Another Juicy Women's Night

Last Tuesday was Juicy Women's Night. Lena is feeling very done with her job and what she is doing in her life right now and is ready for something different. A couple, her poly lovers, are coming to visit her and although she has very little energy to offer them, she looks forward to their visit.

Rosemary spoke about one of her lovers and her on-going struggle with attachment vs non-attachment in the arena of love.

Randi is still celibate and watching herself make shifts with her sexuality. She feels likes she's "acted out" in the past and she's choosing to be more conscious with whom she chooses to partner with at this juncture in her life. She recently ended a NSA long distance, long term, relationship.

Ana just returned from another business trip in the city. She made lots of good contacts and felt very validated by people's reception of her. She was also propositioned by a woman she knows, to become her husband's lover. She is considering it as an option.

Molly recently returned from a rendezvous with an old girlfriend who has always served as a validation and inspiration for her. This time her friend gave her lots of encouragement surrounding a book she has written and she was inspired to dig into it and complete some powerful changes. She is still struggling with some of her fears around money while realizing that she is currently able to do everything she wants to do.

Pema just returned from visiting one of her children and also from a business meeting with her partner. They just drew up the papers to turn her business into a corporation. She says she has let go of the financial dream she has been holding onto with her lover although she is still willing to experience it. She loves her man and doesn't want to "dump" him but has thoughts that she could leave when his money deals come through. She says that the more she releases attachment, the more he focuses on her. She realized that she has been waiting for her money to come through so she can pursue her dream life of "service to others" when all the while, this is the work she is already currently engaged in, caring for her youngest daughter and lover.

Lena started the sharing of her sexual history tonight recalling that her sexual exploration started at a young age. When she was maybe three or four she remembers being outside with the family dog and it licking her genitals. She liked the feeling but was admonished by her mother who was watching from kitchen window, and shook a finger at her. Years later, as a young girl on her period, she was changing a tampon in the bathroom and while allowing the family dog to lick her genitals, it actually bit her. She was injured and bleeding and had to go to her mother for help. She changed the story a bit, protecting herself from her mother and the doctor's judgment by telling them that the dog lunged at her, biting her labia when she pulled out her tampon. They bought her story which was more feasible due to the smell of her blood. Well, the dog did fucking bite her! Unappreciative beast.


Lena loved the sensuous feelings in her body and found that she could facilitate bringing herself to orgasm in a number of ways. She described holding her body in a certain position while exercising and touching her toes. She also stood on her hands in the shower so the water would hit her clitoris in the perfect spot. This woman has ingenuity in her ability to self-pleasure!

Lena remembers being the sex educator for all of her friends. She dragged them all off to Planned Parenthood to them get on birth control and to protect themselves from STDs. She planned the the loss of her virginity, picking a very nice boyfriend and discussing the matter with him beforehand. She described how they would conspire to find the time and place to have sex. He sounded like a near perfect first love for a young girl.

When they graduated high school, all of her friends got together and exchanged gifts. Lena received red satin sheets which made her feel ashamed. Her friends didn't give her the sheets in a mean spirited way but it still hurt her feelings. She was considered a wild and sexually adventurous woman and she had only one steady boyfriend! Now, she said, she would considerate receiving those sheets a compliment but back then this label felt as if she was being harshly judged.

Lena did love sex and had several other lovers in college. She talked about how when she lived in the college dorms there was a curfew. Once out past curfew there was no coming home so she figured she might as well live it up, and she did. Lena wanted to be a good girl but liked sex too much for that. I feel a knot in the pit of my stomach when I think of this. Way too many of us once believed that being a girl good and having sex were mutually exclusive. Good girl = no sex. Bad girl = sex. What did you choose?

She talked about the shame she experienced from having sex with her girlfriend's fiance and other events that placed her into the sexually deviant category. I just want to scream when I think of this box that so many young woman are placed into. A box that many of them willingly place themselves into, accepting their just punishment for liking sex too much.

There was a revealing moment in Lena's narrative when she realized that she had always had a story that her first husband was her second lover. This is after she had already described at least three or four other lovers and then she came to the part where she was meeting him. She was bemused. Lena didn't contemplate this to any depth during our group so I have no idea where she will end up going with this little discrepancy she discovered. But I do think it is not an uncommon phenomena when a person has some unprocessed work to be done on an emotionally charged issue. It's not my place to tell her story but there she was, this juicy, vibrant, horny, young thing who is right in the midst of finding exquisite pleasure and delight in her blossoming sexuality...and lets just say that she is unsupported in her precious exploration. I'll stop here because I'm only imagining.

