Amber Fox, Part 1
Oct. 15th, 2003 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosFriday
1 p.m. Our journey begins with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bitterlawngnome, Walter, Geneva and I setting out in a rented car from Toronto. Bill puts ancient music in the CD player: Pergolesi followed by Corsican chant and Purcell. Fall colour has barely started to show around the city, but east of Highway 35 we cross a single ridge and descend suddenly into a sea of fiery maples. We pass within minutes of ruralrob and emjaybaxter's B&B which I visited in July. The further east we travel, the more vivid the colour. We stop for Tim Hortons, groceries and beverages.
6:30 p.m. We arrive at Amber Fox. A few who come here use their real names, but many adopt a personna. I begin meeting a few of the characters: Pinkie, Chip, Claude andleafshimmer. Bill and I put up the tent in the bottom of a bowl-shaped field. It slopes upward to a high rim meeting the sky, obscuring everything beyond. An elm sapling stands high and alone on the edge, a giant orange maple off at one end. We go back to the Erection, the cabin where everyone gathers for meals and social activities. Dinner is nearly ready, but when the full moon starts to rise, everyone crowds outside to see it. Three tea light candles burn on a standing stone. Shimmer and I compare notes. He favours the full moon, but I prefer dark nights when the stars are brightest. Back inside we devour dark lentil soup and slice after slice of crusty bread and butter. Tired from our various journeys (Shimmer spent 15 hours on the bus from Boston), people drift off to bed early.
Saturday
In the night I crawl out of the tent to find the bowl of the field flooded with mist and moonlight. The slender elm and giant maple make dark silhouettes against the stars and faintly silver sky.
First thing in the morning I am furious to discover I have left my camera at home. I resign myself to a weekend of careful, meditative observation. Sometimes it is better without a camera. Bill and I wander through the mist, he taking photographs of spider webs laden with dew. I become acquainted with the rolling land. Amber Fox is dappled with puzzling artifacts of Faerie ritual: a large, lichenous rock with the grass mowed around it, or a cleared space in a field with ribbons and beads dangling from a branch. This is a safe place for alternative sprituality, alternative ideas, alternative everything. After breakfast Geneva, Bill, Walter and I drive to Perth for more supplies. Bill has to replace his air mattress, which has sprung a leak. On the way out of the grocery store, his ankle gives out and he suddenly falls in front of me. The rest of us stand around in helpless bewilderment, but nothing is broken. On the way home we stop for ice cream cones so I can make a mess of my beard.
The afternoon is so warm that I change into shorts and go bare-chested. Pinkie, Bill, Claude, Shimmer, Walter and I hike to the maple grove, a sacred place. There is a memorial to dead Faeries. Along the way and in the grove we find diverse fungi. I pose nude for some photos. Someone joins me and we start rubbing beards, touching, giving ourselves over to sensuality under the fiery canopy. Back at the Erection I shower in a stall open to the afternoon sun. Clothing is optional on the farm. A few of us wander naked, letting our skin dry in the golden light. Nudity here is more carefree, less sexually charged than at other gay events I have attended. Appearance is irrelevant.
Evening.danthered arrives. I am leading him and Bill back to the tent when Bill's ankle gives out a second time and he falls in the field. Dinner tonight is chilli and brown rice. For 24 hours I have had painful indigestion from drinking too much coffee during the car trip. Geneva prepares a mild pot for me and Skeeter. On the side is something delicious, called George W. Bush corn bread, because it's starting to crumble. After dinner we sit at the campfire for a while, but feeling tired and mildly overwhelmed by Faerie eccentricities, I again retire early to the silence of the field and solitude of my pillow. The nights are crisply cold, and I'm glad of the second sleeping bag I borrowed from my friend Ray. It is mummy style, and fits neatly inside my own.
Sunday
Morning. Bill, Daniel and I go to a nearby pancake house and enjoy maple sausages for a break from the vegetarian fare. After breakfast we explore the sugar bush. This farm keeps a rare breed of giant cattle with proportionately giant horns, but our attention is distracted by a stocky, bearded daddy with long grey hair, numerous tattoos and a Western hat. Unfortunately he drives a minivan and doesn't return our glances. The maple sugar museum gives us a chance to examine more closely some butch paraphernalia like antique chainsaws.
