The Ritual...
The end of the story:
It was once a temple built merely for consumerism.
A place filled with protocol and expected behavior and dress.
The doors opened to us and the bodies of humans and dogs filled the space, shouting beyond the sparkling storefronts, beyond stone mannequins holding imitations of living attached to price tags.
We were there for to take this ground back in the name of something greater.
Standing inside a downtown mall after closing time, surrounded by 75 young people, some dirty, some clean.... some without shoes, some without shirts, who were all dancing in circles while the security guards politely requested us to leave. The band played with tears and shouts and harmonicas and a drum made out of a milk crate, an accordian and sometimes a saxaphone.
It is the truth of such a ritual, the creation of an energetic explosion bigger than all of us there...... the sound of the voices and the words we all knew caused people to shout and dance in a place built as a temple to self hate and cultural rape momentarily occupied by deities of chaos and hope.
The beginning of the story:
Last night I went to say goodbye to people that I never really knew that well. A member of the band was leaving. It was at my old house, the collective here in Salt Lake. It was nice to feel the welcome of all the kids there even though I don't have as much in common with them as I used to. It is always humbling to stand shadowed by the power of those who push themselves beyond the limits of what is perceived to be possible..... and I'm grateful for everything they teach.
Instead of the bands playing at the house we all went four blocks down the street to a mall, just as it was scheduled to close, workers locking their doors, security guards shocked and confused as they watched us file into the biggest, emptiest of spaces.....
And fill it with music, dancing, laughter, and tears.
It is what all of Salt Lake holds potential for.
It was once a temple built merely for consumerism.
A place filled with protocol and expected behavior and dress.
The doors opened to us and the bodies of humans and dogs filled the space, shouting beyond the sparkling storefronts, beyond stone mannequins holding imitations of living attached to price tags.
We were there for to take this ground back in the name of something greater.
Standing inside a downtown mall after closing time, surrounded by 75 young people, some dirty, some clean.... some without shoes, some without shirts, who were all dancing in circles while the security guards politely requested us to leave. The band played with tears and shouts and harmonicas and a drum made out of a milk crate, an accordian and sometimes a saxaphone.
It is the truth of such a ritual, the creation of an energetic explosion bigger than all of us there...... the sound of the voices and the words we all knew caused people to shout and dance in a place built as a temple to self hate and cultural rape momentarily occupied by deities of chaos and hope.
The beginning of the story:
Last night I went to say goodbye to people that I never really knew that well. A member of the band was leaving. It was at my old house, the collective here in Salt Lake. It was nice to feel the welcome of all the kids there even though I don't have as much in common with them as I used to. It is always humbling to stand shadowed by the power of those who push themselves beyond the limits of what is perceived to be possible..... and I'm grateful for everything they teach.
Instead of the bands playing at the house we all went four blocks down the street to a mall, just as it was scheduled to close, workers locking their doors, security guards shocked and confused as they watched us file into the biggest, emptiest of spaces.....
And fill it with music, dancing, laughter, and tears.
It is what all of Salt Lake holds potential for.