Wild Women's Weekend Part The Second

[callistra]

Friday. Things went haywire. I was hoping to leave at 3, but everything went out the window, but I did leave at about 3:45, so I was happy with that. However I had forgotten a blankie, so I went back to get it. :-) I needed to get there before sunset, which is when the opening ritual was set to begin.

I took a 5 litre cask of wine. I took food. The wine was hot, so I was watching for bottlos so I could buy some cold stuff, but I wasn't having much luck. I got three quarters of the way down and my ankle started cramping! Fuck! I had forgotten how I don't drive as much! Thankfully, I had taken my steel cap boots with me, which gave my ankle enough support for me to continue driving. I drove some more.

I went into Dardanup to get booze. I was the only chick in the pub. It didn't bother me, but the bar tender kept repeating everything I said with a question mark at the end.

"I'd like to buy some booze. "
"Booze?"
"Er... Yeah. I want to take it away."
"Take away."
"I'd like a box of wine."
"A box?"
"Oh dear. Um. Can I buy wine to take away?"
"Wine. Red or white?" Wellthat certainly narrowed down the options.
"White?" I said hopefully.
"What sort?" You mean I got a choice? I went easy on him after all this hard conversation.
"Champagne?"

Anyway... Dardanup is 16 ks away from Wellington Mills, so off I zipped, into the valleys and hills of Shire of Dardanup. Wellington Mills is a fantastic place, set deep in forrest. Originaly, it was, funny enough, a mill. The cottages each have beds for 8, and a small balcony, shared dining/kitchen, and a common area. It's a lot like Fairbridge but smaller, older, and more rundown. Apparently it is in danger of closing, because they simply don't get as many people as they used to. The owners/managers/caretakers were really lovely, goodnatured and couldn't do enough for us. Except steal our milk. But that's a different story. :-)

So. I rock up, and Anita pops up from nowhere to do the meet and greet and I'm so happy and relieved and wound up to be there that I just hug her. :-) I've talked to her on the phone once! Anyway, she points me to my cabin, I dump sh*t on the bed, and go to see what every one else is up to. There's a communal area building with a kitchen and etc, like at every school camp you've ever been to. Outside of it next to the parking was a bbq type area, where we all sat and enjoyed the breeze. There was about six of us, and there were some munchies lying around. We said hello, introduced ourselves, chatted, all that sort of thing. I opened a bottle of champagne and a few people joined me in it. I opened two that night, I think I can account for one and a bit of them. :-) I had a lean cuisine meal for dinner, which I nuked in my cottage and brought back to the bbq area. We talked and had a good time. We were told we needed some stuff for the opening ritual, so we wandered off and found stuff and brought it back. I munched on some mulberries. They were fantastic. Sweet, tart, and perfect. One weird moment was when I was walking back to my cottage, and I was looking at the mulberry tree, and I swear, a twig started walking up the tree! WTF? Yep, definately a number of leaves, walking up the tree. Hmmm. It was a twentyeight or some intensely gree bird, it just happened to be the exact same green as the mulberry tree! I ate some more mulberries.
:-)

I found some items. Lucy did a very good job, it was a fantastic opening ritual. And involved lots of nicely smelly ointments and oils. Lovely. Absolutely beautiful. :-) And laughter. It was good.

I got drunk and ended up chatting to Anita. It turns out this was the first time she had ever tried to run a weekend away! OMG! Poor girl, this must have been a learning shock for her. I should also mention, I use "girl" a lot; a lot of the women were girlish, but I think I was pretty much an average in age. So perhaps I should use woman more. :-)

Bacon and eggs for breakfast! Between the four of us, we failed to bring: shampoo and conditioner. Bread. :-) However, bacon and eggs is good even without toast. And we all brought down coffee and sugar, I left my milk in the fridge at home by accident. *sigh* Amber admits that when she opened the fridge after I had rocked up, all she saw was some lettuce, and 5 litres of goon. LOL. OK. Some lettuce. And some goon. :-) Then she opened the freezer and saw all the lean cuisine meals. :-) And three more bottles of champagne. So, we discovered there was also no detergent. Rhonda had brought a tea towel. There was also one plate and a number of saucers and bowls. I had not slept well at all, and I am 100% certain I heard someone moving into the cottage after I went to bed. I heard them opening doors, walking back outside, opening car doors, bringing stuff in... but no one else had moved in. And three of us had heard it in the end.

When I went to bed on the Friday night, I opened the door to come in, and Brooke had called out in a fright "Who's there??" so I said "It's just Sarah" hoping to re-assure her. I didn't know at the time, but apparently she had been reaching for the window to try and leap out of it to get away before she actually started thinking again! LOL. Anyway. Had breakfast. At more mulberries. Went and lurked at the bbq area. Tried to ring john. Left a message. 10:00, our workshop started! Wow! None of this pagan mean time here!!

Plus, the caretakers had a coffee machine, so we could have real coffees. I ordered a cuppacino, it was pretty harsh, but, well, you know. :-) It turns out that they had no skim milk, and a lot of people wanted skim milk lattes, so they had gone to our cabin, and said to Amber "Can we borrow your milk?" Amber had not brought down milk, so said "It's not mine," and they had opened the fridge and grabbed the skim milk and said "Uh - we'll just borrow this one" and ran off! I found it highly amusing. We weren't phased by it, at least, I wasn't, and we were all a pretty sharey kind of group when we got used to each other. It was all good.

