Posts

Posted on

The Next Adventure Awaits, Once Upon a Festival

I have been far too busy finishing up with Lucidity and then jumping right into my new role with Once Upon a Festival to post an update as of late, oh festival season problems!

This past weekend I got to return to FireDrums for my third time. This year was an amazing experience at a beautiful intimate little venue. I took lots of excellent workshops and learned so much from awesome instructors. The talent in the Flowcase was jaw-dropping (OMG WES PEDEN, HOLY SHIT!) and I got to spend time with my flowmily. It was so good to be back after missing last year. But more on that later…

Once Upon a Festival Lineup
Pretty excited about the Once Upon a Festival music lineup!

In less than two weeks I’ll be at Once Upon a Festival, which was called Foreverland last year and was the event that really got me started working behind the scenes in festival production and marketing. This epic event will be a creative collaboration between several of my favorite festivals, sound camps, and production companies (like Envision, Raindance, Enchanted Forest and Lucidity) and once again we’ll be gathering at the beautiful East Park Reservoir in Colusa County, CA. Except this year the lake is FULL and we’ll have even more magic in store for you! Year two will most definitely be a level up!

I am stoked to be a marketing assistant this year, as well as the street team coordinator and the on-site media team coordinator for Once Upon a Fest. As usual, I am wearing lots of hats at once and enjoying the variety. It’s been exciting seeing this event take shape over the past couple of months. We are making some awesome improvements this year and there are a lot of talented, dedicated, and brilliant people involved in producing this event. It is certainly an honor to be a part of this team, and especially to have been a part of its fruition since the beginning. To say that I’m excited to see what adventures and shenanigans await us on our journey this year is an understatement! I hope you’ll check it out and help spread the word!

Once Upon a Festival will feature a variety of workshops covering all kinds of topics like movement, yoga, permaculture, and flow arts. A treehouse stage, pirate ship stage, and floating stage on the lake will provide 24 hour music in a variety of genres and quality sound. Branches Mobile Gallery of Lucidity fame will be setting up a display of inspiring visual art, and several art installations, performance artists and live painters will be in attendance. Lots of shaded chill spaces, a nectar healing temple for self-care, interesting vendors, and colorful characters are sure to make an appearance. Theme camps and creative costumes are highly encouraged – and I may even get to help award prizes for the most clever costumes I spot on site! Fun!

Live Your Own Fairy Tale at Once Upon a Festival

Hope you can join me at Once Upon a Fest! Message me for a discount code good for $10 off your tickets – 3-day, 2-day, and 1-day passes are currently on sale, as are meal passes, early arrival passes, and car camping passes. This festival is on the rise and definitely one to watch. Jump on board and Live Your Own Fairy Tale!

Posted on

Happy Birthday to Me, Indeed!

D’awwww… I feel like I’ve been adopted into this awesome loving family of brilliant creative jedis of compassion and light and change. Hearing their gratitude totally made me cry at our Lucidity​ marketing debrief meeting last night. My team is just so wonderful! And I’m a total sap.

As the marketing team discussed what worked and what didn’t about our work and Lucidity this year, it became apparent that I have really stumbled into something special here. It has been such an honor to work with you all and I have learned so much in so many ways from this experience.

Working at Lucidity: This is my job. Amazing!
Working at Lucidity: This is my job. Amazing!

I left my first Lucidity Festival feeling very proud of my involvement and my hard work the past few months, but also just simply awestruck and inspired and blissed out by the people, the stories, and the energy that create the event and the community surrounding it. Just WOW. I left saying “yeah, this is something I can feel good about promoting/selling/blabbing all over social media and to all my friends about/dedicating my time to/staying up late working on/etc.” and so very aligned with everything Lucidity is creating.

