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At one of the Early Magick Earth Festivals
down in Levin, a couple of our friends playing with their big
Taiko drum.

A couple of Chakra Necklaces and Bracelet

Lovely Mookite Jasper from Australia

Tangerine Quartz, interesting and completely natural

Our local friends took us to a hill high
above Cambridge for some lovely drumming and fire spinning

One of the lesser known crystals,
Aragonite comes in 3 colours, Ice Blue, Candy floss Pink and
Brown with White.

A Magick Earth in Levin and a chance for a
bit of a chuckle

I always have an interesting range of
Crystals and Giftware on my "Pebbles & Potions" stall

Kiwiburn 2008, just another excuse for
some Drumming and Fire Dancing

Night falls in Auckland and our Fire
Friends come out to play

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Some older Blog entries ?
Dec 23rd
2012
Back frocm an amazing Magick Earth Summer Solstice, this one was at a new East
Auckland venue, it was a very relaxing place, despite weather
predictions of rain and storms the weather was hot and sunny
every day perhaps because of all that and the
crazy world we had left most people wanted to spend their time relaxing and chatting rather than doing workshops...... so that's what happened.... people went for
walks down to the sea and sat under the trees.
One highlight had to be the biggest crystal circle seen in NZ built
by the participants around a lovely tree that then became the focus for our evening ritual.
The kids were also involved in some great water fights (what better way to cool down when it's hot) and the costume party brought out some great characters & creatures.
A big thank you must go to our cooking team and all of those of you who came along with your beautiful community energy & hugs to share
We had some great fire spinning each night and the Awesome Toni Curtis was filmed spinning her new fire hoop while dancing the 'Timewarp' (on just her 3rd time spinning fire,
not bad for somebody who has been afraid of fire until now)
mention was made that we should have an award to the biggest hug slut on the weekend (and several of us would be fighting for the honors). Note group hugs are now know as
a 'Huggasm' (not sure yet of the spelling)
The next MEF is Easter next year....
and yes I have asked if we can book the venue for the same time next year
Dec 10th
2012
So
our first date for the Auckland Kiwiburn Noobie BBQW last month
got rained out, but I will never give up, a new date (when I was
free) was found and the message sent out across the internet.
I also moved the venue from Mission bay beach to Tahaki reserve,
because the car parking is FAR better and the wind is not an
issue for fire spinning.
The day dawned wet and crappy.... 'No' I cried to the universe,
"you can do better than that".... and she did, the day cleared
up, we had beautiful blue sky and little wind from then on.
I had numerous stops on the way to collect stuff from people for
the event but still managed to arrive just before the 3pm
start, the empty car park made unloading all the stuff much
easier.... the new revised Hug Deli made it's first public
appearance, blankets for the grass, the all important BBQ, some
food & drink, a comfy chair, my latest Treasure chest, 'Isobel'
the compact sound system and an assortment of fire and juggling
toys
A bunch of the Auckland Fire performing crew soon arrived, I
converted them to the 'Burner' cause a couple of years ago, and
an afternoon of chatting and playing with toys soon ensured.
I was involved in many discussions about paddock plans for 2013
and I have already implemented Steve's idea.... start a 'Can
Camp' to offer a recycling service for all cans to make the site
safer (discourage glass), clean up easier (I will take them
away) and the proceeds will be used to fund the return of my
much loved 'Pirate Ship'
During the day and the early evening half a dozen noobies (who
were already known to me thru various channels) turned up and we
discussed what to expect (expect the unexpected), how gifting
worked, how they could implement gifting and what are theme
camps
Because it's almost Christmas many of the crew had to leave for
family and work commitments but a few others arrived to take
their place. Even before it got dark some fire spinning
developed as there were some new fire toys to be tested.
Dinner was great with the usual groups of people sitting around
sharing what they had brought and paddock stories from the past.
OK so our turnout was out the quietest yet and it was a pretty early
finish but there were some good discussions with the noobies
about how to handle the Kiwiburn experience and some great
sharing of plans and idea for the paddock next year.
Next year the BBQ will return
Dec 6th
2012
So life is still not slowing down, work 3 full days and
then head to Tahaki reserve for our latest Moonfest, again the
weather came right, we setup in our summer position (in the
middle of the park) a bunch of our Tuesday night Pt Chev
drummers cancelled their regular night to come along and really
rock up some beats. A big think you to you guys and gals who
spank some skin. Lots of lovely fire spinners and dancers
having fun in the moonlight rockin to those drum beats, what a
way to spend the hours. As usual the friendly security guard
showed up around 11pm so we moved our cars out of the car park
and some people carried on having fun, some were wanting to stay
up for the partial eclipse, I had a bed to get to as I had 2
more full on days of work to do. So I clocked up a full 40 hours
during the week and then headed down to Taupo after work, some
sleep and a hot massage at my favourite stream to wake me up
because I am booked to spend the day running crystal 101
(beginners) and 201 (advanced) workshops, my workshops are
always hands on and I bring a big collection of crystals for
participants to play with and explore including some very
unusual ones. As it was a beautiful day I spread my rugs out
under Toni's Faery tree and we had a great time working with
natures energy, after a shared lunch they spend some time
building a couple of crystal circles around the Faery tree and
experiencing the energy on tap. By 5 we had finished, packed
everything away and headed to Toni's parents place because my
adopted grand daughter was having her 3rd birthday party and I
had been invited. A great time was had by all but a fairly early
night because I was stuffed. The next day it was back for my
regular soak and heading to watch my other adopted grand
daughter's Christmas Ballet performance, I am enjoying this
grand father stuff, I had Monday off to make a slow trip home
but I am now back a work for the last couple of days until mid
feb, hopefully my bank account will survive until then because
there is so much fun to be had over summer. Looking forward to
seeing many of you at a festival somewhere in NZ.
Nov 26th
2012
Sometimes when I am sad the best thing is to keep busy, and
sometimes there is so much going on that becomes easy..... it
was work all week and then head out on Thursday night to Taupo,
a couple of stops on the way to deliver some Pegasol to our fire
performing family, collect the screens from Deans, have a sleep
and do some op shopping in towns on the way.... scored some
really great costumes for Kiwiburn, my new Preachers suit is a
perfect fit, and that's not easy when you are short and cuddly,
also picked up a great phone that we will Steampunk and may be
used to offer calls to God. Head to my fav hot waterfall and get
a good massage, call in on Toni and the kids, collect a couple
of extra table and head to the hall to setup for our show.
The shows with Dean had not been successful in Taupo but he had
used a school hall on the far side of town, we used the Taupo
primary school hall, it's a bit smaller but right on the edge of
the shopping area, we didn't plan it that way but this was the
weekend of the big Taupo cycle races so the town was full of
extra people. Because Toni and I were organising it we had a
smaller number of stall holders and they were all part of our
close spiritual family, this helped to create a lovely energy in
the hall all weekend, Friday night we had a BBQ at Toni's place
and Saturday night was a big Fish and chip night before a lovely
ritual for a friend then off to drumming and fire spinning in
the park (just because we can). Good numbers of people came thru
but because we have free entry it is hard to know exactly how
many. Everybody helped to pack up the hall so I managed to get
away before 6pm and make it home before I fell asleep..... extra
big thanks to all those to make this a great weekend.
Nov 18th
2012
It has been far too many years since the last Witches ball and
they have flocked (or perhaps a group of witches a 'Gaggle') to
town from all around the country. Over 200 tickets were sold and
it was great to see so many familiar faces, including many that
I had not seen in a while. It was even better to see that there
were some new faces who were taking this opportunity to come out
of the closet and take some witchy steps out in the open as it
were. It was a 'Ball' and the ladies were dressed up to look
even more beautiful than ever, of course guys can be witches too
and there was a good selection of well dressed men also present
present to have a good time. The star attraction was 'Wendy
Rule' (an amazing Witch from Australia) who has a
beautiful voice and can really belt it out. Saturday rained
all day and the afternoons 'Kiwiburn Noobie picnic' had to be
postponed, it will return on December 8th but we are changing to
tahaki reserve in Mt Eden because the venue is more sheltered, I
look forward to seeing many of you then. Until then I have some
time at home so it is time to build some Kiwiburn Art....
Nov 12th 2012 We returned
to Whangarei for our pre Christmas show but not all the usual
suspects were present, some stall holders like Kerry had a valid
excuse because she was away in Melbourne and it was the
same story with customers, most of our regulars were there but
numbers were definitely down and again people didn't have lots
of spare cash to spread around. But there is always lots of
lovely energy among the people who attend this expo from the
town and surrounding areas and we always love catching up with
our Northern family.
Oct 28th 2012 So a couple of you have commented that you like to read my blog
so I have got stuck in and done some updating on it. My excuse
is that life has been very busy.... working 5 days a week for
the last couple of months, working most weekends doing shows and
now finding time to spend with a lady who has come back into my
life..... I am busy but loving life....
So it's Sunday afternoon and I am sitting here at the Natural
Health Expo in Hamilton, it has been a pretty busy weekend with
people coming thru in waves (and I am typing this in one of the
quieter moments). Our friend Sika is here and giving a concert /
workshop so most of the public are listening to it (I have
brought his two latest CD's to add to my music collection). On
Saturday morning the event starts with a lovely opening ceremony
attended by most of the stall holders and again Claire asked me
to facilitate it, I was really lucky to be able to call on the
energy of Robert's Drum and Sika's Didgeridoo to walk the circle
as we all stood soaking up the energy. After my success with
group hugs at other festivals I decided to try it here and it
was great to see everybody come together for a loving group hug
before we all headed of to run our stalls. Last night we helped
our Brother Tony do a fire photo shoot and some really great
pictures have come out of it. Being in Hamilton there are a
bunch of locals that we expect to see and they seem to have all
been in (at least once), there have also been lots of lovely new
people enjoying the expo.
Oct 22nd 2012 HEAT is a fire and Juggling festival organised by some of our
friends up north, I decided to make the most of it and head up
on Thursday after work. The site is beyond the end of the dirt
road and off the power and phone grid, and so you are forced to
disconnect from the default world. It is known as Rancho Relaxo and
the number one rule is that stress must be left at the front gate. The rain in
the lead up to the event left the main camping area a swamp so
we were all forced to find other spaces around and thru the
tree's to setup camp. Bill brought up a small shelter structure
and some seats and I supplied the kitchen and dining area, as
well as the pancakes, the rest of our crew brought the rest of
the food for us to share. (big thanks to all our crew due to
their efforts we ate all well). Four days of Juggling workshops,
drum circles, a big Saturday night concert, a Sunday night renegade show,
four fire nights (with heaps of pegasol
paid for by the organisers), lots of catching up with existing
members of our fire & Juggling family and some lovely new people
there to expand our family.... what more could you ask for ?
(apart from a longer festival). Due to the large number of
hippys present the gods seemed to smile on us and the sun shone
for most of the festival with just a little bit of drizzle.
Oct 15th 2012 Time rolls on fast and it was now time for our second yearly
visit to Rotorua, when ever we are there we end up gathering at
the house some of our local MEF family members, this time it was
a shared dinner on the Saturday night before some of us headed
out to soak in the hot pools and some networking (it's not
gossip when you are a professional). The weather was not
our best friend and the wind and rain was strong both days day and
most of the night, on the positive side I could say that mother
nature rocked me to sleep in my van each night. The gods were
not too unhappy with us all as the rain stopped when it came
time for me to pack up
Oct 8th 2012 The
Tauranga National Rock and Gem club run a great show at the
racecourse every second year and this time it was to
'Nationals', this encouraged more rockaholics from around the
country to attend. I must admit that the Tauranga club is my
favourite as they have so many friendly club members and they
make a point of doing lots of stuff to interest the kids, after
all they are our future. Setup for the show was on Thursday as
this was a 3 day event and being inside the school holidays the
place was soon packed with lots of families. On my evening
wanders around the town one night I ran into some old friends
and ended up having a great night with them.
Oct
1st 2012 It was a busy weekend, after working all week I headed over to
Mt Albert on the Friday afternoon for setup at the memorial
hall, for a change I had my stall on the west side of the
building rather than the east. This was not the busiest of shows
even with most of our regular customers from this end of town
coming along. as a result I started packing up just after 3pm on
Sunday, on the plus side I was away from the hall earlier than
planned because there was time for some Chinese takeaways before
heading across to Mt Eden for our latest Moonfest. The weather
was lovely so we setup in the middle of the field at Tahaki
reserve and soon
started our drum circle workshops for beginners, it was good to
see so many old
faces and also lots of new faces, some of our
really good drum family showed up later and really cranked up
the beats for us dancers and fire spinners to groove to.....
yeah for the start of daylight savings..... this also means that
the regular Tuesday fire nights at Tahaki reserve are back on
(weather permitting)
Sept 24th 2012 So I have just had a great weekend out at Karen & Dave's place
where we held the second 'Spiritual Craft Day' (but it was
actually all weekend). Most of the participants were part of our
MEF family but as always with these things there were a few new
faces, the staff and wand making were again very popular and
although Jordan had done many hours preparation on the staff's
by peeling the bark off there was still plenty of work to be
done before decoration could take place. I found a great piece
of red oak that is going to have a small LED system imbedded
below the lovely piece of white quartz I put aside a while ago
of this project. Of course many other things were achieved
during the weekend and a big thank you must go out to all the
organisers and participants for making this such a great
weekend.
Sept 14th 2012 Hi… my name is Pete and I am a festival junkie…. And I don’t want help to quit !!
Some of you may have noticed that I have been absent from the internet for the last 5 days,
I have not been posting interesting thoughts and crazy pictures, I was not dead, far from it,
I have just got back from a long trip down to Wellington for ‘Under The Spinfluence’, a new
festival organised by the wondrous Frenchie. I already knew a bunch of the participants from
juggling festivals, a bunch from Kiwiburn and a bunch from Fire nights, many of those remaining
peeps became friends during the event.
It was a long trip down to Wellington but well worth it for me, so much good energy floated around
all weekend, as is common in these events there were too many workshops for me because my brain
overloads on all the new stuff but I have come away with a completely new skill (bar flaring but
I have heaps to work on) and a lots of stuff to think about with other toys.
Thankyou to all the participants you were amazing (as well as the organisers and crew), next year is going to be bigger and better…
In the mean time I have 278 emails and over 100 facebook notifications to check thru…. Oh and I am back at work in the morning….
Sept 4th 2012 Hekeburn 2012 -
Well this year only a few Kiwis could make it up to Burningman and that left many of us with nowhere to go…. So a bunch of us decided to organise gatherings where we could come together with our Burner Family and celebrate ‘Not Being There’…. events in Christchurch and Auckland were developed.
Hidive’s place on Waiheke Island was chosen as the Auckland venue so I offered my van to carry supplies etc in, Hana organised some of the Burner family and Saturday afternoon saw me arrive at the Domes with a van packed tight with people and supplies…. After a few rounds of hugs it was time for a cold drink and then helping to get the place into Party State, and prepare the man to burn, this one was based on speaker boxes with 8 speaker cones in his chest and one in his head and after scrounging around we found some steel pipe to protect the cables from the heat so he would keep cranking well into death.
The place has a real indoor / outdoor flow with different zones for different things, chill space as well as dance space, inside the main dome was the serious sound zone and it evolved during the night between DJ’s, live music and a combination of both. We had a keyboard, bass guitar and a bunch of Djembies and we jammed out some lovely beats until our hands were sore. Dave’s flatmate is an amazing Djembie player who had us bouncing across the floor for hours.
As well as Burners many of Daves local friends were invited and they fitted into the burner energy really well, and some of them are keen to be noobies at Kiwiburn next year.
The party continued all night and was still going nicely when I headed for a nap at 4.30am… as usual once the sun came up I found myself awake again so I started tidying up. At some point I dropped my head for another couple of hours sleep and when I awoke I found a continental breakfast was served. (Bacon, eggs, toast etc arrived later). Thanks to those who slaved away in the kitchens for us all.
We managed to fill the huge recycle wheelie bin up and still have many bags of empties so it must have been a great party…. I must also make mention of the Punch Bar before I forget, Josh and his cohorts built a great bar and lots of fruity (special thanks to Sam) delights were served all night.
Once we got the placed cleaned up it was time to Chillax…
I started a massage train that had half a dozen people in it, my bottle of massage oil also came in handy. When I got the bodies collapsed backwards into a comfortable heap, this then went on to develop into a cuddle puddle.
I am a complete hug slut but I had not been involved in a Cuddle Puddle before, for those how don’t understand what that is here is your basic recipe…. take a bunch of pillows and blankets, throw them on the ground, add a bunch of hippys and insert them Tetris style into the pile..... it is about body contact in a non sexual way..... arms and legs, heads and bodies are all mixed in a trusting pile of healing energy.... the energy is enhanced by using your free hand to trace lines between pieces of assorted bodies within reach.
In this warm trusting environment it just seems reasonable have discussions on all subjects, including Snail sex and Slug porn, and what name is given to an assortment of Hippys, after long discussion we gave in to Hana who wanted to call a group of 7 or more hippies an ‘abomination’.
Serious Kiwiburn business was also discussed including Greeters, theme camps, fire cannons and assorted mayhem.
After leaving to attend to the call of nature Bex tried her hand at body surfing the cuddle puddle for more of a 3D effect.
It was really great to gather with some of my burner family and we brain stormed some great stuff about next Kiwiburn….. but I miss you guys already….. fortunately I am heading down to Welly at the end of the week for a festival and I will catch up with more of my burner family there….. hugs to you all…. Now I am looking for big pillows and more blankets for cuddle puddles
Aug 13th 2012 As always it was a wondrous weekend away working.... New Plymouth has lots of
lovely people and many of them came to see us at the show, all
the expected ones and a whole lot of fresh faces. On Saturday
night a new fire spinner
came along to play and initiated herself and 2 new staffs
(under my watchful eye). On Sunday after some thinking I had a good chat with
a few locals about organising a
Magick Earth Festival (MEF) in the Naki next year, so now they are off looking
into venues and costs..... I am now back home with washing 'underway',
Van washed, unpacking my stuff 'in progress' and in between
times here on my lappy catching with my emails and on FaceBook.
Aug 4th 2012 Friday was a great trip over to Waiheke island, thanks to Josh
for organising and twisting my arm and Bex for coming over with me.
Started with an awesome circus night with all ages (adults and
kids) at the Palm Beach hall where learnt a great new ball game to help get to know
each other, I also
caught up with a bunch of our Kiwiburn friends there. The
tide was full so instead of heading to the beach we headed over to the houses boats where we had a great shared meal while drumming and playing with fire
(our fire platform was a small raft that you climbed on then
pushed away from the boat so you had room to swing your fire
safely), I had a great play with Josh's new fire balls.
We spent the night with friends then were given pancakes
for breakfast before heading off to the markets where we caught
up with Richard and some of our Drummer family, they are
doing some great 'Rites of passage' stuff with the
youngsters there.....
I was invited to stay another night, Sunday afternoon is a
great drum circle with Richard and others, but I was not
organised for it so I came home, but I will be back.
There is some great stuff happening over on the island and
they are a friendly bunch so if you are looking for some fun
have a think about Waiheke... I know they would love to have
you
July 29th 2012 I am now back from a tiring weekend working at a spiritual show in the
Waitakere Stadium. Saturday morning I was there before 6am to
setup and left just over 11 hours later, Sunday I left home
before 9am and finished packing up at 6.30pm.
A big thanks to all the lovely customers who came into the show, it
was lovely to chat with you, and of course great if you found
something to buy from my stall.
Some times while setting up or packing down I ask myself 'Why do
I do this ?' but then when I am talking to my lovely customers
and helping them to believe in themselves and to allow
themselves some self love I realise how lucky I am that I can
interact with and help so many lovely people. I get to attend
far more festivals than most people and hence share far more fun
with you all.
Big hugs to everybody. It looks like the next show is at the New
Plymouth race course in 2 weeks.
July 15th 2012 Earth Hollyfrost had rolled around again, this one is
just crammed into an ordinary weekend so it's all go to get
setup on friday afternoon before launching into a great nights
entertainment. This time several of my wonderful friends would
be meeting each other face to face for the first time, despite
having been FB friends with each other for several years, again
I was the spider in the web linking these beautiful people
togeather. As always the kitchen team of Kay, Kerry and Kat did
a great job and filled our physical bodies with beautiful food.
The participants did a great job and shared lots of loving
energy and several were hard at work providing healing energy
for others in the MEF family. Saturday was full of great
workshops and some extra participants car pooled down and joined
us for the day. As always some things that I wrote up on the
schedule didn't quite happen but to me the schedule is only a
guideline, I encourage participants to do what they want.
Saturday nights main ritual was an expanded version of the
Pagans in PJ's that we enjoyed with Toni and Bruce a couple of
weeks ago and it was great to see then growing into the role. We
did less drumming than usual but then we had several guitarists
on hand to play their fingers sore was he sang along to many old
hippy and folk songs. As always thank you to those who were
there and the energy and loved they shared. Our MEF family
continues to grow and those who make it up grow within
themselves.
July 9th 2012 Another weekend, another show, this time the Pukekohe Town hall,
as usual there are our regular customers who show up at some
point in the weekend, and they are generally good for a hug. We
had a couple of new stall holders this time including my Prana
friend Sam who brought along her Flax seed hoties and Epsom
salts (these are gluten free and non toxic). Saturday was
certainly not as busy as I would have liked but you learn to
just go with it and not panic because there is always
another day. and yes Sunday did finish up busier and I had a
couple of good sales to keep the bills paid for another week.
Monday was spent trying to sort out some of the stock and shop
fittings I brought back from Kay's shop, once I get more
organised I might even has some room to swing a proverbial cat
in... lol... Also working on ideas and thoughts for next years
Kiwiburn and lighting fires in my friends immaginations. Happy
happy joy joy. !!
July 4th 2012 The months just seem to fly by, this weekend I was heading down
to Te Puke for a show, I have only ever stopped in this town to
buy some lunch. The hall had great heating (at times almost too
hot) Saturday was busy at times but quiet enough for me to doze
off to sleep in the afternoon. Sunday was even quieter but I
managed to find enough people to chat with to stop me from
falling asleep. Dean had car problems so I ended up help him to
clean the hall then giving him and the screens and signs a lift
back to Mt Manganui. Monday I headed to Paeroa to help Kay close
up The Quest, (the current economic situation has hurt the town
and the people don't have enough leftover money to keep the shop
going) I also transported some of my display cabinets, crystals
and books down to Taupo to Toni's little shop next to her house.
