New Year’s Memoir – 2024 Edition

July

Another love of mine in Prague needs mention: the area in Letná park overlooking the city with a big metronome and bar is called Stalin (because there used to be a huge Stalin statue there). During the summer, they have open-air parties Fri, Sat, and sometimes Sun and Wed, too. Coming home through the park to a surprise kickin’ party is such a delight 💖. 

I’m also a huge fan of free parties where one can donate and buy merchandise or drinks instead of entry fees. This allows one to check a party out with very low time commitment¹Top video’s event.²Bottom video’s event..

Especially cool was this Castlevania-esque disco 🥰.

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And then I moved into a new apartment by Újezd right before packing for Ozora. The view from my window can be pretty nice. 

Ozora

Ozora is one of the largest psytrance festivals in Europe that I had been dreaming of checking out (before I get bored of psytrance, which seemed a possibility). I went thanks to a new acquaintance on the PsyBoat party offering to give me her ticket (as she chose to go to Modem instead); turns out due to Ozora’s policies to deter a market of buying tickets out to sell them for profit, I only gained an 80€ discount at her loss. Also some new friends said they’d go and we could camp together; they unfortunately couldn’t make it and advised me as to where to camp 🙂.

I double-checked the “festival packing checklists” as nine days is fairy long and I didn’t wish to dampen the occasion by missing something. On the train there, I saw people going with 2 pairs of clothes, bathing suit, and hammock. What else would one need, anyway? I was fairly satisfied with my choices. The sweatpants were useful for some cold nights. The quick-drying towel is a godsend. Paper towels, as well as wet wipes, turned in handy occasionally when preferring not to drag mud into the tent. Cat ears are a must. The apples were unnecessary as there’s a 24/7 fruit market, however. The jeans I wore there were pretty much useless. Quick to dry shorts were great. I think the hammock-folk are onto something: 2-3 shirts and shorts that can be easily washed and dried are all one needs 😎. Or just go naked 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️. I didn’t use the walkie-talkies at all. I met some really cool Brits who were using them and kept thinking to try to meet up yet figured I’d just run into them if need be.., which mostly worked out fine.

I also made a vest inspired by this idea to simply be open as to my dating intentions so that we can skip the awkward need for initiative.

When I arrived, I was surprised to find a one-hour line to get in, followed by a fairly lengthy walk past sooooooooooooooo many cars. Finding a spot in the dark was non-trivial, especially because many people had arrived a day earlier to tape off space for their friends who’d show up later. The firstplace I settled was actually too loud for me at night. The bassline travels and it was psytechno. Why the fuck would I listen to techno all night at a psytrance festival? I really enjoyed this stage, Pumpui, later, but to sleep to? 😛. The next morning I explored and found the spot my friends recommended, by the circus and overlooking the family camping area. Also right next to a nifty cafe.

Day 0

For starters, the area is beautifully done and full of intricate details (such as this kid mage) on the path to Dragon’s Nest. Nearby, there’s a tea service, a cooking grove, and a mineral museum with pleasant seating to read papers in the queue. 

I was blown away with euphoric surprise that even on the day before the party starts, there’s a Hi-Tech stage! The music quality was rather good, too :D. Ah, what fun. Coming already felt worthwhile 🙂.

The sunset from the mirador was fairly nice :- ).

Day 1

What a cute way to start the day with the cafe next door. Later, I went back to continue my study of Buddhist Logic.

The first day was quite relaxing. There are a fair number of restaurants and a cafeteria. By the mirador art gallery, we also had some live painting.

My friends advised me to get a spot 30-60 minutes in advance for the opening of the main stage where people would run onto it to start dancing as it could be quite a spectacle. When exiting my tent, I saw a small parade going by, made eye contact with a new friend who loves to sillily twirl her pigtails about, and joined the parade. ”Oh well, surely following the parade can’t go wrong.”

Turns out, I was partially mistaken!

