Dancing with Fire!!!

So I last left you, dear reader, when I was on my was to Tuatha na bPréacháin Naomh, the Tribe of the Sacred Crows in East Bridgewater. It was a fine night, though I stayed later than I should, especially given the fact that I was supposed to be in Andover at 8 am to set up my booth at the Eastern MA Pagan Pride Project and I probably didn't get home from East Bridgewater till around 1:30 or 2 am, not quite sure. Well, I figured that this year that seems to be my trend, not getting any sleep the night before the PPDs, so I figured I would make it a tradition.. So regardless, the next morning I was up bright and chipper, at least this time most of my car was packed, but I still had more things to pack up and finally hit the road. Luckily for me my friend Debi was also vending at PPD and when I called her she was only about one exit further along on the highway, so I sped up to catch her, and followed her to the site, since she had been there before and I never had. It was rather twisty and turny up there, and it was at Harold Parker State Forest in North Andover. So, you may or may not know, that I also do this hobby called letterboxing where wacky individuals like myself hunt out hidden tupperware containers in the woods or other locations, that have in them a logbook and a rubber stamp, which sometimes are hand-carved. To see some examples of my stamps you can check them out on my blockprints page So if you want to know more about the hobby you can check out www.letterboxing.org. I found my first letterbox while I was hiking with my daughter over 5 years ago, and the rest is history, I have been letterboxing ever since.... if you are interested about more of my letterboxing adventures you can check out my letterboxing blog called Various and Sundry Musings I guess I am all about the Musings... So, the reason I bring up the whole letterboxing thing here is that I had decided I would have a one day only letterbox at my booth, and post it on the local letterboxing lists and have letterboxers visit me. Now, this is something I also did at Faerieworlds in Eugene, Oregon, and plan on doing at Faeriecon in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, next weekend, Oct 10-12.. so if you happen to be at any event I am at, call me Dragonfly and if I have a box at that location I will give you the clues.. so when I was vending my art at the Eastern Massachusetts Pagan Pride Project in North Andover, MA, on September 21, 2008, it was my pleasure to be vending next door to Sha the Loon Witch, who is also a letterboxer whom I had met but not previously exchanged with (when letterboxers stamp their personal stamps in each other's logbooks), and also to get her EMPPP letterbox which she was replanting. My first letterboxer to arrive and get the box was Choi, it was a pleasure to meet him, he plants many beautifully carved boxes in my area, and it was great to finally have a name to put to the face. Also, my friend Kyerstein tried boxing for the first time and she wrote in the logbook that I got her hooked on it... so look out for a Dragon Fairy coming your way ;-) My next visitors were letterboxers who were new to the area, and if I hadn't posted they never would have known about the event, so I was pleased that something I had done had a positive ripple in the universe. So Nature and Caipora came on by with their lovely backpacks full of their greyhounds, who also stamped into the logbook, Peeky and Vito. Such wise and sage faces on those dogs, to me they were reminiscent of some of Brian Froud's pixies or something. Next up were The Merry Pranksters and the Woodland Wanderers with Go Catman and Music Man, and The Sparrows Interest. I had previously met Pete of the Merry Pranksters, but it was a pleasure to meet Deb. It was so wonderful to have all these lovely letterboxers come out and see me :-) Rounding out a perfect day was the visit from Old Hounder and Siamese!




