SIMON YUGLER (TRAVEL ALCHEMY & INITIATION)

I was listening to a 'Future Fossils' podcast with Simon Yugler – named one of Open World Magazine’s “Top 30 Adventurers Under 30,” which was recorded earlier this year at a festival I had not heard of before, called the Earth Frequency Festival.
FUTURE FOSSILS #0022 – SIMON YUGLER (TRAVEL ALCHEMY & INITIATION)

I was curious to learn more about this festival, as Michael mentioned at the start that it was in my home state of Queensland, Australia.

Ironically on the subject of travel alchemy, I have basically lived my whole life in the very bottom of the state and really only traveling south of my hometown of Brisbane, and not too far north.

I've never been near the Great Barrier Reef in the north of the state, and I still have no desire to see it to be honest.

The furthermost north I've been along the coast is Noosa on the Sunshine Coast.

So, I was wondering what exotic location in the state that the Earth Frequency Festival is held at.

Turns out the festival is pretty much in my own backyard, as I live within the area of Queensland the picture above shows.
The site is probably about a half hour drive from my residence and yet I haven't heard about this festival in any local media I have read before listening to this podcast.

The festival looks cool, but it's a bit out of my age bracket, as I would be old enough to be the father of most of the kids at this event and would feel like a creepy old guy hanging around a festival like this, but if I was 25 years younger, I would probably go to it, as it looks good.

I really liked this podcast on a lot of levels, mainly the ironies and synchronicities that occurred to me while listening to the talk, which was interrupted a number of times by rain (yes, it does rain in this part of the world and quite often) festival goers and cicadas.

There are actually cicadas ringing in my ears right now as I type this post up.
Cicada Dreaming: Life Cycles

Apparently, it takes 17 years for cicadas to emerge from underground and become adults, so I figure the adult cicadas heard in this podcast are from around the year 2000-2001, which kind of make them a living future fossil from around the turn of the century that came to make a noise in this 2017 podcast.

I also like how Michael and Simon reveal to each other when talking about the wandering Jew that their father's side of the family was Ashkenazi Jews, which my father's father's side and a bit of my mother's side was as well.
Maybe the three of us should have got together to hatch a conspiracy?-)
It's said in the podcast that the difference between tourists and locals is that tourists look up (novelty and wonder), but speaking for myself, I'm always looking around at where I live with wonder, as I see every day as novel.

You're not in Kansas anymore, when you're a traveler, right?-)

Decolonizing Festival Culture is also mentioned and Gordon White over at the 'Rune Soup' blog wrote something about that when he was down at 'Dark Mofo' this year, which I tend to disagree with, but I kind of see his point.

LIFE COMES AT YOU FAST

I was down at 'Dark Mofo' the year before and loved it and feel there is nothing to really "decolonize" about that festival, as the food thing is not really part of the festival, so much as the Tasmanian government partnering of the festival ... and to be honest I liked it and the idea behind it.

Dark Mofo Winter Feast 2016

Simon's right though, there is a sense of alchemy and initiation when traveling, even if it is only accidental most times.

Zach's Ceremony

I think Simon should get together with Alec and Zach and make some films together about initiation, travel and cultural respect.

The world is in need of this kind of Alchemy right now ... even in France;-)