As I’ve said here already – it’s Renaissance Faire season.  The time of year when I fling sanity to the winds and spend seven weekends in a row helping my friends at their booth at the Southern California RenFaire.  (I’d include a link to their beautiful work – stained-glass ornaments and windows and the most wonderful magic wands – but they don’t have a website.)

Four weekends down, three to go.

I love Faire.  I love the people, the amazingness of the community, the beautiful, unique, powerful handcrafted work that’s offered for sale.  I love the fact that overnight on Saturdays tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars worth of work is left in the tarpaulined-up booths – and there’s never a problem.  (Yes, there is security and access control!)

I love the honesty of the place, the realness of the people. 

And maybe I’m crazy, but I love wearing my costumes, though I also definitely enjoy the “out of bodice” experience at the end of the day.

I even … well, okay, no, I don’t love the dust that creates cement in my sinuses!

I love what it teaches me about who I am, about the changes I’ve made over the ten months between Faire seasons. 

And I love what it teaches me about what’s important.

We all think we know what we value. 

But when push comes to shove, you find out what you really value.

Just watch what you do, what actually stays a part of your life, when your time gets crunched by – for instance – spending seven weekends in a row away from home.  When during the week you have all the work to do to be ready to leave at oh-dark-thirty Saturday morning, and also all the stuff you normally do during the weekends, AND all the stuff you do during the week.

Oh, yeah.  What’s really important?  I’m finding out.

The walks I love to take along the San Luis Rey river drainage embankment?  Haven’t been there in weeks.

The knitting projects that my fingers itch for?  Except for a nice portable sock that I can knit at Faire – nope.

Gardening?  I admire the amount of pruning, weeding, and transplanting that cries to be done.  From a distance.  Inside the house.  As I work on, well, work, and all those things that support my being at Faire.

Books I very much want to read are piling up.  The floor goes un-vacuumed, and the cats are – I admit it – neglected.  (Okay, wait.  That means they don’t get petted as much as they – or I – would like.  They’re VERY well fed and watered, and their litter box is, trust me, exceedingly well scooped.)

I could go on, but I won’t.  My point is, where your attention is, is what’s important to you.  Whatever you may think.

What have I kept up with? 

My clients, absolutely, always, no question. 

My business and my business partnership, though not all the things I’d like to be getting done. 

Exercise and working out (even if not those wonderful walks):  a necessity, since my Faire employers feed me very well.  (Oink.  No, that’s not a reference to swine flu!)

What do I miss?

Silence.

My relationship with Silence has taken a beating this Faire season.  And I hadn’t even noticed until this past Saturday evening. 

I came back onto the Faire site after closing to just sit.  To look at the mountains that lean over the lake, watching them grow dim and shadowy as the light vanished.  To listen, really listen, to Silence.  To just be with what I am, to be with feelings that were arising from the events of the day and the week.  To notice, without judging or needing to process anything, how I had reacted, the stories my thoughts were trying to spin. 

To allow my mind to go absolutely quiet, still, no-thought, no-self, just Silence.

Not thinking.  Not processing.  Not doing.  Just being with Silence.

It was like immersing myself in a cool, clear waterfall.  It was a long, long drink that I hadn’t known I was craving.

It was a delicious reminder, and it was a welcoming home. 

The cool thing about a relationship with Silence is, it’s always there when you’re ready.  It never judges you for being gone, or for forgetting to pay attention. 

And it goes deeper, continually, profoundly, miraculously deeper, every time you turn towards it.