Spoutwood Says Goodbye Sometimes

 Ah, Spoutwood, Spoutwood! Home of the first and biggest fairy festival! We at “The Gods Are Bored” salute you and daub a tear from the eye.

 

The May Day Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm was held at a private property (Spoutwood) until 2019. The weekend event – spiritual if you wanted spirituality, silly fun if you wanted that, music and drumming if you wanted that – outgrew its location at long last. Since 2019 it has been held at two different venues near Baltimore.

 

As with any community, the dedicated Spoutwood volunteers have become like family over the years. We have watched children grow up from tots to tweens to teens to twenty-somethings. We’ve developed real bonds and genuine care for one another. Anyone who says the only place you can achieve that kind of agape love is in church, well. Either Spoutwood is a church, or agape can develop among people who are like-minded and willing to show other people how to have a good time.

EXHIBIT A: THE FIRST PHOTO OF ME AT SPOUTWOOD

 

As far as I can count, the 2023 May Day Fairie Festival was my 18^th year in attendance. And just as those tots have turned to twenty-somethings, I have moved along from Mother to Crone. The walking, the dancing, even the shouting, has become more difficult. And yes indeed, my enthusiasm has waned as I pine for dear Spoutwood Farm, even though this year’s venue was breathtaking.

 

For many years I built my whole spring around Spoutwood. This year, when I set out on Saturday morning to drive to the event, I realized I had forgotten my dragon, Big Red. I had forgotten the small Mountain Tribe banner hanging in my spare room. I had forgotten earrings, for crying out loud. I only brought the one costume I was wearing. And my energy level – more and more it’s non-existent in May – was almost underground.

EXHIBIT B: WHEN YOU FORGET THIS GUY, IT'S A SIGN

 

All three of you long-timers here at “The Gods Are Bored” might recall that I have been leader of the Mountain Tribe for about 15 years. Oh my bored Gods, how I have loved doing Mountain Tribe! But time marches on. When one forgets her dragon and her earrings, it’s time for a change.

 

And so I decided to step down from Mountain Tribe. I had a person in mind to replace me, and when I asked him to do it, he got tears in his eyes. The beauty of this festival is that there’s a whole new generation of young people who are willing to put in the hard work to organize and run it. One of those people is now the new leader of Mountain Tribe.

 

And so, at the Sunday ceremony, I formally removed my Mountain Tribe insignia (which somehow I didn’t forget) and gave it to the new leader. I thought I too might cry, but I didn’t. In fact I felt quite happy to see this young man, with all his devotion, take over something I have loved for such a long time.

EXHIBIT C: HANDING IT OVER

 

The new location for the May Day Fairie Festival is waterside, Chesapeake Bay views with a rocky point and a sweet, small beach. But time after time I found myself daydreaming about Spoutwood Farm, in the rolling Piedmont hills just before Appalachia, how green everything is there, that bright golden green of early spring so beloved by the poets. And I thought about the folks who were in Mountain Tribe there who live in that area and didn’t make the journey to the new location.

 

It’s time for this magnificent festival to continue without me. Its future is bright.

 

Being a part of Spoutwood has deeply enriched my life. But Spoutwood says goodbye sometimes. And I wave, and blink back tears, and move on down the line.

Fairy Kon Least

Every year during the first week of November, there is a convention regarding fairies in Baltimore. I have a limited budget, so this event generally gets the short shrift. This does not mean I don't regret staying home.

But la di dah! How hard is it to stage a convention? I took a very brief break from vigorous housework and errands and attended Fairy Kon Least! Here are some of the great photos I took so I wouldn't suffer from Fear of Missing Out.

EXHIBIT A: Anne rocks her tie-dye, wings, and witch balls.

EXHIBIT B: Can't afford the fairy convention because I bought this last spring. No regrets.

EXHIBIT C: What, me clean the kitchen? Let the elves do it!

EXHIBIT D: Everything is so chill at Fairy Kon Least.

EXHIBIT E: Here I am all geared up for the Bad Fairy Ball. I even have the ball!

EXHIBIT F: Friends and foils at Fairy Kon Least!

EXHIBIT G: Gamma looks so fly in his Reyen silk!

EXHIBIT H: Okay, I clearly need a fairy godmother. Maybe I should monetize this blog... nah, the bored gods advise me to keep it amateur.

