I'm Volunteering at the Red Earth Eco-Arts Festival 2009!

Picture taken from Wikimedia Commons

This weekend Fri 29 May to Sun 31 May 2009 is the Red Earth Eco Arts Festival...I know some are celebrating Indian Arrival Day on the island as well marked on 30 May every year...but hey half the population is of Indian origin we are all over the place in all walks of life we have arrived! :) Over 150 plus years now...so...instead I'm all excited about Red Earth! :) I know my ancestors would be proud as I'm hanging out with Dharti Mata herself along with some cool first people dancers flown in from Australia by the Australian embassy- Descendance! And since watching Hugh in the film Australia I've been wondering about this dreaming business so...so looking fwd! :) Really even more so than my ancestors or the Native Americans I find that the first people of Australia ...man they really have it going on with the Earth...she is not just Dharti Mata to them she is them and they her! Those people are the earth space they live in...there knowledge of their environment is so lived and breathed by them that they have developed an intuitiveness about them...I was so amazed to realise this while watching the film Australia...that is amazing! :)

I repost what I wrote about that film on my Books and Films Corner blog here:


"AUSTRALIA
Loved it! And no it wasn't just cause Hugh Jackman of my We Three Kings! fun and fame was in it! I loved it and unexpectedly so...because I just decided to go see it to meet up with some people and we figured it was the most passable thing on in cinema. I thought I was going to see before me a sweeping love saga unfold. And yes it was indeed a love story...but it was about Australia! I couldn't get the idea of 'dreaming' out of my head after I saw the film. It made me think about first peoples all around the world and how they really could have such a feel for the land...so much so that they become intuitive...it made me think of myself...I searched within...it made me realise that although I had never visited India I knew it because that was what Hinduism was...it was a tapestry of India...an ode to its rivers and valleys...its plants and flowers....and I feel the South Indians the Saivites were the ones who really were the first peoples of their they really knew the lady...it is why I celebrate that Hippy Master Shiv today! :)And it made me wonder of the land I now live in Trinidad. What do I know of it? Well it's first peoples...we have practically wiped them out and their voice here...well the Europeans did and we were the peoples they brought from another time when people still thought they could own each other...but what about now? It is almost impossible to gather much of the original peoples of Trinidad information...it is pretty much lost...but I could at least try to adapt the approach I know from Hinduism here in this land...and it was what I had been doing anyway...but Australia inspired me to keep on Dreaming..."

It is amazing how the universe unfolds but seems my wishes of Feb are all coming true because here I am about to be part of an Eco-Arts festival with first peoples from all over the world performing...including...that's right people from Australia! :)

So I'm head over heels...doing cartwheels if only I really could...excited about this event! I decided to volunteer at it cause then you get to be even so much more into it and closer to the workings of it I find...I actually enjoy volunteering so it is actually a pleasure and joy for me not a task...but yes a volunteer's day does tend to be long...and sometimes in the tropical heat we are having these days very hot! :)

So last weekend I went on the briefing for volunteers and it was the coolest thing to check out the sites that were going to be holding the events before hand!

-The Mystic House:This house is so coined cause when Merchant Ivory Productions were filming 'Mystic Masseur' the making of the V.S. Naipaul book Mystic Masseur into a movie. Well the production crew transported a house form the south of Trinidad to the Chaguaramas Nature park to do the filming. It was cool to me to be able to recognise when I looked at it...wait...it is the shop in the film! :)

-The Bamboo Cathedral: A protected area in the park since if people tamper with it...well we will loose the beloved cathedral that formed naturally with the bamboo. The area is made famous by Trinidadian artist Jean Michel Cazabon in his works and you would have no doubt seen it in his artwork if you are familiar with it and any Trinidadian would be subliminally even...as it is all over...and lots of video footage of it is aired over the years while I was growing up on national TV and pictures everywhere...

-The Dry River Bed: Well it is as the name says a dry river bed and the performers are going to be blessing the space and then Rocking the River bed!

-The Old American Wartime Tracking Station: Nuff said...but there is some cool star gazing going on up there tonight as part of the festival.

I could go on but the festival itself has its own website here Red Earth Festival and you also check them out on Facebook here

Me, I'm just excited as is reflected in my Facebook status hoping like Shakespeare's famous title "All's Well That Ends Well"

And HAPPY WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 5 JUNE 2009! ...Twitter for those trees man! :)


HAPPY INDIAN ARRIVAL DAY FOR TRINIDADIANS OF INDIAN ANCESTRY AND ALL THOSE AFFECTED OR INFLUENCED BY US POSITIVELY TOO!

Twitter for the trees! Twitter for the Trees! Twitter for the trees! :) I'm following Twitter for the trees! :)