Off to HHG

Well, as you all know, I have had a bit of a rough week.
I thank you all so much for all of your caring and support... it means the world to me!
I was supposed to be at the Harvest Home gathering yesterday at Marlborough, CT, a pretty cool Pagan festival... but with all that has been going on... I didn't quite make it...
My family is encouraging me to still go... they say that Freya will come home whether I am here or not, and they will be here to take care of her.
Also, they say that if I really start feeling to miserable health-wise, I can always come home...
So I called the Camp Office at the Gathering... and they were quite understanding, they said just to get there whenever I can...
So, I am packing and such... and by this afternnon, hopefully I will be at the Harvest Home Gathering...
I promise to give you all a full report when I come back with how it was, and what I learned...
Until then, wish me luck
Thank you again for all of your caring and support!
I hope all is well and goes well for you all until I talk to you all again
Hail And Farewell,
Blessed Be,
May the Force be with you - Always,
Christina

Im glad to see everyone is being so supportive and im sure they all right

Hope you have fun (if thats the point of the festival) and it all goes well, safe trip and we want a full report on your return

MTFBWY - A

Have fun lilith. I shall see you when I return also from my vacation.

MTFBWY and Keep You.

Well, as you might expect since I am home already, things didn't go exactly as planned.
I got there OK, set up my tent, went to a seminar and dinner.
I did have a quiet, but a good night.
I say quiet, because I admit that the festival wasn't how I expected it to be, as I judged from the other time I went.
There was hardly anyone there. It was practically a ghost town. It didn't seem \"festive\" at all, more like a glorified camping trip, and that was it.
I really didn't seem to sense any sense of community... and honestly, people seemed a bit off.
There were only a few merchants, and the classes didn't seem to have the number or the variety of years past.
It wasn't a \"bad\" festival though. I think it had to do alot with the economy. With rising costs, the festival fees were bigger, and at the same time, people have less money to spend on things like festivals, the cost of gas itself could have prevented people from going.
I think too, part of it was the camp set up itself. There was no real \"central\" location for people to meet each other and \"hang out\" and stuff.
I think that bothered me though the most was that I didn't get the right \"vibe\" from the whole thing. When I went to HHG before, as well as other festivals such as Rites of Spring, Starwood, and A Pagan Odyssey... there is usually a certian energy to it. The minute you get there, you feel you are in a Magikal place. You sense the community forming, and the sense of kindred spirits and common purpose. Space and time hence to be important, and for however long you are there, you feel that you are really alive and connected.
I didn't feel that way at all. It just seemed like everyone was disconnected from each other. That it was just a bunch of people who happened to be camping at the same place, with some seminars and rituals thrown in.
But I do not blame the planners for this at all whatsoever. I have been to too many things that they have planned and coordinated to know that normally this isn't the case, that usually when they do something it is totally top notch and more times than most, beyond expectation.
Like I said, it could have been the economy, the geography of the campsite; I had gotten there a day late... maybe everyone was tired from dancing around the fire circle the night before and was just dragging from that...
Whatever it was, it wasn't horrible, it just didn't seem quite right.
However, there were some really cool stuff that night. Janet Farrar abd Gavin Bone did a Transprophecy ritual. There were three Seereses that communicated with different Goddesses, The Morrigan, Freya, and Brighid. There are no words to describe how powerful that ritual was and how moving it was. It was beyond belief.
Another cool thing was the glow stick labyrinth. I walked it, it was unbelievable. You could tell that someone put a lot of hard work into designing it and setting it up. As I walked it, I felt almost surreal... feeling both calmness and energy at the same time... it was amazing.
I went to bed, and that was were the \"unplanned\" events started to take place. First, it wasn't supposed to rain all weekend except for a very slight chance of it on Saturday night. It poured all night on friday. I was snug in my tent on my air mattress, when ten minutes later, my air mattress deflated, and I could feel the hard ground beneath me. I managed to get some sleep regardless. Not a great nights sleep, but some sleep nonetheless. However, in my restless sleep, I evidently tossed and turned and koicked things because when I woke up the next morning, the inside of my tent, which I have used before with no problem in rainy weather, was full of puddles. Everything was damp. I was daump. It was chilly and muggy.
I put on a sweatshirt. It had stopped raining, so I figured once it cleared up and got sunny, I could lay everything out and let it dry.
I went to the dining hall for breakfeast. It was cloudy. It would start to rain, then stop, then mist, and stop, and then rain again. I found out at the dining hall (which I must say the food was excellent) that it was going to do this all day... so much for drying out my stuff.
So I had to make a hard decision. I was damp, all my stuff was damp, it was damp outside. I just got over bronchitis, and my chest was starting to bother me, I had already had to use my inhaler.
As much as I had been looking forward to this... for months... and that I paid money and took non-paid time off to go... I really and truly figured that between probably getting a bad nights sleep every night and being damp 24/7 while just getting over being sick and having my asthma acting up, was probably a very good recipe for pneumonia.
So, being there less than 24 hours... I ended up coming home yesterday morning.
I know that I made the right decision, especially this morning... as my chest is really bothering me again and I am rather wheezy. If I stayed, I could have done myself some real damage.
Still, I wished things had gone a bit better.
I hope though that everyone that went (and is still there) has a wonderful and magikal time!
MTFBWY-A,
Christina

Im sorry your trip wasnt as expected, n=maybe as you were also preoccupied before you went, you were already slightly down hearted, and the others who did attend obviously will have been as disappointed as you and thus the 'poor community spirit'

There is always next time or other events...

Home is where the heart is after all

Good to see you got home safely and Im glad you made the wise decision to come home, get well soon,

MTFBWY - A