Friday 6 July 2012

The web of life...weaving the values that sustain us

 'Man did not weave the web of life.
       He is merely a strand in it.
   Whatever he does to the web
           he does to himself'.
                             Chief Seattle

Oh dear, she's getting all philosophical again....! No no no, I just had a lovely weekend last weekend and wanted to share some of it with you.
My lovely friend Jenny B and I talked (some years ago) about going to a festival. I mean we felt that we had missed out on some amazing life adventure that we felt sure we must experience. Anyway it has taken until this year to get our acts together and actually go and oooh.... what fun we had!
As we have both found ourselves in rather dire financial states of recent times, we figured that if we worked at the event then we could save ourselves a bob or two and that we did.
We signed up to work as stewards in exchange for a free weekend pass, saving £150!!!!!
So Cornbury festival it was. We negotiated over the whole tent issue and it was decided that Jenny's little 'pink pop up number' would be the tent to have, small compact and not of any real value if it should get stolen! What were we thinking of? We were like a pair of little school girls (naughty ones may I add), the tent just required literally throwing out of the bag and pegging down...ta dah!!! The tent indeed had the last laugh as it was too small to even fit the double airbed in....so glad I know Jenny B quite well!!!!! You know it did fit in but sort of folded up at either side so we couldn't actually do the door up...in fact once we finally got into the tent having to let the airbed down considerably, we had to ask some random passing person to do it for us. What they don't tell you on these contraptions is that the tent may be a two person tent but that means two small people and no 'stuff'. Glad we took the kids beach shelter to chuck the clothes and essential rations in. The funny thing is, that between us we have 7 perfectly good tents and we chose the smallest....doh!
It was fine,we had a very squashed nights sleep and woke up to a bed shower, rain was quite literally sprinkling in on us...oh how we laughed!!

The event itself was enjoyable although not sure that I feel that I have ever 'missed out' this being my first festival. Working, definitely made the event. I met so many lovely people and thoroughly enjoyed being part of the action and the team. The acts themselves were good but not really being all that bothered by the world of 'pop' I wasn't ecstatic about the artists. I was rather more delighted about the bubbles being blown around the site and the general atmosphere of the festival community.

Community....this leads me back to the 'web of life'. I just found this lovely little book when browsing through Amazon (you know how it is) and I feel excited about it and wanted to share it with you. I've had a bit of a dream for the past few years about living as part of a community with like-minded people. I think we live rather lonely lives these days. Wouldn't it be lovely to live with others who share common values and interests, in an environment where there is always someone around to chat to, to create with, to share the chores that we have to do, friends for the children and for the dads too. I'm rather fancying  a farmers field, you know paying a little rent in exchange for a corner of land to grow veges and keep a few hens, perhaps helping on the farm during harvest, or when the need arises. Or some woodland....and perhaps creating a 'hobbit house' out of reclaimed bits and bobs. How liberating it would be to have to rid myself of the huge amounts of 'stuff' I have accumulated over the years...
Anyway, this little book, talks about our lives as little webs, and how each strand is a different area of our lives (friends, family, time, spirit, community). I'm bumbling my way through it dreaming right now...or perhaps I'm spinning a web and trying to link things together......ummmmm who knows what the future will bring?

'Although it is made of thin, delicate strands, the web is not easily broken. However, a web gets torn every day by the insects that kick around in it, and a spider must rebuild it when it gets full of holes'.
                                                                                               E.B. White

Keep building your web and enjoy it! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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