Revelers—Prepare Thyselves!

Once again in darkest night
Burn hosts of hopes and 'bird so bright.
Gather 'round the glowing embers,

Farewell the year and its December!

Feeding the Fire

Saturday night the Firebird went up again, gloriously, as several thousand moderns gathered ‘round, transfixed by its healing spell. As I swayed from foot to foot, a sleeping Hawk under my coat and wrapped against my chest, I heard someone behind me say, somewhat obviously, “I feel like a savage performing an ancient ritual.” Fortunately, this casual comment failed to incite a reaction from the fundamentalist forces of antagonism that earlier in the evening—or so I’d heard while waiting in line at Artisans for my three-shot Americano—had protested the glorious event for its purportedly pagan character. I wondered whether Christmas trees occupy a place of honor in the living rooms of these latter-day crusaders.

It’s rare these days to witness, much less participate in, any kind of public ceremony that doesn’t involve spectator sports. Indeed, in an age where commonality with your fellow person is most likely to be sought and found in one of your neighborhood’s three Wal-Mart Superstores, a civic event like the Phoenixville Firebird Festival is positively magical in its ability to draw so many in.

Unlike those odd family heirlooms of behavior wherein the original intent is lost and/or willfully forgotten and your Christmas Day feast consists almost entirely of cold cuts on potato rolls and you persist in perpetuating this behavior because you’ve persisted thusly since 1971, the Firebird Festival was founded with a grounding in myth and a memory of decades of local economic decline. Also, people like burning things.

Jenifer laughed at her own childlike glee when, after the morning’s class, she described the day as her favorite of the year. This time we were even more excited than usual simply because it would be Hawk’s first time ex utero. We would also be contributing to the town’s rebirth in our own small way by working a table promoting our friend’s yoga studio.

We set up shop in the lobby of the Colonial Theatre, a smaller version of similar turn-of-the-last-century movie houses such as the Embassy Theatre in Wellington or the Paramount Theatre in Austin. We situated ourselves by an olde-tyme Santa sleigh and a restored Wurlitzer organ and got down to the business of selling yoga, which boiled down to answering children’s queries about the contents of the festive little holiday-themed boxes occupying our table. The answer was “yoga” or, what amounted to the same thing, “nothing,” since the boxes were intended to deliver gift certificates or class cards. Oddly, none of the children was satisfied by our answers, though more than one attempted to cart off a box all the same.

On the off chance I’d have some free time, I took my notebook and conjured a plot point concerning medieval European politics. With all the yoga talk and ancillary burrito eating, however, I didn’t get around to catching up on a primary source I’d chanced upon in a used bookstore in East Stroudsburg (home, incidentally, to the Frank Frazetta museum, which may well be the objective of a future field trip—I’ll keep you posted). I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose, since Hawk, 15 weeks old and already a precocious flirt, was bound to be the major attraction.

As the burning time approached, we packed away our gear and headed down to the site. The streets were filled with people eagerly awaiting the countdown and soon enough the sky was filled with smoke from wood saturated from the week’s heavy rainfall. Within minutes flames licked the mighty Phoenix and the intentions of thousands soared heavenward.

Afterwards we followed the flow back up Bridge Street, walking back to Jess’s house for her “Pyro Postlude.” For the first time in recent memory, we found ourselves at a genuine party filled with interesting people our own age. Jenifer and I certainly had no idea what we’d find when we moved to the area from a university town, and it took us some time to get our bearings and discover the awesomeness lurking beneath the surface. Usually, however, this awesomeness found expression in folks a decade or three our elder. And now, on Firebird Day, another layer of Phoenixville opened to us.

Later, I walked to retrieve the car to spare Hawk the cold. The streets were mostly empty now, but the lights still shone with yuletide cheer. I scraped ice from the glass, then circled by the fire site to see the remnants of the blaze. The fire was still going, now surrounded by a small circle of stalwarts. I imagined our friend Henrik, chief Bird Builder, was among them, and envied these few in this moment. I smiled, though, too, for I have had my share of fire-talk; and I thought to myself, or maybe I said it aloud, “There’s good medicine.” It takes only a few, or perhaps not even that many, to change the world.

Firebird Is Coming

A friend of mine, a small-business owner, insists the world is burning. And it is, I suppose, what with the economy and all, but then the world is always burning, one way or another.

