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Volunteer for a Festival and Heal in the Wisdom
 Philippo Lo Grande - PVNN
May 4, 2010
| | Philippo Lo Grande shares some of the experiences he's had while volunteering at Music Festivals in North America - from Kerrville, Texas to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. | |
The spirit of volunteerism is alive and well as the summer music festival season is about to begin. For 39 years the Kerrville Folk Festival has freely shared its hard earned secrets of success with those who want to work, heal in the wisdom and enjoy great music - all for a good cause.
Radiating out under under the sky ablaze with stars the audience has worked its way around and up onto the stage and are now swaying together to the music of Bobby Bridger and friends. Everybody's holding hands up to the Arts and Crafts area at the top of this natural bowl and out over to the tee shirt booths where volunteer Miss Molly Jones is starting to put away the tied dyed hoodies that say "I've Been Kerrverted at the Quiet Valley Ranch, Celebrating Songwriters since 1972."
She knows most the words to the song and takes my hands in hers and together we sing last song of this 18 day festival. The chorus goes: There is a Reason, there is an rhyme, there is a season, there is a time, there is a purpose, there is a plan, and one day together we will heal in the wisdom and we'll understand. Yes, one day together we will heal in the wisdom and we'll understand.
This last affirmation has given me an important clue as to how a festival can grow steadily for 39 years and still never break even. I'm real curious as to know what birthday number 40 will mean for Kerrville especially now that it has just made Rolling Stones Magazine list of the Top 10 festivals in the U.S.A.
Here in Puerto Vallarta, this will be the 4th year that I have volunteered at the Eco-festival called Vallarta Verde, a day-long festival held every March to demonstrate to the world just what some of our favorite official environmental groups are doing here in Mexico.
Vallarta Verde is a really big 12 hour recruiting membership music party, co-founded by Kerrville Folk Festival veteran and local restaurateur, Joe King Carrasco, who told me that this type of cross cultural venue is just what is needed to educate while entertaining.
"What we need for this festival is more people with similar visions like "Mr. Environment," Bill Oliver, or a musician with a clear vision of the future like David Roth, who visits often and has been commissioned to write songs for the astronauts in space," said Carrasco.
My journey took me north, where I visited the Shambala Music Festival in the Mountains of British Columbia. There I discovered one of the main reasons why some festivals continue while many others fail. Their success is mostly about money, they have no sponsors and a ticket costs $230 USD for a 6 day admission and although there are many great things there, it still leaves behind another mountain of trash.
I next decided to go and revisit the Kerrville Folk Festival and see for myself why it was so successful. So I hopped on a bus in Puerto Vallarta and in less than 24 hours and under $140 USD I arrived in time to help set up Camp Ladder Day Aint's.
The Great pencil artist C.P. Vaughn was chilling in the wading pool and filled me in on the history of this local Hill Country tradition. He told me that at about the same time that the song Puff the Magic Dragon was a big hit Paul Yarrow arrived here with co-founder Rod Kennedy.
A profound respect for the sacredness of this land motivated these men to learn the important rules that needed to be respected and still are, for example, no camping on Chapel Hill and treat everyone as you would like to be treated. As the sign over the entrance says to one and all, "Welcome Home," it could be this way always.
I was still a "Kerrvergin" when I heard Peter Paul and Mary sing the Woody Guthrie song This Land is Your Land. I was listening on the hill with a cute young singer I called Shakybean when we recalled how 17 years earlier she invited me down the road for a swim.
We weren't in the water for 5 five minutes before an old pick up truck pulled up and the double barrel of a sawed off shotgun came out the window. The lone driver told us to "Get outt'a the water and wait over on the bank until the police come." He eventually let us go but not until we "promised to tell all our friends over there that there's to be no swimming in Turtle Creek."
Later on, when we were both dancing down in the lower meadow, I showed her a bumper sticker on a old V.W. bus. It was shaped like a NO TRESPASSING sign, but this one said, "No Trespassing - except Hippies." This land is made for you and me...
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