Letter to Festival Producers

Hi Amit and Daniel, Thank you for asking my ideas on this, it's something I've thought a great deal about. Here's a rundown of elements I think should be involved in a next level festival, and/or Evolver plug-ins for existing festivals, and a reportback of what other festival producers are working on. People recommendations are NorCal or SoCal unless otherwise noted. I can get you contact info and websites for nearly all my recommendations if you want.

:::::Festival format::::: One idea people are working on is a festival that can be on an ecovillage and support that village with building or infrastructure, or foster ongoing relationships with workshop teachers and healer residencies, etc. Laura Fox created a layout for a festival that "births an ecovillage" (versus leave no trace). Her graphic is attached here. You might consider using her format, or taking inspiration from it. I'm on a coalition of 10 people who are creating a network of "land nodes" that could host gatherings etc. (I maintain a list of ecovillages that might participate in something like this- http://imaginationhealer.weebly.com/permaculture-villages.html). Andrew, one of the organizers of Lucidity Festival, is doing much groundwork on this festivals format. One request has been for a resources-sharing web platform for land-based communities and allied organizations, that lists gifts, needs, and goals. Project Nuevo Mundo is set to release such a platform in early 2014 - http://projectnuevomundo.org/ . I've also attached Tribal Convergence's guilds map. Their Awaken Festival (http://awakenthefuture.com/) will model networking and ongoing support/empowerment among visionary leaders via a guild system. I believe we could apply to Burners Without Borders for a grant toward building Evolver Fest. I can put you in touch with Carmen, their ED, or speak with her myself. I think HiveMind is a reliable urban festival format that can provide integration and default world grounding of the consciousness we raise at things like Evolver fest and other festivals. (You can learn about HiveMind on Evolver Bay Area's website.) Digital Renaissance Faire is a new a quarterly festival produced by the Perma-Culture Communities Network. PCCN will be a network of self-sustaining moneyless permaculture communities. DRF has a new monetization model where the event income is split into 100,000 shares, and every person helping create the festival receives a certain number of shares depending on their involvement. Each person or group gets their own promotion code which is tracked for sales. 5 theme camps bring in music and education programming, instead of the festival producers doing it all. Amber Doleman in LA has been pushing for people to instead of going to Burning Man, drop $1000 toward collectively purchasing land to Perma-burn. Jonah Bolt from Evolver Asheville is working with a government official to bring something festival-like to 2nd and 3rd world countries. Tune in with him. U.S. government is funding it. You could talk to Jamaica Stevens, head of Tribal Convergence, for info and speaker recommendations as well. At the last TC I met many speakers who are working more enmeshed in urban systems and with transforming and evolving corporate culture too, etc etc. You could also ping Chris / Pez of Palenque Norte. They're moving from psychedelics-focused speakers to more broadly visionary.

:::::::::::Here are my suggestions for programming elements and marketing strategy::::::::::: Music: Don't make it all electronic. Have times when the music is acoustic or silent and people can hear the environment, feel the Earth vibrations over the sound systems. This is crucial IMO. The music needs to be way more diverse. This will be of great benefit to everyone's consciousness. There is plenty of trippy and far-out and trance-inducing music in other genres. Ask the musicians if they'll donate their time so not so much of the budget goes to the DJ's. The distribution of budget/proceeds needs to be more equitable and cross-disciplinal. I'm working on on a timebank model/module but might not have it ready until the next Evolver Fest.

