LinearA review of Splendour in the Grass (from an older, collapsed Catholic’s point of view). (Main Forum)
This is Part 1; Part 2 will follow.
Is anyone interested in this? Why am I writing about Splendour in the Grass here on this forum – well, I think I learned a huge amount this weekend and I suppose I just want to share that with you – and much of what I learned is relevant in regards to how out of touch and how completely out of mind the institutional church and Christianity has become for so many of this generation or a particular cross section of it, at least. But can God be found in an event such as Splendor? Well, I’ll leave that up to you to decide.
What a weekend! I again went on a roller-coaster ride of very mixed emotions and thinking in regards to the festival – no doubt reflecting my present ‘Nowhere Man’ state of mind – and please remember, I am still in the thick of dealing with abuse and the whole area of spiritual grief and anxiety, so these will colour my perceptions: Sometimes this is good and helps give me insights which I believe are spot on, sometimes the opposite may be true. There may be some things/words which some will find confronting and repulsive and while I may start negatively and be negative throughout, I just had to end on a positive note – because there was much about which to be very positive. (You've already read what Billy said about my son's wallet being returned with nothing missing - well, that's just one example).
I am also writing this with the “Splendour in the Grass” tag because I would be happy if younger readers actually stumble across this while googling – I am certain that there are some ‘splendourites’ who might have had the same concerns I did about certain aspects of the festival – hopefully they will either find support or some insights. But then again, I may well just be considered and old fart and ignored: Whatever!
Where to start? I’ll approach the whole thing chronologically.
My first impressions were of thousands and thousands of excited 16 to 30 year olds (I must admit, being 53 but still able to fit in a little, I felt rather out of place – I could count on my hands the number of ‘oldies’ at this festival) moving, walking, running, jumping, rushing to the next act.
My first ‘confrontation’ was the number of times I heard the ‘f’ word – I don’t know but it seemed that you just had to use this word as part of the language, as part of being there, and it never abated – the conversations were full of it, much of the music was full of it, especially at the ‘dance' music tent (The Mix Up Stage). "Why?" I kept asking myself, “Why?” I would have loved a dollar for every time I heard this word. Being the 'overly wanting to rationalize everything' kind of person I am, all I could come up with was this: letting off steam and anger, anger at the state of society, the cynicism of life, the sense of powerlessness of the young, and, shock value: (Bear with me): I couldn't help thinking that it is just the way; to be as shocking as you possibly could, not that this word is that shocking anymore, but it's still, as if, you just must include this word in conversation and music to let others know, hey, I'm cool, I can say it, sing it – but again, Why? I know some may wonder why I am writing about this and that it seems a little trivial and it is in the bigger picture of the festival but I think there's more to it.
I think I found an answer at one of the forums which was being held – it was titled “Sub-cultures” and it showed a film about punk rock from the point of view of those who were involved in the 70s and a few of them were there on the panel. One of the messages that came out during the film was something with which I could so identify – I was never into punk rock but was into the hippy/drug culture for a while but it was the same for me: One of those interviewed commented on how it was important and so cool to be perceived as ‘dying’, self-destroying - there was much shock value in this. Your peers at the time would say, “Oh wow, he (or she) is so wasted, and is so on the way out”.
Now why was this seen as cool, and it really was - I used to walk around trying to give off this impression myself. I couldn’t help thinking that it had to do with such a deep need to be seen and heard, and such a deep cry for help – I know with my group of friends, as with myself, we were all coming from very sad experiences of family and childhood even though no one ever talked about it - two of them later died of overdoses (but please let me say here that for those who may have had someone close die this way, it's not always their family that is behind it and I am sorry if I have upset anyone by saying this).
Here's another example of trying to be as shocking as possible and trying to get across that somehow those doing so were considered ‘cool’: One of the panel was introduced with a claim to fame which, well, just left me speechless, yes, he shocked me, but he had such an ego on him and all I could think of is, “from what background are you coming”? His claim to fame? Cooking with his own cum (ejaculation) (Sorry readers). Yes, the audience (which, thank God was only small, perhaps a hundred or so) seemed to think this was OK and funny, but did they, I thought, did they? Well, this guy was interested in sexual sub-culture and showed a clip of a very traditional looking couple who were into master/slave stuff, you know collars around the woman etc. Well, this was enough for one young girl sitting in front of me – she walked out and, good for her, I thought – who knows, perhaps she was one of the 8000 at the festival who according to statistics at least, may have been a victim of sexual abuse. For such as these there is nothing funny or acceptable about such things - they know.
Why am I writing this – I became very angry at the attitude of the panel who just simply couldn’t see past there own egos and need to be ‘admired’. When the time for questions came up I so wanted to ask – “Have you ever spent even a small bit of time considering the possibility that all this cool self destruction and sexual ‘warpedness’” (they obviously didn’t see it as warped, just interesting and amusing – and you were somehow made to feel stupid and uncool if you didn’t go along with them), “have you ever stopped long enough to ask the question – from where does all this come?” I am sure that sexual abuse somewhere would have been part of the picture – or abuse of some sort. I am not just making a stab in the dark statement here – I once was discussing a song in the movie called “Good Will Hunting” (brilliant movie, by the way) with my son and I said to him, "I bet you anything he was abused as a child", and sure enough, my son told me a few days later that he read that indeed he had been sexually and physically abused by his step-father - he later suicided – such is the stuff of so many a musician or artist, but was this panel even aware of this let alone willing to discuss it - forget that - it was fun and an expression of freedom and all totally acceptable. Back to question time: I so wanted to ask the question but I got the shakes and just couldn’t – need a shot of bravery still.
Another of the panel was lamenting the fact that he couldn’t find any ‘sub-cultures’ today. I so wanted to say, “Just look outside this tent – here next to you is Amnesty International – get involved with them”. But I didn’t, I couldn’t, still too much fear.
I left that forum and went on a wander through the streets of the festival and came across “The Tent of Miracles” which, well, let’s just say it was nothing like what you would imagine – it was a vaudeville kind of act, I think – I didn’t go inside because of what I saw on the outside – such anti-Christian imagery as to make your hair stand on end, and that’s what it was all about apparently – perhaps I should have gone in to find out for sure but my old Pentecostal fears just got to me and I became even more depressed and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness for today’s youth started to cause me so much anxiety. Again, I had to ask, "why?" Why bother with such a blatant attack on Christianity as to make it a separate 'act', on traditional morality, and why such a desire to go down paths which I just know lead to destruction - well if not destruction, more brokenness and certainly not love and health and psychological maturity, well, the way I perceive it to be anyway. Why? Where was all this coming from? I suspect it comes from people who have been damaged by the church and Christianity - that's where it is coming from.
So I wandered around looking for a place to rest – the artists I wanted to listen to weren’t on for a while. I did go to see a group/man named Edward Ellis and another, Laura Marley, both were brilliant. But I was still upset by the earlier experiences so more walking and need to rest. I came across the Buddhist tent and the Temple stage. Here, I thought, I may find somewhere to rest my still rapidly developing anxiety and sadness. Well, it sort of happened.