The workshop was really really good. Utterly exhausting. Illuminating. Interesting. Exciting. I had some thought-shifting experiences. Lunch I had an apple, cheese and crackers. I couldn't handle a full mean like the lean cuisines I had bought; it would have just made me sick.

In the afternoon part of the course I really just listened, and recovered from the morning. It was all interesting, Lucy has a great voice. We talked about some of the Avalon myths and celtic stories. After we all finished up, we were bloody hot, cos we'd just spent 6 or so hours in a metal room even though we were all lying on the floor (on our doonas) so we decided to grab our bathers and etc and head off to Honeymoon Pool for a swim. I had no bathers. :-) And we wanted to go to Gnomesvills.

I ended up jumping into the pool with all my clothes on. It was fantastic. Rhonda had driven, and we all bonded more in the car. (Our housemates plus one other girl.) I would have taken my clothes off, but I had not realised that Honeymoon Pool is now a major camping ground, and that there would be heaps of people still there and throwing themselves into the water and so many FAMILIES. On the way out, I flashed Anita and Lucy. *giggle*

After that, we found Gnomesville the Extremly Long Way. Rhonda was getting worried cos we were clocking up nearly 40 Ks to get to a place that in theory we could have walked to. It turns out, that Gnomesvill is one k away from Wellington Mills. ONE kilometre. :-) Absolutely gorgeous. Go there!

So, we get back, all have showers and get dressed up for our feast. The caretakers had made us a fantastic pumpkin soup, and been roasting beef and pork in a webber all day long.... *mmmmmmmmm* and dessert was Banana Melty-Poos, made by Anita. So cool!

Anita had made a real effort and when we walked into theroom, there was a single table down the length of the hall, with white table clothes, and at every place there was a wine glass and a tumbler, and a little baggie from her shop, with gifts inside for every one! Lollies were strewn down the middle as an interactive centrepeice, and the fairy lights were the only source of light. So, we sat down and she and Lucy filled every one's glass, and Lucy raised a toast to every one there. Aftewards, Anita told every one to look under her chair - she had taped a present under there too!! Wow, absolutely awesome. We lit some candles eventually, the fairy lights were a bit too dark to eat by. :-) Food was brilliant, the whoe experience was brilliant. I got a card and essential oils for the Sacral Chakra. :-) Plus chocolates and beads and a candle.

I drank my last bottle of champagne. Had a long talk with some ladies, one of whom lives Mandurah way i think, the other was one of the ladies from Sydney who had come to run workshops and etc. It was a long talk which involved tears and words. And sometimes, no words. Afterwards, I went back and wrote down things in my journal, and then rang John because I needed some comfort zone, and got him out of bed!! Oops! It was 10:15. I didn't realise, I was drunk!! :-) Then I discovered that the woman who had rocked up during the day (mis-timed the drive for a start) is a friend of a friend's fiancee, a flylady and a pagan! We've been in each other's spheres, but peripherally for a while! :-)

Eventually, I climbed into bed, wearing my fat chick on a string, and slept better. I was a bit seedy the next morning though, but not much. I was ready to come home! I had a shower, cleaned myself up. I sang a lot. I also made a lot of music on the weekend, amber had brough down drums and a xylophone and maraccas, and stuff, things "That you need NO SKILL FOR" she explained. :-) There was a moon course on that day, but I didn't want to stay for as late as it was going to run. And I was exhausted. I cleaned up, and briefly considered just sneaking away. But then Anita rocked up at our doorstep to see if we wanted to order more coffee, so I said yes, so I decided I would go and get my coffee! We had a communal breakfast in our house, I shared pancakes and lemon and sugar and there was a lot of fruit and cereal and yoghurt and other breakfasty things. :-)

So I did the dishes (someone had gone and bought detergent) and cleanedu p a bit, put all the stuff back in the car. I wandered down to the healing circle (where the non-hall stuff was happening) and found amber and rhonda doing a goddess meditation, which was on a CD. It was over quickly, so we just sat around inthe shade enjoying each others company and drinking the shocking coffee. I added to the ground mandala. Women plaited each other's hair. Supatra sang, and ued her drums. Rebecca used her knocking sticks(?). Supatra had brought some clay along, so we ended up getting two peices each, one to make something for Gnomesville, and one for us to take home. I made a venus of willendorf for the Gnomes, 'cos they need mums too, and left it there. I went home instead. :-)

On the way home I stopped at the Harvey Cheese (HA/VE) cafe and tasting shed, and had a nice vegetarian lasagne lunch. Chips were PERFECT. Vegie lasagne was GREAT. Read the news. It sucked. Drove on home.
:-)

And now, I have much to think about, and I'm hoping to chat to Anita a lot. The women's weekend is definately going ahead, and I have started trying to find out if there are any grants we can apply for, to help pay for everything, or else to help ladies with less money come, or to help pay for advertising (like in Anita's case.)

It was definately a magical weekend.

Comments

[babalon-93.livejournal.com]

sounds like an awesome weekend!

wearing my fat chick on a string

? :)

[callistra.livejournal.com]

My Lady (http://www.mandarava.com/a1grph/Cgph/C_graphics/CHM113PW.jpg)

[mynxii.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I'm so glad you had an awesome weekend!!!

Sounds brilliant!!!

*bounce*

Looking forward to the femcon :)

I should get back to the meeting - prky's wireless is intoxicating :P

[babalon-93.livejournal.com]

cool!

[kpbarker.livejournal.com]

Sounds amazing - I can hear a shift in you but I can't put my finger on it. Can't wait to see you :)

[callistra.livejournal.com]

LOL
Yes.

:-)