Monday, September 15, 2008

Raw. Spirit. FEST.


Without a doubt, one of the best weekends of my life.
Top 3 for sure.
I would recommend this to everyone, raw or not.
Even vegetarian or not. This was just so fun.

When we arrived in Sedona, it was already 1:30 am.
The moon was bright, and it lit up the landscape
so beautifully that I seriously got choked up looking at it.

This place is magical. I'm being totally serious here.
When I heard about the vortexes and all that stuff,
I thought it was really cheesy and didnt believe it.
5 minutes after getting out of the vehicle and looking
upon the landscape, that perception changed drastically.

We camped the whole time, and I likely had the most
uncomfortable sleeping situation of anyone in the area.
Little pebbles digging into my back, but not caring
enough because I was so tired and so excited for what
awaited us the following day.

I must apologize now, I took a pitifully small amount of pictures.
I was so in the moment, and just didnt feel like documenting
it that much. Usually I'm really good about it, but for some reason
I kept my pics to a very bare minimum.

I recieved great feedback from my talk.
Lots of friends were there (hey...at RSF we are ALL friends)
and the two talks just breezed by.

Here are some pics of it -

Me talking with my hands again...

A wider angle....

All the speakers were amazing.
It felt so great to be around such positivity.

The nights were totally overwhelming.
Tribal drum music under the moon and stars,
barefoot and connected to the Earth again.
I felt transported back hundreds of years ago,
and it felt so right. I felt like I had come home.

It was actually too much for my Minnesota psyche
to handle all at once. Looking up at the moon and feeling
the good vibrations from everyone around,
it was just overwhelming.

My friend Jade and I did some great hikes
and found some amazing prickly pear cactus fruits.
It is such a great place for foraging.

This land is so unique...I truly felt like I was in another world.
And at night...I was speechless.

The one downside of the festival was that everyone had
to leave the festival at 10pm. It was held at a hotel,
and there were residential neighbors nearby,
so we had to respect the noise level.

A bunch of people went to a club to dance more,
but there was no way I was going indoors.
We would drive out to the desert and just walk around.
It was exactly what I needed.

I live in NYC, so if I ever wanted to go dancing
at some club again, I could easily do that.
But one thing I can't do is lay on the red ground
and stare at the fiercely glowing moon and the twinkling stars.
The connection to nature was so strong.

The plan was to go dancing after the night desert walk,
but after being there, the idea of being in a loud
club full of people is exactly what I didn't want.

Everything was perfect.

I want to thank everyone who walked up and visited,
and came to my talks. YOU are the reason that
I keep writing and making videos, hoping to inspire more to try
the culture of life and love. Getting to meet everyone
in person was the best thing I could have asked for.

A big thanks to the organizers, vendors, and speakers
for adding so much value to the event.
Word to the wise: The cost of the ticket
is minimal compared to the savings you get
when you buy products at these festivals.
I was getting too many deals, and was really
struggling to get it all home this morning.

Next year we will meet again near Santa Barbara, CA
where the music can go all night and we can all
sleep under the stars.

And thanks to Philip from Lovingraw.com for
getting me to go this weekend. I had held off
for too long, and Philip convinced me that it was time
to go and see for myself. Ill be back for sure.

SO MUCH FUN. GOOD TIMES! Enough said.

-Anthony






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