Attack of the Fluff Bunnies

Matt and I and our friend Steve were told there was a drum circle in Payson. We're always up for a drum circle (extenuating circumstances aside), so off we went.
Matt wanted to smoke before we went in. We watched people walking into the house and I said, "I don't know, you guys... they look like normals." But we aren't the types to judge books by their covers- that would be hypocritical- so we went in.

There were two very large, gorgeous drums- Native American- style drums. Other than that we were the only ones who brought drums and didges, excepting the fancy didge hung on the wall. "Oh, put those in the kitchen," we were told. "We're about to start the meditation.

O...k... we hadn't known things were to be so formal, but did as we were told.

It was one of those guided, visualization techniques; a meditation- in- a- box, just add soft mushy brains. I'd been talked into this before so I just went along.

I don't know why the breathing always has to be so loud and confirmational- I know there's something about the exhalation that has to do with release, in Yoga, anyway, but I can inhale and exhale deeply AND quietly without everyone else in the room having to hear it.

It started off sounding like an okay meditation, particularly because my mind typically ignores the guiding voice and follows its own guides. But pretty soon things took a turn for the weird and kept falling downward in that direction. The first weird thing was that it involved being a kid at the fair. Um, what? The fair?? That's not... exactly... something meditational. "You begin to jump up and down with glee as you remember all the fun times you had with your family there," the soothing voice crooned. (Both Steve and I related on the ride home that neither of us EVER had fun at the fair as kids if we got to go at ALL.) The meditation went on to sampling cotton candy and candy apples. In my mind they're right up there with arsenic and belladonna as general poisons. Oh, and here come the Angels! They're the ones running the carny games. I don't know about you, but most of the carnies I've ever seen look like fleas with tattoos, not angels.

There were rubber duckies with messages about how you're so loved, a balloon ride having to do with "vibrations" and, this was the clincher for Most Idiotic Meditation Ever- a unicorn. It was bad enough that there even WAS a unicorn, but this one's name was- get this shit- Bill.

The soothing voice never changed tone. "The unicorn walks up to you. 'Hello,' he says, 'My name is Bill. Would you like to stroke my mane? I like it when people stroke my mane."

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. It's a good thing the room was dark. Matt told me later that it was all he could do not to lean over to Steve and say in a soft but audible tone (voice imitating that of Butthead), "She said 'stroke.'"

Ah, perhaps we'd have more fun if we weren't so damn polite around people we don't know.

The drum circle was a farce. Everyone pretty much watched while the three of us played, and when they joined in, it was just chaos. I'd always thought it was just the drunks who decided that if you want to play but can't keep a beat or even count to four with even pauses between the numbers, just play really REALLY loud. But now I know there are plain old amateurs who do the same thing.

They were nice enough people, but extremely "fluffy," as we say in the world of Pagans. Not just "I like sparkly stuff and I have three guardian cherub- angels" fluffy, but "Hello Kitty fluffy," as Steve put it. And perhaps a mite confused. One was wearing around her neck a pentacle, a star of David, an Ohm symbol, AND a crystal. I know what being eclectic is, but a lot of people just seem to get lost and can't figure out which way to go because they're trying to go in several directions at once.

When it came down to it, they seemed- nice enough, mind you- but quite arrogant about their fluffiness and seemed to be defying us as Not Like Them. I actually take allergy medicine instead of getting polarity release treatments! How backwards of me.

Nothing like an out- of- culture experience to show us who we really are, is there? Usually, Wiccans, even fluffy ones, don't bug me much. But the people there seemed so ridiclously delusional that I couldn't carry on a decent conversation with any of them. I tried.

It reminded me a lot of the bible studies my mom went to when I was a kid, only Wiccan and without the Bible and church songs. I was pretty uncomfortable the whole time. I'm more comfortable talking to Buddhists, Mormons and Catholics. They might be based on organized religions, but at least they know where they stand.

So do I, and it's nowhere near any of them.