Then back to Paeroa to collect more stock and display units and
head back to Auckland, I had the pleasure of driving thru the
torrential downpour on the motorway. But most importantly I did
not let this storm convince me to cancel out Moonfest. By 7pm
when I got to Tahaki reserve the grounds were wet but not
flooded, the sky cleared, the winds stopped and the moon came
out to play with us. Slowly people arrived and we soon had some
strong drum beats to dance to. By 10pm we decided to call it
quits but we had over a dozen drummers including several fresh
faces and half that number of fire spinners having a great time.
A big thanks to those of you who are crazy enough to join me in
these events, they help to make winter more bearable.... and the
good news is that we are now past the longest night, summer is
now on it's way !!
June 23rd 2012 So I had some venues to check out and some stuff to deliver on
the way so it was a great chance to head to Taupo and attend the
small winter solstice gathering with some of our pagan family.
Toni's son had decided that he would like a sleepover and it was
decided that PJ's would be the mode of dress for the ritual. It
was a great idea, Toni and Bruce lead the simple ritual held in
their back yard and everybody loved it so much they have been
invited to do something similar at MEF in a couple of weeks.
June 18th 2012 We have not done the Paeroa racecourse for several years and it
was so quiet that I doubt we will bother to return, those that
did come in were lovely and did spend a little money but some
days it's hard to earn a crust. thank you to those lovely
customers who did come to see us at the show.
June 6th 2012 I may only be able to get to Gisborne once a year but the
friendly people there always make up for that. The number of
people coming thru the door this year was down on past shows and
a few of our regular's didn't show their faces, I hope they are
well. On the positive side I had some good discussions with
locals about workshops that we could do in the town and things
that could be done better next time. On Sunday I headed off but
not for home, rather to Reporoa for a soak in the hot pool while
bathing in the beautiful moonlight. Monday I was soaking in the
hot waters of Taupo to warm up before our Taupo Moonfest,
because it was a public holiday we started in the late afternoon
and invited kids and families, we had a small gathering but
large amounts of energy as we drummed and chanted our way into
the chilly evening. The next morning I had another hot soak
under the waterfall before heading back to Auckland for our
Auckland Moonfest. It was drizzle when I got to the Tahaki
reserve but that soon stopped, the sky cleared and the wind
dropped so our small group of hardy drummers and fire dancers
could really have some fun bathed in moonlight.
June 2nd 2012 Well I know that my life can be chaotic and busy but this has
been even busier than ever, I was asked to stay on and do some
more casual work so instead of the planned leisurely trip down
to Gisborne with a stop over in Whakatane with Vicky and friends
it was work till midday Thursday and then head straight down as
far as I could before I got tired. It was a good drive down and
I managed to make it past Whakatane onto the coast road before
my eyes, I pulled over at one of the beach access car parks and
after getting out to check how hard the sand was I decided to
park on the beach where I could not hear the trucks on the road,
rather just the waves lulling me to sleep. In the morning I woke
up at dawn and watched the sun come up as I ate my cereal. Then
it was time to get going and the fun began... instead of just
backing up and out I decided to go forward on the sand and I
soon found a big soft spot in the sand, the van is 4x4 but the
sand was soft and so I got a good cardio workout digging the
sand out from underneath, jacking the back wheels up and packing
the sand down and driving on a bit further until I got stuck
again and then repeating the process, I have been a serious 4
wheel driver for many years including serious national
competitions so I knew what to do, I even unloaded the crystals
from the back and carried them thru the soft sand to the car
park 100 metres away. Great exercise. after several hours a
local fisherman came over with his old trike and helped me the
last 30metres. Thanks mate, now lets get back on the road to
Gisborne.
May 28th 2012 The last 2 weeks have been busy for me doing some temporary work
(and I get paid for it... Yeah). Whangarei is always a fun show
and we have so many customers and friends up there it's almost a
second home, this time was busier than it has been in a while.
It was also nice to be able to unload and start setting up our
stall on Friday night instead of rushing on Saturday morning.
There were lots of hugs to catch up on and I also found some
merino thermals on special at The Warehouse because I think it
may be a cold winter on the way. I looked into going to the Gym
but decided that I could not afford it so I have also started a
policy of going for regular walks and fitting in some hill
climbs to get the old heart pumping better
May 14th 2012 Well it's been a few years since there has been a show in
Cambridge at the lovely old Town hall but I decided to give it
another go. I headed down on Friday and setup most of my stall
before heading back up to Hamilton university for a fire and
drum night with our friends there. It was really nice to just be
a participant and not an organiser, we joined a good selection
of our Hamilton drum family to create some great beats and put
down my drum, grabbed my fire sword and played with our fire
family. A wondrous night. Some lovely photos were taken and Tony
managed to drop his staff into the lake and then entertained us
with his efforts to find it again. Eventually we all packed up
and headed home. Saturday was a lovely day in Cambridge and lots
of lovely customers came into the show, Sunday had some repeat
visitors and a more lovely customers, I really enjoy spreading
my passion for crystals with these awesome customers. Some rain
appeared in the afternoon and it stopped just long enough for me
to load almost all my stuff, I only got wet with the last few
loads.... thanks be to the weather gods ...
May 8th
2012
Life is racing on
with me caught up in it, it's a mad but lovely ride. On Friday I
headed down to Rotorua, my first port of call was the Wingspan
raptor centre where I am a member, I had a lovely chat to one of
the volunteers there and fun visit with the winged guests, at
the end of the flying display Millie decided she was very happy
to perch on the end of my hand and I managed to get a bunch of
close up photos of her. She is definitely a lady with a mind of
her own. From there it was off to dinner and call in to see some
of my local pagan family..... the decision was to head to the
hot pools for a soak and a massage.... good choice. Saturday was
an early start with setup from 7am, rushing to get it all ready
for the customers by 10am. That night a bunch of us headed out
to a friends place towards Taupo for a Moonfest in conjunction
with some of our Taupo drummers.... Drumming, chanting and fire
spinning around a warm fire.... a beautiful way to spend the
night. Sunday was another day back running the stall before
packing up and heading from town. I decided that I was in no
hurry to get back to Auckland so I headed for the hot pools
where there was nobody else around and I could do some Moonbathing before heading to Taupo. Next morning I had
breakfast and a dip under my favourite hot waterfall before
catching up with Toni and chatting about some more crazy ideas
for Kiwiburn next year. Then head back to Auckland, unload stuff
from the van and reload with drums and stuff for our Auckland
Moonfest, we had a great bunch of about 100 people, some great
drum beats, a heap of lovely fire dancers and the sky cleared so
the moon could put on a beautiful show for us all... I love my
life.
April 15th
2012
The plan was to head to Taupo on
Wednesday and join in a Moonfest with our friends there,
unfortunately by the time late afternoon arrived so had the
rain, instead of drumming several of us ended up having a picnic
on the floor at Toni’s place listening to the rain getting even
worse. The next morning I scored some great costumes at a local
op shop so perhaps we might create a costume corner next year at
Kiwiburn.
I had a leisurely trip down to Vinegar
hill where I spent the night, this time I camped up near the
bridge and I was very disappointed with the number of old fire
pits filled with broken bottles and rusty tin cans, there were
10 pits within 100 metres and one was big enough to park the van
in. People have also destroyed the sign asking you to take your
rubbish with you and piled a trailer load of rubbish next to it,
something the rats and possums enjoy. It is sad to see the way
some people mistreat a beautiful place.
The next day it was on to Wanganui, we
were taking part in the local Rock and Mineral club show, it has
been many years since their last club show here but there was
still a pretty good turn out of locals and we enjoyed ourselves.
April 10th
2012
Polli and Ed
created the Magick Earth Festival, years later the participants
decided to call it MEF and decided that it also stood for ‘Most
Excellent Fun’ and as always the weekend was certainly all of
that. The forecast
was for a tropical cyclone so I came prepared for that, instead
we got lovely sunny days and mostly clear nights so the full
moon was strong and bright, I guess that shows that the gods are
still happy with us.
As usual the
participants included many of the regulars and a few new faces
who soon became apart of our MEF family, it was decided that
like the ‘Borg’ from Star trek ‘You will be assimilated,
Resistance is Futile’.
We have a
growing number of family members with small kids and they had a
great time learning, having fun and interacting with one
another, again a number of mums worked together to create a kids
ritual that the kids were actively involved in setting up and
running and it was well attended. The running of
each ritual was split among the participants to vary the work
load and the flavour of the ritual. The workshops were well
attended and people enjoyed taking part. The community meals
created by our cooking team of Kay, Kerry and Kat were wondrous
as always and certainly better than I eat at home and yummy
puddings ensured that we all ate to much. Various
amounts of drumming, dancing, chanting, networking and assorted
merriment occurred each night and our warm mulled wine seemed to
go down well with everybody.
March 27th
2012
Life has been busy and fun, the
NZ Juggling festival was held just out of Cambridge this year, a
lovely rowing venue next to the lake, the weather looked
terrible but in fact the rain stayed away until Saturday night
and then it was just a nuisance. The event started on Thursday
and I was soon registered and into learning some new stuff, I
purchased myself a new set of props - Cigar boxes, and
soon had some lessons from one of the other more experienced
participants. I enjoyed some great workshops and have some hoop
tricks to also work on. As always the juggling goes all day and
most of the night as these guys make the most of the chance to
juggle together and learn new stuff. The Juggle Olympics are
always fun and a chance for serious and fun competition. The
organisers provided fuel for us to play with fire and the other
evening entertainment was a renegade show on Friday night and a
big public show in the Cambridge town hall on Saturday night. So
much talent was displayed by participants of all ages. I always
love playing with my Juggling family.
March 20th
2012
I have been offline for a couple of weeks, first we had
our Moonfest up here in Auckland, the rain came (it was the
wettest we have had in the three years of the event), we sat up
on the stage and over a dozen brave drummers rocked up some
beats, several of us did some fire spinning between the showers
and we really enjoyed ourselves. The next day I headed down
to Taupo for a Moonfest (Harvest moon) celebration with them,
the night was very chilly but we had some lovely drumming and
fire spinning along with sharing some bread and juice... May you
never hunger' and 'may you never thirst' Then I was off down
to Palmerston North for a Spiritual expo, this is a lovely town
I have been comming to for many years and again our friends and
customers came from far and wide for hugs and to purchase lovely
products from us. On the way down I called into one of my favourite crystal
suppliers and spent far to much money with her but I did get several boxes
of lovely new stuff and a top up of regular sellers then I headed up to New Plymouth for WOMAD
(after stopping to purchase another couple of boxes of lovely crystals) I spent 3 days working as part of the setup crew here to earn my
free ticket and T-shirt, again I danced my feet sore to amazing world music
again I was amazed how many of my friends and comrades found me and my camp
among the thousands of people there,
it was also neat to see those who were there for the first time having a most enjoyable time.
and yes I told my crew boss there I will be back next year
March 5th
2012 The
weather bomb was a bit of a fizzer in Rotorua, the van rocked a
little in the wind and some rain fell but it was a mostly fine
day there for my Spiritual brother Jorden's "Spiritual Craft
Day", as was to be expected my Pagan family were in attendance
and we had a fun and interesting day, I completed a lovely new
Staff and several really beautiful items were created by
others.... then it was off to Hamilton for the evening with my
Fire and Drum families supporting the Run for Life Charity
event, the wind was freezing and really strong but we had a
great time... I made a cheeky comment at some random guy who
appeared to be trying to push a tree over and it turns out to be
an old mate I haven't seen for far too many years, time for big
hugs and a quick chat before he is off running around the track.
.... I camped in Hamilton overnight and on sunday I went for a
drive, I soon found a couple of markets to wander and where I
found some more old friends... collected some more hugs and a
great fairy book... what a way to spend your weekend off.... I
love you all
Feb 27th
2012
New Spirit Festival at the Albany Stadium is the Big
show in Auckland and we have been a stall holder there for many
years, the days are long but lots of customers around and
despite a multitude of stalls with crystals etc we had lots of
customers and lots of sales. Hugs and much love to all my
friends, family and customers.
Feb 12th
2012
Luminate – for many of us this was a continuation of the
Kiwiburn fun / a week long decompression party. I had a leisurely trip down the island to Wellington where I
caught the late night ferry and managed some sleep on the trip,
upon arrival in Picton I decided to head out along the scenic
route to Nelson and got most of the way there before I felt
tired and pulled over for some more sleep. I wanted to explore the Nelson shopping area but I soon found
that Monday was a public holiday and only a few places were open
so I decided to stock up on food and head out in Motueka I
easily found a lovely crystal shop that I had heard about and
lucky for me it was open so I could investigate it fully and
chat to the person running it. From there it was up the big hill and a stop to explore a cave,
I was the only person for the scheduled trip and so I had a
great chance to chat to my guide about the caves and the area. Then I headed down the road to check out the festival site, they
would not let me in early so I headed down the road to Takaka
where this was going to work to my advantage. I spent the night
beside the river in quiet contemplation. The next day I headed out to the beach but first found the stone
labyrinth, this cool natural creation is also free entry and I
spent several hours exploring various paths and hiding places
created by water flowing over the rocks over a long period of
time. Eventually I left to head out to the beach for some more
contemplation time before heading back to my river spot, I had
not been there long when a little red car pulled up and my
lovely adopted step daughter Sunny invited me to join them at
the bar that evening where she was due to play a gig with a
friend. Of course I accepted and so after dinner I headed back
down to Takaka and was introduced to her friend Matu (a really
nice guy and great singer who both Kay and Kerry are great fans
of). The next morning I woke early so I headed back up the hill to
the festival site, I had an interesting encounter with a small
herd of long horn cattle on the track before they allowed me to
pass and get onto the actual site. There are various zones including, Electronic, Healing, Jugglety
poi but it was at Tribal where I found ‘My Place’, here there
was even as space for those of us who like to spin fire to the
beat of the drum. The crew running tribal had done a great job,
creating a magical space for us to come together and play. I am a dad who has 2 sons that I love and I am very proud of
them but I am so lucky to also have a paddock full of adopted
daughters that I love and I continue to be amazed when I walk
across the paddock and get ‘ambush hugged’ by them. I loved the ‘Hug Deli’ that my friend River brought to Kiwiburn
and he also brought it here where it had the same prices of ‘2
compliments’ per hug and 1 compliment for a side order, I loved
working with him and his crew here. Albert is a drum master and the first time I saw him he was
working on stretching the skin on a lovely new drum, I fell in
love with this drum, after being told the price with crew
discount I when back to the van and found that this was exactly
how much money I had, so the deal was done, I have no money,
instead a drum built by professionals with love. The Barons of Tang were the main act on Saturday night and I was
again recognised some of the band members (although it’s a year
since I last saw them) and I got some lovely smiles from them as
we all rocked away the night. The fire spinning each night was great, so much talent on this
paddock and I had so much fun playing with Nick’s fire sword…. I
decided that I must buy myself one of these, but before the week
was out I had worked out how I could build an improved ‘break
down’ version and that this must be a top priority. One of my loaner drums I leave for people to play with at
festivals had got the skin damaged at Prana but I spent several
hours with Albert at his drum skinning workshop and I he took me
thru the re skinning process and I finally now know how to do it
myself, I have 2 drums sitting at home that are waiting re
skinning, I do have some photo’s to help remind me each of the
steps in the process. Several of my Kiwiburn family pointed it out and I have to agree
that ‘people at Luminate think they are so alternative and
switched on to it ‘nature wise’ but after being at Kiwiburn they
seem very mainstream, too much is about money and some people
need to seriously work on their litter attitude and behaviour,
just because it’s biodegradable doesn’t mean throw it on the
paddock, the organisers even had compost bins setup to help with
this problem. That evening I watched a cheeky Kea came and rob some fruit from
our neighbours camp while I was standing talking to friends just
6 metres away. Monday night and they had a closing ceremony for the main stage
at about 1am, once it finished the buskers stage really got
rockin with the Barons of Tang coming back for another gig but
this time they were down at our level, they really let loose and
we all really encouraged them to go crazier. Tuesday was a mellow day with some people leaving and others
catching up on missed sleep. Wednesday I packed up my stuff and drove down to Harwood’s Hole
to explore this amazing area before spreading the hugs and
heading off, but for many of us this was just ‘see you down the
road at the Mussel Inn tomorrow night’ because The Barons of
Tang were to play there. Thursday night at the Inn we had another quiet chat to the
lovely guys and gals from the band before they rocked the
building and it was after 1 when we headed down the road to camp
at the beach. The next morning it was time for last hugs and good
buys before heading back to the default world but making sure to
keep a blob of this crazyness in my heart till the next
festival.
Jan 10th 2012
I arrived on Friday to help setup and the weather
was not ideal, lots of wind and showers coming thru, this
continued for several days so to avoid some of the winds I
arranged with the Town planner to change the position of our
camp to a more protected spot behind the wall of hay bails at
the end of the main paddock, but our Green Star shone brightly
at night helping us to find our way home each night. Bill brought along his new
large tensioned structure and rather than building my new
structure idea we used his as the base for The International
Green Star Disaster Relief Centre (which meant that later my
tower could be assembled over at the front entrance to provide
lighting My new 200 litre water
barrels and water pump system worked very well and we shared
lots of water with back packers and other participants
travelling light.
The kitchen also worked
great and I give big thanks to Anne, Trudie, Bill and Adam for
the help and the kitchen stuff they supplied, my biggest worry
was that people would fail to clean up their own mess (as I had
witnessed at our Burningman camp) but it all went well (but I
did have 5 bags of rubbish to take away) The festival started on
Wednesday and the weather gods were kind to us with lovely sunny
days during the event, it was really great to find many of my
burner family returning to the paddock but I was amazed by the
number of noobies that came along and also the number of family
groups. I must mention that although they were noobies they had
a really good grip on our idea of Moop and my checks of the
paddock during the event gave me the feeling of one of the
cleanest Kiwiburns ever I re assembled the Pirate
ship and loaded it on to the trailer using the participants for
a great launch, during the event it was again heavily used and
the wind was mostly gentle enough for us to sail every day The Mobile Drum circle had a
great time cruising the paddock bringing lovely energy to the
paddock but next year I need to allocate more time to it and it
would benefit from more horse power to tow it around when it is
full of participants, I think that I will create my Mad Max Art
car to tow it next year My ATM / Money changing
machine was soon in operation and getting lots of use, and
giving lots of fun, I was amazed at how many people kept coming
back to play with and converse with it (I could do with
increasing the size of the 3 litre water bottle, I am now
inspired to create many more devices that can be installed in
art works to converse with participants, the solar panel worked
great and the batteries never needed changing. The Hippy Dream catcher was
placed back in the paddock and the original creators were very
happy to see it re appear for another year The Kiwiburn library worked
well in conjunction with the washing line and market place and I
found the perfect purple hippy skirt for myself (thank you to
Isa for her great efforts) The Pendulum waves project
created by Ryn (her first Art Work) was beautiful and superior
to my original ideas so I am very glad that I passed the Art
Grant I was allocated for it over to her
I am also inspired to repair
the ATM and take it to some other festivals to promote the
Gifting Economy and what Burners and our festivals are about. The parties built up each
night with the biggest being the Saturday Man Burn and what a
Man it was. The Karl had taken on the
Man build this year and Kiwi concentrated on it’s base, the
design was completely different to any we had done before with a
strong timber skeleton that was given ribs and a skin of thin
plywood
Many of the participants
were involved in the ritual procession to transport the
completed man from the shed over to the paddock where we used
simple levers and ropes and more of those participants to pull
him up into position The temple was created by a
bunch of crazy hippies, many of whom had come up from the bottom
of the south island, for something completely different they
hired a truck to collect a heap of drift wood from the west
coast beaches and assembled it into a lovely natural spiral,
another best temple ever at Kiwiburn. Sunday we had showers that
did a great job of wetting the grass so the fire department was
very happy with the conditions for the Temple burn, the Dragon
was beautiful and was a perfect burn and the Fire Mandala’s
worked well Monday night the Disaster
Relief Centre got it’s biggest workout with 50+ remaining people
coming around and cooking for a pot luck dinner, we even had 2
pizza ovens elsewhere on site cooking away and delivering yummy
hot pizza’s Tuesday dawned fine and kept
getting better and I spent the day dismantling and preparing my
art works to be stored away.
Jan 10th 2012
Ok so there are still a couple of important things missing in my
life, like the rest of you it’s not perfect, but I am blessed to
have so many lovely people in my life, I am also blessed that
the universe is currently supporting me in many of my
activities. On the weekend I had a stall at a Spiritual expo in New
Plymouth, on both Friday and Saturday nights I walked down to
the park where the festival of lights was being held, both times
I walked straight into a bunch of my Highly Flammable friends
who were doing roving acts there, it was great chance for a hug,
a chat and to watch their amazing work. Monday night was our latest Moonfest in Mt Eden and the weather
looked pretty crappy but as usual I decided to go ahead with it
anyway….. and the weather cleared and a bunch of both regulars
and new faces decided to brave the weather and come along, we
had up to 30 musicians and drummers creating some lovely beats
to move to and spin fire to and another 50 people enjoying the
party. By the end of the night we just had a couple of light sprinkles
of water from the sky. Now I am back working on my multiple Art works for Kiwiburn….
Oh and for the next 6 and ½ weeks I am only going the events and
festivals to have fun, learn and meet people, I am not having a
stall, not missing out on workshops because I have to run my
stall, not worrying about stock getting wet or the marque
blowing away…. Just enjoying life with friends cause that’s what
summer is for….
Jan 2nd 2012
I arrived at Prana early to help
with setup and while the weather was overcast and breezy it was
not unpleasant, I received my first hugs before I even got in
the gate and a regular stream of them continued during the day.
