After celebrating life for three joyous days at the Harmony Festival, I’m beginning to believe there is a new state of harmonious mind and spirit growing in Northern California. Just look at the joy in these photos and tell me if you see it too?

Is it just me finally tuning into this wonderful frequency or is an amazing new spiritual awakening coming to fruition? Given that the annual Harmony Festival began 31 years ago, perhaps I’m just a late arrival to this amazing and growing celebration of the universal consciousness that makes us all one. What an amazing community of loving and joyous people has evolved and grown up around this festival, which showcases leading edge trends in music, art, healing, spirituality, sustainability and community.

After swimming in wonderful people, ideas, food, music and celebrations of life for three beautiful days, I believe that hope is alive and thriving. My hope is that this community sweeps the nation and the world into one harmonious world community!

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Also visit the “Magic Bus” at the Harmony Festival.

I’ve been seeking the elusive “magic bus” ever since I first read the book “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” in the mid eighties. This book tells the story of some far out hippies (the “Merry Pranksters”) who tripped across America in the 1960′s in a day glow school bus – spreading music, acid and love in their wake.

As a college student during the Reagan eighties, I felt I’d missed the magic bus and that it had driven far out of sight long before my time. But during the annual Harmony Festival a man took me to a reincarnated magic bus co created by Scotty Miller – the Magic Bus Tripsmaster –  and his artist companion Peri Pfenninger. I had just bought an Indian peace pipe and with the help of a few goddesses and pranksters we christened the pipe in the bus.

The original magic bus from the sixties, called “Further”, is rusting and decaying in a field in Oregon. But its soul searching joyous journey lives on in Scott’s bus and the magic that is created by the ebb and flow of its passengers.

View more of the Magic Love Buses amazing adventures below:

The Magic Love Bus leads the annual Love Parade in San Francisco.

The Magic Love Bus camps out at the 40th anniversary of Woodstock (Woodstock Flashback).

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Magic Bus Ride from the movie “Across the Universe”

LSD Freak Out – Don’t Try This at Home!

Have you ever experienced such over powering beauty, love and hope that your heart swelled and your eyes welled up with tears of joy and sorrow? Tears of joy from profound gratitude and yet sorrow for all the years you’d walled off this beauty.

It happened to me one morning in the Nevada desert as the sun rose over a mountain ridge. When my tears finally flowed, it was as if a lifetime of pent up emotion broke through a crack and then burst the dam that had held back my emotion.

Beyond choking back emotion in a dark movie theater, I can’t recall any other time I cried. It must have been some time during my childhood. I grew up in a family that swallowed their emotions like a lump of peanut butter. We didn’t hug and we didn’t feel the need to say we loved each other. It was assumed that despite the disharmony and anger between my parents that we all loved each other. I spent most of my life waiting to leave.

But when I left home I took what I learned with me, along with a dark sense of humor and a shield of sarcasm. I was crippled and didn’t realize how badly until recently.

I never expected to experience anything at the Burning Man Festival that would move me to tears. But the dam began to crack as soon as I got to Black Rock City. Black Rock is a “city” that is created temporarily each year to host the seven day Burning Man Festival and provide services for its 50,000 participants.

It’s a fantastic place where the residents have plenty of time to play with each other and where no money is exchanged and virtually everything is given freely (“gifted”). People don’t transact with each other – they interact. The “coin” of this realm is spirit and personality – not money. Entering into Black Rock is like taking a portal into another Universe. To me Black Rock City is the “City of a million delights”.

On my first day I drove across the desert following a caravan of pilgrims on a dirt road leading to Black Rock City. Our long convoy of vehicles was hit with what I later learned was the worst blinding dust storm in years. As I crept along in my motor home, I glimpsed a fire truck hosing down the charred remains of a motor home burnt down to its frame. I had heard about the devastating effects of the dreaded “playa dust” and its insidious ability to infiltrate mechanical and electronic devices and destroy them. There by the grace of God was I. The drive looked more like entering a war zone than a festival. But I pressed on.