The Temple stage is set up by the Tibeten monks at every festival to provide a place where music and acts with a spiritual theme can take place. OK, now I had to deal with all my New Age cynicism, so my anxiety still was there. But then a film came on about sacred dance across cultures and religions – the woman narrating and who had put the film together began by telling her story and how dance had helped her become such a freer person, and in her studies across cultures she explored the relationship between dance and ecstasy – it was very interesting. I mentioned once in a post many months ago how a friend (an ex-nun) commented on what she thought was one of the most motivating things in people’s lives today, especially the young – the search for ecstatic experience –(some might call it God). Here was a film exploring just this from tribal cultures in Australia, Africa, the Americas to Islam, to new age and,,,,,,wait, "where was Christianity in all this"? I thought. Well I got the answer in the next few minutes. The narrator explained how Catholicism (she had been brought up a Catholic) had made her hate her body so much and that she had spent years trying to undo that. Well, here I went again, roller coasting between anger and appreciation for what she was saying - this was, I suppose at least a more positive version of what "The Tent of Miracles" was on about but both, it could be argued, were coming from the same damaged by Christianity/Catholicism background.
After the film came an ‘interactive' performance with a shamaness (as she described herself) who invited any willing participants to join her in a lesson in Kundalini Dancing (look it up). I’m sorry, but I’ve seen one too many episodes of Absolutely Fabulous to have kept a straight face through this one and my anxiety needed relief and I found myself laughing especially as there was one drunk Aussie bloke getting right into it but not necessarily the way the shamaness would have preferred, I suspect – anyway, if you’ve seen the relevant Ab Fab episode, you’d know what I was talking about. It was too much to keep a straight face. I also know of a few people who have been quite psychologically damaged by shallowly delving into kundalini spirituality and I sat there, being so judgmental and feeling so superior.
Then a woman came and sat next to me – she was a volunteer helper wanting a rest - a “Friends of Woodford” cleaner who spent her time cleaning up the grounds as she walked around. We struck up a conversation and I tried to rope her into my cynicism (anxiety) but she wasn’t really going there. I then mentioned how I had studied Buddhism a little and I was just so curious as to how the Buddhist monks here saw all this, the festival, the alcohol, the drugs, the sex and she just said, “THEY DO NOT JUDGE, they just let people make their own choice". She herself had been a Buddhist for 30 years, both studying it and living it and while she expressed concern she also said, that she believed that it was up to the individual to find their own path and if all this is part of that, (learning the hard way perhaps) then it is, but that I might be surprised at how many kids don't go in for the sex and drugs and just love the music (like my son and his girlfriend) – anyway, the Buddhist monks just come here year after year providing a place where spirituality can find some expression. She also told me that they just love to come here. But, I thought to myself, so much of this, this non-Christian, non-western God approach can damage people, lead them astray. And then I realized: “Who the hell was I? Here I am sitting here, a product of so much damage of my western religion and knowing so many others who had been damaged: What was going on here?
They do not judge. The woman then told me how she too had been brought up Christian but had all her life simply been told what to believe – never being given the freedom to choose – she now was her own person, autonomous and psychologically honest and free. I felt a real heel. My attitude to everything started to change then more to the one I have been trying to develop over the last year rather than the one I have habitually fallen back on (the fear-based, indoctrinated, blinkered one). No, any religion, approach to life has its dangers and its riches, its weirdos and its wise ones, and good psychology will be again for me the yard-stick. And I know there were many people here who exhibited blatant instability but, I decided, in my mind at least to live and let live, that each must find their own path through error and study and life experience and pain and love. I started to relax.
Having already gone to the first act I wanted to see that day, Angus and Julia Stone (a brother and sister act) who were just so good, superb, it was time to go to the second act I really wanted to see that day – Ben Harper (of “Please Bleed” fame - the video I made once). God he was so good and he sang that song (thank God) and I was lost in the emotion and pain and healing of it along with all the 20 000 others there. See, here was a man who has gone through everything I just mentioned above – he has been (and I think still may be) “Christian” in some form but not in the warped, judgementalist way. His music comes from a soul that has been through so much and boy does it show.
That was the end of day one. I left on a real high, feeling a little more at one with the 40000 young people.
Musical interlude: One of the songs he performed, Amen, Omen
Day two there weren’t any acts that I particularly wanted to go to (except Paul Kelly later) but I did go to a few relatively unknowns and loved them – there is so much talent out there, so much music telling of stories and lostness and anger and foundness and LOVE. Everyone wants love and meaning.
I decided to go back to another act which was great but I was troubled. I went back to the Buddhist Temple area and so wanted to stop in at their tent and talk about all this but just didn’t feel welcome – probably more my problem than theirs.
I went to their stage area as they were about to perform the sunset chant. It was very interesting but all I could think of was "if you thought Catholicism had its costumery and rituals, this was no different" – or was it? Why was this so appealing these days and to the young here whereas the rituals and processions and chants of Catholicism aren’t. I had no inclination to get involved but rather just to watch – I felt I had gone past the need for ritual and in a way I have and that’s OK but then so is ritual for those who find in it a metaphor, a stepping stone for moving into a different level of consciousness.
I started to realize that perhaps, what I had experienced the day before, was culture shock (like I did when I went to Japan once - I had an anxiety attack the second day I was there and just needed a day in my room - I was great after that); I was in what was now for me very unfamiliar territory, age-wise, religion-wise, in so many ways and my anxiety levels were high – I needed some kind of familiarity and certainty.
It was time to go to the artist I really wanted to see this day, Paul Kelly, a son of a Catholic family who has been through his own deep valleys but survived.
He was brilliant as was his backing vocalist Vika (who was once part of a group called the Black Sorrows a while back - brilliant). Now, here was music with stories, meaning, soul, from the lived experience of someone older and wiser, but just as gutsy and energized as anything the younger ones had to offer.
For this act (as with Ben Harper) I decided to get up as close as I could, to get in there with the squeeze of thousands up front and I am so glad I did – music this close and loud (and soulful) can’t help but make you transcend the daily. I left feeling uplifted and hopeful again and while there was drinking and a little dope smoking going on most were there because they loved the music and artist and it was being every bit the music/cultural festival it is supposed to be.
Honestly, you can’t get past this. There was just a love of the music and no aggression anywhere, well I never saw one bit. One other woman volunteer helper I spoke to while having a coffee said a girl was raped on Saturday night and I pray it was just a rumour and I pray for her if it did happen but honestly, I encountered nothing but joy and love and so much personal politeness even amidst the craziness and crowds.
Music interlude: Here is one of Paul's songs that he sang, beautiful and so able to be identified with by me.
End of Part 1
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedA review of Splendour in the Grass - Part 2
Part 2
Day three started with me wanting to go to another forum (a bit of a mistake again) where Will Anderson , the comedian (who I generally really like) was doing a Parkinson.
Well, again, I went on a roller-coaster ride of mixed emotions. He was sooooooo funny but sooooo crude (no need for censorship here) and everything I held sacred was savagely lashed (but this is possibly a good thing for me at least). But again, I kept thinking, "Why? Why?" Anything went, starting with masturbation – addressing a 16 year old in the crowd he’d met the day before he said, “my God, 16, and here at Splendour. Well, there’s three days you won’t be able to masturbate”, and then all the masturbation jokes came thick and fast.
