Awakened dream: no drug required
The first Indigenous music festival & the secret to happiness
It was the happiest morning in recent memory. I woke up at five A.M. to marinate in the feeling a bit longer.
Did someone spike my drink? Why did everyone want to hug me last night?
The night before, I had attended Áak'w Rock, the first-ever Indigenous Music Festival, in my hometown of Juneau, Alaska. Originally, I didn't want to go because tickets were a car payment. But all the fractals of my life came together to form one big, beautiful prism beaming me toward the stadium-sized sphere of kindness that was the first Indigenous Music Festival in history.
So many friends and heroes from various corners of the arts and Indigenous community were there: musicians, actors, artists, drag queens, writers, poets, dancers, elders, teachers, activists. I got so many hugs. Friends with whom I'd performed/danced in the drag show the week prior. It was like the party had never ended, just morphed into something else, also equally beautiful.
My kids all had friends to hang with. My husband was out moose hunting. My friend gave me some of her mom's amazing matzo ball soup. As a perpetual social outlier and alien, it’s no small thing to say I truly felt firmly rooted in community. I had my people.
Yes, it takes a certain person to afford the $75 tickets. But more than the financial gatekeeping—maybe it was a Gen-Z thing, or post-pandy thing, or that we were uplifting Indigenous voices and centering Traditional values—everyone was so kind. It felt humble, grounding, empowering, and honest. It felt ancestral. Rooted. I don’t think I stopped Mona Lisa-smiling all night.
How lucky I am to witness and to live here, I thought. To live with one foot in this artist community, surrounded by walls with no windows, and whatever world we decide to create within these black boxes; and one foot in the wilderness of the Tongass rainforest, this pristine and abundant land, cared for by Native Alaskans since time immemorial, who we now get to pour our gratitude into.
How lucky I am that my kids have found their people and that I have found my people—and I do not once, not for one second, take it for granted.
Always humble. Always generous of spirit. Always lifting others up. Always bringing others into the fold, wrapping arms around everyone, pulling them in closer.
How to be in an awakened dream state without drugs:
Last week, I wrote about honesty. My yoga teacher, founder of Auke Bay Yoga, and close friend Lindsey Bloom said that the unconscious is our truest form of self.
The unconscious is the dream state. Is this why people take drugs and go to concerts: to replicate the awakened dream state? To find truth?
If the subconscious is our truest self, then the awakened dream state is the most honest self. Maybe this is why people make art. Maybe this is why the singer writes songs, the actor inhabits other lives, the dancer creates shapes, the writer weaves stories, the learner immerses in those stories. What is art other than dreaming awake?
Maybe this is why, since starting my memoir four years ago, I have lost all urge to drink and smoke pot. Because so often, lucky me, I get to live in this awakened, honest state and immerse myself in my why. I can listen to my truth without outside help.
Maybe this awakened-dream-listening is the same sensation when walking into the rainforest alone and feeling the energy of all living things. Or during transcendental meditation. Or yoga, running, drawing, attending concerts, traveling, or holding babies.
That's it, that's all!
Keep dreaming, friends! Keep listening and creating!
Gunalchéesh, gracias, thank you,
Summer
Those photos are stunning, looks like an absolutely magical night!