This is big for me, as this whole marketing / promotion thing is pretty new to me and I refuse to work with organizations I can’t align with and believe in. I invest myself very heavily into my work and everything I am involved in, my inner artist and workaholic just can’t help but pour every ounce of creative energy, heart, and soul into my projects and my work – especially when the project is particularly inspiring or meaningful to me. This one must have struck an artery…

Scenes of Lucidity 2015: Kindred Quest
Scenes of Lucidity 2015: Kindred Quest

I feel like I just went to jedi superhuman badass training camp or something. You are all AMAZING humans. Thank you for trusting me, pushing me, inspiring me, collaborating and sharing and welcoming me into your family. Thank you for your patience, your understanding, for reading all my unnecessarily wordy e-mails and for adapting along with me to new processes. Thank you for spoiling me rotten the moment I arrived on site, a warm place to work, cold pressed coffee on tap, sweet Lucidiswag, and OMG the FOOD!!! Thank you for making it possible for my sweetie to join me for the weekend at Lucidity – I felt like my life was utterly complete getting to spend time with him, some of my good friends, my amazing team, and so many new friends all at once in such a beautiful place. Wait, and I got paid for this?! I must be dreaming… oh wait, we all are… co-creating a stunningly beautiful future that I have only begun to glimpse and am SO excited to help reveal…

I must give a few shout outs in gratitude… Reuben Smith – THANK YOU for contacting me about openings in the marketing department at Lucidity the end of last year and recommending me for a position. I owe you a beer, a bottle of kombucha, and/or a really huge hug! Hope to see you at Once Upon a Festival!

To James ‘Jaymo’ Barnard, who I worked very closely with the past few months – you are a rock star and I’m not sure how you do it all! You were an absolute joy to work with, always easy to talk to, kind, supportive, and brilliant. To Jonah Haas, Noah Crowe, Wolfbear, Sabrina Calderon, Matt (Rodriguez and Rideout), Victory, Meow, and WAY too many other people to finish this list… Thank you for welcoming me into the fold, showing me the ropes, and being your amazingly badass, hard working, inspiring and superhuman selves! I am so impressed and awed by everyone I encountered at Lucidity. I have found a home in the transformational festival community and especially a few small, like-minded and inspiring events that I am lucky enough to work with on a regular basis now. Lucky me!!!

To my partner James, thank you for being so supportive, flexible, and for putting up with my utter failure to cook a proper meal for weeks on end and all my late nights of work and going to bed before me. And I am SO grateful that you got to join me for the weekend at Lucidity last minute and make my week even  more complete! And to all my friends who I have not seen much of these past few months, I miss you! My campmates at Lucidity also helped make it an amazing weekend I’ll never forget… so much gratitude!

Beautiful Lucidity Memories - So Much Love!
Beautiful Lucidity Memories – So Much Love!

I’m here as long as you’ll have me, Lucidity family, and that goes for the larger transformational festival community as well. I thought going to these events for a decade plus would change my life, but WOW does being part of the team producing them do so even more…

On the horizon for work (and play) is Once Upon a Festival in June, which is the same crew as Foreverland last year, with a few new additions and a new name. I will be assisting with the marketing team and doing some street team and media team management this year; I just got up to speed and activated for my new role! And then Northern Nights in July, a local festival in the redwoods on the Mendo/Humboldt county line that I am street teaming for. And my home sweet Mendo favorite, Enchanted Forest, will be returning to Mendocino county this year and I am thrilled to have been offered a position as a Production Assistant for this year. It’s gonna be a busy summer! Hope to see you at one of these stellar events!

As I close in on my 32nd birthday, I feel like this entire year, maybe this entire life, has been one great big beautiful birthday gift. I always was a late bloomer, and I feel like I’m finally starting to create a balance amidst the chaos and variety that is all of my jobs, my projects, my relationships and connections and my dreams. I have been blessed in countless ways over the years, but damn! Life is REALLY starting to get juicy as of late and I feel like I’m hitting my stride!

We are going out dancing Saturday night and meeting friends for brunch with a view on Sunday at Little River Inn to celebrate my birthday this year. I’m looking forward to keeping it simple and having fun with my Mendo friends and celebrating life this weekend. There is certainly much to celebrate this spring!

