I go back to work tomorrow--with visitors in the Park. I have a duck skillet in the oven, with onions, garlic, mushrooms and potatoes. Bay leaves and rosemary from our garden. It is beginning to smell like the angels sing. It was one of the first meals I made at the beginning of the shelter in place, and it just seemed the right thing to do. I will have duck fat for days to sweeten other meals.

I have in so many ways moved from Hornblower and sailing ships to Druidry and the forest, but my place is still with those Ladies in their Sanctuary for now. I am done there in most things, but still have a few things left to do. It is very unlikely I will ever sail again, but I did get to furl t'gallants on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The view was magnificent.

I have little time tonight, dinner to be finished and preparations for tomorrow to be made.

Facebook sucks. I miss my livejournal. Maybe this is just a Dear Diary, but let's give it a try. 2016 rocked, I made my third trip to Wales. Haven't been anywhere since, but someday we in the US will get our shit together as far as COVID is concerned and will be allowed out of our playpen.

I am contemplating going back to work with great trepidation. Actually, I would love to go back, but frolicking with COVIDiots is not my idea of a good time and that is what it amounts to. I work in a tourist destination, and they all want in, many of them are not into masks. We are not allowed to require same, take temperatures, or any other reasonable public health measures, and my only way back and forth across the Bay is public transit. The ferry rocks--well, as much as anything does--but I am not yet able to secure a schedule that allows me to use the ferry exclusively.

Oh--but we are in the midst of creating a union. I am hoping that this will give us enough clout to change our working conditions.

It's good to be back, I think this is a healthier habit than Facebook has become.

And I miss Livejournal. So why am I here on Dreamwidth? Because I don't recognize lj any more. This place looks right. And I miss you, Moon, and you, Hilde, and I'll never see either of you if I am completely eaten by facebook. And Wordpress, I readily admit, is an adventure in trying to slide myself into writing professionally. Which means that I am a legend in my own mind.

But I miss just journaling, and while my life has seriously changed, I'm hoping I can slide this back into my life. I mean--what I've seen from your entries makes me mightily curious and realizing that I have missed a lot. Which is as it is.

I have gotten seriously into Druidry, as I've probably mentioned before. I'm approaching the end of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids Bardic Grade, and looking forward to going on with that. I'll also (as soon as I find a good cheap flight) be going back to Wales this September, to go to Cauldron Camp. My latest harebrained scheme is finding a way to spend a year in England/Wales/Scotland to take another Druid course, and to connect with the land there. Druidry is based in that biome, and just going on a trip the first time made me see California with new eyes. There are a lot of things that I'm learning to do from Druidry that don't seem appropriate in California, and I feel the need to continue the learning I've begun from short trips in a deeper way.

I feel that we in the US--in the world, really, are doing crazy stuff partly because we're disconnected from the land, and from each other--while being hyper-connected. We routinely talk to each other from across the world on the internet, but how many of us know the trees in our neighborhood, the land spirits, or even our own neighbors? We're terrified of terrorists and immigrants, but we're getting into our cars and texting as we hurtle through the neighborhoods we never see. What's more likely to get you killed, I ask you? And we for sure don't know the First Peoples who still have an ancestral connection to the lands that we've ended up in. We throw our trash everywhere, and treat each other as disposable as well--and that's crazy. Deeply, deeply insane.

I need to run my seemingly crazy ideas up the flagpole and see what holes get shot in them. I need more than one carefully(ish) crafted post per week to practice my craft. I feel called to be part of this connection I think we all need to create between us, the animals and people we share space with, the trees, the planet, down to the rocks underneath our houses and the spirits that still inhabit the lands we live in.

Back in 2013 I had a mind to go to the lands of my ancestors. I was 50 years old and hadn't gone anywhere. So I did. I went everywhere I could get to, from the islands of Scotland to the streets of Dublin. I slept in hostels, and pastures, and on the shores of Llyn Tegid, where Cerridwen brewed the Awen. Two, count'em, two Druid Camps that first trip. I didn't know about the first one till after I bought my plane ticket, and it started the evening of my first day in the country. The tickets were sold rock star style, and I managed to get one. At that camp, I found out about the other camp, at Llyn Tegid, which was held the last weekend I was going to be in the country. Why yes, I feel I was guided. That first trip I also went to the stones at Calanais and asked them what they were for. I got no answer. But they were beautiful, and I spent an hour-plus in the rain with the whole place to myself.

At the last camp, I found out we were beginning a year long brewing of the Awen, with group rituals (done at the same time, wherever we happened to be) to be done at every full moon until we gathered again at the lake the following year. I didn't have to come back the following year to finish, strictly speaking, but I was back in 2014, to have even more amazing adventures. And different stones whispered the answer to the question I'd asked at Calanais. "Connection." That was what the stones were for, or that is what I am called to do? I don't think it matters, and I am going to do as I'm told. By the stones? By Cerridwen? By the land or the planet? I don't know. But the longer I'm at it, the more interesting and rewarding the path becomes.

Now I know there are probably only armies of dust bunnies reading this thing, but, if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area and willing to get up at an obscenely early hour, my seed group (of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids) is having a public ritual this Sunday. It'll be at Inspiration Point, up in the East Bay Hills. Meet and greet at 5:30 or so, all are welcome. The site is a grove of trees in the middle of the parking lot--far more scenic than it sounds and chosen for accessibility. We'll be honoring water.

Intention: As the light of the longest day touches us, in this dry land we live in, we give thanks for the gift of water.

Our rituals are highly participatory and this one includes an Awen spiral, chanting, and a water offering. Bardic circle to follow--for more info, message me, or go to Facebook and search for Quercus Seed Group.