Gaian Mind

I’m usually pretty jaded about nightlife and party scenes these days. The options in most cities seem limited: hip-hop clubs
where your chance of getting laid (and getting crabs) is on par with your chance
of getting stabbed or shot, faux goth-industrial clubs where your best bet is to
get shit-faced and coldly ogled by vapid boy-girls with painted-on eyebrows, “local” pubs where the jukebox is broken and only plays Leonard Skynyrd… Well, you get the idea.

In the midst of all that content-less noise, Gaian Mind is doing something a little different.

My
first encounter with Gaian Mind was at Alex Grey’s Chapel of Sacred Mirrors,
where they sometimes tear things up in that unique atmosphere (figuratively, of course.) Since then I’ve been to many events they’ve thrown at venues, open air parties, and very shortly, their upcoming blow-out summer festival June 21 – 24.

For the past five years, Gaian Mind has also been holding a summer festival at the Four Quarters interfaith sanctuary in Artemas, Pa. “Their land is supercharged magically,” Milletics noted. It has become the longest-running psy-trance festival in the United States, and hundreds from all over the world attend. The event includes a full weekend of dancing, drumming, lectures, workshops, yoga classes, use of a sweat lodge, and swimming. Psy-trance acts this year include AMD, Dickster/Dick Trevor, Aphid Moon, Human Blue, Loopus in Fabula, Yab-Yum/Gaspard/Ajja, Phutureprimitive, Leila DJ and others.

“A good dance on Mother Earth is spiritual to me – with my family, friends, and tribe, with drums or drum machines,” said Milletics. “I can tap into the earth rhythms either way. There is a notable difference for me between the nightclub experience and the open air experience – definitely, being in the outdoors dancing to this music all night, experiencing the dawn, and continuing into the afternoon is a spiritual catharsis.” (Quoted from The Key To Philadelphia 2006, with artist list updated for this year.)

We’ll get to the festival in a moment. Let’s start with the music. This band of DJs and futants single-handedly revived my interest in psychedelic trance, providing just about every imaginable permutation of the idiom, from dumbek and sitar tinged goa to uptempo mind-melting psytrance. If you go to one of their parties you’re going to want to move at some point in the evening unless if you’re in a coma. For those who are unfamiliar with what psytrance is generally about, Pat Myers (a Gaian Mind resident DJ), explains:

“The essence of psy-trance is combining the ancient tribal ritual-feeling aesthetic with modern advances in technology and culture…
As [pioneer psy-trance artist] Goa Gil said, ‘[It’s] reinventing the ancient tribal ritual for the 21st century.’”

These events as a whole have given me some amount of hope. They are participatory and vibrant. To date, I’ve yet to go to one that felt dangerous or even uneasy. Maybe it is possible for groups of people to get together, have a good time, and not leave trails of trash and drama in their wake. Maybe it isn’t unreasonable to go with one or two friends to a big party and be able to just talk casually and openly with complete strangers. I know. This is crazy talk.

Hiding behind that “just have fun” vibe is a loose philosophy
that you’ll probably also find at Burning Man- 2012, McKenna, Pinchbeck, technoshamanism blending with a raver and post-hippie aesthetic. There’s no question that if you bring it up, you may find yourself immersed in a conversation about nanotechnology, quantum physics, or DMT with the stranger standing next to you.

No one’s trying to cram anything down your throat, but if you’re going to believe in something, why not believe that things can turn around for the better, or that in the long run technology can be our salvation rather than the key to our destruction? Post-humanism? Orgone energy? Machine elves? What the hell. It’s out there, but it sure beats believing in an anally congested Uber-God that punishes people for following the urges he gave them in the first place.

In case if you’re wondering, this group didn’t form overnight. It’s been around for quite a while, and has its cultural (if not musical) roots in scenes as diverse as punk and industrial.
Says Gaian Mind founder Allen2012, “Throughout the past decade, our attendance has gone through peaks and valleys – resembling a sine-wave you might say. In the late-90′s, our attendance was peaking at 3000 people – the events at Space (aka Motion). Our monthly in Philadelphia goes up and down depending on the season – higher attendance in the Fall/Winter, lower attendance in the Spring/Summer. Our annual GAIAN MIND SUMMER FESTIVAL, currently in its sixth year, continues to grow steadily in attendance each year. Last year, we started events in the Tampa Bay, FL, about ten events so far, and our attendance is finally starting to grow as people discover us…”

The growth of the group over that time has been mostly organic, started as a group of friends sharing music, expanding through word-of-mouth and the connections that arise when things just happen to “click.”

So if you’re in the north-eastern US, or want to take a trip out here, I highly suggest you check out the summer festival. It includes four days of back-to-back music, yoga, sweat lodges, good people, and a speech by Daniel Pinchbeck (you may know of him from his books Breaking Open The Head, 2012, or the more recent web-magazine Reality Sandwich). However if you can’t make it, don’t fear- I will be there, and will bring many of the sights and sounds back with me to share with you all on Alterati. After all, in this day and age, who needs four days of direct and potentially mind blowing experience when you can get 420 x 335 embedded videos? …

(Hurry up if you’re going to go, pre-ordering ends June 10th!)