Beautiful But Confusing - Dancing the Summer Away

As I stated in my previous blog, my string of recent adventures have spiraled positively into the most beautiful summer of my life. My spirit is soaring and my heart has opened up, simultaneously filling up and gushing forth with loving energy. One area of self discovery that has given my spirit flight is my embrace of music and dancing, and the magical convergence of the two at music festivals.

At this point, some of my readers shall be cautioned: all of these experiences I am about to share have occurred while using psychedelics, and I dare say would not be possible without them. I have expanded on this in previous blogs, and my hope is to slowly chip away at your armour through my storytelling, without sounding like I've lost my marbles (if I haven't already done so by now).

Tribe Festival - meditating with singing bowls

Astral Harvest festival - cool workshop space

Interstellevator, main stage at Astral Harvest

In other words, my goal is cultural deconditioning. Because we are taught, no, conditioned, to believe that these substances are bad for you, when in reality they are proven to have strong healing potential. Yet political and economic interests at a high level serve to keep them prohibited and out of the public's hands. Anyway, back to dancing, before I really lose you... please read on with an open mind.

Last New Year's Eve in Vancouver I had my first spiritual dance experience, when I saw the universe floating up and out of the swirling tiles of my living room, into my 3-D space, and I danced among the stars. The synchronicity of the dance was unforgettable. My curiosity piqued.

In May I attended the first year running of Tribe Festival, near Calgary, where I met a bunch of cool cats and realized that there was a community of alternative thinkers in my old city, just waiting for a festival to bring them together. An appearance of the Northern Lights made this festival really special. I later attended Astral Harvest near Edmonton and had another amazing time. At both festivals I attended yoga, art and intellectual workshops, connected with unique individuals, and danced the night away.

And then there was Shambhala - a fabled and magical 4-day festival set on a farm near the hippie outpost Nelson, British Columbia. At the beginning of August I left cherry picking early to volunteer in exchange for a free wristband. Two spiritual dance experiences left me forever changed.

Shambhala - the pinnacle of music, dance and free expression

On the grounds with my friends Spark and Jeremy (middle)

This is a normal sight at Shambhala

Shambhala at night transforms into a totally different world filled with mystery and intrigue, a sensation of sound and light intertwined with the mysterious but protective forest canopy. There is a neverending flow of Shamb-aliens - festival-goers dressed like hippies, fairies, dressed down or dressed up in onesies or other outrageous costumes. Shambhala at night sets the stage for magic to happen.

On Thursday night I was feeling the music and dancing while moving between stages, looking for my friends. I came across two guys who were doing poi and devil sticks, their equipment lit up with LED lights. Captivated, I stopped to observe, my dance moves flowing to their movements. They see me and come over, and our movements synchronize. We engage in a connected dance - time stops, everything else disappears, it's just the three of us and the music. We barely realize it, but 20 minutes pass by. We compliment eachother and move on.

Three nights later I ran into them again, and we greet excitedly. They told me they talked about me everyday! Noone had flowed so well with them without equipment as I did, using only my body. Humbled, I expressed that I thought about them everyday too and kept looking for them. Our connection through dance was an unforgettable experience. We planned to find eachother again that night but failed... I was disappointed in the missed connection, but it's a sign that we are meant to find eachother next year at Shambhala.

Fractal Forest - my favourite stage because... it's a stage set right in the forest

That same Sunday night, the last one of the festival, my friends and I started off with weird vibes, due to some unexpected setbacks earlier in the day. We hit the stage The Grove and saw a captivating fire spinning show. After the fire show, as we were leaving the stage, I came across some friends who were just entering. At that moment, I felt a compulsion to stay but was conflicted about abandoning my friends. I froze, not knowing what to do.

Then the French DJ Clozee started her set and I was instantly hooked, and began moving. Her sound completely took over my spirit and body until there was nothing but the music. As I danced I suddenly felt all the confusion and negativity that built up over the summer being purged from inside me, as each cell of my body shook to the bass. Overcome by the gravity and indescribable synergy of the moment, I cried, but kept dancing.

If this summer was a movie, that moment was the catharsis. I danced in this trance-like state for at least half an hour. I felt at one with the music, my body, and the universe, like never before.

I left Shambhala feeling transformed. I have traveled a lot in my life and, in this way, discovered the meaning of freedom. But Shambhala showed me a different kind of freedom, and expanded my definition of it. It showed me the freedom to express who you are, to reveal the real beauty inside you in a judgment-free, loving environment.

