It was a MOST unusual occasion. OK - so there I was, onstage at the Fillmore, blowing my heart out to a sea of writhing bodies. Except, this was no ordinary R'nR Fillmore crowd on a Saturday night. For a start it was 4pm on a Sunday and the sea of writhingness was a colorfully coordinated wall to wall covering of yoginis. Not a square foot of Fillmore floor space from the entrance to the long bar was free of downward facing dogginess, asana dreaming or wholesome healthy bodies digging the wall of sound I was producing along with a couple of other guys, Rara and Craig Kohland of Shaman's Dream, whom I had only met an hour beforehand. So, there I was grooving along to Janet Stone's yogic exhortations when I became aware of a mystery blonde, onstage to my left and far off in the outer reaches of my peripheral vision. She seemed to be fixated on me at that moment
Shaking my 'shooky shooky' shaker and holding down the fundamental F of the heart chakra on The Leg I thought no more of her in the moment and continued to wage peace through the sizable PA. When WAS the last time I actually played this stage, I wondered - perhaps it was opening for Baba Maal or Youssou Ndour??? Certainly not the time I opened for Zap Mama (that was the First time for sure)... In any case, it's been a while... suddenly, lightly, a hand touches my lower back and a breathing kind of a voice begins to intone right into my inner left ear - "I love the Didge and have complete and utter respect for the Aboriginal People of Australia and the vibration that you are putting into the Didge at this time..........." Pause while the hand tickles up my spine to my neck and my shaker bashes the didge whisperer somewhere about the head as I keep the beat happening...... "Thanks for that blessed clunk on the head........... now, I just want you to keep on playing the Didge and, When I Come On, I just want you to keep doing what you're doing and hold the space for me as I begin my thing. The only thing I need you to do..." Said the voice, " Is to move your little table back a bit and make just a teensy weensy little bit more room for me to move, understand?" I nod an eyebrow for understanding's sake. Just who is this and what have I got myself into, I find myself wondering.
Cut to the chase. Janet and Schuyler (Pronounced SKYler) have finished their bit and the mystery is solved. In a blast of seething sound Shiva Rea appears, for it was she, the goddess of the yoga movement in the moment who has been whispering down my ear. The ceremony begins, the groove continues and we are away in the dying light of a Sunday evening celebrating the Wunderlust Festival in a mass of yoga mats in the Fillmore. The staff had a ball. And so did I... until the accompaniment of DJ Dragonfly became a wall of Jimi Hendrix sound and no longer was the didge in key, or keeping with the vibration, mon... I let Jimi take the floor and I was away. And that was my meeting with Shiva Rea!
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