more pics

[chelidon]

Here are some pics of the local Summer Solstice Revels that I wrote about here. Most of the day I wasn't taking pictures, but I did try to get a lot of shots of the amazing butterfly puppets made by a local artist, because they were so wonderful. I didn't realize until nightfall that they're all rigged to light up with moving patterns and changing colors. Beautiful! Some video shots I took came out much better than the still shots given the light conditions.

For those who've been following along with the Casa Chaos house mayhem renovations, there are some more pics on the second half of this page. One of my favorite shots from this Spring, of the small stream, is here.

Comments

[mystfemme.livejournal.com]

Looks like a great time was had by all! It must be significantly cooler there. We'd have died in those costumes!

And I think I could sit by that spring all day. Thank you for sharing your pics.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

It was really lovely, we all had fun, and my son enjoyed the heck out of himself, too -- he got to paint a silk scarf (which he proudly wore the rest of the day), run around like a banshee, help out with one of the juggling acts, and all kinds of other cool stuff. Next year I'll probably get him involved in the production if he wants to.

The thing I think I like best about it is that it isn't a "pagan" event, per se, it's just a community event put on every year for the last 30 years to celebrate Summer Solstice -- everyone comes, it's just the local way to celebrate the holiday. There were certainly plenty of pagan-ish/folk events, from the elemental invocations (wasn't that Earth mask cool?!), to the 'Obby 'Oss (just as at Padstow (http://www.whatsonwhen.com/events/~30145.jml), with all the kids singing the traditional tune...), to the climbing of the pole and placing of the greens, etc. But there was also a Shaker singing group from the Enfield Shaker facility, and lots of just fun stuff for the kids and adults. It really does my heart good to see the whole community doing a big seasonal celebration.

Gosh, yes, it's much cooler here. I think it was in the high 70's, maybe as high as 80 or 81 on Saturday. It's 75 degrees here now. However, at the moment, they're calling for a sudden spike to maybe as high as 94 on Saturday, though, eek! Everyone here will either melt or suddenly burst into flame, I swear... ;> Spending most of the prior 15 years in the D.C. swamp, though, I don't have a lot of sympathy -- the folks up here have no idea what real heat and humidity is like!

But true, if it gets too bad, I'll probably go jump in the big stream (http://www.casachaos.net/Casa_Chaos2003-2004/pages/page_28.html) to cool off -- one benefit of sunny 'n' hot is that the mosquitos go hide ;>