The Green Festival

Originally published on Project Nuevo Mundo (projectnuevomundo.blogspot.com) on 4 November 2009. Recovered from web archives in October 2026; the text is unchanged.

Across the United States, people gather in forests, deserts, and urban spaces such as churches and convention centers, to discuss the ongoing environmental, ecological, and economic crises that we face. These events hold space for workshops, lectures, conscious art and music. Demonstration displays of new innovative technologies can be found, from dry-compost toilets and grey-water filtration systems to natural architecture techniques and solar energy systems. This is the type of event after which we are modeling our annual festival, Universal Dance Guatemala: Awakening, at the Project Nuevo Mundo base in Guatemala, which will take place on December 31, 2009 - January 2, 2010.

Events of this nature take place year-round, but the outdoor campout events tend to fall during the summer months (May through September). The Symbiosis Gathering takes place annually against the beautiful backdrop of the forests of Northern California, and this year saw over 5000 participants. The festival is billed as a gathering for “Art. Music. Conscious Living. A synesthaesia of transformational learning. ” It is a synthesis of participatory workshops, lectures, live and electronic music, green technology exhibits, information booths, art displays and performances such as poetry reading, fire-dancing and various acrobatics. Events varied from Native American shamanic healing ceremonies to workshops on Tantric meditation and acro-yoga and classical Indian singing to a lecture on contemporary visionary art by renowned artist Alex Grey, who later started and finished a painting in a little over 12 hours just to the right of the main stage, as the performers followed one after the other from dusk straight through the night and into the next day. Other lectures included topics such as adaptation to a bioregional future, using MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, and the prospects for transformation when empire falls (Daniel Pinchbeck). At the tribal market, rows of stands were lined up with artisans selling handmade one-of-a-kind clothing and jewelry; many of the products were made from entirely recycled (upcycled) materials. A plan was hatched between friends to create a fair trade fashion company that fuses indigenous Guatemalan and Mexican textile work with sustainable production methods and a flair of psychedelic couture. The participants of Symbiants came from all over the United States, and many of the people I talked to expressed interest in Project Nuevo Mundo. One of every three or so people I talked to had already visited Lake Atitlán and knew of its spellbinding beauty.

Next weekend, the first annual Grassroots Economics Festival took place in Oakland, California, in a church that is powered with solar energy. The festival brought together activists and interested participants from all levels of ethnic and socioeconomic background, and I was inspired by the projects and collaborative efforts that are taking shape at this moment, seemingly given a renewed burst of energy by the symbolic victory of Barack Obama in the presidential elections. However, the point was repeatedly emphasized that corporate power still governs this country and that it is not one man but the activated multitudes who will provoke the change that brings the United States into a new era. “The door is open a crack. We can push it open further or we can let it get slammed in our face.” Local speakers held forth on topics like “Resources for the Grassroots Economy” and “Urban Food Security”. My favorite idea I heard at the festival was a forming network of urban gardeners who host “garden parties” where someone who wants to make a producing garden requests to host a party, and volunteers gather at the house, providing delicious locally grown food, live music, and their sweat labor. The end result is an organic garden to provide fresh produce daily to its residents, a diffusion of the knowledge of urban gardening, and a strengthening of community bonds. All this without really resorting to the use of money.

From the weekend of October 1 - October 4, we headed down to Joshua Tree desert in Southern California for the first annual Water Woman Festival, an “Art and Ecological Design Festival”. Once again, there were brilliant lectures on sustainability topics, such as “Ecological Systems Design” and “Sustainability Engineering”, and hands-on workshops like textile-making and lucid dreaming. An aesthetically pleasing grey-water filtration pond was constructed on the site, as were some cob benches, with the aid of many of the attendees. I made some fruitful connections here as well, including a lady who lives at a permaculture farm and school in Southern California called Quail Springs, and a renowned temple builder named SunRay Kelley who will most likely come to Guatemala during the coming Spring to build a temple from natural local materials on the Project Nuevo Mundo site.

The next weekend (October 10 - 11), I found myself in Washington DC at the DC Green Festival in the Convention Center downtown. There are green festivals happening all over the United States, including one in San Francisco from November 11 - 13.
Many prominent speakers were in attendance, Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman, Lester Brown, and John Perkins to name a few. John Perkins is an ex-corporate economist turned rainforest activist, who co-founded two organizations, Dream Change and the Pachamama Alliance, both of which we plan to collaborate with in the future in our work in Guatemala and beyond.
One salon at the Convention Center held yoga classes nonstop while another showed documentary films, including one exposing the disastrous environmental and health consequences of bottled water. The film is called “Tapped”. The main room was filled with hundreds of organizations and green businesses. I even found a booth two ladies who are residents of Lake Atitlán selling indigenous textile products that came from the women‘s cooperatives there! The Hemp Industry Assocation had its own pavilion, which comprised of textile products, particle boards, and super foods all made from hemp, as well as educational materials and lectures. A car that ran on hemp biodeisel fuel stood proudly on display. This plant, which has a plethora of industrial uses, is actually illegal to grow in the United States due to an archaic law, so all of the industrial hemp material is imported from Canada and China, to the chagrin of American farmers (and you wonder why the economy is failing!). The Green Festival is a mammoth production and is a great resource for getting educated on a variety of green issues. In addition to the San Francisco Green Festival taking place next month, there are also festivals in Denver, Seattle, and Chicago.

The resources necessary for making a new world possible exist in abundance, so let go of your fears, trust the world to support you, follow your passions and your dreams, and reject the indoctrination of impossibility. We are the people we’ve been waiting for.

You can fly. The wind is there waiting to catch you.

Love and Light,
David