The parade was really fun with old Hungarian* folk dancing, people on stilts, live music, etc. And arriving at the main stage, the area was quite packed. We went up to the hill overlooking the stage and could hardly see anything. Eventually, as the clock struck eight ‘o clock, people began running (or rapidly walking) down. It was perhaps my first experience akin to “being at a massive sporting event”; quite awe-inspiring! 

The energy level for the opening set was through the roof :D. I met some huggy people open to dancing somewhat interactively and clowning around. Dancing with the friendly tree branches was also generally smiled upon 🌳🤗. The music sounded a bit weird, and I wasn’t sure to what extent that was just because of the sound system quality 😅. I had the impression that Ozorans preferred a particular, idiosyncratic type of psy-beat.

I even saw the Straw Hat‘s flag being raised ~ 🏴‍☠️. Hail One Piece :D. 

I went exploring. What a trip! It’s an amazing place to cruise at night and full of surprises. This Infinity Shroom‘s reflective interior with lights changing color in patterns is a nifty resting and hangout spot. From the outside, it looks ‘almost normal’.

Sitting around the teahouse, I met some friendly girls and a dude. We meandered on down to The Dome to see what’s there. The music played at this stage ranges from psychill to rather groovy psydub. I really like the term Groove Stage. 

We ended the night at Dragon’s Nest with Mezerg‘s performance, which blended the psy-basslines with uplifting oceanic piano 😍.

Day 2

I alternated between ‘late’ and ’early’ days for the festival. This makes a long festival like Ozora much more relaxed than a weekend festival like Fenix where there’s simply a strong pressure to stay up each night to “make the most of it”. Most headliners at Ozora were between 12 and 20, so one could sleep eight hours a night, waking early, and still fully enjoy the festival! This is superb compared with the Czech festivals I attended or club nights that put headliners at 24 or 02, requiring a night owl sleep schedule or a deficit to accrue. 

The main stage had a fair number of people at 10am, somewhere in the hundreds, with good vibes. Yay :D. At Fenix, there were closer to 10 or fewer people for the morning shift, which might be proportionally similar relative to the size of the festivals. Hail big clusterfucks of love & light hippies!

On the way to check out another campsite with friends, we saw some art in the walls of the path. All these intricate little artistic details help me to ‘fall in love’ with Ozora again and again, which I imagine happens multiple years in a row for some people. Another such detail was receiving a surprise ride on the party tractor to the showers from my tent. Hop on, hop off.

During the day, I partook in a “Cosmic Chakra meditation”, which was a good yet run-of-the-mill chakra meditation. And then took a nude dip with a girl from the meditation in the lake. This is supposed to be a microcosmic paradise, right? 😜.

The baseline quality of DJ sets remained high, raising my standards. DJs I’d never heard of before delivered cute, playful sets. Such as Zyce vs Flegma here.

Day 3

I spent much of this day foraging around the festival grounds. All the nude sunbathing around the lake is quite nice and free-spirited. I really like Ajja and Infected Mushroom. Hear the songs Arabian Lights and Becoming Insane, so largely I preserved energy for them at 16 and 20:30.

I made a Faerie and Cheetah friend — we even swapped ears 😸.

I find it interesting how one harmonizes with some people and gravitates toward dancing together among the hordes of loving, goofy dancers. I love having hundreds to thousands of people on the dance floor so I can cruise around and check out so many different ways of getting into the music and atmosphere. Some people really welcome me in and we have silly fun dancing for longer.

Experimenting with the “Inviting open love, sex, and life partners” vest was interesting. Lots of love, some curiosity, and people read it more when I buttoned it up. Getting used to connecting with people when they know (may) my interests up front is pretty cool. One guy cutely came up to me and said he just wished to let me know that, “we all love you.” After another concert, some fresh young people also greeted me with expressions of love before talking more. I really love those, “Hi, I love you, what’s your name?”, vibes :D. Some people expressed the view that one purpose of Ozora is to be a space where people can bask in love, practice giving and receiving love, and take these lessons back to the world. I have doubts that this vest makes courtship any less awkward, however 🥲. Big surprise?

