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Coming down from the mountain
I have seen the lofty glory
I will go again some day
But for now, I’m coming down.

–Meat Puppets

There is an ache in my heart right now, a longing for the people and experiences of Suntree Retreat.

We tend to think of ancient cultures as monolithic: the Minoans, the Sumerians, the Greeks, the Romans. But there were subcultures and differing groups within those larger labels, just like there are now among, say, Americans or modern Greek people.

It can be difficult to tease out the identities of the subcultures, but it's important to do so. Why? Because choosing not to bother has the effect of erasing those people from history. I think they deserve better than that.

It's autumn where I live in the southeastern US, which means harvest time. Here, the concept of harvest is simple: From late summer through the autumn, all the harvests happen together - fields of grain, vineyards full of grapes, fruit in the orchards, vegetables in the garden. That's because I live in the northern temperate zone, with the four-season setup so many of us learned about in elementary school: spring, summer, autumn, winter.

But in the Mediterranean, it's different.

Many gatherings, conferences, festivals, and so on have been canceled or rescheduled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I expect many more to do so in the coming months. It is the best and most responsible choice in this crisis. I am involved in a wide range of events as an attendee, a presenter, or an organizer. As such I have a fairly comprehensive sense of how these events work and the amount labor, resources, and money that go into these community gatherings. Having recently been involved in the process of canceling or rescheduling events, I have answered a prodigious number of questions that have reminded me of the need to share more of the nuts and bolts and nitty-gritty. Not all of what I share will apply to every event or cover every situation but will be generally true for many.

Tonight Hogmanay celebrations in Edinburgh will end with an impressive fireworks display. Thousands will be gathered there to see in the New Year -- many more will be at home watching it on the telly because we're introverts and that's the way we like it.

Historic Environment Scotland has done some research into when fireworks were first displayed in Scotland. Few will be surprised to find that 'Renaissance King' James IV (r 1488-1513) was responsible. He sponsored poets and alchemists and other scholars, but he liked a party as well as the next royal. The occasion was not New Years, however:

If you could live in an all-pagan world, would you do it?

Of course you would. So would I. Any pagan would.

That's why I love pagan festivals so much. What they offer is the opportunity to live in that ideal pagan world, if only for a little while.

That summer, the festival was only 40 minutes out of town: an easy striking distance, one might think. Well, but I couldn't get the time off work.

I was waiting tables that year at a little jazz club cum restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. At the time, our cobblestone patio was the only outdoor dining venue in the area. We were packed every night. The work was grueling, relentless, nightmarish; only the money made it worthwhile.

Every night was all hands on deck. There was absolutely no way to take time off for a festival, because there was no one to cover for me.

So I decided to commute.

Every morning, I drove out to the festival and immersed myself in the nurturing waters of pagan culture. Then I'd drive back to town and deal with the teeming cowan masses.

“This is going to be the worst,” I thought.

But I was wrong.

There I was, every night, in an aureole of golden festival energy, my witch-fires stoked high. I was golden, I glowed: you could see the light from the next room. The cowans didn't know what hit them. Night after night, tips just rained down onto the tables. In my entire wait career, I'd never made so much money.

It should have been awful, but it wasn't. I danced my way through that week, elegant as hell and utterly unstoppable.

Key moments in the lives of plants do not always tie in to the standard eight festivals. Yes, the snowdrops flower at Imbolc and hawthorn blooms around Beltain and the grain is generally ripe for Lugnasadh, but these are just a few plants. Many other plants come into their own at other times in the year. A real relationship with the plant life of the UK calls for more attention than just festival plants. If you are not in the UK, your seasonal plants will be different and I think it’s really important to engage with what’s around you, not what comes from the history of the festival.

One of my favourite April wildflowers is the Kingcup – they tend to bloom once it starts feeling warm and springish. Large, exuberant yellow flowers, often occurring in great profusion.  Kingcups favour damp places, canal edges, riverbanks, ponds and streams.