Then there were the drug jokes and the getting so pissed jokes and the political jokes and the religion jokes – religion is all one huge, huge joke and just so totally irrelevant, and then, oh oh, no, we can’t make jokes about gays and asylum seekers and the mentally ill – these became a little more serious, they need our support so "don’t vote for fucking Abbott". And as for Julia: "education – move forward, work choices – move forward, gay marriage - to the right, asylum seekers - to the right, mental health – stop" - think I'd heard The Chaser doing that one a few nights ago - oh well!
He was very clever and extremely funny and quick and a little drunk. Then the guests came on: the most interesting was Sam Cutler, former tour manager for the Rolling Stones now in his 70s I believe. Will made sure that the theme stayed with the praise of sex, drugs and rock and roll even though there were some amazing insights (somewhat against this perception) into such as Keith Richards and Madonna. Of Keith, he said, (and you could see the discomfort of Will) he has had only two women in his life and was amazingly loyal to them all the time. (Hang on, this wasn’t fitting the ‘groupie’ theme Will was trying to keep going on about – we want the sex stories). I must admit, Will was starting to get on my nerves a bit by this stage – there’s no comedy in loyalty and when it came to the drugs, well the theme was that most serious musicians were extremely hard working, focused business people – but this didn’t fit the comic theme of sex, drugs and rock and roll either. So, while I laughed till I cried a few times, I came away yet again somewhat despairing for the young people who were being (I thought) somewhat manipulated by Will – hey, regardless of what you’ve heard here, get out there, screw as many people as you want, masturbate as often as you can, and get into the drugs and alcohol and hang the consequences, and forget religion.
See, this is what gets to me, no one wants to look at either the reasons for what I see as self-destructive behaviour, nor the consequences, the broken lives, the diseases, the abuse, the loss of meaning, the breakdown of relationships. But who was I to contradict Will and the apparent beliefs of the majority here.
It was time to go and finally have a drink myself – one can of beer ($6.00 – I could be totally cynical and say that Splendour is just a capitalist money making venture but I won’t). This calmed me down and I then went to sit on a large hill and just chill out and listen to a few artists and snooze. There were plenty of others doing the same – just relaxing, talking, drinking, just like one would at a friend's place, only multiply it by a few thousand. It was a good choice. I lay under a huge tree with my feet up on its truck, (as much for reversing the blood circulation as anything) and just let go a little more – and it was good.
I decided then to go back to what was becoming my place, the Temple Stage and God I am so glad I did. There was a group there who had just started performing; The Nomads, a group of mostly older men and one younger guy and woman. They were all from the middle east somewhere, some Jewish some Arabian and they played the most incredible folk music from their traditions and all in their languages. There motivation for getting together was to promote harmony and love between the three great religions of their homelands, Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
After almost three days of roller-coastering I really needed this. Then the leader said that they were about to sing a song from the psalms which tells of God coming to stand by those who are in deep despair and sorrow. Well, I just folded up and went dead still and let the music flow over me and through me and it was as if God was placing a cloak over me to totally cover me – the tears came in secret and I was overwhelmed by a sense of Love. This group really had something – they meant it - you could tell by the way they sang and played, the expressions on their faces and through their whole bodies.
Then the pace picked up and they played a rollicking love song in the magnificent beat and middle eastern melodies of their homelands and for the first time I saw this stage fill with people, all dancing and full of joy and love (and a few with beer). Even I could not stay motionless – and anyone who knows me well knows that for me to dance, to be so free in public just doesn’t happen anymore. God was here in Splendour, even in what so may Catholics/Christians (myself included for a while) and no doubt others, would see as Babylonian excess and debauchery – I suppose it’s all in the eyes and minds of the beholder. I wanted so much to see and look upon all these people as God does, and I think I was able to for a while.
I decided to spend the last few hours sitting in the Rainbow-chai Café, part of the Temple area, in an old lounge chair and talk to anyone who came and sat next to me. I’d had enough now (and missed one act which I regret – Mumford and Son – whose lyrics would have been every bit the stuff I wanted to hear and whom my son and his girlfriend said was the best act they went to – oh well!) Anyway, my older bones were giving up by now. But I had some wonderful conversations with undrunk and undrugged people, and there were as many as these if not more than those who were off their face.
It was time to go. I left early and decided to beat the rush and wait for my son at the pick up place. While here I met three older couples waiting for their own children – and again, I had conversations of hope and belief in the young of today, without blinkers but still very positive. One dad simply said, "Aren't these young kids today just so wonderful" and he was right. As we stood there waiting, there came a flow or hundreds and hundreds of kids, all "so well behaved" as one of the (somewhat shocked) elderly mums said, but full of joy and excitement about the weekend they had just experienced. These weren’t kids wanting to come across as cool simply because they looked like they were dying in a drugged out haze: These weren’t kids who were totally wasted and angry and disgusting and unwanted. They were kids who just wanted to celebrate, let off steam, have fun and above all enjoy music, that language of the gods, that language of the soul which uses words and rhythms and melodies that speak for them the things within that most find so difficult to express.
As I have said so often, I so love music, and this was a music fest before all else, and one that promoted love and tolerance and joy. I am so glad my son ‘forced’ me to go - I had initially said I couldn’t afford it (he paid) and that I didn’t think I could psychologically, let alone physically cope (I did). Will I go again? Maybe, just maybe. All I know is that I, as a collapsed Catholic, and as someone for whom society had become a place to fear and from which I have become so isolated, for whom the young of today held little hope, I feel a great sense of relief and change in attitude. I have my concerns but then every generation does, don't they.
I have to add one more thing for this forum, being a Catholic oriented one: Catholic institution, you’ve lost the plot, you’ve totally lost the ability to and possible even the right at present to say anything to these kids that would have any impact. The Buddhist monks have got it right: they are just a presence, a non-judgemental presence and in the words of that women I sat next to, "love is love, whatever form it takes". They just want to be there to show that, express that, provide a place where it can flow. Where are we in all this? Where is the great Christian faith in such as Splendour? We can have our World Youth Days and preach to the converted but in events such as Splendour, we’re not really wanted, at least at present, in the form it has taken these last few years, decades, centuries. But people still want and need the hope of love, the cloak to cover them, the sense of meaning and ecstasy and they will find it wherever they can and freely, for themselves, not coerced or through the world of guilt and fear - they want more, they want autonomy and psychological freedom and I hope they find it.
I will finish with a song from the group I regretfully missed - listen to the words, this group is reaching tens of thousands of people: They may not want to 'convert' people but, like the Tibeten monks, they are never the less, a much loved presence, supporting people/the young in their life's journey.
Serve God love me and mend
This is not the end
Lived unbruised we are friends
And I'm sorry
I'm sorry
Sigh no more, no more
One foot in sea, one on shore
My heart was never pure
And you know me
And you know me
And man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be (x4)
It's all here, God is here, we are here, LOVE is everywhere, if we but open our eyes and ears and hearts and minds.
Stephen - who is so tired of 'sighing' and wants to 'sigh no more'.
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
locked
A review of Splendour in the Grass (from an older, collapsed Catholic’s point of view).
by desi 
, Australia, Tuesday, August 03, 2010, 20:27 (1052 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Thank you, Stephen, for that brilliant sharing of your experience at the Festival.
