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13 Dec 09 22:58:08 GMT

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A Reformed Druid Cross-post!

16 Nov 09 18:50:33 GMT

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From Yahoo list RDNAtalk--This article from the San Francisco Chronicle caught my eye and I just had to share. Have a good laugh! Stacey

Kiss my druid, death metal viking! How do you find your niche in an ocean of wonky weirdness?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Wednesday, November 4, 2009

There I was again, just another typical workday cruising Weblandia for nimble ideas with which to stimulate the senses and better illumine the human experiment, feeling a bit more anxious and antsy than normal, but not really sure why. What could it be? What was this deep need, this itch craving a rusty, rough-hewn scratch, a needful void I couldn't quite name but which nevertheless had, I quickly recognized, a certain tang, a grubby, ancient stink of what I can only describe as stale beer meets hoary facial hair in a pile of really old meat served to me on a flaming sword by a dozen buxom whoremaidens on a creaky wooden ship in the pre-dawn mist in the year 975, gruntingly? Do you know that feeling? Of course you do.

Suddenly, like a lightning bolt made of gold bullion, rotted teeth and musty stone tablets covered in worm slime and virgin's blood, it hit me. There it was, right on the Metalsucks.net website I just so happened to stumble across for the first time; it struck my retinal core like the smoke of dry ice, traveled down my spine like a rum Kundalini and settled deep in the genitalia, where it proceeded to blast 10,000 raunchy power chords well into eternity.

It was a big, silly, wonderful ad banner for something called Heathenfest America '09, which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be some sort of cartoonish death metal microtour featuring a handful of hilariously unpronounceable metal bands -- Belphegor, Eluveitie, Vreid, Kivimetsan Druidi -- who all share a similar obsession for scallywags, hoisted mainsails, Celtic lore, beer, drawing mystical rune symbols on their hoodies with a purple Sharpie while completely stoned, and/or worshipping the giant rock vulva that is Stonehenge. Or, more likely, all of the above. In other words, Heathenfest -- not to be confused with Paganfest, apparently a nearly identical, rival tour with a gaggle of nearly identically themed bands now making metalheads belch and parents groan across America -- is one of what must be dozens of similar microfests stomping their way across the land right now and keeping the underground metal scene thriving. As Metalsucks says, Heathenfest promises to be "one of the best/dorkiest/drunkest shows of the Fall," unless you count Garth Brooks in Vegas.

Here's the curious thing: whereas most music festivals focus on broad genres -- say, all electronica or bluegrass or indie or whatever, Heathenfest et al go far deeper, are all about micro themes, parsing and sub-dividing your tastes into oblivion. Not just metal, not just black metal, not even speed black metal, but cartoonish speed black death metal about pirates and druids and beer. In a word: Awesome. But also entirely strange.

(BTW, my insta-favorite among the Heathenfest lineup has to be Alestorm, perhaps one of the best-named metal bands of all time -- a storm of ale! A tempest of fermented hops! Metalsucks calls them "a superior pirate metal band," which I can only take to mean there's more than one, which is a minor epiphany in itself.)

And it's all thanks to the Internet, methinks, to the constant and never-ending subdividing of the culture into cliques and interest groups and micro-niches to which the Net so happily caters, creates, enables. Is it not true? We've apparently reached a point where, not only can you enjoy any configuration of quirky offbeat special interests you desire, along with many you never even imagined, but are actually sort of encouraged to do so, to see how bizarre and recombinant you can get because, well, what's stopping you?

What are you into, mate? Latex frog farming? Blood paintings by menstruating asylum inmates? Star Trek: The Next Generation pastry-making classes? Large-format reptile taxidermy photography? S&M salsa dancing? Build-your-own-eco-friendly-coffin workshops? A wine club for macho gun-loving phallocentric paranoids? The Net shall provide. For better or worse.

