Sitting yet again at Aroma in Mamilla. I should be at volunteering (sorry Paula, it's the last week), and it seems this semester has come full circle…but we know that's not true. I must say, today is an incredibly beautiful day. It's about 60 degrees, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky. This past weekend was fantastically peaceful, remarkably mind-blowing, and perhaps the greatest music festival I've ever taken part of. It was certainly the most spiritual.

The 6th Galactic Rave at the Desert Ashram, celebrating the last new year of this era. Where to start…

Ashram Bamidbar functions as an actual Ashram (see: Wikipedia) when there is no festival, with group meditation in the morning and work in the afternoon, three communal meals a day, drum circles, and instruments at night by bonfire. The grounds, as such, abound with creativity, artwork and sculptures. At the end of the Ashram is a gate to the Negev that's always open. Upon exiting, you're made aware of just how very isolated you are. It's 70 km to Mitzpe Ramon and 80 km to Eilat, the two closest cities. In between: desert, and more desert. Essentially, Shitim is one of the most isolated place in Israel.

Ashram Bamidbar

We were six people strong: Ari, Jacob, Gabz, Raquel, Zoe, and I. The crew was originally supposed to include Oscar, but complications arose and he never ended up coming. Eh. We all split a sheroot (a large taxi) from our apartment all the way down to the non-existent entity called Shitim, appearing on maps for cartographical reasons, I think. Shittim is a power grid converter and a couple large water tanks, as well as containing the spiritual mecca, Ashram Bamidbar (lit. ashram in the desert)

We all got to Ashram at about 21:00, set up camp (I brought a large, bamboo rug, and a few tapestries to decorate), and Ari and Gabz cooked a yummy couscous dinner.

Dinner by headlamp

Camp Aardvark

Thursday night was welcoming. Everyone was excited to be taking part in the festival; everyone was excited to be alive.

Festive!

There was an incredible moment of awe as I set out to explore the premises. It's a wonderful place: there's a koi pond I spent many hours sitting in front of, thinking and exchanging pleasantries. The bonfire drew people together like flies to a lantern. There were so many beautiful people, in every sense of the word. And it was a festival with really amazing music, the kind that I would listen to on my own: downtempo, electronica, and psytrance. I even gave the DJ a hug after his set.

Thursday was an early night…I crashed around 3:00, and despite the booming music, was able to sleep relatively well in my yellow tent, my mobile home. Friday morning was overcast and on the chilly side and we ate our oatmeal surrounded by grey negev (a suiting environment for eating oatmeal, I suppose). I took off after breakfast with a camera, trying to capture the atmosphere of the desert, and falling pretty far short, as to be expected. Nevertheless…

Bliss

Setting off on my own, I decided to walk into the desert and just keep walking. I saw the most perfect tree in the distance to sit underneath and meditate, so I spent about 20 minutes walking towards it, only to see someone already sitting under it. Bummer. So I settled for a mediocre tree about 5 minutes further. After I've been sitting there for about half-an-hour, I see a person approaching me.

"Noah?"
"Ari?"

Turns out Ari was off wandering the Negev at the same time, in the same place, collecting rocks, and basically doing what I was doing. What's remarkable is that we were a good 25 minutes away from the Ashram. "That's saying something." Anyways, we walked back to the festival together, reunited with the group, made burritos for lunch, aaaand cue the rain. Piss.

I'm not going to pretend like it was welcomed. The rain really sucked. That being said, it only rains in the Negev on average five days a year, so to witness such an event was pretty rare. We hibernated in my tent for a bit before checking out the stage, which was packed with people and protected from the rain by a giant tent. Seriously, the stage area was packed, it was crazy. There were live bands all day Friday, and in between were mass-meditations (See: Vimeo...seriously, check this out).

The rain gradually petered off, and by Friday night, it was done (I gave up caring about being wet much before). There was a Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony Friday night that I went to, which was essentially two hippies singing, "YKVK! YKVK! YKVK!" Pretty funny stuff.

We all went to "Tantric Meditation" that night, which was essentially a guided meditation to explore all of our emotions. They were speaking in Hebrew, originally, so I took off, decided to explore some more on my own. Ari, who stayed, said it was one of the most interesting things he's ever done. Basically, they had everyone scream at each other and hurl insults. "You don't speak Hebrew? Why don't you fucking learn the language or just go back to you country." After an emotional barrage lasting 15 minutes, they had everyone hug each other and forgive. Next, they had everyone act crazy, and, according to his word, people went batshit. And this went on with other emotions.

 Raquel and Zoe left the meditation about when I did and we all went into the Negev. It was about midnight at this point, and we were rather drunk. Way out in the boonies of the desert area was a roaring (I mean able to support 100 people) bonfire. We checked it out, and there was a man talking in English (everyone else was quiet) talking about being prepared for the ceremony…must be hydrated…leave all inhibitions behind…etc. The hell? Maybe a cult? I was pretty confused, but we hung around. Then everyone started getting undressed, down to their underwear. I had to ask someone what was going on. Turns out, they were getting ready to enter a sweatlodge adjacent to the fire. Cool. Figuring this would be a pretty interesting experience, I stripped and joined the procession into the sweatlodge.