Boy is this getting good or what?! I can’t wait to see what’s around the next bend…

Posted on

April Fools in Love

Kissy kissy with our Sprinkletons

I have never been able to pull of a believable April Fools prank (I’m a terrible liar) but I think our little joke actually got some people today! Hehehehe! APRIL FOOLS!

Last night James and I joked about pulling something silly on Facebook for April 1st. We decided it would be hilarious to see everyone’s reactions if we “broke up” and changed our statuses on Facebook to “single.” Then this morning as we both logged in and were about to do it, James saw all the relationship status options and decided it would be even funnier to pretend to be engaged. Plus it’s a little more positive, don’t wanna jinx ourselves! So we counted down and both changed the status at the same time (which was very reminiscent of the day we decided to make our new relationship “Facebook official” almost two years ago…). The likes and comments started flowing in immediately, but James had to go to work and I had a full day ahead of me, so we went on with our days. (The photos Facebook chose to display are a little odd, right? I proposed with a hat pin – see!)

Engagement April Fools Joke

Thankfully a few of our friends know us well enough to know that this was a prank and started calling our bluff. I got a text from my best friend in Idaho saying “You can’t play with my emotions like that! ;)” and the sweet congratulatory comments kept rolling in, while it seemed that more people caught on to the joke on his post than mine… It has been really hard not to totally give it away!

And now I am going to feel a bit bad when I have to break this news to all of our family and friends… because it’s incredibly sweet seeing all these comments and all this support. Apparently we’re not the only ones who think we make an epic match! And I’m also very glad we decided to get fake engaged instead of fake break up, because then everyone would be panicked and sad instead of excited and happy for us – though maybe that one wouldn’t have been as believable? 🙂

This has been fun! Best April Fools joke I’ve attempted yet! I really wasn’t expecting to fool so many people! But this little prank has also made me realize many things about this very special and amazing relationship that I am so lucky to be in.

For the first time in my life, I am with someone that I completely trust with my heart and my life. I am with someone that I am overjoyed to share life with and proud to call my partner in crime, and someone who feels the same way about me. But most importantly, I am finally with someone that truly sees and values my worth and is not afraid to let me shine (or loudly speak my mind, or express myself however I see fit) as I walk by their side, and someone who treats me as a complete equal. Realizing this fact simply FLOORS me with gratitude.

I have not always been so lucky, as many who have known me for a while know, and I have never felt so well matched.  It’s nice that other people can see that too.

The thing is, I don’t have any fears of James walking out of my life, but I actually like the fact that he is completely free to do so if he chooses. We are both very independent creatures by nature, but our bond and the unspoken commitment we have is the strongest force I have ever felt. I know he’s a hottie and that others are quite likely going to notice that, but for some reason I don’t feel the heat of jealousy rise up in my chest when I think about him with other women or see him talk to someone attractive. I know I have nothing to worry about. And I hope he knows the same. I don’t even need to bother filling my head with such nonsense. Knowing this feels amazing, because it was not always the case for me in the past.

The notion of legitimizing love with a legally binding contract completely kills the romance for me. Which is odd, because I am a total sap who cries her eyes out at romantic comedies (or even overly sappy commercials) and has to remember to wear waterproof mascara and bring tissues to weddings. I have no problem with long-term commitment or the idea of marriage. I love weddings and children, but I don’t really have a desire for either in my own life, and I’m not sure if I ever genuinely have. I’ve found that my relationships are happiest without the pressure that comes along with expectations of having to take things to the next step. And I never ever again want my partner to have to be asked when he’s going to “make an honest woman out of me” – blech! Thankfully, I found someone who feels very similarly and allowing our relationship to unfold naturally has created the most beautiful love story I could have ever imagined.

I much prefer to think of a romantic relationship, of true love, as a choice we make every single day. Every day I wake up next to the sexiest man alive and I say “YES” to him and to us. I CHOOSE HIM every single day, and day in and day out, HE CHOOSES ME. We don’t make this choice because of some commitment or promise we have spoken, we don’t choose it because society expects us to, or because of a legal contract, a financial obligation, or even a sense of duty, we are free to choose anything or anyone in this world, and yet we choose each other in every moment and every chance we get. And that, to me, is fucking BEAUTIFUL. Why mess with a good thing?

