15. Full Moon

15: FULL MOON

Can you let go a little more? Can you go a little further?

I dig into my pack for a snack. My hand comes up instead with the blue card with the soldier on it. My brow furrows and I keep digging. This time I come up with the foam tooth from Baladine’s party in New York. I place the tooth and the soldier next to the charcoal portrait I received when I got to the Rainbow. Strange.

I look out across the calm lake. I’ve felt like there’s something for me to learn here, something I have to do. But I don’t know what it is.

I only know the cost: if I’m seen, I can’t be the safe version of me anymore.

But if it’s going to happen at all, it’s going to happen tonight.

At the full moon. Fire. Water. Light. Dark.

(Can you let go a little more? Can you go a little further?)

Welcome to Go and Find Out. I’m Jonny Wright.

This is a story of losing yourself in the world.

I left my home, my job, and the USA in order to learn the old-fashioned way: with first-hand experience.

In these episodes, I ask big questions about life, not from an armchair but from roadsides and mountaintops, from temple halls and dance halls.

Join me as I hitchhike around the world, embrace the unexpected, and let go, one step at a time.

If you’ve ever thought about living a life outside the box, keep listening.

Because it’s never too late to begin your next adventure.

You don’t need to hitchhike around the world. The adventure is right in front of you.

Let’s go and find out.

This morning, the gathering’s in a state of expectation and preparation. My feet drift the waterside trails; the air has changed. In hushed conversations and hints and winks I start to hear of the coming celebration. Since long before I arrived, the full moon was rattling around my head. It culminates all the festivities of the last two weeks. They say things happen at the full moon celebration.

I walk the dirt paths and notice figures behind trees trying on bright clothes. Everyone wants to be decked out in face paint and whatever fanciful clothes they can muster. Down in a glade, I glimpse the movement of bodies, choreographing a dance. Others sit writing bits of ceremony on the rocky beach. I can feel the imaginations running at full steam. Hundreds of ideas put into practice. Thousands of ideas spoken and abandoned.

I haven’t been much involved in any of this work, but I sit on the sloped grass and watch the groups pass by in discussion and laughter. There they go, forward and back, countless little errands in this makeshift anthill of ours. I love the energy in the air. Anticipation rattles like a train track on the stones, ready for its moment to hold the rushing engine. Some meditate, others ready their psychedelic drugs.

I want to experience the night sober, to see if I can get properly wild without any kind of substance.

Here’s the paradox. I want to keep my head, but deep down, I want to lose my head.

Out of the woods stumbles a towering, formidable lanky forty-something Belgian man with eyes that bulge out of his thin face. A kind of shaggy BFG wearing nothing but a leather vest. “Hey Ben” “My name’s not Ben today. It’s Peter.” “But yesterday you said your name’s Ben.” “That was yesterday. Today it’s Peter.” Peter’s brought with him a number of trumpets and bugles that he’s spread around the gathering, under trees and on piles of pebbles. They’re for anyone to play. Mostly, though, it’s Peter, or Ben, who plays them. He picks one up and gives a loud blow. The burst of sound is unskilled, but there’s a streak of primal virtuosity.

“We need more chaos around here!” he tells me. Then he blows again.

Just then, the call of “food circle NOW” echoes out from the kitchen, and we repeat the call until it reaches the far edges of the gathering. At first it seems as if nothing has changed, but as the minutes tick by, in ones and twos figures populate the paths, drawn to the meadow as if pulled by a magnet. A giant circle begins to take shape in the field. At the center of the circle is something we’ve never seen before: an ominous wooden structure. Chatter and singing rise.

Tonight, we’ll have to wait for our dinner. First comes the ceremony. I sit on the cold ground, too hungry to care much about the veneration of the four elements that’s being performed in front of us. It’s already darkening, and we had been hungry for hours.

Speeches, poems, synchronized dances, processions.

Ceremony gives way to feasting. Dinner that night is spearheaded by a Turkish crew, and Rose, whose sense of fashion never falters despite the conditions, leads the culinary charge in a striking lavender suit. Giant pots are carried around the circle, each person holding out their bowl to be filled. Tonight the menu is special: a spicy tomato and pepper soup, chopped salad with cucumbers, greens, and carrots, and the centerpiece, a creamy bulgur concoction. Each serving plops into my trusty yellow plastic bowl, and I eat it in time for the next course to make its way to my part of the circle.

Even the simplest food here is good beyond its flavor. On a cold night, hot food keeps your hands warm. The hot sauce guy, a true old time tie-dye hippie from Berkeley California, hobbles his way around the circle, an unofficial extension of the meal, offering hot sauce from the holster in his belt. People also bring their own condiments to share. Basil and red pepper flakes pass from hand to hand. Even when the food isn’t tasty, it’s satisfying, and when there isn't quite enough of it to fill you up, it seems extra tasty.