What a fantastic insight you have given and very moving as well.
lockedA review of Splendour in the Grass (from an older, collapsed Catholic’s point of view).
Thank you Stephen. I rarely read such long posts through in their entirety; but your's I did and the tears are flowing.
Rambler
lockedA Word of Thanks and Appreciation for Stephen’s Review.
by Benikira , North Coast NSW, Tuesday, August 03, 2010, 20:50 (1052 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Thanks so much for this Stephen. I have just read it and listened to the videos you gave us, enjoying each of them but especially Ben Harper. Now I shall read your review (it is much more than a review) again and savour it one more time, then I won’t have inclination or need to read anything else on Catholica today. The rest can wait until tomorrow.
Benikira
All the women I know were wise from their youth.
Wisdom is forced upon me as I grow old.
lockedA review of Splendour in the Grass (from an older, collapsed Catholic’s point of view).
Serve God love me and mend
This is not the end
Lived unbruised we are friends
And I'm sorry
I'm sorry
What a beautiful anthem for the pilgrimage of the young to these music festivals.
There are many beautiful young people out there.
Liz (who now knows to get Stephen to give me written feedback from such occasions!! lol)
lockedA review of Splendour in the Grass (from an older, collapsed Catholic’s point of view).
My pleasure, one and all. And Darling, told you I'm much better at writing than talking. Sorry!
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedA review of Splendour in the Grass (from an older, collapsed Catholic’s point of view).
My pleasure, one and all. And Darling, told you I'm much better at writing than talking. Sorry!
Stephen
And at singing and playing your guitar! You have now convinced me to hold regular get togethers with our other music loving friends and create community.....now hurry up and finish off the b-b-que you're building!
There's nothing like those nights of music we shared with our friends on the beach at our previous place......wonderful memories and much friendship, laughter and tears, amidst the flames flickering from candles on the sand.
Liz.
(P.S. I've told one of our children what I'd like for my birthday! Ties in with this! 
)
locked
A big thank you
by Brian Coyne 
, LINDEN, NSW, Wednesday, August 04, 2010, 02:12 (1052 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Stephen, I am so moved by this entire post. The thought that kept recurring to me as I read it was this: If Jesus had been in Brisbane last weekend where would he have been?
All the things you discuss in this essay are important to discuss. I'm glad we have established a place where they can be discussed relatively openly. Sadly the institution has just placed itself out of the conversation so often today. Our teachers still have some connection to young people but for the great majority once they leave school they soon sense that the institution cannot talk to them, and doesn't want to talk to them unless they conform to a certain set of standards. My sense is that part of the excess that troubles you is a reaction of a sector of the younger generations who are sick to death of the "authoritarian mentality" represented by such institutions as the Church, conservative politics, fundamentalism, etc.. It's an over-reaction in a sense — the pendulum swinging too far.
Thank you for the time and energy you put into sharing these insights with us, for their rawness and honesty, and for their insight. They brought me an additional moment of joy as I went to my son's website to see if he might have been there or involved (he's involved in a lot of endeavours like that). My joy was in finding this photo of my beautiful granddaughter, Isabella Phoenix Rose...
![[image]](http://www.catholica.com.au/brianstake/images02/IsabellaPhoenix_630x443.jpg)
I wonder what the world will look like when she's old enough to attend an event like Splendour, or when she's my age? I'm actually optimistic that despite the sort of excesses you mentioned they are building a better world.
![[image]](http://catholica.com.au/images/CatholicaICO_30x30.jpg)
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedTook the word out of my mouth.
If Jesus had been in Brisbane last weekend where would he have been?
....they soon sense that the institution cannot talk to them, and doesn't want to talk to them unless they conform to a certain set of standards. My sense is that part of the excess that troubles you is a reaction of a sector of the younger generations who are sick to death of the "authoritarian mentality" represented by such institutions as the Church, conservative politics, fundamentalism, etc.. It's an over-reaction in a sense — the pendulum swinging too far.
Thanks Brian and above you have echoed my thoughts exactly. There was a lot more I could have mentioned but that was enough but I did very often picture Jesus in the crowd, being a presence of love, a source of healing even, like the Buddhists and their Temple Stage.
And yes, I totally agree with your comment about excesses, Hell, I am also so deeply frustrated by the same things and yes, it comes out in other ways: I think you were spot on there, too.
And your grand-daughter! What a beautiful face and countenance.
Blessings.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedA review of Splendour in the Grass - Part 2
by PeterR , Wednesday, August 04, 2010, 15:46 (1051 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Stephen,
Thanks for all the work and soul searching you have put into that account of your "Days of Splendour".
Phew!
Horses for courses - and that's not my course.
However, it is the scene for somebody who can enter into communication with these young folk and journey with them in their discovery of God in their lives and their commitment to Him.
The thought occurred to me as I read that such happenings are not new. I am wondering: what is the subsequent history of those who performed at and/or partipated in similar events in the sixties and seventies?
One thing is certain: let none of these young people attend the liturgies I am, of necessity, "attending". If they were to do so I doubt if they would ever believe in God.
Thanks again, Stephen. I hope there will be much discussion of what you have written from those more capable than I am of commenting.
Peter
lockedA review of Splendour in the Grass - Part 2
Thanks Stephen for a wonderful review - that's what it's all about.
Tom Lee
locked“F***” – a Sign of the Times
“Oh Yet We Trust” [aka Stephen] recently attended a weekend event called “Splendour in the Grass” – reminding me of the “Splendour of the Church” [Henri Cardinal de Lubac SJ 1953] and the “Splendour of Truth” [Pope John Paul II 1993].
Stephen said – “My first impressions were of thousands and thousands of excited 16 to 30 year olds … I could count on my hands the number of ‘oldies’ at this festival … moving, walking, running, jumping, rushing to the next act. My first ‘confrontation’ was the number of times I heard the ‘f’ word …
“It seemed that you just had to use this word as part of the language, as part of being there. And it never abated. The conversations were full of it. Much of the music was full of it, especially at the ‘dance' music tent. Why? I kept asking my self - Why? I would have loved a dollar for every time I heard this word. Being the “overly wanting to rationalize everything” kind of person I am, all I could come up with was this - letting off steam and anger - anger at the state of society, the cynicism of life, the sense of powerlessness of the young – and Shock Value. I couldn't help thinking that it is just the way - to be as shocking as you possibly could, not that this word is that shocking anymore. But it's still, as if you just must include this word in conversation and music to let others know – Hey - I'm cool! I can say it, sing it! But again - Why? I know some may wonder why I am writing about this. It seems a little trivial and it IS - in the bigger picture of the Festival. But I think there's more to it…
“I couldn’t help thinking that it had to do with such a deep need to be seen and heard - and such a deep cry for help. I know with my group of friends, as with my self, we were all coming from very sad experiences of family and childhood even though no one ever talked about it. Two of them later died of overdoses … [I am sorry if I have upset anyone by saying this]…
“Why am I writing this? I became very angry at the attitude of the panel who just simply couldn’t see past their own egos and need to be ‘admired’. When the time for questions came up, I so wanted to ask – “Have you ever spent even a small bit of time considering the possibility that all this cool [as] self-destruction and sexual “warpedness”? They obviously didn’t see it as warped, just interesting and amusing. And you were somehow made to feel stupid and uncool if you didn’t go along with them. “Have you ever stopped long enough to ask the question – From where does all this come?” I am sure that sexual abuse somewhere would have been part of the picture – or abuse of some sort.