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The Infected Mushroom set downright perfectly 🤩🥳. My phone ran out of power, however 🫣🤠.

Inspired by a Muse, I experimented with the art of appreciating women’s beauty without any ‘neediness’ for engagement, which is really fucking amazing 😌😍. Of course, the girls at Ozora are probably especially chill. With one new friend’s girlfriend, I said, “your outfit is so hot I’m sorry if I awkwardly stare a bit 😳.” She replied, “Never apologize. Be unashamedly yourself”, and then posed extra sexily 😳🤯🥰. It would seem that ‘neediness’ is the problem and so long as girls feel safe and comfortable, which is easy here, it’s all good³I still like to ask in case non-verbal cues are not clear enough 🙏😉. 😊. I’d love to develop this art further and integrate it into my regular existence 😇.

Within a span of 30 minutes, I warmly asked 5 girls, “hi, you’re my type and I’m looking for romantic and sexual partners. Might you be interested?” One of my ideals is to be straight to the point, polite, and to preserve our time in the case of disinterest. The girls responded very nicely, often wishing me well. Before long, some nice Danish girls were unsure and we hung out for a while. Gosh, Danish is one of the sexiest languages out there! And I love their English accent, too 🥹. Turns out S is a huge Infected Mushroom fan, so we three found a good spot in the middle to enjoy the set from. Mostly we were enthralled together with the “meet girls” sub-system satisfied, simply enjoying the spectacular performance. The set was done much more like a concert than most DJ sets with fairly clear breaks between songs. We hung out a while longer, played with hula hoops, met some friends, and I went to bed happy 😌💤.

Seeing some ‘big name’ artists live and back-to-back for the first time is soooo dreamy 🥰.

My Muse also unlocked a new skill for me: dancing through crowds on a dance floor. At first, I had the strategy of waiting for obvious gaps or other people to push through, and I’d follow them. Dance-floor hopping by following people spontaneously can be quite adventurous. Ozora isn’t like seeing Black Sabbath at Copenhell where people pack toward the stage as if ready to fight to protect their hard-earned spot. People are glad to let one go through with love, usually even to make space nearby. Seeing this, the floor opens up and seems so spacious. Dancing as moving through helps a lot 😉🕺. The skill has remained with me ever since — I really love how these developments don’t remain ‘temporary’ or ‘localized specially at Ozora’.

My primary question to explore with my muse was how to enjoy the holy grail of motivated action while enjoying fundamental wellbeing⁴Also known as PNSE.. I had a strong hunch I’ll enjoy the festival more with women and at times would like to prioritize meeting them. We’ve known since the Buddha that such longing can lead to imbalances and suffering⁵See the second of the lofty Four Noble Truths, , so the question is how to both embrace muh priorities and relax into enjoying life as is at the same time. 

The answer came quickly with clarity as if the apparent contradiction is laughable. The communal heartbeat, the musical bassline, is everywhere, so there’s no reason why one cannot dance merrily while on the move. If no one interesting and possibly open is around, then groove on. If someone is, waltz on over and say hi. Hesitation and doubt are the issues, for desire and peace are not at odds 😜.

Day 4

One of my prime inspirations to come to Ozora this year is that the legendary Mulatu Astatke is playing. Their music is quite trippy, so this seemed like an exceptionally good place to see them 😍. It was :D. 

Etinca was playing his usual melodic tunes in the morning 🥰. 

I saw quite a number of the non-Czech people from Fenix here. 

Romping around shirtless and shoeless for some really good dancing among friendlies I met earlier in the festival for much of the day ~ 🎶

The concert was really worth it and good :- D. There were not so many hardcore fans, so securing a spot in the very front was easy. I wound up making smiling eye contact with Mulatu multiple times as well as with other band members :-3. I sank so deeply into the bliss of each note and the full-body rhythms 🤤🥰💭.

Mulatu had this super adorable little smile while playing the vibraphone. He’s clearly doing what he loves. He also made sure that each band member had time to shine 😇.

