Festivals & Parades..

We need to set aside more time for celebrating.

We are an industrious and busy people; going to school, working, making plans for our future lives. We tend to get caught up in the race, creating conditions that alienate us from each other socially, economically...experiential- y.  We need to stop, breathe and look around.  See all we have done negatively, learn and fix it. See all that we have done positively, enjoy, learn and do more of it.

One of the things I love most about being a human being is our ability to rally  for a good cause.  Celebrating our strengths, accomplishments, and goals as a group gives fuel to a collective passionate fire to create more positive conditions for happiness. Ignoring that collective bond has its own effect and is no fun.

Last weekend I went to the Clearwater's Great Hudson River Revival, an annual festival in Croton on Hudson started by Pete Seeger over 40 years ago.  Its mission to provide "environmental research, education and advocacy efforts to help preserve and protect the Hudson River and its tributaries, as well as communities in the river valley" is presented in a 2 day weekend filled with music, great food, and people dedicated to making the world a healthier, greener place.  I've been volunteering with them since 2004, doing what little I can to help out, from setting up stages before the event, to patrolling the area as a"peacekeeper", to handing out cold water bottles, which was so needed last weekend.

Activists, performers, nonprofits, businesses and spectators from across the country and around the world come together to share a moment based on an ideal, if we work together we can build a better world that will last for generations to come. With the idea to leave as little negative impact and trace on the earth the festival comes to reach and teach and then goes until next year, leaving a positive impact on the minds of those who participated.

This past weekend in NYC was the Gay Pride Festival, a wonderful event my family and I have attended for years to celebrate and support our gay friends, family and neighbors.  "The March began in 1970 as an annual civil rights demonstration beginning the year after the Stonewall Riots.  Over the years its purpose has broadened to include recognition of the fight against AIDS and to remember those we have lost to the illness, violence and neglect.  It has also evolved to include being a celebration of our lives and our community" (http://nycpride.org/march.php).

Dancing in the streets with messages of equality, love & positive action, thousands of people young and old, of all races and nationalities, gathered to celebrate what should be common human sense,  the ideal of the freedom for everyone to be who they are, however they are.

The audacity for one human to try to make another feel small...

If a rainbow tried to suppress or kick out some of its colors, it could never be the awesome creation it was meant to be.