Ultra Music Fest: Yoga and Raging Proper (post from March 2011)

Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a woman of wealth and taste…

Ha, not quite. But here’s what I am:

An Ohio State graduate of June 2010 who couldn’t stomach the idea of using my communication degree to sell knives door-to-door.

OH - IO!

Upon graduation, I packed up my beat up, 2003 Toyota Corolla and drove cross country to seek my fortune in Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.

How’s it living in Las Vegas? Weird. Yesterday, I was lying on a sofa, watching a movie, contemplating how Angelina Jolie is so perfect, when the wife of a super famous comedian burst in wearing a Mexican wrestler mask and tried to coerce me into giving her a lap dance. This is normal for Vegas.

I’m a yoga instructor and an electronic head

PEACOCKING AT ELECTRIC DAISY CARNIVAL IN LAS VEGAS

and if any of you remember an offensive little Ohio State publication called The O Face, well, I was its Editor-in-Chief.

I just got back to Vegas from The Best Party EVER in Miami, Florida: Ultra Music Fest.

I do not use the “Best Party EVER” label lightly. 

from left to Right, that's an Australian boy, a German girl, a Canadian boy, and another German girl. All high school exchange students. All together on a beach dressed as women drinking all day and night on the beach in Southern Brazil. Not too shabby.

When I was 16, I raged hard for days on Laguna Beach in southern Brazil, widely regarded as the best Carnaval in southern Brazil - dancing on the beach, drinking underage, no Americans in sight, Sambaing my little heart out with exchange students from around the world. Ultra was equally mind altering.

I want to share my Ultra experience, one of the best of my life, with all of you through the lens which I viewed it: Pantanjali’s 8 limb path of yoga.

The first yogic limb: Yamas

Yamas are the guidelines to living your life with universal morality. Pantanjali talks about 5 of these, and I’m going to talk about one of them - Ahimsa or non-harming.

Over 100,000 people in attendance at Ultra and No Fights. Bump into someone? Say “Sorry,” they say, “No problem,” the two of you begin dancing together.

An amazing amount of RESPECT for everyone permeated the Ultra Experience.

Everyone dressed in their most outlandish rave wear, and everyone quick to compliment the ingenuity of new friends around us.

No vulgar grinding – meet a handsome girl or guy and the two of you DANCE. Really dance. Even if you do touch, it’s beautiful, rhythmic, a celebration of the Present Moment.

I danced for three songs with a gorgeous man. After the first song, he told me, “I’m already in love.” After song three, he told me, “I’ll see you on the other side.” Then he danced away.

The 2^nd limb: Niyamas

Niyamas are personal observances to lead a spiritually fulfilling life. Pantanjali discusses five of these, and I’ll explain one, Ishvarapranidhana – surrender to the absolute.

Holding an asana – or yoga pose - for 12 long slow inhalations and exhalations teaches you to take a deep breath and let yourself relax, surrender to the pose. When you surrender, you’re able to Sink Deeper and you experience the stretch, and life, at a New Level.

At Ultra, it’s the music to which you must surrender. If you fight the music, stay in your contracted shell of neurotic mind chatter, you’re not experiencing the music correctly. Let the music wash over you, enter you, surround you. 

                                                                              Transcendental

Surrender to the blissful unity that is dancing full force with a group of like-minded people. 

The 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th and 6^th limbs: Asanas, Pranayama, Pratalyahara, and Dharana

These four limbs are: yoga poses, focusing on your breath, cultivating control of your senses, and one pointed focus. 

While dancing at Ultra, all four of these limbs came into play. Yoga’s made me a better dancer with crazy backbends and utilizing the full movement of which my body is capable. Breath control helps keep the rhythm flowing, and controlling my senses, and one pointed attention let me focus on what’s important – my body moving in unison with all of the great vibrations around me.

One pointed focus is one of the secrets to living a better life. Discover what’s truly important to you, and then devote all of your attention to it. Watch as the obstacles fall away.

The 7^th limb - Dhyana

Dhyana is meditation.

Every morning I sit for 30 minutes meditating. This works by focusing on my breath and listening to the silent voice “I am” in my mind. Whenever thoughts, memories, worries, whatever, intrude in the peace, I label it. I say, “thought.” I say, “memory.” Labeling the mind chatter helps me to become aware of the way my mind works.

When I began to listen, I realized there are two of me. One of me is a little kid who only pretended to take her Adderall that morning and is going on a playing spree while she still can. She’s running around, looking at everything, experiencing everything: excited, and sad, and scared, and anxious, and foolish. And then there’s the silent observer, the energy uniting all of us, weighing in and, if I work hard and study self-discipline, having a say in what that feisty little kid is up to. 