As we eat, we keep glancing toward the center of our circle where the wood monolith waits to be lit. We’re huddled waiting for warmth, and the wait’s almost over. Wood has been carried into the meadow all day and carefully constructed into a tower that stands well above everyone's head. Thick logs eight feet in length lay in a square to form the base. The tower’s hollow, like some sacrificial tomb.

I think about how far I’ve come for this. The last few weeks all the way down from Poland, one ride at a time. I’ve made it.

And yet, now I’m not so sure I want to be here. It’s all so…intense, so immediate. The faces, staring into mine, so open that they feel invasive. I might not have what it takes. I can just peel off and go for a walk. I can go get warm in my sleeping bag. I don’t have to be here.

Then from behind the crowd like a holy flame carried to a church: a pile of embers floats atop a shovel towards the structure and into the wood sanctuary. Carrying it: a massive bronzed Frenchman. This is Carlos, the firemaster who, when he wasn't wearing an enveloping white cloak, goes nude, his tight black curls fastened together to avoid catching, and his oiled black beard and gold earrings glistening as he carries a shovelful of embers toward the pyre. He’s as much a part of the fire as the wood is, with his spectacle representing that ancient life so many people here idealize.

Tonight, as Carlos arrives with embers, the anticipation is palpable. Stomachs are now full, but everyone’s been getting cold, and there’d been shouts of 'light the fire! ' since before dinner. The crowd presses toward the unlit structure. The bed of coals lands, and the wood catches quickly, and keeps catching, and the structure blooms into an inferno in a matter of minutes. The circle of people widens as the heat becomes too intense to stand. The change from cold to hot is almost immediate.

Clothes start falling away as the drums take up their beat.

My legs want to move. My mind says leave.

I pick a side.

Tonight I dance.

What will happen, I think. What breaks if I stop bracing?

I retreat to a patch of tall grass. Off comes the shirt, shoes, and socks. Down come the pants and boxers and I feel the dark air all up and down. It makes my body feel more…whole, more singular, less divided into limbs and torso, covered and uncovered.

Naked and shivering, I take a step back toward the crowd. Then another. I look down and see my skin getting brighter and brighter. There’s nothing for it now. Either I keep moving forward, or I go back.

When I reach the edge of the crowd, shivering from exposure more than cold, the other bodies look foreign in the shaky light. Their bareness is alien and uncanny.

I move anyway, feeling alone in the thrashing mass of limbs.

Thousands of sparks float up above us, giving the moon a run for its money. Silver light and orange light in competition, illuminating the whole field. And darkness beyond, so much of it. Almost endless.

(Can you let go a little more? Can you go a little further?)

The circle of bare dancers opens wider as the fire burns hotter and hotter. Every few minutes, even at that distance, you have to back into the crowd to keep from burning or fainting. The fire’s a full forty feet tall, higher than a two-storey house, bigger than anything a single person could control. It outstrips us. We may have made it but now it’s in charge.

Rhythm and movement. Ben (or is it Peter?) catches my eye. ‘So you decided to join us?’ he says, giving me a wry look.

I’m in the middle of it, but my mind’s peppering me with questions and doubts. I judge the people who are into it as being too into it. I judge the people who keep their clothes on and stand at the edge. Cowards! I critique the dancers one by one. Where’s your sense of rhythm? What’s going on with your arms?

But most of all, I judge myself. All the judgments I dish out to other people land back on me. My eyes are on the flames but my mind talks circles around me:

You don’t know these people!

They aren’t your friends.

They know each other, but not you.

You’re the outsider.

You don’t belong.

They probably don’t want you here.

“To the lake!” A shout goes up from one of the young Brits. Seven of us tear down the path toward the open water. It waits for us, glowing as if from below. We hit the water like coins—gone, then flashing. We shout up at the moon. The fire looks far away, and the people even further. A moment of floating, an extreme long shot. The night isn’t dark anymore. It’s all lit up from above and below.

The momentary quiet of open water almost overcomes me. Almost. Then out of the water and up the path again. We scramble back up the sand, steam lifting off our shoulders, straight toward the inner ring.

As we race back toward the fire, the scene seems to change. The flat meadow reminds me of a game board, along which the rings of dancers move, circling the central fire. But it also looks almost like a map, an atlas of the world, the irregular shapes of shadows forming the peninsulas and continents.

We break into the middle of the circle and run laps around the blaze, daring for a few seconds to speed closer to the fire, spinning our bodies in order not to get burned. The drums ring at full blast, along with many voices shouting and singing. Bodies pound with the organic beat.

I am one of the players, I think.

I am dancing across the world.

Close to the fire, all the sounds warp in the hot wind. And the blaze makes its own rough rumble. Dust kicks up from the feet stamping on the hot grass. Dust and smoke blow skyward. Bodies glisten with sweat as a heavy hot swoon takes hold.