I’m pretty unconventional and I loathe being told what to do (especially by societal norms – ha! patriarchy, you can suck it!) – so I know this attitude is not for everyone and I have no judgement towards anyone who feels differently… To me, having the freedom to choose anything you want, but choosing to love and be with a particular person over and over again, is WAY more meaningful than spending a small fortune on ring and a wedding and then signing a legal document saying you’ll only love that person for the rest of your days or else deal with stressful legal bullshit on top of an already stressful breakup. (And don’t even get me started on the moral qualms I have about the diamond industry…). Not to say that I am totally against marriage or we’ll never do it, but if we had the kind of money for an engagement ring and a party, we would be buying property and traveling around the world. I don’t even like wearing rings!

A few of our friends picked up on the joke in our posts today, and we thank them for knowing us so well. And for those who we tricked and who are slightly disappointed, we’re sorry, we know it would be one hell of a party… er… more like a festival…

So, sorry if you totally fell for our little April Fools’ joke on Facebook today… hehehe! We’ve been laughing our asses off about it all day while we’ve kept you in suspense! But seriously, even this perpetually online, social media obsessed nerd would have more class than to announce an engagement with a relationship status update on Facebook—our families and close friends would all be bombarded with at least ten sappy kissy-faces-with-ring-bling photos via text message before anything ever reached social media. And yes, mom, you would definitely be getting a phone call right off the bat! (Not sure if my mom saw the shenanigans today on Facebook today, to be honest… she might know me too well to be fooled, though).

We may not have any plans to make this thing “official” any time soon, but we are touched by all your comments and words of support. It’s good to know I picked a good one this time! I think I’ll keep him! For as long as he’ll have me, at least…

We make an epic team and we’re glad everyone in our lives agrees, but we don’t need a legal contract or a ring to know that. Power couple status is plenty good for us for now. Here’s to many more adventures together!

Zip Line Canopy Tour on Ometepe, Nicaragua 2014

Posted on

Learning to Juggle (Metaphorically)

You never quite know what you’re capable of until you try to do it ALL. AT. ONCE.

I should really take up juggling… I feel like I have a lot of practice already, at least in the metaphorical sense!

In less than two weeks, I will be on-site at Lucidity, which is a bit hard for me to believe. Apparently time not only flies when you’re having fun, it soars by even faster when you’re busy as hell. There are only a few hundred tickets left, which means my job isn’t quite done, but if you’re thinking about joining us, you’d better act fast! Don’t forget to use my promo code ‘meganpru’ for $5 off your ticket!  You could also WIN a ticket by submitting a video inviting a loved one to join you at Lucidity! It’s gonna be pretty awesome…

Photo by David Pricco at Lucidity 2013.
Photo by David Pricco at Lucidity 2013.

As I go from one job to the next to the next each day, I am constantly in awe of how much my teammates and I manage to do and keep track of. I am most certainly among real-life jedis, that’s the only explanation for this level of badassery. I am learning a lot, from the intricacies of formatting and timing Facebook posts for best engagement to tricks for keeping things organized in Google Drive, but mostly how to manage my time and maintain balance with so much on my plate(s) and such long hours spent on screens.

I’ve come to realize that perhaps five jobs is a few too many, but I am grateful that a few of them are seasonal, and there’s not as many hours when it’s not a festival production cycle. I am counting my lucky stars that Lucidity, Forever Everland, and Enchanted Forest are all nicely spaced at two months apart this summer! Two part time jobs is plenty, though the extra few hours a week from the other three sure is nice to have. I am finally getting somewhere on saving some money, paying things off, and being able to make some long-awaited purchases like a new external hard drive that I’ve needed for YEARS now. I hardly leave the house since there’s always work to do, but when I do, it’s to do awesome things like celebrate Holi, the festival of color celebrated each spring in India, on the beach for a friend’s birthday, or soaking in mineral hot springs all day with my love… So I’m ok with the work-life balance I’m tenuously clinging to. 😉

