Heartland 2004 Report

[triadruid]

A little late, but what the Hel..

Heartland was my first 'major' pagan festival; I'd gone to the ADF Autumn Gathering a couple of years ago, but that was ADF-specific and on a much smaller scale. Likewise, I'd been to Pennsic War and Lilies War within the SCA, so the idea of primitive camping with several thousand like-minded souls wasn't exactly new, but I wasn't expecting/prepared for the commonality of spirit that emerged over the long weekend. I suppose I hadn't realized what the 'big deal' was until I got the chance to live in an intentional, if temporary, community of faith the size of a small Kansas town.

kittenpants went ahead with the Thursday crew to set up camp, so that the working stiffs (i.e. featherynscale and myself) could show up on Friday after work in a timely manner. And more or less, that's what happened. We traversed the wilds of eastern Kansas with no navigational difficulties beyond the occasional "That's the turn right THERE!", and pulled onto site. All fears of getting lost on the grounds until dark finding our campmates were alleviated as soon as we got to check-in. The conversation went something like this:

"Look, there's a topless kittenpants!"
"And a topless chaosdruid!"

And the weekend only got better.

Apparently our original campsite was a swamp, so we ended up camped next to most of the other Gaians who went out to Heartland this year (and those who had to be or chose to be elsewhere stopped by, which was nice). It was a constant surprise to see how many people I *did* already know out there; only since moving to KC have I had any sense of pagan community that wasn't online (in Iowa, it was few and far between, and the few wiclectic groups I found didn't interest me). Friday night we got to meet a few new (and some old, as it turns out) friends who were going to be leading the Mead Ritual. Par for the course, several of us got drafted into the ritual as Cup Bearers or Druid #3, but it was a good ritual even with paper and flashlights; definitely something to see next year when finnchu gets the kinks worked out of it.

Speaking of kinks, the 'unofficial' followup to the Mead Ritual involved a tribal pole that looked "like someone shoved a telephone pole up a jackalope's butt", massage oil, and friendly, helpful hands. The rule was, if you tied the scarf around the pole, they could massage you anywhere, anyway, until you took your hands off the pole (imagine a hedonistic version of a flogging pole). If you didn't use the scarf, only 'massage parlor' friendliness is allowed. It's telling about the common cultural beliefs regarding women's lack of sexual desire that 3 out of 3 women tied the scarf on, but only 1 out of 3 men.

Unfortunately that was the only ritual I ended up going to; I had heard poor reviews of rituals at Heartland, and a one-person-deep circle of several hundred done in an eclectic style does not exactly light my spiritual fire, I can tell you. I actually had intentions of going to the Vision Quest but forces conspired against that this year, which I do regret. I'm sure at some point I will go to the 'main' rituals because I always want to see/learn how other people do things, but for this year I had more important things to do.

Like avoid sunburns. Thanks to the wise find of an SPF 50 sunblock, even the whitest of the white in our camp came back with only minimal sunburns, even when we were dressed more scantily than usual due to the weather. The weather was actually nearly perfect, as far as I'm concerned, though I understand some people don't 'enjoy' thunderstorms to the same degree that I do. If someone hadn't been sitting on my lap, I'd probably have been out dancing around in the microburst Sunday night. It's that bad; I can see how I'm going to die someday, and it's going to involve Taranis more likely than not. But 85° days and good company during the night made for a thoroughly enjoyable experience as far as the Great Outdoors was concerned. Our trinitarian tent, which is cleverly shaped like Superman's logo, held up with nary a problem even in the 80 mph winds, although I will admit that chaosdruid's little camping igloo didn't even flinch. Our new neighbor didn't fare quite so well when she decided to finally spend her first night camping at Heartland after years of day-tripping it, and opted not to bring her rain fly on Sunday...I think you can see where this story is going. Hopefully she'll come back next year a little better prepared; I know opaljax will want to find her Slavic comrade (no pun intended) again.