Life went on and Lena married, had children, and divorced. Later she met a man who she really liked and they started up a sexual relationship. He ended up feeling guilty because they were being sinful (having sex outside of marriage) so he broke it off with her. She continued exploring her sexually and purchased sex toys to pleasure herself. She had various sexual partners, her old boyfriend from high school, a younger man from work who wasn't very kind to her, and others.

I'm anxious to hear more, juicy woman.

More Foolsgold

Two sweet friends called to see if I was OK after reading my Heartmind post. That brings a smile across my face. I like being thought of, being important enough to another that something I say about my life process triggers them to be concerned and to check in on me. It's a blessing to have friends,to be loved.

Anyway, I'm fine. And I was wonderfully intact when I wrote that last post too. I was just going through my stuff and experiencing some intense, emotions/realizations. I was in little pain but I wasn't suffering from it. My heart was very open welcoming the insight. So thank you Susan, for Foolsgold. It's really working for me. Here's some more from chapters three through nine.

In chapter three, moving the dishes, Susan offers this quote by Lao Tzu:

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

That basically describes the bulk of my spiritual practice lately. Dis-identifying. Coming more and more to terms of what I am not. It's like emptying the trash. I've been so full of stuff I've been thinking is me, some quite lovely stuff by the way, some frightfully shameful, that it's been quite the spring cleaning rampage which has extended into the summer, fall, winter...Lets just say this identity decluttering is an ongoing process. And I keep picking up more new identities to hoard on my way to the dump. Oy vey! I need to empty enough of what I'm not to be able recognize the truth of what I am.

Susan talks about her thirty year marriage ending and her craving of open space that coincided with this period of powerful transition. She wanted her house empty "to match my heart, bare, with no room for anything but white, cool light coming in." She craved barrenness but the empty space yearned to be filled. Her son came and helped her move her dishes. During their transport to her new home she wondered, "if the soul of a house hides in the dishes. Dishes hold all that food, decades of meals, spoon to mouth, salads and fruits and stews and cakes and pies and eggs and toast on plates in a circle for years on an old round table." Her words touch my heart and fill an empty space inside.

She writes of emptiness, a concept that has always frightened me until the last couple of years when I've experienced some of the vast, open, freeing, potential of empty space. Up to this point in my life, the word "empty" has always implied lack, want, craving, the ache of loneliness. She says, "The creative, it seems is spawned from emptiness. Giving over to silence, waiting, allowing, listening...In the emptiness we might get an inkling...of how we'll begin to form and open to who we're becoming, who we most truly are. We need to leave space both for what we'll discover and what will emerge to discover us." She encourages us to "notice what's overfull in your world right now" and to empty it, making room for something new. Yes. I know this, it's my continual process, something I'm always doing and always getting around to doing.

In chapter four Susan tells a story about how after giving birth to her second child, a daughter, with a two year old son, it seemed impossible for her to lovingly mother both of them at once. "Help was closer than I could have dreamed" she says. All I'm going to add to this is the name of the chapter, big toe: within arm's reach, and her explanation. "My heart, with its own imagination, sympathetic to our plight, scanned the scene and found something not only nearby, but an ever-present part of my body, to save the day." Susan's son, is now a grown man, but still today she finds what she needs in life as close as her big toe. This is a precious, heartwarming story.

From chapter five, Hafiz:

Tired of speaking sweetly,
Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.

I crave being manhandled by love.

The ocean admonishes Susan to to pay attention and tells her,"Don't take too much credit for your cleverness or writing..." If she pays attentions she is filled with inspiration. And here's the rub. Paying attention so I'm aware when God arrives, simply allowing this creative force to channel itself through me. Yet I often catch myself in narcissistic glee, my ego taking personal credit for some little thing I like that has come through me, and I feel proud. I'm clear I'm a mere tool for divine source expressing itself, but I do forget sometimes.

Susan encourages us to feel our consciousness sink down to our hearts and to pay attention to the world from this place and we will be informed of everything we need to stay safe and connected to our creativity.

