From Envision to Gratifly: My Transformation

(Artwork by Gustavo Adolfo | on facebook)

my self judgment died, permitting my voice to sound

I was on the fence about writing this. Given my unique ability to verbalize and express my experience, I thought it very important to share, for others to see what happened to me and, if possible, relate in a small way or learn something.  I certainly didn’t start with these beliefs; I come from being a stern skeptic, schooled empiricist, and relentless rational being.  I was raised in a world I now don’t believe.  It’s hard to explain exactly why.  However, there is enough writing on the collapse of our values and this post is about something new.

What I have discovered in my life pursuits is so much…more: more reaffirming, more supportive, more flowing, more connected, more free than I could ever begin to understand, let alone explain. I’ll try though.  All I know is through experience  I reconcile my self constantly to continue on the path toward expansion.  I hope I can shed light on things I never even imagined.  I also realize sometimes you just have to see it for yourself because that is what my story is about…

I start by acknowledging we are in the midst of the largest worldwide transformation ever experienced in known history.  There are many other writings and scientific expressions of the similar channel that I’m speaking of. I try not to get bogged down in justifications or explanations and allow this come out as an expression.  Hopefully to simply and honestly share my experience.

I’m excited to relate my experience over the past several months to a much larger awakening occurring in many around the globe.  So many developments in a wide array of fields are occurring at a rapid pace and unprecedented levels.  You see this reverberant energy in the climate, you see it in the financial instability, in the surmounting insurrections in Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, in Occupy and the global protests (Time Person of the Year 2011), in the rising security state, in the widening of yoga practice and healing, in the spread of homeopathic and alternative medicine, in the spread of consciousness, in the realization of prophecy, in the becoming, etc.  Never before have we been so infinitely connected with the internet and other technologies. Never before have so many cultures, beliefs, ways of being come into collaboration.  The effect is complete and total expansion and an increasingly accelerated rate.  More pertinently, the conscious involution within myself has accelerated tenfold. My connection with fellow beings deepens, my feelings of love and gratitude flourish. I am excited time to be alive in such times. I’m grateful to have been able to experience my awakening through festivals.  My first festival was Bonnaroo 2009 where I worked security for a summer job while at the University of Virginia. Prior to that I had never heard of a music festival, could not have ever conceived that such an event with such people took place.

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Envision Music & Arts Festival – Feb. 27 – March 3, 2013

My first transformational festival was Envision in Costa Rica back in March of this year.  I did not know what to expect, but from when I visited Costa Rica the previous year, I knew that it was not something to miss again.  There is a certain air to being in Costa Rica.  You feel it the second you land.  It is a mystical place with a very strong direct connection.  I feel in this place the veil of our misunderstandings about existing is lessened. The intense energy fields permeates the mind and body.  Literally, you see life everywhere, being one of the most bio-diverse places in the world.  This was the environment to allow for my first transcendental meditation or as I’m reading now, a Kundalini Awakening.  I meditated in the hot springs at the base of the Arenal Volcano, focusing and opening my mind to the flow. Drawing all my attention on being present in that flow and then it happened. I was overcome with the strongest sensation of bliss energy that I’ve experienced ever.  It was a glimpse, it was a suckling from the sap…It was stronger than any other sensation I’ve ever felt.  It gave me peace, it gave me happiness. I was content in the moment, right then, right there. This was before even making it to the festival.

The lead up to Envision felt a synchronous alignment of events and encounters with certain people which I hold deep connections.  I had been exposed to many elements of a transformational festival through other music & art festivals and one Alchemy burn, but transformational festivals are definitely their own hybrid.  Envision opened my mind to a multidimensional and creative world, exposing me to ideas and ways that were foreign or that I had up until then turned away from.  The kinds of things that are on peoples minds, the knowledge shared, skills cultivated, creative expression and amazing display of art and performance.  It was an international perspective, a collaborative creational experience founded on principles of expansion, connection, intentional living and sacredness. Within such a context it was too easy to see the manifestation as one self.  We are all reflections of the same essential being at the core of the universe. The beauty I see within is what I see without.  In this environment we created a new experience of love, creativity, shared community, expression, and so much more! (To learn more about transformational festivals, you should check out the Bloom Series.) 

Envision helped me to  see things for what they are, encased with beauty and love. I felt as if the verdict was in. That all of a sudden, I know. I know that everything is going to be okay. This thought is related to the build up in my life of being aware of all the things that threaten to dissolve society.  My studies on the political nature of foundational concepts of the polity left me rather sore about the world.  From studying the ontological origins, patterns, and legacies of thought, certain perspectives came out that are otherwise impossible to see.