Soon after I arrived and set up camp with Ed, the author of Vagabonding in the USA, my motor home alarm began screaming uncontrollably and shrieking in tones I’d never heard. It would not stop, despite the best efforts of the pope from across the street to exorcise its demons. We cut the battery cord and, with all power to the cab now dead, I retreated into the back section of my motor home to continue on auxiliary power.

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But in the spirit of Burning Man, a man emerged from the clouds of dust and introduced himself as a mechanic. He spent the next couple of hours crawling around under my dashboard in the desert heat until he disarmed my alarm and restored power to my cab and ignition. He did his work with joy and love and without any expectation of anything in return. It was my first encounter with “gifting” and the camaraderie that comes from pulling together to not only survive on the dusty desert playa but to thrive.

My deep appreciation of this man’s generous gift was perhaps the first tiny fissure that prepared my heart to crack open. Each day was full of new miracles, acts of kindness and compassion, acceptance, beauty, delight, surprise and joy – all of them chipping away at the wall around my heart. But a lifetime of barriers is not easily torn down.

A few days and nights into the Burning Man Festival, I rode my bike one night out into the vast desert playa. Brightly light art cars, mutant vehicles, boats and mobile nightclubs shuffled across the playa, with some belching flames into the night air. I stumbled upon spaceships, music shows and impromptu parties everywhere.

All sizes and shapes of humans grooved and bobbed on waves of surging music that washed over us all like rhythmic waves. It was a joyous symphony of pulsing lights,   penetrating music and dancing souls.

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The night show receded as the faint gentle light of the dawning new day came up over the mountains on the horizon. The music and dancing continued to flow and I stood still in the dawn light watching and feeling this incredible show flow around and through me.

An elegant man in a white tuxedo with a ruffled shirt walked in from the desert playa and stood before me. He took my hand and with an elegant Spanish accent he asked me to come with him as he gestured to a fantastic double decker bus. After a few days in the playa I had learned the futility of making plans and came to trust in serendipitous fate, chance encounters and magic. As we walked together out on to the desert playa I saw a large sculpture of the India God Ganesh with his elephant trunk mounted on the front of the bus. The top floor of this cosmic bus was open to the sky and funky people danced and swayed in the rising sun as a DJ spun records. A tall mast with a crows nest extended into the sky from the center of the bus and a fabulous woman grooved to the music while swinging from the mast pole.

We entered the bus and the elegant man sat down in the driver’s seat. After composing himself with the dignified posture of a royal prince, he flashed a radiant and reassuring smile to the passengers, shifted the party into motion and we blazed across the desert playa heading for the rising sun.

There were no glum faces on this early morning bus – only beaming faces, joy and laughter. I climbed the staircase and emerged on to the open air dance floor. The wind blew over everyone’s swaying bodies. I drank up the vision of these radiant colorful people as they swayed in the wind like blowing flowers.

This was the ride I’d been waiting for my whole adult life. During the Reagan 80′s, when I was 21, I read “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test“, which told the account of some truly far out hippies who tripped across America in the 1960′s in a day glow magic school bus – spreading music, acid and love in their wake. This book had convinced me that I was born into the wrong era and that I’d missed the magic bus.

But as I felt the magic of this bus, the loving vibe of its passengers and the beauty of the rising sun on the wide open desert playa – I realized that I had finally caught my magic bus. We were blazing into a world of wide open possibilities. I knew then that there was no place or time better than right now. This was a moment so perfect that my heart became overwhelmed like a man who had been wandering lost in a barren desert and just spotted his beautiful home on the horizon. I turned my back to the party behind me and faced the sun. The soft warmth of the rising sun dissolved away the last layers around my swelling heart and tears of joy and sorrow flowed down my cheeks.

I didn’t know where this magic bus would take me. But I vowed to meet it with an open heart.

The magic bus came to a stop along side a gigantic tower. It was made like a jungle jim with metal bars that extended three stories into the sky.