In chapter six, her lessons come in the form of a great blue heron she calls Hank. He teaches her to be still,watch, listen... She wonders if time alone, engaging our senses in the natural world, is not the place from which art and love emerge. She implores us to fully touch down, taking in whatever the natural world has to offer. She says, "Get to the heart of place". This reminds me of a Rumi poem I love which is part of my daily awareness practice:

Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.

And she offers a quote from Eckart Tolle, author of the books, The Power of Now, and A New Earth. I've learned a lot from his teachings. He says:

Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now. Let it teach you being...how to live and how to die.

Chapter seven is intense and Susan offers this quote by Friedrich Willhelm Nietzsche to entice us:

Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue/ Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed?

It is at this point in Susan's life that she experienced a deep depression that shifted into a psychotic break. She was twenty one years old. Her parents, concerned about her behavior, took her to a psychiatrist who told them she had to be immediately committed. She was transported to a hospital where she was held down, shot full of drugs, and forced to drink liquid Thorazine and Stelazine. Her delusional behavior continued for awhile until she eventually learned to copy "normal" behavior and was allowed to go home where the paranoia and dread lifted and she felt freer than ever before in her life. She says "I needed to learn that I can't always trust my mind, and that thinking can lead me in tight circles farther and farther from my heart." Wow, that is so powerful and it is certainly a match with what I've been discovering over the years about my own thinking mind.

Susan says that whatever took her to this place still tinges some of her mornings with dread. Dread. The moment I hear that word I feel it in my body. I know dread too intimately. I'm suspicious of certain life experiences that originally took me to that deep, dark, foreboding place of dread, where I spent fifteen years of my life, from the ages of approximately twenty to thirty-five, waking up every single morning filled with the overpowering experience of dread. It took me lots of inner work and self forgiveness to release the hold it had on me and when I remember those shackles that I am now free of, I give thanks.

And from Gospel of Saint Thomas:

If you express what is inside you, what is inside you will save you. If you don't express what is inside you, what is inside you can kill you.

In chapter nine Susan quotes Hildegard Von Bingen:

We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light.

Susan says "maybe some of us need to dive into the depths of self, no matter how dangerous it seems, to uncover more meaning, passion, expression of soul, and, indeed, more light. We might feel most alive in the presence of what seems most dark within us." She says it helps to "shift perspectives and turn ourselves inside out and upside down." This reminds me of the Hanged Man in tarot and it's also a good descriptor of what I've done in my relationship with Jerry in making the choice to walk the path of polyamory and truth telling. Here's a tarot story (I found it here)about the Hanged Man:

The Fool settles beneath a tree, intent on finding his spiritual self. There he stays for nine days, without eating, barely moving. People pass by him, animals, clouds, the wind, the rain, the stars, sun and moon. On the ninth day, with no conscious thought of why, he climbs a branch and dangles upside down like a child, giving up for a moment, all that he is, wants, knows or cares about. Coins fall from his pockets and as he gazes down on them - seeing them not as money but only as round bits of metal - everything suddenly changes perspective. It is as if he's hanging between the mundane world and the spiritual world, able to see both. It is a dazzling moment, dreamlike yet crystal clear. Connections he never understood before are made, mysteries are revealed.

And from Natale Goldberg:

Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.

The Fathers of My Life

My mother divorced my father, Bill, when she was pregnant with me and I met him for the first time when I was seventeen years old. He died when I was twenty-four years old. My grandfather, Ivan, was the love of my life, a sweet and loving father figure to me. For as long as he stuck around.

My mother had moved back into her parents home when I was only a few months old and my grandparents doted on me. When my mother would put me into my crib at night, I would cry and my grandfather would come to my rescue, cradling me in his arms. I slept between him and my grandmother most nights. I have many memories of his nurturing ways--feeding me tomato soup and crackers; sitting on the cement steps of the doctor's office, holding me while waiting for my grandmother to emerge; holding me on his lap while we watched television together.

