Thoughts on Transformational Festivals and Costa Rica | Part 1

As some of you already know, we've made our way down to Costa Rica to get away from the winter a bit, but also because we wanted to go to a festival!!!

My wife was teaching a couple kid's workshops, one on making Unicorn Headbands and the other on Dreams and Vision Boards!!! Both workshops went great, the first one perhaps a bit overwhelming but everyone was super impressed with the quality of the horns we were making.

Before the festival we visisted Rancho Mastatal and I was inspired beyond belief with all the natural constructions and community they had built. The festival had stages, gates, dwellings, shops and art that were in their own way just as inspiring.

What kind of Festival?

A transformational festival is a counterculturefestival that espouses a community-buildingethic, and a value system that celebrates life, personal growth, social responsibility, healthy living, and creative expression.

Transformational alludes both to personal transformation (self-realization) and steering the transformation of culture toward sustainability. Some transformational festivals resemble music festivals, but are distinguished by such features as seminars, classes, drum circles, ceremonies, installation art (or other visual art), the availability of whole food and bodywork, and a Leave No Trace policy. Transformational festivals are held outdoors, often in remote locations, and are co-created by the participants. The events are psychedelic inspired, involving visionary art, speakers on topics of entheogenic substances, as well as audio and visual entertainment intended to amplify psychedelic experiences. Source: Wikipedia

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While these festivals are usually fun and very mind opening, there's often an air of pretentiousness. They tend to be quite pricey and sometimes feel a bit like fashion show. Now, as long as you can swim through all the bullshit that comes out of some people's mouths regarding enlightenment, aliens and speciality diets, there is a lot of good information to take in.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against extraterrestrial beings or people's choice of foods but there aren't a lot of folks out there that look into it... they sometimes seem like they're simply regurgitating some cool thing that was heard elswhere.

I am open to the idea of aliens having some sort of role in humanity's enslavement, using this planet as a gold mine, or harvesting our sexual energy for their own benefits... Obviously it would be awefull but the idea is just speculation to me. I don't understand how someone can take a thought like this one and believe it so strongly. Are they just looking for their own religious awakening or something?

The same goes for speciality diets, the diet we have thrived on since the beginning of times is the only one proven to work really well. Again, people are free to chose what they want to eat, of course, but no one needs to be a nazi about it.

These are just minor details, like I said earlier, we can learn to navigate through all the bull shit. What bothers me the most however is the amount of resources that these frstivals use... is it really worth all the carbon footprint they create?

The event creators typically promote sustainability, awareness into the world of caring for the planet and mindfulness, but the more established these festivals become, the larger the carbon footprint becomes and the less they seem to truthfully care. With this in mind, the creators keep on stashing away more money than they could have imagined.

I don't know about you, but to me it seems far too pretentious.

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Enough of this rant, let's move on...

In the end it was a really fun festival and a descent mix of people from all over the place, including Latin America. There were a lot of families and a lot of little one. Every night, our boy would be sleeping by 7:30!

Our friend who was taking care of Kid Zone had created a beautiful playground with her team... of course we spent most our time there, Jess and i would take turns going out to different workshoos or just to explore.

The kids had there workshops too, this one they learned to make chocolate:

And a couple photos of that playground:

The little ones just had so much fun there.. it was really hard for so many of us ro pull the kids out of there to see the rest of the festival...

But there was a beach too and that was also a big hit for people of all ages!

The sun sets in Costa Rica were really pretty, but I guess where ever you go in the world, they have their magic.

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The first time we walked out to the beach, we were both blown away. We had to leave the festival on a path winding through a patch of jungly forest and came put onto an alley leading down to the beach... but what was amazing and unexpected were all the people who had set up shops on either side of this alley.

Here we were, out of this mostly north american invasion the festival kind of represents and into what felt a lot more like a proper latin american festival. There was food everywhere, coffee, alcohol... souvenirs. I think almost every one on that strip was selling meat on a stick, I kind of felt like we had transported to Thailand or Cambodia!!! Everywhere we looked people were pushing beer and liqueur. Here the prices were right, a little higher than back in town but hey it's Costa Rica and the price of life has gone up quite a bit, so these people had all the right in the world to make that bread!

Well, it looks like I have to split this post in two parts... for some reason I cannot post any more photos!

See you next time...!

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