Faces warp in the heat and turn into people I know.

I move to the left of the circle: Taz’s face at the piano, in the hushed and shadowy Manhattan church where I raised that three string violin. Only months ago, but it feels like years.

I raise my arms like an orchestra conductor and feel the hot wind and sparks run through my fingers.

I swing out across on open swath of dark grass, oceanic and calm: Another face: Syd’s on the plane over the Atlantic, her tight-lipped smile and the winding plant tattoos running up her arms and her words: “We’re still growing up.”

For a moment I drop the judgments and mirror the movements of the guy in front of me. Yes, there’s a part of me that’s still just a kid.

The smoky swirl continues.

A bent figure, sitting in her antique home, reliving her golden years of lovers and luxury, staring at the photos of plush clubs and blissful smiles. It will all come to an end. I turn my gaze to the moon and try and remember the first time I ever looked at that shining piece, and wonder when will be the last time I’ll look at it.

I dance to the right, to the east, across the shifting shadows of Europe’s mountains and plains. And then my president. Hande, with her pink hair and mud-streaked clothes. Her gaze hits me like a sunburst—open, welcoming, impossible to dodge. And I don’t dodge. A stranger meets my eyes and doesn’t look away. I hold. I don’t flinch.

Ben/Peter lifts his dented bugle and blasts a raw note without melody or meaning.

“What’s your name today?” he calls through the chaos.

“No one,” I say. And the ground drops away.

My body moves without asking me first. Arms, ribs, spine. I don’t recognize the angles they make. Heat, skin, sky.

(Can you let go a little more? Can you go a little further?)

I am no one for a moment.

The world slams back—cheers, sparks, the roar of it. Too hot, too cold, too much—and all of it good.

Time loosens. The seconds unsnap.

This web of connectedness. Is this the joy of a life, the way we pass through and come out changed, the way we lose and are gifted memory, the way we fail and are allowed to persist to try again.

Will this be how life will go? Will I get to live and love and fail over and over, the web becoming more and more intricate. From here the gameboard looks not infinite but infinitely variable, with an edge that drops off, over which none of us can see. Does the game continue after we pass that edge?

This whole time I’ve been keeping myself from playing life out, from literally dancing down the street and giving myself over to the undulations of the plants and the scamperings of the animals.

What if this is the unknown path? That figure I saw at the abbey in Belgium, back then it scared me, but what if all this time the truly unknown path is one you play your way through, dance through the night.

I spend the body to zero. Then I drift away still warm, lie on the dark grass above the shore, and the drums keep going without me.

As I move into moonsoaked dreamland, my body continues to dance, to dance, to dance…

Sun plays a bright game across my face. I don’t open my eyes yet. What’s that sound? I still hear drums, still hear the shouts, just as intense as before. I can’t make sense of it. Perhaps a dream about last night, still ringing in my head. But it’s not from inside, it’s from outside. I listen harder. Yes, sure enough, the celebration is still going. It takes me a while to compute the continuity. That group I left last night, they’ve continued all through. They must've seen the first light and the rim of the sun come up over the trees as they danced. They’ve seen the whole circle of the night. How far have they come in that time? Did they bring anything back with them? I lie there listening, feeling the sun rise higher above the hills. How far did I go? And where, exactly, did I go, in the space of those eternal minutes when this body was moving of its own accord? Was I somewhere else, or was I nowhere at all?

The distant sounds quiet. I get up and walk along the ridge through the tall grass towards the main fire. By now there’s only a small band left near the pile of smoking ashes, maybe twenty or thirty, most sitting, some asleep, splayed out over the beaten grass, instruments strewn, a pulse still thrumming softly from a few tired drums. A emptied battleground, the space all used up, almost all those present the dead and dying.

One girl, a fierce Czech with searing eyes, dances alone in the sun, a turquoise cloth wrapped round her waist, lost in the movements that’ve consumed her for the last ten hours. There, bronze and shining among the drummers and guitarists, the sleeping and the barely awake, she sways on her own, the last soldier standing, without care or consciousness, the sun now in full bloom, smoke trailing up to the sky.

Can you let go a little more? Can you go a little further?

I think… yes.

That’s it for this episode of Go and Find Out. Thanks for spending this time with me—seriously. It means a lot that you’re here, listening to this story.

I’d love to hear from you—thoughts, stories, weird travel tips, whatever’s on your mind. Drop me a line at goandfindoutpod@gmail.com, and I’ll do my best to write you back.

This show is created by me, Jonny Wright, with music by me unless otherwise noted.

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But more than anything, I hope this episode sparked something—however small.

A question, a dream, a reminder that your life is still unfolding.

The only real adventure we have is right now.