I go to quite a lot of festivals. Starwood is an annual event for me, and every June I’m forced to choose between two other favorites: Free Spirit and Wic-Can Fest. Over the years, I’ve attended many others, including Heartland, Rites of Spring, and Pagan Spirit Gathering.
In a very real way, festivals are how I mark my life.
In Bronze Age Ireland, the Pagan Celts gathered annually for a huge festival at Lughnasadh. Over the course of two weeks, contests were held (bardic, athletic, crafts), wares were sold, romances were begun, gossip was traded, and a sense of community was renewed for the coming year. In essence, this is what I feel modern Pagan festivals are. For all the workshops and classes and spiritual experiences, the essence, to me, is the establishment and renewal of community bonds.
I was 21 at my first festival. I got my first tattoo at Starwood. I met Isaac (my ex-husband) at Rites of Spring. I was pregnant at festivals, I nursed at festivals, and now I bring my teenager to festivals. It was at Starwood that I asked Isaac for a divorce. It was at Starwood that I had my first vision, and it was there that I injured my knee (twice).
It isn’t that what happens is good or bad. It’s that what happens is my life. Marked by the passage of seasons, and supported within the arms of my community. That’s festival.
I also mark my life through festivals. Less significant things have happened to me at festivals, but the festival itself is so epic that it ends up being where I process my chapters; my beginnings and endings.
Plus it’s this huge thing once a year (Starwood, specifically), so I can always think to… where was I working during Starwood ’94, who was I camping with… I ground my full wheel of the year into festivals.
This festival season is a huge one for me, and I look forward to what it will be to look back on it, what I will determine it all was about.
Beautifully put. I can see where you can mark your life by it. Even though it was my first festival season, I can already seen how it has weaved through and changed my life and mere existence for the better. Thank you so much for taking me with you, and what a hell of a ride home!!
[…] ohgod o’clock on tomorrow morning, I leave for Starwood, as I do every year about this time. I will, of course, take notes for the third annual “things you hear only at […]