Once most things were together, I headed to Yellow Springs to go take care of getting setup in preparation for picking up
Skip showed me a copy of his new book, The Solitary Druid, and pointed out a particular item of interest: I'm listed in the acknowledgements. It's just my first name, so almost no one is going to know, but I will, and that's what's important to me.
I left around 8:45 PM to pick up
But I got through, and I parked in the short-term parking area only about ten minutes late. Coming through the doors, I glanced around, checking the arrival boards (and carefully avoiding the departure boards), and saw
I wandered over, gave her a hug, complimented her hair, and grabbed one of her bags. We wandered out into the night, and headed off to find a place to eat, as I'd promised her dinner.
First, we stopped at a Steak-N-Shake, but while in the parking lot, we saw that there was an Olive Garden across the way. We looked at each other, I put the car in reverse, and we headed over there, hoping that they were still open. We missed the closing time by about ten minutes, and so it was time to head back to Steak-N-Shake.
We had a good dinner, falling back into our normal patterns of conversation (i.e. we flirted intensely) as if we never stopped talking. We spent about an hour there, then hopped back into the car to head back. Once we got back to Camp Clifton, we unloaded her things and I showed her around the camp. Finally, we went to bed, and had a wonderful slumber party. I'd have to say that this one was a bit better than the one at Walking With Fire last year.
Sometime in the middle of the conversation, I remembered that I had totally forgotten to get a projector for Skip's workshop. I had reserved it and it was all ready to go, I just never picked it up. I worried about it for a minute or two, then realized I couldn't do anything about it.
We ended up falling asleep around three in the morning, with an alarm set for four.
The alarm woke us up around 4 AM, though neither of us was able to get out of bed until about 4:15. But, alas, we had to, in order to get down to Cincinnati to pick up
Once we managed to get everyone together, we headed off to have some breakfast. We stopped one exit north of I-275, still in Kentucky, and had breakfast at a Bob Evans restaurant. While inside, the heavens opened up and poured out what looked like the wrath of God on us (not too surprising for a bunch of Pagans). We ate our meals, with
When paying the bill, I asked about the nearest WalMart so that the ladies and I could pick up some food. The girls got the directions, and we hopped into the car (making a bit of fun about her accent). We headed deeper into Kentucky upon taking one look at the stopped traffic on I-75 north, and pulled off shortly thereafter to ask directions again.
And let me tell you, any directions that start with, "Pull out of my parkin' lot" have to be good.
We did eventually find the WalMart, which was on our "rhiat", and we spent a good two hours there, picking through the items, both amusing and mundane.
We then drove north, after finding the interstate (which was just left of the "foah-way inta-sektion wit' tha banks. Ya'll kno, where tha bain kiz?"). We passed the Jesus statue one more time, and finally made it back to Summerland about the time that
I immediately found Skip and asked him if he needed the projector I had forgotten. He gave me some good-natured ribbing about forgetting it, but fortunately, he was prepared for my error, and had brought some flipcharts with him. This saved me a trip back to Columbus.
At this point,
I woke myself up, smacked myself around, and headed out to help some people with their tents.
I gave my workshop, and it went pretty well, given my overly tired mental state. I got a shocking number of good compliments on it. That was the only workshop I attended the whole weekend.
Following my workshop, I did my best to round up my Grove. I caught most of them and dragged them to
The business meeting went just fine, but immediately afterwards,
I kissed more people in the next hour and a half than I had in my entire life. And I think that the Grove actually bonded very, very well over the game. It helped that there was a large amount of participation from nearly everyone present. As I sat there watching the bottle turn, I was amused to see that the Grove (and those who suddenly became "honorary members") began to show a kind of kinship that I hadn't seen before. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything in the world, really, as it really did bring us so very close for that moment.
On the other hand, I started to realize something that would come to a head the next night. More on that in a moment.
After kissing literally everyone in the room (including the men), we wandered up to the bardic circle. Though we missed most of the individual rounds, some of the people got up there and did some really great things. The duets between
However, by 10:30, I was fading fast, and perhaps a quarter of the way through Ian and Liafal's set, I begged off to bed. I ignored the K.U.R.S. game going on down in the pavilion that
I think, though, that the most amusing thing about my timing on sleep that night is that
Sometime in the middle of the night,
Waking up between those two was simply the best thing ever. Well, except for the fact that I knew it would happen the next night, too.