After consultation with the fire brigade a lovely new fire art
piece had been built and erected outside the barn so that people
could enjoy the benefits of fire. A small raised fire bowl had
also been built for the giant tipi and that night we christened
them and got down to some lovely drumming and dancing in the
Tipi. With the official opening of the
festival also came the forecast rain, some of the down pours
were heavy and the water did not always soak into the sandy
ground quick enough. We got the fire and the drums going and
managed to drum and dance away the rain several times to give
people the time to get their encampments setup but the rain kept
returning thru the day and on into the night, our drums and
dance also raged well into the night. The storm got worse overnight and
several of my friends were woken in the early hours of the
morning with water flooding into their tent, they found
themselves in small lakes that were forming around the site
where the sandy ground just could not drain away the water fast
enough. Although these participants were soaked along with
everything they possessed we got the Tipi fire going and warmed
and dried them out. The Tipi soon looked like a Chinese laundry
as drying lines were setup thru the tipi and these were covered
with an array of clothes, sleeping bags and pillows. These damp
souls also enjoyed the chance the drum and dance some of their
cares away. The drumming and dancing continued thru the day and
all night. I had put my marquee up but
decided that the weather was too bad to finish setting up my
stall, in fact every time during the weekend that I considered
putting my stall out the rain and wind would return, I decided
that this was a message from the weather gods and that I should
concentrate my energies on the drum and dance action in the tipi
and forget about being a stall holder. Unfortunately this theme was to
continue for another day. The positive side was seeing how the
Prana community reacted and pulled together, helping each other
thru the problems, a few people went home but my soaked friends
stayed and we got them warm and dry, we also got some really
amazing drum and dance energy cranked up in the tipi between the
lines of damp clothing. New years eve would normally have
the newly extended big stage as a focal point but the rain
prevented that from happening, instead many people fitted
themselves into the Barn and Tipi and danced up more lovely
energy. At midnight when I looked up at
the sky I could actually see stars but later the clouds and some
showers returned, I certainly felt that the weather had washed
away the remains of 2011 from me. A lake had formed in a low spot by
the cave as the weather cleared and this lake soon had a canoe
in it and lots of kids making the most of a bad thing. The second half of the festival
was much better weather wise but we still saw some gusts of wind
and enough showers to prevent a dust problem. The weather caused changes to lots
of plans and the program but the hard working crew got the new
main stage working and a revised schedule was printed and posted
around the camp. On the last night a group of my fire friends
was involved in a fire display alongside the stage for one song
and I gave my fire staff to a friend and took on the job of fire
officer, a job I often do as I don’t want any of my fire family
to get hurt and a serious person doing it is often expected by
the organisers. The rain returned before I went to
sleep and was still there when I awoke so I packed the last of
my stuff shared some hugs and headed for home. Over the weekend I was asked about
Kiwiburn many times by both people who had been to Burningman
and those who were new to the Gifting economy concept so I hope
these enquiries bode well for continued Kiwiburn ticket sales. Thankyou to all those who
participated and perhaps our Kiwiburn theme of Disaster Holiday
was getting a trial run, but our community certainly reacted
well and I am proud of you all.
November 28th 2011
First up an apology for those who expected
to see me at Deans Browns bay show, I organised this Tirau show
9 months ago and I was not interested in canceling another show
because Dean organised one to conflict with mine so sorry but I
was never going to be there. Similar for the Saturday Moonfest
in Mt Eden, I was always going to be drumming in Taupo but I
hope you had a great night. My website
www.mindbodyandspirit.co.nz will
always have the full list of current shows and my Facebook
status will have what I am up to on the coming weekend. Saturday
and we were in Tirau doing our little Spiritual fair, my adopted
daughter (her words not mine) Toni brought in the mark two
version of the Travellers Alter (these are make by another of
our pagan friends) and several hours was spent working out more
improvements for the next version, these lovely items will be
available decorated and plain (for you to do your own
decorating), we plan to have these available at the next MEF
over Easter with a DIY decorating workshop. Time was also spent planning for a spiritual show we will run in
Taupo some time next year, this is a town with good people but
they have not been supportive of the shows Dean has organised
there, hopefully our policy of Free Entry, local connections and
a better venue will solve this problem. Our customers included one who remembered when we had the shop
up in Whangaparaoa and that’s a few years ago now, then it was
time to grab some dinner and head down to Taupo where Toni
organises a drum circle with our help, this time she had
obtained some free radio and newspaper coverage and instead of
half a dozen drummers we had about 25 people (mainly beginners)
come and join in, our drum beats also attracted a number of
people passing by, it was a really good night and thanks to all
those who came along and participated. The oop’s of the night
was when I split the skin on Abby (my big Taiko drum), this
means that I have no excuse for not pulling my finger out and re
skinning her and finishing at least 1 of my other big drums. As it got dark a couple of us fired up our fire toys and had
some fun, we event was scheduled to finish by 9pm but it was
about 11pm by the time we packed up and I headed up the road for
a skyclad soak in the moonlight and massage under a warm
waterfall, a beautiful way to finish an awesome day….. as was to
be expected with a lunar eclipse due at 3.30am the moon woke me
up around then just to say hello and after acknowledging her I
was allowed to go back to sleep. Because I slept at the park I could start Sunday morning with a
walk down the track back to the waterfall for a lovely soak
before breakfast…. Then back up the road to Tirau for a second
day of our spiritual fair. The most painful part of the day had to be getting some deep
tissue work done on my shoulders and leg by Toni (remind me not
to upset her) but I was feeling much better on Monday with none
of the usual niggles, thanks again my dear
November 28th 2011
So I worked hard all week building Default world stuff to earn
some default world money, as a result I have some money to use
over summer to make it down south for some FUN festivals (Luminate
and NZHoopfest). Friday after work it's off to Pakuranga to
setup for the Spiritual Expo, then off to Tahaki reserve for our
New moon November Moonfest, this would be our first attempt at
an event that was not based on the Full Moon.... it went really
well.... it started with some regular faces and a couple of
fresh faces and we had a great drum lesson, then some of our
serious fire performers rolled up.... everybody seemed to have a
great time, the Drummers certainly got some really great beats
happening and I enjoyed playing and Dancing with them,
unfortunately I had to head off by 11pm.... thank you to all who
contributed to a great night. Saturday and Sunday I was busy
with the show in Pakuranga, I was pretty tired and not at my
best, after packing up on Sunday I stopped in to see my friends
at the Occupy Auckland site before heading home for an early
night. Monday night was a meeting of the Kiwiburn Arts Grants
Committee,
I have far too many ideas for Art
on the Paddock (I blame it on my experience at Burningman) and
as a result I have applied for several Arts grants to help me
make stuff to make the Paddock interesting next year....
Kiwiburn has money to give to people if you have some Art you
would like to excite participants with, the first round has
closed but they have decided to open a second round of
applications for up to $300....
November 19th 2011
So....
I am not working this weekend.... so what do I do.... I head
down to the Grey Lynn Festival first thing and chat to my stall
holder friends (and collect some hugs) as they are setting
up.... then spend some time at The Rhythm Centre stall helping
parents and kids with some percussion beats... then some of our
Drum family arrive for a Jam session.... then Jimi Dale and his
drum crew arrive for some Rockin Drum beats to dance to.... at
the other end of the field AK Salsa also have some fun
happening.... thanks to all for a lovely day.... glad I didn't
have a stall, there was no time to play stall keeper
November 14th 2011
As I
write this I am reminded how lovely and full my life is (and how
many of my friends are enveloped in my life)….. During the week
I have been doing some casual work building electronic equipment
for some extra cash… as well as MY REAL WORLD stuff…. Thursday
night we had lots of folks come along to our Moonfest in Mt Eden
and we really drummed and danced up some great energy, it was
great to see some of my friends who came out of the woodwork and
got into summer mode, I took Abby (my big drum) along and she
got plenty of attention and use.
Friday
night as I drove up to Whangarei there was a lovely big full
moon coming up over the sea watching over my journey, then it
was a busy day at the Spiritual expo, then a drum circle under
the trees in the park to finish the night. I am working to
restart this group with some of the lovely locals and hope the
circle keeps running. Sunday
was also a good expo with many of my regulars coming to see me,
some only buy a packet of incense, others have saved for 6
months for something special and I don’t like to disappoint
them. I am
organising our next Moonfest for November 25th to
celebrate the new moon (and it will be a bit darker for us fire
spinners). I also
heard from my friend Toni that her first Drum Circle in Taupo
went well with the full moon energy and several of us plan to
head down for their December 10 event. Kiwiburn stuff is hotting up, I have made several Arts grants
applications for money towards things I want to do there, some
good ideas are coming together in the Theme camp area and plans
for structures are being made (and some will be tested before
the event), The Noobie BBQ is now scheduled for Sat Dec 3rd
from 3pm until late, when the sun goes down our fire spinners
will come out. Planning for the rest of the summer festivals is also well under
way…… yeah….
October 31st 2011 So
Thursday night I left the default world and headed up north to
Heat Festival (this is a festival that links the Fire and
Juggling communities), I found the place by following the
instructions down the dirt roads, just when I was losing faith I
found I had arrived… I parked in the clearing and went over to
share some welcoming hugs with my friends. I soon found myself
helping to move the big generator that would provide our power
grid as this lovely place really is off the grid with no power,
phone or mobile connection…. Friday was spent setting up more
infrastructures, trenching in power cables, taking photos of the
workers and chilling out. That night more participants
arrived and we made good use of the pegasol provided by the
organisers before heading to bed. Saturday was a day with the
occasional brief shower but that didn’t stop some great
workshops from happening, numbers were down so there were good
instructor to student ratios, I learnt some more stuff for
Diabilo, Devil sticks and fire staff. After dinner was the
Renegade Stage show with some great acts then we were up and
dancing with zombies, witches and other Halloween creatures and
trying to finish those 2 big bottles of pegasol with all our
fire play. Drew also provided a burn barrel with a large
firewood pile to keep us warm. A lovely night was had by all. Sunday started slow (some of these
youngsters take a while to recover) and was very laid back, some
great Whip workshops evolved and I had a play with several
different whips and have some new moves to work on. As always at these festivals the
participants create a lovely community energy, I learnt some
good stuff and my collection of friends increased. Thank you to all of you who
participated in a great weekend.
October 24th 2011
The weekend started early because I took Friday off so I
could get packed and head to Karen and David’s place for
our Beltane MEF (Magick Earth Festival). This time the
event was brought to you by our lovely friends at The
Cauldron of the Four Winds (COTFW). I think all of this
group are already a part of the MEF family.
The big event of Friday afternoon was the erecting of
the Yurt in it’s new location (it had been ripped off
it’s previous location by ferocious winds), this task
was made possible by the many hands that joined in the
task. As always the participants were a mix of regulars
and fresh faces and those newbie’s were soon made to
feel part of the family.
Friday’s meal was lovely (Karen and her kitchen helpers
did a lovely job of feeding everybody all weekend) and
as was to be expected there was enough food to feed all
the hordes.
Some drumming and chanting with a bit of dancing was
enjoyed by many.
I took along too many Kg’s of crystal’s for the circle
and as usual encouraged others to have a chance to build
the crystal circle however they wanted, the result was
lovely and we held Saturdays crystal workshop inside the
circle.
Saturday had many crafty elemental workshops that were
well attended, and almost all of the participants of the
fire spinning workshop went on to spin with fire later
that night.
The big event in the afternoon was Tracey’s Quiz, she
had put lots of effort into researching the questions
over a wide range of subjects (including witch lore),
stickers for good team answers bedecked many faces and
jackets and the eventual winners got cups and prizes
were awarded to all.
The main ritual took place in the lovely large ritual
space and it was great to see the space come to life, as
was to be expected we finished with some cauldron
jumping.
Once it got dark the fire toys came out to play and 5
fire staff and a set of fire fans got well used, some
drummers also came down to help create some more energy
for us.
The networking (gossiping) and chatting continued well
into the morning as is usual and everybody seemed to
have a great time (despite the mozzies). Sunday morning started well with more cooked breakfasts
before heading back for more craft based workshops (the
Wand and Staff one again involved many people and
created some lovely tools).
Daniel and I headed out after lunch along with several
others, I had an appointment in town with a drum circle.............. 3 hours hard out dancing on the pavement (in my bare
feet) and another hour of full on drumming down at the
Britomart station, a dozen drummers (Josh with his Digi)
and some shakers, we hardly stopped the whole time, it
was the best drum circle I have ever been in with some
great interaction with the public who lapped it up. I
found them when they first started their beats and soon
handed over my drum and seat to somebody else and got up
and worked the crowd to get them to join us, many needed
little encouragement but some really enjoyed it once
they got over their stage fright, several of my friends
stopped and came to share a hug and one gave me a kiss
and ran away. At one point the Hari Krishners passing by
came and joined our jam dancing and playing and sharing
the beautiful energy being created by everybody. That
energy allowed supporters of all the teams (including
the French) to dance and play together and have a
beautiful time, Richard (as organiser) donated the proceeds of the hat to me to buy some more instruments so next time you see us we will have some more shakers to play with.
October 10 2011
Well I am a bit tired but for good reason, I was doing
casual work from Monday to Thursday and then I headed
down to Taupo for the second yearly spiritual show, a
new friend down there also wanted to get a drum circle
happening there so she made some flyers and booked a
school room for Saturday night. The show was fairly
quiet on Saturday and I went on to a great dinner with
Toni and her family before heading back to the school
for our drum circle, well most of those who said they
would come didn't show but we went ahead with it anyway
and had a great couple of hours, Sharon and Toni are
both now converts to the ease of drum circles and how
much fun they can be. Sunday started slow but after
lunch things suddenly picked up and I was busy selling
crystals, then several people who came in wanted to talk
about drumming and drum circles and so there are now a
core of keen drummers down in Taupo. Toni has a business
based from home
http://www.energycentral.co.nz
and does healing as well as being a lovely witch, I have
loaned her some new drums to sell as well as some spares
to get her drum circle going and I will be encouraging
her all I can, I am also trying to get some people in
Rotorua interested in drum circles and get these two
towns to come together and share some energy. On the
drive home I got a phone call from another Taupo lady
who wants to get into some drumming so I have a feeling
that my previous drum circle efforts down there may now
be coming to fruition.
October 4 2011
Saturday was a small 1 day show in Ellerslie, it was a
cozy little hall and the day slowly ticked over, several
of my favourite 'Stalker Customers' who seem to show up
everywhere were there to see what was new since last
week. Sunday was a last minute drum circle outside the
Auckland Town hall as part of the Auckland Philharmonic
Orchestra open day, a dozen of the regular 'serious'
drummers showed up and we had a great time for an hour
or so creating some lovely energy that the public
walking by loved. Fraser Bruce also had an information
stall there with a range of home made musical
instruments that got me thinking about some more
instruments to build.
September 26 2011
This weekend there was no show - shock, horror.... what
do I do ?.... (I have only 1 more empty weekend before
christmas).... well this means that I can attend the
Cauldron of the Four Winds 'Ostara' ritual and catch up
with many of my MEF family. Saturday morning was spent
getting a haircut for me and a WOF for my van and then
working on my car. After lunch I headed over to collect
lots of hugs from all those present, as I am a
professional lots of 'Networking' took place over a
glass, I was so good to catch up with these friends that
I had missed while I was away in the USA. Dave was in
hospital (more healing energy coming your way) and Karen
was preoccupied with that so the rest of the pagan
family took over and finished cooking nibbles and
dinner, as always the food was yummy and we were unable
to consume it all, (thanks again Karen). Ritual was
lovely, but confused (as with Dave's absence, Karen
played Dave's part and Jilly played Karens part and so
it went). Some went on to watch the Rugby and some then
watched the League (and all were happy with the
results). Chris had brought his crystals to play with
and time was spent trying new configurations with the
rose quartz and amethyst within the main quartz circle,
Chris and I are both looking forward to adding some
extra 'poundage' to our circles when a new shipment
arrives from Brazil in a couple of weeks and we also
considered merging both our crystal collections at the
Beltane festival. As always if was a lovely time and
thanks to all those who participated, BIG love and
healing to both Karen and Dave, and I am looking forward
to Beltane with you all.
September 19 2011
Well I have been doing casual work for a week so this
has taken longer than planned but here is my collection
of Burningman thoughts.
So much happened to me in my month away on my Burningman
Pilgrimage that I can’t make a sensible story of it,
instead I have just this collection of random thoughts
and things that happened to me, I hope they are not too
confusing.
This all came about because my friend Kiwi (Chris Hanks)
said he was going to submit a proposal to build the
Temple at Burningman this year, as a friend I agreed to
be there to help him do it, later when he confirmed that
his bid has been accepted by those who control these
things my immediate thought was ‘shit… now where am I
going to find the money’, but I manifested all problems
would be solved and so they were.
I flew into San Francisco for a visit to Burningman HQ
where I caught up with old friends Marian amd Megs (who
I had made friends with when they came to Kiwiburn) and
made some lovely new friends, including several other
crystalaholics.
I Stayed over night at a friend of a friends place,
‘Little wing’ who was soon part of my friends circle. It
was a long bus trip to Reno, when I got there I was
issued my freebie steel cap boots some hugs from the
crew and then I was busy working.
This was the first time an international team had come
together to build the temple, and it had a strong
representation of Kiwi, Irish and Canadians, we also
included many token Americans.
Several Team shopping trips were arranged with borrowed
cars so we could get the tents, food, water etc that we
would need to survive on the Playa.
The couple of Thrift shops up the road got plenty of
business from us travellers as we shopped on the cheap
for extra clothes, warm blankets, water bottles etc
The crew at Hobson square in Reno had already been hard
at work for over 3 months and the yard was full of
prefabricated sections of temple and the trucks were
rolling to ship it out to the desert.
I joined the rest of the crew in the pattern of working
hard and late each night as this was the most important
thing in our lives, our crew motto was “My Drinking Crew
has a Building Problem”
Finally convoys of us started heading out to the playa
where we camped on the bare temple site beside our truck
loads of temple pieces.
Most of us were in tents, our first job was to setup
kitchen, dining area and fluffer station, when I arrived
we got straight into setting up the dining area when our
first small dust storm came to welcome us, my goggles
and facemask were still buried with my gear in the back
of a truck, I learnt as soon as you get up grab your eye
protection and mask, just in case.
Our amazing crew included many pagans and hippies and so
there was lots of happy hippy healing energy to share.
Amazing dawns and sunsets greeted us every day.
There was no day and night shift, many were working 18+
hours per day, stopping to eat and sleeping in short
naps when we had to, nobody was forcing us, we just
wanted to prove wrong those who thought we had taken on
too big a project and that we would not get it all done.
Because of the crew spirit and hippy energy there were
no grumpy or angry words when your machinery was taken
off you to be given to another team with a higher
priority job.
We had a wonderful team of Fluffers, their job was to
make sure we drink water and had our electrolytes as
well as giving us special food and liquid treats during
the day and night, they kept of functioning thru the
long days and nights, to help them keep going I often
retired to the Fluffer station during the hottest part
of the day to give them foot and other massages. Many of
our other healers also took time out to give massages
and healing as required
The heat of the day was generally over 100 degrees in
the shade but in the early hours of the morning it could
get very cold, my big wool coat and thermal underwear
got lots of use.
My tent was rated as 4 person, so just room for me and
my stuff, I had a small air mattress covered with a
woolly blanket and my good thermal sleeping bag to keep
me warm at night, during the day it was far too hot to
lay in.
Our construction town had it’s own power grid with
cables run for essential stuff and Jims Cool Yurt with
it’s simple (and low powered) swamp cooler was a popular
place during the heat of the day and despite it’s small
space 5 people could often be found dozing in it.
Most of us had payed into the builders food fund and we
had a great team of cooks to ensure we ate well and
could keep working hard in the heat, our meals consisted
of Breakfast, lunch, dinner and Middens (mid night
meal).
I was part of a small group that headed to Frog pond (a
local spring) one afternoon while it was still fresh,
(not overloaded by the dirty hippies), it was most
satisfying to relax in a cool pond, almost paradise.
The ‘Early Burn’ had some interestig art creations, my
favourite was the Motorola Radio, it seems not everybody
was happy with their handheld radio’s performance, the
big art piece was several metres high and had a big
speaker tuned into one of the radio channels so those in
the know could talk thru it.
Many of us were soon trained to use the scissor lift
trucks and spend lots of time up in the air in them, as
our temple grew, in the distance we could see the man
and the start of the city growing.
People started coming to the temple perimeter to gaze at
our creation, this is when I started to realise as a
newbie that if people who had been coming here for 10
years were amazed by our temple it really must be
something extra special.
It was the largest free standing temporary wooden
structure in the world, there were no foundations, just
some ground anchors in the ground to tie it too and some
raked over gravel (Zen gardening) covered in plywood and
steel as our base.
Built like a wedding cake as separate layers that were
then lifted on top of one another it would require the
biggest crane ever seen in Black Rock City to assemble
it.
There temple consisted of 5 towers almost 20 metres high
representing Birth, Growth, Union, Decay and Death
arrayed around a central tower 37m high representing
Gratitude, 3 towers were linked by walkways up to the
first level of the main tower, the other 2 towers were
linked at the ground level by corridors.
My team spent most of it’s time building the 5 smaller
towers and connecting walkways and I was tasked with
bolting on the lifting points on each of the towers and
so was a little nervous each time one was lifted into
the air, we also assembled the small tower at the very
top of the main tower.
Originally the Burningman Management only installed
ground anchors for 4 of the 6 towers as they did not
believe we could complete this ambitious project, and it
was not until we completed them that they then installed
the anchors for the final 2 towers.
The weather was great with only a couple of mild dust
storms and thunder storms and only one days lifting put
off due to high winds.
The construction crew was mainly composed of people who
do NOT do this kind of stuff for a living, sometimes it
was painful to watch somebody hammering in a nail but
everybody’s help was of value.
We stole a number of the DPW (Department of Public
Works) staff over to our crew and many others from their
crew drove heavy equipment for us, these guys and girls
normally build the infrastructure required for this city
to exist, and then pack it away at the end of the event.
Despite their fierce some reputation all the DPW crew I
worked with were lovely people and very helpful, many
are hippies at heart
We finished the Temple at midnight on Sunday when the
festival officially opened (apparently the Temple
construction is often behind schedule) and allowed the
waiting mass of people to walk in and over it, I am
proud to be the first hippy to lay on the ground in the
main temple when we opened and listen to the Gamelatron
playing. This is a Balinese gong orchestra connected to
electrical servo’s and a computer so it can play 24
hours a day without stopping to eat.
After the temple opened we had to break up our builders
camp and head off to our own camps, I was part of
Minitropolis with many other temple builders.
I volunteered to take a turn as a Temple Guardian, at
night we kept an eye on people and were there to comfort
and guide them if required as well as ensure all things
were good in the temple.
On the night they burned the Trojan Horse I walked
around the mobile party created by all the Music ‘Art
cars’ that surrounded the area creating new streets and
disorientating me completely, after wandering around I
caught sight of our Big Green arrow camp sign in the sky
and knew how to find my way home.
The big loud party with amplified noise (no I don’t call
it music) was not my scene and some times the strength
of the bass pumping at you was enough pressure to
disturb your own heart beat.
