mdma: hope for the dying
4:00pm-5:00pm
john halpern, m.d., asks "how can mdma be salvaged from its street-drug status as ecstasy?" mdma may be a uniquely important tool in pschotherapy for those struggling with end-of-life issues. mdma's neurotoxicity reviewed. hosted by: maps/bop in snowflake village @ esplanade and 9:30
photo by maurizio niccolai
randnorm mind grenade
he who knows others is wise; he who know himself is enlightened. - lao-tzu
randnorm pikcha
normdate 10.8.6
we left calgary yesterday afternoon on our way to salmo in the heart of the kutenais.
Deep in the Kootenay Mountain range, the Salmo River Ranch begins its annual transformation. Arcadian pastures evolve into a futuresque setting on an epic scale. Encircled by nature, a community rises, sharing a common goal, celebrating a collective love and respect for music, art and humanity. For five days and four nights time ceases to exist.
This is the crucible of artistry and musical mayhem. This is the zenith of modern underground entertainment. This is Shambhala…
the drive through the foothills of the rockie mountains is beautiful. breathtaking actually.
watching the sheer rock faces of the rockies change into the tree covered mountains of the kutenais is majik.
its good to be back in the mountains again *sigh*
after a 7hour drive through the mountains, we arrived at the salmo river ranch just after 9pm. there was a pretty huge lineup of cars to get in, but they were not going to close down the entrance until midnight. as long as we were in line by midnight we were fine.
the bottleneck was the searching of vehicles. they were being pretty thorough about czechin cars for booze, as this was supposed to be a non alcohol event. pfft...as if. but i guess insurance on an event of this size when you serve alcohol would have been nutz.
kristin and elsbeth walked into the site and found the krew we were going to camp with. it took us 5.5hours in line before we got our car in. of course we used the time in line wisely, and drank. by the time i reached the gate i was tired, exhausted, and smashed. all i wanted to do was set up my tent and pass out, and that's what i did.
maad props to homeboy ronnie rivz for hooking me up with list. ron is a very close friend of mine from university who runs the booking agency coast II coast entertainment in hollywood. he booked the main act here at shambhala, an artist named schpongle. i had never heard of him, but then again, i'm not a huge psy trance fan.
it was so good to wake up in kutenais again. the air is clean, the mountains are epic and beautiful, and there is that familiar kutenai energy that i had grown to love this past winter. but what makes the kutenais, and more specifically shambhala, so majik is the people: conscious and realized people celebrating in the most beautiful of environments. being here with elbeth, a woman i love who drove all the way from yellowknife to celebrate with me, and kristin, another woman i love who i met here at shambhala six years ago, it was a good morning.
we were kamped with the pk krew, the peeps responsible for the sound at the ewok village stage. it was good to have reserved camping waiting for us when we arrived. big ups to the pk krew!
whoah, things sure have changed here at shambhala since the last time i was here six years ago. first off, holy shit there are a lot of people here! there were maybe 2000 people in attendance in 2000. now, there are 10,000.
there are also a lot more vendors, a whole lot more. this is what the main vendor area looked like in 2000.
this is what it looks like now.
and that's just the food vending area. there was an area just as large where you could buy everything from locally made garments to glass pipes.
not to mention beautiful people every where you turned.
its actually quite nutz how many radiant and beautiful people there are here, and lots of costumes. it reminded me of a small scale burning man with all the outfits and theme camps, nestled in the mountains of the kutenais.
this place is big and beautiful. i spent the morning cruising around the land soaking up the vibes of this majik place. the festival had just begun, but it was filling up fast. the beach was an awesome place to chill.
the beach stage was beautifully decorated
i was impressed at the amount of time and effort people put into decorating their theme camps.
none of the stages were opened...
we were able to get a glimpse of the ewok village stage being set up.
michel takes shambhala very seriously...pure rv styles, decorated appropriately :p
some of the theme camps close to our kamp
i connekted with a radiant goddess named metta near our kamp. godesses with coloured dreads make me melt *drool* especially ones from new zealand.
i met metta at intention 7 on the sunshine coast new years eve. she was smokin then too.
i ran into my friend laura (the blonde goddess in the pik with metta on nye) shortly after running into metta. laura was scoping out a camping spot as her partner and my good friend brett was waiting in the long car line to get into the festival.
laura and i searched out a camping spot together, stopping at a few places on the way to snap some shots.
there is so much beauty here, and as i was once told, there really are majikal creatures living here in the kutenais.
after finding a camping spot, i headed to the parking lot where i ran into brett. i helped him bring his camping equipment to their site before going to the water station for the shambhala forum 4:20 potluck. of course i stopped a few times on the way for a few beautiful distractions.
its so easy to spot burners. this burner goddess was named tarzee. *hello nurse*
met two peeps from the liquid beat forum, aden6942 and myka82. great to put names to a face.
i arrived at the water station with kristin and elsbeth for the 4:20 potluck, organized as a meetup for the peeps who post on the shambhala forum. i don't post there, but kristin and laura do. it was good to meet the shambhala online community, and the food was delicious.
my friend brittany was also at the potluck. it was great to see her...and daam she looked good.
aaah, memories of brittany and i dressing up as ho's in nelson, and anke being our pimp *teehee*
kristin, elesa, and brittany. did i mention the concentration of radiant and beautiful goddesses at shambhala?
elesa doing a bit of acrobatic stunting...her first time.
best t-shirt at shambhala...perhaps one of the best in the history of ever!
mmm...potluck feast.
after the potluck, i tossed the frisbee around with a few people before i continued my search for some majik creatures i know. i had been searching for my friends from the east shore, the mou kollektiv, and used a small whiteboard on my chest to help with my search. instead, i found their family. i met copper chris and ocean, the two talented beings who taught scotty how to craft the majik arm bands that i was fortunate enough to wield while on the east shore earlier in the year.
chris and ocean are from the sunshine coast. they told me that the mou kollektiv hadn't arrived just yet. at least i knew where they would be kamped. i then changed my sign to seek out krisin.
i found her at our kamp.
i changed into some warmer clothes and continued to explore the salmo river ranch. dark clouds began to form, and by the time i made it back to our camp, the sky had opened up and was dumpin rain. i found refuge in my dry tent, and i never left. tired, exhausted from a long wednesday night, and a day of drinking in the sun, i enjoyed a good night's rest.
~*...normaste...*~
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