Summer Solstice at Fiveacrespread

I spent an incredible weekend at Fiveacrespread - a farm in Northeast Florida - to celebrate the summer solstice. These are some of my pictures from my overnight stay, and the words that were consequently fueled. 

The sacrifical pyramid - to be burned

Corey and Alex displaying our fabric suns to be added to the bonfire

I dropped the veil again and rose the curtains, stepping into and through the stage.
I sang before the audience and then they sang to me.

Performer and performance and perfect pedestal are one,

presented in packaging of Platonic ideal.

I was mid-swing and mid-song, the words beginning to form with no effort and as elegantly as the easy back and forth of the slatted porch swing, and finally the floating oak limbs began to undulate, gently, in time with my sure and steady voice.

I sang for whomever would listen, not because I wanted to but because I couldn’t have stopped the twirling strains of melody from escaping my helpless throat. Not even if I had wanted to.

I sang not because I had been granted permission (and definitely not because I had asked) but because the rising and falling turns of song were beckoned from me by a friend’s hazily insistent fingers on an acoustic guitar.

“Come, give it to me. Sing to me.”

Each tiny groan of approval was a drop of gasoline finding its way to my combustion chambers.

Sparking me; his nimble fingers finding their places in the assembly line like seasoned factory workers.

When he stopped playing and my voice quieted, there was clapping.

I swelled with the addition of a new emotion; pride.
 

Oh what it is to switch from watcher to watched – what it is to stand before a calculated bonfire and watch it burn in collective elation only to turn and feel the same smolder growing within my own veins.

To feel the warmth alight on my skin in the gentlest of vibrations.

Fire fans the fire dance

This is what it is to pay attention.

This is what it is to carefully collect each instance of “mundane” and preserve them all in my secret holding place, transforming each and lovingly stripping the title of “trivial” and christening anew.

Nothing is inconsequential, nothing deserves to be overlooked. Not the slight skew of your hat’s flap on the left side of your whiskey-flushed face, nor the regal collar of sweat-darkened fabric ‘round his entire upper chest- shoulders and collarbones drenched from hours on the farmhouse porch.

The devil’s in the details, sure, and that’s why we’re such good friends.

Each mosquito was a minor penance for every hour I’ve wasted in front of a television set;

every speck of dirt on my ankles a reminder of my true coloring, marked by the earth which bore me.

Nothing is insignificant, nothing deserves to be excluded from devoted symbolic analysis.

Not the wide-eyed stare of toes stepping across the line demarking genius from insanity and not the alien landscape of the marsh at low tide under a super moon’s beaming. 

Red and green rays of laser-precise illumination scattered through my hair,

lighting my strands and glittering past, granting a celestial nobility.

 

"I am a galactic activation portal – enter me."

Lasers illuminating lengths of spider threads

I don’t mind a long trip – I have never been one to grow bored of my own mind. I entertain myself all the time.

I pass the hours with ease and no small amount of whole affection, expecting nothing and appreciating all. 
Every division from the itinerary is a welcome chance for adventure.I fear no new face, I fear no twists nor turns.

I accept the unknown as a new friend – no need for obsessive introspection, 
no need for worry at the dense and ever-shifting night.

I travel armed with flashlights and the thrill of fire in my sight.

Oh what it is to traipse through moonlit brush dewy-wet and cool against my bitten skin.

To sit close on a porch surrounded by the blessings of creative presence and love for art’s expression.

To meet the others who know what it is to sit in awe of “nothing.”

I am so drawn to front doors that remain open through the wee hours of morning, presenting a clear view of guitars all in a line – save for the few plugged into amplifiers at my feet. I am drawn to the simplest feeling of black cord snaked under my legs and dog fur grasped by my hand, laying myself next to the slumbering beast.

“I want to feel what he feels.”

I want to lay flat on the porch and give as much of a shit about it as this giant white dog. 

I want to lay in the dirt and swish bugs with my tail. 

I want each and every person to scratch between my ears.

I want to be a still and silent observer as the guitar reverb hums around me,

not just for a stretch of graveyard hours on a warm June night but every day.

How do I catch this feeling? Do I run after with both hands outstretched and trap it in mason jars?

There aren’t enough jars in the world to contain this open-eyed fervor.