Chasing the Rainbow by Tish Owen © 2007 WillowTree Press
ISBN 0-9678221-5-7
192 pages Paperback
$14.95 (U.S.)
Okay, how many of you have ever attended a Pagan festival? Okay, how many of those have felt "I could do a better job of running a festival?" Want to bet? Do you think these things grow organically? Just plant the seed of an idea and it will all come together. Sure it will, and if you believe that I have some ocean-front property in Arizona I want to unload.
I started reading this book and was immediately transported to some of the festivals I attended years ago, during the infancy of the festival movement. Admittedly, it has been years since I have been able to attend, but I definitely could sympathize with some of the events she related.
My first experience of festival attendance was an over-nighter in the Midwest and everything went perfectly (except for the biker gang that wanted to have a "witch hunt"). We managed to survive that encounter without any bloodshed and only a few hangovers in the morning.
Tish offers plenty of suggestions and personal experiences to illustrate the joys, and sorrows, of running a festival. She writes in a friendly, easy to understand style. This book is one that has needed writing for quite a while. I am gratified that it has finally made its way into print. No, I don't plan to run a festival, but I really feel that the festival-going Pagan community needs to know what goes into make a festival happen.
Of course, there are some things at any festival that you will not be happy with. Maybe this will inspire you to offer constructive suggestions, and perhaps even cause you to volunteer your time and experience to make the next festival more enjoyable for all.
After reading this book you will, I hope, have more understanding of what the festival organizers have gone through in order to attract you, your friends, and all those VIPs to the festival. And you will, I sincerely hope, take the time to express your appreciation to those individuals.
Mike Gleason
So, I run a successful pagan festival and this is my story. (Jeez I sound like Sgt. Joe Friday from Dragnet, the old one with...well....ok…hmmm…dating myself...never mind). Anyway, for years I read about Pagan festivals in other parts of the country and they sounded so wonderful. I could visualize it all in my head; a gathering where Pagans would come together in harmony, sit out on blankets in the sunshine and commune with nature, where little children would run and play in the fields on a lovely spring day, where there were rituals and people of diverse backgrounds would join one another to worship in perfect love and perfect trust. (Cue violins.)
It was a BIG picture; you know what I mean, where the entire scene fills the movie screen in your head, and you can feel the wind in your hair, the sun on your skin and smell the flowers blooming and the sunscreen on your face, all as you run though the meadow laughing.