Day 5

Today was a fairly restful day. I discovered that the Cooking Grove also has a stage with live music people can groove to while they cook and eat. That is a nice paradisaical touch!

The bathrooms are also full of sweet art:

I discovered that there’s a bulletin board where people can ask for rides or anything else. A friendly chap pointed out that a swinging couple put up an ad for a girl to have a good time with them 😘. Somehow we met them to talk about it (as they were waiting for her). They’d like to see more of a swingers community at festivals. I shared some wisdom I’ve heard from ZEGG as to how to set up the space for a sex-positive environment. Hope it helps, even if only from the grapevine 😋. 

There were plenty of fun ‘deep’ talks while waiting around the food area. Counter to popular views on ‘overthinking’, I believe there’s some point at which most relevant thought on an issue has been done. Either the space is saturated or there’s a need for more experience before further mental processing. And said experience is why I’m here, right?

The mind is a construct.. a beautiful construct when one steps back to see the work of art in all its glory.

Barbóca recommended the Hungarian psychedelic band Óperentzia. I recommend their song Ciara if curious. 

Eat Static’s set was pretty nice. I was sufficiently tired that I spent much of it resting in a hammock by the main stage. Tired from dancing as if in a Shaun T workout video for a few hours 🤣.

As one can see in the video, the main stage is quite dark at night. I really love seeing people as I dance and often roam around alone instead of in a pack, so I often found the night stage uninspiring. The music had a tendency to become darker too. Some people fucking love it like that! 

And on the way to brush my teeth, I happened upon a hula hoop performance at the circus area!

Day 6

This day was super fun: top-notch DJs all day and I was super-duper fucking excited to dance to Captain Hook live. The bass in his music can somehow feel like pure sex with existence itself.

Writing up my experiences, I notice that the events begin to blend together once I become accustomed to the Ozora town. Does it matter so much on which day I first met Jacob and friends? I spent the first half of day 6 strolling around, dancing, talking, eating, and becoming psyched up for the blast off 🚀. 

I met a cool guy who’s helping to organize S.U.N. Festival (Solar United Natives), which aims to be a sustainably oriented community-centric festival, and he described it as “Ozora lite”, closer to how it was before it became “mainstream”. I didn’t personally notice so many mainstream factors at Ozora to complain about 😂🤷‍♂️. He’s somehow both a super chill guy and very intense. 

His comments on the musical quality and overall performance at festivals got me thinking: Infected Mushroom’s live was very well musically orchestrated. Some DJs seem to just play good sets to dance to that are interesting, yet the overall set doesn’t seem to come together like a symphony. And what about a festival like Ozora? The build-up to the Saturday afternoon DJ sets does seem to fit a crescendo structure. Perhaps this is what Scriabin was going for with his Mysterium, an event he intended to take place over seven days in the foothills of the Himalayas, involving touch and smell in addition to taste, and with every member an active participant (not a spectator). The sheer act of pulling the Mysterium off would leave us as a race of “nobler beings” than homo sapiens! Unfortunately, Scriabin died having only sketched 72 pages of the prelude, which Alexander Nemtin spent 28 years turning into a three-hour-long work⁶A lot of Wikipedia paraphrases here. Thank you.. Yes, this is precisely what SUN and Ozora seem to be aiming to achieve. The Quest for the Mysterium lives on 🔥.

We also discussed chillout spaces. He’d set up massage mats near his tent to offer free massages. The Ambyss stage’s music is very ambient and chill yet the area itself is a sand-floor on a grassy hill. The area worked better as a hi-tech stage in my opinion. Ok, except that many people slept nearby in tents. The sunbathing by the lake was quite chill (so long as it’s neither raining nor too hot for the weak). There is a Haven tent for people who need to lie down or receive support. Which reminds me that electrolyte water was available for free both at the Haven and right next to the main stage! The Dome had some hammocks, was sometimes overly crowded, and had a sand dance floor. So there was no reliably good chillout space to unwind, perhaps massage each other, etc. Once I started paying attention to this, I noticed that other festivals also messed this up. Or they might place a chillout stage next to the tents and play loud music 🤷‍♂️. Another festival had a carpet by the “chillout” stage yet played fast-paced heavy music as people danced over the carpet. Tea rooms, when present, can sometimes be more chill than chillout stages 🤔😎. I’ll join the crusade for good chillout shrines 🙏.