To me, it all highlights the classic chicken-and-egg problem with Web life: Is the Net merely a wondrous connector of people with bizarre, curious interests, our most astonishing reminder yet that there are always individuals with shared hobbies and lifestyles, and it's merely a matter of hooking them up so they can all feel less alone and foster myriad new forms of micro communities? Or is it the treacherous mechanism by which cultures splinter and subdivide in the first place, and the Net actually does us all a huge disservice, fracturing us to the extent that we no longer relate on a broader scale, everyone so into their little self-important subset, their zealous micro-club that no one can speak a common language of shared humanity anymore?

The answer, of course, is that it's both. As in Heathenfest, the Net both creates a million weird and wonderful sub-genres, as well as providing respite and refuge for outcasts and freaks who think they're alone in their love of them. This is why it terrifies so many parents; kids can get exposed to some insanely disturbing s--t these days, the most extreme porn, the most outrageous racism, the most ridiculous and stupid and debased intellectual slime that human nature has to offer (hi, anonymous commenters!)

At the same time, there is astonishing beauty and diversity and range of experience, a way to reach out to others in ways unprecedented and downright magical. And as the truism goes, few things can make your average suicidal loner teen in Kansas feel less alone than finding a Web community of like-minded loners who share his love of country punk, Victorian dolls and Jell-O enemas. Or whatever.

I'm reminded of Dan Savage's amazing sex advice column, where it seems not a week goes by that he's not hit with some variant of the time-honored "am-I-alone-in-my-weirdness" query, almost always related to some bizarre kink or gross turn-on that the letter-writer is half-ashamed, half-titillated to be talking about in a public forum. After cringing deeply, Savage's advice to Disturbed Pervert is almost always the same: check craigslist. Check Google groups, Yahoo groups, etc. No matter your kink (well, almost), you can almost always find someone -- or multiple someones -- willing to engage in the same bizarre sub-sub-fetish as you, and maybe you can date them or pay them to let you tie them up and pour dog urine over them while someone massages your testicles with a pine cone. Mmm, wacky.

Where does it all lead? What does all the sub-fracturing and micro-niches tell us? Or is a cigar just a cigar, pirate metal is just pirate metal, and we should hoist a mainsail, draw down the keg, crank the riffage and lighten the hell up? I'm not exactly sure.

After all, as the druids say, "Niets gaat buiten alles om!" Dude, you can totally Google it.

Original posting: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/...

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08 Nov 09 01:44:34 GMT

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Lughnasadh and the flame in us

07 Aug 09 16:02:08 GMT

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This is the time of the harvest of first fruits. This is the time of burning. What is the connection?

The connection is to study the ur-form of all things living at an esoteric level, as Goethe did the plant world. Plants are amazing creatures of earth which transform water and air into the flame of life. They display their flame at the tops as flower, their sexual organs.

We are also living beings who flower and fruit and reproduce in our season. As we reach this time of first harvest, the hot zenith of the year cycle, the soil is dry and thirsty for extra nourishment because of all that has been expended in fruiting. Gardeners if they are wise water well and apply side dressings of compost. But for our ancestors this often meant sacrifices and ashes.

The most easy sacrifice is songs and dances of thanks.

Once harvesting was under way, feasting, choosing, raiding, trading also began.

The time of Lugh master of all trades and crafts, humanity strutting its multiple accomplishments before potential partners, is upon us. View ye the line of eligible partners swaying and giving voice to the fullness of their flowering. Build up the bonfires that rid us of chaff and sprinkle upon the fields the straw and the ashes, to keep the harvest coming.

From my roots I drew what I needed to grow into the shape I am now. And behold I am of good shape and accomplished. With my skills I forged many fine creations which I now exchange with you. I sing and you hear me and draw near to my heart, filling it to overflowing. Our fragrance fills the night as incense. This is the flowering time. This is the burning time. Dross becomes fuel becomes soil for the future.

Here is a link to more scholarly exigesis of the cross quarter festival also called Lammas

http://www.astrologycom.com/lammas.html