Resonance Music and Arts Festival 2019

Despite it being one of the most uplifting, deep, and synchronistic experiences of my life, I’ve held off writing anything about Resonance up until this lazy, breezy afternoon in my yurt. The festival left me speechless, floored to be honest. It’s been multiple weeks, and I still feel like I am in its afterglow. The whole weekend felt dream-like, illusory-- all while being wildly visceral and all-encompassing. It’s so hard to write about something so intangible, ya know? How can one ever verbally replicate that vibe soup we all floated around in for those four days? On the surface, there was this brilliant, utterly mind-blowing artistic and musical talent, but the real show was underneath the surface. Real inner-work was done. In a world where we are so boxed in and conventionalized, to be able to come to an event like this, and freely express yourself and literally shake the etch-a-sketch of your being-- this invites in a true time for reflection, sharing, love, introspection, outrospection, and the whole gamut of fractaling, spiraling, possibilities that float by like bubbles in the open air. In a world so set and structured, this is where we go to open up, so freedom can find us. Love is all around. The world just makes us so uptight, that we forget to open our hearts, or maybe we remember, but our habitual daily patterns, our samskaras, keep our hearts boxed in. Whenever I forget, this scene is where I go to Remember. To open again.

Our Puja/Altar to keep the Bhakti vibes flowing back at camp

I went into Resonance pretty beat up from a summer of building our yurt in 90 degree heat almost every day, and a whole slew of personal internal bullshit that kept me pretty closed off to the world, kind of marinating in a state akin to an agitated hedgehog mixed with Eeyore. Getting onto the new grounds at Cooper’s Lake (which I had driven past for years thinking about how cool a festival would be there) completely washed away all of those mental stories and mellow dramas, and tossed me right back into the center of the moment. There are few better feelings than being surrounded by friends in a whimsical lake setting, with an eclectic assortment of top-tier jam and electronic acts weaved together in a mindfully curated schedule, while bumping into awe-inspiring art, fire performances, and riveting workshops at every turn. Every time we get to a festival, my wife always looks at me and goes, “These are my people!” And they are. They really are. You really are.

Tipper's Saturday set had the sky working the lights

This Resonance felt especially good because we came with a few offerings. The first of them being that my wife and I were graciously chosen to offer a Bhakti Yoga workshop at the Home Dome. This festival scene, Resonance in particular, really sparked our spiritual inquiry-- a journey which would bring us to India to study Bhakti Yoga, which is our main practice of love, devotion, and mantra-- so to be able to come back to the scene, which was the catalyst for our journey, and bring our practices back to share with this community was something really special. It really felt like coming full circle. Major thanks to everyone who came and vibed with us.

Top: Inside the Home Dome during our Bhakti Yoga Workshop (Photo credit: Breana Novak) Bottom: An appropriately reflective capture our Bhakti Workshop at the Home Dome on Saturday morning. (Photo credit: @zacktolles_designs)

We also had a return of our Wisdom Bananas to the campground. This is where we bring a bunch of boxes of bananas (found out we need many more next year!), and a bunch of foam boards with markers, and we trade bananas for wisdom. On the board, it says “Take a Banana, Leave Wisdom,” so by the end of the weekend you get the collective consciousness of the festival, which is cool, and you get to feed people, which is even cooler.

Wisdom Banana Board, Day 1 (complete wisdom boards at end of article)

This Resonance, and how soft, flowing, and free it felt, really made me think: In this world why is it so radical to be free like this? Why is it so radical to dance in complete joy? Why is it so radical to express your wild creativity so fully? Why is it so radical to share? And to laugh loudly and trounce to your own beat? Why is it so radical to explore our inner world, and totally celebrate our earthly incarnate pleasures? There is so much to this world beneath the surface. There is so much to be spoken for in the inner workings of our minds, hearts, bodies, souls, and Unity. Isn't that so wild, that these very innate, celebratory, natural, and open ways of being that we can fall into flow with so easily and succinctly at a festival, can be so difficult to find in the rest of the world? It's weird, but know what that means? It’s up to Us then. We have been practicing. What we have been doing with music festivals is experimenting in a new world, experimenting with new ways of being, both externally and internally, and by doing so, have created a budding and flourishing community of individuals, who have been practicing compassion, creativity, and radical ways of bringing in a new world. We’ve been practicing. It’s up to us.

Our Altar from our Bhakti Yoga workshop in the Home Dome. (Photo credit: @farmfreshfilm)

Thank You Resonance Team Thank You Home Dome Thank You to the Artists and Performers Thank You Cooper's Lake Thank You Resonance Family and All You Beautiful Radiant Souls Thank You Universe With the Utmost Love and Respect, Ganesh Das