“I am not just making a stab-in-the-dark statement here. I once was discussing a song in the movie “Good Will Hunting” with my son and said, "I bet you anything he [the composer] was abused as a child." Sure enough - my son told me a few days later that he read that indeed he had been sexually and physically abused by his step-father - he later suicided. Such is the stuff of so many a musician or artist. But was this panel even aware of this - let alone willing to discuss it? Forget that - it was fun and an expression of freedom and all totally acceptable. Back to question time - I so wanted to ask the question but I got the shakes and just couldn’t – need a shot of bravery still.”
Prime Minister of Australia for two-and-a-half years, Kevin Rudd often used both the “f-word” and the “c-word” [Brisbane, “Sunday Mail” 1 August]. To broadcaster Alan Jones such compulsive behaviour seemed symptomatic of Asperger’s Syndrome. “He was comfortable only when he was surrounded with adolescents” whom he hoped to impress.
___________________________________________________________
locked“Clean” and “Unclean”
Pharisees and Scribes from Jerusalem came to Jesus at Gennesaret [The Paradise of Galilee – wiki] on the north coast of the Sea of Galilee, west of Capernaum, and asked, “Why do YOUR disciples break away from the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands when they eat food” (Mt.15:10).
Having rebuked the Hypocrites, Jesus called the people to himself and said, “Listen – and understand. What goes IN to the mouth doesn’t make a person `unclean’. It is what comes OUT of the mouth that makes him `unclean’”(15:10-11).
For we speak not only from the MOUTH, but deeper still from the “heart” and from the MIND, the very centre-point of one’s own being.
A person’s words flow out of what fills his or her heart (Mt.12:34; Lk.6:45).
Grahame
lockedTo Roch
Roch, I was thinking of you in compassion when I re-read what I had written. I just want to add that in my case it wasn't my family that caused me grief but people outside of it. Of all my large number of brothers and sisters, the two who had the most problems and caused the most scandals were the two who had been sexually abused - myself included. My sadness is that the culture of the time, both Catholic and secular, was you dare not say anything.
Please know I am with you as you remember your son - it must have been so so painful.
Peace.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedRelevant?
by PeterR , Wednesday, August 04, 2010, 17:02 (1051 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
God as our friend
locked
Hey, my daughter was there!
by CathyT , Adelaide, South Australia, Thursday, August 05, 2010, 09:03 (1050 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Stephen, I too would like to thank you for your insightful and moving report on "Splendour in the Grass". I was particularly interested as my daughter Lucy, her boyfriend and a few of their friends were among the tens of thousands of young people there. (I hadn't realised the event was quite so big!)
They only got back to Adelaide on Tuesday, after a long and tiring drive, so I haven't had a chance to catch up with Lucy yet. But I'll be doing just that this evening, so I will be very interested to hear her impressions of the big event.
But Stephen, in your time there, if you happened to see a young lady of exceptional beauty and grace, with the world's most beautiful smile, and who was constantly surrounded by a group of admiring friends, then you saw my daughter Lucy! 
By the way, I can assure you she WOULD NOT have been using the "F" word, and I strongly doubt that anyone in her group would have been either!
Cathy Taggart
I splash in my poetry puddle
and try to keep God amused. - James Broughton
lockedHey, my daughter was there!
by Bill Dowsley , 'Wombeyan, NSW', Thursday, August 05, 2010, 14:40 (1050 days ago) @ CathyT
"....But Stephen, in your time there, if you happened to see a young lady of exceptional beauty and grace, with the world's most beautiful smile, and who was constantly surrounded by a group of admiring friends, then you saw my daughter Lucy!..."
And from whom did this beauty receive these qualities? Our beautiful friend here on Catholica.....and her brave bloke.
( Although. at first dear Cathy, I thought you were describing Bett.!)
lockedHey, my daughter was there!
by PeterR , Thursday, August 05, 2010, 17:20 (1050 days ago) @ Bill Dowsley
Bill,
You beat me to that comment, you old flirt.
I had to do the week's shopping this morning.
Peter
lockedHey, my daughter was there!
by Bill Dowsley , 'Wombeyan, NSW', Thursday, August 05, 2010, 19:36 (1050 days ago) @ PeterR
Steady on the 'old', please, mate!!
lockedHey, my daughter was there! and to Peter re - "Relevance".
Hi Cathy. Yes, I am sure I saw your daughter if she fit your description - honestly, I was actually amazed at the overwhelming 'beauty' of this crowd - it's hard to say this without sounding stupid but honestly, there were just so many beautiful looking people (male and female) and well-dressed (and some rather bizarrely dressed for fun) and healthy - they all looked so healthy, truly, I kept thinking just this, beautiful, healthy and very fashionably dressed.
Anyway, I'd love to hear a little of your daughter's impressions. I'm feeling a lot of post-festival blues at the moment, especially in regards to being in the huge crowds and getting into the music - I just want more of it.
I also just read a police review and there was no mention of the rape I'd heard about. For those interested here is the relevant site:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/splendour-crowd-well-behaved-say-police-2010...
It was good to read this because I was wondering whether my impressions were just wishful thinking and that I'd missed all the really hairy stuff.
Thanks again for all the posts here. And Peter, I'm not quite sure what you were getting at in you "Relevant" post. If it was referring to me and my search for God well, I do understand the language of Steve's sermon, but the reality just isn't there for me, yet. If it was in relation to what he said being relevant for the youth at such as "Splendour", well, I suspect again the message may be relevant (it should be especially because it is all about relationship as the starting point, something which I am seeing more and more as the most important way of getting any message across) but would it reach them as words, I doubt it. I keep coming back to the Buddhist monks - they were just there, providing by example, a presence of Love and spirit and a place where these could be expressed, no judgment, just presence - I'd love to see our own Cistercian Monks do something like that - I suspect there would be some openness to what they had to offer - that is, if they could cope. I don't know. I somehow think that there is at present too much suspicion of anything Catholic/Christian for our own monks (every bit as interesting and wonderful and mysterious and prayerful as their Buddhist brothers/counterparts) to be accepted at such as "Splendour", but I could be wrong. I'd love to see them give it a go - I think it could be wonderful, especially if they did so in conjunction with the Buddhist monks.
Anyway, peace, and Cathy, tell your daughter that I hope she doesn't suffer the post-festival blues too much.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedHey, my daughter was there! and to Peter re - "Relevance".
by PeterR , Friday, August 06, 2010, 09:54 (1049 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Stephen,
I thought these early passages set the tone for the whole homily:
"The very first words you heard Jesus say in today's Gospel were: ‘What are you looking for?' That's a good question for us, too.