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and I show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Most will recognize this scene from the widely acclaimed film, The Matrix.  Morpheus gives Neo the chance to step outside his reality by simply swallowing the red pill.  After a slight pause, Neo swallows the pill, to which Morpheus responds, “Remember, all I’m offering you is the truth: nothing more.”  Some may be inclined to dismiss this Hollywood drama as simply a figment of the Wachowski brother’s imagination; however, the film and its themes are evocative of our everyday world.  In a very similar way I focused on the insidious web effects of power and control, I saw the restriction of knowledge and failings of democracy.  No offense, but most who read this will have little idea at the subtle nuanced effects that each of these forces influence in the patterns of their life…(Read more on: ‘Who is Foucault? Allow me…‘, ‘Theory on the Concept of Power‘, and ‘Is America Really A Welfare State?‘)

It’s like waking up one day and seeing that ‘man is free, yet everywhere he is chains’ (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract). Those chains limit our human potential to a degree unfathomable.  Alright, enough on what could have been: in that moment at Envision, from the experiences I had and the people I was surrounded with, in that moment I knew that because we all exist, because we are here right now, we will be ok. I was once lost, but I found myself in each and every soul.  And not in the sense of daisies and flowers, but related to the real conscious struggle of becoming and overcoming…  It wasn’t logical or rationed out, it was ordained from my intuition. I just knew all of a sudden. I felt like another consciousness was in my being. Something familiar, something that I knew almost more than I knew my self, but from an ancient time.  These are just a few of the moments; the festival was 5 days of celebration, learning, and re-attuning.

Healing Ceremony

After the festival, circumstances lined up in cosmic order and it was to be that I complete a 3 day ayahuasca ceremony with Jose Antonio an indigenous shaman from Colombia at a retreat just outside Uvita.  Envision was the guiding impetus to be in the right place at the exact moment when I needed to.  This experience changed my life forever. It was a very intense 3 day purge. The medicine was very strong for me and rightfully so, it needed to crush my ego, tear down my defensive for me to be open.  For many, Ayahuasca is gentle, shows people what they need to see, but for me it was bone shatteringly terrifying. I confronted the deepest fears tucked in my psyche that I didn’t even know were still there.  It brought out the most horrible mindset of who I used to be, that I normally keep suppressed and quieted. But as SHE worked her medicine, that mind screamed out as if to make every last second it would be in me count.  I bore witness for hours and hours in a state of agony and fear the most hostile, ugly thoughts I could ever imagine.  It was relentless, it seemed cruel-and-unusual punishment.

The ultimate purpose, while unclear at the time, became quickly undeniable. Just Jose Antonio said, it’s like a portal that now can’t be closed. After the 3 day cleans, I felt a much needed shift in my everyday stasis. Since I’ve been back everyday is a new day. I go through the motions of things like habit but realize that something is different.  I feel infinitely more connected to those around me and more compassionate. I learn based on my new stasis.  I have an intuitive sense of knowing and the voice is getting stronger, speaking more frequently…I relate to people’s experience, when before I couldn’t. I’m tapped into the universal oneness and I’m beginning to see the cosmic personalities and have the ability to manifest reality and work with energies.

I describe the experience like this > Throughout our life we construct our house. The pillars of our house represent our life’s experiences, our beliefs, the people we meet, the encounters we’ve had, the eclectic memories of childhood.  Ayahuasca took a bull dozer to my house.  It was devastating to bear witness to my falling construct.  In the moment, it felt as if all was lost, abandon ship.  Everything I thought I knew fell to my feet and I felt abandoned, I felt scared, I felt vulnerable. I realized after though that I’m standing in what looks to be ruins, but really I’m standing on top of all the experiences in my life, I see all the parts that created my former self. I have the new understanding to build a new house with my new perspective on top of everything that makes me, me. My structure is now rooted in my being, in the truth of existences as the beauty being.

Not surprisingly this spiritual awakening rocked me.  I all of a sudden didn’t know what to do. It took away my ground and for the rest of my trip in Costa Rica, I struggled to just be there and experience what just is.  All around me people were partying and it was difficult to turn away from that scene and go inward.  So I came back to Virginia, only to get more serious about my life.  I took a two year hiatus after I graduated from college and it was due time from me to start creating something I’m proud of.  If I must work in this world, I have a choice what I can spend my energies on. So for the time between Envision and Gratfily, I was primarily focused on my freelance media business, obtaining new work, completing projects, and getting better at my various digital skills. As well as a renewed sense in my health; I was doing more yoga and also won a SEAL physical training boot camp that lasted for 2 months! There are a number of ‘coincidences’ that continue to occur since there.

