Before Grok Camp

I decided to break up the entry into more than one. I wrote 4 pages, then lost some of it - we have been visited by The Worm. Martin got rid of it yesterday, and I printed out all I wrote before I closed down, because it didn't look like things were being saved to the hard drive, and they weren't. So I have to re-enter about a page and a half from hard copy.

So here is the background.

July 21, Martin got back from Madison okay. Unfortunately, Ricky was sick all weekend, and called me Monday around 7 to ask me to drive him to the emergency room. He's been feeling ill for a while, and had gone to the doctor finally. The doctor called him with test results and told him to go to the emergency room. So I took him and stayed as long as I could, then drove from Abbott directly to the bus station to get Martin.

Partly because of this, we did not try to go to House on the Rock the following weekend, but just went to Mauston for the night, then the Summerton reunion in Oxford the next day. It was interesting to finally see Martin's niece Elizabeth, and it was okay hanging out for a while.

Ricky was in the hospital until Saturday, and all the following week was in and out for tests. Finally, they decided he has prostate cancer which has spread to his bones. He has started some sort of chemo. He has been around the house a lot, and it's very depressing. Nothing much I can do for him; I feel helpless. He's one of my oldest friends.

Anyway, the weekend of Aug 2-3 was mostly getting ready, except for going to the Powderhorn Art Fair. I bought a rather large pendant of blue dendritic agate, the sort I am always looking for. It's a teardrop cabochon about 2" by 1½", and quite magnificant.

Monday August 4th was Prodea Lunasa. The whole coven was there – Steve came back from Avalon in time. Great feast, though not much ritual. Good to see everyone. A small half grown grey kitten was hanging out in the backyard, and by the end of the feast, we had sort of adopted her. Last I heard, Anne and Todd were going to take he home, and get her checked by a vet. One of us will give her a home, it's not clear who yet.

Tuesday was packing, and packing. And trying to get to bed at a reasonable time

Grok Camp part one

Wednesday morning, I woke up feeling, hey, this is my vacation, I am NOT going to stress about this. Rather than rush, I let myself take it a little easier than I usually would. We still managed to leave before 10 am.

The trip down was exhausting. We did 500 miles on Wednesday. Ran into a bad traffic jam on the freeway just after we stopped for gas near Beloit. It took us 25 minutes to go about 5 miles. Had dinner in a truck stop in Mendota called Busters. Okay food, lots of license plates on the walls for Martin to gawk at, including one that said ELSHADAI or some facsimile.

Stopped around 8 pm at a Days Inn in Farmer City, Ill. Turned out to be a very inferior place, with lots of little things wrong. Even if it was only $40, it was lousy. Didn't sleep well, got about 6 hours sleep.

Next morning had a good breakfast at a rather spartan place across the street from the motel, and got going fairly early, bit after 9. Stopped for lunch in Greencastle, Indiana, which is, I believe a college town. Had an excellent lunch at a tea room called "Almost Home". Quite memorable. Wish I had gone ahead and tried dessert – prize winning place. But I had been off sugar over a week at that point, and wanted to stay that way.

Arrived at Lothlorian about 2:20 pm. It is nearly 700 miles.

Martin had to do a lot of the set up, and he did it well. He is really getting the hang of camping. He still fiddles with stuff a little more than I think necessary.

The opening ritual was the typical CAW sort of thing; saying "I am the Great Goddess Magenta and I claim this fire as my tribal fire", then water sharing. Tribal fire was the theme, as much as there was one. Internest potluck that night was mostly dessert. (Like Prodea Lunasa had been mostly salads.) There was enough other stuff, fortunately. A Bardic circle was scheduled, but most people just wanted to sit around fires and talk, so that's what happened. I'm glad CAW is willing to be flexible. I know festivals where the organizers would have *insisted* on a Bardic circle because it was on the schedule.

Friday after breakfast I did about a half hour of yoga with Anne Greenstar. She has wonderful vibes, and I had a good workout. I did some this morning as well, and I am inspired, I hope to continue.

Later Friday morning was Sam's presentation of mind machines, which was interesting. Lunch was an Ottercat creation, and delicious. In the afternoon was Bill and Tam's workshop on Sacred Sexuality, which turned into a freeform discussion on flirting. Friday's supper was their "Discordian Hot Dog Dinner" – offend 5 religions at once just by eating hot dogs. That was fun, and a couple of hotdogs were plenty after the feast at lunchtime.

Friday evening was Ottercat's "Favorite Things" ritual. After struggling to come up with 7 tokens, they weren't really part of the ritual, and it wasn't about favorite things, but about what blocks us and stands in our way, and what we have given up or lost because of our blocks. After a series of invocations, we walked the path around the village and were challenged 7 times, by Insecurity, Greed, Jealousy, Sorrow, Fear, Anger, and Hate. (I think that's the order.) I think they were going to ask us for the tokens but only two did, and only one really had something that matched the block. But I came away from it with a few interesting insights, none of which I can really put into words to recall. I like rituals that give me insights that take time to mull over, rather than the obvious, "Oh, this means that". Grokking comes in the fullness of time.