Here are examples of music I'd love to see at a consciousness festival: Greg Ellis (LA) - world percussion instruments, stellar trip music - http://www.rhythmpharm.com/boom/?page=about Native American musicians Ernesto Olmos from the Bay Native sound people from Joshua Tree. I'd say this is very important. Put sound healers on stage at some point - there's a group from L.A. that works with Rife frequencies, I can't remember their name. Jesse Noemind will know. You could also ask David Gibson of the Globe Sound and Consciousness Institute in SF, he knows everyone in sound healing and would love this festival. Reggie Watts "conscious hip hop" Liberation Movement Goddess Alchemy Project Instruments made of natural instruments - wood (didj and flutes), pitched percussion instruments (Daniel Garcia from Lake Atitlan in Guatemala lives in Oakland now and makes the most beautiful polyrhythmic pitched percussion music I've heard in my life), clay flutes (ocarinas), etc. The spirit of this is so different from computer, electronics, and loop-based music. I cannot believe the festivals we 're creating are so electronics-focused. I think that's fucked up, dangerous, and takes people out of the depth of connection they could be having with any natural psychedelic they might be on, like mushrooms, or in J Tree, San Pedro perhaps. I could tell you in great detail why I think that if you'd like. Many people are introduced to psychedelics via festivals - to do so in a club-scene-in-the-forest or desert is counterproductive to sustainability. Gongs, man. Get Karma Moffett there. Tibetan channeling straight up cosmos transmission. He knows how to create standing soundwaves. Digable Planets? Daniel what are your favorite musicians? I've generally found it effective to invite all the people and orgs and musicians I'm most inspired by. They tend to understand what I'm doing and be on board with it working toward the same ends. Live bands - middle eastern and North African, India has lots of great trance music with acoustic instruments that can get quite wild and ecstatic. Go more experimental - the music at these festivals has been lagging behind the consciousness. Latina experimental guitarist Ava Mendoza would crack your skull open. Fred Frith. Zeena Parkins - harp with electronic and gesture triggers, often performs in NYC but teaches at Mills in Oakland. Pauline Oliveros - "deep listening" - several of her pieces could be performed by the whole audience in connection with each other. Laeticia Sonami, gesture-controllers. If you want more recommendations I can ask Jon Leidecker who is developing the 80-speaker surround system for Dolby. He plays music made entirely out of animal sound samples, is playing in Baltimore in a few weeks and has played at Sonar in Barcelona. SF Sound is an orchestra that plays contemporary classical and experimental music, including awesome Steve Reich and Terry Riley, etc. Terry Riley on piano sends people into transcendent states. I can lead large-group participatory vocal rituals, as can Marya Starck. Get Funktion 1 speakers if you can. Getting Huun Huur Tu there (nomadic throat-singing band from Tuva), would be the biggest gift to everyone IMO. They released an electronic album with LA producer Carmen Rizzo. Throat singing is about / is literally communing with the spirit of place. If you can find a throat singer who does sound healing, that would be awesome too. I do it, but am not finessed enough for this level of performance. (None of the sound healing / new age musicians I've mentioned are cheesy.) I'm not saying no electronic womp womp, but that there's more far out and appropriate music for what we're trying to evolve, in addition to the bass in your face electro-transmission. Also, one-man white dude DJ's as predominating the energy = fail IMO. Electronic recommendations Mark Heley (he's been involved with Evolver/RS) Kalya Scintilla Merkaba Kaminanda Desert Dwellers -Advertise this festival to diverse groups of people. Huun Huur Tu fans are an example - tend to be wealthier, well-educated, and earth-conscious. Cross-pollinate the consciousness. Next level festivals market to more diverse target-audiences, IMO. What we need is people from different viewpoints communing with each other. -Connecting with place: Is there a ceremony traditional and native to Joshua Tree that we can participate in / receive / give back to? Does community in Joshua Tree need anything we can give? Is there any ecological restoration or cleanup we could assist with during the festival? Could a portion of the event proceeds go toward a community project or group in J Tree?

Could we invite students, k-12, to participate in someway? Is there an arts or performance group who would be appropriate to invite? A wilderness training group where the kids could teach *us* something? Take people on walks and hikes into the desert.

Product demos? Permaculture and sustainability things (focus on DIY where possible) Healing technologies Herbal tinctures Invite Searl Magnetics - Jason Verbelli just started working there - free energy researcher. He said yes to HiveMind but ended up moving before it happened. What kinds of science people could you invite? Can the tech and science community be invited in a way that can help break up the disconnection between research, funding, and environment? What rad materials science, or ecology-compatible tech applications, are happening? Can you invite a major philanthropist/entrepreneur who is on our side to speak? A major environmental advocate or famous biologist? Cross-pollinating communities and industry is going to help foster a shared sense of and purpose and responsibility. Hyperspecialization is part of what's keeping the solutions from being enacted. I think next level festivals could do much toward rediscovering shared (and embodied) vocabulary at a fundamental deep level. Breakout think tank sessions? I can update you on how Tribal Convergence's guild model goes.

::::::::Workshops:::::::: *Teach people practical and community-applicable skills, not just spiritual practices and talking heads.*

Psychedelics: ERIE - Entheogenic Research, Integration and Education group - from CIIS in SF. Drug policy Traditional medicine containers, and how they are integrated into tribal life.

Permaculture: - Don Tipping from Oregon Local people who could teach cob building or aquaponics or permaculture gardening, agroforestry and wild food forest gardening, etc. Bamboo building, dome insulation Urban gardening - fruit tree maps, food justice, free farmers markets, community gardening, occupying unused plots of land with gardens. Ryan Rising (SF) can teach much of that. He's a beautiful rock-solid facilitator, spoke at HiveMind and is presenting at Lucidity. Carl Gnosis could as well, and he could double on heroic dose mushrooms education and physical integration of psychedelic experiences. You could offer a Permaculture Design Certification course the week before the event, and/or afterward, locally or not. Mark Lakeman, founder of City Repair in Portland - they're expanding to other cities. They're not going to be ready til 2014, but Sustainable Living Roadshow could provide the bulk of permaculture programming. They're worth dropping in with, too.