Thank you Shambhala! See you next year.

True North Wild & Free - Round 2, Cherries

After mushroom picking in the Yukon, followed immediately by attending the amazing Astral Harvest music festival north of Edmonton, I beelined over to Vancouver to rest, decompress and digest all these amazing adventures in the safe haven of my old collective house.

But it wasn't long before I got itchy (bare) feet and decided to give cherry picking another try. Ten days later I was back on a farm in the hot and dry Okanagan and back in my simple but beautiful home - my green Coleman tent.

The sun rises on the orchard. We have already been picking for 2 hours!

Life's a beach

I have awesome memories of my first cherry picking season at Coral Beach farm two summers ago. So I was pretty disappointed when I arrived at Sundher's farm - there was scarce flat land and shade for camping, and the amenities were relatively bare. I learned later on that Coral Beach is a rare exception among farms that accommodate pickers, providing a luxury experience.

The vast majority of the pickers here were French speaking Quebecers. No offense - there is nothing wrong with them, but they like to speak French, and too many of them means they only speak in French, leaving me feeling excluded, and I'm not outgoing or energetic enough to impose upon their conversation.

On my first day of work, I picked 17 buckets of cherries, which, at $5.00 each, meant I took home $85, not bad for a first day.

Needless to say, patience, not panic, was needed on all fronts. The situation would surely improve. Well, just like the first season, it was a rollercoaster ride full of changes that caused highs and lows in my temperament. But overall it was a more interesting and drama filled season that made the first season feel like child's play.

The primary reason for the increased drama was the climate. It was an El Nino and La Nina year, producing much more rain than normal in the Okanagan, which wreaked havoc on cherry production, as well as on picking conditions. This made it tough on farm owners, managers and pickers alike, and they, in turn, behaved erratically, spiralling the drama upon eachother.

This exacerbated the turnover of pickers, who were getting fired, leaving and newly arriving on a near daily basis. Halfway through my season, the ratio of English speakers increased to around 30%, with a few Spanish speakers arriving, travellers with work Visas from Mexico, Spain and Italy. By the time I left the farm, over half the pickers were Spanish speaking!

Patience paid off as usual on the social front, and I started bonding with some of the pickers. I even befriended pickers from another farm, camped across the road from the beach that I frequently visited. The people I met this time around were somehow different from two years ago - older, more mature, and more hippie.

On the picking front, things were challenging. After the decent start, I burned out physically and mentally, worn down by the heat and unable to find my motivation. I picked much worse this season, with the poor La Nina crop but a cheap excuse. My best day was 21 buckets, lower than the 30 buckets from my first year, and embarrassingly lower than the top picker, who was consistently picking over 60 buckets, or $300 per day!

This is why cherry picking is such a humbling experience. It actually demands a fine balance of toughness, focus and technique. And a good cherry picker can actually make money. But by society's account, it's not considered a serious job. In my own Chinese culture, agricultural work is even looked down upon, compared to being a doctor or - *swallows* - an engineer.

Anyway, I seriously questioned myself throughout the season. Not that I want to make a career out of cherry picking. But I seriously toughened myself up morel picking, and expected to continue the momentum in to better cherry picking. I was seriously wrong -- humbled again!

In the end, I have no regrets, as usual. Like any experience, it's the people that shape it, and I made some really meaningful connections. Seasonal workers - whether they're picking mushrooms, cherries, apples, etc. - are some of the most inspiring people I've ever met, living within nature, not outside of it, and embracing an alternative lifestyle, refusing to cave to the standards and demands of mainstream society.

Rock climbing at world famous Skaha

Round 2 of cherries serves as another memory along my lane, another notch on my belt, during an epic summer which is quickly becoming the best one of my 32 year long life.

Beautiful But Confusing - My Summer Motto

{Written at Shambhala, before the start of the festival - word for word, with just a few slight modifications}

Life is moving a million miles an hour. It's crazy, disorganized, madness.

Yet a part of me doesn't want the madness to end. That part of me wants to keep having crazy adventures, meeting amazing, inspiring people, making memories. Yet another part of me can't keep up the pace, is getting overwhelmed, needs stability, time to digest all these experiences. I guess that time will come... when I'm old and retired, right?