My grandfather died when I was only two years old and that day is indelibly etched into my mind. We were watching wrestling together which was against the rules as the doctor had told him that the excitement was bad for his heart. He did it anyway of course and I was his accomplice. I remember when the heart attack came. He picked me up from his lap and set me on the floor. Then he grabbed his heart and dropped to his knees, vomiting. I ran and got the mob and returned to clean up the mess he had made before my mom or grandmother saw it. But they heard his ruckus and came and found him and then all chaos broke loose. My mother was making calls on the phone, frantic. Her and gramma were crying and very upset. Finally the doctor arrived with his black bag and after checking out the situation, he covered my grandfather's body and face with a blanket. Then the neighbor came and there was lots of commotion. That night we sat on the back steps, looking up into the dark, star filled, sky. I knew my best friend, my loving grandfather, had died. I thought many wise and ancient thoughts that night, sitting on those steps, feeling the grief of others.

The next father who came into my life was my step-father, Wayne. My mother met and married him when I was six years old. I remember the first time we met. He chased me around my grandmother's big front yard as all the adults stood by, watching us, and laughing. Everything thought it was a funny game. It wasn't a game and it wasn't funny. I was running for my life. I was petrified of that man catching me. In the four years my mother was married to him, he never loved me. I never loved him either. He did hurt me a lot to make up for the lack of love though.

Then came the fathers of my six children. There are three of them, Rick, David, and Robert. My eldest and youngest children have different fathers than the four in the middle. I'm not called to write much about any of these men today, other than to offer them an honorary mention and to note that I have many stories and the resulting mixed emotions surrounding their fathering roles in mine and my children's lives.

Who I do want to honor in a very big way this Father's Day is Jerry, an incredible husband and partner in life and love, and an awesome father too. Jerry and I were older and wise enough to know better than to have babies together but when we married and blended our families we had nine children between the two of us. At one point we had six teenagers, although only three of them lived with us all at the same time. Three teenagers plus two pre-teens added to the mix. Parenting nine children, five of them living with us mostly full time was a lot to ask of a newly established relationship.

We found a house with a pool and converted both the family room and part of the garage into bedrooms. Jerry took on the role of the family chef and it's only recently that he's learned to pare down the volume of his cooking, so conditioned to meeting the needs of a hungry mob.

All I can say is that Jerry was, and is a trooper. He was in for the long haul from the get go and he let his faithfulness to our cause be known. He loved me, and by association, loved my kids. It wasn't always easy, believe me.

At this point in our lives all but one of the kids have moved out and are making lives (and babies) of their own. The youngest is maturing and making his own life too of course but is still settled in with us at home base. Our grand kids (all fourteen of them) love and adore their Papa Jerry. He's goofy and silly and loves to get right down on the floor and play with them. Mostly he loves making loud music with them, each one banging away on their own instrument.

So today I acknowledge this sweet man, my husband and best friend, a loving father and grandfather. Thank you Jerry for being you, for coming into my life as a knight in shining armor and for sticking around through the thick and thin, the fun and the not so fun times. Thanks for making a life with me and our kids. I love and adore you.

And oh, remember when we first met and you said to me "I'm so glad I found you" and I responded with a playful but glib "I wasn't lost"? I was lost baby. Thanks for finding me. Will you be my daddy?

HeartMind

Chapter Two of Foolsgold is called seaweed heart. I'm crying right now. I can't tell if my heart hurts or if it is just the openess. It think it hurts from opening more. I'm so confused. I feel sad, happy, tender, open, vulnerable, scared. Afraid of the truth. Silly me. Silly girl.

Susan talks about her commitment to follow her heart. I've been trying to follow mine but my mind gets in my way. She says, "Sue, oh mind-heavy one, listen to me! Now, for heaven's sake!" My heart is speaking to me through this book right now. My mind is so heavy. God, it fucks with me so.

I did a spontaneous act the other day. I heard my heart calling and I lunged. But since then my mind tells me that it wasn't my heart, it was my attachment, that I'm self indulgent and grasping. Peace sneaked out the back door and instead of inviting it back in I chased my desire. I do not know how to not get so excited when I get what I want. One tiny grain of sand in my play box and I'm crazed in anticipation of the truckload arriving. I start wanting what I deem unreasonable to want. Dissatisfaction with what is starts creeping in. My heart starts beating faster and I feel tightness in my chest. My solar plexus malfunctions and either traps energy or spills out too much. Peace leaves and I'm all stirred up. Attached. I want to learn to receive with grace. To desire while still wanting what is.

From Foolsgold--Antoine De Saint-Exupery:

It is only with the heart that we see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eyes.