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I got off the bus and walked over to this tower that was covered with people climbing the bars upward into the morning sky. I gripped a bar and felt its solid strength. I could see that the welded joints were made with great care and attention to detail. A break in any one of these welds would send a person tumbling down to the hard desert floor.

I gripped a solid metal bar and began climbing upward toward the sky. With each rung I embraced I entrusted my life to the unknown stranger who built this structure. On my way upwards into the dawn of this beautiful new day I greeted and spoke with everyone I met. Some of them I photographed. Together we were all hanging out in the open sky greeting the new day. When I reached the top I met a beautiful young couple seated in a chair at the pinnacle of the tower. I took their portrait with the desert playa stretching out beyond them. They climbed down and I watched them do summersaults in the sands and they bounded off together hand in hand across the playa toward Black Rock City.

When I approached the bottom a woman wearing a butterfly mask and a radiant smile called out to me “Would you like some breakfast?” In one hand she held a bottle of yegermeister and in the other was a can of redbull energy drink. A jolt of intoxicating energy sounded like the perfect breakfast for this special new day. We laughed like silly misbehaving children as we drank our breakfast.

The rest of this glorious morning we wandered about the desert playa encountering seemingly random art and fabulous people. An amazing evening had morphed into a glorious new day and a fresh new beginning. My open heart absorbed its full radiant beauty and my soul was new like a child born into a world with eyes wide open. On this morning I was born again.

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Beneath the fantastic celebrations of life, humanity and creativity that occur during the annual seven day Burning Man Festival, there is a powerful spiritual under current that pervades this event. When 50,000 people come together not to transact but to interact without money and normal roles the separation consciousness that divides us so often in “normal life” dissolves. Many who attend Burning Man feel this beautiful connection, even if they may not be completely conscious of it.

This year’s official theme for Burning Man 2009 (the first week of September) is “Evolution”. Given that our world is at the proverbial cross roads, I’m excited about this year’s evolution theme. I believe we either evolve our consciousness so that we live in harmony with each other and the natural world or greed and fear will prevail and lead us into ecological, economic and societal destruction. Our fate and that of our world is in our hands, minds and souls.

I invite you to join me at Burning Man to screen movies that will inspire all of us to choose to evolve our hearts and consciousness toward the realization that, like waves in the ocean, we are all connected to the flow of the Universe. Please feel free to suggest videos that you think should be shown during Evolution Cinema Night by adding a comment below. For a beautiful description of this emerging consciousness view the below short presentation by the amazing spiritual teacher Marianne Williams.

Evolution Cinema Night – Movies for Screening:

One amazing movie that I suggest we show is “Humanity Ascending” with Barbara Marx Hubbard. This forty minute documentary featuring author and futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard focuses on our conscious evolution and suggests a vision toward our evolution and birth as a new humanity. After witnessing the nuclear bombing of Japan during World War II at the age of 15, Barbara Marx Hubbard dedicated her life to answering the question of how our technological power can be consciously directed to advance the world and all living beings. She envisions us evolving from Homo Sapiens into Homo Spiritus.

Watch the movie trailer for Humanity Ascending -

What the BLEEP Do We Know — First released in theaters in 2004, WTBDWK!? went on to become one of the most successful documentaries of all time. Now distributed in over 30 countries, it has stunned audiences with its revolutionary cinematic blend of dramatic film, documentary, animation and comedy, while serving up a mind-jarring blend of Quantum Physics, spirituality, neurology and evolutionary thought.

Watch the movie trailer for What the BLEEP Do We Know –

Other Far Out consciousness raising videos Ed Buryn, the Author of Vagabonding in the USA, intends to bring a few of his favorite consciousness raising videos, including Zeitgeist I and II (the Addendum).

Watch Zeitgeist I trailer below:

ZEITGEIST II ADDENDUM (FULL MOVIE!)

After reviewing over 100 proposals to road trip North America this summer, this year’s “Roads Scholars” have been chosen. The class of 2009 is a smart, talented and adventurous bunch. I expect they will take us all on an amazing virtual adventure this summer. To view their profiles and proposals visit Roads Scholars.

