How about a long diary-like post with lots of passive tense and no culminating point? OK!

This weekend Andreas and I packed up the truck and headed northward on the black ribbon of death (aka I-5) to Bellingham.

Our first stop found us at the brand new home of Susannah, Michael, and baby Hank. They just bought a bungalow out on the Mount Baker highway, and Dre and I swung by for what I thought was going to be a quick visit.

Hank was already sacked out, so we had a “grown up dinner” just the four of us, followed by a wedding cake taste test. Susannah offered to make us two wedding cakes, one vegan and one not. Friday she took a first stab at a vegan carrot cake with fake cream cheese frosting. OH MY GOD. It was good. It impressed even me, the non-vegans. SO YUMMY! Susannah also has great ideas for how to design the cakes with our circle/hoop/ring theme. So exciting!

Our quick visit stretched later and later, and by the third glass of wine we’d abandoned our plans of making it to Mother Earth, the Oracle Gathering that was happening a few miles away. Andreas and Michael sat around a campfire in the backyard while Susannah and I gossiped about our families. We were all asleep by 12:30.

I woke up Saturday to the sounds of Susannah excited about Hank sitting on his baby potty. Suz’s sounds changed quickly though, after Hank stood up and peed on her foot right before she had to run off to work.

We were out of bed by 7:30 or so, and enjoyed cups of coffee (side note: I drank coffee! woah!) with Hank and Michael. We puttered around in their new huge back field, fed the goldfish in the enormous murky pond, and marveled at Hank’s verbal skills. He’s AMAZING! I don’t know how much of that is just him, how much of it is Suz and Michael, and how much of it is thanks to Hank having done infant sign language workshops with Echo, but WOAH. He is an absolutely stunning communicator.

Dre and I headed into Bellingham to stock up on food at the Co-op. Andreas had flashbacks from his days as a failing freshman and sophomore at Western Washington University, when he used to hang out in front of the B’ham co-op for whole days.

We were stocked up and headed out to the Deming Logging Show fairgrounds — only three miles from Susannah and Michael’s house — where the Oracle Gathering’s solstice party was being hosted.

Even though we’d been awake for three hours, we arrived just as the festival was slowly waking up. Gorgeous grounds — the party took place in the parking lot of the fairgrounds, which was soft green grass, soft rolling hills, and a few trees for shade. Perfect!

We plopped down our blanket in the shade under a tree. We were near the main stage (which was empty at our early hour of arrival) and sat with our books and my hoops.

Over the course of the next couple hours, we watched a couple workshops about DNA activation. Out of respect for those who interested in the practice, I will simply say this: the concept doesn’t, um, resonate with me.

Instead, I hooped. I hooped and I hooped. People would approach and hoop with me for a while, and then wander off. I kept hooping. MORE HOOPING.

We followed the shade of the tree as the sun moved across the sky. Our blanket moved ever couple ours to keep us in the shade, and I hooped more.

Since it was so close to her home, I convinced Susannah and Hank to come by for a few hours. It was Hank’s first festival, and I think he had a great time.

I spent most of my time people watching. I love being among these people. Even though I haven’t seen some of them for a couple years, they’re still delightful to stare at. There was the bearded beat boxing hippy who changed his clothes seven times during the course of the day, wearing a series of brightly colored, transparent women’s lingerie. The culmination of his fashion show had to be the hot pink unitard with the butt cheeks sliced open.

Due to noise complaints the night before, the organizers of the event were forced to start the music much earlier than usual … the sound system turned on around 5pm. I’ve gotten used to my Southern California day parties, so I was wishing that the music had been on since noon, but 5pm was good. It meant that there was dancing and hooping all through the late afternoon and sunset, the dance floor fully packed at twightlight.

I’m absolutely a day dancer. This might be related to my (relative) sobriety, or just be thanks to the fact that I like to SEE the people I’m dancing with. Plus, it’s midsummer and I want to celebrate the sunlight! There’s plenty of cold months for dancing in the dark.

So I was happy happy hooping into the evening. There was some beautiful spoken word performed by a woman named Laura Kelly, and the music was relatively up my alley. Not QUITE funky enough, and maybe a few bpms below my optimal rate, but pretty damn good.

By 11pm or so, I was getting tired out. I’d been hooping in the sun all day, and energy reserves were getting very low. I managed some last attempts at dancing, and then sat down in preparation for the midnight ritual performance.

Now, let me say this: in years past, I have been deeply critical of ritual performances at parties. The entertainment struck me as too passive, clearing the dance floor so that people could watch OTHER people dance. In addition, the ritual performances I’d seen at Oracle Gatherings in 2001 and 2002 were, well, amateurish. Not only was the dance floor cleared, it was cleared so that we could watch people do stuff that wasn’t all that entertaining. I reached a certain point where I would simply leave the dance floor and go elsewhere rather than watch the performances.

Well, I stand corrected. I stayed to watch this performance, and the quality of the show was fantastic! The story line was familiar territory to anyone who’s familiar with pagan practices — an act for each direction/element/season/etc, showing the cyclic nature of mother earth, etc etc. I’ve been attending my mother’s pagan pageants and goddess revivals for years, so it wasn’t the theme or ideas presented in the performance that wowed me — it was the skill of the performers! Belly dance, elaborately choreographed staff and sword fights, tribal ballet duets, acrobatics, and a little fire … but not too much. It was a great show, and I even got sort of choked up at the end. (?!)

It was funny afterwards to hear my friend Owen say, “How often do you see something like THAT?” to which I had to respond, “Dude, I’ve seen things like that almost my whole life …. but that one was actually really good.”

Then, so as to avoid noise complaints, the sound system was shut off. This may have disappointed a lot of people, but for a day dancer like myself, it was heaven….dance all day, and then go to bed! NICE.

The only bad thing about the weekend? Someone walked off with one of my hoops, and I lost my Haviana flip-flops.

If you want to see a few pictures, here you go.