And speaking of Holi… man was that fun! These are just a few of the fun photos I took:

Holi2 Holi3 Holi4 Holi5

 

Posted on

Lucid Days and Dreams: An Exercise in Balance

2015 has been a whirlwind already. A big storm last weekend that knocked out power for 36 hours here on the Mendocino coast forced me to slow down and realize just how much I’ve been doing every day this year. It also made me realize how sadly dependent all five of my jobs, and thus my life, is on electricity and internet! I have been playing catch up all week after being off-grid Sunday night through Tuesday morning. But somehow even though nearly every hour of my day is now scheduled, I fully embrace this chaos of my own making and enjoy being busily involved in so many exciting projects.

36 hour power outage means pretty candles

I have always kept myself pretty busy, but this year I am taking it to a whole new level. Late last year I received a message from someone I’d worked with at Forever Everland who mentioned that Lucidity Festival had some positions opening up that I might be a good fit for. I had been planning to really hunker down this winter and focus on work, getting as many billable hours in as possible so I can pay stuff off and save up to hopefully move into a bigger place this year. So the opportunity arose at a great time, and I submitted a resume and started talking to the Marketing department as they began to gear up for 2015. Lucidity is a Southern California transformational festival that has been on my radar since it began in 2012, but I haven’t been able to get down there for the early April event yet. This year that will be changing, and when April finally rolls around I will be more than ready to experience the fruits our labors!

I started as the Marketing Operations Lead for Lucidity Festival’s marketing department in early January – adding another part-time contract to my pile. And now that I’ve been here a minute and am starting to feel a bit more caught up with everything going on in the bustling Lucid universe, I’m beginning to feel quite at home. I mean, how rad is it that their contracts include The Four Agreements (one of my favorite books) and their core values sound like something I could have written? Pretty rad. 🙂

Lucidity Core Values

  1. Participation and Immersion in the Artistic Process
  2. Personal Growth and Global Healing
  3. Awake and Aware Consciousness
  4. Environmental and Social Responsibility
  5. Family Fun and Creative Play
  6. Communal Reciprocity
  7. Transparency

The team I work with is inspiring and awesome, I am learning a lot and taking on a lot that is new to me, all good things! And though increasing my workload has been a bit overwhelming at times, it is teaching me to manage my time better, work more efficiently, plan ahead and it reminds me that I need to make time for a social life and relaxation too – it feels a bit like juggling but I’m moving towards balance. Work hard, play hard!

This job is giving me an opportunity to push my growth edges and gain valuable experience in new areas. I have to process and keep up with a lot of projects, e-mails, phone calls, meetings, documents, and people. My role is more of a management role than any I’ve held previously, but I also get to use my design and communication skills, knack for organization, and my love of multitasking and having lots of variety in my work life is definitely coming in handy! AND I am also still working for PETA part time as well as spending a few hours a week helping with social media management for Forever Everland and Enchanted Forest, and a few hours a week as a Personal Assistant for my friend Amae Love.  It’s a lot of hours, but it feels less like work to me when I am doing a variety of things for a living rather than having one job. That 9-5 life is far too bland and boring for this weirdo, even if I end up working my little booty off trying to avoid working for people and organizations I don’t align with. Maintaining an “alternative” lifestyle sure can be exhausting, but I’m certainly enjoying it. I am grateful that I have 5 jobs and I can say that I truly love, enjoy, and feel good about my work with every single one.  What a blessed, busy life!

We don’t have any festivals on the radar this year other than ones we’re working or learning at (FireDrums, Forever Everland and Enchanted Forest most likely), so Lucidity will be a nice “working vacation” for me (not sure that James can join me unfortunately) and a wonderful chance to experience a new event and hang out with some good friends who moved to SoCal from Mendo a few years back, Pal and Ottie! It will also mark the end of a very busy few months, as the start of 2015 is shaping up to be.