"St Ignatius said that our deepest desires reveal to us where God is leading us in our lives. Our deepest desires are usually for things that money cannot buy, things like time with people we love and whose love we know that we need. Things like the beauty of God's creation, the joys of a happy family, good friends. It is that deep down feeling that we all want, of knowing that we are loved and lovable, that we are good and gifted, and that we all have gifts that we can put at the service of other people. "
It seemed to me that the participants in the Splendour event were in harmony with these aspirations.
As one who believes that in evangelisation we start from the human experience, I thought the article might be relevant.
Pope ??? called on "the apostles of workers to be workers, the apostles of stidents to be students .." in a passage that was once often on my lips but now forgotten. I added to myself, "the apostles of modern music to be apostles of modern music".
Not that I was advocating taking over the stage and preaching the homily that I posted. Dialogue, starting from a shared experience, is a slow process usually, until one finds God within the shared experience.
Evangelisation - to me - is a slow process starting from shared experiences. In this case, there seemed to be a willingness to pay big bucks just to have a shared experience centred around their common love of modern music and joyful companionship.
Peter
lockedPeter, re - "Relevance".
Stephen,
I thought these early passages set the tone for the whole homily:
"The very first words you heard Jesus say in today's Gospel were: ‘What are you looking for?' That's a good question for us, too.
"St Ignatius said that our deepest desires reveal to us where God is leading us in our lives. Our deepest desires are usually for things that money cannot buy, things like time with people we love and whose love we know that we need. Things like the beauty of God's creation, the joys of a happy family, good friends. It is that deep down feeling that we all want, of knowing that we are loved and lovable, that we are good and gifted, and that we all have gifts that we can put at the service of other people. "
It seemed to me that the participants in the Splendour event were in harmony with these aspirations.
As one who believes that in evangelisation we start from the human experience, I thought the article might be relevant.
Pope ??? called on "the apostles of workers to be workers, the apostles of stidents to be students .." in a passage that was once often on my lips but now forgotten. I added to myself, "the apostles of modern music to be apostles of modern music".
Not that I was advocating taking over the stage and preaching the homily that I posted. Dialogue, starting from a shared experience, is a slow process usually, until one finds God within the shared experience.
Evangelisation - to me - is a slow process starting from shared experiences. In this case, there seemed to be a willingness to pay big bucks just to have a shared experience centred around their common love of modern music and joyful companionship.
Peter
Thanks Peter, now I get it and what you say is relevant in the broader picture. I love your quotes and I suppose it's what I was trying to understand/express in regards to the monks being there.
I suppose, too, that I was asking the question of myself as much as on behalf of everyone at he festival, "What are you looking for?" If you read the post I just wrote to Phoebe, I've said much of what or how I would respond to that question, there.
And, as Liz is saying with more and more conviction to me and in her thinking, it has to start with real relationships or else all the words mean nothing or worse still all the searching become or can become a dangerous distraction where the goal gets confused with the method of getting there: I see in this the real danger of NOT thinking about reasons and consequences of the search: If we don't understand the psychology behind it all, both the personal psychology/history and social psychology, then it can be very easy to find one's self in a dead end in more ways than one: But I'm not sure what this means right now except in the more traditional interpretation of Augustine: "Our hearts are restless, and restless ever shall be, until they rest in thee" (and not some method of getting to 'thee', be it ritual, religion, music, drugs, whirling, whatever.
I am coming more and more to see the absolute need for human beings to 'relate' and it is in this relating that we find meaning and love, (religion) and God. So if there is no relating, then we as a church, no, as people, have to provide places and times for this to happen, on a deep and real and healthy level.
I'll leave it at that - still a thought in progress.
Thanks. Peter, much to think about again.
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedfestival schmestivals....
by PhoebeK , Friday, August 06, 2010, 01:20 (1050 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Hi Oh yet we trust-
was strongly encouraged by my The Catholica GodFather, (also my paternal excuse for being here), to read your post, as he was interested in my take on it... So, having not logged in for eons to post, I thought I'd make it public. And it didn't mean to be this long, but it's a bloody epic.
I also protested somewhat, as am in the middle of writing an Honours Thesis, and now I see the connection. Effectively thesis is about of Community Arts/ Community Cultural Development practices in alleviating the psychological distress of environmental change. I have a passion for and background in Community Development; Music Festivals are definately an expression of Community Arts, and Community Development- so there is some relevance for me to sidestep academic readings to participate here... (and that was the background)
Your post made me laugh. I pay you full respect for being open hearted and open minded enough to throw yourself in the ring to attend! I've been going to festivals for years, but I have opted out of being a full paying punter as it's so fucking expensive. The last festivals I have attended, in reverse chronological order, I have been behind a coffee machine, I have run around festival sites on the "Poo Crew"- looking after wheelie bins full of human excrement at a Sustainability Festival utilising composting toilet technology (and the only reason I won't do that again is because of my good friend/ company director's paltry communication skills), Managed artist & stalls ticketing allocation (at short notice with egotistical management's inadequate & poorly timed response to do so: another story- but literally unable to physically let go of tickets which incurred huge losses to festival organisers when landholders insisted that crowds were let in as 45 min traffic jams along Pacific Highway to get in gate), etc etc Blah blah blah.
I swear alot, too. AND am out the otherside of the age demographics you identified of punters at Splendour. (I hope, given a few more years to catch up to you that I'm openminded enough to be able to face environments like that! Phwoar!) They say it has something to do with incapacity to exercise wide vocabulary. I do it especially when I am frustrated or can't adequately sum up/ articulate nested cycles of complex adaptive systems (which I am also attempting to incorporate in my current academic project WRT community arts).
Festivals are all about communitas- community- we've been doing it for centuries: druids and pagans did it as good as Splendour around Stonehenge, I'm sure (and still do, but previously for a fraction of the price of a ticket to Splendour). The Catholic Church took it upon themselves ( as a progression of early Stonehenge gatherings?) to take it indoors, and have a pulpit (one stage), and a choir, to play limited genre tunes about- what did you say posting Kelly & Harper clips- music that moves the masses. (which made me think: last time I was in Byron Bay, Splendour in the grass was just setting up there for that weekend 3 or 4 years ago: I was SO happy to be making an exodus before hand. BUT, on that trip, I sat in an outdoor church- I think it was even catholic? Maybe not. But I think it's at or near Bangalow. Ever been there? Alledgedly, they can also do it (pray/ say mass/ commune with God) outdoors in the 20th & 21st century (yes, I am being facetious). They also took it upon themselves to deprive many colonised cultures and communities to undertake their own practices of community and celebration: where do I need to start/ many of them still coming to terms with the grief of cultural dispossession, and cultural monopolisation, deprived of tradition, language, ritual, practice. You know what I'm talking about.
Different music & subcultures tap into the psyche of different people. Destruction and debauchery included: and Festivals like that is where it is better sanctioned in public spaces.
I have the same paranoia about self fitting into crowds that size and finding safe/ sane spaces, in such diverse fields of community & subculture mashed together in a small space for a limited amount of time. I must say, I much prefer the chilled company of the National Folk Festival in Canberra, or Woodford Folk Festival when I can hack the crowds. I went to Southbound just after New Years South of Perth this year (which would attract similar punters to Splendour), and.... well, refer to subject heading! They are experiences, but like many, the McDonaldisation of the Festival circuit gets, ummmm... like eating Big Macs regularly.... You know what you're in for. Unless you're super in the moment..... And then, when I actually get to see Ben Harper or Paul Kelly, often I feel like it's just as good in my loungeroom prerecorded!
