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It's been some time- I'm still in Atlanta, and have been busy as hell.
The ride up was uneventful, and the longest solo drive I think I've ever made (thought the one to Albuquerque may be close, and it was certainly more grueling). I caravaned up with River who's driven up many times, and we soon got the hang of it and it was nice. We shared a motel room in Monroe, LA and then made it to Atlanta by about 9pm the following day, in between several fairly severe thunderstorms. The weather has been very tempestuous, literally, and there was even an earthquake, but here it was weak enough that I slept through it.
The Convocation of Thirds went extremely well. We all made a ton of decisions that will shape the course of the Trad for years and years, and they felt very solid. Our 'queen mum' said she's only seen this sort of thing happen once before where all the 3rds and Elders got together to discuss stuff like this, and it apparently turned into a big ego-fest. She was impressed, and considering what I've seen go on in CoG and CMA, I am too.
The next couple of days I stayed around the house, and copied initiation rituals (she insists we do this by hand) and went over them with some of the thirds from other circles in order to ask questions about blocking, and what the significance of this phrase or that number of bell rings was. It's been pretty damn enlightening, especially considering that some changes were made to the ritual that should not have been made, and so that got all ironed out.
Galadriel is my great-grandmother; she trained Magdalena, who trained River, who helped start Earth Haven where I was trained by Freya and Hathor. Magdalena wanted to do dinner and show off her house, so I drove up with Garanhir, who is an Elder who makes incense in Bastrop and did High Priest duty for Magdalena's group and Earth Haven. Anyway, so Garanhir and I spent an evening with her. She is a darling person and a pretty good artist, but our personalities would have clashed big time, and I have to say I'm glad she was not my teacher. She had an amazing house in a really nice little subdivision by a lake. We both agreed that Atlanta is the Austin in Georgia. You can be a freaky hippie witch here, and no one seems to mind, but it's not recommended much anywhere else in the state. Ah well, another city to add to my list of possible places to move in case They make me leave Austin.
I spent the afternoon Thursday with Tuan. In the swirl of people and Garanhir's incessant need to talk non-stop without breathing if there is anyone else in the room (but he lives alone in the woods so we think he may be getting his social needs met for the next several months), it was nice to talk with someone. Tuan is very opinionated and he can go off on Dennis Miller like rants, but he is very conscious that there is another person in the conversation. It was nice; we hung out for a good while and he seems to be one of those guys you can just talk with for hours and hours and hours. I'm trying to talk him into visiting the Austin franchise one of these days since he's retired.
Yesterday I went sight-seeing. This sounds easier than it was; I made it to a planetarium and saw a spectacular show, but couldn't find this museum I'd wanted to visit at the Emory campus until it had closed. So I ended up driving up to the witchy store here and buying myself some belated anniversary presents. I thought about getting one big cool thing, but I decided instead to get a few little cool things and some books. I could easily see spending a big chunk of change there if I were susceptible to such things. @@
We had another storm last night that knocked the power out until 2am or so. That was really cool, actually- you know this household is up to its ass in candles and candle holders. I haven't been in a power out for awhile, and our spring storms in Texas haven't been sufficiently scary, in my opinion.
Today was day one of the John Matthews workshop. It's fun, I suppose, it's been a little shamanic journeying and a little Arthurian legend story-telling. The Celtic mythoi never struck much of a chord in me but it's enjoyable to listen to someone talk about it who really loves telling stories. Tonight is Beltane, and tomorrow is day two. Monday I start home.
I've felt isolated here, which is probably understandable. I don't have Bob's knack for feeling at home anywhere I land, especially when there are established cliques in place. Not that anyone's going out of their way to exclude me, but I'm introverted, I don't know these people very well, some of them intimidate me, and frankly some of them are attention whores to some extent, so this adds up to me spending a lot of time either hovering at the edge of a conversation trying to find a way in, or just wandering around the back yard looking at all the pretty flowers (which there are in abundance). I haven't known these people well enough to feel out when to burst in, and I'm just not plain good at that sort of thing anyway so I tend to go look at flowers a lot. Part of me is saddened by this- I mean, I don't get to see these people so I should make the most of it, right? But after reading![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yansa's journal lo these many decades, I'm realizing that 'should' can just go take a flying fuck and I'll do what I enjoy and try not to feel like I'm not measuring up somehow. When I say I'm a biophiliac in my interests, it means (to me) I get a lot of spiritual juice being around nature, not just by talking to spiritual people. So I'm trying to remind myself that I'm doing what I need to do.
My only complaint about anyone else is that dammit, they all smoke. There have been numerous times when I thought to myself "it's May, the weather is fucking gorgeous, there's this huge backyard with all these ponds and fountains and crystals and flowers and shit; why are we all sitting in this living room watching the damn TV in a zero-visibility cloud of cigarette smoke?" This was often my cue to go downstairs and copy some more rituals out on the patio. Somehow the culture in Austin tends to discourage smokers, not so in Atlanta. It's a minor issue.
I have been trying to keep up with everyone's journal, but not very well as you could imagine. If you need to catch me up on anything feel free to leave me a comment. I must give copious thanks tothunderminded for the use of her computer, both to check up and also to chat with my hubby, who I miss an awful lot. As much fun as this has been, I am really looking forward to getting home too.
The ride up was uneventful, and the longest solo drive I think I've ever made (thought the one to Albuquerque may be close, and it was certainly more grueling). I caravaned up with River who's driven up many times, and we soon got the hang of it and it was nice. We shared a motel room in Monroe, LA and then made it to Atlanta by about 9pm the following day, in between several fairly severe thunderstorms. The weather has been very tempestuous, literally, and there was even an earthquake, but here it was weak enough that I slept through it.
