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2003-08-12 - 11:04 a.m.

What a wonderful week Starwood was! It was a week that changed so much for me on an intimately personal level. And everything that happened seemed as though it was meant to happen. Yes, it did seem that way. I was in a pretty blissed out state after the healing, and it was imperative that I learn this next lesson.

I was working in the store one night, feeling wonderful and beautiful and still not touching the ground since the healing. Steven came up and began talking to me.

He said that he was from Nigeria, and that he had a drummer friend who was part of the concert in the Pufferdome that night. He originally had stopped to ask for directions. This was his first Starwood and he still had some problems finding everything. We got to talking, and he invited me to come along. I told him the situation with Sam and me, and about the polyamory stuff. I figured it was best to explain it all right up front, then allow him to extend the invitation again if he still was interested. Sam and I had plans, I told him, but if he still wanted to dance, we would probably be around the fire later that night. He said that he would look for me there. Then he smiled at said, "I'm going to take you away from him." I thought he was joking.

Well, it turned out that we didn't make it to the fire that night after all (we were much too comfortable in the tent right then, no details forthcoming), so the next time I saw Steven, he said that I broke his heart. It had given him a headache, he said, I had hurt him so by standing him up. I apologized and briefly explained, but I told him that when I had a chance I would look for his booth. He was selling artifacts from Africa, so I'd be able to find him by looking for his vendor's booth.

Now all along I had a weird feeling about Steven. He seemed very pleasant and he was interesting to talk to, but he came on very strong. I rationalized it away, telling myself that it was only because I was uncomfortable with someone showing such strong interest in me. The entire week I'd been meeting people that were incredibly good for me, people that were helping me to heal and to learn, people that I felt good about. I was at Starwood, where I was feeling things in such a strong magical way. This was meant to be as well, surely?

As luck (or whatever) would have it, I wasn't able to look for Steven for several days. It was getting closer to the end of the festival, and I hadn't actually gone to meet him yet. That was as it should be, it seems. When I did find him at his booth, things took a turn I wasn't expecting at all.

He seemed very happy to see me, calling me his angel and telling passersby how wonderful the day now was. He showed me all the items in his booth. It was small, but he had some unique handmade items from all over Africa, including musical instruments (which of course I loved).

After showing me everything on display, he brought out a necklace. He explained that it had a story behind it. In his country of Nigeria, a grandmother or grandfather would find something to serve as an amulet, he said. They would put all the good things in the amulet that they would want for their grandchild: prosperity, love, protection, peace, skill, intelligence, all the good things. He showed me the place in the back of the necklace where there would traditionally be a pouch. The amulet would be put in the pouch, and the necklace given to the grandchild as a gift.

He said that he wanted to give me this as a present from him to me, a gift of friendship, for protection and out of love. He proceeded to put in on me.

I had been seriously thinking about shamanism since the workshop, and I thought that an amulet of protection was a wonderful gift, the sort of gift that would happen to me at Starwood. I was a bit overwhelmed. I stayed and visited with him for quite a while, and we talked about a lot of things. Other people dropped in, and we had a jam session with all of the African percussion instruments. It was a good afternoon. Before I left there, I even bought a drum. I had wanted to buy one, but the ones I'd looked at with an envious eye cost multiple times more than I could afford. This was a small, handheld, portable sort of drum. I watched as he taught someone to play it, and when I expressed interest, he taught me as well. The sticker said $25. He would only accept $20. I was ecstatic! I had a drum!

And then I left. I was heading back to the tent, and I passed the store on the way. I saw Sam there, so I ran to show him my present and my drum. Now I realize that I was really, really excited about the drum, but the necklace made me feel really weird, like something just wasn't quite right. I was hoping to see his reaction to it, but he was busy and distracted enough at the time that he didn't really have a reaction at all.

So I went back to the tent, played my flute for the fairies in the woods, and tried to chill for the rest of the time that I had before I had to go back to the store. I didn't want to think any more about it at the time.

Some hours later, back at the tent, I felt compelled to mention the gift to Sam again. I told him that it felt a little weird. He was looking at it strangely. He asked me to tell him the entire story about how it was given to me. I told him, and watched his expression grow more and more concerned.

