bit

The cellophane rustles in the breeze

I gaze up at the pigeons

Perching above me

And wonder

How long will it take

For cellophane

To become dirt again?

The wind tears flower petals free

To flutter away in the current

Above me six pigeons roost

Upon a telephone wire

They act as audience

To my sales of Easter bouquets

I wonder what the pigeons might think

Of selling flowers for a holiday

I don’t celebrate?

I check my watch yet again

To see if it is time to quit

Then sit back down upon

My upturned bucket

To watch and wait

In the company of pigeons

I wrote this one years ago, but I still bring it out every spring when the roads open up and the construction season begins and since the Olympics are just around the corner in my hometown, and that means a lot of traffic and frustrated people. I thought I’d share it now.

My mother is a Traffic Control Person, also known as a flagger. You know, one of those people in the orange or yellow vest who stop you at construction sites.

Many people hate to see a flagger with a stop or slow sign in their hand step in front of their vehicle. After all, you don’t want to be 2 minutes late to get wherever you are going. Its such a pain in the butt to have to wait a few minutes, or to slow down when traveling through a construction zone. Many people tell my Mother that her job could be replaced by a bucket of sand, just stick the sign in that; who needs some person telling them how to drive?

The purpose of my Mothers job is very clear to her, even if you may not understand it. Her job is to protect the lives of everyone working in and driving through a construction zone.

Her job is to stop you from driving into a sinkhole, or from driving into a dump truck; its to keep you from going into head-on traffic when there are lanes closed.

Did you know that when a road is closed off, many crews will dump the load of gravel or dirt from the dump truck right in the middle of the road? Or that they will park heavy equipment in the middle of the hiway? When traffic is stopped, they know it only takes a minute or two to move it, so they leave it there, to make their jobs easier. So, what happens when you blow past that stop sign and drive right into a pile of dirt, or a giant backhoe? You just might die; you just might kill somebody else.

What happens when you speed through a construction zone? You put the lives of everyone around you at risk. People have loved ones working there.

Did you know that firemen and police officers have been killed by people speeding past a parked fire truck or police cruiser with flashing lights and everything going?

In some States and Provinces, a flagger can make pretty darn good money. Not in my Province though, my Mom makes 11 dollars an hour to step in front of moving vehicles.

Flaggers work long hours, often 12 or more.

They rarely get lunch or even potty breaks, many of these people have to pee into cans they keep in the back of their work trucks.

They stand out in all kinds of weather, including below freezing conditions, or extreme summer heat.

All day long, they get to listen to people yell at them, call them awful names and threaten them just for trying to keep those people safe.

My Moms job is to keep you safe and alive, but many people call her terrible names for this. They flip her the bird, they throw objects, like beer bottles, at her from their cars. There has even been a few times where angry men have gotten out of their cars, intent on attacking my mother because they didn’t want to wait any longer. My Mom is 50+ years old, she is 5 feet 3 inches and weighs 120 pounds soaking wet, thank the Gods for the guys on the work crews who have saved her from attack every time!

I don’t care if they’re making 25 dollars an hour; these people risk their lives everyday to make sure you get home safely and to make sure the guys working the construction zone get home too. There is not enough money in the world to justify losing my Mom to a drunk driver or speeding asshole.

I know, I know. Obviously these people are horrid, uneducated blue collar slobs who can‘t even get a real job. They MUST be drunks or something to wind up working in construction … Somebody has to do that job, would you prefer a job lottery? Maybe you’d be cleaning my toilets next week.

A few years ago I was especially relieved that my Mom had taken a few days off.

In March 2006, at about 11:40 pm, a speeding Camero came roaring through a construction site on the hiway in Kelowna.

The driver swerved around another vehicle, clipping marker pylons before swinging back and ploughing into a parked vehicle and the flagger.

The flagger was standing beside her work truck when he hit her.

She was squished between the two vehicles before being thrown across the hiway.

The car then slammed into a dump truck and a backhoe working on the crossing of Highway 97 and Highway 33.

The flag person was pronounced dead at the scene.

The flagger was a friend and co-worker of my Moms. She was 43 years old and her name was Theresa. She was a single mother of a teenage daughter, who now has no family at all. Imagine waking up to hear the news that some drunk driver killed your Mom.

Please, I beg you. SLOW DOWN, OBEY THE SIGNS, WAIT PATIENTLY, DON’T ROAD RAGE, DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE, TURN THE CELL PHONE OFF IN THE CAR

And don’t kill my Mom too.

Please folks, if you are driving around Vancouver during the Olympics be a good driver and be kind to the people whose job it is to get you there safe. Leave really early so you won’t be late, and if you are running late, then be late. Please don’t risk other people’s lives and yours as well to make it to an event (or even work) on time.

