Shambhala Living Room, 2007 [Shambhala Music Festival, Salmo, BC]

Lots of friends who traveled to the Shambhala Music Festival in Salmo, B.C. last weekend have been talking about our our experiences there, and the theme of our musings has been "has it changed, or have we?"

Here are a few observations, written originally in an email to my friend Ariel (who arrived on Friday with her husband Andreas, and then left on Saturday afternoon and go camping in quieter places instead):

"Shambhala as an experience as a whole was amazing. The festival itself wasn't. But my personal travels through growth and transformation and evolution were profound, and in a lot of ways the setting of Shambhala was integral to that work; Shambhala outgrew us, and we outgrew Shambhala.

I hate being the one saying "it was better back when...", but in this case, I can't help but notice the difference between Shambhala when we started going and Shambhala now. There are literally almost twice as many people now, and they produced four times more litter and chaos. They are younger, and I don't just mean younger in years, but less evolved, less conscious as a collective. The music was younger. There was a lot of pop club music, music with dirty bass and dirty words. DJ's with giant egos and bigger mouths (dirty mouths), and they weren't using their big mouths to share any community values or anything that matters at all. The intention of "Shambhala" was missing. For as much as I've always been in the back laughing on the inside at "prayerformance," I'm also now keenly aware that I miss the intention behind those rituals. Shambhala didn't feel sacred to me at all this year. It felt totally mainstream. It felt like Spring Break in Florida.

I know that all of those chaos elements have always been there, but I felt it strongly this year: we have evolved. Shambhala has devolved.

And that's fantastically fine...at least, our own evolution is. It's great being a grown-up. It's great having purpose and values and vision. I'm grateful for every day of my life that's taken me step by step further away from that pandemonium of ego and disharmony, and closer to my source, my own higher being, closer to my dear and evolving friends, closer to my real community, closer to all that really matters. So it was really poignant to be in that place at this time, as it was an amazing physical reflection of growth. And I am glad to be growing.

That said, sunday was better than the rest of the weekend. The musical IQ increased substantially, the crowd was smaller, and the collective consciousness was raised a notch. Sunday felt a touch closer to the way I remember Shambhala in earlier years. We did still get in some great music and dancing, and it was sweet to connect more deeply with the few of us that stayed."

So, I won't be back to Shambhala next year, and that's ok. Honestly I went this year with the intention of saying goodbye anyhow; I already knew I was ready to move on to doing other things with my time and money. I'm glad I had one last romp through the still-magical sound stages, trails, and waters of Shambhala, and, I'm ready to move on.

I have been thinking for the past year or so about my evolution through so many years of being a festival kid, and have had a sense for at least the last year that it was time to slow down. I did go to a couple less festivals this summer, but I didn't have clear reasons for choosing some and declining others. I think I do now.

I don't really ever see myself giving up music or dancing or celebrating with my tribe. These gatherings are integral to my community, my spirituality, my heart. And, I feel myself being drawn much more to the events that really have heart, the ones with intention, the ones where real conscious connections and social evolution are being made. For the most part, I'm feeling these values in the smaller events. Blooming Heart on Oracas Island this year was really the highlight of my summer: intimate, intentional, heartful. I also felt our community strongly bonded at Prosperity again (it has always been and remains a favorite). And although I missed it this year, in past summers, Ariel & Andreas' summer campout at Sacred Groves has always hit the spot. The last Oracle Gathering of the sequence, also this summer, felt full of heart and community too. And although it's not smaller, I'm also again feeling the draw of Burning Man, which has annually shown me the faces of god and centered my soul (despite its 50,000 participants, this festival has managed not only to hold closely to its values and intentions, but to spawn whole community movements based on these principles...amazing.) So I'm not washing my hands of festivals, but it is my intention to choose fewer festivals, and to choose those with the most intimate & heart-felt of intentions. It's the people and their intentions that make the festival, not the DJ's, not the sound systems, not the visuals.

So next year I'm going to follow my heart to fewer festivals, and choose them with care and intention. Goodbye, Shambhala (and hello Beloved?)

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