They didn't have their stamps however, so we will have to finish their half of the exchange at Fright Night.... And speaking of Fright Night, after many years of missing this wonderful event, Maine Kokopellian was finally able to get me to commit to coming, and I will even have some of my art with me. I believe there may be some night boxing Faerie Hunting going on ..... so speaking of hunting faeries.. I was very excited when talking to all of these letterboxing folks at EMPPP because Faerie Magazine was interested in having me write an article about letterboxing... It all started because I am on Enchanted Folk and I had mentioned in my profile under hobbies that I enjoyed letterboxing. Well when I got my welcome message from Be Montague who is the wonderful woman behind Enchanted Folk (but of course you are reading this on Enchanted Folk, so you already know that!), she wrote to me asking about letterboxing, wondering if it had to do with decorating our mailboxes, as she is from England and over there mailboxes are called letterboxes... actually letterboxing originated in England, and was called letterboxing because in the early days it was done with pre-addressed post cards that would then need to be posted in a letterbox. Well in any case, I wrote back to her a lengthy email about what letterboxing is, and how it originated in England, etc. Well I didn't hear back from her for quite some time, so I thought I must have bored her to tears in my rambling on and on about letterboxing.. well it turns out that was not the case. I wrote to Be to ask if I had bored her, and sorry I rambled on so long etc, and she said that to the contrary she found it very interesting, and as the UK Editor of Faerie Magazine that she thought it might make for an interesting article.. so it began, and she asked if I would write one, but said she couldn't promise me anything, but that she would run it by Kim Cross who is the Editor in Chief of Faerie Magazine. Well a few weeks ago I happen to call Faerie Magazine about my advertising and ended up on the phone with Kim , so I asked her if Be had spoken to her about me, and Kim didn't think so, but asked why she would have had occasion to do so, so I said about letterboxing, and Kim recalled talking to Be about it, but didn't realize that it was me that would be writing the article.... So she said she was interested in knowing more info and could I email her about it. I did, and that Saturday night before PPD I got my first response from her, which was that she did think that it was something her readers would be interested in, and would I write an article.. so this was all very exciting, and I sent her off the article, which I have since heard back from her that they will definitely use it in their Winter or Spring issue!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited, and I am also very excited that they will be featuring my Faerie Luminaries in their Things We Love section of the Fall 2008 Issue, which I will get to see at Faeriecon, where I happen to be vending on the same block of booths as Faerie Magazine (you can stop by and say hi to me at booth 1512) So I had been babbling to all of these letterboxers who were so kind to come and visit me that this article was a possibility, so I am very pleased to say it is going to be a reality. If you would like to know more about my letterboxes you can check out my profile and logbook on atlas quest (another letterboxing site)


Well, the letterboxing was only half of the excitement that day, had a wonderful time listening to The Gypsy Nomads, Jenna Greene, and Sharynne NicMhacha from the Moors but also meeting so many wonderful people and connecting with wonderful friends. Among the highlights was seeing all of my Pagans of Norfolk County Folks, including Marie and Tony from Prance the Witches Path, and Marie was kind enough to be glowing about my artwork to Christian Day of Festival of the Dead and Hex fame, so he came over to meet me, and was interested in having my work in his store, so visit Hex and keep your eye out for some bad faeries... It was wonderful as well getting to hang with Doug Greene, Jenna's husband, and I look forward to seeing the both of them at Faeriecon. Also a bunch of the Salem fire performers came out to hang, so that was really cool (nothing was on fire though, but will be this weekend at Wildfire) and more of the PNC crowd were great to see and hang with, and some even bought my art! So thanks for keeping me company Glinda, Gaia,


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Babs, Brian and Kate, Tony and Marie, Delysia, Reuladair, Darla, don't think I am forgetting anyone. If you want to see more pics of this you can check out my pics on my myspace well after that very long day I headed out to Salem, to help build a dome for Wildfire, but by the time I got there people were gone.. which was fine, as I was exhausted!

