A Creek Runs Through It

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine.

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II Scene I

If I could step into the romantic, magical world of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” I imagine it would look just like Cherry Creek in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains when the stage was set for the Bacon & Lox Society’s Full Circle Meal in August.

Hundreds of flowers in shades of apricot, peach and pink—gathered in bouquets suspended in wood framing painted robin’s egg blue—floated above eight, eight-foot farmhouse tables like the floral crown of a forest nymph. Pots of lavender, ferns and other plants added lush greenery to 60 place settings awaiting the guests who would dine at the communal table, seated in gold bamboo chairs decked with monstera leaves and ribbons, their legs calf-deep in the creek’s water.

Yes, water shimmered, glimmered, glassy as a mirror, rippling silently as fairies in the night under chairs and around legs of the tables, set with plates, gold flatware and napkins featuring the soon-to-be-served menu. I drank in the beauty of it all: the crown of blooms; the table of invitation; the glassy water; the wooded banks of the creek. It was intoxicating.

Was there magic in this place? Or had I wandered, perchance, into a midsummer’s dream?

While the Full Circle Meal might be dreamlike, it is not a dream. The annual event was launched six years ago by the Bacon & Lox Society (BLS), a congregation of Life-Cycle Celebrant Alisa Tongg that finds spirituality in nature, personal stories, the shared table and a grateful heart.

At the event—a gathering of creative professionals in the events and arts arenas—members contribute their skills and creative expression, collaboratively stretching their collective imaginations, to create a top-flight experience celebrating summer, community and life. This year’s Cherry Creek event was an exultant expression of creative combustion.

As she welcomed guests, Tongg reflected on the Full Circle Meal, connecting its intention to the ingredients that make a good life. For creatives, she said, “It’s the art we create, the songs we sing, the music we play, the meals we share, the gardens we grow, the new traditions we invent, the friendships and community we cultivate that make life, life.”

These ingredients, executed with passion and excellence, were all evident in the creek dinner.

Art infused every moment. Frida Kahlo’s last painting, a vibrant and colorful still life of juicy watermelons—which resonated with Tongg when she viewed it on a winter trip to Mexico—served as a cornerstone of the gathering. Just days before Kahlo’s death, she painted the words “Viva la Vida” across the fruit’s flesh. The translation, “Long Live Life,” became the Full Circle Meal’s theme.

Mexican folk art, “papel picado,” instilled the celebratory spirit of this traditional art form into the event. Three 22- x 4 ½-foot panels of cotton blend paper cloth in sky blue, yellow and coral hung between trees, joyfully greeting guests as we walked to the creek. And at the creek, two 5- x 5-foot flags in lilac and coral, installed along the bank, were inspiring counterpoint to the forest’s green.

There was an artist painting watercolors using water from the creek during cocktail time; dinner napkins featured the evening’s hand-lettered menu; and weeks before the event day had arrived, invitations in the form of Victorian-inspired love letters were discovered in mailboxes of those on the guest list.

The meal was gustatory art—a feast of dishes and flavors skillfully orchestrated to surprise and delight in this one-of-a-kind setting.

To start, artisan cocktails and mocktails accompanied cook-your-own sausage and vegetable skewers paired with tapenade as well as a tortilla tower featuring assorted ceviche with fruit and vegetable salsa. The abundant meal, served family style, offered platter after platter of quail, goat, sea bass wrapped in banana leaves, and more carried through flowing water to the tables. Passing those platters to each other as we dined underscored the gift of conversation and community that fills the hungers of both body and soul.

The Full Circle Meal engaged every sense. A violinist offered a solo during Tongg’s welcome and accompanied a vocalist later in the afternoon. During cocktails, a father and son guitar and bass duo serenaded from the creek’s bank, and, during dinner, a specially created digital play list was broadcast via speakers installed earlier in the day.

Yes, there were speakers along the creek; BLS planners thought of everything, including a keepsake gift—a miniature shrine. Obviously painstakingly created, the small, hinged, metal boxes featured a variety of tiny items: for example, a horseshoe, paper flowers, a candle and a small mirror to bring “awe, gratitude & truth for what you see in the reflection.” There was also a hook for “milagros” (small charms for good luck), which we chose from a collection of assorted symbols.

Sensuality, beauty and passion flowed through every moment of the event, as did Cherry Creek. The water pushed and pulled at our legs, making movement more deliberate, more intentional—a reminder, perhaps, to slow down and savor those moments in that very special place. The more we moved through the water, the more it rippled and swirled, not unlike the ways in which our daily human interactions ripple and touch each other’s lives.

Ever-flowing, ever-evolving, like time and the lifeforce, water touches and transforms everything in its path. Tongg pointed out in her welcome that we would both enter and exit the creek at the same spot that day, marking a full circle—the ritual action in which the gathering finds its name.

Upon exit, however, she reminded us, “The creek will not be the same; the water and life around us will not be the same; we will not be the same. Something magical happens in the in-between.”

So, you see, there was magic—like that of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”—at Cherry Creek that day. It was the magic of imagination and creative expression of the ever-flowing lifeforce. At its essence, the Full Circle Meal was a love letter to life, to the possibilities found at the apex of creative self-expression and living each moment with intention, yielding to infinite possibility.

That possibility was summed up in the stirring solo, “Pure Imagination,” during the “pass the heartbeat” ceremony, when we made vows to ourselves committing to an action we will take or our intention to savor and create:

“If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do—
Want to change the world?
There’s nothing to it.”

At the meal’s close, guests were invited to submerge themselves in the ever-flowing creek in a baptism of sorts, captured in portraits that showed so clearly the transformational power of water. These ceremonial immersions, surrounded by dry ice clouds and floating blooms from the table bouquets, were opportunities to become part of the beauty created that day in a sensual and special way.

As dusk fell, shadows lengthened, signaling the close of yet another Full Circle Meal. It was time to leave the creek as it had been found that morning, so everyone lent a hand carrying chairs, tables, food, flatware, dishes, plants and more from the water to the banks and waiting cars and trucks for trips home. For some BLS members, this communal act of bringing closure to the day has become the best part of the experience.

The creek dinner—with its indescribable beauty and the community it nurtures—reminded me of all that’s good about humankind. In these days of war in Ukraine, pandemic and rancor across our nation, I needed to believe again in possibility.

When I looked around Cherry Creek that August day, I saw the power of imagination and creativity, of collaboration and community, to change the world. And it was awesome.

By Susan Gottshall

A freelance writer, Susan wrote a restaurant review column for The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., from 2001 - 2015. Her work has also been published in Ms. and Prevention magazines along with Lehigh Valley Magazine, where she was senior editor.