We finally rolled ourselves out of bed around 9 AM, and we all hit the showers, and
We sat and talked for a while, then finally headed back to the festival, fed and ready for the day. We enjoyed the ride in, laughing and talking and flirting back and forth as usual.
I spent the afternoon chatting with people and looking at vendor items, and finally got to meet
I got myself ready for ritual by doing nothing. I avoided those assigning parts and didn't bother to change clothes. I just wanted to attend for a change, something I rarely get to do anymore.
The ritual was nice, though not the mind-blowing experience some had. This probably had to do a lot with the inclusion of some Great Rite~ish imagery that bothered me a crazy amount. But all in all, the sun shone down upon us when the Gates were open, and damn if
I wish I were half the priest he is.
After the ritual, I got some food in me, and then we slid into the liturgy meeting. We got pretty much everything figured out (all that was left was tinkering with the damn thing), but then the liturgy meeting devolved (or evolved) into something else: a bit of bondage.
When I went to change for the evening and put on my bondage pants (I really love the damn things, as they're so comfortable),
Anyway, as I was putting the chains on the pants, someone asked about being tied up. And I obliged.
Those who don't know me that well often assume I'm into tying people up, or being tied up, because I wear the pants. It's really not that at all: I honestly just find them that comfortable. Besides, they're a great conversation starter.
What I get out of a little light bondage and such is that it's fun. It's fun because the other person enjoys it. What most people don't realize is that I don't do anything for any sort of pleasure beyond the pleasure of play in its purest form. I'm not at all dominant or submissive, but will play one part or the other if it will make it fun for the other person. Personally, though, I dislike both.
I avoided kissing people directly for the most part that evening, and pretty well concentrated on listening to them and trying to make sure that they were doing alright. I don't have a lot of experience with this, but I didn't want anyone to leave their comfort zone: "if it isn't fun, then we shouldn't be doing it" is the basic motto I was following here. I think the furthest I went was a bit of ear nibbling and hair tugging, but I wasn't paying attention to that. I was worried about the person tied up.
In retrospect, I should have had a single safeword that everyone knew, but I didn't think about that until this morning as I was reviewing the events of the weekend. I also should have noticed the peer-pressure aspect of this. . . I don't think it was fun for everyone who participated. I think some did it because everyone else was.
The peer pressure got to me, too, though, and even though I don't like being tied up in the least, I figured that yes, it was indeed my turn when that was brought up at the very end. I handed the chains over and let myself be lashed to a bed, again thinking, "Hey, if they like it, I'll play submissive."
I forgot that once I was tied in, no one would be watching me to make sure I was comfortable. And I had no safewords.
For the first few seconds, a few of the ladies did some kissing and caressing of my body, and
I lost track of the women who were directly below my line of sight at that point, and suddenly realized that a few of them were not at all interested in my pleasure, but were interested in taking advantage of my situation. My thought process went something like this:
"Shit, she's licking my nipple!"
"Aw, hell, she seems to be into it. She's having fun, and that's good."
"But I'm not."
"I need to say something."
So on one level, I was still thinking, "Yes, this is fine. As long as they're having fun, I can deal with a bit of discomfort." But on the other, I realized that my discomfort isn't what they really wanted, and I needed to inform them of it.
But as soon as I opened my mouth to say something, I felt the most painful thing I've felt in years: someone bit down hard on my nipple and caused me to cry out. I don't remember who it was, and I really, really don't want to know, because I don't want to connect them with that event and with such a serious breech of trust. But they're really, really lucky that I didn't kick them and every other woman within reach of my boots. I was sorely tempted.
I remember my thoughts exactly, but it's such a string of expletives that transcribing it would offend even the most jaded of my readers. I'm totally serious.
At that point, though, that Magician Self that keeps me working through experiences with both unicorns and Cthulhu kicked in, and I fought the urge to pull the chains apart right then and there. I calmed down, banished with laughter, and eventually got out of the chains.
This caused me to start thinking, though, about what was going on. I realized that the spin the bottle game had stripped me of any ability to say "no" to a kiss. If I didn't kiss a person, their feelings would be hurt. I realized what the Magician had been hiding from me ever since that bottle was spun the first time: I was rebounding, and rebounding hard. I was endangering relationships I should not be endangering. I was hurting myself and everyone else in the process.