Saturday night, laughs are good for the soul. Sending the bad faeries not to Baltimore, but to Washington, DC.

Do Fairies Really Exist?

A long, long time ago, when "The Gods Are Bored" was very, very young, I wrote a post about the existence of fairies. I suggested that some fairies could be accounted for by legends of "little people" who lived on the edges of civilization. Skeletons of diminutive humans have been found on islands and such. In my unproven-yet-credible opinion, Great Britain probably had a race of "little people" somewhere in its forests.

"Little people" are not the same thing as fairies.

Fairies exist in another realm, a dimension that we can see only with the sixth sense. If your psychic powers are heightened, or if you are very open to the notion that there are fields and plains that humans aren't programmed to see (at this time in evolution), you will experience faerie.

Some children have a heightened psychic sense, to such an extent that it makes me believe in reincarnation. I myself had out-of-body experiences when I was young. And I saw fairies.

The fairies I saw didn't even look human. They looked like a combination of dog and deer, with frontal eyes, pointy ears, and bristly fur. Their teeth were like deer teeth and their heads were shaped like deer heads. They were the size of full-grown humans, but they could make themselves smaller if they wanted to.

Now, you can call me an imaginative youngster if you like, but when I opened The Notebooks of Brian Froud (you can get it from Amazon), I found the very creature I had played with when I was a kid, right there drawn by Brian in the book! I knew immediately that I was looking at a portrait of my fairy friend. Again, let me say that not all fairies have human forms. Some look like creatures. It's a whole world out there, my friends. We just can't see it.

My father met my husband's grandmother one time. I assure you that they did not talk about fairies. And yet both of them, on their deathbeds, described red-headed "children" standing in the doorway and beckoning to them. In my father's case, he identified the being as "Peter Pan." In Grandma-in-law's case, she saw a red-headed little girl who asked her to "come along." She said she wasn't ready. Within a week she died.

As we step off this plain and onto another, the fairies become more clear to us. You don't necessarily have to be dying, but if you're not dying you have to be open to all possibilities. Fairies can be scary. Proceed with caution.

To those of you reading the May 5, 2005 post and asking me to help you find fairies, all I can say is, try to remember your deepest childhood to see if you have some memory of them already. If so, concentrate on that memory. If not, spend some time in the most cluttered room in your house, telling jokes and riddles. This is what They like. Oh yes, the woods are fine and dandy, but you don't have to sit by a stream. The fairies are amongst us. They are in us, in our memories and in the sections of our brains that we don't use yet.

To those of you reading the May 5, 2005 post and asking me what I'm smoking and where you can get some ... nothing, and I have no idea. Bite me.

To those of you who believe in God and not fairies, how the heck do you explain those seraphim? Just asking.

Fairy Festival at Spoutwood Farm; or, Once a Hillbilly, Always a Hillbilly

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," basking in the aftermath of Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm 2007!

There's nothing like a faerie festival to restore your faith in the future of America. Or to restore your faith in general. Big ol' outdoor rituals to the Four Quarters, wow! Can I get a Kubiando? Yeah!

Okay, this blog is read equally by Appalachians and Pagans, probably followed closely by card-carrying members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. (Trust me, I get comments from the latter!)

Sorry, no D.A.R. in this post.

What happens when you grow up in the mountains, and it's May, and you wake up, and the wind is blowing all git-out, hell and gone like a freight train? Well, you dress for the weather. Reluctantly you stash your gooey fairy gown, replacing it with a thick woolen sweater, blue jeans, and ugly walking shoes. Cuz it's gonna be cold out there, right?

You persuade one daughter (The Heir) to dress for the weather too. You bully the other one (The Spare) until she throws a tantrum and compromises by wearing jeans under her fairy garb and bringing a fleece blanket.

Who turns out to be the smart one? The Spare.

Spoutwood Farm is not in the mountains. Sunday turned out to be quite comfortable indeed. However, on Sunday around noon a few Fairie Festival attendees were injured when a branch broke and fell on them. We at "The Gods Are Bored" wish those folks a speedy recovery.

The rest of us had one whopper of a romp. Cuz hillbillies know how to dress for the weather. Layer after layer of warm stuff got shed from the corpus of Anne, Heir, and Spare. And somehow Anne found herself in the same plain blouse she wore last year!

Now the remainder of this post is for you gal readers out there. I put Princess the faerie in charge of the camera and let 'er rip.

Yowsa!

