It’s the eve of our most favorite camping trip of the year, the Pagan Spirit Gathering.  We haven’t been there for two years, and it’s been too long.  It’s a huge gathering – over 1000 people this year – and we live for 8 days as an intentional community.  We go to workshops, eat at each others campsites, drink each others meade, stay up too late, get sunburned, provide nourishment for hordes of mosquitoes, and generally refresh and renew ourselves.  Many of the people we meet we may never see again.  Others, like my friend Tina, become such a part of our lives that it seems they were always there.  We always camp in especially beautiful places, although not always the same place.  This is from 2009 in Missouri.

This was at Camp Zoe.  The creek ran right behind our campsite, where we were part of a large group of about 15 people.  We started all frowny faced, since it was really hot and we were really tired and it took a really long time to get there.  Pretty soon, though, Jeff looked like this -

And I looked like this.

That’s me thinking bad thoughts about whoever took the photo.  I was actually very relaxed and happy.  I just hate having photos taken of me.

We did this. A lot.  Like I said…it was REALLY HOT.

This sort of sums up how hot it was.

At night, every night, with mugs of meade in our hands, we did this.

While we watched the flames, we listened to the drums at the ritual circle.  They played late into the night, every night.  On the solstice (June 21 or thereabouts), they played until dawn.  It was awesome and primal and grounding.

The workshops that year were about sustainable living, developing your global consciousness, and the ever popular tattoo scavenger hunt.  I love this one.

In 2010 we couldn’t go, and in 2011 Jeff had foot surgery.  We didn’t think we could go this year, but the universe must have known how much we need to recharge ourselves, because the furnace died, and in a strange, bizarre twist of fate, enabled us to come up with the money to go home again.

That’s what it is, to us.  It’s one of our homes.  When you pull into the gate, the gate keepers tell you “Welcome home.” It feels that way, too.  The last few miles we feel the stress and troubles of the previous months fall away, and by the time the camp is set up, we’ve changed into our PSG garb (skirts for me, sarongs for Jeff), and started to greet our friends – we know we’ve come home.

You should go with us next year.  You’ll see how it is.