The Glastonbury Goddess conference was another event I'd been wanting to do for a long time but not had the money or the opportunity, however this year I got lucky and bagged myself the last Melissa (working) ticket! Here's a day-by-day low down on Melissa-ing in Glastonbury:
Saturday 27th July I arrived at Heaphy's eatery (not realising before that they had accommodation - yay!) as they were full up at the Crown Inn, even though I booked weeks in advance. Beware people, July is a very busy time of year in Glastonbury! Book ridiculously early!
Sunday 28th July There were several groups meeting in different places, some of them meeting in the same places, and I got to the Camino too early and ended up in the wrong group. Daft me, and there was lots of shunting people around between venues. Awkward! But eventually I met Tina Free, Koko's Queen Bee replacement, for our meeting, and soon we were whizzing off to raid Morrisons and plan our ritual.
Monday 29th July I helped set up in the town hall, and in the afternoon, while preparing potatoes for the Melissas' feast, we took under our wings those who didn't know anyone or whose English wasn't so hot, and made them feel more at home. N'aww. By the time we were done the town hall looked like this:
The main stage
Lydia Ruyle's banners
Tuesday 30th July I was on reception and it was all go from 8am onwards! We had morning talks, my favourite of which was on the body of the Goddess in the landscape of Avalon. We then got into Earth circle groups, picking from the first image below which group resonated the best with us (I picked caves in the Northwest, on the premise that getting ready for Spain was like my summer gestation period of waiting and preparing.) In the afternoon we moved trees into the town hall for the 'Welcome to Paradise' sacred drama in the evening which was very powerful, and bravo to the brave women who performed.
Standards
Wednesday 31st July We had morning talks (of which I enjoyed Jacqui Woodward-Smith's poetry the most). Another Melissa and I then filled little paper bags with the soil of the world that people had brought along - we had some interesting conversations but perhaps weren't filling the bags with quite the right energy we were supposed to! In the afternoon I went to Jane Meredith's workshop on healing our relationship with the wheel of the year. We moved physically through a representation of it on the floor, then stopped at when we were born, our favourite sabbat and our least favourite. Some people picked their least favourite because they didn't like the time of year, others because they didn't like the symbolic associations. Three of us hated Beltane, and we reached the joint conclusion that not meeting life/sexual expectations, being forced into life phases and generally getting left behind was the main reason.
In the evening we attended an amazing Lammas ritual in Bushey Combe, led by fire priestesses after a procession. There were some random kids off the street who had tagged along and they ended up having a great time.There was an atheist French girl from our dorm who had come for 'the day' and was still there after 5 days, busting some moves in the drum circle afterwards.
Thursday 1st August I went to morning prayers in the goddess temple, then on my free day I ended up, by chance, at Chalice Well's Lammas ritual for free, just in time. It was really lovely and multifaith too.
I went for a walk afterwards to clear my head, ended up filling it with crap and ended up phoning Jacqui, who was the on-call conference counsellor so I could spew some rubbish at her for a bit (picking up pretty much where we left off in counselling last year.) Apparently my timing was just right lol. In the evening we had a sacred drama with a lot of touchy subjects which we didn't get a lot of warning for (but it was very thought-provoking nonetheless.) Afterwards I went to the pub with Bee and Simon (Swansea mooters) for much drunken political ranting and accompanied their friend back to the Covenstead to help 'finish off beers' before going back to Canada - my pleasure.
Friday 2nd August In the morning talks we had an introduction to the Motherworld, and Kathy Jones made a good point about people's reluctance to imagine a positive vision of mothers ruling the world (they're so unpleasant because they grew up in a patriachal society, apparently.) I was on reception with Roz in the afternoon, followed by the Healing the wounds of Patriarchy ritual. Well that brought up some shit and a half. We were to project our anger into stones representing our fears and inadequacies. Ouch.There was a lot of screaming and shouting (Jacqui had her work cut out), but it was lovely at the end, walking through a tunnel of people saying lovely things to you. It was later criticised as being 'dangeous and borderline evangelical', as indeed there hadn't really been enough space for everyone to do what they needed to do, but I got a lot out of it as I'm used to facing my own shit and actually felt in control. We were packed in like sardines though and there wasn't space for everyone to feel safe doing it.
Saturday 3rd August I barely slept because of a delightful roommate who insisted on snoring like a foghorn, but we had a great grounding of the motherworld ceremony and our final Earth circle and a Belgian pair handed out handmade barefoot sandals which cheered me up.
In the afternoon I melissaed at a sacred dance workshop I wouldn't have volunteered to join in with, but I got sucked in anyway by the very talented and weirdly reminded me of one of my book characters (Carolina) and I ended up really enjoying it. I went back to the hostel to grab a much-needed late afternoon kip but snorer was in there at it - so the gala ball in the evening would've been nice but we were working flat out and I could barely stay awake. In fact I did fall asleep during a very loud music performance and the other melissas sent me back early, which would've been fine, only snorer got there first so I got no more sleep anyway. Not cool. At least I looked cool turning up wearing this:
Sunday 4th August I got even less sleep the next night and was in a foul mood through the morning procession (it was also pissing it down somewhat) - I was all sung and danced out, but there was no end to the singing and dancing. We then had a gift exchange ceremony which was very nice (I suppose because I was well prepared for it what with Earthspiritcreations closing), followed by packing up. In the evening there was an awesome Dutch pair who turned up at the hostel, and since Sunday night is karaoke night, you can either attempt to sleep through it or you can join in - and despite sleep deprivation and a sore throat I did (to Weird Al songs), and also figured that I might sleep through snorer with a few beers down my neck.
Monday 5th August WRONG. I woke up in quite the rage as I'd now lost so much sleep it was making me ill. I had to text in to say I couldn't help out, and had to phone in sick to work, and by the time I got to see my darling Gingy (who lives en route), I was already beginning to cough and splutter on her. Cheers snorer. Even this picture doesn't quite cut how tired the average Melissa was by the end of it:
But hey I got really cool pics like this:
Verdict - Would I do it again? I enjoyed it very much but I won't Melissa again if I can afford the student ticket - it would've been exhausting just being there never mind working too.
Good stuff - It wasn't what I was expecting, but it was an enriching, diverse experience and an ample opportunity to network, which was what I hoped to get out of it. It was lovely seeing so many Spanish and otherwise Europeans there, and I now have Pagan contacts in Madrid. I felt like I was doing really good Goddess service, giving thanks for the good fortune I'd had in the previous few weeks. It was very well organised so thanks to Kathy and the team.
Bad stuff - I found the 'Motherworld' a bit daft in places, and I disliked the 'motherline' as an assumption that cisgendered females must have children. It seemed to reinforce this paradoxically ghastly Pagan feminist ideal that bearing a child is the most important thing a girl can aspire to. I've always got to speak for the minorities too - is was pretty cishet centric, and if you weren't a cis, straight woman you weren't really mentioned. Men are ok if they're feminised - gay people are alright, we're accepting like that - trans* people - oh well, I'm sure you'll slot in somewhere (not actually said but I could feel it.) There was a feeling of 'look how wonderful this is, now go spread the word!' with little room for discussion or debate at all. I guess the Avalon tradition is more different from what I'm used to than I thought - it's very relevant for Glastonbury dwellers and as much as I adore Glastonbury, it made me realise I definately made the right choice with Reclaiming. I know that's where my heart is!
)O(
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