This Must Be the Place
Phish as a Lighthouse
I believe that Phish is a “lighthouse” attracting souls of a certain character to the shores of a particular island of enlightenment. Only a unique and specific type of spirit ends up steering their ship towards the light beacon that Phish emits. Through a survey of Twitter Phish fans and my own brainstorming, I found some of the more common characteristics of a Phish fan to be; a strong sense of humor paired with a prankster nature, deep intellect and boundless creativity. Kindness, wit, absurdity, adventurousness, risk-taking, innovation, adaptation, loyalty, and curiosity, as well as a propensity toward consciousness manipulation, sustained energy, generosity, joy, empathy, eccentricity, and politeness. We are also strongly opinionated, passionate, fun-loving, geeky, trusting, honest, peaceful, exploratory, pioneering, accepting, forgiving, and patient.
There’s a feeling I can’t describe and it’s pure magic — the thrill of unfettered possibility as we embarked on the mystery journey known as Magnaball last week. It feels like a fresh breeze cooling down your soul after being scorched by the desert of the stresses living in our modern society. It’s being there, so completely away from the mundane, that makes the Phish festival such a magical experience. Being surrounded by our kind as far as the eye can see and at home as opposed to being superimposed on just another corporatized venue. Everything was made by us for us. The concept of “them” seems to disappear.
It is this evasive feeling I long for with all my being. It’s like a child’s Halloween and Christmas all rolled into one. It is all of us, and our beautiful souls together, that I have come to love so deeply.
As we drove into Watkins Glen Thursday night from the rural surrounding areas a childlike sense of wonder began to creep back into my soul. A similar feeling I get going to a Phish show. But the Phish shows didn’t begin until the following evening. Or did they? As we walked through the fairgrounds at 3 am and looked at the fantastically Phishy things built specifically for our amusement, I couldn’t help but feel like a child receiving gifts on Hanukkah or Christmas. That sense of wonder and surprise we so rarely get in adulthood. Pure unadulterated joy.
The Phish festival is a vision into an alternate world, an option for the future; NEW GAMEHENDGE (@NewGamehendge). This is why it’s so hard for us to return to our “home” worlds after such an event as Magnaball. Because at Magnaball we felt more at home than we ever will in the “comforts” of the modern world. So we try to bring some of that magic back with us and impart it upon those around us in this frustrated, under-joyed, and ultimately #bent society, but does that serve to do anything other than illuminate the futility of doing so?
Maybe what is to be learned from our amazing Phish experiences is that we need to be together in our own separate world to achieve eternal joy and never ending splendor.
Maybe Phish, in their role as a beacon, are trying to show us that shore they broadcast from is where we must find a way to forever stay. Whenever I lose faith in the world it is those shores that I revisit in order to recover. It’s in the music and the lyrics but its true amplification comes from all of you, all of us.
We are the vessel in which Phish resonates!
What came first, the Phish or the vessel? We were grown from the same social soil that Phish was and thus both the band and the audience have been evolved out of the universe’s need for such energy and spirit: the spirit of the pioneer, of the adventurer, the Jedi, the traveler, the pirate, and even the wizard. Those mythic archetypes are embodied in us, in our nomadic life styles and quests for glory. We are the no men in no man’s land. We are the Israelites, the Wanderers.
And finally it is the resonance of Phish inside the vessel of us that we feel when we see each others smiles and tears, and find support in trying as well as elated times, in the live concert setting and even more so at a festival. That resonance is that X Factor that we just can’t fully get on couch tour. As revealed in the song “Fuego”; it is indeed OUR fire that Phish keeps rolling!
It is the fire of the dreamers, the proverbial “light” whose dying Dylan Thomas urged us to “rage, rage against.” Of course the members of Phish are like us as well — “we’re all in this together”. By their own wherewithal they cultivated and stoked the fire that burns within themselves and us. They put in the hours, days, and years to give a voice to the songs and ideas of our hearts. They dedicated their lives to the creation of the sparks that “shocked and persuaded” our souls to ignite. And they did it because the universe commanded them to by imbuing their souls with an obsession for detail, the drive to be masters of their craft, and the giant hearts to give themselves so fully on a leap of faith.
We must remember originally Phish had no certainty of success and a sustainable future. It was their devotion to a dream that enabled them to eventually effect us in such a way as they do. They believed against all odds that this would work — they put on their wingsuits from day one. I believe that’s also a big part of what they’ve been trying to tell us: like them we are dreamers, visionaries, and alternative thinkers and it’s time for us to start taking the kind of risks that made it possible for the lighthouse of Phish to be erected in the first place. We, along with a small segment of like-minded individuals, represent a hope for the future of this kind of world for dreamers that we are so attracted to.