Herbalism How to make tinctures Wildcrafting (Joshua muscat and adriane Bovone of the SF Botanical Medicial clinic would probably be down to teach both of those). Herbs for common ailments Immune system education - Cassidy of Beyond Body-Mind healing Superfoods education: L.A. people with a big following, or are connected to large raw food health communities, who can boost attendance numbers

Open-source technology Esoteric, mystery school, ancient and future wisdom Jenn Zahrt from SF teaches global astrology history Seven Sisters Mystery school wants to partner with SF's HiveMind. Jude Currivan from Great Mystery Don Estes - vibration science and video acoustic healing, water programming

Broadcast the workshops online, free or for a donation-based fee Enable global participation Mark Heley knows the tech to do multi-presenter live streaming. Unify could host it if they're still going.

Shayna Gladstone - Alternative Careers and entrepreneurial marketing She lives at EVO ecovillage near San Diego and is starting a Spore in SD Yona Fy (also from EVO) - "Activated Villages" - purchasing land as a community Marketing for sustainable and evolutionary businesses - Davin Infinity, Creative Energy Studios - could potentially tag team with Julian Reyes of KeyframeEntertainment. Tonya Ridgely / TBird, can also teach that, especially for artist entrepreneurs. She's a black woman and goes to festivals (also a music performer, voice and flute). Julian is Columbian. That would be a nice panel or three-person workshop.

Alternative Economy Education Chong Kee Tan and Kendra Chanley of Bay Bucks, Transition SF, and the Time Bank. Time Banks Gift Circles Charles Eisenstein Troy Dayton on marijuana-related businesses.

Conflict resolution techniques From two-person to governmental From somatic and sound-based to NVC, visual communication and mass grassroots media campaigns (Daniel would the author of The Media Ecosystem participate?), to smarter diplomacy and negotiation. It'd be rad to get a government official of some kind to come speak and play. Is there one who is openly an advocate of ending the drug war? Feminine sexuality Magenta - The Galactic Orgasm: Fully Embodying Creation Energy Jennifer Schmidt - tantric practices Jenn's friend from India/South America Elizabeth Bast? * Big name L.A. tantra teachers* - and NYC teachers - bring some sexy and conscious New Yorkers out here to cross-pollinate! Dee Dussault - Ganga yoga, tantra, sensuality Queer something or other - new age is too hetero. Open relationships, poly, gender alchemy and experimentation. I can teach that and know several people who specialize in all that. Teach about watersheds - mega important and core issue that brings awareness of *everything else*. Textile & clothing industry is the other single topic that brings the most fundamental and interwoven understanding of sustainability, civilization, borders/territory/politics and industry. Natural dyeing and fibers, education on sustainability in the textile industry - how to consciously purchase clothing - I can teach this. Zapatistas education - autonomy, negotiation and bridge-building with neighboring people, etc. someone from CIIS can probably teach this, if we don't know a Zapatista in our network.

Art education of indigenous art - Huichol, shipibo, Islamic, Tibetan tankhas... the "why" and "what about" of their art teaches unified mysticism, awareness of art as magic and conscious language, connections with animal and plant spirits, and open-ended depictions of "god". I'd include crop circles, actually. This would make a fabulous panel discussion. Sustainability What are the ways you can most easily make a much lighter impact What industries or practices cause the most harm, and what are solutions? Make your burn more sustainable - bulk food buying, reuseable jars not disposable plastic, reusable lights, not glowsticks Workshops on creative el-wire costuming, the finger lights people use to trip people out at raves... Contact arts workshops... Makeup and clothes-making workshops (my grass valley family can teach the latter), photography... Empower the conscious people to make art and share it, *more participatory culture instead of consumer.* It wouldn't squelch the consumer element (booths, vendors etc) - in the long run it would diversify it and bleed into default world cottage economics / empowered right relation. Legal structures in the transition - coops, 501c4-29, CA's cottage food law, how to pull off illegal building (I can track down a guy in Mendocino who's known for it), etc etc. Janelle Orsi focuses on that, we might be able to involve her. Chris Tittle might be able to speak, also from The Sustainable Economies Law Center in Berkeley. Much of my suggestions are for implementing practical enlightened anarchism, essentially, though we should absolutely not advertise it as that. Get Transition Town represented. Group healing rituals went over great at HiveMind - shamanic journeywork (find your power animal, soul retrieval etc), Rites of Passage, sound healing

