Saturday, August 12, 2006

~*...shambhala...friday...*~

randnorm friday event in black rock city 2005

i dream of genie party

12:00am-4:00am
have 3 wishes and let the kostumed genies grant them to you...but only if you come. exchange, play, dress up and cause trouble. hosted by: kostume kult @ esplanade and 8:00

photo by temple of virtual wisdom

randnorm mind grenade
generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. - kahlil gibran

randnorm pikcha


normdate 11.8.6

the morning air was damp as it rained all night. the ground was muddy. thank god the sun was shining, but it was going to take a lot of blazin sunshine to get rid of the puddles and water that last night's rain storm left behind.

the bathrooms were surprisingly clean for an outdoor event of this size.


elsbeth and i cruised over to brett and laura's camp to wake them up. we stopped at my friend rich, anastazia, jason, and meghan's camp first. these peeps are my omies, friends from ontario who now call vancouver home. it was good seeing peeps from the big smoke.

my first shambhala in 2000 was with a krew of toronto peeps, a group of us connekted by the om summer soulstice celebration...thus the term omies.



my friend dena, who was living in vancouver at the time, posted on the om mailing list about shambhala in 2000 just after om. she encouraged us to make a trip out to bc for this majik festival in the kutenais. 6 weeks later, 9 of us omies showed up in vancouver and began our journey to the interior. we would meet up with five more omies at shambhala.



i didn't know many of the omies that were part of our krew, at least not much more than through our interactions online through the list. i am so glad to call each one of them my good friends today.



shambhala krew 2k roll call! daniele, kimmy, isa, dena, petey, genny, bobby, markus, jake, maer, joni, lana, justin!



that trip was the first time i had ever met bobby, and it was the begnning of an incredible relationship. the camera that bobby used to take pix at shambhala in 2000 is the same camera that took most of the pix from this year. bobby randnormly gifted me this camera last year before i left for b.c...and it still works! hooray epson!



that shambles was also the first time i met kristin. she was 18. i was 25. i am so glad to call her one of my dear friends today, and even more stoked that we returned to the place we met six years later, together. i love you bobby, i love you kristin.

i ran into my friends from nelson stony, lacy, and arikan in the food vendors area. it is so good to run into friends from nelson here at shambhala.


the fractal forest was finally open, so i headed there to czech out some beatz. it was good to see that the dj booth is still in a tree stump, just like it was 6 years ago.

then


now


there were quite a few people dancing at the fractal forest, despite the mud. the beats were banging house music, and the environment was breathtaking. there is something so majikal about dancing outside in a forest, the smell of trees and nature assaulting your senses *sigh*



just like i remembered the fractal forest to be



okay, maybe there was a bit more to the forest than i remember





this goddess is one of the most beautiful women i have ever met. i was melting when i met her. hell, looking at these pikchaz i'm melting. *drool*




she's even hawter than when i met her yesterday


yah, i'm a bit smitten. is it bad that i can't remember her name?

i noticed a krew of stilt walkers cruising through the food vendors area.


so i followed them to the portal, also known as the seed of life, for the opening ceremonies. music, dancing, chanting, celebration, self expression, community. it was beautiful.



group community dance



and then we all gathered to share expression through movement


these hats were common elvin attire at shambles..and laura and elsbeth look so goddam cute tuning into their inner s'elf.



walkin 'round with a whiteboard around my neck sure is fun. i've always noticed the effect that clothing has on other people, but to see the effect of words is an interesting and fascinating way to trigger emotion in people. its funny to see the reaction of people after they have read what is written on the sign.


"believe everything you read! sucka!" teehee. thanks to christina for the village idiot pub booty shorts. i love you girl. these shorts made me the gayest fukkin pigtailed angel at shambhala ;)


luigi, princess, and mario! lots of costumes everywhere, a la burning man!

after the opening ceremonies, i ran into my friend alex fernandez...another omie from the tee dot who now calls the west home. he spent the last two seasons at whistler doing patrol and snowboarding. he was heading to camp fukrd, so i asked him to take me with him...the first of many randnorm adventures that the weekend had in store for me. there were quite a few beautiful distractions that presented themselves on our way across the parking lot.





camp fukr'd was home to the elvin jedi order of the sunshine coast. i had met many of elphinstone jedis at faeries and fools in april.





turns out the red eye jedi had with her the double bladed darth maul force fx lightsaber. she said i could return later that evening and wield it. i'm such a fukkin geek.

alex and i parted ways and i gave him my first take me with you pin, encouraging him to find someone else that he finds interesting and have a randnorm adventure.

i headed back to our camp, but not before i ran into anke! hooray! i had left anke a note at the front gate as well as a note on the bulletin board letting her know where i was camped. she saw neither, but told me that she knew she'd run into me. she actually told her friends that she would find me within half hour of being there, and sure enough she did. pure jedi styles. she is aware that she creates the world around her, and is confident in her ability to shape it as she pleases. she accompanied me back to our camp where we sat down and enjoyed catching up over some food and drink.

i really love anke. i love her different perspektive, one from another country, one from a different culture, one from a different language. she is a wise jedi, and knows it. she challenged me with a fascinating question. she asked me what does 'ever' mean? she commented on how people say things like "for ever" and "don't ever". i've never been asked that before, and she had no idea what the word meant. click here for the dictionary definition of ever.

the temperature changes drastically once the sun goes down. i got on some warmer clothes and prepared for an evening of dancing with my shambhala krew.


we headed to the village stage and caught the tail end of meow mix (emma star, oasis, ginger, morning glory, lion-s). these women threw down an awesome mashup of tribal tech, electro house, breaks, and trance. yah, all over the map, and done so well...and these women are freakin hawt! the village was still a bit muddy from last night's rain storm, actually it was really muddy :(



we then headed to the fractal forest to hear mike relm who dropped some maad hip hop and broken beat. but what i was really excited for was to come at the main stage...the freestylers!

i've been a big freestylers fan for years. these guys have laid foundations for breakbeatz and have produced some incredible breakbeat anthems. i was sooo stoked to see them play at the main stage.

i met anke at the main stage as vinyl ritchie finished his set. i don't know what the deal is with this guy, or why people lose their shit over him. he was nothing special, his beats were just rock and roll, and he didn't even attempt to mix songs. to put it simply, he sucked! maybe he was sucking so that the freestylers sounded awesome after his mash up of crapmo.

unfortunately, the disappointment in music would continue. the freestylers came on, the place was packed and excited, and they sucked. their music selection did nothing for me, and their mixing was off. hell, if they had just played an old skewl breaks set of their own shit it would have been ten thousand times better than what they dished out. i was thoroughly bored and disappointed.

at least i got to spend the evening with kristin. its so good to be here with her, and reminisce about our first meeting here six years ago. we sat on the log bench that we had spent so much time on years ago and blew sunshine up each other's ass ;)



being so dark at night we would often lose each other, so we would just yell out "FUCK YOU HIPPIE!!!" and the other would respond "FUCK YOU RAVER!!!" teehee.

tired and disappointed by the freestylers, i headed back to our camp and passed out.

~*...normaste...*~

Friday, August 11, 2006

~*...shambhala...thursday...*~

randnorm thursday event in black rock city 2005

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...*~