And Back to Sydney

My mind state today has been fairly negative.

I suppose it began yesterday, which was an anticlimactic, slow recovery from New Years Eve.

On the 31st we had a slow start, with the knowledge that it would be a full-on night, and attended few shows, although we did see a tlk on Climate Change and civil Disobedience, and hung around the Greenhouse tent for a while discussing the dangers of building a dam on the Mary River and the f*cking USA army coming to test nuclear weapons at a bay north of Brisbane. Shocking!!! It seems so unreal; so rediculous and i just have so much trouble understanding their blatent disregard for life and the environment!

Ashley and I had an increadible night! Possibly the best NYE yet, and definitely the best NYE sober! The bands were phenominal and we danced from 8pm until 4:30am, except for the 3 minute silence prior to midnight (a magical experience, as 20 thousand people who had been singing, dancing and playing hard all week stopped in a candle-lit reflection). Two days later, my feet are still aching!

Everyone who was still awake at that early hour in the morning trecked from the temporary city of tents and music up the hill to watch the sunrise as monks played magical flute tunes which seemed to drift down the hills and throughout the valley before floating up and up and up...

And then the following day was a mass recovery. Those who weren't hiding in their tents were milling around lethargically, many hung-over, most with a half-off-somewhere-else stupor on their face. Mine was still painted with blues, greens and silver from the night before. Although the music remained fabulous, few found the energy to dance. It seemed so hot I couldn't sleep until that evening...

So I sat around, chilled out, played guitar with some neighbours (beautiful people; friendly and generous) before catching a few last shows and finally falling asleep on the floor of the Chai Tent as my friends danced into the early morning.

The tarp above my head was playing the music of a light rainfall this morning, but soon the sun came out and dried up the tarps just in time for us to pack them away and say goodbye to our temporary Woodford home.

I caught a ride into Brisbane with Dan and Brit (thank you!) making it just in time to catch the bus. By this time the day had become grey, I had eaten a bit too much for my lethargic tummy, my sinuses were clogged, my cut foot throbbing and my allergies contributing to a seemingly endless sneeze festival. I was not looking forward to sitting on a bus for 4 hours and then a train for 10...

But then I began reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Repair" and regained some of the perspective about life and travelling that I had lost in my absolute exhaustion. I remembered (this realisation tends to come and go quite often) that this is all part of the journey, AND it's only one small part of it: temporary and passing like everything else.

Living in the moment is easy to do during celebration, with beautiful music and passionate dancing. It's not so easy to embrace life in the "now" when I feel out of tune. But when I can just begin to understand the nature of impermanance in this situation, there is a small amount of peace to be found.