These days, I feel like Golem, two halves of my mind fighting over my consciousness. The winner gets to determine what I do after Shambhala, with Shams being the final battleground between the two warring sides. I spent this morning in Salmo in a cafe applying to jobs in Calgary and Vancouver. Instead of going back to the working world though, I could pick more fruit or mushrooms, take off to Europe, cycle down to Guatemala, or follow friends to find seasonal work in California. This is the dilemma of over privileged folk like myself.

But would life be easier if my main concern was working just so I had enough to feed myself, or have a roof over my head? Or a loving family under one roof, indulging in basic activities such as cooking and spending time together? It seems human beings are rarely content with what they have. Or that they always seem to find something to grumble about.

I can't believe I'm grumbling at all -- I'm at Shambhala!

Fractal Forest - one of the most beautiful dance stages, under the canopy of old growth trees

True North Wild & Free - Mushroom Picking in the Yukon

Hey everyone, I'm finally back from the bush!

Actually, I have already been out of the bush for 2 weeks, but needed time to decompress and digest the experience. My life was already a roller coaster up until that point, but this adventure took me to new highs and new lows, pushed me to new limits, both physically and emotionally. For better or for worse, mushroom picking was the most intense experience of my life.

I began this adventure with Niko, a dear and inspiring friend who has been travelling for 4 years, and has his own blog and FB page "Teacher on the Road." We left Vancouver in mid-May, road tripping north through rugged and beautiful British Columbia, wild camping along the way.

With Niko, on the elusive chase for the morels!

Blonde morels. Picture credit: stolen from the internet!

We were in search of the elusive morel mushrooms, which grow in forests that had wildfires from the previous year. We were guided by wildfire maps, an online forum for morels, and followed the grapevine, asking locals along the way. After several days, we finally found a burn near Prince George, down a bumpy gravelly forest service road.

We stayed here for 10 days and could barely find any morels! However, we really enjoyed our time there. We were situated by a picturesque lake in the middle of nowhere. Our crew grew from two to three as Pete from Austria joined us. And we met a whimsical crew of mushroom pickers, nine amazing and inspiring people, who I call the Magic Bus crew because they drove two school buses which they converted to run on vegetable oil, and outfitted with solar panels!

Magic Bus crew! Photo credit: Teacher on the Road

Photo credit: Teacher on the Road

Photo credit: Teacher on the Road

Magic Bus crew members Ponder, Yelena, Kylie and Dustin floating in the stream

Niko playing with fire and light

Pete fishing for our dinner.

After a bit more recon, we decided to head to the largest wildfire in Canada from last year. So we hightailed it for 2 days and 1100 km, arriving in the Yukon, where the sun never sets! On the way we saw a variety of wildlife, including black bears and wild buffalo. We also drove through the northern BC Rockies, which reminded me of my beloved Rockies in Alberta.

My car finally hit the 100k mark! So many road trips, so many memories.

A mama bear and her two cubs. Photo credit: Teacher on the Road

We arrived at the mushroom camp, down a forest service road in the middle of a burnt forest, a virtual tent city bulging with over 500 people! Here we set up camp, our home for the next 3 weeks, about 100 km from the nearest town, and no Wifi, but a strong connection to nature.

We strung up a large tarp to protect us from rain, then put up our tents. We dug an outdoor toilet (or shit pit) and an outdoor fridge to keep our food cool, with a makeshift door to deter bears. We gathered wood to make fires and cook our food. We collected our drinking water in large jugs from a nearby stream.

Our home in the forest

This trap door covered with moss reveals...

... our underground fridge!

Eager to start making money, we hiked two out of the three weeks I was there, some days up to 10 hours and over 10 km, through the bush. We were equipped with hunting backpacks consisting of a metal frame lassoed with baskets for the morels. We also brought water, food, compasses and GPS, a mushroom knife and bear protection. Fully loaded with morels our packs often exceeded 30 lbs.

The terrain was difficult and frustrating, sometimes steep, often thick with bushes, or fallen trees. Tripping or twisting ankles was always a concern. Scratches on the arms, legs, neck and face were unavoidable. Our faces were black after every hike from rubbing up on burned trees and branches.

Photo credit: Teacher on the Road

Add in the work needed back in camp, and the experience was physically grueling, and emotionally testing. I constantly faced fatigue, rain, cold nights, infinite mosquitoes, and ate nearly the same food everyday. It was my first time in such raw wilderness. It demanded patience, persistence, tolerance and toughness. It also demanded a level of coexistence and co-dependence, higher than any past situation I've been in, including travelling or living collectively with others, which tested us individually and as a team making decisions together.