The Convocation of Thirds went extremely well. We all made a ton of decisions that will shape the course of the Trad for years and years, and they felt very solid. Our 'queen mum' said she's only seen this sort of thing happen once before where all the 3rds and Elders got together to discuss stuff like this, and it apparently turned into a big ego-fest. She was impressed, and considering what I've seen go on in CoG and CMA, I am too.
The next couple of days I stayed around the house, and copied initiation rituals (she insists we do this by hand) and went over them with some of the thirds from other circles in order to ask questions about blocking, and what the significance of this phrase or that number of bell rings was. It's been pretty damn enlightening, especially considering that some changes were made to the ritual that should not have been made, and so that got all ironed out.
Galadriel is my great-grandmother; she trained Magdalena, who trained River, who helped start Earth Haven where I was trained by Freya and Hathor. Magdalena wanted to do dinner and show off her house, so I drove up with Garanhir, who is an Elder who makes incense in Bastrop and did High Priest duty for Magdalena's group and Earth Haven. Anyway, so Garanhir and I spent an evening with her. She is a darling person and a pretty good artist, but our personalities would have clashed big time, and I have to say I'm glad she was not my teacher. She had an amazing house in a really nice little subdivision by a lake. We both agreed that Atlanta is the Austin in Georgia. You can be a freaky hippie witch here, and no one seems to mind, but it's not recommended much anywhere else in the state. Ah well, another city to add to my list of possible places to move in case They make me leave Austin.
I spent the afternoon Thursday with Tuan. In the swirl of people and Garanhir's incessant need to talk non-stop without breathing if there is anyone else in the room (but he lives alone in the woods so we think he may be getting his social needs met for the next several months), it was nice to talk with someone. Tuan is very opinionated and he can go off on Dennis Miller like rants, but he is very conscious that there is another person in the conversation. It was nice; we hung out for a good while and he seems to be one of those guys you can just talk with for hours and hours and hours. I'm trying to talk him into visiting the Austin franchise one of these days since he's retired.
Yesterday I went sight-seeing. This sounds easier than it was; I made it to a planetarium and saw a spectacular show, but couldn't find this museum I'd wanted to visit at the Emory campus until it had closed. So I ended up driving up to the witchy store here and buying myself some belated anniversary presents. I thought about getting one big cool thing, but I decided instead to get a few little cool things and some books. I could easily see spending a big chunk of change there if I were susceptible to such things. @@
We had another storm last night that knocked the power out until 2am or so. That was really cool, actually- you know this household is up to its ass in candles and candle holders. I haven't been in a power out for awhile, and our spring storms in Texas haven't been sufficiently scary, in my opinion.
Today was day one of the John Matthews workshop. It's fun, I suppose, it's been a little shamanic journeying and a little Arthurian legend story-telling. The Celtic mythoi never struck much of a chord in me but it's enjoyable to listen to someone talk about it who really loves telling stories. Tonight is Beltane, and tomorrow is day two. Monday I start home.
I've felt isolated here, which is probably understandable. I don't have Bob's knack for feeling at home anywhere I land, especially when there are established cliques in place. Not that anyone's going out of their way to exclude me, but I'm introverted, I don't know these people very well, some of them intimidate me, and frankly some of them are attention whores to some extent, so this adds up to me spending a lot of time either hovering at the edge of a conversation trying to find a way in, or just wandering around the back yard looking at all the pretty flowers (which there are in abundance). I haven't known these people well enough to feel out when to burst in, and I'm just not plain good at that sort of thing anyway so I tend to go look at flowers a lot. Part of me is saddened by this- I mean, I don't get to see these people so I should make the most of it, right? But after reading
yansa's journal lo these many decades, I'm realizing that 'should' can just go take a flying fuck and I'll do what I enjoy and try not to feel like I'm not measuring up somehow. When I say I'm a biophiliac in my interests, it means (to me) I get a lot of spiritual juice being around nature, not just by talking to spiritual people. So I'm trying to remind myself that I'm doing what I need to do. My only complaint about anyone else is that dammit, they all smoke. There have been numerous times when I thought to myself "it's May, the weather is fucking gorgeous, there's this huge backyard with all these ponds and fountains and crystals and flowers and shit; why are we all sitting in this living room watching the damn TV in a zero-visibility cloud of cigarette smoke?" This was often my cue to go downstairs and copy some more rituals out on the patio. Somehow the culture in Austin tends to discourage smokers, not so in Atlanta. It's a minor issue.
I have been trying to keep up with everyone's journal, but not very well as you could imagine. If you need to catch me up on anything feel free to leave me a comment. I must give copious thanks to
thunderminded for the use of her computer, both to check up and also to chat with my hubby, who I miss an awful lot. As much fun as this has been, I am really looking forward to getting home too.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: May. 4th, 2003 11:39 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: May. 6th, 2003 04:42 pm (UTC)From:Another non-smoker...
Date: May. 4th, 2003 07:46 pm (UTC)From:Till next year, my love!
B.
Re: Another non-smoker...
Date: May. 6th, 2003 04:44 pm (UTC)From:Re: Another non-smoker...
Date: May. 7th, 2003 12:47 am (UTC)From:Best,
B.
(who tends to use initials in 'public')
Re: Another non-smoker...
Re: Another non-smoker...
Date: May. 9th, 2003 04:48 pm (UTC)From:Don't know if I will drive over (several week project) or fly down. It is a rather long way, after all.
I'm glad to have met you the other weekend; hope that the John Matthews weekend was good, too. Thanks for your candour in all things - I happen to value that very highly, believing that candour is the true mark of the Third Degree.
Love,
B.
no subject
Date: May. 6th, 2003 04:45 pm (UTC)From:Re:
Date: May. 6th, 2003 06:10 pm (UTC)From:bean