The spin the bottle game had been some fun, but with this added on top, I suddenly realized that any progress made toward getting over Tina had been eradicated. I just wanted to be back, safe in her arms. Safe where love was never complicated by fear. I wanted to be away from these people, away from who they thought I was.
To that end, I resolved that I'm stepping back. Kisses won't be doled out like candy. Festivals are no place to freely kiss around. I won't ever have my freedom of choice taken away again. The kisses made during those games were worthless. There was, in general, no intent, no purpose to the kisses. Sure I may have enjoyed them at the time (let me re-phrase that: some of those kisses were amazing, fun, and excellent), but several were made because I was afraid. I was afraid of hurting feelings. If you've just kissed three other people, you can't say, "Oh, not you, though," and not expect feelings to be hurt. I took the easy way out. I think I need to re-visit the virtue of Courage.
[note: If you assume that a kiss you got was worthless, then get some self-esteem. Believing that is a mistake.]
The bondage is similar. I'll never tie up another person without having a level of trust and humour much higher than normal (as well as an available safeword and complete medical history). If I find a partner I trust, maybe they can tie me up if it amuses them, but I'll never be tied up in an environment in which I'm uncomfortable again. While an edge of fun is required for me to do it, the core of it absolutely must be trust. I can't do it just for fun.
I have always had a low sex drive: women who can awaken it are rare but special to me. It takes real love on some level, on both our parts. I've never thrown it around casually until this festival. And I don't like it being casual. That doesn't mean it has to be committed, but it does have to have a real, honest connection, and there has to be some sort of very, very close relationship, even if it's just really, really close friends. I have that kind of connection with perhaps five women, and one of them's a married lesbian in a monogamous relationship and another is my ex-girlfriend, so that rules out two women who might sleep with me right away.
But with the Magician Self intact (well, partially. . . even he was a bit shaken up by having something that unpleasant done to his nipples), we ended that game and I headed down to the pavilion to watch the band.
Sometime early in the night,
Shortly afterward, though, came one of the more amusing sights of the night. I saw
I later informed them that the proper course of action when you are suddenly spotlighted in the middle of a kiss is to do something really, really scandalous, not to step three feet apart and not look at each other for an hour. Speaking of info for later:
As I got back into the rhythm of things, slowly rebuilding the Magician Self for use in the morning, I was finally asked to dance by a young lady. The issue here was that I had no idea just how young she might be, so I placed my hand high on her back and held her a good foot away from me, and kept my left hand tightly clasped on hers. I probably looked like an idiot, but I wanted to keep some good space between us. . . I know her parents were around somewhere.
On one level, I'm disappointed that only one girl asked me to dance, but I'm not surprised. On another level, though, I couldn't have danced up until about that point, anyway, because of the way my shoulders were spasming and my honest desire not to be touched by another human being because of it. So I danced one song that night (the last one), with a girl far too young for me. She did, though, help build that Magician Self back up quite nicely. She was fun to talk to and fun to dance with, even if I did have to hold her away from me, and I probably looked pretty silly doing it.
On the bright side, though, I saw
I sat around for a while after the band went offstage, listening to
I told
I walked up to the fire circle where I had made both my Dedicant Oath and my Patron Oath. This gave me a chance to be alone, and remember where I've been. I watched the stars turn in the wheel of the heavens, and I reflected on my own significance. I thought about the Grove, and about whether I should remain on as Senior Druid. I thought about the crazy things I'd done, and banished my regrets but retained the lessons. I drank some mead and some rum and thought about the girls with rights to the other half of each bottle. I thought about the Chaos in my life and figured I could use some more. I thought about the silent offering I gave at Trillium and what it had done to me and cost me. I thought about my roles in ADF and which ones I needed to remove in the near future, and settled on a course of action for one. I thought about my friends and how much I loved them.
I thought about a lot of things that night, and made sense of a lot more. I wandered back down and hung out in a cabin with several people before deciding it was time for bed, brushed my teeth, said goodnight to the group and to
I woke up the next morning with
Sunday was basically just a take-down day. We all pretty well got up in time for breakfast, and we got to get some pretty good food to eat. I got caught in a meeting with
After breakfast, I was feeling sick to my stomach. I went and passed out in the tent for a while, which helped, and started clearing out the inside of it at some point. I was lucky enough to catch
I worked it out in my head, and figured that
I packed up
But damn if it wasn't one of the best festivals ever!
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