Hello CMA! I hope you're all back and well rested from Beltane.
In my experience, festivals can be many things. They can be a place of deep spiritual experience. They can be a family reunion or a vacation from the real world. They can be a 4 day party. They can be all these things and more. The best thing I think a festival planner can do is to set up an environment that facilitates these experiences for our community.
Together, we set up the environment. We had our portapotties, our hot showers, our revel fire. And together, we all made our own experiences. We had our rituals, our shows, our workshops. We had our friends and lovers, new and old. We had our families, our camps and our community. We had our revelry and reveries. We had our Beltane.
And wasn't it an experience?
For me, this Beltane can be summed up in 3 words - 3 words I found myself saying over and over during festival - a learning experience. It was educational on many levels. I learned how months of work, emails, chats and chance words at gatherings can gel into a festival. I learned the power of the phrase "Hey, have you got a minute?" I learned that it's entirely possible to run on less than 3 hours sleep a night for one week and still remain cheerful - with enough coffee. I learned that it really is about the work. I learned that there is such a thing as too much caffeine. I learned that being up on stage Sunday morning is not nearly as easy as past board members have made it look, but not nearly so hard as you might fear. I learned the importance of golf carts. And most importantly, I learned that our community is even more incredible than I could have imagined.
I could not begin to list off all the volunteers that made Beltane possible. From the people who donated equipment and services, to the people who worked 16 hours out of 24 each day, to the people who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to lend a hand, everyone played a part in making our festival experience. Our land crew worked hard to bring about the beginning of Mathew's Healing Station and to have the land ready for festival. Our Safety Staff successfully ensured that no one died. Our fire crew built incredible revel fires, including Saturday night's lotus. Our bands, all CMA-based, donated their services to the organization and gave us 2 nights of music. Our various members put together workshops and rituals for us. All these individuals and more helped put Beltane together. Thank you to everyone who made this festival a success.
I hope all of you had the experience you were looking for, that you got out of Beltane what you needed. And I hope you'll join us this October when we do it all over again.
See you next weekend!
Merideth