Muin Mound Madness IX

This year's festival was a great success. We had about 40 people in attendance and raised over $1100 for the Grove. This year, the main purpose was to be a Leadership Retreat for ADF. We started Saturday with a Norse style ritual asking Tyr and Forsetti to guide us in our discussions. This was followed by a discussion of the options for a conflict resolution system to be used within ADF. After the discussion, we had time to play in the mud, (see below) thanks Janet!

After a potluck by the pool, we went back to the fields to enjoy a wonderful concert that started with Bloc O'Mahogany (our own band) and ended with Gypsy Red. This was followed by some great drumming and dancing around a large bonfire thanks Mique! It sounded a lot like the playing in the Roundhouse at Starwood!

Sunday began with a meeting on the status of ADF's Study Program. The Dedicant's Program (the first step in the Study Program) is well in place and there are people getting ready to finish it. There is now a Mentor program in place for people working through this section of the program. Several of the Guilds have finished the course list and resources for their part of the Study Program and are beginning to work on exit standards. Most of the General and Functional Requirements course lists and resources are completed and ready to have exit standards written for them. We should be on tract to accept people into the First Circle level by the first of next year.

Muin Mound Grove would like to extend its sincerest thanks to all that traveled here to take part in our festival.

Need to contact the Grove directly? For more information, call 656-8681.

The practice of feng shui (literally "wind/water"), or Chinese Earth magick is part of the concept of all parts of the universe being connected in some subtle and mysterious way. This idea follows in part the famous "chaos theory", which makes the assertion that the flapping of a butterfly's wings somewhere in the Amazon forest could initiate a direct effect on seismological movement in another part of the planet. According to feng shui practitioners, everything animate and inanimate breathe inward and outward constantly, affecting each other, and themselves being affected, not only by their own breathing actions, but by the very cosmos itself.

Thus, feng shui experts are called in whenever a new building is to be constructed, a roadway is to be designed, a new business commenced, or a couple is preparing for marriage. They will help to choose the most appropriate site, usually where the dragon or ley lines (I have also heard them called paths or roads) conjunct harmoniously, or set the date, when, according to the feng shui master's calculations, all the forces of Heaven and Earth will be at their most beneficial. The feng shui geomancy expert can map both the chi currents in the human body and and the chi currents flowing through any particular area on the Earth's surface, and match these up with such other essential data as contained in astrological charts and the like. The invisible chi currents of the Earth are known as "dragon's veins" and are determined not only by the position of sea, river, mountain, or valley, but by the positions of the stars in the sky at any given moment in time.

Members of the Folk of the Grove and the National Members gathered after the Lughnassadh Ritual to fill a vacancy in the Officer's of the Grove. Amanda Burdic was unanimously elected to the position of Scribe. Congratulations!