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The Perfect Drizzle
It was gray and gloomy outside, but inside the huge state park lodge Justine had rented for the weekend, it was warm and bright. Over a dozen henna enthusiasts from Seattle, Portland, the Bay Area and as far away as Kansas had gathered for presentations, to trade ideas, designs and formulas, and to have a good time learning from each other. Even the local area power failure late Friday night took nothing away from the general high spirits. The shoptalk and the mutual body decoration went on into the small hours every night.

The Place
Flaming Geyser State Park is about 40 minutes drive south of SeaTac. The park is a temperate zone jungle that straddles the Green River and serves as a breeding ground for salmon and steelhead, and gives a whole new meaning to the word "green."

Presentations
Catherine gave several talks throughout the weekend, including basic mixing and rolling and filling cones for the beginners. She spoke on henna traditions, including a presentation on medieval henna illustrated with details from high-resolution scans from the British Library, the Oxford University Bodleian Library, Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institute and the Paris Bibliotheque.

Painted Women
No one ended the weekend the same color she was when she arrived. By Sunday afternoon, everyone had painted at least one other person or had been painted by someone else.

Indigo
A feature of every Henna Page conference is a presentation on some new or different approach or technique. At the Pacific Northwest conference, Catherine demonstrated body painting using indigo, a method that Alex Morgan of Spellstone has been developing over the past two years. Alex, using period documents and modern analyses, worked out the chemistry and technique of preparing indigo for body art and its use on the skin.

Harquus
Temptu is a safe, temporary substitute for traditional harquus facial markings. The presentations included demonstrations on two volunteers. You can learn more about harquus at Harquus.com.