Long Beach Womenspirit Faire Part 1

Yesterday was sad, happy fun, surprising, and had some wild and crazy bits at Faire. Faire is always sacred space and is usually very definitely between the worlds but yesterday had some weird in the world bits.

 

I took the trains down because I hurt to much to drive still and the car is not registered and I’m glad I didn’t because we had to call the cops.

 

We have a person who has been causing problems for years. She wants power and for some reason she wants it from us and she desperately wants to join and control TOILA and LBWS and Laura was really good and telling her to go away and yet she shows up for every ritual and Faire. She has been kicked out of almost every women’s spirituality community she thought she could take over and we’re the only ones left that she might have a chance with. She cornered me and a few others at out Yule ritual last year to complain we were ignoring her requests to join. To join LBWS you have always had to be asked and that’s after doing some work with us. To join TOILA you just show up, get along with everyone, do work like set up Faire and participate in ritual and make yourself and integral part of the whole. You also have to subscribe to the Manifesto and FOI policies and such but it really isn’t that hard. Everyone that is a member has done that. Just showing up and proclaiming yourself to want to be in charge ain’t going to cut it. Add to that that this person likes to go up to people and point out what she perceives to be a weakness and she is going to help up with it and it’s usually something incredibly mean clothed in sickening sweetness doesn’t help. She will tell you things like, you would be so pretty if you just lost weight and she is big as a house herself and I will never be pretty and I know it just is stupid. She’s gone up to our members and said they have negative energy around them and she can get rid of it and she is the only negative energy around can make you a bit nuts. At Yule she proceeded to instruct me on a carol I had just led’s history and I told her she was wrong and gave her the correct history means she stays away from me usually but yesterday she came up to me before Faire opened and tried to start a conversation and I ignored her and she went off in a huff. What I didn’t know was what was going to happen next and I partially caused it.

 

Mindful of her behaviour at Yule and her now knowing that Laura was dead, I knew that she would think she was free and clear to move in because she really doesn’t understand that all of us are ordained priestesses and quite capable on our own. We followed Laura because we loved and respected her not because we had to or she controlled us in any way. She often applied the “herding cats” simile to us. Anyway I warned the head table which had some of our newer priestesses and people that she was going to cause trouble and to keep and eye out on her.

 

About a half an hour later we had the police arrive and that never happens. It turned out she parked her van on the curb and stuck her handicapped placard on it and then pulled chairs into parking places and stuck her placard on them to save them. When R , a retired cop and generally wonderful person and husband to one of the priestesses at the front table went and took the chairs away and put the placard on the ground where she would find it she came back furious, she cussed R and out and C royally. It also turned out she had been cussing out some vendors and had done it at last Faire and the vendors were really mad. I don’t blame them at all. Well, she got done with her cussing snit and took off into the Faire and didn’t move her illegally parked van and she could of because we still had a few parking places and no parking place is very far from the Faire and if you can walk the Faire, you can walk the lot. R called the police and reported a 5150 and some other number I can’t remember and the cops came. They were concerned because there were no female officers on duty at the moment and she had fled to the back of the Faire and was causing trouble back there. They had thought she was in the women’s restroom but I don’t think she had gone there. Anyway, they finally found her and she was induced to leave and not come back. I’m wondering if she is going to show up for Laura’s memorial but I’m going to recommend she not be allowed to stay if she does.

 

So we had some mundane and nasty excitement.

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