Next week I’m attending GoTT, the Gathering of the Tribes conference. This is the fourth year of the conference, and will be my third year attending (some of you may remember my stories from 2001).

Back when I wrote for Lotus, I used to joke that rave years are like dog years — things evolve so quickly in the dance community, which is of course a reflection of the rapid evolutions that many members of that community experience. Collectives and their events can rise and fall in seasons, and people come in, transform, and exit rather quickly.

Some folks stick around, and it’s mostly these people who attend GoTT. Although even with this more “committed” group of evolved ravers, people are in still in rapid flux.

Take me, for example.

When I first attended GoTT just three years ago, I was the editor of a rave magazine. Although definitely on the decline from my celebratory career (ironically, GoTT 2000 was the last time I binged), I was still actively involved in the scene and its members. I went as a journalist, but also as a connoisseur — someone who was investing a lot of time and thought into serving the community of people united by the conference. I had rainbow dreadlocks, lived in the woods, and was an avowed freelancer. My lifestyle was pretty calm and quiet, living in Olympia, but I was definitely very consciously skirting the edges of society in terms of appearance, relationship modalities, and employment (there were bongs at magazine staff meetings, for fucksake!).

GoTT 2000 focused a lot on politics, cognitive liberties, harm reduction awareness, and land use policies. I took copious notes in preparation to write a review for Lotus, and was networking for the magazine like a fiend. It was, in all reality, my first grown-up conference. I passed out business cards, I met people who ended up donating money to the magazine, I chatted with a guy from the LA Weekly, I was approached to appear in a documentary (I ended up playing a cameo role as “The Sober Friend” in MTV’s True Life “I’m On Ecstasy”). It was a busy week.

The next year, I felt a little bit on the outside. I’d quit my job at Lotus, and I didn’t have anything to do with organizing dance events, which is what much of the workshops seemed geared toward. I also didn’t quite relate to the more newage (rhymes with sewage — thank you to Simone who introduced me to that term!) workshops and rituals, which had been present the prior year, but seemed to increase the second.

There was this one exercise where the 100+ workshop participants did a guided walking meditation around the room, and at certain times we would be asked to stop, partner with the person closest to us, and meditate on a particular emotion: compassion, forgiveness, etc. The third partner I ended upwith was a guy from the East Coast, and we were asked to make and not break eye contact, and then focus in on each other while meditating on an emotion I can’t recall.

My partner in this exercise was clearly very touched by the couple minutes we spent silently staring into each other’s faces. Tears welled up in his eyes, he smiled with empathy, gasped astonishment, and when the exercise ended, he gave me an enormous hug. It was clearly very powerful for him.

I, meanwhile, was feeling a little manipulated by the whole process, quietly resenting the workshop leader for toying with people’s emotions to act as an illustration in a spiritual “point” he was about to make in his workshop, feeling like the exercise was too heavy handed, etc. I supported my partner as he went through his process, but I wasn’t really present with him. I felt bad about it, but at the same time, irritatable about being in the situation not of my chosing.

Perhaps now is the point at which to address the fact that I have some sort of only child indignant rebellion response to spiritual guidance. I was raised in a Buddhist/Pagan/Wiccan/Jungian/New Age household, and the pendulum does swing. Therefore, my reactions to chakra workshops and new moon rituals tend to be similar to that of a former Catholic school girl led against her will into a Christmas mass. (For those unable to keep up with their arm chair psychology, this comparison makes reference to my mother, a former Catholic school girl who now leads Pagan rituals.) I feel guilty for not being able to get the same sort of joy out of new age ritual, but as a second generation hippy and indignant brat, I just don’t like be guided. I’m on my own weird path, thank you very much.

In my indignant state, I found myself spending much of GoTT 2001 smoking behind the workshop space with other the other naughty kids, kicking at the concrete and being generally disenfranchised and grumbly. Since I’d just come off of spending four years working for Lotus and committing myself to the rave community, I suppose it makes perfect sense that I would have a bit of a rebound; a cynical farewell to that era of involvement that gave me so much (started my career, really), but also sucked the poop right out of me. Lotus was such a blessing, and such an extreme emotional drain.

I missed last year: I was in France, although I thought constantly about all my friends in LA, doing irritating things like musing, “So, it’s noon on Sunday here in France…that means it’s 3 AM in LA, and that all my friends are out in the desert dancing. Aww. Damnit. I wish I was there. Oh! Right! I’m in Paris! DUH!”

Annual events act as great touchstones, especially when they’re community events. This year I’m in such a drastically different place than I was the first year. My hair is so natural and bland now that people who knew me with dreads literally walk right past me without seeing me. Although I’m still a freelancer at heart, I’m working full time, finally paying off debts and taking my career up a notch. I go out only a few times a season, am happier when it’s during the day instead of all night, and I’m feeling more agnostic and spiritually indignant than ever.

Also, where-as GoTT has always been an event I traveled to and was a visitor at, this year I not only live in LA…I was actually a member of GoTT core volunteer staff during the first trimester of its planning. Andreas has been on the core staff since the beginning, and has been working on GoTT preparation almost every night this week (and will be busy all weekend).

Therefore, for a number of both rational and irrational reasons, I find myself feeling somehow peripheral, but really it’s just another year and another opportunity to see where I fit into this community … the community I’ve been a member of for a quarter of my life. Since the entire extended group of people is in such a permanent state of flux, it’s reassuring to know that I’m without a doubt in the majority when it comes to “people who have evolved.” And therefore, I justify this wordy navel-gazing ramble to be a celebration of GoTT’s 2003 theme: EVOLUTION + MANIFESTATION = TRANSFORMATION