Timing by this Sundial would keep us at a different time-zone and give us more time to mingle...
But reality is different, there are lots of activities going on, tonight is the Banquet-dinner and that is topping ourselves in the best. The dining-hall is getting decked-out for the festivities. Many people are involved with doing all kinds of beautiful things. Table decorations, the dining-hall, needs to be cleaned and a different arrangements for the tables and benches are required. The porch gets a facelift including the famous tree-stumps. Lots of preparation for a closing ceremony are in progress too.
Flower-arrangements for the tables...
Jamie Rose, Echo Trobridge, Anne Colangeli, Tracey Dillon doing up the flowers!!!
The tree-stumps getting some attention too...
Tables get a special treatment...
While the entry to the Dining-hall gets more of a pronunciation...
Custom signs are made by Marilyn Zimmerwomen...
All this happens while I just buzz around and collect proof that everybody is doing something... Everybody??? No, not everybody!!!
Here is Geoffrey Reiff and James Lyon are just hanging out, doing nothing but enjoying the beautiful weather...
It's time to start the ceremony...
Caroline Casey and Martin Shaw initialize the begin!!!
Drumming starts and in single-file we all have to walk through the tree-stumps under a special webbing to enter into the ceremonial space. On the other side we join the singing and walk all the way down to the fire-circle. Passing through the wood to get there a few more gates were build along the way, just really beautiful. At the fire-circle is Trey Moore waiting as the "Green-man" to guide us to the water and get blessed. From then on we hold hands and start a Sufi Chant. Halima Sussman is leading us into the mace of trees and at one point she makes a U-turn. That way we all will pass each other and have a chance to look into each others eyes and say a quite good-bye. It is a very powerful moment and I get close to tears too. This could go on for a long time but somehow Halima starts making a tight circle and next thing is that the end didn't have a chance to face everybody... I'm one of them and feel incomplete form now on!!! After all this is done we start walking back-up to the dining-hall. Here we collect in a circle again and get to watch a ball unravel in the symbol of our time here unraveling too.
Nick Adamski is doing a wonderful job with the ball unravel...
Then the ball is getting around, by kicks and bounces...
On the front porch are the appetizers laid-out and the feasting starts...
A complete menu is indicating lots of food ahead...
Lots of eating and chatting is going on...
Now come the never-ending toasts, speeches, and a small performance by boB Henning, "Bugs on Drugs" this wasn't his most successful performance. But when Cary Odes comes at front the room gets quiet in no time. Next thing we're all laughing away, mostly on our own expense. He is good!!!
The honoring of the kitchen-crew is always a hit...
The evening mellows out with a enormous firework at the front porch...
Here is a Link to the Photo-album of the Closing-Ceremony and the Banquet-Dinner!!!
By the time I get back to my cabin there is another party going on, a o called Poppy-pile. Most the guys from our cabin and others put their mattress on the floor, close together and now they all try to find a place to sleep, almost on top of each other, crisscrossing kind of like. I was part of that operation 2 years ago, lots of fun, but tonight I prefer to sleep and so I just stay in my bunk.
Poppy-pile special...
In the morning it's all hectic. I make it to the singing, then some grub before the first buss is leaving at 8 and the second one at 9, luggage everywhere, people standing around saying good-byes and lots of last hugs getting collected, it is a very sad moment.
The big good-bye, see you all next year, I hope...
I'm cleaning-up my cabin, hang around some more with new and old friends, help here and there with stuff, and pack-up my own car. It's time to say good-bye!!!
Poppies on the way out, or actually the landmark at arrival, but this time I stopped and took a closer look...
It's quarter past eleven, the trip-meter of the Honda is at 5909 miles, I'm ready to go. All I wanna drive today is to Lock Kirmaier's house in Augusta, Maine. It is a 42 mile drive through beautiful green landscape. First I drive further North on the Coastal Highway, RT-1 to Waldoboro, then on 32 to 17 into Augusta, the State Capitol of Maine. I pass turn-offs to So China and Belfast, a very international State this Maine. I arrive at Lock's house, find the key, as instructed, and all I can think of is to go back to sleep. I take the Greatful Dead room of his conventional 2 story villa and fall asleep faster than allowed by State-law. Lock is coming home later, he had to give Janice and Steve Applegate a ride to Portland, visit his friend Janet Pooley, and then pick-up his 2 dogs... I'll see him later!!!!
At 3 o'clock I'm so far gone, in the land of dreams and magic...
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