Yoga is a moving meditation and meditation is all about Being PRESENT. Experiencing what is happening RIGHT NOW. At Ultra, I experienced the importance of remaining PRESENT. My body was busy dancing, but my mind was busy worrying. As I danced, I thought about the men I've loved, the mistakes I've made and am sure to make again, and I felt sorry for myself for being only a selfish animal.

Then, I remembered the silence and the control.

“No, this is the past, and maybe it’s the future, but none of that matters – the PRESENT matters. What is happening RIGHT NOW?”

I snapped out of my funk, looked around, and RIGHT NOW I was dancing full throttle beside some of my best friends in the world. One of my friends was giving a tripping girl a light show with his gloves that Dayglowed while he danced. MSTRKRFT was playing some of the dirtiest beats a dirty girl like me could ever ask for. 

The 8^th limb: Samadhi

Samadhi is the goal of yoga, and for me, the goal of music. Experiencing a connection with the energy of everything – understanding that we are not alone, that we are all connected, and hopefully, if only for a moment, feeling the vibrations of our own bodies become one with all of the vibrations of everyone and everything around us. Not thinking maybe, but knowing for sure that, yes, “This is the TRUTH.”

I’ve lost myself in music and experienced Samadhi, that yogi coveted experience of vibrations and energy and unity, so many times. The pursuit of Samadhi is what keeps me returning to shows, traveling the world to dance with everyone who will dance with me.

At Deadmau5, at the end of the 2^nd day of the 3 day Ultra experience, Deadmau5 had everyone begin clapping. We all clapped at different times, out of synch. Deadmau5 began to play a beat – we all clapped in perfect unity. The music brought us together, and together, we all danced. 

My own body no longer mattered, all of us together, experiencing the exact same thing at the exact same time. Finally, we were all one with the music, and the energy, and our lives on this tiny, little planet that is our home.

Party on, CO Way. I’ll see you next year in Miami. 

OK(?) Alone

This is where the yoga and the meditation and the hobbies come in. I work out my energy, clear my mind, and fill my time. If there’s no time to sit alone with my thoughts, then there’s no time for the loneliness to take hold.

I’ve gotten pret-tay, pretty good at being alone, and now the problem is being around other people. I have mixed feelings about other people.

I have many acquaintances, and I value them highly, but I can have those conversations in my sleep. I’ve had the same introductory, “So what do you do? Who are you? If you could have any super power, what super power would you want?” talk an estimated 1,000,000 times. I can recite my resume of qualities that hopefully make people like me without paying any attention at all. In Las Vegas, the people in my life with whom I’ve made it past the first ten hours of conversation can be counted on one hand.

It makes me lonelier - talking over and over and over and never saying anything new. I never feel a real connection, and I skim the surface of myself and others – never anything important. When I reach the point where my pocket conversations have all been used, every favorite story told, then I feel the panic set in. Now it’s actually me they’re going to see, not the smoke and mirrors, not the polished final product, and am I ready for that level of exposure? Just a little more time alone. Just a little more time to heal. And then I can accept the risk of caring for others and having them care for me.

In my room, in the coffee shop, it’s me and my thoughts and the silence and occasionally an ice cream truck drives by. There’s no chance of embarrassing myself, there’s no chance of offending my friends, and there’s no chance of rejection. It’s nice.

Forgive Me 12-31-11 by Oscar Young

I know who I am when I’m alone. I am the OM. I am presently Leah. That’s what I am, and people complicate that by trying to make me a part of their story. I’m not their story. I’m only my story and every story. I dislike being observed, but I love observing.

Sometimes, people compliment me. This is very nice, and it makes me happy to hear nice things said. But, sometimes, they compliment me too much. They seem too excited about me, and I get nervous. I’m not whatever they’re saying I am. I’m a girl who stares at her computer alone in her room, and I’m doing okay. I could be doing better, and I sure as hell could be doing worse. Never accept compliment or critique a great friend, who I’ll likely never see again, said once. If you accept one, then you must accept the other, and both disturb me equally, although in different ways.

Everyone is as lonely as everyone else, right? We’re all alone together. All of us live with the illusion of separateness. I think this is true… but I know some people’s minds are quieter. Some people’s minds don’t follow them down the rabbit hole, never to be satiated when unanswered “Whys” still remain.

Is this nicer? The quietness? Those of us like me, those of us whose inner worlds vibrate and dance and seldom settle, we comfort ourselves by saying that although our lows may be lower, our highs are also higher! Our ability to experience this world is greater and therefore the bad and good are equally blessed. How dynamic is my world! So many facets shimmer and break apart. This is comforting in the bad times, because how lucky I am to feel so profoundly. Don’t others wish to be as alive?

No. I doubt that they do.

:)