"Give it to me for a minute," he suddenly said. Sam isn't usually quite so blunt, so it alarmed me a bit, but I was also quite relieved. "I was hoping you'd do this," I told him. I tried to take it off, but found that I couldn't find exactly how it was fastened in the first place. When I said, "Um, I think I need some help with this," I could see his concern intensify further. It took some time and effort on his part, but he was finally able to untie it.

He held it in an odd way, as if he didn't really want to touch it. "So what the heck is that thing?" I asked him. "I don't know," he replied, "but it's not happy that I took it off you." I was beginning to get past the point of nervousness. What had this guy done to me?

"We're taking this to E-," Sam said, and he prepared to go more quickly than I'd ever seen him do before. "She'll know what this thing is." I didn't say anything, but I was getting really scared. Sam almost walked out of the tent, he was set in his mind what needed doing, then he suddenly stopped and looked at me. "Come here and let me hold you," he told me. So I did, gladly. I knew what he was doing. He held me close, his hands occasionally moving toward certain areas. After a little while he said quietly, "It's ok. You're all right. I can't feel that it's hurt you."

And then we were off to E-'s tent. Sam was a man on a mission, striding with purpose. I squished and squelched through the mud in my slippery sandals behind him, struggling to stay caught up to him on the way.

We got to E-'s tent, and Sam told her, "I'm going to ask you to hold something that you may not like." He was right. She held it away from her with an expression like it stunk and asked, "Where did you get THIS?" Sam briefly explained, and she instructed him to get rid of it. He said that we were intending to throw it into the bonfire later, and she responded, "No, that would be respecting it too much." So Sam, holding it away from him as she instructed, brought it out and threw it into the RV dump station.

While he was gone, I asked E-, "What was that?" "It was a 'compulsion'," she explained, "a 'come to me' sort of thing. Despicable."

She asked the others in the tent to smudge me and the area with sage. Someone asked if more wasn't necessary, and she replied with a slight snort, "Naw, she's too well aligned for it to have hurt her." I was quite gratified to hear her say that, and in such a matter-of-fact way.

So Steven had tried to put a love spell on me. Jeepers. He'd said that he was going to take me away from Sam, and I'd taken it as a joke. Sam said later that it had another component to draw Steven to me if he wanted to find me. Like a homing device.

I'd trusted this guy. Against what my instincts had been telling me. Something had made me feel uncomfortable about him, but I rationalized it away. Lesson One: I need to trust my instincts. I am more powerful than I'm used to realizing.

It had been a positive, magical week. I'd met such wonderful teachers. This was Starwood, how could things happen to threaten me there? Lesson Two: I am powerful. I am NOT invulnerable. Not everyone and everything is to be trusted. Yes, it was Starwood, and that meant that there were all sorts drawn there. I was lucky that this lesson turned out to be pretty benign. Steven's magic was weak against me. There are others who are stronger. I need to pay attention and not trust so easily. I need to proceed with caution. And I have been warned to never, ever allow anyone to put anything on me if I don't know who he/she really is or what the thing they're trying to put on me is.

Lesson Three: These were two lessons that had already been presented to me earlier in the week. Daniel and Linda had both helped me to see that I am beautiful and I am powerful. (And Sam just smiled and nodded. He'd known, too, and was glad to see me finally find those parts of myself.) And Daniel in his workshop had some strong messages regarding the danger involved in magical work. Sam himself has always said that Starwood is a very dangerous place. Wonderful, but dangerous. Both of the above lessons were very obviously available to me, and I'd thought that I'd learned and accepted them. But in some ways I hadn't learned them well enough. It took a very scary and humbling experience to make me really learn them. It would be so much easier I if could apply lessons I've been taught without needing a dangerous situation to test me on them. Lessons can be accepted by the brain. Realizing how to integrate them into one's life is really learning them. So finding a focus that involves both magical and mundane life would be helpful. Because they really are not separate. Ah, I still feel like such a neophyte!

At any rate, lessons have been learned. And now I just need to find where to go next.

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