One of the neatest things about Omni Camp is that the local gravel (lining all the roads) is rich in mica and quartz, and there is mica in chunks and flakes everywhere. They add a glitter and sparkle to everyone's clothes and skin, as well as the camp grounds, which is very magical either in the sunlight of midday or the searching flashlight beams at midnight.
The local trees are tall pines and oaks, mostly. The undergrowth includes "doll's eyes" whose berries are clusters of white buttons on bright pink stalks, the fakest looking plant I've ever seen. Someone left a note saying not to pick them, they're deadly poison -- I didn't try! Also Solomon's seal, with its clusters of gray berries, and ferns. There are lots of mushrooms and fungi around, perhaps because the last month has been so wet. Bright yellow blobs along rotting wood look like spilled wax. Ghostly white Indian pipes push up from the litter of the forest floor, like prayers left by native people long ago.
The local animals are mostly chipmunks, scurrying and squeaking. Crickets and grasshoppers crawl along the tent's fabric, slow and cautious as alien explorers. At night, glowworms light their quiet little lanterns along the trail's edge, burning one after another, in sequence like tiny chaser lights. An owl hoots in the dark, an eerie and haunting sound in the pitch black of midnight.
I have met too many people to record them all here, but I will note some special individuals. Mareba, the elder sister from South Africa who now pursues Native American rights, is wonderfully sweet but driven on her agenda. Wei Wei, the Chinese girl who's just finished studying homeopathy in Toronto, is elegant and demure, but quite friendly. Ben, the visually impaired Mac hacker at Dragon Systems, is loads of fun to talk with and dance with. Chuck, the big contact improv dancer, is remarkably gentle and understanding, but confident in his power. Sandrine, the French vixen, is very friendly and interested when I talked to her about polyamory, but cautious -- so I made a point of introducing her to Lee and addressing her concerns. Deidre from New Mexico, with the butch haircut, is new to the whole thing and very appreciative of this experience so far from home -- she is even considerate about smoking tobacco, and strives to keep the smoke away from me, how nice!
I also reconnected with people that I had already met, and I was surprised and gratified by how many there were. Bruce is a great guy that I would be proud to call my brother, and we had a mutual counseling session about our relationship issues. Lori is happy to see me, providing that she has a job for me to do. Daryl is loads of fun to dance with and goof with. Daniel is deep and thoughtful, interesting to talk to, until an attractive young woman comes into range, at which point he shifts his attention.
One neat aspect of Dance Camp is the "family group" which meets after dinner and before the night's revelry. This creates a little, intimate circle within the larger community, where you can check in and reconnect with self and others after a day of exploring the wide and varied world of DNE. There are a dozen or so family groups, you pick which one to hang with. The first few nights, I went to the Massage family group, which gave me a nice opportunity to touch and be touched. I gave massages and received massages, which was really nice. I was a little surprised to find that some of the people there didn't have much experience or expertise in massage, and I taught several people how to care for the upper traps, TMJ, and muscles of the face, because they didn't seem to know how to do it. I hope this improves their experience! But there was no connection with the people there other than massage, no heart sharing or discussion, and I wanted some more personal sharing of heart and experience. For the last few nights, I ended up in the Panfidelity family group (i.e. Polyamory), which was a very accepting and warm circle of people, ranging from 20+ years experience in multiple relationships to young couples in the initial stages of opening their one-on-one relationship. I found a wonderful warm connection with this group as a whole, and with several individuals within it.
The other physical challenge has been the callouses on my feet. I must admit that after years of daily taiji practice and going barefoot whenever possible, I've built up a respectable callous on the soles of my feet (primarily my heels, but also the ball and big toe). Usually, there will be some cracking of the callous in early summer, which is kind of painful when the crack goes down into living tissue. I went throug the yearly ritual of pain this spring, and thought I had it over and done with, but after the first few days of dancing hard on bare feet, the callouses on both heels cracked deeply and caused agonizing pain on every step. Short term, there doesn't seem to be anything to do about it, other than endure the pain and wait for the cracks to heal. This time, I talked about it on the dock at the waterfront, and a girl said that I ought to shave off the excess dead skin with a razor blade, so that the new skin can grow from inside and heal. Sounds reasonable. Hell, at this point I'll try anything.
As part of my intention to recreate myself in a healthier mode, I've been doing laps around the swimming area (buoyed ropes demarcate a square about 80 feet or so on each side) every day. Usually I do 10 circuits around the boundary, sometimes 8, but sometimes 12. I hope to enter a mini triathlon sometime soon, and this is a good way to build. Alternating strokes each lap, and trying to concentrate on the crawl stroke, where I think I need the most development, as my upper body strength has suffered while working on my thesis. Most of the guys around camp have very nicely developed deltoids and lats, which is an inspiration, and a challenge!
Emotionally the week was a real roller coaster. Started pretty low, climbed up high during the first half of the week, crashed down hard midweek, and then climbed back up again to end on a high note. Plus there were lots of mood swings in between, ups and downs. This was no surprise to me, given where I'm coming from, but it was still a ride. The next section gives the details of daily events that correspond to some of the big changes.
It's always lonely arriving and not knowing anyone, especially when it's a big group of people who all seem to know each other. Trying to shake the blues, I went to the massage family group in the evening. This was okay, I shared massage with several people, but there was no one to facilitate or take charge, it was all very random.
The afternoon was taken up by registration, swimming, a music jam in the big tent (and helping the musicians pack their gear out), and meeting people. I'm meeting lots of people at meals and general hanging around. It's fun, and also an interesting experience to flex my personality muscles again, it feels like years since I met new people just for the pleasure of it.