I’m really excited that I’ll likely be in Santa Barbara for a week surrounding the festival, which means I can participate in some Community Action Days with The Polish Ambassador since Lucidity is partnering with him to make that happen! And… the lineup is pretty freaking epic as well. Getting giddy just thinking about it… and also about the fact that this is all part of my job now. Doesn’t really feel like work when I think about it that way… 🙂

If you’d like to join us at Lucidity this year, get your tickets ASAP! It’s getting close to selling out and I want you there! Use my discount code “meganpru” at checkout to receive $5 off Lucidity tickets! 

Lucidity 2015 Lineup

Posted on

Creative Recycling in the Kitchen: Veggie Broth from Scraps

Perhaps I’ve internalized my hippie methods enough by now that it is second nature for me to throw my veggie scraps into a bag in the freezer, or into my worm bin or compost failing that, but I think it should feel weird and wrong to throw perfectly useful things away. There are some very simple ways to make our lifestyles less wasteful and more sustainable, and many of them are as simple as asking “what would my grandma or great-grandma do?” Saving veggie scraps to make vegetable broth is one of those things that I am pretty sure would make my granny proud. Plus, homemade broth is SUPER healthy and nourishing.

Free food makes me happy. Reducing food waste and using every last bit of every resource you have does too. So when I realized how easy it was to make veggie broth from little leftover bits of vegetables, I kinda wanted to kick myself for not starting the habit sooner.

Here’s how it works: get a big gallon freezer bag or two. As you cook, save the ends and skins of onions and garlic, pepper innards, tough ends of broccoli stalks, root veggie peels and ends, ginger and carrot peels, celery ends, parsley and cilantro stems – any clean but unused plant matter that would add good flavor to broth. Add these odds & ends to the bag as you’re cleaning up from cooking and throw them back in the freezer. Once the bags are getting too full to close easily, empty them into your largest stock pot and add filtered water until it reaches the level of the veggies, leaving a few inches of space for it to boil. I usually throw in some healthy additions at this point: dried seaweed, a bay leaf or two, a few chunks of fresh turmeric and ginger, peppercorns, a handful of flax seeds, maybe some dried mushrooms or hot peppers, and whatever spices I feel like adding. Stir it all into the water and let it come to a rolling boil before turning the heat down a bit.

veggie broth

Boil your veggies for a good 20-30 minutes at a low simmer, stirring occasionally and adding water if necessary. I usually cover my pot with a lid but make sure it doesn’t boil over. I rarely have a timer on, I just let the veggies simmer while I am home and busy for an afternoon, and check on them every so often, turning the heat down a bit more as they start getting mushy and faded in color. Once everything looks pretty mushed out, I turn off the heat, cover it tightly and let it all cool completely, sometimes letting it sit overnight.

Once the pot is cool, it’s time to strain. This is where it gets tricky. If you have a large ladle, you can ladle broth over a strainer into jars for storage. Or you can pour the broth from the stock pot into a large bowl or pitcher, and then into jars. I freeze a few jars (make sure to leave an inch or two of space) and put the rest in the fridge to use within a couple of days. Great for soups, risotto, or just drinking hot by the mugful as a cleansing and nourishing tonic. Every batch is a little different and it’s easy to adjust the seasoning to whatever purpose you had in mind.

So don’t throw those veggie peels and scraps away when you can save them and suck their vital life force out! After you’ve strained out all the liquid, you can compost the leftover solids, rinse out your bags, and let the cycle begin again. And now you’ll be rewarded from cooking with fresh veggies at home with delicious vegetable nectar! Mmmm. Perfect winter project if I do say so myself. I just made the batch pictured above yesterday! 🙂

Posted on

Strides Forward for Animal Rights in 2014

I began working with PETA about nine years ago doing web design, and at times it can be challenging and heart-wrenching having to see footage of undercover investigations in industries that use and abuse animals or to put up with trolling and hate on the internet when I mention where I work. But it is also one of the most rewarding parts of my life. I may not play a large role in this very dedicated, hard working, and compassionate organization, but I am proud to be a small part of an amazing team. The people I work with inspire me every day. The video below shows some of PETA’s accomplishments on behalf of animals in the past year. 2014 marked many strides forward in animal rights, but we still have a long way to go.