Here at Holy Embers we like the glow of fire, especially the sea of flame that welcomes you at dawn, as the red sky did this morning. But my favorite fire is that of the burning bird at Phoenixville’s Firebird Festival. The fifth installment of this annual community ritual happens this Saturday, December 13. If you’re local, or even if you’re not, head on over and join those who have helped pull a failing steel town from the ashes and forge it anew. You can find the schedule of events here. (Note to friend: it's free.)

Phoenixville Rising; Or, Press 5 for Transformational Character Arc

in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni — “We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire.”

This is the annual post in which I write about how cool my local community is, how a group of “culture creators” is reimagining a former steel town, and how a sense of genuine pride is spreading throughout the land. The Firebird Festival is a big part of Phoenixville’s renewal, perhaps the most crucial part, because it is a gathering that points to a bright future and the artistry already present.

This year the event held a special meaning for Jenifer and me since we’d come to know some of the chief architects of the project. Artist Mia Bosna gave the invocation and led the procession down Bridge Street with her Drumming for Sanity ensemble. Lynn Miller, who recently played at Jenifer’s Friday night class, sang jazz to the burning of the ’bird. And Henrik Stubbe Teglbjaerg, one of the Firebird’s builders (see if you can spot him in the pic), will be playing singing bowls in a future class.

Other highlights included the Great Quentini, a performance artist who stomped like an oversized Micronaut Acroyear in front of the Firebird; buskers singing, telling stories, and twirling fire; a didgeridoo and singing bowl ensemble; and at the Colonial Theature the continuing adventures of Fumblefingers the Elf (on vacation in the Caribbean, so I’m told) . . .

As I sit at the dining room table, reflecting on these good feelings, the phone rings. I dash upstairs. The phone is not on the hook. Where is it? It’s still ringing. Back downstairs.

I scramble around the living room. From the bedroom, a smooth corporate voice explains that U.S. Representative Jim has decided to hold his town hall meeting in households throughout the region. He’s here! Live! In my house!

Before Representative Jim begins, however, the velvety robot continues, intoning, “Press 2 if you would like to be placed on our do-not-call list.” I would if I could find the phone, oh, yes, how I would.

There it is!—on the coffee table. I press 2, but the unit is dead. It’s been lying in this state since yesterday. I press 2 many times anyway, because that is how any grown man solves an insoluble problem. It’s the intensity of the repetition that will assure success, I’m sure of it.

But then Representative Jim begins his Live! interruption, welcoming me and all my compatriots in such a friendly, political way. “Hey, Mister,” I manage to cough out, having reached my lactate threshold, “I’m writing, Eivør is singing, and together we are creating culture in our little corner of Montgomery County—”

But Representative Jim rambles on in his down-homey way, deaf to my consternation.

Back upstairs, where I place the handheld unit on the receiver. I watch the little red recharge light blink on and try to come to terms with the sober reality that it is probably I who represent the half of my household that is telecommunicationally challenged. Indeed, when actually placing a call I am usually praying to the lords of electricity that I have enough phone points or whatever activating mechanism the consortium of Comcast, Dr. Who, and the ghost of Alexander Graham Bell has decided is required to carry my voice through the space-time continuum. I just thank my lucky stars Representative Jim didn’t have my cell phone number, or I would have lost precious time scouring the house for the orchestra playing in my pocket.

But then a new thought occurs. What kind of resources, I wonder, would it take to call all the houses in the area so that I could read my blog to them LIVE!? No, not my blog, the week’s pages. Yes, that’s it. I could set up an easy and convenient telephonic survey to gather metrics on my progress (these people, after all, being future audience members).

CUT TO:

ME: Sir, on a scale of one to five, with one being lowest and five being highest, how would you rate the scene you just heard in terms of structure?

SIR: Uh . . . two?

ME: I’ll put that down as a five.

BACK ON HOLY EMBERS:

Maybe I should call Representative Jim back. With his understanding of the sprawling matrix of digitality and my penchant for oiling the engines of social change (it’s on my résumé), why, we could skip the focus groups and go straight to the source. Take the pages to the street and get honest reactions, pure and simple. And, why not? Any pages rated three or lower get sent up in that big bright ’bird.

Happy New Year!

Pancakes and Cigarettes

Welcome to the next installment of Things I Did Several Weeks Ago (or More). Today we review the 2006 Firebird Festival in Phoenixville , PA. When we first moved into the area nearly eight years ago, Phoenixville was an old steel town just beginning to recover from a 20-year economic and social depression. Apparently, the drug dealers and prostitutes had just been cleared out, but the streets still felt far from safe.