Artists Amanda Sage Jessica Perlstein MARS-1 and the other Further collective guys (slightly more graffiti/abstract style, and they show in NYC at Joshua Liner Gallery). Daniel, would any of your artist friends from NYC come out? This could be an opportunity for you to get them involved with Evolver, medicine, and the consciousness. Latin American and African American artists who tend to paint more community-focused themes as opposed to individual visionary experience. More diverse style - same as the music. Trippy art is mega mainstream at this point - look at Milkdrop (Milkdrop is a global collaboratively designed music visualizer for WinAmp). Host a panel or meetup for MilkDrop designers at Evolver Fest. Partner with Deviant Art. Their art director, Forest Stearns, is into Evolver and collaborating. This could potentially give a massive international promo / PR / involvement boost. Link art expression with community involvement and ecological connection. Partnering with Deviant Art could also be a vehicle for massive grass roots media campaigns that are both effective and celebratorily mega-diverse. Pair Evolver Fest with a gallery show in LA, NYC, SF, Chicago, Sydney Australia and So Paulo (there's a spore there, right?). Use it to show art but also give documentation of the movement - screen The Bloom - have a speaker on opening night (the local sporeganizer) - post a framed list of local affiliate orgs... Offer as a gift with admission, a free cd download of live sets from the festival, or a pre-festival compilation of tracks.

*Sporeganizers panel.* Have strong spores describe what they're doing. That in itself is a huge consciousness bomb. Group panel after individual descriptions.

Media Ask Elevate or The Bloom to film Evolver Fest. How close to mainstream can we safely invite media representatives? If we get good footage, interviews, documentation, we can use that as social media to bring funding to Evolver, and as PR for TEN and all related organizations and endeavors. Throw a fundraiser for Evolver Fest through the NYC burner party crews - Danger List, etc.

Ok I probably have more ideas but this gives you an overview. I can help enact any of this if somehow employed to.

Marketing/outreach strategy... Who in L.A. has major dollars who would love this and continue to be a supporter, but might not yet know TEN exists and how awesome it is? Who do we know that could connect the dots?

Who / what orgs have the biggest "consciousness" followings in L.A. SF and NYC - promote it through them. With HiveMind, I've found inviting organizations or speaker representatives of organizations has given us access to kick-ass promotion because the orgs push it through their social media. Would VICE promote Evolver fest? Daniel could ask Hamilton. Hamilton could do an episode on Evolver somehow, or going to a festival - dont know how much control he'd have over putting in a free ad for Evolver Fest. Keep in mind that many many people are willing to contribute gifts of time and resources to Evolver. Imagine what you want of whom, and ask for it. I'm happy to help with finding the right person to ask at orgs or agencies. I have nearly a 100% success rate with HiveMind requests so far. This week I'm hoping to focus that on finding sponsorship/donors for it. I feel it's best for me to prioritize HiveMind (our next one is in late May or early June), but I can delegate most of that now to smart and capable volunteers. I have time to help with Evolver fest if you'd like that, at the very least on strategy. I can drill down into any of the elements or programming I suggested. Oh you asked what I do. I call myself an Imagination Healer - I work to example and lift the lid off what we're capable of as humans. Besides brainstorming and enacting planetary balance and health through social systems design... I make art, clothing, music, poetry, dance, acrobatics, practice and teach shamanism and psychic skills, dork out about how human biocircuitry works, ask my genius friends questions about what they know... and sit with my favorite being, the river. I also maintain a massive visionary art tumblr that has a growing following. I'm a muse chasing the rainbow tail of amusing, the cosmic giggle. My website is http://imaginationhealer.weebly.com Ping me back with any questions or thoughts or sharings, and keep me in the loop as you see fit. Good luck and thank you!! M

Addendum: Next level festivals might be less music-centric. Have people learning and healing together during the day. Building things together to do something tangible and permanent and give a visceral sense of working together. And celebrating at night. Someone like Bassnectar would likely volunteer his DJ time for something like that. He paused a set he was playing at Burning Man in '09 to say he wasn't coming back unless it moved away from being so purely hedonistic. Next level festivals are much more connected to nature than the way we've been partying. They're less wildly hedonistic, more integrated and integrating, and more grounded. There's a place for the lose your lid and merge with the oneness, playful and selfdiscovery kind of festival. And there's a place for new festivals that bring us back into perma-culture with each other, the earth, and civilization, in a way that doesn't create a default world and wonderland paradise dichotomy, but builds bridges and depth.

"eco village birthing device" by Laura Fox

Tribal Convergence's guild wheel