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Trillium 2006: A Festival ReviewTrillium 2006 (April 20 - 23) We rolled into camp around 9:30 PM, and Anna went to set up the tent and fill the airmattresses and do all the other "campy" type things. We checked in, and were a bit surprised at the registration fee (we were charged $45, rather than the $35 advertised on the Trillium website), but I figured the cash was going to a good place anyway, and I'm not one to quibble over $10 for what I already knew would be a good festival. I signed myself up for a work shift and then made some rounds to see people. I got the chance to say hi to a lot of people, including Kirk and Aesa, both as sexy as ever. But it was an early night, and my crew turned in pretty quickly. Friday I know I heard the opening ritual, but I admit, I slept in pretty far. After the past week, I'd been wound so tight that all I wanted to do was sleep more, and so I managed not to wake up until late in the day (after noon, I think), which means I missed Kirk's first workshop and a couple other morning items. But it felt really good to just. . . relax. I got up to get some food, and then went to take care of my workshift. That was quickly over and completely painless (seems like registration was where all the cool kids hung out most of the weekend), and I moved off to the "Introduction to the Warrior's Guild" workshop. Following that workshop, I spotted Art across the campsite and wandered up to him, and we made a supersecretdiscrodiantrade that will bear some fruit (no puns intended) at Summerland, I hope. My side of the trade was a protective copper amulet involking Cthulhu and the dashboard hula girl from the Buffett Rite. I also went back to camp and grabbed my half of a small wager that I'd made with Art: a set of runes. See, he's located in State College, PA, home of Penn State University. With me being located in Columbus, OH, home of Ohio State, we decided to make a wager on the outcome of the football game between our schools. His team won, so I made him a set of runes. I also made a box for them, which was fun to do, with the ADF sigil on it:  The top of the box.  The inside of the box (with my name and game score).  These are the completed runes in the box. I love making runes, really, so it wasn't so much a "loss" on my part :) After the brief meet/exchange with Art, I ran off to the dome to get the Buffett rite set up.  The Altar  A wider shot of the decor  A bit more décor, and Art My favourite part of this setup versus previous ones was the addition of the Jimmy Buffett banner, with Jimmy looking benevolently out onto the ritual. This, of course, provides no express or imply consent (or even knowledge) on his part, but it did amuse the hell out of me. The banner was on loan from Anna's living room (where I'm sure he does not express or imply consent of anything that happens in that house). The Rite itself went far, far better than last year's at Desert Magic, which I am very, very relieved at. Talking with Ian before the rite, I noted that the DMF ritual went really, really poorly last year, and he said, "Yeah, I think 'didn't work well' is a pretty accurate reflection of the ritual. . ." As you can tell, I was relaxed for this rite, which is a welcome change over how I generally feel about rituals, and an even more welcome change from the past week. The Altar The highlight of the rite for me, though, was Art's amazing retelling of the Lay of Thrym, to the tune of Margaritaville. It's damn good. This was also the first time I ever received a negative omen from this ritual. I think that the reason that the omen was negative this time was because the Kindred were milking it for everything we had this time. . . It's the last time we do this ritual for a long time, I think, and they wanted more. The night went well after that, and I turned in fairly early again. I have a feeling that my lack of sleep for the previous week sort of caused all this sleeping. Saturday When the rain didn't let up in the morning (it started just before the Buffett Rite the day before), I chose to stay in bed. The rain finally stopped around 1 PM, and I crawled out to join the world of the living. I grabbed some food and went about the business of taking down the decorations from the ritual the night before, which meant I got to hang out a bit while Kay taught people how to make offering baskets. I packed up all the decorations (with help from people wandering in and out), and got comfortable for Kirk's workshop on ADF Liturgy and Cosmology.  Kirk, teaching (with hair! Following the workshop, the main ritual occurred. Even the ritual was relaxing to me, and I enjoyed it. The patrons were Birghid and Lugh, and the omens were very good. I love getting to experience ritual with other Groves: it reminds me that there's no wrong way to do stuff in ADF: everyone is creative in their own way, and I usually learn a lot from them. After the ritual, there was a potluck, which eventually degenerated into a strange combination of storytelling and challenging between Groves. I was sitting there listening to the ideas for various St. Patrick's Day floats that Groves could make (and we almost certainly need to try it out here, guys. . . details forthcoming), and I realized that it was this sort of thing that made me want to come back to these festivals: people just laughing, joking, and being together. Trillium especially has the kind of vibe where everyone can just sort of hang out and be with family. I love it. Later that night, Ian and Sue played a few songs, and then I went to bed around 11 PM or so. Sunday Sunday morning started with thunder, which got Anna and I ripping down the tent as quickly as possible. We did all right with getting everything out of the rain, but most things still got soaked. It was only later that we found that, had we waited until about noon (like we did every other day) that we would have had sunny skies and a beautiful, dry day. Ah, well: you can't win 'em all :) We said our goodbyes, taking our time about it. I got Kirk to send Erien a hug, and then we slipped out and went on our now-annual trip to the thrift store in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, where I got a monkey that looks like Bruce Campbell! (At least, I think so)  Kirk & Erien  It struck me, as I looked at this monkey in the thrift shop, that it looked a lot like Bruce Campbell. So I bought it for Mazi. We also bought the Grove two sickles at a flea market next door to a West Virginian New Age store in Berkeley Springs! And we rolled home around 8 PM or so. 
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