"Hip Tantra … every delicious experience comes … and goes"

All these big plans and experiences we imagine for ourselves, work towards, get excited about, and eventually live through … come, and they might be as awesome as we anticipated … and then they’re over quick as they came. One after the other. No matter how delicious.

We’re on a tour of 6-8 months, performing at 18 or more venues, homes, communities, etc. per month. Unlike most bands, we don’t do the normal bar and club scene, which all kinda look and feel the same … only the faces change, and perhaps not even those.

We’re fortunate to perform at Spiritual and Other “Thoughtful” Communities of all shapes, sizes, races, faiths, tastes and idiosyncrasies with one common purpose: to deepen our joyful awareness of our connection to each other and the spirit that flows all around us, through us and IS us. And we do some really cool events.

Just the other night we performed at the gorgeous Sebastopol CA (northern cal) countryside home of a young french couple bringing something called “HIP TANTRA” to that community. There were 60 or more people there, celebrating the Spring Equinox, enraptured by HERE II HERE. There were fire spinners, ladies selling herbal elixirs offering everything from energy to aphrodisia (dangerous at a “hip tantra” party after being alone on the road so long with a bunch of guys), playful dogs and young children in spiderman costumes running around tying people up with imaginary webs (it was a g-rated tantra party), and fire pits outside surrounded by warm human beings grateful for sunshine after a long cold, rainy northern California winter. We had a magical evening … meeting old fans who had driven hours to see us and new ones whose hearts only burst open to HERE II HERE tonight … it was truly magical.

And like every other magical moment, it came and went. Before, driving along windy country roads to get to this remote hillside home … silence and stillness. After, winding our way in the dark towards San Francisco down those same tiny roads, again, stillness and silence. After immersing ourselves in this ecstatic communion of swirling, dancing, bounding, loving and embracing energies … we were alone again. I was alone again. The long-anticipated experience “over”.

Did it even happen? I can’t be sure!!

Every event is like this. All the countless hours of planning, envisioning, dreaming, emailing, detailing, conversating and more that goes into its creation … and in mere hours it’s over.

Yet something always lingers … some residue left behind in the body … more than just new friends who’ve opened up new worlds yet unexplored. Or new connections promising adventures unimaginable and new pathways we can choose to walk down. Or not.

But something profound and intangible … some microscopic pin prick in the dark veil I’ve lived underneath that blocks my view of the real world. Something that enables me to see more clearly … to simply fall ever deeper in love with this planet.

Ahhhh … I’m just deeply in love with this world of one eternal, ephemeral moment after the other. Ash (in the band) says he’s an “experience junkie.” I think we all are; it’s just that so many of us resist out of pure ignorance the infinite variety of experience this world has to offer.

I’m so grateful to be traveling the country with HERE II HERE, one blessed adventure after the other. I’m aware that it will all end at any moment. It might end when we plan it to end, or it might end tonight. I can’t ever know for sure. I can only be grateful and enjoy it all as it comes and goes …