Like all tribes, it has its own touchstones, rites of passage, weddings, births, deaths, rules, ethics. It's simply always on the move, coalescing and dissolving with each show. There's a familiar rythem. It begins with an excitement that mounts as the show goes up. For a month or more before the show opens, energy builds as, literally, it comes to life.
Booths go up, new paint and banners appear, trailers and tents sprout like mushrooms.
The on-site schoolhouse opens, potlucks are organized, birthday cakes are baked, drum circles happen when the moon is full. And then all too soon there is the amazingly fast breakdown. It never fails to strike me that this is, well, Zen. There is a living metaphor here, as I watch each show melt like a snowflake. Until we meet again.