I follow subtle signs in life whenever I travel somewhere or go to any festival. For me there is never any special reason to go to different places. For me, it is never a place but an omen that always derives me.

Recently a similar omen derived me to go to Enchanted Forest, a festival that happens in the wild in California. This omen came to me from a dance floor when I was dancing with an amazing dancer for couple of moments and he told me that in couple weeks he would be going to woods to a festival and I should also come there since it would be up to my alley of wild and nomadic nature.

These couple of minutes of conversation with him was enough reason for me to go to this festival. Few weeks later, I packed my backpack and drove to enchanted forest.

As soon as I reached the festival ground, I started walking towards the camp area .I kept walking and found a nice spot to camp. The moment I started taking my stuff down, I felt that I should not camp here and go back and search some other spot. Even though most of the  spaces were occupied , I put on my backpack and started walking backwards. While I was walking back, something just pulled me to a space where I found a small spot for me to camp.

Finally I started putting down my stuff to camp. The moment I started doing that,I saw a dancer walking towards me with wide open arms and gave me a hug filled with joy. He immediately told me that this is the spot where Dance community is camping, It is the same dance community where I go for dancing each week. For a moment, I felt that joyous heart of my dancing buddies attracted me to camp with them. For a moment, I felt that I found my tribe just out of that eternal spontaneity that lives within existence.

The main highlight of enchanted forest for me was the river that flows calmly within the festival ground. Next morning when I woke up around dawn, I straight away took my naked body into the river. With my body fully immersed in the river, I saw the Sun rising out of the colored mask of sky. I was so much in tune with the experience that I could not keep my eyes anymore and just went into a state of bliss .In such state of bliss, For a moment I felt that Sun is rising up just to appreciate me, For a moment, I felt that sun has surrendered to me the same way I surrendered to Sun. In that intense moment of my existence, I felt that I was no different from Sun.

After finishing my morning rituals, I went to the main festival ground where different vendors were serving food. I decided to sit on a table and thought to sit in silence before grabbing food. After couple of minutes of me sitting in silence, I found a jovial guy with a beautiful girl sitting next to me eating a big meal and drinking coconut water. The guy started talking to me and started asking my few questions about life in general. Just within few minutes, he asked me If I could share food with him. Of course I said and started sharing food from his plate. This person was in such a celebration that he told me that he wants to give me more and more. Before he left, he went to a vendor and bought me some more food and some coconut water. Just after he left, some other folks came and sat with me and repeated the same thing of  buying me some more food for me.

Finding people in such celebration, I dropped tears out of my eyes. Every one reminded me of my soul that only finds contentment in giving. For a moment, I felt that even though we have forgotten to live a life of giving in civilized societies, But giving is still embedded in our genes. The moment we come close to our natural tribal way of life, we become natural and giving comes out of such natural behavior.

It is interesting that few days at a festival and I came up with same wisdom that I gathered when I travelled around the world for few years. Enchanted forest reminded me that Life is all about spontaneity and sharing. Without these two, No wisdom could make any sense.

Love,

Varun