This past weekend, I went to Flipside, Texas’s regional
Burning Man event. This event is an hour
outside of Austin, 2500 people from all over the world come to participate. This year’s theme was Freaky Deeky Time
Machine. After only camping all of 3
days maximum at previous festivals, I took the dive and camped with 5 boys for
5 days! Whoa, what a challenge.
Unlike other festivals, this festival is completely
organized by the participants. There is
no focus on any one thing like music.
Instead theme camps are created by the participants and host events for
other participants. I was amazed at how
extravagant some camps really got from full on refrigerators, to ice
sculptures, open clothing rack of clothes just to take and wear, to lounges
equipped with couches and pillows.
I took more than just the experience of the festival with
me, but a life lesson at the end of the weekend. One morning while wondering a path along the
creek, I stumbled across a Time Travel Meditation Hut. Minutes later, a woman named Kanga approached
me and offered me a guided meditation of past healing. We explored a past event that needed
healing. First we started with an
emotion and kept going deeper and deeper into the emotion and further and
further into my past history where I remember feeling that emotion. The
meditation resulted with tears and clarity.
What I took away from Flipside- Allowing myself to be
vulnerable. For so long, I have been
guarding me heart, protecting myself from being vulnerable. While doing this, I have been pushing people
away and unable to connect with many people who have entered my life. I have been labeled as reserved. Is this really me? It amazes me the impression people have made
of me from different sectors of my life, my high school friends, college, Champaign
and Austin friends- all very different impressions and images of who I am and
represent myself to the world.
Since my last post, which coincidentally also related to being
vulnerable, I have been exploring this concept more and more; Opening my heart, opening my mind, and
opening my entire being. My costume for
Eeyore’s Birthday of the Chakra’s seemed like an appropriate sign and really
got me thinking. I would like to explore
each Chakra
starting with Root Chakra (Red). As I
feel I have made adequate transformation on each Chakra, I will move and
concentrate on the next one, until I am at the top of with the Crown
Chakra. I will determine when to move on
simply by feeling, knowing or a sign. I
can therefore be concentrating on a Chakra for months at a time.
If you are unfamiliar with Chakra’s, please check out this website: http://www.soundessence.net/chakras.php. Here is the introduction describing Chakra’s on the site, “A chakra is
a center of activity that receives, assimilates and expresses life force
energy. The word Chakra is sanskrit for wheel or disc and signifies one of the
seven energy centers of the body. We record every thought and feeling in one of
our seven chakras and they become lodged there until they are released. As we
evolve and live our lives it is important for us to give up old ideas to move
forward and grow. Each of the seven musical notes and seven colors
corresponding to the chakras have emotional and physical issues attached to
them. It is the quest of Sound Essence to give the information and the tools
needed to allow the song of your soul to be heard.”
Between my past healing meditation and the being a walking
chakra, representing feelings that are lodged from old ideas, I think it is
clear the universe is pointing me in the direction to move forward and explore
some of these concepts.
The Root Chakra is about fear, which similarly related to
the emotion I picked for my meditation, which was actually pain, but I find
these two emotions very interrelated. I
fear that I will get hurt. I fear that I
will be vulnerable and as a result get hurt.
This Chakra is about vitality, courage and self-confidence. I will exercise this chakra by having courage
to open myself to the possibility of being vulnerable and to no longer fear
pain and hurt; to have the self-confidence to let myself be free and beautiful. The root chakra is about being grounding and
rooted.
Freaky Deeky Time Machine.
Live in the Now, The time is Now. Be Present. I had to consistently remind myself of this
weekend’s philosophy. Never in my life
have I seen so many free people, not only in the mind, but physically free. It took effort not to judge the people on sex
lane, who you would pass and see bondage tents and paddle ass slaps. By day 3, it was the norm to be naked or at
the very least topless and if you had clothes on you were actually the
outsider. What better time to explore
avenues that I have never once considered.
The time is now.
For once in my life, I tried the topless thing, even if it
was only for a few minutes. And my last post said, “boy would that be the day.”
The day is now. What a lesson. Our campsite was along a beautiful, running
creek. We are all sitting in the creek,
letting the water flow over our bodies. The beautiful walnut trees towered over
us, everyone naked in the water. My
bathing suit top, rather uncomfortable, and I thought to myself, “I want to
take this off. There is no reason for me
to keep this on other than the fact I am wired to think I need to keep it on.”
Why? Because society told me so? Because
I don’t want to be vulnerable? As soon as I slipped the knot off the straps and
my top came down, I felt a feeling of relief.
Now to apply this thinking to the default world as burners like to call
it. If I want something, should I not
allow myself to do/have it if it allows me to fulfill a need? Is there harm in
really listening to what my body wants?
I continually question what society tells me is right for me, but am I
really questioning my own mind enough?
I’ll conclude the post with a poem that was gifted to me by
someone I met during Flipside named Ugh:
Everything in Sway
There are things that cannot be seen by human eyes
Things unknowable to the human mind
Beauty Indescribable
Yet the human heart’s potential intuitive sensations
Providing a glimpse of the energy
Permeating all things
In Sway
Such a glimpse has the power to transform
Potential energy into the kinetic flow of life, love and light
Such a glimpse is she
She takes form in a dancing flame
Breathing in Sway
She grows, she becomes
A body in motion
The dynamic vibration of existence
Ever moving, Ever present she becomes
The meadow’s grass, the tree tops, the ocean’s waves
All these things in Sway
She becomes a glimpse
Of the spiders silk woven through all and everything
She embodies beauty indescribable
Stillness in motion
Everything in Sway
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