I flash that my actions must come from my heart and mind being in balance. I call this state my "heartmind" and I know what to do to stay connected with this integral part of self. Meditation. Breathwork. Yoga. Dyad communication. Mostly though, the most powerful tool I possess for maintaining this equilibrium is telling the truth. Susan talks about this saying, "Scientists say there are brain cells in the heart." She goes on to paraphrase Stephen Harrod Buhner, in The Secret Teachings of Plants who says that "the electromagnetic field produced by the heart is much more powerful than that created by the brain and he suggests that human consciousness may be centered in the heart." This is what Joseph Clinton Pierce has purported also. He speaks of the connection between the mind and the heart and how the mind is actually located in the area of the physical heart rather than the brain. Opening my heart opens my mind, or maybe it's more of a freeing of the mind, and vice versa.

I'm fooled by my attachment and I call it love. I often don't know how to tell the difference and this upsets me. I know I'm filled with both and my practice right now is learning to distinguish between the two. Love more. Attach less. Attachment always muddies the love water and I yearn to swim in the crystal clear source.

Susan offers a poem by Louise Gluck:

Breakage, whatever its cause, is the dark complement to the act of making, the one implies the other. The thing that is broken has particular authority over the act of change.

This rings so true for me. I've been diligently working at opening my heart to breakage. My open heart is so vulnerable and I'm very fearful of the potential for love pain. Susan says, "I guess if our hearts were always open...we'd be immobilized by vulnerability." I suppose this relates to having compassion for my imperfections, for my inability to constantly love with an open heart and for my temptations to blame another or to savor the bitter taste of jealousy.

I fell in love awhile back and this man became my ego buster. That's what I affectionately call him. I readily get the implications of the making and breaking of my ego and I welcome it. It's the making and the breaking of my open heart that is so difficult. This same relationship offers vast potential for love pain. Almost immediately after I opened my heart to this man, another love relationship that I was in the midst of shifted dramatically. The vulnerability there has threatened to either immobilize me or close down my heart. This love runs deep but attachment rears it's ugly head and muddies those waters when I least expect it.

And then I remember to speak the truth. It always brings me back into balance. To whom should I speak the truth? Myself? Jerry? The object of my spontaneous act? This person or that? Write it out in this blog?

Susan says, "Maybe we need whatever it takes to shock our hearts open and free us from fear." I feel my fear right now as I write. I suppose freeing myself from my fear will take experiencing it fully. What do I fear? Not getting what I want. Hurting another. Annoying another. Attaching to my desires. Love pain.

She suggests writing a letter to our hearts, as in "Dear heart,..."and paying attention to our hearts in our body. Also to write alternate lines "My heart says/my mind says/my heart says/my mind says."
My heart says it's OK to make mistakes. My mind says the shame is unbearable. My heart says to feel the shame. My mind says I'm not that strong. My heart says to open and receive. My mind say to back off. My heart says that it is all coming to me. My mind says courage takes rushing forward. My heart says to wait for the doors to open. My mind says I see things delusionally. My heart says it is not my business what another thinks of me. My mind says I need to know. My heart says, I do know. My mind tells me not to trust myself. My heart says it's OK to get it wrong.

Check This Silliness Out

Greenwoman has inspired this silliness in me today.

Your Stripper Song Is

She Wants to Move by N.E.R.D. "Her off beat dance makes me fantasize (Her curves) She's sexy!!" You are 100% sex appeal. As simple as that.

What Song Should You Strip To?

You Are the Middle Finger

A bit fragile and dependent on your friends, you're not nearly as hostile as you seem. You are balanced, easy to get along with, and quite serious. However, you can get angry and fed up with those around you. And you aren't afraid to show it! You get along well with: The Index Finger Stay away from: The Pinky

What Finger Are You?

Making Something from Nothing

On Sunday, June 10th, my friend and "local luminary", Susan Wooldridge, had a release party for her new book, FOOLSGOLD, Making Something From Nothing, And Freeing Your Creative Process. Lyon Books, in Chico, was packed with her friends and admirers, all gathered to support her in her newest creative accomplishment.

I consider Susan a sweet friend and although she is not someone I know well, she has always been a bright and shining force of powerful woman energy in my life. Over the years, Susan has always gifted me with her enthusiastic acceptance and gentleness. She is intelligent, warm, insightful and incredibly sexy. She is also a great dancer, moving her body with grace and beauty. My heart always opens and then melts just a little when I come in contact with her sweet beingness. Love just sort of oozes out of her. I give thanks that our paths have crossed in this life.