Now, for the good news. A burned forest is beautiful, almost surreal to walk in. There is new vegetation sprouting up everywhere, sparkles of green shoots and leaves contrasting the deathly black char and soot. The occasional woodpecker and hare comes into view. Forest fires are, after all, a natural phenomenon, part of the forest's life cycle of death and rebirth.

While the 5 to 10 hour hikes were tiring, put into perspective, hiking in the forest is a fun activity, and a pretty awesome thing to do for a living. Being in the forest is soothing for the soul, and I had plenty of breaks and frequently took moments to be grateful to be out there and soak in the scenery.

Photo credit: Teacher on the Road

The best and wildest part of the adventure was taking a boat down river to a previously unexplored and, thus, unpicked wildfire. We camped in a totally isolated part of the forest by the river for 6 days, which was absolutely magical. We dunked in the cold river everyday after hiking. And there were morels everywhere! Unfortunately, we came a bit too late and most of them were unpickable because they were either drying out or getting moldy. Despite this, we picked the most morels during this time because we had the forest to ourselves.

Photo credit: Teacher on the Road

The nearest town was Watson Lake, about 80 km away. The citizens of Watson Lake, a humble town of 1,200 even boasted that they had the worst internet connection in Canada. But at least they had a sign post forest.

The sign post forest in the nearest town of Watson Lake, Yukon

The greatest gift mushroom picking gave us was likely the Liard Hot Springs, an hour and a half drive from camp. Both mystical and magical, the lithium naturally present in these hot springs is enough to put one in a dream state. We came here four times over the 3 weeks to relax and regenerate our tired bodies and minds.

Like a scene out of fantasy world, you walk down a boardwalk though a marsh into mountain and cloud 

And discover a perfectly manicured and preserved hot springs

Liard Hot Springs has the highest concentration of lithium of any hot springs in the world

Photo credit: Teacher on the Road

Living in the wilderness was something I wanted to do for years, since reading the inspiring Into the Wild while on my first epic Europe trip, and now I have fulfilled my dream. Thrust into the wilderness without much knowledge, guided by my very knowledgeable friends, I learned survival skills. I felt myself become tougher, more hardy, a man of the woods.

But no man of the woods compared to my colleagues, and other mushroom pickers in the camp. Mushroom picking truly brings the boldest and wildest of humans, in fact, some of the craziest and most inspiring people I ever met. Some of these meetings contributed to my amazing experience. It's easy to see why: mushroom picking is the most free job I have ever worked. You have no boss, only the wicked wild. It's the real wild west out here!

More photos here: Flickr

Life is Like a Tray of Appetizers - Part 2

After the two homestays, spread out over three weeks, I gave myself a well deserved weekend.

I attended Tribe Festival, held on the edge of the Rockies, just down the highway from Calgary. I enjoyed various activities such as drum circles, yoga sessions, singing bowl meditations, frisbee, lake swimming, and just relaxing in the field and enjoying the nice weather.

But the highlight of the weekend was a magic mushroom trip that ironically took a scary turn. At one point, I panicked and ran out of the dance hall into the dark field, and nearly got swallowed by the forest and the night. I got a grip of myself in time to turn around and return to the safe, though overstimulating, walls of the dance hall.

As I regained control of my mind I eventually found my happy place, and hit the dance floor with a resurgence of energy. The night was capped off wonderfully by a stunning appearance in the night sky of the Northern Lights. I stared silently at them the rest of the night, soaking in all that happened. The next morning I found my voice, and shared warm hugs and meaningful conversations with new friends about our respective journeys on that special night.

Northern Lights the night of my mushroom trip. Photo credit: Bert Crowfoot

The festival ended on an appropriate note, with a workshop discussing psychedelics, their role as healing substances, and why they are feared and misunderstood by our culture. The facilitator discussed illuminating work by Canadian doctor Gabor Maté, treating and healing drug addicts in shady Hastings, East End, Vancouver with psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. She also talked about other psychedelics such as LSD (acid), and DMT (di-methyl triptamine), the active ingredient in a potent visionary plant called ayahuasca, administered by shamans in the Amazon. We all have DMT receptors in our brains!

I could talk quite awhile about psychedelics. Crazy as it may sound, I am a strong advocate of them. I don’t consider them “drugs” like other banned substances, most of which are actually addictive and destructive to your health. Yes, they can be misused but, done responsibly, they have incredible healing and consciousness-expanding powers.

