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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

Some older Blog entries ?

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.