(to be continued)
1 p.m. Our journey begins with
bitterlawngnome, Walter, Geneva and I setting out in a rented car from Toronto. Bill puts ancient music in the CD player: Pergolesi followed by Corsican chant and Purcell. Fall colour has barely started to show around the city, but east of Highway 35 we cross a single ridge and descend suddenly into a sea of fiery maples. We pass within minutes of ruralrob and emjaybaxter's B&B which I visited in July. The further east we travel, the more vivid the colour. We stop for Tim Hortons, groceries and beverages. 6:30 p.m. We arrive at Amber Fox. A few who come here use their real names, but many adopt a personna. I begin meeting a few of the characters: Pinkie, Chip, Claude and
leafshimmer. Bill and I put up the tent in the bottom of a bowl-shaped field. It slopes upward to a high rim meeting the sky, obscuring everything beyond. An elm sapling stands high and alone on the edge, a giant orange maple off at one end. We go back to the Erection, the cabin where everyone gathers for meals and social activities. Dinner is nearly ready, but when the full moon starts to rise, everyone crowds outside to see it. Three tea light candles burn on a standing stone. Shimmer and I compare notes. He favours the full moon, but I prefer dark nights when the stars are brightest. Back inside we devour dark lentil soup and slice after slice of crusty bread and butter. Tired from our various journeys (Shimmer spent 15 hours on the bus from Boston), people drift off to bed early.Saturday
In the night I crawl out of the tent to find the bowl of the field flooded with mist and moonlight. The slender elm and giant maple make dark silhouettes against the stars and faintly silver sky.
First thing in the morning I am furious to discover I have left my camera at home. I resign myself to a weekend of careful, meditative observation. Sometimes it is better without a camera. Bill and I wander through the mist, he taking photographs of spider webs laden with dew. I become acquainted with the rolling land. Amber Fox is dappled with puzzling artifacts of Faerie ritual: a large, lichenous rock with the grass mowed around it, or a cleared space in a field with ribbons and beads dangling from a branch. This is a safe place for alternative sprituality, alternative ideas, alternative everything. After breakfast Geneva, Bill, Walter and I drive to Perth for more supplies. Bill has to replace his air mattress, which has sprung a leak. On the way out of the grocery store, his ankle gives out and he suddenly falls in front of me. The rest of us stand around in helpless bewilderment, but nothing is broken. On the way home we stop for ice cream cones so I can make a mess of my beard.
The afternoon is so warm that I change into shorts and go bare-chested. Pinkie, Bill, Claude, Shimmer, Walter and I hike to the maple grove, a sacred place. There is a memorial to dead Faeries. Along the way and in the grove we find diverse fungi. I pose nude for some photos. Someone joins me and we start rubbing beards, touching, giving ourselves over to sensuality under the fiery canopy. Back at the Erection I shower in a stall open to the afternoon sun. Clothing is optional on the farm. A few of us wander naked, letting our skin dry in the golden light. Nudity here is more carefree, less sexually charged than at other gay events I have attended. Appearance is irrelevant.
Evening.
danthered arrives. I am leading him and Bill back to the tent when Bill's ankle gives out a second time and he falls in the field. Dinner tonight is chilli and brown rice. For 24 hours I have had painful indigestion from drinking too much coffee during the car trip. Geneva prepares a mild pot for me and Skeeter. On the side is something delicious, called George W. Bush corn bread, because it's starting to crumble. After dinner we sit at the campfire for a while, but feeling tired and mildly overwhelmed by Faerie eccentricities, I again retire early to the silence of the field and solitude of my pillow. The nights are crisply cold, and I'm glad of the second sleeping bag I borrowed from my friend Ray. It is mummy style, and fits neatly inside my own.Sunday
Morning. Bill, Daniel and I go to a nearby pancake house and enjoy maple sausages for a break from the vegetarian fare. After breakfast we explore the sugar bush. This farm keeps a rare breed of giant cattle with proportionately giant horns, but our attention is distracted by a stocky, bearded daddy with long grey hair, numerous tattoos and a Western hat. Unfortunately he drives a minivan and doesn't return our glances. The maple sugar museum gives us a chance to examine more closely some butch paraphernalia like antique chainsaws.
(to be continued)
