Wayback Machine: Next Stop, St. Louis Pagan Picnic

In an effort to catch up on past events here on my blog, I've borrowed the Wayback Machine to visit a few past events to share with you.  Next stop:  St. Louis Pagan Picnic June 11-12.

Dan and I love Pagan Picnic, it's only about a half an hour or so from our home and we've been attending since 1999.  We fully planned to drop off our easy-ups, tables and merchandise on Friday, but the previous two weeks had been daunting at best, and you know what they say about the best laid plans.  As many of you already know through my Facebook posts, we came back from Heartland to learn that my 92 year old grandma was in intensive care. Therefore much of the following two weeks were spent with her and my mom, I was honored to be one of the people to help keep her spirits up and then finally help usher her into the next realm.  We'll miss her, I hope to live as long a life as she did, and we've decided to celebrate her life.  My daughter Brittany summed things up so well on her blog Va-Voom Vintage, I couldn't have put it better!

Anyway, we were left reeling only days before Picnic trying to get our merchandise together at the last minute as we had much to press in the studio after our brisk sales at Heartland only two weeks before.  We also re-printed all of our prints as we now have a new printer to make our prints ourselves using archival paper and ink.  The quality is really excellent, and we're really excited about it, but that was a ton of work!  So we didn't get set up on Friday, poor Dan didn't sleep all night and I only had a few hours of sleep myself when we pulled the art laden U-Haul van out of the driveway Saturday morning.  I usually drive a Cobalt, not good for hauling to festivals!  When we arrived in Tower Grove Park, our spirits lifted, the park was buzzing with energy and shining with familiar faces of the St. Louis Pagan community.

We had a really great time, even though we were tired the first day.  Our son Tristan was the latest edition to the crew, and frankly, he was the hardest working 12 year old at Pagan Picnic, he worked his little butt off, and we couldn't have done it without him.  He's spending his well earned paycheck on video games and Dr. Who paraphernalia. 

Dan and Tristan at our booth, Tristan was so proud of his new wand he purchased!

I gave a lecture on Tree Magic on Saturday to a really large group.  We really had a delightful chat there under the trees about tree lore and ways to connect with tree spirits and work with trees magically.  We really loved seeing all those familiar faces, and were also happy to meet new friends as we do every year.  The St. Louis Pagan Picnic is the largest free Pagan event in the country! 

At the Tree Magic lecture, all glamor in the heat with a pen in my hair!  LOL We had a great talk, and
shared stories. Photo by Dave Mc Auley 

With Crystal and Ama who stopped in to say hello on Saturday, lovely gals, teriffic energy!

Dear friend Rene, her sense of humor always makes me smile! Photo by photo by Amanda Cantwell

So along with our new and improved prints (at the same price I'm proud to say) we also had cool new items such as really nice compact mirrors, glass nail files, t-shirts, and full color pendants that we brought to Picnic.  We have some new items we ran out of time to add such as ceramic beer steins and water bottles.(sorry Deborah, LOL)   I know, lots of people do water bottles, but these are exceptional quality, stainless steel instead of aluminum, PBA free, they have two different drinking tops, and a carabiner clip.  Much better for the environment than bottles of water bought at the store.  Watch for all the new items to be added to our Etsy shop over the next few weeks. 

   In addition to our donations to the raffle, Dan always likes to support Pagan Picnic by buying a string of tickets as well, this year I was pleased to win a copy of The Witches Bag of Tricks by Melanie Marquis who was there as a guest as well.  I just missed meeting her after the raffle, but was pleased to see that she had signed it!  That's the thing about Picnic, you get so busy that sometimes time gets away from you and next thing you know, it's over!  The Witch's Book of Tricks is really a great book about reclaiming your personal magical power, and it fell into my hands right when I needed it, having been through many personal trials over the past year and a half or so, and learning a lot about myself and those around me.   You never stop learning, and that's what this book is all about.   I can say I do highly recommend it! 

My daughter Brittany showed up with her sweet family P.J. Olivia and Rhys on Sunday, it was a cooler day than Saturday, so it was perfect for the little ones! Olivia loved running through the grass and playing, Rhys was a little angel, and they all enjoyed a great time! We had gotten some much needed rest on Saturday night, so we were bright eyed and bushy-tailed on Sunday.

Brittany and P.J. assisted with the breakdown on Saturday evening, we got the truck loaded, policed our area for any trash and said our goodbyes to the remaining staff still working hard to get everything cleaned up.  We drove our little U-Haul van off into the sunset.

Even the wrapper on her Gyro is color coordinated!  Brittany looked so cute in her vintage style!

The whole family, and little Rhys in his stroller!

Pagan Picnic was a blast!  Next stop in the Wayback Machine: Cahokia Mounds!