We Took Our Intern to His First Transformational Festival

This past weekend, in Oakdale, CA—a rural area 100 miles east of San Francisco—an earthy collection of yogis, Burners and other West Coast party people assembled for the 10th anniversary of the Symbiosis Gathering. With deep roots in Burner culture, the camping event featured straight-off-the-playa art, yoga, lectures, puppet shows, performance art, a tea lounge, lake swimming, sunrise sets, and one hovercraft DeLorean. The lineup included Nicolas Jaar, Griz, Tipper, Four Tet and Max Cooper. It was a surreal, glorious, sweaty good time.

Our intern David Matthews (we fondly call him “Dave Matthews Band”) was one of the roughly 10,000 people in attendance at the four-day event. Matthews, 22, was on site to volunteer with the festival’s ADA camping and has been hitting the festival circuit since 2011, having attended and volunteered at massives including EDC, Coachella, and Outside Lands. Symbiosis, however, was his first “transformational” festival. The term refers to events that focus not just on music, but also on yoga, education, art and sustainability (there is also typically a loose policy on nudity). The transformational festival family includes events like Lucidity, Lightning in a Bottle, and the granddaddy of all transformers, Burning Man.

Here, Dave discusses his weekend.

What did you think a transformational festival was before you got to Symbiosis?
The first time I heard that term was when we were at Shpongle… I thought, “That’s a really good word to use to describe this event.” In my mind, I had been calling it like, a “hippie congregation.”

What were you anticipating before you arrived?

I was expecting a big camping culture and outlandish attire, I guess, but what I was not expecting was how Burning Man it felt. I haven’t been to Burning Man, but as soon as I got to Symbiosis, people would talk to me like, “If you’re wondering what this is, it’s a mini Burning Man.”

Look at all that yoga!

What was your initial reaction to the whole thing?
I don’t even want to use the word “hippie”… I knew it was going to be different, but I didn’t expect it to be anywhere as different as I found it to be. People were wearing clothes I never would have expected. I didn’t think there were going to be so many dreads, and no clothes at all. Before I got there, I thought the naked thing was more of a joke, and then I walked into Swimbiosis and it was like, “Wow, every fifth person here is naked.” I thought it was going to be one naked guy on acid, but it was a lot of sober naked people, too.

What about the way people were acting was surprising to you?

What was most surprising was the generosity. I was stationed at one booth for most of the event, and people kept coming up to me and offering me food. One time I accepted because I was really hungry, and other times I was like, “No, you brought this food for yourself. Thank you for the offer, but I’m okay right now.” Other groups would come by and offer me a beer. That happened multiple times a day, and that took me by such surprise, because if I were in that position and had just spent a lot of money on supplies, would I go around and offer people I didn’t know my food? Part of me wanted to say yes, but another part of me thought I probably wouldn’t.

Swimbiosis!

People also came up to me, and instead of asking for something, they’d be like, “How are you? Tell me why you’re here. How are you helping us?” I’d give them the rundown, and their openness and willingness to communicate on a very personal level was one of the things that surprised me most. The culture was so uniform throughout the whole thing. Even things like using lavender in spray bottles… so many people came up to me and said like, “You look hot and tired and dry. I’m going to help you with this,” and pulled out water with lavender in it and sprayed me down. People were just on the same mental level. I almost felt like I was jumping into something that I had no idea how to act in.

The festival’s art gallery

At what points did you feel especially out of place?
I was walking through the festival, and a girl stopped me and said, “Are you okay? Your energy is not totally where it should be.” I was so taken aback, because I almost agreed with her. I looked at myself and at everyone else, and I was like, “I’m the only one not jumping around and smiling and dancing. Maybe I should rethink my energy.” I couldn’t tell if people were being serious with comments like that or joking, but to me it seemed like they were 100 percent serious and really wanted to help out.

Did anything else especially goofy happen?
One time I was at catering, and the internet wasn’t working, so the people couldn’t check for our names on the catering list. Then this girl mentioned Mars being aligned with some other planet, and that they had to work on it because it was probably affecting the wi-fi. They all gathered around and started shoving their energy at the computer to get the internet to work. This girl was like, throwing all of her body weight into it, and somehow they expected that to fix the wi-fi problem.

Did it?
Eventually it worked, but I don’t know if it was because someone came and turned on the router or because of the energy circle. But something like that would never happen at any other festival I’ve been to.

David Matthews and pals

Did you feel more immersed in the culture by the last day of the festival?
Yes. I felt so willing to communicate with everybody and take wherever I was at and bring it to the level where everyone else was in terms of generosity and kindness and openness and willingness to talk to people, and kind of erasing any of the negative thoughts I had and switching them to something positive. Once I got into that mindset by Sunday, I had the best day. I didn’t really care whether I believed in it or not; I just went along with it because I was having such a great time.

Do you feel transformed?
I feel like if I went back, I would definitely be more comfortable with the people and the event and the mindset. So in that way, I definitely think I have been transformed a bit. Would I consider myself a citizen of Symbiosis? Maybe not, but I was a tourist, and I felt very welcome.

Katie Bain has never met a transformational festival she didn’t like. She’s on Twitter.

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