Over the past several years, however, the town began perking up, using state grants to help develop new businesses and improve the physical space: soon a new park sprang up, as well as benches and streetlights lining the main thoroughfare. A group of local cultural creatives initiated the Firebird Festival as a year-end ritual to mark the symbolic death and rebirth of the town named after the mythic creature.

Jenifer and I met our friend Adam at the Steel City Coffeehouse, where local band SpiritGrass was already rocking. We quickly absconded to the Colonial Theatre, a grand old-fashioned movie house, for a marionette show about Santa’s elves called Fumblefingers Wants to Fly. The narrative throughline fell apart somewhere in Act II, and by the end it had become painfully clear that the writers had failed to do the deep character work. What was Fumblefingers’s motivation?

Nevertheless, the children were enthralled, and I was reminded of the scene in Amadeus where the common folk sing along with Mozart’s popular entertainment. Afterwards, we enjoyed an overpriced dinner at Iron Hill Brewery, a local upscale chain, and then made our way to Wolfgang Books. We missed a storytelling session, but were happy to browse through the books and look down on the brightly lit street from the shop’s well-appointed reading room.

Next was the main event. We gathered at the justice building, where we joined a procession led by Mia Bosna and her drum corps. Mia is an amazing artist who conducts workshops in shamanic journeying, and it was quite apparent that her inner 10-year-old was alive and kicking. We marched and hollered and clapped our way down to the parking lot where the huge wooden phoenix awaited us.

A fire twirler held our attention as we waited for the lighting of the huge wooden structure. Finally, the burning began, and soon flames were licking the head and wings until it took on a powerful, almost demonic presence, like the Balrog in Fellowship. I recalled Bhagavan Das’s tongue-in-cheek injunction to “find the flame; and burn, baby, burn.” I’d found it alright, and soon I was reflecting on the past year and the new.

2006 was a banner year for me. I logged enough air miles to circumnavigate the globe, visiting Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, as well as Los Angeles twice; worked out with a two-time World’s Strongest Man; met screenwriters Michael Blake and Shane Black; starred in an exceptional yoga instructional video; meditated with Bhagavan Das; conducted an exhaustive and illuminating ethnographic study of Scandinavian pants, made it to the second round in the Austin Film Festival’s screenplay competition; studied shamanic journeying; renovated my condo; and wrote blog entries of the highest quality. Heck, I even got a promotion at work.

Somewhere in there I did some screenwriting. In the words of Sean Bean, “I’m very pleased.”*

Yes, I am indeed wonderful – and generous enough to record all these wondrous doings for your reading pleasure. In truth, though, the point of this list is not to exercise my ego but to revel in the fact that I did something. Not too long ago I was just another phased-out fanboy trying to run down Wave 9 of Hasbro’s Star Wars action figure collection and come to grips with Episode I and What It Meant for Humanity.

Recently—meaning perhaps a week or two ago—Cecil, veteran checkout guy at Kimberton Whole Foods, asked me how I was doing. Rather than recite the above list, I said that things were going well and that I was working on my stories. (Working on my stories? How lonely high school goth chick is that?) I painted the big picture and he asked, “Do you think you have much chance of success?” I looked him straight in the eye and answered, “I wouldn’t be doing it if I thought I didn’t.”

2006 wasn’t all hearts and flowers. It was the most stressful and challenging year thus far at my day job. And so I shared the Cecil story with a friend of mine I’d met several years ago in a screenwriting class. He now runs a very successful nutritional supplement company, but the early days were trying.

When he started his business, he couldn’t afford to fly, and since he wasn’t married, he’d make three-week road trips, his trusty Volvo loaded with samples. He’d work his way to Fargo, North Dakota, drive down to Colorado, and then work his way home. He’d stay in Red Roof Inns and eat at pancake and waffle houses for $3. He couldn’t afford a typewriter with memory, so on Friday nights he’d find a Sears and buy a $500.00 memory writer, do all of his letters and paperwork, and then return the unit for credit on Sunday night. He was overstressed, smoked like a chimney, logged 300,000 road miles in three years, and amassed $45,000 in credit card debt.

And yet, he knew he would be successful. He knew the power of setting your intention, of creating a world of abundance, of being open to possibility, opportunity, and the allies along the path who will see you through the difficult stretches. He knew that the ashes and crumbs of the present would someday be a fond memory, the beginning of a new and beautiful dream. “Life,” he told me, “was good.”

*10 points for identifying the source of this quote.