Princess thought this dude might be a wizard.

Princess knows other princesses when she sees them.

Group hug.

More tomorrow from

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

May Day! May Day!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," snark in the park after dark, what a lark!

Ah, that little bit of word work could only come from one of my faeries. Hello there, Princess!

Princess: Hello, Annie. Working on your fanny?

Anne: Emmm... do you mean, sitting around writing a book about fossils, or getting fatter in the derriere?

Princess: Yes.

Anne: And it was you who "misplaced" my research material, right?

Princess: Left. I never say that "r" word that rhymes with fight and flight.

Anne: Princess, I watched a podcast on Yahoo a few days ago that said it's no good for little girls to dress up and play pretty princess. The announcer said that it amounts to a dread conspiracy by Disney to make all women air-heads.

Princess: And I presume you're not going to be winking or linking to that stinking bit of balderdash.

Anne: (to readers) Don't you just love the way faeries talk? (to Princess) Alas, I stink at the link. I think. Wink wink. You look pretty in pink.

Princess: To answer your question, I do believe you'll find more than a few fiery females who spent their tender years playing princess. Present company excepted.

Anne: Can I help it if I was the only girl with a bunch of boy cousins who would rather play Vietnam? Seriously, I just do not see a problem here, except within the concept that you need a prince to save the day. Guess I avoided that playing Vietnam.

Princess: Anne, I hate to relate this twist of fate, but your daughter The Spare played Princess Jasmine with such relish that you feared the pictures you took might have wound up on the Internet. And was it not you, you Annie girl, who took her to Ross over the weekend and lavished her with a gooey gown for yet another Bas Mitzvah?

Anne: Guilty as charged. But stay, coy fey! Oy vey! My daughter The Heir loved being a pretty princess too. Would you please explain the Les Claypool t-shirt and the fact that she hasn't touched a grain of makeup in two years?

Princess: (yawn) A hum drum conundrum. Everyone is an individual. And don't you think you have more influence over your kids than Disney does? I know for a fact that you're teaching The Spare how to cook and The Heir how to wallow in weirdness. They're not getting their ideas from Disney.

Anne: Iron Chef Cat Cora, more like it.

And the perennial Les Claypool. Coming to Philadelphia again! Calgon, take me away!

Princess: I don't have any Calgon. How about a dragon?

Anne: Princess, I have only a few more questions. First, are you going with me to the Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm? (I linked that before, you can scroll down.)

Princess: Can I be frank? You are a lazy ass, Anne. Didn't even link Cat Cora. But yes, a thousand times yes, I wouldn't miss the Fairie Festival.

Anne: Do you have any ideas what we can say to those wacked Christians who stand by the fence and yell, "May Day! May Day! That's what pilots say when they're about to crash and burn ... which is what you sinful pagans are going to do!"

Princess: There at the fair lurk the jerks. But you should feel sorry for them, Anne. They don't know that as pilots go down to crash and burn, they're summoning the Gentry of Sidhe with our lovely rhyming holy day.

Anne: Why, Princess. I never thought of that. So, can you help me outline my fossil book?

Princess: Just go look in the mirror. You're getting to be a fossil yourself. The book can all be autobiographical.

Anne: That's what I get for asking help of a faerie. Okay, I'll play hardball. If you don't help me with fossils, Princess, I'll stay home from the fairie festival and separate out my winter clothes.

Princess: Sedimentation... trace fossils ... amber (ooo, I like amber!) ... Homo erectus (ooo, I like him too!)

BEANNACHD LEAT!

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

"Princess," by Seitou, created especially for "The Gods Are Bored." View Seitou's other amazing faeries at the link in the sidebar.

Les Claypool at the Electric Factory, June 3, 2007. Maybe if I forget to buy tickets...

Anne's 25 Million Dollar Idea

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," looking to get rich and instead barely scratching an itch! If you're rolling in money, yo. Share, already. My email is in my profile.

I read on Hecate's site that someone is offering a $25 million reward for anyone who can come up with an idea that will put a stop to global warming.

That's a big challenge. I put my thinking cap on, but I came up empty. So of course it became obvious I'd have to consult a bored god. And here he is. Please give a warm "Gods Are Bored" welcome to The Green Man!

Anne: Green Man, you lived through the temperature anomaly back in 1000 AD that allowed the Vikings to settle Greenland. Is this different?