Today I sent the scholars an email – call it an online “orientation” (see the below email). Let me add that I’m not encouraging young people to simply quit their “day jobs” and go vagabonding about. I’m advocating “digital vagabonding”, which means having your work and income come with you.

Telecommunications technology these days enables many of us to work as easily from the road as the office. That’s why on the side of my motor lounge it reads “Digital Vagabonding – Using Technology to Make the Word Our Office and Playground, Any Time or Place“. OK, that’s my responsible disclaimer. Now on to the orientation:

My email to the Roads Scholars – Class of 2009

Subject: Welcome Roads Scholars and congratulations!

What amazing field trips await you on the road of higher education. I hope that you get to know your classmates and help support each others journeys until you meet in person at the Burning Man Festival the first week of September.

Now for your first assignment.

Matador Travel, which is perhaps the most soulful and intense travel community on the globe, has been very supportive of the Roads Scholarship and is our official co sponsor. I’m a member of this community (view my profile and blogs). I encourage you to sign up as a member as well and begin sharing some of your writings, photos and or videos.

Then add me and your fellow Roads Scholars to your network. I also suggest adding our Digital Vagabonding community page as a “supporter”. I will then add you and all your fellow scholars to the network for this community page. This should enable us to be a community within the larger Matador community.

I encourage you to then write about any travels you undertake this summer and share them as blogs on your Matador profile. Feel free to also share any articles/blogs you may have even when you’re not on the road. You can also get active on Matador’s community forum and submit articles for publication. They have an outstanding network of talented writers generating articles on many interesting topics and trips. Be sure to sign up for their excellent newsletter.

Today Matador announced the news about the class of 2009 (see Roads Scholarship Winners Announced and Upcoming Travel Writing from the Roads Scholars). Feel free to comment on these announcements and share them with your friends.

In addition to sharing his experiences on Matador, Kyle is expected to also keep a multimedia blog during his summer road trip. We are currently working on creating a new WordPress powered blog that will have a look and feel tailored to Kyle’s unique mentality and style. This blog will be up and running before Kyle begins his road trip later this month.

Stacy is going to be supporting all of you by promoting your journey and writing using social networking and possibly the general media this summer. He will also act like a Digital Vagabonding Ambassador – encouraging those following your journeys to make suggestions for places, people and ideas to encounter. I’ll bet this hybrid “position” was not suggested to Stacy when he met with his career counselor in high school. So just what should we call his position? I’m open to suggestions. Anyone?

I also encourage you to visit the Bat Country website and join as member. This is where I’ll be camped out in the Destiny motor lounge (Digital Vagabonding’s HQ) and where the graduation party will be held. When you sign up mention that you are affiliated with Pat the Digital Vagabond and DigitalVagabonding.com. Once you are registered you’ll be able to view all the members of Bat Country and the events we’ll be sponsoring during Burning Man, including your graduation party. This camp has a “Gonzo” Hunter S. Thompson flavor to it. So chaos and spontaneous insanity are not only tolerated but encouraged.

Although the registration for camping in “Bat County” is officially closed, I reserved plenty of space for our little Digital Vagabonding ghetto and should be able to squeeze you in. Otherswise feel free to camp where ever and with whoever you’d like.

Ed Buryn, the author of Vagabonding the USA and the original inspiration for Digital Vagabonding, will be camping in Bat Country as well. He has agreed to be our acting dean of “Vagabond U” when the diplomas are handed out.

Which reminds me, it would be irresponsible for me to encourage you to travel before I’ve sent you a copy of Vagabonding in the USA. It is after all, the “Bible” of vagabonding. Please email me your mailing address so I can get you a copy.

Well that’s it for today’s online orientation. I encourage you to email your fellow classmates and begin bonding and vagabonding.

Great adventures await all of us in the world and within us!

Be well and Live Large, Pat the DV

P.S. Feel free to call me on my cell 612 385-3563 at any time. However, for roadside assistance call a tow truck or use duct tape. Note – the people cced in this message are all members of the Matador team. They’re great people to get to know.