Outside Lands Music festival

    I ended up going to the Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco. It is a strange story of how I made it there.  I met the is girl Lauren in the coffee shop.  One day I was sitting in the coffee shop and she sat diagonally across from me.  She looked like a hippie. She had dreadlocks and a bandanna in her hair.  I wrote her a letter, and she wrote me one back. Then I wrote her another letter, and she wrote me one back.  We ended up seeing each other several more times at the coffee shop and once in the grocery store. She told me about the music festival and I really wanted to go.  I called my Uncle Kevin and Chrissy answered.  She said I could stay there for the festival and said that Allison and Joe go every year.  I bought the ticket on Lauren's computer when she said she could give me a ride.  It's kind of funny, because Lauren didn't end up going to the festival at all and I wouldn't have been able to get a ride with her.  I ended up getting a ride with Kelsey who I met at the coffee shop later.  I found out she was going and asked her for a backup ride which I ended up using. 
   I gained a strong desire that when I was at the music festival, I would try paying respects to the musicians by bowing down to them, making prostrations.  My reasoning for it goes back to what I learned from going to the Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Bloomington.  There was a monk there named Jamyang  and I got to meet his teacher.  I had so many meditative experiences there that were beyond anything I had ever known.  I developed a lot of faith in them.  Jamyang's teacher taught there one day and Jamyang translated.  He said many things.  He said if you want to attain enlightenment, there are seven things you have to do.  You have to pay homage to the buddhas, make offerings, rejoice in all merit, confess all sins and downfalls, request them to turn the wheel of dharma, request the spiritual guide to remain, and dedicate your merit.  He gave me a sort of assignment, he told me to make 100,000 prostrations.  Prostrations come under homage.  I would make prostrations when I saw Jamyang and whenever I would, that same day I would end up feeling extremely blissful, feeling spiritual energy at my heart or third eye.  But I moved to Ann Arbor so I can't see Jamyang very often.  I make prostrations to the Sun, the Moon, trees, people I respect and look up to... But often times I make prostrations to an altar with books.  I realized that I should make my 100,000 prostrations to people with talents and realizations beyond my own, rather than to walls.  So I thought it was a great opportunity at this music festival to pay respects to great artists, so I was determined to do it no matter how embarrassing it was.
   The first day of the music festival there was a band playing called White Denim that I liked.  I missed Beck.  I met Allison and Joe there and we spent some time together.  I left them because I wanted to see Beck, but I was too late for Beck.  And then I couldn't find them again, Joe said his phone wasn't working.  I spent time looking for women by themselves or for women together without guys.  It was hard to find, but when I made prostrations towards the stage, right afterwards I would see a girl by herself who I could talk to or dance with. 
  The second day at the festival, I called Steve Ross and told him he should learn to teleport so that he could come to the festival.  Then when I looked at the list of who was playing, I saw Sigur Ros, one of my favorite bands in the world, or perhaps my favorite.  I went to the festival that morning and saw some bands that I really enjoyed.  I saw a band called Corey Chisel and the Wandering Sons that was awesome. I made prostrations to them out of respect. Later that day, someone told me I could meet the singer, that he was playing in a tent, and they were in there in a small tent and I was able to get very close to him. I was able to talk to him. I had to stand by him and smile as big as I could so he would come up to me. I asked him if there were any books on songwriting that he recommended. He said he hasn't read any. Then I asked if he had any advice on songwriting. He told me, write a song about whatever you are the most uncomfortable to talk about. Those are the songs that people like the most. I touched his foot, he was on a stage, and then he shook my hand.  It was funny, I was very uncomfortable touching his foot, but when he mentioned people liked songs about things we're uncomfortable with, I thought I would do it.  It was strange, the singer reminded me of Ryder Timberlake from the Monastery.  I saw a band Animal Kingdom that I really liked.  Then I met up with Allison and Joe again and saw Portugal the Man, Explosions in the Sky, and The Kills with them.  During the Kills they wandered further into the crowd of people around the stage than I was able to go.  I lost sight of them, and I decided to go to Nora Jones.
    At Nora Jones, I met this girl Katherine.  She called herself Kat.  We started talking.  She had rainbow colored paint on her face.  I told her about the Hopi Prophecy of the Rainbow Warriors who were supposed to save the world from being destroyed.  I said I wish I was a rainbow warrior, and then she painted my face like hers.  We spent a long time together and it seemed like all of the music that I liked she liked too.  Every band I mentioned that I had liked at some point in my life she liked too.  She asked me what I did and I took out the Meditation Handbook and showed her the two meditations that I do most often.  She sat in full lotus with me.  She said she thought Buddhism was how you do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  We wandered around for a long time.  We saw one girl who was passed out on the walk way.  I called out Jesus's name and she got up and we helped to walk her to the medical place.  We ended up going to Sigur Ros together.  Right before they started we kissed and then they started playing.  She said she was going to find her friends who she left for me, and bring them back to where I was in the crowd.  I texted her and she said she couldn't find me in the crowd.
  The third day there were some good bands too.  I saw Regina Spektor and Franz Ferdinand.  I didn't particularly enjoy Franz Ferdinand.  There was a smaller stage with a much smaller crowd that I went to.  One guy that sang there sang a line about the devil being inside him.  I was able to talk to him afterwards and I asked him about the devil.  I asked if it was literally inside him, and he said yes.  I walked away, and decided to come back to ask him more.  I asked him what the devil was like, then asked if he was good or evil.  He said "he has his good days, but if you get on his bad side..." I was really interested in learning about the devil because he seems like the most hated and tortured being in religion, yet from what I read in the bible, when he tempted Jesus he seems very logical and generous.  I told him if he wanted the devil out of him he could try saying Leave in the name of Jesus Christ because the bible seems to say one can drive out demons with Jesus's name.  It was an interesting conversation, and for a second I felt like an evangelical Christian. 
  I was able to get a ride back with Kelsey.  I remember seeing a shooting star on the ride home.  The highlights of the trip were meeting the singer of Corey Chisel and the Wandering Sons, and meeting Katherine.  My hope is that I can see Katherine again.  I bought my plane ticket back to Ann Arbor.
    I like to share my dreams.  Last night I dreamed that I saw Father Dennis Dillon, a priest in Ann Arbor.  We were in a mall, and I remember being with him and seeing a Mercedes or some other luxery car going up an escalator.  I remember dreaming later of being in yoga class with Sondra and feeling like my mind was being torn apart from trying to follow both Sondra and Jamyang. It was like I was trying to be in two places at once.  That is what I remember feeling.  It seems if I work on things that Sondra told me to do, such as her telling me about what happens if you hold a headstand for three hours, or her telling me to read certain books, I seem to see her in dreams.  I read some of the viveka chudamani, so perhaps that is why I dreamed of her.