I approached the workshop list a lot like I did the main rituals; if something really lit me up, I tried to go, but otherwise there will be other years, and other activities.
The first attempt was "For the Nervous Beginner", but apparently the presenter got nervous because she never showed up. So I got to tour the silent auction instead! Found a neat knife by Govannon that I almost got, but someone outbid me at the last minute. I wouldn't mind buying something at full price from him, however.
The next workshop I dared venture out for was Drake's "Paganism and the Martial Arts"; never having done much formal martial training I was a little concerned, but it turned out to be exactly what I was looking for; a balance of personal and community responsibility, integration of contrasting ideas, and practical, no-bullshit views. Nice guy, excellent presenter, lots to think about and mull over.
Finally, I went to the bracelet-making workshop which turned out to be very productive, but I can't say very much about that for a few weeks until the gift gets gifted...

The concerts were hit-and-miss (are you sensing a theme here?) as well; the first one we tried (after missing Skinny White Chick) was some Partridge-Family-meets-Milli-Vanilli-electronicrap called Cherries! and! Silk! (well, maybe they spelled it a little differently, but that's how it was pronounced most of the 197 times they said it during the course of their concert. cernunos ended up dubbing them "Cherri Vanilli" due to their terrible sound mix and general lack of skill at anything except the lead singer's propensity to take her jacket off when she got excited. Eventually we retired to the firepit where we exhorted them to "blow shit up" and they obliged eventually, sending bottle rockets and giant sparklers and other fun toys out amongst the crowd and amidst the bonfire.
Elvendrums, however...I had never heard less of their songs than kittenpants (which is to say, none at all) before the concert, and was a little leery of the elf ears and the "Weeeeee!"ing which apparently does something akin to clapping in Neverland... but man, what a good show. Of course, it's put on by what amounts to three elves on drums and a muppet in chainmail, but it's fun! Definitely some CDs to add to the wish list, and recommend strongly to other people. It's not nearly as goofy as it sounds on paper...or rather, it is, but you don't mind. We went back to camp to put our chairs up before the second act of the night (Spoonfed Tribe), but ended up getting caught in orcjohn's tent drinking waaaaay too much mead and whiskey as we tried to dry out from the microburst. We could still hear ST from the stage a half-mile away though, so they must have been impressive. However too much alcohol too fast made for a fairly early evening (by which I mean 1am instead of 3am).

Monday morning broke, of course, with the expectation of having to go back home, but it was still a good day. Most everyone helped break camp, so it wasn't too onerous even on those of us who brought two carloads worth of stuff. The clever plan to go out to dinner at Barley's with chaosdruid, orcjohn, featherynscale, kittenpants and myself got thwarted when we got there and realized some places actually... wait for it...*close* on Memorial Day! Bastards. Two more tries later, we ended up at Bo Ling's where we proceeded to shock the suburbanites with suitably risque discussion...oops, forgot to recalibrate for town. However the funniest moment of the day came when the fortune cookies arrived and mine said "You will get credit for something you have contemplated" or something similar. We proceeded to fall about the table, as I had just been lamenting the campfire gossip surrounding my supposed conquests during Heartland, of which there were precisely zero. That's right kids, I didn't gain any new K.U.R.S. sins the entire festival. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, I had a great time and it was just what the doctor (or at least featherynscale, my Mistress of Slack) ordered. I came back with some new ideas, new purchases (and gifts!), new energy, a bit of a tan but no sunburn, and sore in only those places that get sore from camping in the woods, not the ones from when your back is stressed to the point of resembling treebark.

Comments

[kcwitch.livejournal.com]

yeah, i didn't get any heartland nookie either. i was too worn out, tired, sleepy, and/or stinky at any given time but i did get to flirt a lot.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't mean to imply I wasn't flirting, just that nothing came out of it like some people wanted to speculate. ;)

[kimjerosky.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you all had a wonderful time. I found myself being very resentful during that time that the weather was so freakin perfect when the last few times I've gone the weather has been fairly nasty and cold. I've always found Heartland to be a magical time of acceptance and belonging and that can be a hard combination to experience at such large festivals. Probably has to do with all the wonderful people who go...