Well I figured before the forward momentum of this new weekend took over, that I would post about last weekend, so as to try and keep current. Between Facebook and Myspace and and Enchanted Folk and  Tribe and Deviant Art and blogging, I feel like I own too much online realestate and need a management company to keep up with it all while I am out having fun ;-) Actually I hadn't been on Myspace before, or had only really lurked, and now that I am on there I have been sucked into that vortex.... but I digress, last weekends tales are waiting patiently to be told... Well Kaileigh and I spent a quiet evening home on the friday night, as we both were going to have to get up fairly early in the morning. Originally, the plan was that Kaileigh would come with me to work, and go out with her dad later, but it turns out that his car was in the shop so we needed to coordinate with her grandmother instead (called Memere), and earlier on Saturday was easier for her to pick her up, so Kaileigh escaped from having to go to work with me. Though on this particular Saturday, it probably would have been a fun event, I work as an activities coordinator at an assisted living facility, and also work in the marketing department, and for our outing on this particular weekend I was taking my residents to a Native American Pow Wow that is held every year in Bedford on the grounds of hte Bedford VA hospital. The only glitch, this happen to be the one day that my friend Lisa, who co-owns Seams Like a Dream at King Richard's Faire would have comp tickets for me, so while I was happy to take the residents to the pow wow, I was kind of distracted while there as I was anxious to get on the road to Carver for the Faire and meet up with my friends there. But the pow wow was wonderful, some of the residents even went into the circle during a time to honor veterans, one of the women was "Rosie the Riveter", another woman was one of the WAVES, and a third resident was also a veteran, but not sure what branch of service he was in. There was some wonderful dancing in the circle, and some amazing vendors, including one named Patsy whom I would love to try and locate.. I was going to go back early on Sunday morning to pick up some hair braid lacings from her, as I didn't have cash on me and she didn't accept cards, but by Sunday morning I was running late to get to Andover for the Eastern MA Pagan Pride Project, so I never did make it back, if anyone happens to know how to get in touch with Patsy, please contact me at katie@lennonstudio.com :-) So it really was a nice time, and in ordinary circumstances I would have been happy to stay longer, but the residents had a wonderful time, and had the chance to enjoy the circle, eat some food and check out the vendors... Next was King Richard's Faire, I drove straight from work to there, and it took about an hour, my friend Michael (Reuladair) and his son Noah were there when I arrived, and shortly afterwards we were joined by Sadie, Andy and Dan.... but more will be revealed a little later on...

Well, I figured I better finish up writing about that weekend, as I have another whole week and a half to catch up on since then! So where did I leave you, faithful reader? Well Joseph and I were set dancing to the whimsical tunes of Lunasa.. after which Joseph decided to go back to his booth to relieve Athonwy, whom I promptly kidnapped to come with me to see Solas, after getting some free coffee, as I was starting to need some caffeine boostage... Well Solas was incredible, new singer and all, and I danced my heart out the entire time... what an enchanting evening it was dancing in the light of the full moon with kindred spirits.. amazing! Well eventually Nancy and Joseph both made their way over and we were all dancing and having a lovely time until the very last strains of the last Solas song. After which we all journeyed back to the hotel where all the musicians and such were staying, and there were sessions in the lounge and the lobby and the hallway... and just about everywhere. I had the opportunity to do a bit more dancing, though it turns out I must have danced a little bit too much, as one of the soles of my boots developed a crack across the entire sole, and this is rubber that was about an inch and a half thick! If anyone knows of a good cobbler, let me know, as I am loath to let these boots go, I originally purchased them to keep my feet toasty for Samhain a few years ago, and I have worn them faithfully ever since. So the evening wore on into the morning, and I knew I should be heading home, I had to sell my art at the South Eastern MA Pagan Pride Day the following morning in Lakeville, and I was supposed to get there for 8am, and here is was 2 am and I was no where near home and my car wasn't even packed yet! But my feeling was I would rather be up having wonderful experiences and pay for it the next day than to miss out and be home sleeping. And what experiences there were to be had, I had the great fortune to meet Aoife Clancy, and Luka Bloom, and even Brian O'Donovan himself, from a Celtic Sojourn noticed and commented on my dancing. But eventually I really couldn't fight off the sleep any longer, and I made my way home around 3:30 AM, and had to awaken the later that same morning in only a few scant hours to shower and pack up my car and head off to Lakeville for the South Eastern MA Pagan Pride Day So there I am driving to Lakeville, and it is down-pouring, and I am thinking that I am really tired and that if it is pouring like this when I get there I am calling it quits, as I would be setting up my tent for the first time ever, and it would be pouring rain, and all my artwork would get totally soaked and destroyed. So I was on the phone back and forth with my friend Debi who was vending as well, and my tribe-mate Reuladair, to see what their status was, and they were on the road a little bit ahead of me, so I kept checking in to see what weather was doing. It was a little bit lighter rain when I got there, but not by much. So I went over to the check in booth and was pleasantly surprised to find that the vendor coordinator had decided to put me and another artist inside so we wouldn't get our artwork ruined. So I drove around and started to load in all my stuff inside. Also setting up inside were Kevin and Heather from Pentacle Press, who also put together the event Celebrate Samhain in New Hampshire, this was my first time meeting them, and they were lovely to share the space with, and had a great booth. Next to them was the author Trish Telesco so I was fortunate to get to see some of her workshops. Two of the musical acts came inside to avoid the weather The Harper and the Minstrel that was very soothing, and then of course I loved dancing to the lovely sound of the Gypsy Nomads while being the Pied Piper for little girls, though I wasn't piping, just dancing, so I guess I would be the Pied Dancer, but it doesn't sound quite right ;-) The other artist arrived and his name was Golden True, and it was interesting talking art with him, he is learning to use his art for clairvoyance... I think I will have to hear more about that...