Saturday night was the ‘Man Burn’ I watched this from
the distance, I am not big on fancy fireworks shows.
I proudly put my 'Temple crew' pass on my hat (which I
wore everywhere except to bed) and this got me
extraattention, free meals and a chance to chat to many
extra people, so many people loved this great Temple we
had created.
The temple had a huge surface area, this was soon put to
good use by the participants writing messages and
creating memorials to people and pets, by the time the
temple closed it was covered in messages.
Sunday was spent preparing the Temple to burn, this
included adding many trailer loads of timber that other
camps wanted to get rid of.
I volunteered to be on the burn perimeter, watching the
crowd, this perimeter was 280m in diameter but we needed
all of that as once she caught the fire was really hot,
my back was cooking and people in the front rows were
crouching behind blankets and jackets so they could
watch it. After 20 minutes just 6 piles of hot coals
remained.
I spend Monday thru Wednesday with many others cleaning
up the remains, we collected about 1.5 cubic metres of
nails and screws using magnetic brooms and rakes.
The burn area is covered with gravel before the burn to
prevent burn scars occurring and when clean up is
finished there should be little sign of the temple or
the huge inferno that occurred there.
I also helped to pack up our theme camp ‘Minitroplis’
before heading back to civilisation (Reno) on Wednesday,
I managed a couple of free night stay again at the Grand
Sierra Resort and to start with it was fine as the hotel
was full of Burners, but by the time I left on Friday
most had gone and it felt strange being ‘Civilised’. I
caught the bus back to San Francisco and then jumped on
my plane back home, I still wore my Burner hat and big
coat and they helped me stay in ‘Burner mode’ in my
soul.
For me this was not a life changing event as that had
happened at my first Kiwiburn, this was a reminder I was
on the right path
There were all kinds of music and art on display and I
only saw some of what was on display, So many theme
camps so can not visit them all, So much happening all
the time so can not hope to see but a fraction of it.
A bike is needed to get around as the site is so big, I
was thankful of the second hand one I brought in Reno,
flat tyres are a fact of life but there was a bike
repair camp just along from our camp and I used it
several times.
Playa post was cool, I got a postcard delivered to my
tent from a dear friend to tell me where she was camped.
September 13 2011
Our Moonfest started fairly well with a good sized group
of drummers showing up including some fresh faces, I
spun some fire and chatted and collected hugs from
people, then the rain came down, it got pretty wet but
the serious drummers kept going, even when the fire
spinners left, then it worked and we drummed all the
rain away, thanks to the people who came, extra thanks
to those who outlasted the rain, drumming or dancing
into the night. It shows again that it's hard to stop
crazy drummers.
August 1st 2011
I started suffering from the flu on Tuesday so I decided
to slow down (a little) and let my body catch up…. so I
had a couple of quietish days at home sorting out stuff
then it was Friday and I was off to Ohope for the Mind
Body Spirit Expo. Last years show there was cancelled
after the hall was damaged in the floods and we have
been looking forward to our chance to return. I decided
it would be best to avoid hugs and close contact with my
friends over the weekend due to my flu, this was painful
because I am so used to sharing hug energy with all
these lovely people. The Ohope community hall has no
vodafone coverage so my EFTPOS machine would only work
if you wandered around the carpark praying, this made it
much harder to provide our cash out facility to
customers. It also meant that I had no broadband
coverage on my computer. On Saturday night in
frustration I went to the supermarket and brought a king
size choc bar, but there was no real contest and it was
soon demolished, it never stood a chance against me.
Sunday was another beautiful but cool day and I was
again kept pretty busy talking to customers, packing up
at the end of the day took me the usual 2 hours but I
was not the last stall holder to leave (that’s the
advantages gained by 10 years of doing this, even if I
am the only big stall holder that does not bring extra
help). The drive home was pretty good and I didn’t need
to stop for a nap so I was home by midnight… then crawl
into bed for some much needed sleep… Monday was a busy
day collecting building materials for the Kereru lodge
steps up to the barn and collecting a couple of couches
from Josh that I am going to fix up and store until
Kiwiburn, they will make life at ‘Greeters’ much more
comfortable. I also got a comfy leather chair that I
plan to fix for our camp…. And yes the excitement of
Burningman is starting to build for me…. It’s only 1
week until I leave….
July
25 2011
At the moment the days are just rushing by… lots of good
shows where I am earning some money and I am often doing
some casual work during the week as well, I have now
paid for my tickets to travel to Burningman, now I just
have to earn some money to pay the bills that will keep
coming in even when I am away. I have also realised that this is probably the closest
thing to a ‘Holiday’ I have had for about 10 years, for
a whole month I will not be trying to earn a living…
that seems strange. But I will be working hard for most
of it. I have also thrown myself into a selection of other
things to get a full experience, as well as helping to
assemble this amazing temple I have volunteered to do a
shift as a Temple Guardian, a shift on the Regionals
desk talking with Burners and telling them about BM and
KB. If the temple is completed on time I have offered to
help setup the Regionals centre and packing down of our
Minitropolis camp as I plan to stay over for a couple of
days and avoid the crazy rush to escape Burningman. On the way south I made a stop at the Kiwiburn site to
remind me how big the beach area was and help me plan
some stuff for next year, I also spent several hours
cutting back the blackberry where it’s overgrowing our
beach area. The Palmerston North Rock and Mineral club have an expo
every two years and I really enjoy it, they are a lovely
friendly bunch of rock’a’holics and it’s a fun show. Many of our regular customers attended and I was more
surprised than usual with what sold, you just can’t
guess what customers want, I also got some nice pieces
from a couple of the other club stall holders to add to
my personal collection. Last time I left this show I got snowed in at Waiouru,
this time the weather report was so bad I quickly packed
and didn’t stop for dinner until I got to Turangi,
racing the cold snap the whole way back to Auckland,
just stopping for a nap when I felt tired. I stopped in Albany at 5am outside the place I a
working, time for a coup[le of hours nap then have a
shower, breakfast and do a days work in the warehouse. Last stop before home was to empty the PO Box and there
was my shiny new Machine Readable Passport, another
thing ticked off my list for Burningman !
July
18 2011 Friday
morning was a rush of unpacking the Moonfest stuff and
packing all the extra MEF stuff, then collect Daniel,
get caught up in a traffic queue after an accident on
the motorway, put the new MEF signs up at the turnoff,
get to camp (where many are now waiting), unload food,
drink, drums, stereo, toilet paper etc, now move the van
to the hall and unload the tables and stall stuff. Now I
can catch up with some more hugs, find some helpers to
chop coleslaw and slice up steak ready for dinner. We
decided to wait a bit longer for a few more
participants to arrive before we got into the opening
ritual, Tania and Gavin were the leads and despite my
warnings I was allocated the element 'Air' (several
years ago when given water I called down the rain). The
evening was fine but chilly and we decided to hold the
ritual around our beautiful big MEF tree, by the time I
welcomed 'Air' into our circle the wind was blowing very
chilly, lol. As always the ritual created some lovely
energy to share and when we finished we all participated
in random hugs all around the place. After dinner we
enjoyed some yummy mulled wine and did lots of
networking (that's chatting or gossiping), making new
friends and catching up with old friends. At midnight a
small group of us made our regular pilgrimage to the
cross roads to pay our respects to 'Hecate' (and as
always a single car came thru while we were gathered in
the centre of the road) the sky was clear and the moon
was full and looking beautiful. Breakfast starts from
7pm so Daniel, Taren and I were up and had coffee and
pancakes available as people emerged, a full day of
workshops, the pagan shopping centre and more networking
kept people busy, as always the Wand/Staff making
workshop proved very popular, taking over most of the
hall and running over time, Jordan, Kat and I were kept
busy guiding people into ways their creations could take
shape with copper, feathers, seashells, crystals,
leather and ribbon decorating many different types of
wood. The healing workshop involved many participants
and was very hands on, with several patients being
helped by various people. Saturday night is always a
Feast and Kay, Kerry and Kat ensured we all had too much
to eat even before the multiple deserts came out. (Thanks
to my wonderful kitchen team). The lovely weather
continued thru the chilly evening and many people chose
to spend their time indoors, some great fire spinning
was done on the grass with several new burners having a
go. More lovely mulled wine was created from peoples
donations to warm our insides. I am proud that MEF is a big happy family, we
welcome old and new faces with open minds but just ask that
you leave big egos behind. The evening's Full moon
ritual was run by the Cauldron of the Four Winds (we
like to share the workload) and was included some 'may
you never Hunger' as well as 'may you never thirst' and
everybody received one of Karen's lovely spell pouches. At midnight I returned to the
cross roads to share my food, drink and thoughts. and that
lovely moon continued to watch over us all. Sunday is a
short day, after a shower and breakfast we have to pack
our gear then everybody pitches in for the big clean up
operation, once finished we gathered back at our MEF
tree for our closing ritual that finishes with us all
spiraling into hug the tree and each other, once
completed we have yet another 'Hug Chain' and more hugs
and group hugs break out all around, many of us are not
ready to return to the 'default world' and want to
continue to soak up the MEF energy that abounds here.
I give thanks to all those who participated in the
festival as they always bring lots of loving and
creative energy to share, and they continue to welcome
new faces into our MEF family.
July
15 2011 Thursday it rained and rained and I
was seriously thinking about canceling "Moonfest" (our
Full Moon Fire, Dance and Drum Circle), I checked my
emails and several people were asking 'Is it still on ?'
then I decided NO.. LETS HAVE FAITH AND DO IT, so I
replied to all that 'All was Go' by 6.45 when I got
there the rain had stopped, the ground was very wet but
the sky was clearing, about 25 people also had faith,
Anne had the hot chocolate to share, our troop of Good
drummers held the beats together, our new drummers
applied their energy, Josh varied between the Didgeridoo
and Drum, a small number of us fire danced to the beats,
the moon and stars took turns to shower us with their
blessings and we all had a great night, so remember have
faith and trust in Pete's Weather... and enjoy.
July
10 2011 Things have been interesting, I am try to get money to
pay for my trip to Burningman in Nevada in August, the
universe has obliged with some part time work during the
week that has kept me pretty busy. On thursday night I
attended the regular meeting of the ‘Cauldron of the
Four Winds’, as always this was fun with new faces and
old friends coming together, as a new idea of mine Anita
and Gareth also video-conferenced in via Skype from
Rotorua adding to the energy of the night. This weekend was a show at Pakuranga with setup on
Friday afternoon, instead of finishing at 7pm the venue
closed at 5pm so I headed off to check out ‘The Melt’ at
the Blockhouse Bay boat club, organised by our friend
Fraser this is an evening about Improv dance with the
musicians as secondary figures creating the energy. The
evening started with each of the dozen or so of us
introducing ourselves to the group and expressing what
we were here for, My drummer friend Bruce from Prana
commented that he was happy to see me there (generating
some warm fuzzies) I said “Hi my name is Pete, I am
addicted to drumming” then we were into 15 minutes of us
all moving and dancing to recorded music, this put us
all in the context of dancers expressing the energy,
then some of us gently took over instruments and we
turned the recorded music off and started to organically
create energy for the remaining dancers to express with
their movements. It was an amazing night with up to half
a dozen musios playing drums, shakers, piano, flute and
guitar to create musical energy that varied in beat and
tempo, a couple of times Bruce really got things rocking
with Fraser backing him up and Dave, Col and myself
adding a little something. Some raging beats and some
quiet contemplation occurred, really inspiring. Before
we left we all came back into a circle and shared our
thoughts on the night, several of the dancers were
overjoyed that they had control of the energy that was
being created rather than it being a bunch of drummers
out to please themselves (as often happens).
The weekend show was enjoyable and many regular
customers came in for their hug and or crystal fix, I
overheard one regular commenting to her friend that
“Pete of Pebbles and Potions is well known and respected
for his crystals”, this created more warm fuzzies for
me.
Kerry, Kay and I had a Magick Earth meeting on Saturday
night and made sure we were all on track with the
happenings for this weekend’s MEF Hollyfrost.
Now it’s time to get the washing done and back to work
on Monday…. Oh and Thursday night is our Full moon fire
dance and drum circle, that I have now called
“Moonfest”…. So much fun to fit in…
July
4 2011
This was about my 6th trip to Te Kuiti over the years,
several have been mid winter ones like this one, during
the week I had made an unexpected stop at an op shop in
browns bay and invested $20 in a lovely big warm trench
coat, I arrived in town late on Friday afternoon and
called into the Warehouse where I also found Merino
thermals were 50% off, another hint that it could be
cold. Like the last few it was a Saturday morning setup,
perhaps I am getting older or it's getting colder but I
don't remember my hands getting so cold while unloading
the trailer, I will carry some gloves from now on. The
hall has a remodeled front entrance foyer and the lovely
big warm gas heaters have been replaced by electric ones
that hang from the roof and send very little warmth
down. I lived all weekend in my thermals, coat and
woolly socks, but I stayed warmish, many familiar faces
called in for their yearly crystal fix but numbers were
down and if they drop much more, much as I love the
people and the place it will be hard to justify the cost
of coming here.
June 27
2011
This started as a short status update, like me it
evolved…
My friend Gwydion Skinner mentions in his facebook
status that he is "Finally at the place now
where I can openly admit that I want acknowledgement for
things I do to contribute to 'the community' that
applies. The hunger is growing and now wanting to be
seen more than I have before." I do not agree
with this attitude, there was a time long ago when I
wanted the acknowledgement of others for what I
contributed to my work and my community, years of
frustration with little or no recognition for my hard
work organising events in various social and sports
clubs. Somewhere along the line that need for
acknowledgement quietly died and I didn’t really notice
it happening, but I still worked hard in the many and
diverse communities I belonged to, throwing myself into
making stuff happen because I wanted it to happen. While working for Nike I soaked up their ‘Just do it’
attitude. I learnt the joy of giving with no expectation of return
or thanks and I took up the ‘Pay It Forward’ plan before
I knew it had a name or had seen the lovely movie. I developed my own philosophy of earning ‘Karma Fly Buy
points’, and the universe started to redeem some of
those points for me, gifting me with interesting events
and amazing people coming into my life. In the middle of all this personal growth my wife
decided she wanted out of the marriage, out of working
hard to pay the big mortgage and out of her business
‘Pebbles & Potions’. This gave me the chance to make big changes in my life,
leave the 'Default World' get out of the computer
software business and take over her new age business, to
go in a new direction, to find my own spiritual path and
develop myself. Eventually after I got over the hurt I
thanked her for giving me the chance to change. At Kiwiburn I learnt about ‘Do-aucracy’ – If you see
something that needs to be done, don’t just talk about
it, or wait for somebody else to do it, make it happen
yourself. While living in Melbourne I caught up with a very old
friend who I had not seen since I was a kid, I helped
her to find herself again and rebuild a new life, and
she helped me to understand that “Every day is another
beautiful day in Paradise”, and how you handle it is up
to you. As ‘My Life’ evolved ‘My World’ got even better, I took
notice of the messages given to me by the universe and I
got the opportunity to participate even more, to became
a part of more amazing Families/communities, I now spend
more time than ever at wonderful festivals around the
country working and giving but also having a great time
in these lovely communities. I now find myself receiving acknowledgement in the form
of letters at Kiwiburn thanking the ‘Captain’ for making
the Pirate ship so much fun and giving them the chance
to really enjoy our great lake there. I must admit that
this is now my favourite job. I have emails thanking me for the energy and passion I
bring, other organisers who encourage me back because of
what I put out there for others. I have become friends with so many amazing people around
this country and the world. I have watched the members
of my growing list of ‘Families’ (Belly dancers,
Burners, Drummers, Fire performers, Jugglers, Medieval
re-enactors, MEF, Pagan and Prana) have a great time at
events I have been involved in. I have now come to treasure these acknowledgments all
the more because I did not need them for motivation and
their value has now become priceless.
June 20
2011
Life has been busy with some casual warehousing work all week
and then Saturday was another one day show, this time in
Onehunga, the show was pretty quiet but again some regular faces
came along with their friends and we did ok. At 4pm when the
show finished we got stuck into packing down with some help from
my adopted sister Kat, and I was away just after 5pm and before
the rain returned. The rain driving home was really bad and some
people were stopped on the motorway, by the time I got home it
had eased off so I could unhitch the trailer and then head off
to David & Karen's place out past Kaukopakopa. It was a Winter
Solstice gathering of the Cauldron of the Four Winds, many of
our Magick Earth family were in attendance along with some new
faces I had only chatted to online. Those attending brought
food, drinks and lovely energy and created a lovely weekend, I
missed the first half of the proceedings but I had a really
enjoyable time talking, drumming, etc until the early hours of
the morning. Sunday was more relaxing with most of us spending
time sitting or sleeping in Chris's big Quartz energy circle and
more networking etc, both breakfast and lunch were wonderful
with the community coming together to cook for each other and
help get the place cleaned up. Just like MEF hugs marked the
arrival and departure of everybody as well as every other excuse
we could think of. Again thanks to David and Karen who opened up
their place to all of us and to all of you who came along
creating this lovely community. I love you all.
June 16
2011
Last night marked the start of our 3rd year for the "Full Moon
Fire, Dance and Drum circle", to help celebrate Anne and I
organised some warm drinks to share, special thanks to all those
who came along and participated. The night was cloudy and not to
cold and I counted about 60 people enjoying the night. Again the
drummers created some really great energy and it is so much fun
to Fire dance to those beats while bathed in moonlight.
June 12th 2011
At this point in the year my show schedule looked pretty thin, 4
weekends with just 2 one day ‘Mind Body Spirit Fairs’ so I had
put out the message that I needed some help if I was to earn
enough money to both survive and save money towards heading to
the US to help build the Burningman Temple in August this year.
The help arrived in the form of a phone call on Wednesday, was I
interested in working in a warehouse picking orders ?, of course
I was, while a boring job it’s some extra work just when I
needed it, starting tomorrow. So 2 days of 8 hours picking orders and then the first one day
fair, up early and off to Kelston community centre, this was a
new venue for us, a nice little hall and after a very rushed
setup where I only put out half my stock I settled in for a good
day, while not rushed off my feet I was kept busy enough and a
good number of familiar Westie faces called in. One lady was
having a tough time and needed some help rebuilding her self
esteem, she didn’t need to buy anything because my gift of some
rose quartz and a hug was enough to remind her what a beautiful
person she was. The show finished at 4pm and we had to be packed
and out by 5pm, another reason for just having a small stall
today, having Leanne come in to help with packing enabled me to
be out on time. I then went around to her place for dinner and
to fix a door for her, when we all work together in this world,
things are so much better for all of us. Sunday was to be my day of rest, there was some lovely sun
shining in my place and I spent several hours dozing in the sun,
doing my best ‘cat’ imitation, then it was get some of the
‘default world stuff’ like washing and housework done, catching
up on my emails and paperwork… not the most exciting of days but
pretty satisfying.
Well Monday will soon be here and a week of picking orders, and
don’t forget Wednesday night is our next scheduled Full Moon
fire, dance and drum circle, as well as our Mid winter special
it is also our second birthday… would somebody like to bring a
cake to share, Anne and I will have some warm drinks to share.
June 8th 2011
The famous "Chewy and Bex" organised a Fundraiser for the
Burningman 2011 Temple, like me they are heading over to the USA
to be a part of the construction team for this amazing project.
They brought togeather Chewy's Drumming group and Bex's
Bellydance group and added a selection of their many personal
talents along with their Fire family and other performers to
provide lots of great entertainment for the night. They had a
heap of great raffle prizes donated by themselves and their
friends, many of them hand crafted. The Ultimate prize was the
'Mystery Box', won by Anne this was a full survival kit for
Kiwiburn/Burningman, with contents ranging from a sparkly hat
thru to a rain poncho, LED lights and cable ties, I know these
contents will be used next year at Kiwiburn. It was great to
catch up with many of my friends and the 4 hours just flew by.
The grand surprise was Chewy involving us all in one of his Drum
performances where we all have our hand drum and without saying
a word Chewy gets us clapping, drumming and waving our arms
about to his orchestrated beats, just watching the expressions
and energy that flow from him during the performance is worth
the money. They surprised themselves by the people that came and
the money they raised but knowing these two nothing was going to
surprise me, a big thank you to all those who attended and gave
their time and money to make this happen. They are soon heading
to Reno where they will be helping to build the panels that we
will be assembling to the Desert at Black Rock City, to see more
about the project go to
http://temple2011.org/
June 7th 2011
The last 2 Queens Birthday weekends I have been busy organising
the Magick Earth Hollyfrost festival, this year because I
organised the Magick Earth Easter festival we decided to move
Holly frost out to July 15-17th so I would have this
weekend free to head down to Gisborne for the Mind Body Spirit
Expo. It was great to be back, setup was on Friday night so we
could all have a small sleep in on Saturday morning before all
the lovely smiling familiar faces arrived, there were also
plenty of great new faces. Saturday night we had a bit of
excitement after the show finished when a couple of fire engines
arrived but thank goodness it turned out to be a false alarm.
Unfortunately our drum circle didn’t happen as everybody else
was busy with other stuff so I spent the night watching back to
back ‘Dr Who’ episodes. Sunday was another quiet start before a
busy afternoon, more of our regular faces came along to the show
as well as some out of towners who I had a great chat with.
Finally it was time to pack it all up and head back, I got to
just the other side of Opotiki before I stopped at a beach to
sleep, the big advantage to travelling with your bed in the van
is you don’t need to plan your travel, you can just drive until
you like the spot or feel you are getting tired and then take
your nap, in comfort. Monday was a slow start before joining the
flow of traffic north, back to the big smoke. Once home it’s a
matter of sorting and unloading some of the stuff from the van,
getting my clothes washed, and the van washed, then it’s dinner
time…. My next 2 weekends are local 1 day shows then a couple of
weekends off, then some more local shows… the excitement of
Burningman and the temple build is building while I am also
organising Kiwiburn and several other festivals… no rest for the
wicked….
