This past weekend I found myself in Ossopo Italy on top of a mountain.
There, my friends Steve and Stafano had planned and organized Italy's first festival of oneness-- il FestOne. They had been trying to convince me for a month that I should make my way back.
Boy, am I glad that I did.
I am still astonished by the beautiful and powerful moments that were manifested. I can't quite beleive we were able to do what we did.
You may have heared of my Dynamic 1Mandala Movie idea. The idea is to orchestrate and film real human mandalas around the planet in sync with the 1Mandala. I explained to Steve and Stefano how I wanted to film the first spiral mandala dance to create a tuturial for doing it in other cities around the planet. They got excited! They wanted to use the FestOne for the first vesion.
The Dynamic 1Mandala idea is pretty simple. People join hands and move around and around in the spiral. Marion back in Berlin had given me the idea, explaining that is was an ancient tradition.
Try as I might I could find NOTHING on this dance on the internet.
Yet, on the festival agenda was my name: "Russell Maier - Leading Dynamic 1Mandala - 5:30 PM"
I was slotted to speak to the entire festival and to actually lead a spiral mandala! Steve had also had me down to close the festival with a big version. I had nooooo idea what to do. I just couldn't quite conceive how the spiral would work.
I panicked a little. Then, I remember that my art is all about collaboration.
If I couldn't figure it out, maybe all of us could! I stood up infront of everybody and explained my vision and my ignorance. I explained that we needed to figure this out all together. I broke everyone in to small groups and we started experimenting.
To my amazement, the first little groups kinda got it. Then we all join hands and it actually worked! That was a magical moment. Afterwards, I pulled the participants together and asked for their ideas and feelings on the experience. All sorts of great ideas came out.
I mentioned in a previous blog that lover Peggy had come all the way down from Berlin to visit me. On Sunday, working with the ideas of everyone, Peggy and I set to work together to figure out how to do the big closing spiral mandala. I had been a little scared to work with someone I loved, yet this fear quickly melted as her energy combined with mine and a beautifully symbolic dance spontaneously developed over the course of the day.
We discovered that if you draw the dance pattern in the sand it actually makes two merging spirals. Just ike the Ying and the Yang. Peggy suggested a man and a women lay these spirals out in the beginning of the dance. She also had the idea of having a man and a woman in the centre on the tip of each spiral. Steve had the idea that they should play music. Before we knew it, we had found a male drummer and a woman with an incredible ability to rythmically sing.
The closing cermony began by forming a great big circle alternating male-female holding hands. The circle then folded into a spiral. The music began and the spiral began to move. People began to dance. A beautiful symbol of the harmonious merging of male and female energies came to life.
Above is a still frame from one of the movies taken of the closing ceremony. It wasn't just a success, it was an incredibly powerful experience. People have been euphorically sharing their joy with me on the experience. How beautiful and symbolic that Peggy and I, man and woman, with the harmonious love between us, were able to create the outline of this spiral.
They FestOne was the first coming together of Italians to celebrate Oneness and to embrace New World Consciousness. Many spoke of how special it was to have Italians from all over the very diverse country to be there.
This is the first FestOne of many to come. This was also the first of many to come in this 1Movie project.
We are working on the YouTube film this weekend. Soon to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment