i don't know if any of you have had the pleasure of playing ultimate frisbee, but this has to be the most fun team sport i've ever come across. i play on a team made up of friends from the tribe board (yes, www.tribe.ca seems to be a theme with me eh?). we play in the toronto ultimate club and it so refreshing to play with a team with experience. about two years ago, my friend danielle invited me out to play ultimate with her team. i didn't think i could handle it because of the running. in '98 i busted up my knee real good skateboarding, and had reconstructive surgery on my knee. i've got a metal plate with seven screws in my leg now. i thought i would never be able to run. i proved myself wrong, and i've been addicted to ultimate ever since. think of football mixed with soccer, but with a frisbee. its such a rush.
our team is called the tribe monkeys, and on tuesday night we kicked the flickstones' ass! well, it wasn't a beating, but winning 17-10 still feels good. nice work monkees.
so tomorrow i'm going to om, or as its called this year re:union. you can go to www.sumkidz.org and find out more about the event. i went to om for the first time in '99 cause my friends roland and leanne invited me. i was a big supporter of the destiny world electronic music festival so i was a bit skeptical about attending another three day outdoor music event. boy was i ever surprised, and changed. om was more than just an outdoor music festival, it was a community. i was blown away by the people, and the mentality that they brought with them. LEAVE NO TRACE was the root ideal. if you bring it in with you, take it out. simple. and people did just that. they picked up after themselves. wow, what a simple concept. this made for a very clean and beautiful space to celebrate. and celebrate we did.
i remember running into a guy at om in '99 who was running through a daisy field with his dog. i asked "is that your dog?". he answered "naw, he's his own dog. i'm just his friend." i'll never forget that.
om is a celebration of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year (which normally falls around my birthday, schweet). on the solstice, all of the participants at om congregated, held hands, and chanted. it takes something very powerful to get a 1000 people chanting. my first year there were 750 people at om. as the years progressed, om brought in close to 5000 people. that's where things started to get crazy. at some point in time things reach critical mass, a point where the society and mentality break down, where it can't support itself anymore. om started to get more spectators than participants. people who came expecting something without putting anything in. it also became very expensive to hold an event for 5000 people outdoors, and people began to complain about the high ticket prices. the core group who organized om had a huge task before them, organize an outdoor festival for 5000 people. it took a lot of work, and the core did not get the recognition or the compensation they deserved.
last year, the venue for om was pulled out from under them 5 days before the festival. the core had to find a new venue within days and move the entire festival, which had already begun to be constructed, to another spot. thank god they found a new place to hold the event, but it was a good 5 hour drive west of where they had originally planned. in the end, it was the people that made om what it was last year. there are no spectators, only participants. at least that's what they tried to bring out in the "omies". i've always known that. don't expect someone to do something that you aren't willing to do yourself. don't expect anything if you're not willing to put something into it.
this year's om has taken a new turn. participants are required to be members, holding each person accountable for their actions and making it mandatory to contribute to the community financially and through volunteering time. some people felt that this approach was elitist, that it excluded people. i think its a great idea. it keeps the numbers down, filters out the people who refer to the om mentality as "hippie shit", and holds each person accountable for their own actions. i could go on and on about om, and maybe i will in future. but what i've learned from on is that it is possible to create a sustainable future. it is possible to pick up after yourself. it is possible to live and celebrate peacefully with your fellow man. om is the most inspiring place i've been to, it inspired me to act. it has changed my life. i can't wait to contribute and celebrate again this year...even if it means that i miss toronto pride celebrations. i fukkin love pride weekend, but i love om just a little bit more....just a little.
yes, that is an om logo in my dredi knight brand. i was trying to figure out how to include the om logo with dredi knight. i first thought that i could replace the e in dredi with the om symbol cause it looks like a number 3. but what if people didn't know what it was, and assumed it was a 3? they'd go to dr3diknight.com then it hit me. there it is, right in front of me. dredi knight dot cohm. and if people got confused the first assumption is that it is a dot com. the om symbol used is also my own version of the symbol. i also have it tattooed on my shoulder. yup, it changed my life that much. to me, om means that everything is occurring perfectly at all times. it is the sound of the universe, the sound of oneness.
to see pix of my first om, just go to my pikcha archive.
i'll see you after om.
namaste
- norm \m/^_^\m/
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