[liff] The May Day Faerie Circle in Peninsula Park V: How To Be Totally In Love

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On May the 1st, 2016, in Peninsula Park, in Portland, Oregon, a group of blithe spirits were called together to do something daft and absurd and fun and happy and welcome in spring. You might call this peak Portland, but I call it liberating. This is the fifth of several posts, several because there were so very many pictures.

There was this couple there that I could not take my eyes off of.

I think of them as "The Two". This is them:

They seemed to be romance perfectely embodied. This couple had a magnetism to them, as though what they shared was so universal you shared it too, just to be in their general vicinity. Old lovers could look at them and smile in realization and remembrance; lonesome people could look at them and feel hope for what they hope for.

The world just seemed to be set up with a perfect place for them, and they fit in that  place, hand-in-glove, every move perfect, every countenance, beatific.

There's no printed guide on how to be perfectly in love with your partner, and I don't think one could be written in any human language, but in the wordless language of the heart, it's all there.

You just have to study the scene until the light happens.

[liff] The May Day Faerie Circle in Peninsula Park IV: Summer Candid, Summer Not

3341.

On May the 1st, 2016, in Peninsula Park, in Portland, Oregon, a group of blithe spirits were called together to do something daft and absurd and fun and happy and welcome in spring. You might call this peak Portland, but I call it liberating. This is the fourth of several posts, several because there were so very many pictures. 

This pictures in this post could be filed in a place where you would go if you wanted to remind yourself how to dance like nobody was watching, except everyone was watching, except everyone was cool, so cut loose, life is short, &c, &c.

I really went for the candid, unposed. That is the sort of thing that speaks to me the loudest, but there are some photos that you just have to have a pose for.

For instance.

We had a couple of the Sisters of Perpetual Indugence there. You know Y'lluria's idea had wings when these tender ministers show up.

Meanwhile, a few others of the blithe spirits sunned themselves in the slightly-unseasonably warm weather. The young lady on the far right in the photo above deserves notice; she was a unicorn, and I'm down with that, because Portland needs more unicorns. She was truly a lovely woman, and I should have taken more pictures of her.

The sheer ease and niftyness of the atmosphere is palpable.

This next faerie was charming because of the rag-tag mien. It's as though she stepped out of the forest:

Whereas this one was charming because she was all Mardi Gras and ebullience, an explosion of color:

And, of course, hippies of all ages.

The complexity of this young lady's wings (I believe the older woman next to her was her mother or guardian) would have gotten a 'best wings in show', if there were awards for that being given:

The young lady un-self-consciously dancing in the below for her friends was charming beyond surly words, of course.

And it goes perfectly with the look of happy abandon on this young lady, also dancing as though little else mattered.

And Mom may have been distracted … but the little girl there certainly had the photographers number.

About the other thing this brings to mind is an aphorism I recently saw electronically:

If you're having trouble dancing like nobody sees you, just look at a toddler. They do it, and there isn't even any music.

A little wild abandon never hurts.

[liff] The May Day Faerie Circle in Peninsula Park III: The Live Soundtrack

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On May the 1st, 2016, in Peninsula Park, in Portland, Oregon, a group of blithe spirits were called together to do something daft and absurd and fun and happy and welcome in spring. You might call this peak Portland, but I call it liberating. This is the third of several posts, several because there were so very many pictures. 

Like any great festival, the May Day Faerie Circle had live music.

All of it improvised. This was a cosmic jam session with the accent on easy. Everyone had their instrument and everyone was enjoying the flow.

Gaea unplugged, you might call it. There was also freestyle percussion:

… and something that I think of, in retrospect, as Sunny Oregon Breakdown … mandolin, harp, and handpan.

[liff] The May Day Faerie Circle in Peninsula Park II: Y'lluria, The Faerie In Charge

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On May the 1st, 2016, in Peninsula Park, in Portland, Oregon, a group of blithe spirits were called together to do something daft and absurd and fun and happy and welcome in spring. You might call this peak Portland, but I call it liberating. This is the second of several posts, several because there were so very many pictures. 

Every group of seekers needs a guru, a leader, a teacher of some sort. There are many sorts of those. Some teachers are stern, demanding obedience and obeisance, others have a more gentle way of directing and guiding. It was the second type this group had in the inimitable Y'llura Watersong.

If you watched the news during the last heat wave, you saw her. April 20th, KGW's equally-inimitable Matt Zaffino had the interview-of-a-lifetime when he met her and her friend Una at Salmon Street Springs. This was not long before I would have the pleasure of her society.

Today, she was resplendent in blue and white, flowing skirts and pooka shells, and pure graciousness.

She was patient, encouraging, totally enabling, and kind throughout. And a ball of energy it was hard to keep up with. I'm no mind reader, but I'm sure she figured she'd get some like-minds together. I'll bet she was flattered and surprised by the final group … There were at least 100 people in that circle by the height of the ritual, and some had come from an hour-or-two's drive just to take part.

The moment that captured her splendidness is this next picture here. The young lady in foreground right is a young lady of special needs, for whom there was a small problem that was a big problem for her. The look of patience and human care on Y'lluria's face says a great deal about her generosity of spirit and character. To be totally there for that young girl is the story the face tells, and if I have no other memory of ever crossing paths with her, this would be the icon for it. 

There are some blithe souls that take the time to try to make the space near them one of kindness, in hopes that would spread out and go viral.

Y'lluria is one of those souls.

[liff] The May Day Faerie Circle in Peninsula Park I: The Circle

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On May the 1st, 2016, in Peninsula Park, in Portland, Oregon, a group of blithe spirits were called together to do something daft and absurd and fun and happy and welcome in spring. You might call this peak Portland, but I call it liberating. This is the first of several posts, several because there were so very many pictures. 

There comes the time in every serious person's life when one must do something delightfully absurd and extremely fun and wonderful. Like welcoming spring in at a Faerie Circle.

Being different in Portland is, of course, something we do to a fare-thee-well. But life is a terribly serious place these days. So very much to be in dreadful expectation of. And there are good ways to unhinge ones' self. This … this is something I recommend. Because you can't be good to the world if you can't be good to yourself, and being here is being good to yourself.

They let me be good to myself. They let me be the camera who witnessed. And this is what I saw.


From the slow gathering and assembly …

… Friends and assistants gathered, and learnt the the parts they were to play. Most of us had never met or known each other, but the ground rules were clear for anyone with eyes to see: Roll with it. Be good to each other. Trust in each other; you'll know what to do when the time comes.
 

It was ritual, but it was fun. 

It's hard not to be somewhat grandiloquent when remembering the day. If you wanted to show your faerie self, go ahead; whatever yourself was, you were welcome.

A splendid human to lead us through the motions was all that we needed. The rest was provided by whatever we had to bring.

All that was left for us was to open like a flower … and roll with it.

 

I fancied I'd gone there as a reporter. I'd let the memory mellow, because I'd really wanted to be an observer. the pictures are a story; the faces tell of a certain bliss; I'll let them speak for themselves.

 

All on a temperate, sunny Oregon day in May. 

In the year 2016.