I didn’t expect to come across the final hours of an ecstatic rave early doors on a Sunday morning, high up in the hills of the ‘shire. The land of Tolkien and hobbits transformed into a pulsating forest dancefloor. The shire folk no doubt hiding away from the deafening beats coming from the oversized speakers.
To the human eye, it was a group of revellers intent on uniting in dance and trance and altered states of conscious brought on by canisters of laughing gas. Gathering together in the wilderness to release their own wildness, to be with others and generally have-a-damn-good-time. Eyes were glazed and whirling feet stumbled over twigs and fallen branches in a quest to forget the humdrum of daily life.
But I did not see true celebration or happiness here.
Amongst the merrymakers wandered the spirit of yearning, the spirit of longing, the spirit of loneliness. Dulled eyes disguised a hunger for real community, for real belonging, for a tribal gathering of soul family that would never be found in the haze of chasing high after high with transient strangers. Each carried hunger for a time when dance was a celebration of the preciousness of life, the beauty of the earth, and an acknowledgement of the sacredness of all. A time of profound reverence since lost in the march of progress.
A sadness ached through their limbs as their souls searched for something with more meaning, for a place to land, a place to call home. Deep in their bodies the memories of being in circle stirred: a memory of a time where kin sat in togetherness, in honour of the land, the air, and the sea. Where fire was sacred and a love for the earth coursed through veins. Where each felt part of the all, and no separation existed between a blade of grass and the stars in the sky. Where dance brought heaven to earth and hearts opened in devotional bliss.
As their bodies moved in unison each soul searched and searched for this lost time. Each heart called out for the circle it once knew, looking for the hallowed path back to belonging. In this sacred quest they confused laughing gas for a spiritual doorway, strangers for their brethren, and oblivion for happiness. Moving together, feet on the earth, the forest as their shelter, dancing and dancing to find their way back to circle.
Homesickness ✨