Name: Conscious Festivals vs Hedonistic Festivals. My experience!
Uploaded: 2023-03-07T11:00:11+00:00
Duration: 13 min 51 s
Description: #spirituality #consciousawakening #festival I've lived several lives in one body. I've had the kind of life that aligns with the choice to experience life in ways that bend towards excess. Due to the

1 year ago

#spirituality #consciousawakening #festival

I've lived several lives in one body. I've had the kind of life that aligns with the choice to experience life in ways that bend towards excess. Due to the trauma of my childhood I found distraction in my forms in order to avoid that which was lurking behind me... my shadow.

When I first started heading to festivals the keys to my healing began to be given to me and I felt overwhelmed by the goodness, the kindness and the wonder of the Conscious Festival experience. My sense of identity began to form around my conscious awakening and I resonantly drew to me the people that aided the healing process through laughter and occasionally tears.

When altering my state of consciousness through the use of drugs became a prominent aspect of my festival experience in the mid 1990's, I lost all interest in the conscious festival experience and hedonism took over. If I am to be completely honest, it was twofold. Pure escapism from all that I wanted to leave behind, and insanely fun in the moment. I sought out all that excess had to offer, sex, drugs, electronic dance parties in beautiful locations globally, enormous festivals in remote and exotic destinations and rock festivals that left me bruised and tripping still after being a mosh pit for hours, beaten and bruised, but smiling from ear to ear.

The majority of these memories I cherish, but none, not one, brought me to a deeper understanding of who I was, and I am comfortable with that. I was entertained, danced and entrained with some of the finest exponents of the modern shamanic practice (in my opinion) of electronic dance music and was bamboozled by some of the finest musicians on the planet. Not to mention the friends that I shared these experiences are forged in my heart like fellow combatants in a contemporary war for our sensory awareness.

It may all sound rather dreamy, but returning to my roots has brought me the greatest joys yet. The joy of REAL CONNECTION. My hedonistic phase of festival life was largely a solitary affair. My mojo moved to its own beat, and I would leave my friends in order to find my own rhythm within the beating heart of the miasma of sensory stimulation. It had always been that way for me. Until I went back to conscious festivals, and here I rediscovered the love of shared time and experience.

The essence of my conscious festival experience is sobriety. Recognition of what it means to see yourself in another, come to a workshop, or a facilitation that opens you up to deeper understanding of our connectivity, to hear about personal journeys, to gain deeper truth on life, and be beguiled by knowledge that changes my perspective on living. All these aid me, heal me and align me in ways that show me how much I have lived, and how much more living there is for me to do.