I didn't have much time to linger at her release celebration, just long enough to pick up a copy of "Foolsgold" and hear her read a chapter which had tears streaming from my eyes. Now here at home I've just finished reading chapter 1, called "wisdom beach" which she begins with a quote from Gandhi:

A "no" uttered from the deepest conviction is better and greater than a "yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble."

Susan reflects on her penchant for saying "yes" alongside her fear of saying "no". She offers a German word, Torschlusspanik, which means "door shut panic" pertaining to the fear of closing doors and letting go of options. It reminds me of the acronym, FOMO, "fear of missing out." Her story is created along a creek side journey of learning to say"no" to the outside world that she may gift her authentic self with an internal "yes".

Susan encourages us to write a list of everything we wouldn't do if we didn't "have to" and another of what we would do if only we had the time (I'd include money, energy, ability etc.) She asks "Where can you say no to the outside world and yes to yourself?"

Today, as I contemplate my opportunities to say no to the outside world, and yes to myself I notice that my biggest distractor is my own mind. It pulls me into the external nothingness and keeps me from my meditation spot. Today, I commit to meditate. Also, I have this tendency to avoid the mess of my external with inertia. I become overwhelmed by the details, the stuff to be done with this endless array of "nothings" that clutter my life. I say no to artlessness and denial and and commit to seeing the truth and making "something" from whatever I'm confronted with.

Dancing the Maypole

On Saturday we drove up to the mountains for a God/Goddess party. We were supposed to dress for the occasion so we pulled out our Burningman clothes and adorned ourselves. We arrived just a bit before the Maypole Celebration. I know it's June but the Maypole waited for the party. Actually, in Sweden the Maypole is celebrated in the summer during the "midsommar" celebration.

The origins of the Maypole date back to the ancient Celtic Pagan festival of Beltane which is a fertility rite. Beltane, on May 1st, along with Samhain on November 1st, are the cross quarter holidays that divide the "Wheel of the Year" . They come between the solstices (summer and winter), and equinoxes (autumnal and vernal). Beltane is a New Years Rite (think crops) when new fire is set, lending life to springtime and welcoming in the summer. In days of yore, (and I like to imagine still currently in some places) it includes sex worship where young maidens dance around the Maypole weaving their ribbons to insure they will have children. Then it's off to the fields for a night of celebration and sexual debauchery with whatever partner or partners suit their fancy. Most Maypole festivals are a less sexually inclined, community dance, celebrating spring/summer.

The Maypole was traditionally carved from cedar, hawthorn or birch and is an obvious male phallic symbol. The hole that is dug into the earth where the Maypole is place represents the female yoni. Being the prudes that they are, Puritan Christian traditions have never approved of such symbolism.

The Wheel of the Year holidays are significant in that they remind me of my own roots in nature and that everything happens in its good time. They serve as anchors to the moment and reminders that all is as it should be. Acknowledging the sacred gifts of each season helps me stay connected to the natural cycles of life and encourages appreciation for all of the abundance I experience. They also offer me the opportunity to more personally identify with the unique archetypal expressions of the different Goddess energies.

Fifteen to twenty years ago I was very involved in women's groups, women's and men's groups and "Wheel of the Year" ritual celebrations such as Beltane with it's Maypole. It's been years since I've participated in this type of play with others.

Anyway, our friends have a lovely home in the mountains with a beautiful medicine wheel garden, fire circle, and for this particular party, other sweet sacred spaces created here and there throughout the woods. In a little meadow clearing they had dug the hole for the Maypole. Twenty something ribbons were attached and we lifted the Maypole into it's hole. Gravel was poured in to stabilize it and our dance began. We had a glitch in that the ribbons weren't strong enough and some of them started breaking when the dancers held them tautly in their weaving attempts. We adapted and everyone ended up dancing around the pole in the same direction so the Maypole was wrapped by a spiral of multicolored ribbons rather than the traditional weave. No matter. Everyone enjoyed the experience and afterwards we shared food and music into the night.

Here's a picture of our crazy wisdom weaving.














A little angel that was hanging out in the woods watching the festivities.