Festival Integrations

I write this in black, for darkness, for the void which is the ground of all being, which is actually light and its absence in union.  
I've spent the last three weekends at festivals, and this weekend I had a dark experience.  At GLADE the atmosphere was super charged, super intense.  The music was phenomenal, and sent me into a trance repeatedly throughout the weekend.  The trances were varied in their qualities and provided much time for incredibly dense downloads of both of light and darkness.  I was in the arms of the great teacher, in many ways.  Hera (androgynous term and ancient god/dess of Sumeria) manifested not only in the music and the lights, but also in the many friends and beautiful people who were present, in the forest and the sky, and in the wind as it evidenced itself among the flags.  

One of the main ways I enter into trance is through dancing.  I listen to every part of the music, and bit by bit, over the course of a jam, allow the various rhythms present to move my body for me.  One rhythm will take shape in the hands, one the shoulders, one in the spine, one in the knees or feet, one in the neck or eyes or head, and a polyphonic orchestra which is the music in the fluid motion of my flesh sends me.


The beats of electronic music are especially relevant to trance.  At 115-130 bbp they resemble a fast walking pace.  This pace sets the heart and flow of blood in time with spherical (or universal) flows of movement.  Some are hard and fast, some joyous, some filled with distortions and waves of ripples, some etheric and elusive.  Various genres of electronic music appeal at different times of the day, which I liken to the doshas as utilised in philosophies of Auyrveda and Advaita.  Goa trance music, for instance, is a morning dosha, and the tenure of voices and the space overlaid on the fast walking beat make for a sound and a trance of eastern newness and rising.  Psy trance, on the other hand, moves at a galloping pace - the crowd becomes one is its side step side step movement, and a collective sense of trance is created.  Drum and Bass - rock out like a teenager!!  This one is for the early evening along with the Experimental Bass being created in small studios and dirty little clubs all over the world.  Minimal Techno, as my favourite, progress the rhythms one at a time so they are knowable on deep levels.  This one is for night.  And it is this genre which led me on my deepest journey into darkness since Ecuador. 


Another aspect to trance is light and visual play with light.  Psych-a-delic experiences of natural light collide with formed light shows intended to bring on visions.  As these visions melt and edge and are unmade and made again and again in repetition the brain lets go, eases its hold on consensual reality, and is able to walk into vortexes of  possibility which are truly beautiful.

And there are still yet many further possibilities for inducing or unfolding trance within oneself.  Holotropic Breathwork is known among the ecstatic dance community in the UK to bring on journeys and trance, and is used regularly at Ecstatic Trance Dance events I have attended Trance Dance Methods.  There are also postures gleaned from ancient temple sculpture and figurines which are being used to induce very specific journeys into dimensions of time via trance Cuyamungue Institute.  I have practiced these on my own, standing or seated in my kitchen, and been blown away by the detail and sensual specificity which accompanies each posture.  


Information, beauty, a sense of travel, and a profound connectedness across many multiple dimensions, these are the reasons why I trance.  This weekend I realised that I cannot not trance, it just happens, has always happened, and all I can really do is surrender to the ways of being which seem to be my part of the world soul manifest at the moment.  


The festival, for me, is like a spiritual retreat.  It is here where I can trance the most deeply, held in the container of the boundaries and the vibe, the beautiful people.  I know I will be looked after, that I will return to this earth, no matter how far my journey takes me.

Festivals, as a form of counter culture, are crucial for the depths of consciousness explorations.  While journeys can happen in breath work, in talking circles, in postures, in co-creation, in a demonstration...they are meant to happen in a festival.  Right now I tire of deep places in the secret of my home.  I tire of a mushy fluffy tendency to float around in the idea of light.  I push for and propose a growing community of beings which connect outside the bounds of status quo systems for express purposes of experiencing journeys of both light and darkness.  Lots of these communities!  For it is only through the darkness, through the journey, where I have come to re-appreciate the details of life on Earth.  Our mutual childlike wonder is thus restored; possibilities for cooperation are enacted; sound and light become manifest.  

And in a final pause, I come to the place where I recognise a mas-sive need for *integration*.    Stillness    As 2012 pushes inward and upward and outward at once, I must, perhaps we all must, take some time (after trancing and in general) to rest upon the earth, cuddled up in a blanket, like the women across Latin America.  Abuelita calling...