My friend Lee creates this oppotunities
to play music in public, and gets me to
participate in them. In return I do whatever
she ask me to do. It's a symbiotic relation,
where I wouldn't go out and find out about
these possibilities, and at the same time
she might not participate in these
events if I wasn't part of adventure.
A couple month back, she invited me to
Bragg Creek to perform with her a sound
healing journey. As we played often together
with meditation and sound, I was eager to
participate and it was a great exprience.
A few week ago, she invited me to the Unicorn
Festival. We were to perfome on a floating
stage on a lake in the middle of the mountains.
Although I'm comfortable to perform for
a sound healing journey, a 'stage'
presentation is completely different.
It's denuded from a lot of the intuitive,
meditative aspect of what I usualy like
to perform.
I reluctantly planned to the events, synth,
loopers, effects but then realized the
stage was accoustic only. I had no idea what
to do. Some mantra, harmonium, shakuachi,
but then though I could borrow the Fugara
flute from a friend, and maybe feed that
into a effect pedal as I was informed
there will be a small PA for voice on
stage. Nothing big enough for a synth, but
okay for voice and flute.
Picked up the flute, packed up my gear.
My daughter gott a ride with me as
she was going in town. But we missed the
ferry, and in order to be on time for the
show and prep, I had to drive around the lake.
My daughter was fine with that, had tons
of music. We drove and chatted, got stung
by a hornet (it really hurts!) I drove her
in town, then had to drive back to the
festival. I did take the time to buy a
fancy bottle of Mescal, and a 9volts
battery, hoping to power my reverb
pedal with it. It took me 4 hours
to drive there, instead of 2!
We were scheduled to play early on the Fiday,
around 2pm. We showed up and the sound guy
wasn't there yet. What is it with sound guy
and not being on time for setup??
The floating dock wasn't setup yet,
and the stage manager was, not surprisingly
freaking out without much support.
We finally got people to help with
setting up the stage, then I found
someone with a powerfull battery
powered speaker, and with just 20
minutes off our schedule we started
performing. The effect pedal + mic +
zoom h6 worked pretty well, although
I couldn't hear myself. I played
a few mantra, and after a moment wanted
to pull out the fugara on full reverb,
which was for me the center piece, to
have gongs and other sound mixed with
a full reverb flute will be awesome,
but turns out, my reverb pedal,
on battery, lasts about 12 minutes.
So I unplugged the reverb, plug my
zoom h6 directly into the speaker,
and finished the show with no effect
what soever!! A few more mantra,
a really stretched Shakuachi piece...
I wasn't impressed with what we pull
off, although we met with the festival
organizer right after our set, and
she layed down for a moment and we
offered a sound healing session just
for her. She then shared about the
vision of the festival and the land
that she owned all around. It was
a beautiful meeting.
I went around the festival after
that and I met with a lot of really
interesting people. I really enjoy
all of my interaction, and got myself
a beautiful tea mug, sculpted with
mushroom growing on it. I met a woman
who taugh me about Amanita Muscaria.
I've always been afraid of that mushroom.
As a kid I often saw these in the forest,
and was told to never touch them or eat
them. The slugs seems to love them though.
Later in my life, I started reading more
about these mushroom, again shrouded in
mystical knowledge with a lot of
warning about them. I few years ago I
even bought myself a few ounces of the
mushroom, but never did anything with
them and threw them in the compost!
But this woman was really knowledgeable
about the mushroom, and after a long
and very entertaining conversation, she
invited me to try it out, and gave me
a large cap. I started taking a few pieces
and chewring on thm. I also kept on
drinking my mescal, which was quite the
mix. I didn't realize in what state
I was until I left the festival. I had
waited a couple hours to let the effect
of the mescal disolve a bit, but I
think I could feel the fullnest of the
mushroom for the whole ride, which
was about 2 hours. By the time I was
home, I knew the effect of the mezcal
was gone, and it was replace by the warmth
of the mushroom.
I'm looking forward to continue my
exploration of the Amanita. Its seems
to have a potent healing energy and
I've always been attracted to it. I've
also read that it's one of the mushroom
that enhance the dream world quite a lot.