I announced at dinner that I would teach a little introduction to astronomy after dark. (Announcements are done by writing signs on notice boards, which I like much better than yelling.) So, after a brief massage session, I got my telescope and set it up in the high parking lot, out of range of street lights -- however, there was some car traffic, and the headlights were a problem. About four or five people showed up, all told. I showed them how to get oriented with Polaris and the Summer Triangle, and pointed out Cassiopeia, Sagitarius, Antares and Scorpio. With the telescope, we got a great view of globular cluster M13 in Hercules, very dramatic. I tried to find the Ring Nebula in Lyra, but no soap (I'm not sure it's visible at my low power). No planets either, but some satellites and meteors. It was fun. Then another freestyle boogie at night -- I could get used to this!
I learned later that most kitchen shifts are done in teams, so you get to meet people and socialize while working. Which sounds great, but I was alone on this task. I also learned that they usually have four people doing the dishwash work, not one. That may explain why I was working flat out for almost four hours without a break. Finally, I learned from someone that the first kitchen shift is supposed to end at 9:30 (I learned this at about 10:30), and I got out of there and managed to find some food, luckily, since breakfast was over.
The extra time meant that I missed the morning class in contact improv that I wanted to take. I was pretty pissed off, so I sat alone and had my food and tea to calm down, then I went swimming. By lunchtime, I was in a better mood, and made a point of meeting some new people and getting to know them.
I took the afternoon class in Pilates, which is an exercise regimen originally designed for people who are bedridden, but intense enough for dancers and athletes. It was very interesting, and I got some good stretches, though I'm not sure I will want to go this route for the long term. The huge rubber bands for leg stretches are very good, I will see if I can find some.
After dinner and another rub session with the massage group, I went to the "tepee village" for a pipe ceremony. This was led by Dale, a camp instructor (not a DNE member) whose grandfather was Chippewa and taught him the old ways. Nice guy. He asked me to be firetender, and we started the fire while waiting for the sisters' sweat lodge to finish. We had about eight people (Wei-Wei was there but had to leave). Dale told stories, mostly creation myth and the origins of the pipe, until Mareba and the other sisters finished the sweat and joined us. The ritual of preparing the pipe, loading it with prayers and tobacco, and smoking it, was a very nice time of reverence. I don't know enough to do the whole ceremony again, but I could do an abbreviated one, like my tea ceremony. This lasted pretty late, and I didn't go to the nightly dance afterward, just turned in.
Contact improv is very different from any other kind of dance that I've done. Warmups involve crawling and slithering over each other, exercises in sharing weight, draping bodies over each other, and learning to communicate with touch and pressure. Very different for me, but lots of fun and a good heart opening experience.
After lunch and swimming, I went to a "Snakes 101" workshop, where I got to hold several boas (they're friendly and very mellow) and learn some things. I also got to teach some things, like why the snake's tongue is forked -- for stereo perception! Then we all took our shirts off and lay down and let the snakes crawl around on us during guided meditation. What a wild feeling!
I also went to the second Pilates class, out in the main grassy area, but just as we were starting I saw Lee arrive, so I ran over to greet her and get her set up. We wandered around and found her a good tent site, overlooking the main quad, and got the tent set up (first time with this new tent). As I was out of class for the day, Lee and I spent the afternoon swimming and hanging out. After dinner, we spent some cuddle time, and then went to the nightly boogie dance.
I was already finding irritation, though. After arriving alone and depressed, and going through the work of meeting new people and finding new classes to take and cheering myself up, I cut it all short to greet Lee and get her settled. I didn't feel it was an option to ignore her and stay in the class, but I found myself resenting her for arriving and cutting all my other activities short. So the dancing wasn't real fun, I kept trying to loosen up and cast aside the irritation, and not making it.
But when Lee found me at the end of class (and not at lunch, as we had said) I was immediately very irritated. Why? She apparently doesn't understand that I often feel stressed in her presence, and that I need some space to recover, and that I felt a boundary was violated. I also felt distrusted, like she thought I was going to ditch her and she had to hunt me down. She certainly didn't see a problem.
At any rate, after lunch there were no classes, and Lee and I went to her tent to try to work things out. This soon turned into an intense trance work session, which I will write up separately HERE. It took a lot out of me. Afterwards, we went for a swim at the waterfront, which was a nice relaxing change.
The big event of the evening was the drum circle. The announce board said there would be a Drum family group beforehand, so I got my djembe and toted it over the the fire circle. Not much happening. I filled a water jug at the dining hall and carried it over to the fire circle, so that people wouldn't dehydrate _too_ fast. The fire was already big and hot, and I was sweating just being near it.
Lori, the organizer, wanted to gather people for a procession, so I took my djembe and followed her to the dining hall. She had torches of the kind that people use for juggling, but instead of juggling she whirls them around and makes cool fire trails in the dusk. I laid down a 4/6 rhythm as a sort of accompaniment, and people did indeed gather around. Several tried the torch twirling, including Wei Wei, but none could match Lori's deftness and speed, it was really neat to watch.
While the fire twirling was going on,
UNDER CONSTRUCTION still not done, but getting there!
Friday - contact, Bruce, water games with Lee and others, crashdown, poly, just me
Saturday - qigong, bugaku, writing, dinner with Bruce et al, didji, the final boogie!
Sunday - fantasy morning, sound & light teardown, pack trailer, lunch, twelve laps with Lee only, pack out Lee's stuff, the final hang with a bottle of wine, and then this journal.
Monday - hauling out the garbage, pee-yu, then Jennifer and then Dave & Amy