Area 5 clothing optional?

[Emrys]

Joseph, I appreciate that we'll be getting some information whereby the membership can assist in looking for a new home for Dragonfest, whether it be new rental or our own land. As for the buying a seat at CMR (as far as I know) the only way that can happen is either for an existing member to sell his/her membership, or their board to vote to increase the number of "seats" in order to sell us a membership. Do you have a reason to believe something like that is in the offing?

Now, for the meat. I was gonna write a much longer post dealing with your recent confession that it is your decision to push nudity up the fire road and also dealing with your reasoning for doing so. Instead, I'll just boil it all down to this: Is there anything anyone on this forum can say to cause you to change your mind about your apparent intent to eventually eliminate all nudity from Dragonfest and replace it with "Fluffy Paganism," or are we all just wasting our time even trying?

I know, that sounds harsh, and I apologize if it stings. But the question is begging to be asked (and answered) and I'm not the passive sort who can just "let it go."

[Jareth]

I've apparently missed my mark this entire thread on what I'm trying to say. My problem is not with Joseph, either the CMR or Dfest boards, or the new nudity rule. My problem is with the lame ass membership.

The majority of the membership is OKAY with this change. The majority of the membership wouldn't blink if Freedom Circle were eliminated. The majority of the membership calls Castle Mountain "home to Dragonfest". How many pagans in CO have some depiction of Castle Mountain as a profile picture? Do you need further demonstration that the majority of people would give up just about ANYTHING to be able to look at the same damned lake year after year? LAME!

This religion is supposed to be about spiritual exploration. "Exploration" is having the same damned rituals in the same damned meadow with the same damned stoned soups next to the same damned merchants selling the same damned knives and swords and cloaks and the same damned turkey legs? C'MON!!

I remember one year someone walked the line encouraging people to boycott Della's kitchen because of some other idiotic drama. I LMAO'd. "Lessee, you've paid your admission, are going to spend the week using the facility, have every intention of coming back next year, but yer really gonna show 'em by skipping a $2 bratwurst? Ooooh, you REBEL, you!!"

This rule has not changed much. Really ask yourself, what else is there besides some boobs and bottles of mead? I'm not complaining that the boobs have been curtailed. I've just had it that there's NOTHING else! This human macrame BS is still being talked about four years later. Is the festival so lame that something like THAT is interesting four years later?? The pyramid, the firespinners, the tipi, the new boys' rite, the bagpipes at Freedom....none of that worth talking about? NO. Anything that could be interesting is shrugged off ten minutes later instead of used as inspiration to do something MORE interesting the following year. LAME!

I swear, you people are like the Life of Brian! Joseph gets up and says, "You are all very different! Do something cool at the Diversity Pavillion!" and you respond, "Yes, we are all different! Please prescribe the ways in which we may diversify!"

Joseph is only preserving what the majority of the membership WANT by maintaining the lake as someplace for people to sink into their ruts. I don't understand that because it seems like he'd really prefer to encourage people to make Dfest an interesting place to be. But he can't do that on his own. It takes people willing to be weird. And like I said, holding a bottle of mead and letting your willy swing doesn't make you weird. If you're pissed about the rule and still going to Dfest and that's the MOST interesting thing you do, well, then you're beyond lame.

Don't be pissed that the boobies are being covered up. Be pissed that besides a couple bottles of mead, there's nothing else interesting. You wanna be pissed at someone for that? Take a look in the mirror.

[Emrys]

Jareth, if you missed the mark on what you are trying to say, perhaps you should have (before this) just come out and say it. I wasn't able to attend last year, so I never knew about bagpipes and pyramids. That's sad. Not because I missed them, because no one even thought they were worth mentioning. Yes, I did ask. And, you're right about at least one thing: the membership has become so complacent that they'll tolerate (and some even celebrate!) every push to sanitize and homogenize the fest... oops, sorry, the "retreat." In other words, what little diversity there is, is progressively being choked off. My fear at this point is that when people get tired of the same old dumbed-down mass rituals and the same old merchandise being offered on Merchants Row, etc., we'll get offered, as officially sanctioned and approved variety and diversity, stuff even duller than that.

At least the (now former) open format of Area 5 offered the opportunity to visit with people, meet new ones, even see interesting new art without the ever-present paranoia of someone catching an illicit glance at my willie. Or, is that a glance at my illicit willie?)

I don't know if this is all really CMR, Della, the board, Joseph, or all the fluffy bunnies blowing innocent stories of interesting things happening in Area 5 into a nightmare of rape and mass destruction, I just know something valuable is being lost. Once that's gone, I'd rather drive the 8 or 9 hundred miles to PSG (or even less to Heartland) rather than spend a week being bored to tears and mourning the loss of an old friend.

[wudewassa]

[TheRatMomma]

[Allison]

[TheRatMomma]

[Joseph]

[Emrys]

[Jareth]

[Brian]

[Flwyd]

[Flwyd]

[Flwyd]

[Brian]