Autumnfest 2002 day 2

[austin_tycho]

We were roused out of bed around 9am and got TI’s van packed up. We left and made a couple of stops for supplies and breakfast and ended up at Starbridge around 11am.

Starbridge is this campsite technically located in Murrayville north of Atlanta. But there is not any substantial civilization there. It’s hilly and treeey, with a small lake and many wooded paths. The main clearing is where a lot of the Unicorn Trad folks camped. I set up near a stable and under some short sumac trees. Very shortly, it began to rain- and did so for pretty much the entire time we were there. It was tropical depression Hanna, and I couldn’t complain because apparently Georgia has been in a drought for 5 years and they really needed the rain. Such is life.

I went to the Unicorn vending area and immediately blew my entire stipend on various things; some copies of Books of the Law to give students (as opposed to the copies I was making for free), a grove cookbook, a revised and expanded book about the Tarot written by LG, a new CD of guided meditations by LG, and a cute throw pillow with a celestial theme that LG and Demi made. Then I started to round up folks for our play.

The main event for Friday night was the Ishtar-Tammuz myth that I’d originally written for an Oestara ritual in 1994, but I made it about twice as long, changed some of the wording here and there, and made it a stand-alone play. I ended up being the narrator (though I was sort of hoping to be able to fob it off on someone else, but it was my baby, so…), TI was Shamash the Sun god, TD was Ea the water god, TE was Erishkigal the Queen of the Underworld, and I started drafting people for the other parts. Demi agreed to be Erishkigal’s gatekeeper, and recommended a local couple for Ishtar and Tammuz. I met Tammuz and he said he’d ask his wife, who agreed to be Ishtar. We suited everyone up and did a run-through. I decided that it’d be best if we held the play under the pavilion, rather than at the circle site on top of the hill. LG assured me that it wouldn’t rain until the play was over- and I should have trusted her, but didn’t want to chance it. Also there was lighting under the pavilion, and since everyone was reading off scripts it would have been awkward to make them carry scripts, plus candles and be trying to kill boars, disrobe, and so on all at the same time.

A bunch of people gathered, and we started. It went really well! When Tammuz was killed by the boar, he flopped onto the ground and one of the property owners’ dogs became concerned. He was a medium-sized black dog, and appeared from the crowd and approached Tammuz’ body. He sat down next to Tammuz and looked very worried for a few seconds, and even put his paw on Tammuz’ shoulder as if to say ‘Are you alright?’ It was wonderful. The rain stopped for the duration of our play, and started up almost as soon as we finished.

Many people complimented me afterward, including one woman who was really amazed that I didn’t pick a model-thin beauty to play Ishtar. Our Ishtar was nice and plump, and so was this woman, and she was moved to tears during the copious praise we heaped on Ishtar, talking at great length about how wonderful and beautiful she was. The woman though, if Ishtar can be beautiful, maybe I can too? Why yes! :)

I sat in the cabin (there’s one, and since LG organized the event she and her husband got it) and tried a couple of different types of mead- there was gallberry, orange blossom, wildflower, and one other. They were all wonderful but due to the close quarters, the humidity, and the adrenaline from being on stage I was sweating like a Nixon so I went out thinking I’d listen to the band that was getting ready to play, Emerald Rose. But then TE took me aside and confessed that she had a hotel room, and invited me to crash with her. Seeing all the rain, and feeling really nasty I took her up on it. I was covered with sweat, dirt and glitter (Shamash was very generous with his pouch of ‘solar energy’- he blessed everyone he could manage to throw glitter on) and was ready for a shower. I felt sort of guilty that I was leaving the ‘troops’ in the rain, but one was in a van and the other was a die-hard experienced camper, so I tried not to let it bother me too much.

We drove about 20 minutes to a Comfort Inn, in something-or-other-ville. I took a nice long shower, and we got naked. TE knows I have no problem with nudity and like me will spend as much time as she can walking around in the buff (I’m proud to say I was clothed for a total of about 20 minutes all day yesterday). So we sat on the bed naked, and watched the Weather Channel and Star Trek (TNG), and had munchies. She stayed up and read, and I crashed around 1am.