But I have a longstanding ambition to get Milly and Brian to attend Womad World Music festival with me in Adelaide one year; I;ve only been once, but know old perth hippies who go every year, just as some former neighbours (ex-Melbourne) who make the trip to EPIC in Canberra over Easter every year for the last 25+ for the National Folk Festival. Womad is much more for- I want to say blue rinse set- so I will; than Splendour ever is. (But more like the champagne drinking, credit card waving, Blonde rinse set of 15 years blue rinses' junior, like Baby boomer set. Like my mother; she'll be blue rinsing soon). The line up is always so culturally diverse and AMAZING, but SO cultured to- well, Womad is an international touring festival: in Royal Botanic Gardens in Adelaide every 2 years, but they pack white plastic chairs for their punters, and many of whom get away with wearing white clothing at an outdoor festival. But like many of the big ones: aesthetically clean and palatable (especially in return for the entry price, Dahling). But all ages are there- it's just... more aesthetically clean and palatable (my Russian friend and I got told to move on tenting in the deconstructing festival site at 4am the morning after by an obnoxious rubbish collector- bastards. I wasn't willing to pay for accommodation in Adelaide, and they weren't willing to provide it)
Back to being super in the moment, and ecstacy that you spoke of (natural and synthetic), communitas that I was talking about ("the sense of sharing and intimacy that develops among persons who experience liminality as a group"), and outstanding performances of musicians.... is recommendation of a book.
Andrew Weil, M.D. wrote "The Natural Mind". He was one of that mob of supercilious hippies with the LSD out of (Harvard? Forget School).. the one with Ram Dass/ Richard Alpert, and Kerouac and Timothy Leary, Ginsberg and all that mob. The premise of the book is that humans have an innate desire to alter their states of consciousness- it's pretty encoded. From wizzy-dizzys at the age of three to taking LSD to Meditation (look at transition that Ram Dass and others from that group made), to whirling like a dervish, to communitas, to singing, to attending church. It's a good book. I highly recommend it.
I can't believe I fell for Brian's ploy to read Catholica forums again. Creatively callusional procrastination methods (on my part). I need to get back to thesis writing.
lockedD'oh, I missed reading the second installation before posting!
by PhoebeK , Friday, August 06, 2010, 01:31 (1050 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Stephen-
Bummed I didn't read second installation before I replied to the first!
But I just scrambled my unique individual take on festival attendance as you did yours. Yes, I am a collapsed catholic too, thirty something but definitely not a victim of the institution either, or pathologically still trying to find my relationship with it, or make peace with it as I witness many people doing.
The insights are the same though.
Love and music are really important and make for good health and wellbeing!
lockedLength for length! More on "Splendour" and festivals.
PhoebeK, I was so chuffed to read your post(s). Trust me when I say that my two main posts came from a desire and need to try to return a more positive approach to life, society and the people in general - I have deeply withdrawn these last few years (thank God I have teenage children to keep me from becoming a complete hermit) and am trying hard to re-enter reality. So, while I wanted to sometimes be much more cynical and negative, I made myself stop and smell the flowers (instead of the crap).
A few extra comments based on what you wrote:
Firstly, I wrote another post to Cathy T yesterday about the particular cross section of society that attends "Splendour"; I want to add that I was intrigued (I guess that's the best word) at the absence of indigenous people, and even people who aren't in general, white and middle class - this festival is definitely for a particular demographic, white, middle class, young rather wealthy (I'd imagine) and even 'straight' as in not gay (though it's not as obvious these days), people. My son's girlfriend's sister mentioned how she attended an 'alternative' festival called "Too Poor For Splendour"; well attended (500 or so I believe) but that all had just as much fun but with a touch of regret that they couldn't afford 'the real thing'. Apparently "Splendour" is one of the most expensive festivals of its kind in the world - even Glastonbury is cheaper apparently. But still, they come.
In regards to the language, I am with you all the way there; I am not coy of using the word in private and like you, when nothing else fits, in public, but I am ever conscious of it. I was listening to a song (Lucinda Williams - "Those Three Days" - great song) while driving my other son to TAFE the other day; It's an angry song where she expresses the hurt and anger at being 'used' by a guy for three days and then dumped. In it she says, "and I have been so fuckin' alone" and my son looks to me for a response - "Well", I said, "sometimes it's just the best word to use - says it all, and with such feeling". Look, I didn't want to make a big thing of it and perhaps I am being somewhat self-righteous, but I am always interested in the role of language as a badge of belonging - I'm sure you'd understand.
I am convinced, too, about the accuracy of what you said about the role of seeking ecstatic experience in human beings (from the spinning around of kids to the spinning around of the whirling dervishes) and the role of festival/rituals in this - I really do believe that this is a major driving force behind almost all human adventure. Being in a crowd of thousands and listening to either deeply rhythmic or deeply soul music, well, it transports you, and expresses things too deep - that's why the arts are one of the major forces in society, I'm sure. But is this the God gene? See, what troubles me, in my search for answers to my own past, to my own religion/spirituality is the following: When I sat there listening to The Nomads (the middle eastern group) to their song about God coming to the side of those in despair and sorrow, and sensing God placing a cloak over me (and in this context of a festival where I felt somewhat alone and lost), it is only God if I say it is, if I believe it is, and could as easily have been Krishna, Buddha, my dead dad, my wife in spirit, someone else in the crowd seeing my sorrow; It all depends on what I choose to believe or perceive - so, in other words it all comes from within me, nothing external except for the catalyst of the music in the context of a community, albeit a temporary one and deeply diverse one. (Sorry, I suppose this is more for the other Catholica members). But, whatever, I allowed myself to accept it regardless and that's where the effects happen. On the other hand, in general, all these kids just seem to go with it, the music, the ecstatic, the joy, the emotion and don't question where it's coming from but just absorb it - well, wish I could more. As you get older (and when you've been seduced in more ways than one) you become much more cynical as to the motivations of others and much more careful about what and who you 'let in'.
I have just had to do a few things and have come back to this a hour later - mulling time - and you know, I wrote once that the strongest driving force behind human beings is the need to belong (a commmunity) and not be on the outer, and I still believe this but a very close second to this I am starting to think, would have to be the search for ecstatic experience, and in company: I suspect this is at the heart of most religion or branches of them at least, and of sex, drugs/alcohol and rock and roll, and, what is the buzz word in all the new age stuff, "bliss". But another form of ecstasy can be found in power, and money and unfortunately money is often needed for the 'commercial' ecstatic experience - and society goes on and the world goes round.
But I am sure that it is only real unambiguous love that will give people what they are really searching for: The ecstatic experience is fun and important even, but when the experience becomes the end rather than a means to an end, well, this is where I think people drop their ability to ask the questions I did: "Why?" "From where are the self-destructive desires and even the escapist desires of ecstatic experience coming, and, what of the consequences - does anyone need to, desire to look down the track further and consider the personal and social psychological consequences of the seeking of external inputs rather than internal balance and harmony" - I suppose like what the Buddhist monks are on about. That's why I would so have liked to ask them what they thought of all this because it 'seems' to go against so much of what Buddhism teaches.
