Many members of the Order of the White Oak List were in attendance at The Summerlands Gathering on Roan Mountain during the Equinox. We spent much of our time balancing in community and fellowship, the connections that we had already established in cyberspace through discussion and discourse. This melding and merging was accomplished over three days through hugging, chatting, sharing meals and cabins, walking in Nature, encountering the elements and assisting one another in day to day living (cooking, cleaning, traveling, gaming, story telling, discussion, etc.)

Our daily rituals involved joint meals and assemblies, offerings to the Land Spirits and a sense of being "at home" in the forest and on the mountain, as well as being renewed by the power of the stream that ran through our campsite and our lives. The three deer that appeared to some of us were a hint of the presence of the three goddesses of Sovereignty. The two trees at the entrance to our campground were the center of our group rituals as well as symbolic of the nature of reality. These trees had three forks and two forks or main trunks respectively. In this division into twos and threes, they are in the exact configuration of the entry stone to Brugh na Bo/inne, which itself has spirals of two and three, with a dividing line in the center. As a part of our group rituals we circumnavigated these trees three times, once for the Sea, the Past and the Ancestors; once for the Land, the Present and the Tribe; once for the Sky, the Future and the Gods. After making offerings following each encircling, we shared a communion of sorts in the "water of life," we were rebirthed by passing between the Three and the Two in much the same way that the new Sun is reborn each year (between three worlds and two states of being). This Spring Equinox Gathering allowed us to become more balanced as a tribal entity. It demonstrated the new life of Spring to many still locked in the cold, hard grasp of winter. It connected many centers of life to one center of life. It showed how many pathways can arrive at a common ground. Summer and Winter lived concurrently in the lush life and promise of the valley and the proud upstanding of the mountain peaks. When we left the safety of the Mother's embrace in the valley we could still experience the harsh and stark reality of the Hag's severity on the peaks. Her white hair was visible to all while the blush of the Flower Goddess was just beginning to manifest below. As a demonstration of this duality of being and the balance of the seasons, two eggs were balanced on end. The ease with which this feat was accomplished and the way they remains undisturbed was an inspiration to all present. When Sun, Moon and Earth are in balance, worlds, lives and seasons are also in balance. The improbable is accomplished with the same ease as the probable. In the pathways that connect the three worlds and the two discriminations of being, there is a line that creates and maintains a greater circle of spirit. This circle is a pathway that becomes a river for some and flows between the centers of one person and another. The stream from the mountains chanted affirmations of continuity to all during the nights and days of our visit. The water of life connects spirit to Spirit as one river is all rivers.

Our Summerlands Spring Equinox Gathering showed how Two and Three can be Five and One within a Circle that is a Spiral and with a Spirit that connects one Center to Another.

Searles