Dear rave family,

The other day I started to think back on why the Gathering, or pretty much any rave, came about. It had to be the music, right?, and the desire to have more people hear it, feel it, fuckin love it!!  To have people come together for this common cause - dancing our asses off till the break of day to this AMAZING, mind-bending, soul-rearranging music.... in some mad location, with über-positive people, great psychedelics, and a healthy supply of water.  Job done - let’s RAVE!

RAVE, have you ever looked up its meaning in a dictionary? I did, way back when I first started doing parties, and this is what I found.... “to talk like a madman; to wander mentally; to be delirious; to speak too enthusiastically.”  

Perfect, right? Back then we were going around talking to people with so much enthusiasm about these mad parties, where you can expect to have your life changed. We tried hard to get them to come experience it for themselves - to come to a place where it is all right to wander mentally, and to talk and act like a mad person if that is how you wanted to express yourself.  And to do it in a place where you can be deliriously happy - with yourself, and with others.

No wonder these parties took off!!

And now here we are twenty years later (yes, I did say 20), all of us still full of life, and ready to do it again. Right? I hope we are all preparing ourselves, working out, or waking up a little later on the day of the party, or getting in a nap perhaps? :-)  Whatever it takes for us all to have as much energy as possible, to fully contribute to a high-energy psychedelic dance-party celebration. This is one of those rare opportunities, to make that much needed connection to that feeling we all crave so much. In my opinion, the more people go off, and I mean really go off, the better party it is, and the stronger connection we collectively make to the delirious state of being. HIGH ENERGY...  Do you feel me?

There is no balance, no stability; everything is restless, upward-reaching movement and charged with excitement and mystery. Let’s lose ourselves, and find ourselves, on that dance floor.

Peace & Love

The Gathering Family