Hello friends! Festival season is upon us. I'm about to head off to the Free Spirit Gathering, where I will be hosting the Bardic Circle and leading a "money washing" prosperity ritual. The latter is based around something I saw at a Shinto shrine the last time I was in Japan.

In July I'll be headed for the Starwood festival, where I'll be presenting the following workshops:

Feeling Good with Acupressure and Shiatsu

Shiatsu (Japanese for "finger pressure") and acupressure are forms of Asian Bodywork Therapy, which use pressure and stretching to relieve pain and stress. According to the theories of Chinese medicine, these techniques help balance the flow of qi, or vital energy, in the body. We will discuss and practice the use of acupressure points for physical, emotional, and spiritual balancing, and also learn a simple self-shiatsu routine. If time permits we will also do some partner work. Please bring a mat or towel to lie on for stretching.

Poets and Pagans

A recent Department of Defense anti-terrorism training document, asks readers to pick from a list of activities, "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?" The possible answers: "Attacking the Pentagon", "IEDs", "Hate crimes against racial groups", and "Protests".

The "correct" answer, according to the DoD? Protests.

Yes, folks, according to the U.S. government, wars of aggression are fine, torture is fine, "preventative detention" is fine, but peaceably assembling to petition the government for a redress of your grievances about all this is terrorism.

The ACLU is on the case. Good reminder to send them a little donation.

This is something I wrote up back in 2001, during some intense on-line discussion of the nature of the fire circle at FSG. An edited version appeared in the program guide for several years. If you'd like to borrow it for your event, please feel free so long as attribution is maintained.

The Magick of Large Fire Circles
by Tom Swiss

Fire. Drumming. Dancing. All are older than history, older than modern Homo sapiens. Putting them together is probably one of our oldest magickal activities.

You may have held fire circles in your own coven, circle, or grove. However, the large circles held at gatherings -- bringing together scores, even hundreds, of people of many different paths and traditions -- require a bit of extra thought and consideration for everything to go smoothly. Please consider the following guidelines for participating in large fire
circles.

The Fire Circle Triangle: Physically, fire requires a triangle of elements -- oxygen, fuel, and heat -- to burn. Fire circles also rely on three elements: fire tenders, drummers, and dancers.

Fire tenders start the fire and keep it fed, and are responsible for fire safety. They often have to maneuver through the circle carrying heavy bits of wood. Give them the right of way and much love, for without them the circle is cold.

Drummers (and chanters, and other makers of joyful noise) take the heat and light of the fire and turn it into sound that reaches our hearts. Do not block them from the fire's warmth, and give them space and much love, for without them the circle is silent.

Dancers take the energy of the fire and the drums and transmute it into motion that moves our spirits. Do not crowd them into the fire, or block their path around it. Give them space in which to move and much love, for without them the circle is still.

Zelda's Inferno exercise: write a wordlist poem, using at least half of the following words:

dignity obstruction frustration stuck
overwhelming peace chasm silence
apoplexy empty daunted fortitude
oyster sputtering

i have sacrificed my dignity for the right word

sputtering and apoplectic
a stuck mechanism
the toilet that won't stop running
the cylinder that keeps misfiring
too many words trying to crowd through the door all at once
mutual obstruction
then they all stop to let the other one go first
a four-way stop sign where every driver yields

Fourteen-year-old Gerrit Blank was on his way to school in Essen, Germany, when he saw a "ball of light" in the sky heading his way. Moments later he was struck on the hand by a pea-sized meteorite which left a three-inch scar; the sound (a sonic boom, I suppose) temporarily deafened him.

Once, there was a young man who wanted a sports car.

His parents objected. "Its engine is too powerful. It will make you a danger to others and to yourself."

But the young man was clever, and knew more than a little about cars. "Mother and father, you are correct that this car's powerful engine makes it a danger. Therefore, I promise to make that engine smaller!"

So his parents assented. They watched for days as the young man removed pieces from the engine, leaving a pile of metal in the garage. They were impressed when he showed that he had reduced the weight of the engine by a sizable amount. So they granted their blessing for him to reassemble the car and drive it.

The young man installed the shrunken engine back in the car, and promptly tore off at high speed, running down six pedestrians before wrapping his car around a telephone pole.

It turned out that his idea of making the engine "smaller" had been to remove every limiter, governor, and regulator, all to make it more powerful.

There's a sort of so-called "libertarian capitalist" or "anarcho-capitalist" political theory that you often hear that talks about "smaller government", or even about eliminating government all together.

But you'll note that they never talk about eliminating government-issued land deeds, or government-issued corporate charters, or government-issued copyrights and patents. They're quite happy to have government force around to evict tenants who fall behind on rent, or to quell unruly laborers. They are generally property-centric, and ignore the fact that, beyond the natural use of own's own home and tools and toys, property is a product of government.

Good news everyone! Comedy Central and 20th Century Fox TV have made an agreement to 26 new episodes of Futurama, Matt Groening's animated SF comedy series. Look for it as early as mid-2010.

(We first brought you rumors of a return of Futurama back in 2005, which turned out to be a set of direct-to-DVD features. But now we're looking at a return to the standard episodic format. Woo-hoo!

For many years, I've been railing against "top posting" -- creating e-mail (or similar) messages with quoted material from the previous messages (usually, the entire message, unabridged) in the thread at the bottom, and the added content at the top of the message. I just stumbled across this perfect little illustration of why it's a horrid practice:

A: Yes.
> Q: Are you sure?
>> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation
>>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

Dan's Mail Format Site has more on the evils of top posting -- and, more importantly, how to do it right with interleaving and bottom-posting.

Seen on the web at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-black-wire7-2009jun07,0,7176956.story, as of June 10.

Anyone else see the irony in the juxtaposition of the "teach your kids the evils of drinking!" story with the "beer-tasting road trip" story?