May 31st 2011
Last night I parked on the sea shore and was lulled to sleep by
the sound of waves crashing on the beach, this morning the tide
was out and the waves had gone, I ate my breakfast sitting in
the sun at the start of a beautiful day. As I drove through the
gorge the road was well marked by natures scars, rocks spread
across the road on one side, and missing bits of road on the
other. At first the river is big and wide, full of water that is still
running off the countryside and joining into lovely waterfalls
before merging with the main bulk of the river, a river full of
white where the rocks refuse to budge and force the water to go
around or over them, the hills are steep and wild, covered with
bush and the occasional rock face, apart from this road there is
no sign of man here. As the road climbs the river diminishes, now down to a stream
but still above it’s normal levels, the road climbs further and
we slow down as the climb is hard work for my van and I have no
rush, the temperature has dropped and mist cloaks the hills, the
road winds and climbs still further on, splashes of sunlight
start to break thru with patches of lovely blue sky, the stream
dwindles to a trickle and then stops, or should I say ‘starts’
at a small spring surrounded by rock. As I approach the top the
sky is now full of blue and glorious sunshine is everywhere. As
I write this I am parked at the top, in full sunshine but up
there is little warmth, just a small promise of what may be. I
munch on a chocolate bickie and let the words flow, just the
occasional vehicle going by to remind me of civilisation. Not
the perfect life but pretty good. I later reach the civilisation called Gisborne, for $3.80 I swim
a few length of the pool, have a great soak in the hot spa and
have a hot shower, pretty good value I reckon.
May 29th 2011
We have some lovely friends in Rotorua and it seemed to be all
go this time, first up I called in to see my Raptor friends at
Wingspan, the weather was crappy but it cleared enough for the 2
falcons to have a great fly, and a good chat with me perched on
my hand. Then into town to sort out a panic call from our friend
Sharon who had mucked up her computer, followed by a lovely home
cooked dinner with her and Frans before heading over to Anita's
for a birthday party full of 80's music and some dancing with
many of our Magick Earth Family. Unfortunately I had to leave
before it got too late as I had an early start scheduled. Before
dawn I was unloading the trailer and setting up for the Mind
Body Spirit Expo at the sound shell, it was a very busy day with
lots of customers both regular and new and lots of people
wanting some cash out on my Eftpos machine. Finally 5pm arrived
and time to close the hall, cook up some dinner then off to
Anita's to catch up with the rest of the gang and head out to
the hot pools for some terrible singing and a lovely soak.
Eventually head back to sample the yummy mulled wine and watch a
movie, then time to fall asleep in the van. Sunday morning was a
chance to sleep in (until 8am), breakfast and a chat with our
fellow campers before it's time to go in the hall and tidy my
stall up for a new day. Sunday was a bit quieter and I got the
chance to chat to a few fellow stall holders before packup time
arrived, this takes me a couple of hours then it's load
everything back into the trailer and I am now officially
stuffed. Off to BK to grab some food and I find Dean & Cath in
the queue in front of me, we chat over dinner then go our
separate ways, I am stuffed and going for an early night. It's
not always this busy or this much fun but I love my life and my
many friends around the country.
May 22nd 2011
For many of us the big event of the weekend was the prophesied
"End of the World" that was scheduled to occur on Saturday at
6pm, perhaps that's why there was no scheduled Spiritual show,
instead I spent much of Saturday sorting crystals and making
some new display cases. The apocalypse did not happen and I
created a typical Facebook status that read "GOD incorporated would like to apologise for the non arrival of the May 21 apocalypse,
we ask that you have patience with us as this was caused by an
unforeseen error in the bible. We would like to assure the public
that the problem is being worked on and another attempt will be made late next year. For more details please refer to your Mayan calendar."
Sunday Anne and I headed down to Hamilton for a Medieval
Fair to catch up with some of my Medieval friends and I had a
great jam session with
some of the local drummers, I also collected a new nick name "Prana
Pete".
May 17th 2011
Like last month the weather leading up to the night was
horrible, storms everywhere, floods and high winds, again I
decided not to postpone but just go ahead with it anyway. So I
showed up with a van full of spare drums, fuel for the fire
performers, the fire safety equipment, a box of percussion toys,
my fire staffs, a gas cooker, a couple of kerosene powered storm
lanterns and some blankets. Anne brought the milk and hot
chocolate, about 40 of you came and brought your drums, fire
toys, a digi, a Pan flute and lots of beautiful energy and so
the gods rewarded us with a beautiful night, the sky was mostly
clear so we could see that big full moon. The drummers again put
up some great beats and towards the end many of us really got
dancing to the grooves. My thanks again to all those who
participated and also those who threw some money in the hat to
cover my costs (without the hat money I can't supply all that
stuff).
May 16th 2011
Whangarei is a town we have been going to for many years and
where we see so many familiar faces and friends it is like a
second home, this visit was no exception. Lots of familiar local
stall holders along with a few fresh faces. As always the
Whangarei healers did a great job helping people. Saturday
generally starts busy with people going to the farmers market
over the road and then coming over to see us, so many friends to
share a word or a hug with. Sunday was a quieter day and the
weather was a bit showery, but then it did stay fine long enough
for us to all pack up and load our vehicles. Thanks to you all
for a lovely weekend and I look forward to returning in
november.
May 9th 2011
I decided to spend time making some additions to the website so
I could explain more about my favourite
festivals, in the process I found a number of pagan
information pages that I had started ages ago and then forgot
about, they are intended for the newcomer and are based on some
leaflets from the Pagan Awareness Network in Australian, so I
pulled finger and got those pages finished as well, I then found
some pages that I had missed in my last big tidy up so they got
the font change etc.... to me part of the responsibility of
having a web site is keeping it up to date. Enjoy....
May 7th 2011
One day shows are hard work, up early drive to the venue, unload
before the sun comes up, then setup stall, trade all day
(hopefully busy) and then pack down and head home. Saturday was
one of those days... good numbers of customers so we were pretty
busy for much of the day, I was pretty tired by the time I got
home, thanks to all those who came along, as always new faces
mixed with familiar ones and some good hugs to be shared with
our spiritual family of stall holders.
May 2nd 2011
This was a busy weekend, it started on Friday night with the
Kiwiburn Decompression party / Temple fundraiser, it was great
to catch up and share some hugs with some of my Burner family.
The big news here is that I have been accepted as part of the
Burningman Temple construction crew this year, I am manifesting
that I will be there for 5 weeks from early August, now I just
need the universe to help with the money for the travel, I am so
looking forward to this unique opportunity to be involved in
building an amazing Temple and being at Burningman for the first
time.
Not enough hours of sleep later I was in Albany setting up for
the BIG “New Spirit Festival”. The show opened after lunch and I
had a very busy start with lots of lovely customers including
many regular faces. Later in the afternoon things quietened down
and at one point I got to spend time talking to a lady who was
looking for help with self confidence, to me I saw a lack of
self love and we discussed some possibilities to help remind her
of her own special worth, she found a couple of lovely heart
shaped word stones, I could see the indecision in her eyes so I
told her that I would give her one as “A Special Present to her”
and she decided to buy the other one, the hug she gave me told
me that I was right and that perhaps she had not been ‘given’
enough by herself or anybody else. I am seeing far too many
people undervalue themselves and forget to ‘Love themselves’.
At 6pm the show closed and I headed home for a very quick
dinner, get changed and off to Tanya’s to celebrate Samhain, I
was very glad I made the effort because the two dozen of us
there for the lovely ritual included several friends I have not
seen in ages as well as those from last weeks Magick Earth
Festival.
Still not enough hours of sleep later and I was back at the
show, Sunday is a long day with the show going from 8am to 7pm,
there are some great workshops happening so your customers tend
to come in waves between the workshops. Many from Saturday came
back including the lady I gave the word stone to, she was
looking more positive already. Because it’s quieter when the
workshops are on you get the chance to meet and chat with some
of the other stall holders and I now have some other products to
look into further. Finally the time to pack it all up and head
off arrived, we plan to return to the same stall next year.
Thanks to all those lovely customers who came and chatted and
purchased, we look forward to seeing you again.
April 26 2011
This was the first time the Magick Earth Easter Festival had come north
of Taupo and so it was going to be bigger than any we had done
up here. A small group of us arrived on Thursday afternoon so we
could get some extra MEF time in and get things organised, (we
will go for this early start again next year). I had decided to
ignore the weather report and bring the Tepee down, the first
job was to unload all the food, drinks, stall tables, stock etc
before we threw some meat on the BBQ and got some dinner
happening, the jelly for desert went down a treat with all size
kids, a typical MEF night then got underway and I brewed up a
pot of mulled wine to warm everybody up, interestingly the
Magick Earth newbie’s outnumbered the regular faces at this
point.
Friday dawned fine and we were busy with setting up stalls and
getting people settled in then a lovely opening ritual around
our lovely Magick Earth tree at the front of the camp, this finished with
our Patented ‘Hug Chain’, I was busy with workshops in the
afternoon, it was standing room only for my Crystal workshop.
Glitter and bubble attacks went on all weekend and involved kids
of all sizes. Dinner was right on time and then I brewed up
another pot of mulled wine. A typical Magick Earth night of
networking, drumming, fire spinning, chanting etc ensured before
I headed to bed in the early hours of the morning.
Saturday was another beautiful day, yummy pancakes for breakfast
then get organised, the stalls were busy with the Tat shop being
a popular place to hang out. The Morning Yoga was pretty popular
and the Chanting workshop included those chants that would be
used that evening, a highlight for me was helping Kay with her
‘Beginners Guide to ritual Workshop’ where we then encouraged
the group to take on the Saturday night ritual, most of them had
never organised a ritual before and they did a really great job,
my personal highlight being everybody in the circle saying 1
word about what the festival meant to them, I will use this idea
another time. The evening got off to a bang with an impromptu
Taiko concert with Rachel and her friend giving us a couple of
great songs on my big drum ‘Abby’. Dinner was a roast feast
followed by several yummy deserts, like many I ate too much but
there was still some food left at the end, my cooking team of
the three K’s (Kay, Kerry and Kat) do an awesome job of feeding
us on a limited budget. After the ritual more drumming, dancing,
chanting, my yummy mulled wine and networking etc followed. At
midnight many of us made the regular trip down to the cross
roads to pay our respects to Hecate. Unfortunately Lilly later
took a tumble down the stairs and we had to carry her to bed,
for many of us sleep was minimal that morning.
Sunday was a bit quieter, Lilly’s leg didn’t look too good so
her sister packed their stuff while Lilly played the part of
Cleopatra, things got more complicated when their car decided it
didn’t want to go home, eventually the AA man could only tow it
away. The workshops continued and as always things were busy at
the wand / staff making one where Jordan and Kat were kept busy
helping people create some lovely pieces (check out some in the
Magick Earth photo album). By mid afternoon it was decided
medical attention was required for Lilly so I borrowed Kerry’s
car and took Lilly, her sister and their gear to Thames hospital
(everything else closer was closed) and waited until her family
came down from Auckland to take over, (eventually it was decided
the ankle was broken and the collarbone cracked). I missed the
coming of age ritual for a couple of our young ladies but got
back just in time for another yummy dinner, supper was an
impromptu share your left over chocolate and marshmallows and
again it showed how much our MEF community believes in sharing.
The Pagan round table discussion gave those present a chance to
share what was happening in their neck of the woods and reminded
me just how much we have happening up here in Auckland these
days. The evening then moved to a Samhain ritual organised by
the Guardian Elm Circle of Auckland, with cakes from the
afternoon’s Pagan cooking workshop. More of the usual Magick
Earth evening antics followed including more of my mulled wine
and eventually I headed to bed. When I awoke a few hours later
it was 4am and only Kat and Anita were left sitting around the
Tepee fire. I joined them and Kat soon departed to bed, leaving
me to share the time with Anita, by 6am many of the camp were up
for our Anzac Dawn service, this was simple yet very moving,
then it was on to breakfast, start cleaning the camp and packing
everything up. The Closing ritual was held inside as even the
gods were sad the festival was over, another hug chain and then
it was back to cleaning and packing, some had to leave as they
had long journeys home but we had plenty of help to get
everything washed and done. I finally got away by lunch time but
the traffic was stop start all the way, taking twice the normal
time to get home. I am now buried in wet towels (we have to
supply all such things at the camp) and busy unpacking. I have
quickly unloaded all the photos I took to share. Note the
special limited edition magical Witch teddies and Magick Earth
Bears.
Thanks to my team of cooks and helpers who work hard to ensure
our stomachs are well filled.
Thanks to all those who came from all over the country
(including Taranaki, Wanganui and Wellington way) and shared
their love and beautiful energy. Thanks also to the Weather gods
for holding off the crap weather that had been forecast.
The camp managers think we are wonderful and we have been
allocated the camp for the next 2 Easters and of course we will
be back July 15-17 for our 4th annual Magick Earth Hollyfrost
festival.
Special thanks to Polli and Ed who started the Magick Earth
tradition and endured an 8 hour drive to get to the festival.
The Magick Earth family continues to grow and evolve, we all
come together to build a beautiful community and I am happy to
be the spark that keeps igniting the energy that you bring.
April 19 2011
The rain was pretty bad all day but I decided to 'keep the
faith' and not re schedule our Full Moon Fire, Dance and Drum
Circle... but first up I had a Jambalaya committee meeting and
debrief, we have found many things we can do better next year
and I am again keen to make this wonderful event happen. There
are also some great photos appearing on the
Facebook
Jambalaya page then it was off to Mt Eden where I noticed
the wind had come and blown the rain away and left the sky
lovely and clear, then the wind dropped right down, leaving us a
bit chilly but with an awesome Full Moon. Quite a few new faces
and we had some really good drummers come along and create some
really great energy and tight beats, not many fire spinners and
no belly dancers... but there is no such thing as 'the perfect
night'. Thanks to all those who came along and shared their
energy. Extra thanks to Sarah & Brad for the yummy hot chai they
organised, it did a great job of warming up our insides.
April 17 2011
Paeroa is a small town that is pretty dead on Sunday so we
decided for a Friday & Saturday fair this time, and it seemed to
work better. The members of the 'Inner family' were all present
so we also spent time discussing many of the finer points of
what was to happen next week at Magick Earth. On Saturday
night I had a drum circle scheduled but nobody showed up so I
headed back to Auckland to catch some of Clare's "Going away
party", she is off to the other side of the world but will
return in summer, I am known as the Kiwiburn Pirate Ship Captain
by many and I enjoyed the chance to have some fun, as a good
host Clare had also arranged space for guests to crash in
comfort on the floor.
April 11 2011
There was an unexpected phone call from a friend and next thing
I have filled in my weekend with a trip to Thames, Paeroa and
Waihi putting up signage for next weeks Paeroa show and then
carry on to Tauranga for their new monthly market at the
historic village. Despite the last minute nature of this plan a
couple of my regular customers still managed to find me sitting
at my stall under a beautiful autumn day. Then it was time to
pack up and head to Rotorua for their regular bi-monthly Sunday
market, it was years since I had been here but there were still
familiar faces to be seen in the stall holder community. This
time it was a couple of our Magick Earth family members who
found me and at one point I was under a bubble attack from 3 of
these ladies, a lovely way to spend a sunny autumn weekend while
still earning some money.
April 4 2011
This trip has taken me beyond Levin for the first time in a few
years and yet one of my first customers remembered me from the
last time I was down south at the Upper Hutt show, another happy
customer with a new purchase. After chatting to couple of lovely
witches it turned out that they are newbie's who have already
booked to come up to our next Magick Earth Festival, and so I
could explain more about it. The weekend was one of new faces
and it helped to recharge my heart to be helping these people
and encouraging them to find themselves in this changing world.
March 30 2011
I sat on a wall at Frank Kitts park as
the sun went down, the wind came up and the temp went down. I
watched the towns businessmen walk home, they may have a lovely
like but I am glad to no longer be a part of it..... the local
fire spinners soon came out and Pirate Captain Lumos is well
remembered by many of them, I had a great night.... thanks to
you all....
March 28 2011
I am sitting in my campervan beside the sea watching the waves
as I catch up on my website updates and emails, far more fun
than sitting at home working. We are starting to get organised
for our Easter Magick Earth Festival and registrations are
starting to come in, I am NOT the only one who is getting
excited about the thought of catching up with so many of our MEF
family and pagan friends. The big news of the week was that Kiwi
and the team who built Megatropolis at Burningman last year have
won the bid to build the Temple at this years Burningman (Aug
29-Sept 5). I have booked out the time in my diary and now I am
manifesting the money required to get over there and help this
international team that includes many of my Burner family in
helping to make this dream come to life.
March 27 2011
From New Plymouth I headed south to Wanganui to catch up with
dear friends who live near the beach at Castlecliff, I later
found out that my friends "The Barons of Tang" were also staying
at the same beach at the same time, it's a small world. Leaving
there I
headed on to Palmerston North and the Total Wellbeing Expo. I
parked outside the shops and on my return I had a lovely note
from some of my fire friends welcoming me into town, I am
blessed that my job brings me into contact with so many lovely
people. Friday night was
the Festival of Cultures parade and as part of it our friends
from the University Fire Club did a gig followed by our friends
"The Barons of Tang", while chatting with the band members before the show I
admitted to being a passionate fan of their music but that it was
just synchronicity that this was the 3rd gig of theirs I had
shown up at. The show was pretty good and many of our
regular customers came along to chat before purchasing an
item, and some lovely new customers also came for a chat while
pursuing the merchandise, in these tough times I noticed many
customers taking longer to make up their minds on the purchase
and many came by several times before making their decision.
Thank you to all those lovely customers for their smiles and
encouragement as it's that kind of energy that keeps me loving
my job.
March 22 2011
While at Womad
I was invited up to Dawns place for a ritual with Alyssa
and friends from Divine Organics, one of the benefits of
traveling the country is all the lovely people I get to meet.
About a dozen of us enjoyed a beautifully simple ritual with no
notes, just sharing from the heart our thoughts and blessings of
the harvest that was summer and Womad. I give thanks again for all the
beautiful friends I have.
March 21 2011
This was my first Womad (World of Music, Art & Dance in the
lovely city of New Plymouth), I had tried to get there in the past
but life got in the way each time, it was a full on 3 days of
music, almost too much as there was no time between bands to get
to the next stage without missing something. My new favorites
are HANGGAI, a Mongolian band who can really get you up and
stomping to their beats, they don't speak much English but music
transcends the barrier, a Mongolian beer drinking song is
recognisable without understanding the words. SIDESTEPPER are a
great Columbian band who have 3 singers up front who really work
to get you dancing to the beat. Calypso Rose is an amazing 71
year old lady who can really make the Calypso energy happen. My favorites from Jambalaya THE
BARONS OF TANG were there also and I was rocking up front for
both their gigs, Annie (the amazing percussionist) even recognised me during setup for their second gig.
The artists played hard for us and I was one of many dancing
hard to feed the energy back to them. I also saw and heard
some amazing throat singing, learnt more about Afro, Cuban, Columbian
and Jamaican music, as well as listening and dancing to it. The weather gods played their part and gave
us beautiful sunny days and clear nights so we could see the
lovely full moon in all her glory. I found many of my Prana and
Jambalaya family there and I plan to return next year for
another dose.
March 15 2011
More lovely people, both new faces and regulars came along to
our latest show in Pukekohe. It is always a great place and I
was mostly busy serving the smiling faces that showed up at my
stall. At the end of the show I packed up and headed down to New
Plymouth to spend several days helping to setup at Womad, this
volunteer work is not that hard and a great way to get a free
ticket if like me you have spare time but are short on money.
The people down here in Taranaki sre pretty friendly so far.
March 7 2011
Jambalaya, it’s
not a festival to just watch, like all my favourite festivals
it’s about participation, it was 2 days packed with interesting
workshops and some good gigs to watch…. As a committee member I
have attended meetings, talked to people, passed out flyers,
talked to more people and now Friday was time to help setup the
event, and my stall full of musical instruments, juggling and
fire toys. Once it got dark I gave up and headed indoors where
the post parade party was still going strong, lots of musical
bands and lovely dancers. It was here my new love for Samba
bands began. Saturday lived
up to the weather forecast… rain, lots of it, so I gave up and
put my stock away to prevent rain damage and joined in the
festival workshops, the mellow Gamelan percussion was a stark
contrast to the wild and crazy Samba drumming with Mestre Fred,
our Taiko Drumming friends Tamashi also did a lovely gig, the
weekend also included many informal drum and dance sessions that
just happened (as they do when you get a bunch of musio’s
together). Arte Kanela’s Flamenco dance show was so full of
passion it got to me, and I don’t normally like that type of
dance. I danced in the rain with many other dedicated
participants and my new favourite band is “Barons of Tang” who
take Gypsy music and put a whole new updated twist on it (any
group who have sax, bass sax, double bass, clarinet, trombone
and a large array of interesting percussion and hand drums will
get my attention). Sunday started
crappy again so I left the stall closed and helped get the site
clean and tidy for the new day, then it was more workshops, more
informal drumming and dancing, more interesting gigs to watch.
Then repeat (a bit like our mate Sam Rogers and his circular
song workshop). I played with some interesting instruments with
Fraser Bruce and I will be op shopping for more interesting
percussion instruments from the kitchen. I was blown away by the
dancers at the Jambalaya Dance show, many of these performers
were amazing little kids. I also caught
up with many of my fire spinning/Kiwiburn/prana/drum/stall
holder friends.
Somebody else
commented to me and I agree that here everybody was equal, the
artists were approachable people you could chat to, there were
no prima Dona’s.
The creator of
Jambalaya, Heidi Hughes shares my passion for events where
people participate instead of just watching, and I thank her and
the team of hard working people who are helping her to make it a
reality.
I will however
hold Heidi to blame for infecting me with Jambalaya disease and
I never want to be cured.
Feb 20 2011
Alexandra Park was the latest "Total Wellbeing Expo", Saturday
morning was a frantic rush to get all the stuff up the lift and
setup for the 11am start when the customers started arriving.
There were reasonable numbers thru the event and some of our
local Pagan friends made the most of the chance to come along
and buy some lovely product from me. Being one of the bigger
shows is also meant that I got to catch up with some of the
other stallholders who we had not seen since October last year.
That night I was told by my 'Adopted sisters' that we were all
off to the local Chinese restaurant for a team dinner, the
dinner was lovely and pretty cheap. Sunday saw many more of our
regular customers and some new friends calling into the stall to
get their crystals, books and giftware, before packing it all
away and heading for home, tired but happy.
Feb 18 2011
Another Full Moon Fire and Drums event has come and gone…. I
thank all of you who came along an. If you want to learn about fire spinning you can
chat to most of the fire performers, they are a pretty friendly
bunch and usually happy to loan you a toy and teach you some
moves. Because it’s my passion, and to help performers we also
sell drums, fire (and LED) poi and staff’s and bulk Kero (for a
better price than the local shop), just have a word with me or
drop me a message or a text (ph 0210572722). A special thank you to all those who put donations in my hat
when I came around, without them I would not be able to cover
the cost of the Kero we use, any left over allows me to get
some more percussion toys and drums for everybody to play with. I will not be there for the March Full moon event as I am
finally getting to Womad (working as a volunteer in the build
week to earn my free ticket), I know that you will all have lots
of fun until I see you all next !! Keep that drum beat happening and that fire spinning in your
heart !