Thanks, Juniper

I have an elderly dog that I cannot leave behind for hours on end, she cannot be kennelled now in her old age, but she is very experienced in ritual and with Pagan groups and events. If I want to attend Pagan events, even outdoor events, I cannot bring her, I cannot even tie her up outside the ritual area. I even have a folding pen, a portable fence where you can set up a min-yard for one or more dogs as a play area out of the way, nope sorry, thats not even good enough most of the time. (see pic at the bottom of this post)

When I ask people get offended as if I just asked something horrible, how dare I want to bring my dog? I think it wouldn’t bother me so much if people didn’t get so uppity and nasty about a simple question. A polite “Sorry, no” will do, I do not need a lecture from someone with their nose in the air.

My dog is better behaved in ritual than most people’s crying, whining, spoiled children, and has attended more rituals than most adult pagans. The few times where I have been able to take her to a ritual, that I did not organize, everyone was amazed at how well behaved she was. Not long ago I allowed by the wonderful community in Winnipeg to bring her into their temple space during a large meeting and lecture. She lay quietly under my chair the whole time and the only distraction she caused was accepting crackers from a couple of kind people.

I guess it just annoys me when people do outdoor or camping rituals and say you can’t bring your dog and then expect you to put up with their kid screaming the whole time. My problem is when people tell me I can’t have my dog because it disruptive and then they let kids cry and be disruptive, if I brought a kid who had a temper tantrum in the middle of the Circle during ritual that would be just fine.

I went to a ritual once where a toddler squatted and took a crap right in the middle of ritual, guess he was being potty trained and we all just had to smile and be nice about it. Heck my DOG wouldn’t do that but she can’t come!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m just using the dog vs kid thing as a comparison, I don’t hate kids and I think they are cute in ritual. I have even, on more than one occasion, donated my soft flannel cloak to a sleeping or chilled child during ritual. But saying that all dogs are not allowed because some are misbehaved doesn’t fly when we allow people to bring poorly behaved children, or bring their poorly behaved selves to ritual.

Especially at outdoor and camping events, wouldn’t it make sense to have the odd dog friendly rite? At least once in a while I’d like to be able to bring my dog along. One reason why I often do not attend the big Festivals and Gatherings is because I cannot bring my dogs with me. My dogs have spent a good portion of their lives going to campgrounds, RV parks and so forth and are very well behaved. My dogs have attended many rituals in my home, on my land and even larger events that I have hosted and made pet friendly.

It simply seems to me that if we have rituals that are kid friendly, why can’t we also sometimes have rituals that are dog friendly and that not be a problem? I have hosted events on my own land where I made clear dogs would be welcome, well in advance, and yet a few people who came got upset and expected us to put them away!

Why are we so unfriendly towards man’s best friend? If we are an Earth Based Religion, Nature Worshippers, why do we not allow animals in our rituals now and then? Our dogs are the part of Nature closest to us, the part of Mother Nature that sleeps in our beds ands warns us of prowlers.

Now as for people who say “I’m allergic to your dog” well I’m allergic to perfume, after-shave, sun lotion and bug spray but I don’t hose people down before rituals. If I get hives after touching your hand during spiral dance so be it. I have no problem with scents; if you wear them I suck it up and deal with it. I don’t expect people to accommodate me. I think that’s why it bugs me when people expect me to accommodate them.

Also, having worked in animal rescue, I know for a fact that hundreds of dogs get put down each month because of allergies. That’s right folks, everyday dogs are surrendered to shelters because their owner fell in love with a person with allergies, and just a few days or hours later that poor dog gets a lethal injection. Having devoted so much of my life fighting for animal rights, there are few things that piss me off more than watching a innocent 2-year-old lab die scared and abandoned at some shelter because his/her master is moving in with someone who is allergic. So while I’m terribly sorry if you don’t want to visit my home because I have dogs, or you may have to camp in an area away from me at the Pagan Festival and I’m sorry you might get a runny nose if my dog walks past you … but dogs DIE because people with allergies get runny noses and red eyes. So take a Benadryl and shut up or I’ll start WWIII on your ass.

Regarding cats, you can’t train a cat to come, sit and stay. Hell you can’t train a one year old human to do that. But my dogs can and will heel, sit, stay and behave on command in ritual. I’ve run a kennel; I have worked in rescue and rehabilitation. I am a freaking DOG TRAINER. I can assure you that my dogs are good. Maybe I could offer to train the Pagan community’s dogs to be good in ritual? Teach a class on it or something…

My dog wouldn’t walk into Circle smoking a cigarette like I’ve seen plenty of people do over the years. My dog wouldn’t answer her cell phone during ritual. My dog doesn’t gossip during ritual. My dog doesn’t laugh at you if you forget your lines while delivering the Charge, my dog doesn’t care if you momentarily forget which way is East.

So, yes once in a while I’d like to bring my dog. You’d like my dogs; they are cute, small-ish and better behaved than most human beings.

Also would you tell a blind or disabled person not to attend ritual because they want to bring their service dog?