We spent Saturday and Sunday afternoon and evening at the Whispering Pines campground in Curran, which is about 35 km due north of us, hanging out at the Music in the Pines music festival. It was wonderful and we had a great time. Music in the Pines isn’t technically a Pagan festival, it’s a music festival that happens to have a large pagan contingent in attendance, partly (or maybe largely) because it’s held at the same site as Kaleidoscope Gathering.
Music in the Pines is the re-incarnation of the Echoes music festival, and in it’s first year, MiP did really, really well. The attendance wasn’t high (which made for a wonderfully relaxed, welcoming, friendly atmosphere) but the bands that played on the main stage were all great, fun to listen to, and very well received by a small but enthusiastic crowd.
The relaxed atmosphere meant we got to spend a lot of time just hanging out and talking (mostly about music, art, and paganism) with some new friends. We spent a couple of hours sitting under the canopy of Brad MacDonald’s gypsy caravan, admiring his exquisite hand-carved stringed instruments, soaking up his knowledge of instrument-making, and talking to him and Bob (aka SilverSage, the pagan elder statesman of Maxville) about music, and wood, and trees, and artistry and craftsmanship.
I took a whole bunch of pictures of Brad’s stunning creations (with permission, of course), but I’m only going to post one here to give you an idea of what his work his like, because I don’t feel right posting a lot of pictures of his work without explicit permission:
We also spent a fair bit of time talking to Jeremy of Rythymndrums in Ottawa, partly because he’s a very cool guy, partly because t! fell in love with this Vudu drum:
and so it came home with us, partly because of his 100-mile policy of drum manufacture (he even gets his rope made locally – how cool is that?) and partly because I ordered a hoop drum from him that I will be collecting at KG. And I’m hatching plans for quilted drum cases for both t! and myself…
We are now very definitely planning to go to KG in August, and very much looking forward to Music in the Pines next year. We might even enter the Bardic!
out here 