Why am I saying all this? Well, I suppose going to a festival such as this was both threatening but also deeply moving for me, every bit still a teenager, still wanting to relive or perhaps heal my teenage years and still able, at least physically (in appearance) and musically able to fit in to some degree) but in a 53 year old's body: I could go to something like this because I have been there, done that and am still, in my mind in that frame of mind - can't quite explain it.
Oh, that's enough, now I'm getting on my high horse and need to be bucked off. I'm raving too much now. But I do see so much study and discussion potential in all this, BUT I JUST WANTED TO ENJOY IT. Why can't I just bloody-well, no, 'fucking' enjoy life? Still too much Catholic guilt and fear - need more deprogramming.
Your course of study sounds brilliant - I am only now just starting to consider the rest of my future, work and/or study, after needing time out. God, I'd love to be mixing with such as yourself now more, so I'm considering further study but still not sure in what area but I'd love to pursue where I left off in Sociology/Social Psychology and social analysis: What you've written has made me lean that way more again, so ta!
As to going to "Spendour" again, well, if I go to another festival which I am sure I will now, I'd love to go to the Woodford Folk festival or "The Dreaming" also held at Woodford - more my style and pace. (The Bluesfest I went to a few months ago, again with my son and his girlfriend, was better in a way also). Might see you there - and do try to drag Brian and Milly along - I'd love to one day meet them in the flesh and at a festival would be just brilliant - could be a lot of fun.
Peace, and thanks for taking the time to get sucked into writing here - it's a breath of fresh air for me and with all very due respect to Catholica members, I miss discussing things with younger people - I (and Liz), often feel in a bit of a halfway position between the older and younger age bracket in regards to how we think and the way we view life and the experiences we've had, which, I suspect, puts us a little at odds with other forum members at times - while we have been 'influenced' by the church we were so predominantly as post Vat II-ers and, as such, feel a little psychologically freer of it all; aging is a very interesting experience.
Thanks again, Phoebe. I know much of what I've written here maybe not of that much interest to you but I'm glad you 'inspired' me. If you ever need a research assistant, give me a hoy - I do have some academic background. Also, don't feel you need to reply - not necessary, unless you want to, of course.
All the best in your studies and in life.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedLength for length! More on "Splendour" and festivals.
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Friday, August 06, 2010, 11:24 (1049 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Thanks, Pheebs and Stephen. I find much to mull on in what each of your have written. More later...
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedSounds like academic pursuit on Sociology of festival gatherings
by PhoebeK , Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 21:22 (1045 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Stephen-
I Am replying.... I can't resist: Brian eternally complains about being busy alll the time.... given the hours he sits in front of this, I know why! Now I've cast my eye over forums since, I want to read up on the Greens and Pell, Greens and Brennan, Mental Health and many other discussions. Not enough time.
RE the field assistant- not for a few more years (I always wanted to take up an opp like this, too): it seems I have to "prove" myself through independent study for this year, then the PhD (3+), before I'll have funding to call on services!
In the meantime, sounds like you're in a good, contemplative space for something like what I've entitled this post?!? Putting spirit back in community? I love the open doors + possibility to go anywhere you want in academia.... Pleased to inspire you- with the similar interest in social psychology etc. I find it fascinating but currently crossing this across disciplines.
I also did return after "time out" last year to this study- post traumatic stress after working in Child Protection/ Crisis Youth Accommodation in Alice Springs for four short months- enough to bind me up for a while, unravel other deeper self/ psyche stuff and need to sit out for defrag time. It's important work.
WRT the God gene reference- I could rant for months, but will call it at the end of this post- this is what the early church, along with Descartian deterministic science and developments- separated us from our environment, science from spirit, God became outside of us- something we could never be- and Catholic guilt and sin then moved so far from the possibility of ever reaching Buddhahood, or not even enlightenment, but being- a Godlikeness*. Didn't that come through indoctrination within the institutional dogma? Did JC preach that shit? How do we know? It has only been passed down referential to what he has said. And the holistic (I mean specifically ecocentric/ non-anthropocentric sacred) of the Aramaic (as far as I have seen in version of the relatively small Lord's Prayer) was totally annihilated in Latin and any other translations thereafter, leading the church down an anthropocentric path.
*Like what I was saying above about taking time out: I did a monthlong Mindfullness meditation retreat in "downtime". And worked my own psyche demons out to be healed. We don't so this, in a society obsessed with extroversion and outward looking. I think of the word Dadirri- Inner Deep lIstening and quiet still awareness: we really don't have a translation, but "contemplation," allegedly comes close. And googling Dadirri, I get the appropriation by the Church (for better or worse) in http://www.liturgyplanning.com.au/documents/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_i... and other Catholic sources.
I haven't accurately articulated what I am trying to say, but I found insight into this through www.zeitgeistmovie.com (the first one, not Addendum)- I think it's the first section of the movie- about zodiac references in bible.... "conspiracy theory" as it may be- but so is the majority world reality... I just read today that Stephen Hawking proposes we DO look for another planet to migrate to Ha! An Avatar Pandora, since we have fucked this one over.... Not without the will/ input/ trajectories of Church + state (Zeitgeist ref) http://www.news.com.au/features/mankind-must-colonise-space-or-face-extinction-academic...
Must get back to study. Peaceful transitions to you
Phoebe
lockedAnd lastly, relatedly, Doidge
by PhoebeK , Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 21:46 (1045 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Of course I forgot something...
WRT Godgene you reference, or moreso, the Newberg/ Waldman-esque neuroscience- How God Changes Your Brain.... that took up some Catholica headspace & was well publicised here
Intuit that you might be interested in Norman Doidge visiting Australia: author of non-secular but related Brain that Changes itself. Bris, Melb, Syd, Perth: Aug & Sept http://www.normandoidge.com/normandoidge/APPEARANCES.html
Some more juice for thought....
This is now called procrastination, on my part.
lockedLead us not into procrastination!
But I am going to, well sort of.
I can't write much at the moment, pressing things to do but you did make a lot of sense and brought up a lot of very interesting things which gave me a small thrill of excitement - will get back with a new thread (this one's already on Page 3): I'm particularly interested in this part of your post:
WRT the God gene reference- I could rant for months, but will call it at the end of this post- this is what the early church, along with Descartian deterministic science and developments- separated us from our environment, science from spirit, God became outside of us- something we could never be- and Catholic guilt and sin then moved so far from the possibility of ever reaching Buddhahood, or not even enlightenment, but being- a Godlikeness*. Didn't that come through indoctrination within the institutional dogma? Did JC preach that shit? How do we know? It has only been passed down referential to what he has said. And the holistic (I mean specifically ecocentric/ non-anthropocentric sacred) of the Aramaic (as far as I have seen in version of the relatively small Lord's Prayer) was totally annihilated in Latin and any other translations thereafter, leading the church down an anthropocentric path.
But I do need to go, can't even procrastinate at the moment.
Back soon but if you don't have the time, then don't egg me on! LOL. Either way, other readers might be interested.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
locked