Shortly before my main event, I made eye contact with a member of a really cute poly Italian tribe. They were cuddly, friendly, open, and some of the girls topless 😍😊. What a blessed environment where such lovely, welcoming groups of people are ‘the norm’. I learned that these banners people carry were flags so that their friends could find them. Perhaps that’s easier than walkie-talkies 🤣🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️.

I went up the hill to contemplate, gazing at the sky, met another friendly on the way down, took the following video when the set started, and put my phone in a plastic bag for it’d begun to rain. I recommend listening to the official recording if curious.

Captain Hook’s set was a fucking amazing trip. His music quickly puts me into a weird trance and haze where my normal memory indexing procedures seem to phase out. I remember up to his set super clearly and the moment it ended..! During the set, there’s a blur of thinking, “holy hug, this is trippy 🤣”. I remember the freshness of the rain as dancing with a blur of people really going for it, imagining I’m having sex with reality a la the music, consensually admiring some naked dancers. I remember pulsating, translucent blue plasma bulls dancing in the sky among us. Along with obviously contemplative thoughts as to how, “I’m looking for sexual partners”, is simply the most natural, pure way to put it. Sexual reproduction is how our species came about — we are the offspring of a long line of creatures that loved to get freaky with it! 🙃😛.

While declarative memories are hazy, when listening to the set, a strong ‘vibe’ memory seems to come back as if there is a clear imprint 😉.

The remainder of the night was chill, staying up to maybe 2 am. I hardly have any videos from Pumpui, yet this stage is the unsung hero of the night for me. Pumpui is smaller and under a tent with enough lighting to see the goofy smiles on my comrade’s faces. For me, techno is a much goofier genre than psytrance. The characteristic beat is very silly and playful. Especially at night, the atmosphere of funny faces and occasionally interactive dancing at the psy-techno stage was supremely magical.

I didn’t get any good nighttime Pumpui videos, so if you’re curious, poke through this Akari Sound System set video.

Day 7

Ondrej Psyla said the last day is his favorite because people really go for it, and he was right!  

The energy level on the main stage was through the roof from 8:30am and people didn’t take many breaks as there’s no tomorrow. My physique was becoming more optimal with only 8 days of dancing and camping. A Japanese family came to the front of the stage where people near the end, which was extra cute⁷Most young kids I see at these events have earplugs in some form. They didn’t 🙈.. Burned into my mind’s eye is the scene of down feathers strewn around as a man in a frilly blue dress frolics around, even flopping on the feathery floor like a fish! So comically cute. 

After the mainstage ended, I made my way over to the Dome and discovered some really groovy psydub, Grouch in Dub. Turns out Hedflux had played there earlier. Gosh, I’d sooooo wished to hear some good psydub 🥹😍🥳. So far in my experience, psydub leads to us guys dancing in outright goofy and super energetic ways together, waving and twisting our arms about to the dub-beats. The friendly Brits I met, daughter, dad, boyfriend — the whole family — were there. Even some dogs joined us on the dancefloor a bit. And after the first set ended, people asked for an encore, “one more set!”, and Grouch delivered with another two hours 🤣🚀

Ozora raises my standards in so many ways: scratching my head, I wonder, why do people so often settle for only one more song? 🤔

After Grouch in Dub, I went to Pumpui where they were playing psytrance until 2 am. So I danced for about 15 hours in one day. I think that’s my lifetime high, still 😎.

Ozora was quite an experience. Life-changing, perhaps. The ‘big’ psytrance festival more than lived up to its name, going above and beyond the small, cozy ones. I’d say this was my first real party. 

Why do we settle for being ‘fine’? A week among many people who are obviously doing ‘very well’ begs the question 🤔🤓.

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