Feb 7 2011
Saturday was a pleasant day but not as busy as I would have
liked, some of our friends called in to buy some things and
share some hugs. I had advertised a Drum Circle on Saturday
night and a couple of us were sitting in the car park getting
ready when 2 car loads of people pulled up, it was our friends
Chewy, Bex, Nathan, Dean and some others who were down here to
do some recording and had seen the signs and not knowing it was
me organising it had decided to come along.... it seems that
when I need support for my drum circles the universe is happy to
provide it. Sunday was a happy but not busy day, the other stall
holders are happy to return to Raglan so I have booked it just
before Christmas when we can again enjoy the town in summer.
Feb 6 2011
Well the day started well with a good interview on the local
community radio station, then just before I left it went
downhill with a call to let me know the council had double
booked the Raglan town hall on us, a couple of phone calls later
and the council guy had found us an alternative venue just up
the road at the Old Arts Centre, now to add some signs to ensure
people can find us at the new location.
Jan 31 2011
Well I have spent the past week on site at Kiwiburn, helping with setup, finishing construction of the Pirate ship,
Helping setup the Greeters area, building shade space down at the beach and setting up my own 'Pagan Camp'...
it was all a heap of work but for a 6 day festival so may as well be comfortable.
I have also taken heaps of Photos that will get loaded up here later in the week when I return...
I am currently staying on for a couple of days to help with pack down and to give more of the workers here a chance to cruze the lake on the pirate ship.
We have 'paddock post' here that delivers letters to people all around the camp, I have a collection of letters thanking me for the Pirate ship and the Kayaks I brought along, it's these letters, all the smiling faces and personal thank you's that make the time and money I put into the festival worth while.
The secret now is to take some of that Kiwiburn Energy and hold it in my Heart until the next Burner Event, we are already talking of a small Auckland based burner weekend late in the year,
possibly Guyfawkes.
Where else could somebody lose a bag with valuables in it on a wet night and when they went to lost and found it was there, the finder had dried the bag and all it's contents, somebody else turned in a lost $5 note...
Saturday night was my birthday as well as the Big Burn of 'The Man' and 'Cows with Guns', it was the best possible way to celebrate my birthday
I send my thanks and love to all those who participated in making Kiwiburn such a special place.
Jan 23 2011
The Weather at the Taupo Joust went from damp on Friday to a
downpour on Saturday night and then cancelled on Sunday. Despite
the Weather the Re-enacting community pulled together and
made the best of a damp situation. Friday was the practice day
and a good number of public came along to watch it, we were very
happy with the customers in the park during the day, after a hot
dip in the creek we had fun fire spinning and enjoyed watching
some medieval dancing. Saturday was windy and finished up with
showers but again the public came along and supported the event
and the traders, when the rain set in we joined others in the
shelter in the big marquee and enjoyed a great jam session with
some musicians. Between the various festivals (Prana, Taupo
Jousting Tournament, Magick Earth, Kiwiburn and NZ Juggling
festival, to name a few) there is a great variance in the
subject matter of the festival but the sense of community that
comes together and the beautiful energy they create is the same. I
give thanks to all my lovely friends who create and inhabit
these lovely communities.
Jan 20 2011
Well the weather gods smiled on us again and the people came,
another mixture of familiar and fresh faces for our January Full
Moon Fire, Dance and Drum night. Although we started with only
newbie drummers our circle had a good sized group of experienced
drummers pounding out some strong beats later in the night. As
always a well behaved group of people, including two people
celebrating their birthdays just came to enjoy the show and
chill out. One group of friends went off to the side to perform
a full moon ritual before returning to our party, I like that
some people do their own thing while partaking of the whole
evening. Thanks again to all of you who joined our community of
music, fire and dancing.
Jan 17 2011
Having a weekend without a work show meant that I could head
down to the Kiwiburn site and spend several days building the
New and Improved Pirate Ship. A team of half a dozen other keen
Kiwiburners were also getting stuck into their Art Projects
early. The weather was lovely and so each afternoon when it
became too hot to work I headed down to the lake to cool off,
now I just have to get the Greeters area organised and My Pagan
theme camp where some of my friends will be staying.... lots of
hard work but lots to fun too.
Jan 11 2011
The Orewa show was hot and fairly quiet, despite this we drummed
up some great energy on Saturday night down by the beach, I was
joined by my old Orewa regulars of Bo, Menno and John and we
soon had a great crowd of strangers joining in the drumming and
dancing. Two car loads of our MEF family (Janet, Kerry, Kay,
Judith, Tracey and Anita) also came down to join in the fun and
we had a great couple of hours, one lady over on holiday from
New Mexico wants to get some percussion toys and do a similar
thing when she gets home, I told her to go for it, the more
people who get into the healing power of the drum circle the
better this universe will be.
Jan 7 2011
This months Talking stick moot was a smaller group as many of
you were on holiday so it was decided that we would bring some
inspirational writing and share it with each other. In a small
group this worked out really well, we had some really beautiful
and inspiring works and we got to listen to and discuss pieces
and subjects that we would not normally read, it was a definite
success.
Jan 4 2011
Prana is a special place, nature has provided a beautiful venue,
and the people who make up our Prana family are also beautiful,
they come from all over the country for this special new year
festival. It is a chance to share hugs, knowledge, ideas, songs
and dance with like minded people. As always I held a beginners
Drum Circle workshop most afternoons and most nights I spent
time encouraging people to drum and dance to the wild tribal
beats that were being created in the Big Teepee, not finishing
until the early hours of the morning. We finished our year with
several hours of drumming and dancing then after a short break
we drummed and danced in the new year for another couple of
hours. Hard work but so much fun !!, my hands will take several
weeks to recover. On the way home I was passed by a car full of
my customers smiling and waving, to me that sharing of "Good
Energy" is a key part of what Prana is, attending festivals
like this is my life and my business, I feel that I have the
best job in the world !!.
Dec 22 2010
Our Full moon Fire, Dance and Drum night last night was bigger
than ever... yesterdays heavy rain went
away and the weather cleared for us (this tells me the gods &
goddeses and still happy with our efforts) ... the clouds
cleared for a bit so we could see the lunar eclipse, and it
looked lovely... about 30 of us had a lovely mid summer ritual
(thanks Spiral & Orion)... all our friends came out to play and
many new faces came and had enjoyed the night... our new
percussion toys went down well... we drummed, spun some fire,
danced and chatted... what more can one want
Dec 18
2010
Kiwiburn is keeping me really busy, I have purchased almost
everything required for the Pirate Ship, I have purchased or
made most of the stuff for the Greeters station (as I am also
organising that) and our Pagan Camp is starting to come
togeather, I have one big list with everything on it, much of it
is ticked, of course the biggest job 'The Pirate Ship Build' has
still not been started, that is scheduled for next week. Our
Pagan Camp at Kiwiburn will provide a Pagan friendly drop in
zone, we are not out to convert anybody, but we will answer
questions and run some workshops, it will also provide a Kitchen
resource centre for any of our friends who are lacking in some
of the camp kitchen requirements, we plan to offer team meals
for those who wish to join.
Dec 13
2010
Yesterday I attended my first Meeting with the "Guardian Elm
Circle" in Albert park, these are a lovely bunch of young (and not so young)
pagans who have formed in Auckland. (You can find them on Facebook and on the web). They had a Wicca lesson that was well
put together and nicely presented and I am happy to recommend
them to others, especially the younger kids. This was
followed by my first Inquisitive Witches Meetup, this group is
madeup of many of the same people and again there was a lovely
energy and some good stuff was discussed by the group. They will
be meeting on the second Sunday of the month from now on. Now
that Raven has been removed from this group there is a much
nicer and friendly energy happening.
Dec 12
2010 After discussions with a number of people I am looking to do
another Mid Winter Magick Earth Festival (MEF) at Waitawheta and
a Beltane one at a new venue near Glorit (just north of
Auckland) in 2011. Easter 2012 will be another Easter one at
Waitawheta. We will also do one in Northland if we can find a
suitable venue.
Dec 11
2010
Again Helensville provided us a good mixture of regular
customers and fresh new faces, the town now boasts it's own
lovely little healing and crystal shop called "The Healing Heart
of Helensville" and it is run by some familiar faces from the
area. Friday night we had a great little drum circle that
created some fun beats and introduced some more people to the
benefits of drumming. It's great to see how much a newbie can
get from our simple drum circle workshop and how quickly they
can get up into the rhythm. Laughter is always a part of my
circles with newbies.
Dec 7th
2010
Time is rolling on and Kiwiburn is now "Next Month", I have
officially registered "Pagan Camp", this will be a Pagany place
to hang out and meet with like minded folks, we have been donated several comfy couches
and have been allocated a position with a big old tree for Tree
Hugging etc. We also plan to run workshops on a variety of
subjects. I think the maypole will also be erected and dancing
around it encouraged. For my friends who don't have all their cooking
equipment it will also be a kitchen resource centre, please let
me know if you wish to join in. The Pirate Ship design has
been completed and I have been busy buying life jackets, timber,
nails and etc, construction will start soon, I hope to have her
finished before Christmas as my January has now got really busy.
Dec 6th
2010
Holding this show in Paeroa would give 'The Family' a last
chance excuse to get together for the year, Saturday night was
also used as a celebration for Edwards birthday, this meant we
all sat around, chatted, drank and ate too much, pretty normal
really. On Sunday a couple of car loads of of our MEF family
came in and spent the day with us, we even arranged a couple of
off the cuff workshops for them. I am really lucky to have such
an awesome pagan / spiritual family and I love them all. Of
course our MEF family is also pretty amazing and has such a
loving energy in the group.
Nov 29
2010
Tirau is a town where many people stop and stretch their legs or
get a coffee on their way elsewhere, that's why we have had our
fair in the middle of town for 3 years now. Again the days got
off to a good start with a mixture of locals and passes by, as
usual a number of our regular customers either tracked us down
or just happened to be driving past and stopped. On Saturday
night our drum circle took our chairs out onto the footpath and
we got plenty of encouragement from cars and trucks passing by.
Afterwards we adjourned to the pub next door for a chat and a
couple of beverages. While talking about Kiwiburn it came out
that Warren who has been very helpful with the hall booking etc
is the big brother of my mate Mango Rich and has many family in
Mangakino and knows all the fire brigade members who help our
Kiwiburn very well, NZ is truly a county with only 2 degrees of
separation.... again the stall holders told me they want to
return to Tirau so we have booked March 12-13
Nov 24
2010
We have a facebook page "Fire and Drum nights" and it will have
details about other Fire and Drum events we facilitate during
the year around the country.
Nov 23
2010
I arrived early and enjoyed my pizza and before long unfamiliar
faces started arriving, many of them set out their blankets
around the edge. I soon had a small group of 8 newbie drummers
enjoying the drum beats they were creating. As the night wore on
many familiar faces came and joined in the festivities, some I
had not seen in ages. At least 1 group used a corner of the park
for a small ritual and another friend was celebrating his
birthday. Some of our experienced drum friends helped create
some strong beats and our fire friends, including some out of
towners, put on a great show, before I knew it the security
guard was there to remind us it was 11pm and to move our cars so
he could lock the car park. Thanks to everybody who joined in
and helped to make it a great night and extra thanks to the
majority of you took who cleaned up their own rubbish. Roll on
December...
Nov 21
2010
Western springs saw a good number of our Auckland pagan friends
come out of the woodwork and attend the show, it was good to
have a quick chat to them in between our many other customers. I
passed on the sad news about the demise of Natures Magick and
the NZ Pagan festival, but these sort of things have happened
before and change is a part of life. I now have 3 small shows I
am organising in Tirau, Paeroa and Helensville over the next 3
weekends so I am flat out putting out signage, organising
advertising etc etc.. oh and tomorrow night is our next Full
Moon Fire and Drum night and it seems that more and more people
are hearing about it... good stuff.
Nov 14
2010
Pebbles & Potions has been going for over 11 years now and in
Whangarei this weekend among our many customers was a mum with
her teen age daughter and they admitted they have been buying
our crystals since she was very young, they both left happy with
more interesting crystals for their collection. Another had been
broke when he first saw us last time but had saved his money
since then and purchased several good books to help him with his
studies, It reminded me of the volume and loyalty of these
regular customers and it made my good day even better. On
Saturday night I did some drumming in the park and taught a
couple more
drummers who enjoyed their night and who would like to do more
drum circle stuff. I also chatted to a couple of
local pagans about organising some Magick Earth type events up in
Northland and we hope that we can make something happen next
year.
Nov 9
2010
I would like to thank all those
who came to our Kiwiburn newbie BBQ, it was lots of
fun, 30+ peeps and I talked to a dozen newbies, they all seemed
to have a good handle on the basics but they still had lots of
good questions. Special thanks to our Fire Friends Kelly & Heidi
who entered the 'Bake off' competition with home made fudge,
fruit cake and Banana cake for all to share and judge (I thought
it was to close to call a winner). In true Burner style lots of
sharing of food and drinks ensured. We finished the night with
some fire spinning with our Fire Friends. Thanks also to the
Weather Gods who gave us a clear and fine afternoon & evening
and my Parking Goddess who arranged for me to park the van with
all the gear right next to the park when others were driving
around in circles looking for one.
Nov 3
2010
The Hamilton gardens are always beautiful and shows there are
always lovely, setup on Friday gives us the chance to catch up
with many fellow stall holders we have not seen for a while as
well as a chance to wander the many different gardens. As usual
Saturday morning starts with me leading a simple opening
ceremony in a lovely spot on the grass beside the lake before we
grab some hugs and then head off in for a busy day. Saturday
night we headed back to the lake for some drumming. Sunday was
another beautiful day in paradise and we enjoyed chatting with
our customers.
Oct 26
2010
It was great to be back in Taupo, it was a new venue for us in a
lovely school hall, several familiar faces came in along with
many new faces. Many of our friends were also down at the park
with the Tinkers and Traders fair, we joined them for a small
drum circle on Sunday and Monday nights along with some fire
spinning. On Saturday night I went for a walk down to the hot
stream for a soak and came across still more of my friends, the
weather was beautiful and what a great weekend all round. I hear
that despite the absence of many regulars the full moon drumming
at Tahaki reserve went well and much fun and laughter was had by
all.
Oct 20
2010
The Tauranga Gem and Mineral club is the best and friendliest in
the country and we always love catching up with our friends
there. Lots of people came thru each day to see a very large
array of rocks and minerals. It was also good to see a several
spiritual and new age stalls including a clairvoyant and massage
therapist down our end of the hall.
Oct 11
2010
Another weekend, another show, but also another bunch of lovely
customers coming to see us and then finally leaving after having
found something special. I really enjoy these chances to chat
with our customers. On the way back, I stopped at Mission
Bay to attend the regular Sunday Fire Night, this was also an
International Memorial Spin for 'Burning Dan' event. We had a
great night of fire and LED spinning. I saw a really neat Kite
out flying in the night with lots of LED lights on it.... maybe
after I build some of my other projects I will build one of
those.
Oct 7
2010
More work on
the web site, adding lots of pictures and new pages. Last nights
Talking stick moot talk "A short history of Medieval Witchcraft'
was both well attended and very interesting. Riell Greyeyes
originally hails from Hungary. She moved to the UK in 1990s
where she studied Philosophy and Theology. She is a practitioner
of many years and a medieval scholar. She is also both an
interesting and passionate speaker, I now have a better
understanding of how many ideas and events connected together to
bring us to where we are now. I have decided to try this lighter
Olive colour instead of the harsh black, we will see what I
think of it after a couple of weeks.
Oct 6
2010
Pakuranga,
and this time we shared the centre of the main room with our
friends from Beachaven Books. Our big Salt lamp display gave off
a lovely warm glow and attracted lots of interest and sales,
also our latest shipment from the US also included some new cast
iron Cauldrons and jewellery that I am still sorting thru. We
also now have good stocks of White sage smudge sticks and
Frankincense Resin. New stocks of smaller Singing bowls and a
full size range of Tingshas from Tibet arrived yesterday.
Oct 2
2010
With new
stock of
Crystals and
Bumper
Stickers I decided it was time to add some new pages
to the web site listing so you can see how big a range we now
have.
Sept 26
2010
Saturday
morning was our first time to setout our new Amethyst Crystal
circle, 20kg's can go along way in a circle. Some fresh new
faces come into the show and I was able to clarify some thoughts
they had on witchcraft and drumming. That night we had a nice
little group of mostly novice drummers but everybody passed
"Drum 101 basics" and we had some great drumming. Sunday was
quieter but also a good chance for me to get a Reflexology
treatment on my feet, I was also surprised to see and old friend
pop in because she was looking into getting into crystals, this
small world does not surprise me anymore.
We now have a
Yahoo group
Drum Circle Auckland
to help
spread the Drum beat. Initially it is Auckland based but as I
travel the country we would like to see it grow. This is our new
channel to get the drum beats out there and we will notify group
members of what is happening.
Sept 24
2010
Well despite
the weeks of rain before hand the night was clear and a lovely
blue (except for a couple of drizzly patches) and the wind
dropped to make it safe for fire spinning. We started the night
with half a dozen newbie drummers who passed their drum 101
workshop and seemed to enjoy themselves, several more of our
experienced drummer friends showed up to give us all a night of
good beats to dance and spin to. Our candle circle was a victim
of the breeze (they kept blowing out) but the stage floor was
pretty fun of people sitting around and enjoying themselves. The
ground was mushy but it takes more than that to stop our serious
Fire Performers, It was also a night to break in at least 1 new
fire performer and some new fire toys, thank you to all those
who came and made such a great night of it all.
Sept 22
2010
Last
night was an emergency Magick Earth Committee meeting, first up
the Mangaweka festival is lacking numbers and may have to be
cancelled. We hope the get the numbers they require to hold the
event. Secondly Polly announced that she has had enough and is pulling the plug on
Magick Earth after our Easter 2011 event in Waitawheta.
But have no fear, she has given us permission to carry on with our awesome MEF
events up here exactly the same, but without the Magick Earth
name and logo. So it will be business as usual up here for our
MEF family, for many of us MEF is what helps us to live in this
default world.
I have booked our lovely Waitawheta site
for Easter 2011, 2012 and 2013, as well as looking at another
date a bit later in the year, perhaps Hecate's festival will return or
maybe Beltane, instead of the Mid winter festival.
Sept 17
2010
I have
decided to get involved with the organisers of Jambalaya, a
music and
dance festival that is jam-packed with international and
national acts, top international dancers, workshops, theatre
shows, music & circus performers, market stalls, kids program
and
street performance. I will be creating a healing zone there so
if you want to be a part of it please contact me, Note: the
festival has great camping facilities for you to take advantage
of.
Sept 14
2010
Well I guess
I can now add the term "As seen of TV" to both myself and my big
drum "Abby". The TV documentary "How the Other Half lives" took
a look into the NZ Pagan scene, and I was one of those happy to
stand up and show people in the Default World some of what we
get up to. The filming was heaps of fun and most importantly
Mark Ellis and the crew were respectful at the right times,
while joining in the lovely atmosphere created on the night.
Thanks to Tracey and the others who also took part... now I will
just wait for my agent in Hollywood to call... lol...
Sept 13
2010
It was a damp
weekend all around NZ but we had plenty of smiling faces in the
Palmerston North convention centre for the "Total Wellbeing
Expo". Like all the towns we visit many of our regulars came
along including those who lived an hour or two further south.
Actually thinking on it, we enjoy all the towns we visit and the
stall holders combine to create a nice warm and friendly
atmosphere that I feel is important in any kind of spiritual
show.
Sept 6
2010
The NZ National
Rock & Mineral show was put on by my club, "North Shore" in
Henderson so I had to have a stall there, we spent all day Thursday setting it up, then
we had 3 days of the biggest
Rock show in Auckland for many years, many of our fellow Rock
nuts also had a stall there, hence I spent lots of time and
money at their stalls. Some personal pieces for me, some new
stock and my Crystal circle's now have an additional 3 kgs of Quartz
points and 20 kgs of Amethyst points
(enough for a full Amethyst circle). As always there were lovely customers to
chat with, I had
a nice chat to a mum & her daughter about quartz and
crystal circles, she told me she had read something about them
on the web.... oh.... it turns out it was here on my web site, chalk up somebody else who has
enjoyed reading my
web site... yeah.
Aug 25
2010
Comming up on
TV1.... Monday Sept 13 at 8pm is the screening of the
Documentary "How the Other Half lives" featuring pagans and
Witches from around the country. We all came together to
celebrate and cast some light on Our Path and what it means to
us. I wanted it to go well and the best way to help achieve that
is to get involved. Many of us were old friends but as usual we
also got to meet some new ones. We had a great time and as
always I learnt something new, I think it helped that although
it is 'Our way of life' we don't take ourselves 'Too seriously'. The
team filming it were respectful and good sensible questions were
asked, hopefully the editing will produce a result we can be
proud of.
Aug 24 2010
The Gods
provided us with a lovely night.... clear skies... a nice moon
with a huge ring around it... The people of Auckland provided us
with lots of lovely drummers.... fire performers and belly
dancers.... thank you to all that came along and shared their
energy in our special community... I got to have my first play
with my new Camera (last one got stolen) and managed to get some
video of Sharleen & Patrick spinning as well as some photo's of
the drummers. Once I get used to how it works I will be able to
post up more photo's and video. On a side note It was Olivers
Birthday so Delphine baked a cake for us to share... yummy...
Aug 22 2010
It has been
many years since we have been to Browns Bay and it's very close
to home so we welcomed the chance to talk to the locals and
tempt them with our array of beautiful products. Despite initial
light rain the day cleared and a good number of people found us
in the hall and they seemed to enjoy the workshops and
interesting array of stall holders on show. Yes I would be happy
to return next year.
Aug 13 2010
I have been
spring cleaning around the place and so it seemed only logical
to do some spring cleaning on the website. After searching
around I found a new font that is easier to read and more
'modern' looking so I have
converted the pages over to it, I hope you all like it.
Aug 10 2010
This trip to Rotorua was as much fun as our one earlier this
year, plenty of familiar faces coming in to check out the show
and as always some great workshops to interest the customers in
between getting their reading or healing and lovely product
stands to browse. One of our friends who makes lovely staffs and
wands came in with some awesome staffs for me and 2 of my pagan
sisters and left with a bag full of crystals to make some more
unique pieces. If a beautiful staff or wand is on your wish list come and
have a chat with us. We are also going to run some workshops
where you will be able to make your own American Indian drum.