So, last weekend was absolutely amazing and incredible, it took me a while to take it all in enough to be able to process all of what happened! Saturday had a wonderful start as I had the great pleasure to meet my friend Barbara's littlest new wonder named Madeline, who has the best disposition and a wonderful warm smile and sparkly spirit... such a joy, and her little Tommy was such a charmer. Next up on the festivities, after a wonderful visit with my sister, whom I had not caught up with in far too long, and then off to the ICONs Irish fest where I met up with another Madeleine, a woman that I work with. I was enjoying some Irish Step dance demos and loving these amazing Irish Wolf Hounds when she called to say she had arrived at the festival. I asked her what she liked to do, and she said shop, so off we went to explore the vendors. We passed by many booths, and the first one I said I want to go in and check out, wouldn't you know that my good friend Athonwy, whom I met it Eugene, Oregon at Faerieworlds, was helping out the vendor there. What a treat to get to see this amazing soul again, and wonderful to meet his booth mates, Joseph Keane of Celtic Revival and Nancy who was also there helping out. Well a pleasure it was to meet this merry band, and what times we had later on that evening... But, the shopping continued, and I ended up spending all of my cash on books about Irish Folklore and Mythology, which I was very excited to find, except for the fact that now I had these books to lug around (though they did let me keep them at the booth for a time) and now all my cash was gone, and if I had one complaint, it would be those f*#$ing ATM machines at the site were awful and never could read my card, I ended up leaving the festival later just to get some cash! Well Madeleine and I went and had an amazing time listening to the Clancy Legacy, with Robbie O'Connell. Madeleine was particularly pleased as she had gone on a tour of Ireland with Robbie, and he played one of the songs she had been hoping to hear. A wonderful set indeed. After that, I bid Madeleine goodbye, as she was done for the evening, and heading home. I took my leave to be able to put the books in my car and head out to get some food and some cash... So I quickly returned to the Festival and met up with Athonwy, and Joseph Keane took me to see his amazing Ancient Landscapes exhibit while he looked through to see what "tree" I was, because much like the every birthday has an astrological sign, every one has a tree it is associated with in the Irish tradition. Turns out my tree was the reed, and it seemed very fitting, what it said, but I will have to do more research on that as it is something I know nothing about just yet, I do know that right now we are in the time of the Vine, and I have vines trained to climb up my spiral stairs out my door... but that is neither here nor there. So Joseph and I wandered off in the moonlight sampling bits of music here and there, and what a wonderful and intoxicating time it was. I did set dancing for the very first time, and we danced our hearts out in the field by the Compass Point Stage while Lunasa played their set. I must say, I thought I was in fairly decent shape, but man, that set dancing is fast and I found myself getting very winded, I will need to practice more... well the evenings festivities will continue in my next installment, I am still recovering from the late nights this past week and right now I am exhausted!!!