We attended the Autumn Lights Festival (Autumn Lights Festival - The Gardens at Lake Merritt, Oct 14-16), after having missed it last year. I always take a lot of photos, there’s lots to see, so I’ll be using this topic to drop photos. If you went this year, you are invited to share your photos here as well. 
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We begin the evening… swabbing Clover’s nose. The event required vaccination cards or recent tests showing negative for COVID-19. I emailed the organizers to clarify, and we were able to use an off the shelf (though practically over the counter, as they are behind the registers with the other, um, valuable items…) test.
They generally come with two tests, and ours did:
And here is us getting the results that Clover is not pregnant with COVID-19 infections:
So of course I took a commemorative photo of our first COVID-19 negative test! (And also because, like, how do they know who took the test? “Here, this is a photo of this child holding this test… is that enough?”)
When we arrived I had all this documentation ready to prove my child had checked their nasal cavities and no viruses were found, and they maybe half-glanced at me holding a thing in my hand and asked me to move along, the line and all… pfft.
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I loved these things they put up, tall strings of light that moved in different patterns over time. I kept returning to it, it felt like I was small again, not something I feel often.
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This is a whirly box, but you had to be there…
OMG you can popup the slideshow and hold down an arrow key and it animates the images to spin! But like, careful, it’s fast (but still very cool!).
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One of my favorite places in the Gardens at Lake Merritt is the Palmetum, which has palms from around the world, and can be a quiet, shaded place to sit. During the festival it becomes a psychedelic niteglo trail!
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The next portion was the inflatable, glowing forest, complete with associated dragon.
That shadow is Clover.
What’s this we find…?
Communion with the glowing dragon!
Glowing Dragon Restoration!
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This water feature is normally turned off (it’s hard running a water feature and keeping it clean, year round, I get it), so it’s fun they run water and light it up so!
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When we go to the gardens during the day we often sit in the Sensory Garden. During the festival it was filled with gords! Like, full of holes, and lit up… here, just look at pictures!
And I even got a video of one spinning!
There were a lot more, too! You should go see them next year!
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These poles of light were great! Rarely does anything make me feel small, but electric grass stalks did the job!
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Here’s Clover…
…as an electric flutterby…
…and as a cardboard standystill…
…and chilling with batface!
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The Japanese Garden always features interesting paper lantern lights and other decorations. It was also a finite game of reflection…
First, I saw this pretty lit up tree…
…and then it’s twin, just behind…
…which itself had an inverted partner!
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Clover and I are workshopping some possible covers to send into Arcane Witch Young Quarterly, here’s what we got, showing off the dynamic “feelingscapes” today’s magical young are bring to the party:
All Powerful!
All Powerful Composer!
Reflective.
Concerned.
Adorable.
Displaced.
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Have I mentioned how fond I am of hypercubes (always responsibly contained, of course)?
Bonus: hypercube; sphered!
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As we wandered about the festival we came to a cozy spot, well-lit:
And that is the Autumn Lights Festival 2021, according to my photos…
We’ll be back next year!
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