Psychedelics bring your subconscious to your surface, revealing your inner desires and/or fears, depending on how you feel the day you take them. My own experience reflected the journey I'm on which has involved plunging headlong into the unknown, often running away from the comfort and safety of the known. The adversity and tension I’ve experienced this year due to constant change, it all bubbled to the surface in the past week, activated by the mushroom trip. Though the trip was scary, I was able to bring those fears to the surface, face them and lay them to rest. I recovered with the support of amazing people who had gone through the same experience.

Since Tribe Festival, I've been on an emotional high. I made one more short visit to Calgary, bonding and reconnecting with friends, including my best friend, who I haven't seen in years. We had deep, intense conversations. I laughed, cried, smiled and spread my joy. One of my oldest friends in Calgary recalled something I told her years ago, after quitting my job: "I'm searching for something, I don't know what it is, but I have to go out there and find it."

Sounds crazy, right? Like some ridiculous movie quote. But my life sure has played out this way. And while I am still searching for that something, I'm a lot closer than I was when I first started.

My real life movie transitions on to its next chapter, and I feel ready for my greatest challenge yet: going mushroom picking for the summer. No, not the magic kind - morels!

After morel picking, I hope this movie winds to its conclusion. I hope to pick a place to settle down, and stop moving around. I thought I moved on from Calgary awhile ago, but Tribe Festival proved that the community I seek is here too. Calgary, I may not be done with you yet.

My tipi crew at Tribe Festival, near Exshaw, Alberta

Thanks for the memories, Calgary!

PS. sorry I don't have many pics from Tribe. Same photo link as previous blog: Click here

Life is Like a Tray of Appetizers - Part 1

Change has been one of the constants in my life, but it seems like change, along with my emotional gauge, has been dialed up several notches as of late.

Nearly one month has passed since leaving Lake Louise, and in that month I did two separate homestays and attended one festival, sprinkled with brief interludes in Calgary. The homestays were more specifically WWOOFing (Worldwide Opportunities for Organic Farming) arrangements, working in exchange for accommodation and food.

The first homestay was in Turner Valley, just south of Calgary by about 1 hour. My hosts were immersed in the flourishing permaculture movement of the '80's in Australia. Learning permaculture was my primary goal for being there, as it aligns with my future long-term goals.

However, I simply came at the wrong time - there was a gap in their work schedule, and not much gardening to do. I spent just under 2 weeks before moving on earlier than planned. Despite this I did learn a lot and had some cool experiences.

Turning the compost over into the adjacent compartment

I helped my hosts slaughter their 5 chickens, as well as pluck and gut them. The family had grown close to these chickens, which they kept for 3 years, significantly longer than most owners normally do, since hens’ peak egg laying age is just around 6 months. Thus, it was a heavy emotional event for all involved, including myself. I held their bodies while their heads were decapitated, and cried a little as I felt their lives draining away, and their souls escaping. This was a difficult but necessary experience in my mind, because I have always wanted to take responsibility for the meat I eat, instead of living in the ignorance that buying ready meat affords me. Being part of the slaughter, I felt like I honoured the chickens’ lives. And in return, they gave me healthy nourishing broth and meat.

The family also owned 5 meat rabbits. Much of my daily work revolved around the rabbits and chickens - feeding them twice a day, and scooping a lot of poop! My other tasks included raising seedlings in the greenhouse to eventually plant in the ground - a symphony of squashes, tomatoes and decorative flowers.

A two-headed chicken!

Oh, and there was lots of weeding. And jumping on the trampoline with the two rambunctious kids.

The second homestay was with another family who ran a yoga studio and retreat centre. Their ranch was nestled in the gently sprawling Rockies foothills, and they owned three horses, around 15 chickens, 3 dogs and 2 cats. Sadly it was only for a week, as I had a great time and the family was generous and fair. I gave back equally in effort, putting in hours of weeding and preparing garden beds using techniques such as sheet mulching, which kills the weeds and provides fertility for future plants. My favourite task by far though was collecting honey from last year’s beehive, by setting the hive frames in a hot oven to melt the honey, separating the wax, and straining it into jars.

A frame of honey being melted in the oven

The weekend I arrived on the ranch, a retreat was held there by a group of people to do ayahuasca. While I couldn’t participate in the ceremony, this was an omen, because my curiosity for psychedelics was mounting and I was eager to debunk the myths surrounding them.

More on this in Part 2... stay posted!

Click here for images: Flickr Album