Spent a long weekend down in the woods of Georgia dancing and drumming till dawn. It was a gathering of fire-circle hippie-pagans called Forest Dance at a international youth hostel called "Hostel in the Forest," outside Brunswick, Georgia.
The hostel itself is pretty amazing, if you like crunchy-granola hippie hang-outs (I do). There are plenty of tree houses to sleep in and some amazing folks from all over staying and working there. It was a great place to be to escape the Slough of Despond many of us are in after the election.
It was also good medicine being with other folks who do ceremony in the forest, who devote themselves to the cultivation of love and compassion, and are not filled up with the junk most of us carry away from television and (alas) a lot of new media culture.
For two nights we kept it going until dawn, drumming and dancing around the sacred fire, practicing the earth's oldest religion. It was hard because, even though we were near the Florida border, it was doggone cold. The way I did it was to drum until I was too cold to drum anymore, then go dance around the fire until I thawed out, and then went back to drumming. I did some frame-drumming on my bodhran, and then sampled other drums as I found them. On the second morning, I was jamming on a big old milk jug (the kind that's about 3 and a half feet tall). It's a great way to greet the dawn, especially since struck in the right way it sounds like morning church bells.
We would go to bed around seven, sleep until 1, have brunch at 2, then while away the afternoon hanging out, boating/swimming on the lake, doing workshops. I did workshops on Reiki and partner massage, and met with a drumming affinity group. I also did a sweat ceremony, which culminated in jumping in a cold but refreshing lake. After dinner there was more hanging out around the "bardic fire" (right outside the dining hall), or walking the labyrinth recently built on the land. Then around midnight we'd get starting with the drumming again.
There is no television at the hostel, though there is one computer for the hostel office, and a library filled with a pretty good assortment of books. There was no clock anywhere either, if you don't count the clock in the kitchen which had it's hour and minute hands removed, leaving only a second hand, and an inscription which said "Only seconds remain..." After the first evening, I just left my watch in my tent and walked around blissfully unconcerned with the time like everybody else.
But even though (or perhaps because) the place was relatively machine free, there were still what I would call textual moments. Which I will describe in my next entry (above).
Posted by jeb at November 10, 2004 9:31 PM | TrackBack