Faun

Today, I would like to share a music video from Faun, a Pagan group from Germany that played at Faerieworlds for the first time this year.

It's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

Enjoy,

Sia

This video dates from a festival in 2004. Now imagine this band playing near a river, on a open stage in summer. All around them, standing in a beautiful meadow under the moon and surround by protected forest, are thousands of people who make up a joyful, peaceful audience. Oh, and they're dressed for Bad Faeries Day. Some fun.

Hern Song - Cat Chapin-Bishop

Magic: at its best,
it's that moment of connection
to the here and now,
to the power of the moment.

That quote comes from the Pagan Quaker Blog. It is a beautiful blog fulled with the luminescent prose and compassionate spirits of Chat Chapin Bishop and Peter Bishop.

Chat tells a wonderful story from the Merry Meet Festival. I quote part of it here:

...and in a very soft voice, he sang me a song about Taliesin the bard, and the Old Gods returning. It was very beautiful, and if I can get the words later, I may post them here. But the most wonderful part was the way that, sung just then, in that place and time, it reminded me so powerfully of another song, long years before, when at the Twilight Covening that changed everything for me, I had felt the God Herne singing for me--just me--in the notes of a stranger's guitar.

It was like a caress on the cheek. It was like an affirmation of my path. Quaker I may be, but I'm still His daughter, too.... It was not until today that I had the chance to speak privately with Canu again, and to share with him what his song had meant to me. By then, I was feeling shy, myself, and I said only that, as I deepened in my Quaker self, I sometimes felt doubt about my place with the Old Gods, and that I'd felt his song as an affirmation of something that had wanted affirmation.

True enough. But I'd left out the part about sensing Herne, touching me through the song. I couldn't quite trust that to words... I ended by saying that I thought he was a very good singer.

And Canu grinned, and said, yeah, well... I'm told I draw down Herne pretty well, too.

To read more, visit her evocative account of the Merry Meet Festival

As a companion piece, I also recommend her post titled Lloyd Lee Wilson, Hern and the Sea of Limitless Life.

Go well, stay well,

Sia

Photo: A wildlife rescue volunteer from the Cascades Raptor Center with a Red tailed hawk. Taken at the Faerieworlds Festival in Eugene, OR by WitsEnd. (Used with permission - all rights reserved)

Off the Shelf:


Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth and Legend by Peter Tate

Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion by Michael York

Of Pixies & Burning Man

This is a photo of Pixie, one of the official photographers of the Faerieworlds Festival. I love the contrast between her outfit and that hulking piece of technology. If you love photos, check out her website. I like her work, especially the portrait pieces for tribal and belly dancers. It's not easy catching dancers in motion, not easy at all.

She also shoots at two of my favorite events: Burning Man and the Labyrinth of Jared Masquerade Ball.

Burning Man Goes Green.

This year, Burning Man goes green. As always, change has pros and cons, and this huge change is causing a lot of talk. According to an article in CNN Money:

This year's theme is "The Green Man." Burning Man, an extravaganza characterized by the consumption of huge quantities of fossil fuel, has discovered environmentalism. It is attempting to offset the 28,000 tons of carbon it estimates the event generates (counting all those flights and long drives for its far-flung attendees), and the organization is belatedly switching to biodiesel generators to provide most of the event's electricity.

Most controversially, the organization wants to bring as many green-energy companies as possible into what Harvey calls a world's fair of clean tech. Google (Charts, Fortune 500) is going to help produce an online 3-D search service called Burning Man Earth.

Link: Burning Man Art Theme for 2007: The Green Man

But I'm not 20 anymore:

Then check out The Mature Person's Guide to Burning Man

Water, water everywhere:

While some people get ready to party in the desert, others are not so lucky. Where ever you celebrate summer, please keep a thought for our friends in the Chinese and UK floods.

Animal & Human Rescue Efforts In the Wake of the Flood:

This is the largest rescue effort in Britain since WWII. Humans are usually cared for in such cases (1) but pets and farm animals suffer, as well. Animal lovers can donate to urgent animal rescue efforts in Britain at the RSPCA website.

Sia

(1) Excepting those who live in New Orleans.

Photo of Pixie by ccprince