Green Man: Yes it's different. For the love of buttercups, there were only a couple million people on the planet in 1000. Now humans are packed so tight that a rise in sea level's gonna be one big f***** deal.

Anne: (I don't dare tell a god to watch his language.) Emmm ... Green Man, Your Majesty. I did have a modest little idea for decreasing the CO2. Let me run it by you.

Green Man: Please do. By the way, did you know you have hyacinths coming up in your garden?

Anne: Yeah. Only two months too early. Anyway, here's my idea. My daughter The Heir and I were out in the neighboring suburb. We noticed that some of the largest mansions have a thick, unruly grove of trees in front of them. Now, in the wintertime (such as it is), you can barely see the mansions through the scrub. But in the summertime, you wouldn't know there's a house there at all.

Green Man: I'm getting your drift.

Anne: So why don't people let those stupid, over-watered, over-fertilized, over-pampered green grassy lawns go to seed? Don't mow the doggone lawns! The first year you'd have meadow. By the third year you'd have tree seedlings. By the tenth year you'd have a thick scrub. In twenty years, all the shade you could ever want, and no outdoor maintenance except picking up kindling you can use for ritual bonfires!

Green Man: Or marshmallow roasts.

Anne: Or both.

Green Man: It's just that easy, too. If all subdivision suburbanites just said "toodle-oo" to their fields of green, parts of America would re-forest in a hell of a hurry. You know all about that, don't you?

Anne: Yep. When I was a teenager on my grandparents' farm in Appalachia, there were three big meadows. They're gone. They're now three indistinguishable pine forests, soaking up CO2 and spitting out oxygen. So, Green Man. What do you think? Could I qualify for the 25 big old bucks?

Green Man: If you could combine that with stopping the people in the tropics from mowing down rain forest for cow pastures, you might be onto something. Say. While I'm here, I want to know what the hell is going on with this mountaintop removal on my favorite mountain range?

Anne: Don't put me in a sucky mood. It's Friday and I want a beer. I can only solve one big problem a day. We can tackle that one another time, I hope.

Green Man: I hope so too, because I am big time pissed at Big Coal, knocking down venerable old mountains created by Danu and Bile.

Anne: Get outta here. The Appalachian Mountains were made by Celtic deities?
Green Man: The Scottish Highlands are the same mountain range as Appalachia. It's all this complicated plate tectonics and stuff. I leave all of that to the Goddess. I just supply the flowers.

Anne: Getting back to my re-foresting the suburbs idea. The one downside I can see to it is tree roots getting into plumbing lines and basements.

Green Man: Oh yes, that's a problem all right. Until you factor in the possibility that your species might suck down all the oxygen before you have to worry about a backed-up sewer line.

Anne: Sold! I'm on the plane to Geneva. Or wherever it is that they're having the big global warming contest. Thanks for the feedback, Green Man. Will we see you at the 2007 faerie festival at Spoutwood Farm?

Green Man: Goddess willing and the creek don't rise.

Anne: Please give my regards to the awesome Celtic deities. They're swell.

Green Man: They like you too. I'll see you in a few weeks ... if not sooner.

I thought it was a good idea. But it never hurts to check with an expert.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

In Praise of Fairy Tales

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," flying under the radar since 2005! Come gather 'round Mama Annie for a funny little anecdote.

As my legions and legions of readers already know, I have had to accept a long-range substitute teaching assignment because of the rampant corporatization of the goat-judging business. Goat judging profits are now flowing into the hands of two or three billionaires, while the rank and file starve. So what's new? That makes me a modern American.

Anyway, when I took over the ag shop on Monday evening, the first thing I did was rip down all the autumn decorations that had probably been there since the first day of school. Tuesday morning I brought in the following:

1. A silk holly wreath.
2. A metal wreath that said "Merry Christmas" with angels on it.
3. Pictures of my kids and my dad (Duh).
4. A Brian Froud card with the Faerie Godmother depicted in stunning purple tones.

I was quickly intercepted in the school foyer and told that some of my decorations were "politically incorrect."

To whit: The "Merry Christmas" wreath!

The Faerie Godmother flew right into the shop and is now beaming at me from my temporary desk.

Needless to say I don't try to spread my religion in school. I'm a firm believer in the Establishment Clause. But my goddess gets to sit there because, hey. She's a fairy. And everyone loves fairies!

I'll bet this has been happening for two thousand years.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS