I had the opportunity to go right after the first of the year, and even though Mercury was in the throes of retrograde we did it anyway. We did name it the Mercury trip, and many people that we met on our journey we gave the surname Mercury to. Such as the woman at a SeaTac snack shop who was slower than any human I had previously encountered, and went e-v-e-n s-l-o-w-e-r after we told her that our flight was boarding. She may not know it now, but her last named was changed to Mercury. My partner in crime Kitty (not her real name, hee hee) decided that we should come back after our trip and order something off the menu and pay her in pennies. (now do you see why I am not using Kitty's real name?). So as not to risk putting my self in the Mercury category by telling of this trip second by second, I will jump around to the highlights that struck me as a pagan.
The first night we went out to a dinner show that was at Caesar's Magical Kingdom, which had only been open a month (odd since it looked like it had been around a couple of thousand years or so). The whole Caesar's palace is decorated in really beautiful statues of gods and goddesses, and everything is so big, but then again this was Vegas. We were greeted by a robed wizard and pretty maidens who placed necklaces with golden coins on them around our necks. These were tokens of us as initiates seeking to become magicians (this sounds vaguely familiar somehow). The tokens read "Credis Quod Habes et Habes" which they translated as "what you believe is real, is real".
Before we were taken to where we were going to eat, the Wizard placed his hand on this "magic" wall sculpture and asked for a sign to know which of the gods wanted our party (which was about 20 people) to dine in their room. The lights spun around the circle with the god/goddess symbols on it and finally came to rest. In a booming voice our Wizard announced " The god Mercury wishes to have you feast with him this night!" Kitty and I about lost it at this point, we were laughing and making comments; our other fellow "initiates" thought we were really odd, little did they know they were dining with actual Witches on their Mercury trip, going to the dining room of Mercury! It was so great!
We were taken down into an astounding underground maze of stone walled rooms, and led to Mercury's room by a very cute Roman soldier. The dinner began with an invocation asking for blessing from the Gods and especially Mercury (Kitty and I were loving all this) and was accompanied throughout the meal with a magic show. There was another magic show in another room after dinner, sleight of hand stuff. Kitty and I ended up being used as the "magicians helpers" (Well that is to say I got asked and I made Kitty go with me no matter what she said.) It was fun. Next there was a show of great swirling fire on the huge central altar. A kind of pyrotechnical display in the big hall. The ending show was the best though as there was this magician that I could have sworn was really doing magic. We were front row center and I could see he was making cards come out of thin air! - as well as water and coins. Sigh...we loved it all.
Every night there was something that spoke to me of magick and my archetypes. The next night we went to a "Arthurian medieval tournament" complete with beautiful horses and relatively convincing knights and princesses. We ate our dinner without any silverware and banged our hands on the tables when "our" knight rode by. I was wishing I had my friends kids with me, they would have liked it as much as I did. I have always been touched by the Arthurian legends in their many variations and so this was perfect for me.
By far the most profound performance that I was privileged to see while in Las Vegas was the Cirque du Soleil (which is French for "Circus of the Sun") performing "Mystere". I will let you know I am not always an easy audience when it comes to anything involving dance or music. I danced for 17 years and I choreographed and performed and taught, I have been the vocalist in bands and choirs since I was a child, and I was raised by a very picky classical pianist. I have seen a lot of talent and watch things very closely. I watch faces of people that aren't center stage. I watch the musicians. I watch the set changes.
I was captivated. If you have ever seen this troupe of perfomers/muscians/acrobats/dancers, you will know why I was impressed. If you have only heard of them or seen bits and pieces of their work on PBS as I had, I will say that seeing them live is like watching an act of the Goddess in motion. I spent most of the performance with tears streaming down my face, and my expressions vacillated between open mouthed awe and laughing out loud.
They started the performance off with bells and cymbals and horns and drummers running wildly first in a circle around the stage and then again through the audience. Kitty and I turned to each to each other and said "they are setting a circle!." We did see this performance on the night of the new moon. The music was live and incredibly beautiful and haunting. It is like a cross between Dead Can Dance and Enya with maybe some Yes and Jean-Luc Ponti thrown in (I am listening to the CD as I write this). Their costumes were ethereal and non-human; they were gender blurred and psychedelic. With huge two story high crowned snails and costumed people with tails and long noses or ten foot long legs and arms (reminiscent of Mardi-Gras).
It was so much a ritual that I was continually surprised. I ask myself now, what I can point to, what was the exact thing that made it feel that way, and I find it is hard to put into words. It was done with humor and utter concentration, joy and intense focus. The energy was set and built and released, it was done with as much talent as I think I have ever seen. The timing was very tight and clean they looked like they were having the time of their lives. It felt mythic.
At one point I was watching eight people far up in the air in costumes that looked liked winged Fey hang from trapezes attached to the ceiling and then fall and dive and spin around and around and swing from bungee cords that were attached by only two points on their hip harnesses. Perfectly timed and coordinated with each other and the music, they would soar back up to hang once again from their perches, awaiting their next turn to fly. I thought to myself, this is what I would show to the people from other worlds when they wanted to see who we as humans were. I would point to this group of celebrants and say " this is who we are."
It kept reminding me of a troupe of the Fey getting together and playing. At one point about 10 or 12 people in brightly colored speckled costumes with masks worn on the backs of their heads were walking up this sort of linear jungle gym, they walked up it and hung from the straight poles like frogs or geckos, as though there was no such thing as gravity, or that they had no idea that this was only a small vertical bar they were doing all this on! They would hang upside down and then slide/drop eight to ten feet straight down coming, quite close to the ground with their heads. They all stopped at the same time, fell exactly the same distance, and caught themselves by wrapping their legs around the bar at the right moment.
Another vignette had two men who looked like Grecian statues, down to the white marble. Balancing on a slowing turning huge globe, doing what looked like Zen floor gymnastics. With one of the men taking the place of the rings or parallel bars, always very slowly in motion and incredibly strong and god-like. Yet another beautiful image that remains is of a goddess-like woman seeming to float in veils and wings calling to a very mortal man from across a mist laden void. And a third of a small woman in a child's pajamas with a huge net trying to capture this long-tailed green and blue other-world creature that was always too fast.
The ending had an incredible build up and release of energy as the Taiko drummers beat every increasing rhythms on the drums that were on stage and throughout the audience. The sound was incredible. The finale came with everyone back on stage, I didn't realize it was the end until it was almost too late, I was so sad it was over and so amazed at what I had been a part of. I actually felt honored.
I have not done this performance justice. I have left out the parts about how they had the audience participate or how they had clowns that I didn't realize were clowns until after I had left the show entirely, and the trapeze artists and the trampolines ..sigh. but hopefully you will be able to see it for yourself on tape or live, and I don't want to spoil it for you (not that I could really).
The Cirque du Soleil was the last show that we saw before we left. Kitty and I were really glad that we saw it last because it really had been the best of all the shows we had seen.
We left the next morning almost missing our flight (ah yes that winged god again) and headed home with many presents for friends and great memories. I have to say that Las Vegas was as glitzy and I had heard, it was flashy, and was as much of an "adults' Disneyland" as people have said. For some reason it never dawned on me that since I really loved Disneyland (hmm should I give that away about myself?) I would enjoy Las Vegas. However enjoy it I did. It was a surreal adventure for which I am truly grateful and thank the Goddess, not to mention Kitty, and of course Mercury.
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