Somewhere over the rainbow region

I herded ducks today and they stampeded efficiently into their rightful places, wide feet slapping noisily on the ground. It hadn't occured to me how much noise they could make while moving in unison, a wet-grass-wet-feet sound with honk-honk-honk accompaniment. The other flock of ducks are quieter but reach up with flapping wings and wriggling tails to demand dinner-time whenever I walk past their fence.

The goat spears me with her intense caramel-chocolate gaze, shuffles closer hoof by cloven hoof, and pushes her nose into my hands. Egg-fetching is the dirtiest job, on hands and knees and reaching into the secret hiding places of ducks and hens, a filthy sort of treasure hunt, but all of it leaves me sopping and mud-spattered and proud and sure in my body's practicality. Mud-hazards, grass-slides, deluge.

The flooding is spectacular and newsworthy (above is the showgrounds where the party was held- we were meant to be camping there). Adventures into the outside world are only half-certain of success- there are brown rivers carving out the sides of the roads and gushing across the tarmac. We saw the sun for the first time in a week today, so I gardened (of course), building tomato tee-pees all over the veggie patch while more storms brewed out over the valley.

Apparently our brief moment of sunshine was enough for me to add a sunburn to my collection of aches and marks- the remains of a New Years caning still stripe across my arse, and purpled piercing marks decorate my sides (pierced in the last light of the first day of the year). There is mud-spattering everywhere it seems and the general physical neglect of being so surrounded by people that three moments alone in the bathroom is an impossibility. It's all good, and none of it dents my general commitment to the gung-ho casual nudity of this gathering.

I'm giggled at for my two, three maybe baths and showers per day but the bath looks out over rolling amazing hills and the shower walls are formed by clusters of rich tropical plants- both outdoors- can you blame me? Getting clean justifies all the grubby joys of the place, all the gleeful tromping through all the ankle-and-deeper mud and muck, all the dirt and grime of caring for living, breathing things that give so much.

Hallucinogenic adventures of the naturally occuring, fungal variety have dragged out this party to end all strangely-wholesome parties well beyond where chemicals could have taken us. New, new, new experiences pile upon new experiences until it flows just so nicely by, each part as unremarkable but lovely as the last. People I've known only slightly, people I've seen forever but never known, and people I've never met, impress themselves into me as utterly worthwhile, worth pursuing and holding onto wherever the connection goes. I can't remember the last time so much new energy came into my life, so relatively without trauma, can't remember being so open and unreserved and stripped of my armour (everyone seems that way- permeable, fluid, in motion). I don't so much do the resolutions but I would love to take this away with me, and keep it close all year long.