Smoke, Stars, and Shenanigans

 

🔥 Smoke, Stars, and Shenanigans: A Love Letter to Magical Camping Festivals

There’s a certain kind of magic you can’t bottle. You can’t distill it into a candle, tuck it into a spell jar, or even write it down in your prettiest grimoire. You just have to live it — in the thick of a humid July night, smelling like cedar smoke and sweat and half-melted bug spray, sitting on the tailgate of someone’s dusty pickup truck with a half-drunk mason jar of questionable moonshine and a heart full of wonder.

Gods, I miss magical camping festivals.

I miss the way the campfire smoke would cling to everything you owned like a jealous ex. I miss the laughter echoing from across the field, someone strumming badly on a ukulele, and a couple of folks arguing whether Hekate prefers red wine or mead (answer: she likes both, you’re missing the point). I miss the hush of a midnight ritual where every breath feels holy and the slow, slanted sunlight of early morning filtering through tarp-covered tents and bug netting.

And the conversations. Oh, the conversations. The ones that only happen at 3 a.m. when your feet are filthy, your voice is gone, and you’ve just found someone who gets it — who understands what it means to be lonely and magical and hungry for connection in a world that doesn’t always have room for either.

Even the porta-potties had their own weird charm. (Don’t roll your eyes. You know it’s true.) Those plastic thrones of communal suffering became our de facto bulletin boards. "Lost: One black cloak, slightly cursed.” “Open circle at campsite 42, bring your own drum and a bottle of wine.” “Mabon me, Daddy.” There was a wild honesty in the way we taped up those paper notices on those plastic walls — a kind of magical graffiti that only made sense under starlight and too little sleep.

And of course, the moments of pure, inexplicable power. Like the time we split a storm — literally watched it divide and drift to either side of the hill we were climbing, lightning flashing in the distance while our circle stood steady, barefoot in the mud, soaked to the soul and laughing like fools. That wasn’t weather. That was will. That was magic with a capital M.

These festivals weren’t just parties with robes and runes. They were gatherings. Sacred and chaotic, healing and hilariously human. They were where we remembered how to be witches together, not just behind screens or inside solitary circles. They were where lifelong friendships began over burnt sausages and off-key chants, where we shed our everyday names and became something more — something feral, and kind, and utterly ourselves.

I remember one festival — and if you were there, you know — where my darling husband, in his infinite hunger and heroic lack of suspicion, polished off an entire pan of brownies left unattended on the communal snack table. Brownies that were, shall we say, infused with extra enlightenment.

Now, while the rest of us were dancing around a bonfire, weaving spells, singing sea shanties with a shirtless bard named “Starfox,” and attempting to fix a broken pop-up canopy using zip ties and intention, he spent the entire night laid out flat on a blanket under the open sky, eyes wide, whispering, “The stars are... moving. Are they supposed to move?”

He didn’t say much after that. Just stared upward with the pure, reverent awe of someone suddenly realizing that the cosmos is a giant, glittering soup and he is both spoon and broth. Honestly? It might’ve been the most spiritually connected any of us got all weekend.

To this day, he claims it was one of the best nights of his life. Quiet, cosmic, full of stardust and no responsibilities. And isn’t that the point of these festivals? To let go, get a little weird, and find joy in moments you couldn’t possibly plan for?

I know the world’s changed. I know the camping chairs have gotten a little harder on our backs, the sleeping pads don’t feel quite as magical at 2 a.m., and the price of gas to get to the middle of nowhere feels less like an adventure and more like a minor budget crisis. But gods, I’d give anything to walk barefoot through a field full of tents again. To wake up to the smell of sage and pinion smoke and percolating coffee, to feel the drumbeat under my ribs and the sense that something important is happening — even if it’s just a pancake breakfast with a side of rune readings.

And then there was the Year of the Canoes.

Every magical camping festival has its own legendary year. One of the most memorable ones I attended was the summer the skies cracked open and dumped so much rain that the roads disappeared — not metaphorically, not spiritually, but physically. Paved paths turned to rivers. Fire pits became bogs. The vendors’ row had to be relocated twice and ended up in the dining hall. We ate meals with each other surrounded by rows of beautiful things. 

The golf carts — usually our noble steeds for hauling ritual gear, wood and  huge refillable jugs of water— were utterly useless. They sat half-submerged like forgotten artifacts of a drier civilization. So what did we do?

We broke out the canoes, kayaks and stand up paddle boards.

Actual. Canoes. Floating between campsites like we were mystical gondoliers navigating Venice by way of Avalon. Want to get to the ritual grounds? Paddle. Need to make it to the bathhouse? Hope someone with a canoe takes pity on you and offers a lift, or roll up your pants, or skirts and get to trekking. It was part logistical nightmare, part impromptu water magic, and entirely unforgettable.

Despite the rain — or maybe because of it — the magic felt different that year. Softer. Slower. Deeper. We gathered under tarps, dripping and delirious, passing around thermoses of hot chai and telling stories while our socks dried over the fire. There was laughter. A little lightning. And the unmistakable feeling that we were part of something ancient and ridiculous and real.

No one got where they were going quickly. But somehow, we all arrived exactly where we needed to be.

So, here’s to the witches of the woods, the fire-keepers, the rain-callers, the ones who danced barefoot on dew-soaked grass and fell asleep under the stars with glitter on their cheeks and a belly full of cider. May we find each other again. May the festivals return. May the porta-potties never run out of toilet paper (or Sharpies).

And may we always remember:
Magic is better when shared.
Even if it comes with mosquitoes.