Shifting Seasons

Around 2 weeks after our performance at Elements we were preparing to journey to northern California to play a show we had been offered in Mount Shasta. We were in ‘grand vision’ mode as we were organizing ourselves for destination music videos, a month long tour in October, as well as cultivating intentions to manifest a shared space where we could live and work as a band. A few days before we left for Shasta, my mother Susan sent me a link to a retreat center property for sale in Mendocino called ‘Frogwood’. The land looked amazing and we decided to visit it on our way to Shasta. Frogwood has intimate connections with everything that unfolded after our trip up north in August and all the way until the band disassembly at the end of December 2013. I will focus on this subject in depth in my OP5, though here will only briefly summarize my experience and how it relates to the band… 

We became so excited and inspired by the idea of creating music together in nature, living in community, and nesting in the heart of the redwoods, that we dove in headfirst. Trout, the caretaker of the land, was a key ingredient of our enthusiasm, for he offered to stay with us on the land, sharing his wisdom, skills, and services to help us bring our visions to fruition. At 22 years old, while attempting to organize a full band and finish by bachelors degree, I was almost married to a 40 acre property with 8 houses in need of much renovation and maintenance while creating a business plan around how to open a musical retreat center in the Mendocino Redwood forest. It was a beautiful vision but definitely premature. As the months progressed, our booking inquiries for our envisioned October tour went unanswered, planned shows with other bands were cancelled, our focus was becoming scattered, and I began to fall deeply in love (both with the vision of Frogwood and a shamanic fairy goddess named Hannah). As I reflected with the shifting seasons and winter drew nearer, I began to feel the cold but comforting reality that I had taken on more than I could handle and it was undoubtedly time to simplify my life.

Between the months of November & December we played a few shows and experimented with different band arrangements. Hannah, a german princess with the voice of an angel (now my sweetheart and travel companion) joined the group with her beautiful harmonies along with sister Ashlyn, Blake’s girlfriend, creating backup female harmonies that stir the soul. This dynamic was unstable however because Ashlyn had to dedicate more of her attention to school and Hannah’s US visa was to expire in a matter of weeks. Another factor that added to the instability was that we didn’t have a solid drummer as Kevin lived in Boulder and our other option, brother Dave, made a choice to move to Indonesia. With confidence we decided to establish a ‘core group’ between Oliver, Jacob, Blake, and myself. Jacob felt comfortable enough with the drums and so he took up the role, or so we thought. After one practice session with the four of us, Jacob decided he wanted to play bass instead, creating some friction for Oliver as he was of course, the Bassist. In the beginning Oliver started with guitar, later moved to Bass, and now in a moment of energy and possibly frustration, he through up his arms and stated that he would learn the songs on drums. Though frustrated about giving up his position on the bass, Oliver felt comfortable enough with the rhythms of the songs to reproduce them with the Djembe and Cajon. Though we now had a stable four piece until instrumentally, we were in a way back to square one as Jacob had to learn all of the songs on Bass and Oliver basically had to learn to play the drums. This was a test of patience and an overall growth challenge for me as It was taking more time and energy into transmitting teachings about the instrumentation rather than just how to play the songs themselves. At this point everything was shifting. The frogwood project was put on hold due to permitting issues (a true blessing in retrospect), which created tension because we were all preparing to move there as a group, causing us to feel uprooted and unfocused. Hannah and I were beginning to create travel plans for the coming year which inevitably didn’t include the full band, causing feelings of abandonment within the group. The closest thing we could set our sights on as a band was a festival we were invited to play on new years 2014 in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala called ‘Cosmic Convergence’. 

We didn’t have the proper funds to get us to Guatemala and back as a group and so decided to create a crowd-funding campaign through a website called IndieGOGO. Because we only had around 3 weeks to effectively raise the money we needed and book tickets in time, my family agreed to help us out despite how much money we made through our campaign. This was an incredibly helpful offer for as we had created the campaign with such short notice, we actually wouldn’t receive funds raised until mid January, weeks after the festival. I feel that the true nature of this fundraiser was a gift for us to focus mutually focus on a project as a band, creating a greater sense of camaraderie and coherency between us. The campaign helped to create a clearer focus as individuals, both financially and energetically as I had been playing a father role in the group that was becoming unhealthy (more on this subject in OP5). After completing our video of asking, creating the indie gogo page, and sharing it through the internet, we returned for one last journey to frogwood and practice our set in the sanctuary of the forest, preparing for the cosmic convergence festival.

What Happened?

After feeling confident in our performance and structure as a band, I organized myself to fly to Guatemala a week early to reunite with Hannah, who was awaiting my arrival at the lake, and would be prayerforming with us at the festival. We practiced the songs together while awaiting the rest of the group to arrive a day before the festival. Everything shifted quickly. Oliver's passport didn't arrive on time so he couldn't come, Jacob returned home to Arizona after realizing the best thing for him was to help his little sister record an album, while Blake and Ashlyn were on the fence due to Ashlyn's allergy conditions. Despite the chaos, Hannah and I felt to be in the eye of the storm, chilling at Lake Atitlan, confident and committed to putting on a great show wether or not the rest of the band was there. After a day of total uncertainty, Ashlyn and Blake met us at the Lake, actually at the festival on the day we were scheduled to play. Our set was moved around 3 times before we finally played the next day at sunset, with myself and Blake playing guitars, the ladys delivering beautiful harmonies, and my friend Elizebeth playing the djembe. The set was beautiful and as the sunset behind us, so did the Ecstatic Union project. With gratitude, revernce, and love I invited 2014 as a freshly blooming flower, indicating the birth of a new glorious cycle of creation, adventure, art, exploration, experience, learning, action, and love.