Aug 2 2010
This was our fifth visit (I think) to Te Kuiti and like
everywhere else we have built up a collection of regular faces
who we love to see and chat with. Saturday was a fine but very
cold morning, during setup my windscreen iced back up, Sunday
was a bit wetter but good numbers of locals ignored the weather
and came along to the show. There were fewer than normal stalls
with many stall holders pulling out in the lead up and even on
Saturday morning, this made it even better for those of us who
did make the effort and we look forward to our return next year.
July 27 2010
At 6pm I got a call from Chewy "I guess it's cancelled with this
rain", to which I replied "I am leaving soon and we will be on anyway"...
guess what... the weather cleared up for us to have a lovely night and to see
the Moon in all her beauty... guess this is another reminder
that we are on the right track.... thanks Chewy & Bex for bringing us
some real African drummers, they helped our beginner drummers make some
great beats. The regular Auckland fire crew didn't show but we
had some good fire and LED spinning anyway, several times the
photographers did out number the fire spinners.
July 25 2010
Orewa is our local show, the space in the theatre is tight and
this time we had a new spot where our stall was long and skinny. The weather was cool but fine and
we saw many of our local customers as well as a number of our
pagan family over the 2 days. We will be returning in January
for our regular summer Orewa show.
July 19 2010
Another Magick Earth event has come and gone... some of the
facebook messages:
Had The Most AWESOME weekend ever! Met many
wonderful people, hugged them all, gave 12 massages, saw and
experienced and talked about things that will stay in my mind
for many years, sang, danced, did laughter yoga, Medieval
combat, drumming, made many awesome friends and cant wait to do
it again soon! Love and hugs to all
Hi, my name is xxxxxxxxx. I'm a MEF addict.
What an amazing weekend, spent in the hinterland
of Kaimai Ranges. New friends, some lights turned on, community
living, making music, dance and entertainment, nature, rain and
sunshine, rituals and chanting. Fantastic. Blessings to all the
new friends I have made and blessings to all the older friends
reacquainted xxx
You have
done your job well. I am now a MEF addict to.
Still bouncing.
had a good time at mef i hope everyone had a good time and i
wanna say thank you to everyone there for everything i love you
all
WOW What an awesome weekend MEF rocks!!!!! Made
some cool new friends and caught up with ones I have not seen
for a while.
Back from Magick earth, awesome weekend,
reconnected with friends, made new ones. Always love being
there. Its a pity we cant have one every weekend
omg mef rocked thanks to everyone there and for all the things
that we learnt cant believe its been a year and a bit since i
went to the last moot but it shows that pagans are family no
mater what and you cant go there with expectations or views of
what things should be
yup i was wary last year because i wasn’t use to
being surrounded by other pagans i had online pagan friends but
you guys helped me realise that i was a part of a warm loving
environment
MEFs rule hun always have and they seem to get
better every time
July 5 2010
The Quest of Paeroa's new shop was the venue for our small fair
with most of 'The Family' attending, the high ceiling and ample
natural light provide a lovely energy in this new venue for us,
situated in the middle of town we get a lot more passing traffic
coming in.
Continued problems with our adverts in the local papers didn't
help attendance but we still feel encouraged to return in
summer, probably early December.
June 27 2010
This was the First Birthday of our Full Moon Fire, Dance and
Drums events. The weather gods gave us a lovely night with a big
moon to perform under, a collection of old and new faces came
and helped us to rock up some lovely drum energy for the dancers
and fire performers to move to. Many thanks to all those
who came and help make it so much fun, and we finished it all
with a partial Lunar Eclipse.... how cool was that...
June 21 2010
For those who know about the Burningman festival, I have been
appointed one of the new Regional representatives here in NZ for
the festival by the organisers back in the US. This means I will
continue to promote the festival but now with official
bl;essings and help. I am also a member of the organising
committee for the NZ regional festival 'Kiwiburn' and we have an
even bigger and better event planned for late Jan 2011...
see
www.kiwiburn.com ... lets start getting excited.
The weather was not the best and a few people stayed away from
the Mt Albert show until sunday afternoon when the sky cleared
and we got busy. Again it is one of those shows where certain
locals are guaranteed to come along, have a look at what's new
and a chat. The quiet saturday gave me the chance to spend time
discussing things with customers and they left with some ideas
to try out. Now it's time to get organised for our next Full
Moon at Tahaki reserve.
June 7 2010
We have missed recent Mind Body and Spirit shows in Gisborne
because of our commitments to Magick Earth, this year we ensured
that we would be back to catch up with our Gisborne friends and
it was well worth the effort. Good numbers of people attended
the show over the two days and we chatted to many familiar
faces. Highlight of the weekend was spending an hour or so with
some of my old friends in an impromptu hands on crystal circle
building workshop at the end of the day.
May 30 2010
The weather gods gave us a lovely
night to enjoy the Full Moon here in Auckland, no rain, no wind,
an almost cloudless sky and a big round moon to bathe us all in.
Some of our Hamilton friends made the big trip up to play with
us, bringing friends, fire toys and drums. Plenty of regular
faces were visable and there were some new faces enjoying the
night, thank you to all who came and shared their beautiful
energy. FYI The next one is also Winter Solstice.
May 17 2010
The Whangarei shows always have a lovely energy and this was no
exception, most of our regular friends and customers were there
and we were very busy on Saturday morning. Things got a bit
quieter later in the day and Sunday was more slow and steady. I
had received a suggestion from one of our regular customers that
we have a bit of a drum circle on Saturday night and so this
message was passed on to people who showed an interest in the Djembie's on my stand, in the end we had nine of us, as most had
never drummed before we started with a drum circle basics
workshop and they all loved it and we soon had some great
rhythms happening, I also started the idea of rotating around
the different drums available so we all got to play on a range
of different drums. The group swapped phone numbers and I
suggested they get together for drum circle fun on at least a
monthly basis, if you are interested contact me and I will pass
your details on.
May 10 2010
Another 1 day show in a new town, this time Drury (south
Auckland), many of the usual stall holders setup in the small
hall behind the shops and a few faces that I recognised came in
the door. We enjoyed ourselves and generally had a customer to
talk to so we didn't feel lonely. I will be happy to return here
next year, perhaps not so close to the Pukekohe show just down
the road next time.
May 3 2010
Saturday & Sunday - The New Spirit Festival in Albany is the
'Big one' for the year and again we had good numbers at the
show. Many people came along and said 'Hey I know you from Prana',
a reminder that you can never escape from your customers, but
rest assured they were all happy customers. We also had many of
our Pagan friends come along and say hello, along with a big
group of our regular customers including a lady who made a point
of coming to tell me that the crystals we picked for her child
had been successful in helping them to sleep. I love a happy
ending.
Friday - We headed down to Taupri to help Tracey and Craig & co
set things up for a lovely ritual that was being filmed as part
of a TV doco on 'how the other half lives'. As usual Tracey was
panicking but with the help of her friends she had it all under
control. The evening went off wonderfully and Misty and I had
great fun providing the drumming. Unfortunately I had to head
off after the ritual and before the feast as I had to get back
to Auckland for the weekends big show. Thanks to all who came
along and shared the evening with us.
Thursday night - It is no longer summer and although the night
was fine and clear, the grass was damp with dew, and it was a
reduced group who showed up for a great night, some of our
friends from Hamiltron came up to join with us for the "Full
Moon Fire & Drums". We are still receiving good interest and
feedback about this event so we will continue with them thru the
winter. Thanks to those who came along and w/e hope to see you
there at our next full moon.
Apr 28 2010
A busy day on the keyboard adding several new pages of
information about Magick Earth and it's events and doing a complete reorganisation of the existing pages. I hope that it is simpler
for you to find what you want.
Apr 25 2010
Saturday was a one day show in Onehunga, a new area for me, and
lots of new faces showed themselves. The reduced setup time
resulted in a smaller stall than usual but I still managed to
get all the books, oracle cards, bowls on the tables along with
a big Crystal display to fit on 4 tables. We have also spent
lots of time over the last week planning new shows and updating
the websites etc with a bigger than ever schedule of shows
between now and the end of the year. Next weekend is the towns
biggest Mind Body Spirit festival, the New Spirit Festival at
the Albany Stadium. Due to the high cost of stalls I will only
have 3 tables but I am working out how to get the maximum amount
of my stock into the limited space. Looking forward to seeing
many of you there.
Apr 18 2010
Helensville is a small rural type town and we decided to
continue our Friday & Saturday market plan as Sunday is pretty
quiet around here. I was reasonably pleased with the numbers who
came thru the doors on Friday and the locals seem happy to have
us their on a regular yearly basis. I had several locals who
wanted to chat about 'what it was to be a pagan' and took the
time to discuss with them about how 'Pagan' means different
things to different people and that there are some good
opportunities for meeting like minded souls at the 'Talking
Stick Moots' and 'Magick Earth Festivals'. I am always happy to
chat about Pagan thoughts and encourage others to take a step
out of the 'broom closet' and into the real world. You don't
have to be as 'out there' as me with the big witch on her
broomstick on the side of the trailer but people out there are
becoming a bit more accepting these days.
Our Friday night drum circle had only half a dozen of us sitting
around but numbers don't matter to me, I just want to get the
message about Drum Circles out there and help get people into
the healing and the power that flows from it.
Apr 12 2010
We have been coming to Pukekohe for many years now and always a
lovely energy fills the hall, this was no exception. Our regular
customers found time to come along and browse our large range of
products and leave with some thing special. Interest in Oracle
cards was high and we sold a number of these to first timers
looking for a way to add some more 'soft fluffy positives' to
their lives on a regular basis.
Apr 6th 2010
Prana and Paradise are two words that belong together, this
Easter mini festival again featured the drum energy of Chris
Berry teaching a group how African Dance and Drum work together
in a healing energy. Again our Prana family was expanded with
the addition of lovely new people. I ran a couple of amazing
drum workshops in the cave where we joined our quiet drumming
with a diji, a flute and some of my Tibetan singing bowls, the
glow worms showed their approval by staying on and I am happy
that the spirits residing there enjoyed our concert.
Mar 31 2010
Tuesday night was a Blue Moon (the second Full Moon in a
calendar month) and the Final Tuesday fire night (with Marky and
Pauly deciding to give it a rest after 12 years). Well there
were approx 150 people there and the night went off big time.
The weather gods were on our side with no clouds to hide the
lovely moon. We had more drummers than ever come and spank some
skin to give the fire performers a beat to dance to. There were
plenty of fire performers with up to a dozen burning at any one
time and some LED spinners as well.
A BIG thank you goes out to all of you who came along and helped
celebrate this night...
Mar 29 2010
Pakuranga is an old regular show but it seems for some unknown
reason many of our regular customers didn't show up and it was a
quiet show for all stall holders with us spending far to much
time talking to each other instead of customers, oh well that's
the way things go sometimes.
Mar 22 2010
Palmerston North can be cold, but there people there have warm
hearts, this year we were there a few weeks later so our
university friends were back in town to come and visit us. With
the absence of Beachaven books I took their place at the back of
the room with a bigger than even display of our lovely stock. On
the way down I visited several crystal wholesalers and spent far
too much buying many of their newly arrived pieces to grace the
table over the coming shows. I like to make it a point to always
personally select the crystals to ensure that I get the best of
what they have, and if it is not good enough then I will wait
till another time. We now have more unusual crystals than ever
before so come and check them out.
Mar 15 2010
No show but lots I thought I should let you all know about....
I have just had my first weekend at home since Christmas, shock
horror.... just as well I have Brendon to look after the place
when I am away. I decided that I couldn't afford to go to Womad,
much as I would have liked, well lets see about next year.
Instead I went to nieces birthday skate party.... yes I am an
old skater boy....
We have decided that the 11 hour trip to Levin for the next
Magick Earth festival is too much for Kerry, Daniel and I so we
will be going to the Coromandel for our Easter and joining with
our Prana family. Chris Berry will also be there for the amazing
drumming / healing / dancing workshops so we look forward to
jamming with him around the drum circle again.
I have had some fun computer issues and they have caused me to
lose some data and lots of time but all is now sorted, I have a
(cheap) shiny new fast laptop (for the first time ever) and
going forward things will be even better.
I have decided to take ownership of
www.drumcircle.co.nz
and we will be doing more with our drum circles around the
country. Initially I have just linked it to the existing drum
circle page but I plan to grow it into it's own living entity
creating lots of healing energy and fun times.
On the sad side our friend, supplier and fellow crystal lover
Ron Abbott passed away suddenly and it was a reminder of how
mortal we all are, it was also the first anniversary of mum
passing over.... Kerry and I went to Palmerston North for the
funeral and were surprised to see how many of our rock hound
friends from around the country we saw there. We will miss you
mate.... and your stories.....
Another positive was that while I was at the funeral Russell
Ireland (aka raven heathen) launched another nasty attack on me thru facebook, but
my pagan friends soon closed him down and removed him from the
group. In the past they have told me they are watching my back
and it is nice to see they don't let their guard down.
Mar 8 2010
Our friend Kay has a lovely shop in Paeroa and has recently
moved to bigger premises (halfway thru town on the left as you
go south). The new shop has room for running workshops and drum
circles and we have lots of new thoughts to ponder on how to
unleash the full potential of the place, it is an old cinema
with a very high ceiling but a far wall full of windows so it
gets a huge amount of natural light. The rear faces the domain
with good access and plenty of parking, stay tuned for more
developments on this over the next year.
Our Paeroa show had disappointing attendance, this was not
helped by the local newspapers not running our advert (as a
result we are not paying their bill, this allowed us to refund
stall holders their half of the money that was allocated to the
newspaper advertising), the positive side was some brain
storming on saturday encouraged us to work with the locals more
getting them to help us with free advertising, we even got free
radio advertising and some people heard it and came to the show.
Mar 1 2010
We had not been to Alexandra park for several years and this
time instead of the horse stalls we were up in the convention
centre. A large selection of stalls was present offering lots of
different products and people to see for advice, healing etc. We
enjoyed ourselves and will be happy to return again.
This was our biggest Full Moon Fire, Drum and Dance celebration
yet, the drummers moved out onto the middle of the grassed area
where we could watch the moon come up over the mountain while
also watching our many fire friends strut their stuff. Bex and
Ash also entertained us with their new toys..... Fire Whips....
awesome.... I enjoyed swapping between drumming, spinning fire
and chatting with friends.....
Feb 24 2010
It has been several years since we have been to Rotorua, and we
loved the chance to return, this time we were in the Sound shell
by the lake. Lots of people including many of our local friends
called in to shop. We made a couple of interesting connections,
one is a local guy who makes lovely staff's and we have given
him some crystals to see what he can come up with. All in all a
great weekend was had by us, we will be back....
Feb 15 2010
It had been about 5 years since the last NZ Pagan festival and
so nobody was sure what to expect, the tight financial situation
put some people off, but we had a good mix of regulars and new
faces present. Showers and wind provided an occasional damping
of spirits but there was too much positive energy from the
participants to kill the lovely vibe. The rituals were enjoyable
and I picked up a couple of good ideas, one was a very simple
way to give all participants some special reminders of the
elements used in the ceremony and mementoes to take home with
them. The market place had more familiar faces and it was great
to catch up with old friends and fellow pagans. I can now put a
few more names to some of the people I had previously only
communicated with online. Next years festival has already been
set, same place (Morrinsville), February 18-21.
Feb 9 2010
The NZ Juggling convention is an event that attracts many
overseas visitors as well as locals, this time we were in Levin.
These circus / Juggling people have a strong sense of community
and it is very easy to join their ranks by simply sharing that
community ethos. Although we had a stall there we were more
concerned with networking and learning. Lots of workshops and an
amazing public show was put together for Saturday night, we were
invited to find some drummers and provide music for the opening
act, we had a great time and the audience loved it, stomping and
clapping to our drum beat, like us they didn't want to stop.
Feb 2 2010
Kiwiburn is our favorite festival and a truly special
place (Prana is the second best). We arrived on Monday to help with
camp setup etc. This years theme was based on the four elements
(Earth, Air, Fire and Water) and we saw plenty of all of them
over the week. This years Man had arms that moved up and down
and he was taller than ever. We had more participants than ever
before (and beyond most of our expectations) and a great
selection of theme camps for people to enjoy. Many of my friends
became first time 'Burners' and most of them have already vowed
to return next year. We had a practice burn on saturday night of
'Norse man' (a special creation of Otto von Danger from the
USA). Sunday night was the burn of 'The Man' and then 'The
Temple' (a large 3 story structure) separately. We were honored
with the presence of two officials who are employed by
Burningman USA, (Maid Marion and Megs) these two lovely ladies had a great
time and I am confident they will not forget us down here very
quickly. It is impressive how many people in the Burningman
scene overseas know of Kiwiburn and want to come here for it.
Our energy is huge despite our smaller physical size.
Jan 25 2010
We spent several days helping to setup things at the Taupo
International Jousting Tourney, the rain was heavy and wet and
it was a great team building exercise to spend hours in the rain
digging moats and trenches to try and save the period
encampments, then things got even worse and we were all wet and
still it rained and the water wasn't soaking into the ground. It
must be hard to keep the faith when your beautiful period tent
has a river over 300mm deep flowing thru it. Despite all this
the camps looked great when the public arrived and Saturday only
had a couple of showers and Sunday was beautiful. We had a great
time running a drum circle workshop each day using a few drums
and a dozen plastic paint buckets.... and we had lots of
happy participants. Nic also put on a great evening of
entertainment on Saturday night and we did some great drumming
and fire spinning. There are lots of drummers, dancers, fire
spinners and pagans within the re-enactor clubs and they are
also very friendly and helpful.
Jan 19 2010
We love the people in New Plymouth (like many other towns)
unfortunately due to a stuff up the organiser got the venue
wrong in most of his advertising. the This resulted in
many people not even knowing that the show was on and so we
missed many of our customers. As always we did meet some lovely
new customers and "Festival of lights" was lovely as always and
a good reason for us to schedule the show in town when we can
enjoy these sights and sounds.
Jan 11 2010
We were "first timers" to the Parihaka Peace Festival but the
number of our friends who seemed to follow us from Prana helped
make us feel at home. The lovely crew putting the festival
together were very helpful in all matters. During the 3 days
customers strolled by and with 3 stages of various sizes I was
able to find music that suited me during the evenings. We were
also able to organise some fire spinning on saturday night so 3
newbies could have their first fire spin.... they had a great
time and are now converted. I also had some fun building a
crystal circle and for the first time a crystal spiral one
evening with an Australian crystal lover. One of the standouts
was the chance to see how one man was taking drumming to the
kids using plastic buckets and simple sticks, a very low budget
way to get the message across and something I will be "playing"
with further. True to the weather forcast sundays wind got even
stronger and in the evening after most had packed down we were
treated to a heavy downpour and serious lightning show that
stopped the festival and forced us all under cover.
Jan 6 2010
Well we were once again happily living the "Prana life" over the
new year, 6 days of awesome Prana energy, it is so good for the
complete Mind, Body and Soul. Converted some more of our friends
to it's wonders. We caught up with heaps of our Prana family and
made some lovely new friends (including one we named the
"Crystal Goddess", this sweetheart is only fairly new to
crystals but she has a lovely energy and a beautiful smile, she
made me my new necklace and will be doing more jewellery for
me). Again we had some amazing drum and dance nights in the big
teepee with a different energy level and type each night, from "rockin
along" to "wild jungle beats" (on news year) to "Shamanic" (the
next night) and we didn't get much sleep, my legs are still sore
from dancing and shoulders sore from drumming... but I worked
really hard to get that pain. Some lovely fire dancing was done
on the beach with many of our fire friends. Our daily drum
circle workshops were resumed by popular request and we
converted more people to the wonders of drumming. The sun stayed
on us until packup day when the heavens echoed our sadness and
we got cleansed by the tears of the gods falling from the sky.
Dec 28 2009
Well I hope you all had a great time, whatever you may call it.
We spent our time with family and friends. The way that the
weather co-operated (a small group of us stayed out under the
stars on friday night creating a special memory) and special
people just showed up while we were enjoying our time at Piha
on saturday tells me that we are on the right path. I am now
looking forward to really getting into the festival season......
and meeting more of my special festival family members.... roll
on summer....
Dec 23 2009
It was a last minute decision to hold a simple Summer Solstice
ritual in conjunction with our regular Tuesday Fire night. I
figured that the Sun God is probably one of the most apt ones
for a Fire Spinner to work with. Several of our Pagan friends
joined some of our Fire friends and some new friends came along
on the night and it was a lovely way to start a night of fire
spinning. Special thanks to those who came and enjoyed the
night.
Dec 20 2009
It was not a Spiritual Expo but it was a very spiritual event, I
went to the Fleetwood Mac concert on Saturday night. Danced in
the rain for 2 1/2 hours (with my drizabone on), Mick Fleetwood
is a mad crazy drummer who was having way too much fun, Lindsey
Buckingham really poured it into his guitars and sang with his
heart working up a serious sweat and Stevie Nicks, well I love
you more than ever... no flashy stage gimmicks just serious full
on music.
Dec 14 2009
Last night was the last official Sunday Mission bay fire night
as Charlie has been posted to Christchurch in his job. Most of
Auckland's Fire family came together for a fun filled day that
continued on into the night. Once it got dark a large number of
burners set their toys alight for a great display for everybody.
My big drum Abby boomed out across the park to accompany a
couple of songs before I put her away to spin some more fire. A
big thank you to all who attended and helped to give Charlie a
great send off.
Dec 12 2009
Last night was our last Thames Drum Circle for the year, to mark
the special occasion we used the lovely place that Hawkwind has
next to the river. A couple of new faces joined with familiar
faces for a lovely night. Drums, Didgeridoo, Flutes, Fire
dancers, Chanting and a central fire were all combined to create
some lovely energy.
Dec 10 2009
Last night I spent some time watching "Sensei Brian" skin a new
drum and learnt several tricks, this was a first time experience
for me and I now know several tricks to building a better drum
and fitting a tighter skin for my next drum.
