So... now is where my humble self comes into this story a bit more.. A little about my self and my path... I am primarily a bard..in which most of my beliefs and passion and interest on a spiritual level (and others for that matter) focus around music.. and sound.. as a medium for healing..communication.. just playing around.. and at this gathering ..providing drumming and music for the various events and rituals.. I gathered a quite eclectic group of drummers and musicians and singers. who were regular attendants at a lot of gatherings (insert gathering junkies here). We used to turn up to a lot of the same places and gatherings .. so got together and after a couple of years of doing this built a rapport and connection.. We were quite in demand at gatherings to provide drumming or music.. and us regulars would gather all the other musos around the gathering and form a almost bardic circle.. As there were up to four or five rituals and events (sometimes more.. and quite often there would be several different ones on at the same time to provide choice)..(this particular gathering started out as having about 60 people at the first one.. and it grew..each year till this year there were about 200 or so people)..so sometimes there was a bit of a competition as to who got us at their event.. Some of the events we went to we just played as it came and it was a lot of fun.. usually there was a basic run through of the event so we got a gist of what was required.. Now the AQ wanted us to play at her big ritual which was going to happen on the third night of the gathering... She wanted a particular flavour and particular feeling and certain stuff happening at certain times.. which was fine and dandy.. but required a lot of organisation.. (now us bards or musicians .. are not exactly formalized and for the most of us we play by the seat of our pants..tapping into the mood of a ritual or event and following it. and accentuating it and supporting it)..Now for AQ with the formalized nature of her ritual we needed to organize signals etc and practice it was a sort of rote learning.. (for the musos who could read music i actually set up a score for it).. we had done a couple of her little rituals and had found that they were VERY beautifully structured and were lovely to watch... but somehow lacked a flow and energy and seemed somewhat empty.. so it was hard for us to improvise.. in fact pretty near impossible.. so we tried to follow what she wanted.. (also we were musicians and our paths were diverse.. and so were our attire.. at gatherings the general suggestions was as these gatherings were a step out of the ordinary.. that attire should be special .. not just everyday wear.. ( hey it could be a special pair of jeans or tshirt.. it was the FEEL that counted.. sort of like dressing for an occassion).. so when the group of us got together our attire was very varied.. I for instance had ONE robe that I wore everywhere.. It was deep green with maroon flashes at sleeves ..hood and panelled at bottom.. the whole robe was intricately painted with trees and vines .. a hawk a moon and some other things.grin. other people wore the classic black robe look or loincloths.. or pretty much nothing ( a couple of faery musicians used to cause a stir for what they ALMOST wore..nearly caused some younger males to implode and a couple of younger females to melt with glazed eyes)...now AQ as mentioned before had EVERYTHING coordinated. and wanted us to wear complementary robes...heck some of us didn’t wear robes (eg faeries. try and get a faery to wear a robe and you would find faery dust up various orifices that you never thought possible or perhaps found yourself dancing for no particular reason).. So we struggled on with AQ..
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