24/08/03 — Menuo Juodaragis: Kernave, Lithuania
Black horned moon. The symbol of the festival is a complex of runic letters topped with a crescent moon and a leaping stag. The site is Kernave, Lithuania, in the middle of the forest. My first impression is that I've stepped back in time. A clear, deep voice is singing dark melodies. It sounds like a slowed-down Dead Can Dance, traditional instruments and woven threads of tale wrapped around myth.
Lithuanian folk music, midnight drumming
ritual with improvised harmonies from most of the women
there including me, dawn ritual by the river with Lithuanian
folk singers doing traditional songs to the river gods
and the rain gods, slept by a bonfire, 
met cute, tall,
longhaired guitarist for goth band that was excellent
(bought one of his CDs) and got fangrrl shots of him
rocking out on stage, got his number, good goth DJs,
people from Sydney and Melbourne to hang out with (weird...
one of the guys, Henry, knows friends of mine from various
places...), re-enactors, bought cloak pins from metalsmith...
I found it very interesting on other levels too, thoughts on the
whole identity thing, mainly brought on by the fact
that tall, cute, skinny goth boys with long hair dressed
in black look the same all over the world. Well, the
ones I think are ultra cute are rare, but the principle
works. These are also 'my people' in some way, especially
ones like Evaldas who are also jewellery-makers, musicians
and archeologists. Sigh.