Dec 7 2009
We were encouraged by our friend Nicky to join the Greenpeace
March because they wanted some noise.... we grabbed our big Drum
"Abby" and headed to Albert park. Abby's strong beat soon
attracted the drummers and drum lovers to us. The parade took us
across the park and down the hill before marching up Queen
street to Myers park. Our spare drum sticks were handed out to
those around us, including some friends we had not seen for some
time. Again the benefits of her trolley base were enjoyed with
Daniel easily pulling her around. We were positioned near the
tail of the march but were the noisiest, with our matching beat
echoing in the canyon that is the City's main street. We were
joined by some people pulling a 44 gallon drum who needed proper
drum sticks, my new rubber headed sticks were just the thing and
at one point I was playing one drum on each side of me, by the
time we reached the park my hands were numb and I was having
trouble holding the sticks but it had been a great experience
and helping to support a good cause. We enjoyed the concert in
the park for several hours before heading off. Thanks to
everybody who participated.
Nov 30 2009
Tirau is a lovely town that many people stop at
on their way north or south, this was our second year and again
we got a good selection of locals and people passing thru. We
had several stall holders that could not make this show due to
other events but I put out a large range of books, crystals and
giftware on my huge stand taking up the centre of the hall and
it attracted lots of interest. We also had a couple of new stall
holders join our group and they were happy to help create our
trademark fun healing energy in the hall. We also had several
locals who are keen on drumming and fire dancing chat to us so
we are keen to try and get some drum circle and fire dancing
action happening down there.
Saturday afternoon the rain came down and washed
out our thoughts to repeat last years effort of drumming and
dancing our way down the main street, instead we sat inside with
a newcomer and taught her drum circle basics.
Nov 23 2009
We have lots of friends up north in Whangarei and most of them
call in to see us whenever we have a show up there. Dean has
been running this November show for many years and again we got
to chat with many of our old friends as well as make some new
ones. Some stall holders didn't make the trip up this time but
there was still a good range of stalls with plenty of product
and information available.
Nov 20 2009
We have made half a dozen visits to Thames this year, in the
afternoon we spend a couple of hours with people at the
'Stepping Out' centre. These lovely people enjoy our monthly
drum sessions and have made great progress in their skill
levels, they happily start their own rhythms and enjoy taking
the beat and the energy places. They are even working to fund
their own drums so they will be able to drum when ever they want
rather than relying on me.
The evening was spent outdoors (for the first time) at the
Victoria park band rotunda and although rather breezy we all
enjoyed the different energy that is created outdoors. I took my
big drum Abby and a couple of fire staffs along to play with as
well. The drums were joined by a didgeridoo and flute and we
finished the night with a lovely chant, what a beautiful way to
spend the night.
Nov 11 2009
We were back in Mt Albert for the second time this year, numbers
thru the door were better than 6 months ago but the economic
times are still tough for all of us out there. Many of our
regulars attended and it was nice to chat to them about how
their life was working out. This was also the first time I used
my new bookcases I had built the previous week and they
certainly made setting up and packing down easier.
Oct 27 2009
I am always blown away by the
lovely people I meet at Magick Earth events and Taranaki was no
exception. The sun shone and each day
brought more networking, more learning, more fun. It was nice
not to be the organiser this time but Londa got lots of support
from those present. My Teepee stayed down due to the high winds
but my crystal circle captured several sleeping beauties and the
fire pit provided its usual central focus once the sun went
down. My new Maypole went down a treat and we had great fun
weaving 2 layers of energy filled ribbons on to it. The medieval
dancing lead by Rachael built some lovely energy and we all
danced into the circle for the main saturday night ritual (we
will be encouraging more dancing in future events). There were
some good new workshops as well as some old favorites. For all
the pictures see
http://picasaweb.google.com/magickearthnz . A big thank you
goes out to the organisers (Londa and Louise) and all those who
attended.
Oct 21 2009
We had another enjoyable morning drumming with people from the
Hauraki Stepping out centre. It is interesting to see how our
drum community there is evolving, one of the participants who
was being silly and constantly out of the beat was given a
verbal warning by the drum circle (nothing to do with me). In
the evening we adjourned to the home of one of the locals and
sat in their lounge (as it was cold and wet outside) for a very
pleasant evening of drumming and chatting.
The Hamilton Natural Health expo is a highlight of the year, the
venue is amazing and Claire always goes to a lot of effort to
ensure the atmosphere reinforces that. Stall numbers were down
but this is partly because Claire is fussy and the quality of
stall holders at her events. We were again talked into doing the
opening ceremony and the sun emerged to bath us all as we stood
on the lawn outside. Saturday night we had permission to drum
lake side and converted couple of new friends to the power of
drums and fire.
Oct 13 2009
New Lynn is rushed setup first thing in the morning but we were
open for business as the first of the people arrived just after
10am. We were at the back of the hall this time instead of our
usual spot at the front door. As is typical we had a mixture of
regular customers and new faces. I feel this is a sign that our
message and help is working and continuing to grow.
Oct 8 2009
We have been attending the Pakuranga show for many years but
unfortunately the way the hall charges keep rising we will soon
be going else where. A good selection of stall holders with a
large range of stuff, reasonable numbers of customers to keep us
fairly busy. Meet some lovely followers of the path and was able
to spend time chatting to them.
Unfortunately we were rained out of our monday night Full Moon
drumming, we have had 5 good full moons thru winter and get
rained out in spring... never mind. November will just be bigger
than ever.
Sept 29 2009
This was our second year in Belmont and even it is getting
better each time, we had a few new stall holders join us and
only Gavin was missing from our regular spiritual family.
Saturday got going after a while with a good steady stream of
attendees and we were kept busy till almost 5pm despite the
theoretical closing time of 4pm. We had a small drum circle on
saturday night but our group included 2 newbie's who really
enjoyed themselves, and this is one of the key reasons I like to
organise the drum circles. Sunday was the start of daylight
saving and a couple of our stall holders slept in along with
many of our customers but things got going later in the day and
all the stall holders seemed pretty happy.
Sept 22 2009
The trip down the coast to Ohope was pleasant (as usual) and
there was a great turn out of locals and not so locals on
the saturday, unfortunately the lovely weather on sunday
gave many the chance to do other things. Happy to return again
next year. I spent the night listening to the waves breaking on
the shore and the next morning helped a stranded camper van get
out of the soft sand nearby, Traveled back the long way checking
out some halls for new shows next year.
Sept 18 2009
Unfortunately I have had to pull the plug on Pythonfest this
year, this means I will continue to develop and promote the idea
and we will be back in 2010 for the 41st anniversary of their TV
show entering the airwaves.
Sept 6 2009
The weather gods smiled on us big time for our Full Moon
drumming nights, first up was saturday night at Mt Eden and we
got many of the regulars (some were out of the country so we
forgive them for not showing) and still more new faces (which is
always great to see). We kept a space clear in the centre of our
drum circle and our Belly dancers didn't disappoint us. Sunday
night I headed down to Hamilton Uni to join some locals down
there for several hours of enjoyable drumming, we decided the
afternoon was so good that we adjourned to the outdoors for our
drumming , Learnt a great new drum circle game that I will pass
on and a new beat to play with.
Aug 31 2009
We weren't sure what to expect with our friday & saturday show
in Helensville.... what we got was 2 lovely days with lots of
people dropping in and an awesome energy in the hall. We had our
usual family members along with Dean on the Aura camera and my
dear friend Lily taking over from Gavin as a reader. Local lady
Marie Narbey (of Pine Tree Retreat) joined us doing foot detox
and along with 8 drum virgins formed our drum circle on the
friday night where we created some great dynamic rhythms. We all
enjoyed the night so much that we are looking to organise more
Drum Circle nights in the area.
On Sunday many of us travelled down to Pukekohe for a one day
Psychic show organised by Dean. The weather and the people made
us welcome and everybody seemed to enjoy their day. I had missed
the last Pukekohe show due to Mums funeral and it was nice to
return there.
Aug 24 2009
Our Paeroa show drew people from the surrounding towns with good
numbers thru the door on both days continuing our belief that
Free Entry is the way to run things. The usual friendly family
atmosphere was enhanced by Saturday being Kay's 50th birthday so
once the show closed to the public we prepared to party with our
spiritual family.
Aug 9 2009
We went down to Hamilton for some full moon drumming at the Uni....
caught up with some friends and some new faces... they seem keen
to repeat it and move outdoors when the weather is warm and
dry.... some are also keen for a regular fire night at the Uni....
picked up a couple of new beats.... have started a book to note
them down in as I keep forgetting them.... have also got some
chanting ideas from some Facebook friends....
Aug 7 2009
We had a great
time at our Full Moon Fire and Drums.... lotza regular faces
showed up, lotza new faces showed up... lotza fire toys, lotza
led toys, lotza drumming (1 smashed bacchi)... what more can you
want... actually some of our Dancer friends have suggested
they would like to shake their booty's to our drum beats.... so
bring it on ladies.... we will set aside an area inside the drum
circle for you to let loose your moves...
Aug 3 2009
After 3 poor shows I had said I was not interested in going
back to Te Kuiti, I relented as I had convinced Dean to change
things and make it "Free Entry to all" . This made a big
difference and we had lots of lovely locals of all ages comming
into the show, really great to see and I will go back there
again.
July 21 2009
Well it seems that Paihia in winter is not all that busy.... but
as usual we did have some lovely new customers come in for a
chat and an exchange of ideas.
July 16 2009
Palmerston North was cold but the peoples hearts were pretty
warm, we saw many of our friends at the local rock and mineral
club show, lots of people attended the show and there was a
great selection of crystals on display for them to choose from.
July 8 2009
Our Full moon drum and fire night on tuesday night at Mt Eden
was great, the weather was ideal (for winter) and the moon
looked great with few clouds in the sky. We had new faces in the
drum circle and everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. The
next day we then headed to Thames for our other full moon
drumming circle, in this smaller group we again had a mix of
regulars and new faces and soon got creating / sharing some
lovely energy. Orewa is our local mind body spirit show and this
time it was just 1 day at the community centre, we had many of
our old customers come into the show along with some new faces
and everybody seemed happy by the end of the day when we packed
up.
June 22 2009
The weekend was cool but clear and the Mt Albert show was bigger
with even more stall holders than last year, unfortunately we
did not see a corresponding growth in customers. Those that came
enjoyed themselves and the great range of readers, healers and
product stalls on offer. We are currently busy organising more
spiritual shows and drum circles for the rest of the year, see
our cumming events page for more details.
June 15 2009
Our mini Mind Body Spirit show in Kumeu went well, the small
hall was filled with lovely stall holders and beautiful energy.
Again a mixture of familiar and fresh faces attended and we had
some great chats with many of them. The cat show next door on
the sunday also allowed lots of cross pollination of attendees
June 9 2009
Well our drum circle in Thames was small but we built some
lovely energy between us all, and look forward to warmer nights
when we can get outdoors. Our full moon fire and drum circle in
Mt Eden had some regulars and some newbies who seemed to really
enjoy getting into drumming, my big drum 'Abby' got lots of use
so I have made more sets of bacchie (sticks) so we can now have
6 people standing around playing her.
June 3 2009
Magick Earth
Hollyfrost Moot - Our final numbers
were down to under 30 with some who had hoped to come unable
to get away due to various things (Dear Raewyn asked what
she could do when she told me she would not be able to
attend.... I replied how we loved her home baking.... So
Friday morning she delivered a big box of home cooked
bikkies and small cakes.... They went down well with the
troops..).
The weather gods were very
kind to us and although cool at night (the kids were ice
skating on the ice/frost on the main deck at night) we had
some lovely sun during the days and no real rain over the
weekend, enabling our growing pool of fire dancers to
perform for us each night.
The camp caretakers love to
have us back and had drawn a lovely welcome sign on the
blackboard for us, the camp also requires you to provide
your own toilet rolls but they had already placed leftover
rolls with the lovely courtesy fold in all the loos for us.
Due to the time of year we
didn't plan to use outside fires instead relying on the
heaters in the dining hall and my 2 LPG heaters brought from
home, suitable clothing and bedding / hot water bottles ment
we all kept pretty warm.
The 3 day weekend enabled us
the luxury of two whole Pagan days where we didn't have to
think about setting up camp or packing it down. Several of
our pagan friends who were unable to stay
over came down for
the day and enjoyed themselves.
For the Druidic/tree huggers
(I count myself as one of them) among us a lovely big old
tree was the centre piece of the opening ritual on Friday
and the closing ritual on Monday morning... and it received
lotza hugs, it also provided a calm relaxing spot in
contrast to my big crystal circle which was configured as an
energizing circle.
Friday night at midnight
some of us made a return trip down the road to our Hecate
shrine at the cross roads, and again somebody in a car raced
past during the short ritual (and again he got a bigger
fright than us).
Saturday nights highlight
was the lovely Handfasting ritual of Brendan and Sally,
locals who have been to MEF in the past. Sundays rituals
involved both a 'coming of age' and then later a Hollyfrost
one that involved everybody giving a piece of themselves in
the form of a dance, a song, a poem or whatever, this
culminated in some full on drumming, dancing and singing as
we all got off our chairs and joined in, really cranking up
the energy.
For those that wanted the
chance for quiet socialising and networking I saw lots of
this happening as well, several participants came to me over
the weekend and asked for me to continue to organise more of
these small events and actually referred to them as
"gatherings".....
As usual we got what I
consider a healthy percentage (25%) of newbies along to the
festival. One of them admitted to me that he preferred his
first festival to be a small one as it wasn't so scary and
we all made each other feel comfortable and at home.
One advantage of a small
gathering is that we soon all get to know each other and our
community becomes an extended family, very soon there are no
strangers in the camp.
We had a good selection of
workshops over the 2 days with a mix of regular favourites
and new topics given by a mixture of regular and new
presenters, new topics included "Surviving the dark times",
"Eastern Mysticism" and "Elemental Magick".
The craft village again
produced some great wands.
Anita and I continued our
discussions on chants and if she can get me an electronic
version before the next MEF I will print and laminate them
to be passed around during the evening.
The Kids were well behaved
and the entire community was involved in keeping an eye on
them all thus allowing their parents chances to pretend they
weren't parents and go to bed before their kids without
worries.
During the open discussion
at the end I asked for a show of hands of those who had
enjoyed the weekend.... All hands were quickly raised....
What more can I say....
Thank you again to all who
attended as they also put in lots of effort to make a great
weekend and also helped with the big cleanup operation at
the end.
Photos are available at
http://picasaweb.google.com/magickearthnz
June 2 2009
The sad news received while enjoying our Hollyfrost party at
Magick Earth was that "Mother Kaden" the matriarch of our
informal group has passed over to the other side. While this
means her physical presence will no longer be with us we are all
confident that she will still be watching from above and
sticking her oar in when she wants to.
May 25 2009
Well we spent fri and sat down in hamilton with Dwarfstar
Entertainment providing drumming to compliment their dancing and
fire, it was cold, damp and still lotza fun. Many of our
Medievil friends were also there, as usual they had built their
villages and were putting on a great show for the public which
is always worth watching, they really enjoy a good battle and
the chance to do so in front of others encourages them more.
Unfortunately I had to head back to Auck on sat night as I had a
1 day Mind body and Spirit show to do on the sunday in Glen
Eden. The day started reasonable and we were busyish but the
damp weather settled in and we again got damp while packing up
(but it coulda been worse !!)
May 18 2009
Whangarei is a favourite of ours and the sun came out of hiding
for the whole weekend, as usual we had lots of our regular
customers and a good mix of new customers. Several people
indicated their interest in a drum circle if we can get one
happening and we were told of one somewhere at Bayleys Beach.
Several interested witches in the area also convinced us to
continue our efforts to organise a Magick Earth Type event north
of Auckland.
May 11 2009
I organised a drum circle night in Thames for friday night and
although the weather was cold and damp we have a nice indoor
venue in the centre of town above the post office. Just over a
dozen locals came along with a couple of Paeroa and a lady from
Tauranga. Most were having so much fun they kept on drumming
when some of us stopped for a 5 minute drink break. Saturday
night the rain held off and the sky cleared enough for a dozen
or so to enjoy some full moon drumming at Tahaki reserve of the
side of Mt Eden. We created some great samba beats with the help
of a new friend and all enjoyed themselves. We plan to return
next full moon (monday june 8th) and we hope to have more fire
dancing friends attend (they are oftan busy on a sat night).
Sunday we had a one day Mind Body Spirit show in Papatoetoe that
was pretty quiet, but we did have some lovely new customers come
in along with some regular customers.
May 4 2009
Well "New Spirit" is the biggest show this side of Christchurch
and the people came to Albany in their droves on both saturday
and sunday. There were lots of other stalls including friends
with 3 other crystal stalls. The days were long but there were
so many old customers to chat to and still more new customers to
meet that the time went pretty quickly. Thanks to all those who
helped to make it a great weekend, even some friends who only
had time to call out a quick "hi" as they raced between
workshops. Now looking forward to some drum circle's happening
in Thames and Mt Eden... yea for drums... yea for fire....
April 20 2009
It was 12 months since we had been to Paeroa and many locals and
those from the surrounding areas came along for a great little
show. Several new stall holders joined in and all said they
would return for a show next year. We decided to hold a drum
circle on the saturday night and we were surprised by the number
that showed up. Almost all had never drummed before, we shared
the drums around and everybody had a chance to get some energy
and excitement happening. We will be returning to Paeroa in the
next month or 2 for more fun. Our current plan is to now hold
one in Thames and encourage some or the Paeroa people to come
along and get some good times happening between the two towns.
April 14 2009
Prana... it's a beautiful place and they decided to organise a
full moon festival over the Easter weekend. It was of course an
amazing weekend... although smaller in size to the new year
festival we caught up with many of our 'Prana friends' and made
some lovely new ones. The clear moonlit nights kept things
chilly but we had 5 separate fires provided by our hosts to keep
us warm. I spent much of my time in the teepee drumming, dancing
and just having a great time. We organised some great drum
workshops during the day and 'converted' plenty of people to the
healing and fun that can be found in drumming.
April 6 2009
The Pakuranga area has lots of our kind of people and many of
them make time to come along to the show there. Again we saw
many of our regular customers and a number of new comers who
were happy with what they found at the expo.
March 30 2009
Well Tauranga has probably the best gem and mineral club in NZ,
we always enjoy their lovely shows, full of friendly people.
Many of our regular customers came along and joined in the fun.
Saturday night was Earth Hour so we headed down to the beach
with our drums and our friends for a great time.
March 23 2009
We are back from the NZ Juggling Festival, great stuff, nice
bunch of people.... caught up with some of the Kiwiburn family
and some of the Prana family... also made some new juggling
friends... looking forward to Easter at Prana.... then straight
into OUR Paeroa show now with a drum and a fire night on the sat
night.
March 9 2009
Well the New Lynn show has come and gone, the numbers were not
as good as we would have liked but again we saw a mixture of
regular and new customers so that continues to give hope to us
all.
Feb
25 2009
It
was a hard decision to make but I won't be at the Magick
Earth Festival at Easter. After a lot of thought and
planning
about what we had to take down
with camping gear for everybody, marquees and tables for us
and our friends, bbq, microwave, (rental fridge) etc for the
kitchen as well as my stall stuff I decided that there is no
way I can fit it all in the van and trailer. I am also a lot
more careful about traveling long distances since I trashed
the van returning from Levin the other year and now always
make sure I have room in the van to take a nap if I get
tired.
I don't like to miss a MEF
(this will only be the second we have not attended) but
unless I go as a stall holder I can not justify the cost of
the long distances traveled.
I hope you will all have a great time and
a successful festival and I will be thinking about you.
Feb 18 2009
Thanks to all the lovely customers who came and visited us in
Palmerston North, this is always a lovely show full of beautiful
energy. The fact that another group had again been here the
previous week didn't seem to reduce our customer flow, again we
got a good mixture of regulars and first timers. It's a long
drive down but as long as the locals continue to support us I
will happily continue to make the long trip. This year we will
be back down on July 11-12 for the local rock and mineral club
show. We have another couple of weeks off while many head south
to Nelson and Christchurch before a New Lynn show on March 7-8.
Looking forward to seeing more of you lovely people out
there.....
Feb 12 2009
Well several weeks have raced by and we have not done a show....
we have been too busy having a fun holiday with my younger son
Daniel. We went to Hamilton and Cambridge for some great
drumming, then we spent the week helping setup the Medievil
Tournament in Taupo and spent the weekend as part of the
entertainment (drumming, chanting and fire dancing etc).... had
a great time and made lots of new friends. Then off to Whakamaru
to spend the week helping to setup for Kiwiburn and having a
great time making new friends, drumming, fire dancing etc etc.
One of the UNIQUE things about Kiwiburn is that it is a non
commercial event where people are encouraged to become
participants rather than spectators and this helps to create a
very special community for the festival.
Jan 19 2009
I always look forward to the New Plymouth show and again I was
not disappointed, lots of our regulars showed up and a some new
faces. As soon as we were setup on friday night we headed on
down to the festival of lights to enjoy the night, lovely
atmosphere and great music. Many of us went out on saturday
night to celebrate the birthday of one of the regulars before
heading back to the festival of lights. Sunday was a slower
start as is often the case and the weather started out looking
damp but both the weather and the customers picked up as the day
wore on.
Jan 12
2009
Friday night at Orewa we setup and then headed down to our
drumming spot by the beach for a couple of hours drumming with
friends, we even brought our big drum 'Abby' down for a play.
Saturday the small venue was packed with people (as usual) and
very hot (as usual), lots of our regular customers found us in a
slightly different spot to usual but with a bigger space to
display our wares. Many of us headed to a local Thai resturant
that night for food, drink and great company. Sunday was another
busy day with lots of people coming to hear Sue's talk.
Jan 5 2009
Prana New year Festival - A week of Paradise
The opening ceremony was lovely and the first time my big Taiko
drum had really been played properly ! ! ! The global village was great and we had a really great spot for
our stall up in the trees, the space there allowed us to setup
our crystal circle under the trees for people to play in while
not upsetting our neighbours when people wanted to play with our
drums including our big Taiko drum...
Helped run some great Drum workshops, I would get the beginners
started on simple drum basics and let the class size build as
people heard what was happening, and then let other Drum
Facilitators take over and teach some more complicated beats, it
was a great sharing that seemed to work well for everybody...
At night the Teepee was a great place for the drum circle
because were did not get over powered by the amplified sounds
from the Stage or the Barn and some beautiful energy was raised
there most nights...
Dec 25 2008
My first big drum
'Abby' went out for her debut at Takapuna beach in the evening
with a bunch of our fire friends. Lots a fun, our friend Charlie
seen in the photo has been confirmed as another energy junkie.
The second drum will get her skin in the next couple of days.
These new toys will be visiting fire nights and festivals around
the country.

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