Summer of 2009
Today, we are installing shingles and tin on faire booths. One of the guys is constructing a make-shift shower for the August 8th Gathering. Next week, the poles will go up for Maid Marian’s Chapel. And there are 219 days before Sherwood Forest Faire opens its gates for the first year. We have received approximately […]
Today, we are installing shingles and tin on faire booths. One of the guys is constructing a make-shift shower for the August 8th Gathering. Next week, the poles will go up for Maid Marian’s Chapel.
And there are 219 days before Sherwood Forest Faire opens its gates for the first year.
We have received approximately 65 vendor (food, art/merchant/demonstration, and service) applications and/or contracts to date. Our goal is to have 100+ vendors before February 27th, 2010.
We have constructed 17 booths ourselves to date.
Our ocean container should be on the grounds before the Gathering. Inside is a wide array of items for the Faire, including our myriad of signs, wagons, carts, wheel barrows, wood carvings, and statues.
The Seven Sisters Celtic Stone Circle should be up before TRF opens for the 2009 season. We will hopefully have a ceremony on the grounds to mark its dedication. We will surely need some drummers to be there, as well as dancers. It should be done at night around midnight, I think. More on the details will follow.
There is a tremendous energy accompanying the creation of Sherwood. My dear wife adheres to a belief that events like Sherwood, at some juncture, start to take on an organic force or form of their own. At after that, we are nothing more than caretakers and servants of its purpose.
I am grateful and appreciative that so many of you are beginning to take a sense of ownership in the Faire. I hear stories and receive emails of your advocacy and labors toward the success of the festival. Some of you have assumed responsibilities to make the Sherwood better than it would have been otherwise–George (Bear) Mulder assuming the role of Webmaster: Mike Pullen taking the reign as camping coordinator: Queen Bonnie becoming the matron of the Faire and getting an article written in the Elgin newspaper about the coming of Sherwood: Lynn Fisk advocating for the Bastrop folk to embrace the Faire. Folk donating costumes to the Acting Company: The many of you who have attended the previous Gatherings when it was below freezing…some offering advice; some entertaining us with song and dance; some cutting wood….and the many who have chosen to become vendors at this first year faire because they “feel” something special is happening in these woods.
So many more stories to tell. So many more people to thank.
Have you ever felt that life was to be about more than the 8-5 mundane world we so often feel trapped in? Do you sense that there is stream of consciousness that flows in a certain direction—sometimes to the banks of a quiet stream, sometimes to the sound or rhythm of music, sometimes to a church alter, sometimes to the trunk of an old oak tree, sometimes deep within a book, sometimes in the eyes of a child, or the embrace of a loved one???
I think with the very core of my being that we are all on a great journey. Born with nothing—likely dying with nothing—but journeying toward some level of greater consciousness. And, I think this business, this entertainment venue, this experience called Sherwood Forest Faire, is a calling…
A calling for community…a calling for sharing…a calling for music and art and theatre…a calling for a sanctuary for children’s imagination…a calling for friendship and communion…a calling for each of us to re-connect to our ancient roots when mankind was an integrated part of nature—not somehow abstracted and above it.
Thank each of you for being a part of this extraordinary journey we are on together. Thanks for sharing your energies, your passions, your desires, and your spirits in the making of Sherwood.
Lift Up Your Cares!
Let us Celebrate this Fantastic Experience Together!!!
Rengypsy