The sweatlodge

Inside the sweatlodge, it was pitch black. The leader had us sit in three concentric circles surrounding a circle dug into the ground for the "glowing rocks" to be placed. It was a bit too crowded, and I wasn't quite able to sit cross-legged. So I was a bit uncomfortable, but boo-fucking-hoo, whatever. He began by explaining the tradition of the "red people" and how the sweatlodge was their method for prayer. By sweating out the demons, we are able to bring ourselves closer to whatever spiritual deities we believe in. He reiterated that this will be uncomfortable, and your initial impulse will be to leave, but no matter what, to stay. Fight the heat. Okaaay. He also explained that there would be four rounds, each about half-an-hour, of hot rocks. The first round would be a bit longer, about forty-five minutes. Cue the rocks…cue the heat. The gimp (politically correct: lackey) outside brought in eight massive, glowing hot rocks. After each rock was brought in, we greeted it, "hello", "baruch haba", "welcome". After all the rocks were in, our guide had us hold hands with our neighbor and guided us through the first meditation.

Guide: All the two legged creatures, all the red people, the white people, the brown people, the yellow people, we are all one.
Chorus: We are all one.
Guide: All the four legged creatures, those that crawl beneath our feet, those that live amongst us, and those that soar above our heads, we are all one.
Chorus: We are all one.
Guide: All the plants on this planet, all the grass we tread upon, all the trees we seek sanctuary in, all the vegetables and fruit we sustain ourselves with, we are all one.
Chorus: We are all one.
Guide: And all the rocks on the planet, all the minerals, and of course, the Earth itself, we are all one.
Chorus: We are all one.

And then we chanted some Native American spiritual hymns, as well as a few Hebrew songs, which I actually knew (Hinay Matov U'ma Nayim…), all the while, sweating my balls off. Literally, I was dripping sweat, and not only was I dripping sweat, but evaporated sweat was condensing on the ceiling and dripping on my leg. Mmm. So as soon as the gate was open, round one was over, as beautiful as an experience that was, I took off, half naked, through the desert, back to the campsite.

The rest of the night I spent talking to people and taking turns between dancing my ass off and hanging out by the fire. I stayed up until sunrise, which was about 6:00, wherein we all went out to the Negev (maybe about 400 people), and all held each other as the sun rose. And then I went to bed for about…four hours? Yeah.

Saturday morning was beautiful, blue skies with a few clouds here and there adding definition to the sky. So apparently the festival ended Saturday afternoon. I originally planned to spend three nights at Ashram…bummer. We called our roommate, who had computer access, and had him look up the bus schedule, who confirmed that there was, indeed, a bus coming Saturday afternoon at 5:00.

I spent the morning in the Negev playing frisbee with some remarkably talented players (it's incredible to be able to throw with people of the same level I am). I threw for about two hours with maybe ten different people over that time, and took a few people's information down…I'm going to join an ultimate league in Tel Aviv, as well as volunteering at an organization called Ultimate Peace. Anyways, during the frisbee tosses, three planes flew by so, so, so low to the ground. Maybe 20 feet, if not lower. They were just dancing around the sky, it was strange, but awesome.

We packed our belongings in the afternoon, and all attended the closing ceremony. Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen (although I think it was the Jeff Buckley version they played) came on, and everyone formed a giant "love circle" and held each other and sang along. The whole experience was really quite moving, and I felt so at peace with everything.

As we're getting ready to leave, I had a revelation. Why…do I have to go home? So I decided to stay another night at Ashram by myself, and I set up camp in the Negev beyond Ashram, the rational being that it's not like they could really tell me I couldn't if I wasn't on the Ashram itself. And I did. There were actually a significant amount of people that stayed Saturday night, and we all hung out by the campfire. At one point, there were two hangdrums (see: Youtube) being played along with a violin—one of the most beautiful harmonies I've ever heard. I went to bed at around 8:00, and ended up waking up at 10:30, decided to go back to Ashram, and joined people in singing songs around the campfire. At around midnight, music started back up, and people flooded the dance floor, bringing the party back to life.

My camp that night was something else. I was alone. Very alone. I think I was the only person camping beyond the Ashram that night, and I was a good ten minute walk from the gate. I slept without a fly on the tent that night, fighting the chilly breeze that brought the temperature into the 30s for a remarkable view of the night sky. Definitely worth the fight...people could write poems about how beautiful the stars were.

My tent and I and the morning sun

All around, this was one of the coolest places I've ever been. I'll definitely be back. I've come to realize how much more there is to life than the conventional life. It seemed like everyone there floated a few inches above the ground, and their words carried a weight that escapes description. There was so much love.

A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left (Fingerlings 3) - Andrew Bird
Dawn Chorus - Boards of Canada