Gratifly Music & Arts Festival – July 25 – 28

Gratifly was to be the first festival that I would be involved with the Tribal Council.  I had connected with Clayton (founder of TC) at Envision, speaking with him about my vision and how I am trying to give back to the community.  I have immense gratitude to Clayton for inviting me to help TC at Gratifly.   Little did I know but I was rediscovering my family.  Helping build the Tribal Council Stage area, conduct production tasks, and just adding to the vibe at Gratifly was an awesome thing to be a part of. I’m so happy I was able to help.  Never before have I done such strenuous and long hours of manual labor and felt so fulfilled.  Nevertheless, being involved with Tribal Council has opened a huge door for me to help facilitate my own gifts and strengthen my own inner self to manifest the change I want to see.

At a certain point words cease to describe the experiences. I come back from most festivals and say it was an amazing time.  This was the point beyond that where the experience was so transformational, so beautiful, so inspirational that it’s hard to speak on. I’m touched to have been involved with such an amazing healing event, I’m grateful for the people I got to share the experience with, I’m excited to share this love and connection for the rest of my life. I recognize the divine in my self and in all manifestations of the oneness of the universe. Excited for these infinite time we live in, each moment only accelerates our conscious understanding and community body returning to the ancient in a new way.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
― Rumi

During Gratifly, I took the opportunity to receive a blessing from mixed energy healer Alokananda Star Bear.  I came from the stance of being a skeptic, but after he blessed me it reinvigorated the channel that opened from the ayahuasca ceremony I did in March.  I saw everything as it was, the beauty of all life, the gratitude for being here and being able to witness true beauty and love.  It reminded me of another time when I was looking outside myself.  I was seeking something external to show me the way, waiting for a power outside myself to do what I alone was responsible for.  The voice told me open my eyes, and I finally saw what was always there.  I was reminded the beauty of life, the pureness of existence, the sacredness of love. All I will ever need will always be right here. This was empowerment.

From this blessing, the door was open for another purging. The next 12 hours were an emotional purging of self judgment.  I was overcome with the intense emotional expression of my self doubt, self pity, self judgement.  I overwhelmed with all these feelings I’ve had over the course of my life.  The doubts from childhood, the kids taunting me in school, family hostility, sport failures, it went to the core of what I was most vulnerable to.  I’m hardest on my self. I am my own critic charged with breaking myself apart.  I came to a point where it was time to heal.  I purge so many negative emotions and blockages that prevented me from continuing my path.  I felt at times it would not stop, the purge just kept coming. It was difficult at times to confront these struggles and emotions, but by the end of it during the Random Rab set (6AM), it came to full circle.  I did another healing method with Aloka, our paths crossed one more time in this journey.  This is where the strangest and most indescribable things occurred.  He placed his hands on me and guided my final purge.  To cleans myself of that energy, that construct of how I was brought up, my normative reality of how things should be, it was liberation! I felt so much lighter without the voices in my head weighing me down.  I was free and wasn’t only just free anymore; I am free.

With these emotions and constructs purged, it left a space to be filled. The kind of intense love and sacredness that filled this void will stay with me for the rest of my life. I will never forget and never not know what it is like to feel this unconditional love, to feel this special connection, and sacred communal bond.  We are forging a new future for our beings, leaving very little from the old paradigm, if nothing, to return to.

We are like the mycelium of a fungi. We are creating roots from the ground up to experience this world as it really is.  To see life and all creatures of this majestic mystery as beautiful and show compassion.  To bear witness to increasing infinite relationships and limitless potential of creation.  These two festivals were such an amazing experience. I learned so much about myself and connected with so many beautiful people that show you the way. Their love, their gratitude, their creativity shines like a beacon in the fog.  No longer will I get lost on the shores amidst this chaos.  This is where I reside and where I will complete my life works. In this state of existence, there is no random order.  It is all connected by the fabric of existing in this universe, leaving nothing to coincidence.

I put my self out there. I put my intentions into the cosmic void and my prayers were answered.  I was shown all I needed to see, well beyond a reasonable doubt.   I trust in my experience, I have faith in my being. I’m excited to continue my path toward self empowerment.  I have been fortunate to glimpse the eternal bliss, it takes work to make it continuos.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.  We are of the rainbow prophecy.

United as ONE.
Divided by zero.
Expect us!!