Hello friends,
I've been off the grid for the last weeks because I was immersing myself in the annual spectacle of Confest.
What is Confest?
Some answers I heard:
"If you ask 10 different people what Confest is, you will get 20 different answers."
"If you ask people what Confest is like, they will probably start doing interpretative dance while chanting and taking their clothes off..."
"YOU are Confest, mate, and YOU, sweetie - it's the people who come here that make it into something awesome with their own awesomeness."
"Other festivals are about the music, the entertainment, whatever - Confest is about people getting together and creating the entertainment themselves."
It is about being who and whatever the heck you want to be.
Is it just a bunch of people playing hippie for a week?
Yes and no, first thing: what is a "hippie", how do you define that, and does your definition have a positive or a negative connotation with the word? So depending on what a hippie is for you, there might be some floating around the Confest site. Yes, you're gonna see people in colourful baggy clothes, people with dreadlocks, people living in vans, hairy people, and, depending on where you go, naked people.
But you're also gonna see people who look "normal" - or whatever you'd call the style of people you see in daily life on the city streets.
You are going to meet old people, young people, families with their little kids, teenagers running around in packs, you meet vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters, you meet yogis, you meet gays, you meet lesbians, you meet permaculture enthusiasts.
You meet rainbow people, you meet nudists, you meet party people, you meet people who take drugs and people who take no drugs at all (not even coffee), you meet people with social disorders, you meet gypsies who have been living in their vans for years, setting them up like little houses with kitchens and solar powered TV inside, you meet people with university degrees.
You meet backpackers, you meet festival hoppers, you meet lots of "Confest virgins" and also people who have been attending Confest some 40 or more decades ago. You meet artists. You meet writers and potterers and body painters. You meet people who don't mind being dirty and very clean people. But they are all friendly and very open-minded, otherwise they wouldn't be here.
Everyone that is open-minded and doesn't discriminate against others is welcome. Everyone who loves giving and sharing. It's about the community.
It is about MUSIC
Is it a music festival?
There are no big amplified stages and no bands or professional musicians playing their gigs and getting paid for it, no.
But YES, there is music everywhere! The Confesters are musicians. If you are a muso, you get up on the Open Stage (the only place where you actually have a microphone etc.) and sing your songs in Open Mic night style, or you just bust out your instrument around one of the more than 20 campfire circles. There will always be people who are happy to be your audience, give you feedback, encourage you and maybe even start group chanting and harmonising with you!
So if you can sing (or even if you can not), you will get more than enough chances to raise your voice, alone or united with others.
And if you like drumming - every night there is at least one big drumming circle happening, where people sit around one or more fires and beat their drums in rhythm, all night long.
It's about WORKSHOPS
What do all those people do all day long out there in the bush, when there is no such thing as a festival program?
EVERYONE is free to organize their own workshop. Everyone who feels like they have something to share, something to teach, something to experience or talk about with others. You write it on the chalk board in the info tent, and people will come.
There are laughing workshops, there are kissing workshops, there is palm reading and henna, there is yoga, storytelling, workshops or dancing workshops, or How-to-eat-a-mango-workshops.
There is the Spontaneous Choir: A big group of people forms a tunnel by standing in two rows facing each other. Then from one end of the tunnel, people start walking through it in line, hands on the shoulders of the foreman and eyes closed, while the people forming the sides of the tunnel whisper kind and empowering things into their ears.
I could not possibly stop laughing and giggling as I walked through! How could you when it's like a hord of angels is caressing you arms and whispering to you how much they love you, how beautiful you are and how blessed you are? (and how they wanna take you out for dinner?!)
And of course there is the Mud Tribe - a workshop group of naked people who have been swimming in the mud pit and walk around the site, dancing and playing and expressing themselves like an ancient tribe, not speaking any language and giving muddy hugs!
And yes, it's about HUGS
I have to make a special point about how much love is in the air at Confest :D Usually, strangers meet with a handshake and a "nice to meet you". At Confest, everyone hugs and cuddles everyone (only if they want to, of course, but what can I say, most people want to!). You make friends with strangers standing by the fire, sitting in the hot tub by the river, or lining up for food. You smalltalk or you skip the small talk and go straight to the real stuff, leaving each other after 30 minutes, or one hour, or after spontaneously spending the whole day together, as new friends.
After more than two weeks in this environment, they're not only friends, they're family, for life! Especially the setup core crew people...
Cupid shot us all down with his Confest arrows.
Kate! She's a master, ah!
Take your time for a close look.
I could write so much more. All the beautiful little confest anecdotes. I actually did, because I wanted this to be a REALLY good blog post. But the library computer just shut down and later let me discover that it didn't save what I had written....
Okay, deep breath, emotionally detach yourself... It is not meant to be such a super good detailed blog post....
Laurie locked himself with the keys inside in the Aldi carpark in Wagga Wagga, while I was chatting to someone admiring the paint job. Had to break off the windshield on the side to get in... :D
Beautiful people.
5 days after Confest was over, reality was calling and only a handful of people were left on site, and even for us it was time to go.
As some of you know, it was my firm intention to take Laurie on the ferry over to Tasmania after Confest. As it happens so often though, plans and desires changed and I decided not to go to Tassie after all, instead I'm going to a Rainbow Gathering in Eat Gippsland that starts today. What is a Rainbow Gathering? I don't exactly know either, I can only repeat what I was told and what the Internet gives away....
Wikipedia article
Rainbow Lickorish
I first heard of it from friends at Woodford. For one month, a group of people set up a temporary camp in some remote location out in the nature, two weeks before and two weeks after a full moon.
They live as a community in a very simple, almost primal way and very close to nature, taking care of the environment and intending to leave the place without a trace. There is a basic bush kitchen for communal cooking, communal eating around the campfire, bush toilets and river showers, living in tents and under tarps, no smartphones, computers or phone reception and minimal access to electical power (solar power?!). Food is donated or bought by donations everyone can make, without being judged for how much or how little they give.
Get the picture? That's how I imagine it to be.
People at Confest told me that it it pretty much like Confest in setup time, just a small group of people living simply and a bit off the grid in a community together, a community that will become your family, close friends for life. I think this is what convinced me to go to the Rainbow instead of Tasmania.
I'm all right by myself, I love travelling on my own and being independent, and I rather quickly get over-socialised and annoyed with people, but I also do get lonely, especially since I left my dear friends and my home-of-the-heart the Sunshine Coast. It felt so good to become a part of the Confest family. And even though it was a challenge to be cut off from the world without phone reception and Internet, it was a very rewarding one, and I realized how good it is for me when my phone is lying forgotten in my car with a flat battery. Maybe this is just what I need right now. Running with a herd of like-minded people, giving me all the imaginable emotional support I could need, and living a minimalistic life out in the Australian Alps allowing me to connect with nature in a way I never did before. I'm looking forward.
This is Tweety. a lovely punk lady from Hamburg city who carpooled with me from confest along the Great Alpine Road to the Rainbow.
One day I felt really nauseous and just lay around throwing up and useless, but she looked after me like a mama :)
On mt. Buffalo
I will NOT have Internet for the next month! DON'T Be scared if you do not hear from me - I am fine and in the best company at the Rainbow Gathering.
Lots of love and ponyhugs to you all! Cheerio!
