soul healing

There’s a magic in com­munity that’s hard to place. I’ve struggled against this word, com­munity, and its ‘us and them’ nature for a long time – my thesis was partly about that – but in the end, it’s the doing-in-common not the being-in-common that is magical and mys­ti­fy­ing and uplifting.

Trust me to imme­di­ately start intellectualising!

Let’s start again: this week­end was magical. A late night Friday night at a new club, lazy early Sat­urday morn­ing, phone call with Brandon, and then on my way to a public con­fer­ence about city spaces called intent­CITY run by a new group called Archi­tect for Peace I stumble upon the Span­ish Fest­ival, watch fla­menco and dance to latin music.

Then the con­fer­ence. Nestled in the under­croft of the Arts Centre, install­a­tions of plants in recyc­ling con­tain­ers with little tags prin­ted with stor­ies of where they came from, this one a clip­ping from a garden in Fitzroy, this one care­fully trans­planted from Italy to Carlton; posters for Amnesty Inter­na­tional; weav­ing wooden strips into huge hanging seats and spheres; and 30 seats, a screen and a panel of speak­ers talk­ing about ghost cities and cities rebuild­ing after war, civil war, Bar­celona, poetry and the most amaz­ing tango…

From there to the Return of the Sacred King­fisher fest­ival, a touch­stone for me since moving to Mel­bourne. Real com­munity: local chil­dren dressed as flowers danced around by women dressed as king­fish­ers, bright blue and sparkly head­resses, majesty and pageantry. Dress parade down to the creek, fig­ures in white wor­ship­ping a blue-faaced embod­i­ment of the water, mur­mur­ing our thanks to the source of life. Brightly-dressed women singing about wash­ing in the river, laugh­ing chil­dren run­ning under bil­low­ing red, orange, yellow cloths. Chil­dren’s voice singing “the river is flow­ing, flow­ing and grow­ing, down to the sea. Mother carry me, your child I will always be…” Oboe and harp, flow­ing around and between, music inspired by the Gle­nelg River (‘Into the Deep’ by J Bel­frage). A gaunt­let of white-faced ghost fig­ures to run, chant­ing “the river is our life blood” and “what have we done? what have we done?” Whispered advice as we pass under trees with candle­light, it’s a wish­ing path now. We breathe our souls into it. Wander back, sit and eat, glow­ing. This is our community.

Home and then out again. Vodka with friends at Borsch, Vodka and Tears. Round after round, cherry vodka and wild bee honey vodka and cal­va­dos. Crazy con­ver­sa­tions. Laughter and kisses and a sexy, tall, slim waiter with dreads and a South London accent.

Another crazy late night, 3am. This morn­ing, brunch with friends, shared food, steam­ing coffee, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, pan­cakes. Memor­ies of earlier brunches back in Peter­sham, thorfinn the only con­stant. Then Eyes Wide Shut, a visual mas­ter­piece, meas­ured, intense, care­ful script­ing. Great dis­cus­sion after­wards, friends and serenity.

From there to the Span­ish Fest­ival again, mer­engue and samba, drums and ecstasy, trum­pets singing to sway­ing hips, the sheer joy of dan­cing, paella and san­gria for dinner, bump into more friends, dance more.

This is the life. This is what it’s about: diversity and music and friend­ship and laughter.

I may hate the weather in this crazy city but by heart­blood I love its culture.

Ant­oinette and I did a little energy-rais­ing ritual at Beltane that wrapped me in com­fort and con­nec­tion. This week­end is partly its out­come. Next week­end is Earth­core. This only gets better from here.