hippie fest

I went to a music festival in Imabari (a few towns over) this weekend. It was a lot like a tiny Rainbow Gathering. And it was a two-day event, outside, in the sun, so I’m burnt. There was organic this and vegan that. Brown Rice coffee and vegetarian curry and vegan cookies and happy coco granola balls and the music was absolutely wonderful. And the community of about 50 people spent the whole time together so I got to know pretty much everyone and they were all so beautiful. The Couple who ran the Vegan Café in Tokushima showed up. Three monks were there; one of them (a shingon monk) was also in a band. He played electric guitar with loops (a lot like Michael Garfield’s stuff) and accompanying him was a young man on steel drums. But beneath the ambient minimalist trance music was electronic beats. (Shingon is a lot like Tibetan Buddhism. I will have more to say about it when i blog about Ikebana.) So, there were hippies there, barefooted, vegan, peace loving, dancing hippies who smelled and shared food and provided a safe place for everyone to express themselves. When we drank wine and sake we all shared the same glass, passing it around. Same for chai and coffee. One mug would be passed around the circle. the peace pipe, the teepee, the long dreaded hair and tanned faces… Like I said, it was a lot like a gathering in the states, only much, much smaller, and not as many drugs. It also had the flea market atmosphere of a Phish Concert.

There were of course older hippies there, who were not dazed and confused, but were lucid and wise. There was a teepee there and got to drink herbal teas and talk about reincarnation inside of it. More later.