Belgrade 90’s… wars, inflations, corruption, crime…. messed up systems of values…. professors selling cigarettes in the streets to survive; street-smart kids in BMW’s ….. all very gray … middle class flattening out, getting addicted to a tranquilizers to maintain sanity ….. cities full of half-dead man walking …. local media bombarding with political propaganda, foreign media showering with neo colonial geo-strategic crap …. Being ‘normal’, means being mentally screwed from all sides …

Everyone looked for way out of that situation. Many left the place all together, ones that ware not on valerian, got heavily in to drinking; people with dignity started avoiding each other, and getting apart to hide their poverty and humiliation; yet one small group of young misfits was getting closer. Weekend by weekend, in the basement of the University building, true (chemichal :o) love was bursting all over the place. Condensate sweat dripping from the ceilings, blurry image of the hugs and sensual dancers, must-move-to-the- rhythm base, Fred Giteau, Joti, Suzuki, together with local guys from Experiment, mixing waves and lifting electronic surfers. “That was it” I felt, “that’s my light at the end of the tunnel”. And it was. Love on first sight.

None of us cared that we had just enough flash to cover our bones, we loved to those magic rhythms of Project II Trance, Order Odonata, Twisted, Moment of Truth, and parties that would go till late mornings…. That twisted kinship was a spiritual juice for all of use, umbilical cord that would break the physical borders of isolations we ware in at the times…. we would tune in, heat up and booooom … of we go… all ‘that’ reality surrounding us was gone. It’s as if we left our (necessary for survival) shields at the doors, and opened up …. gave our love to each other, play like innocent kids …

It is true that we needed a psychemical ‘assistance’, but it had its purpose, and it helped us all get quickly at the altered state of consciousness… helped us feel the rhythm and each other much faster and stronger…. And opened for many of us “a door or perceptions” that we would later on explore on our own… but at the times, it would boost our fragile emotional bodies that cried for release …. It would help us cry in the morning, something we forgot how to.

Those trance gatherings gave us hope that things would get better, it gave us a boost to remain true to our selves and others. That family of ours was one of few subcultures that had big aura of smile around it self …. Something positive that exausted pass-byers would notice and pick up ….

And then someone would come from Goa or big festival, and told us how many more of us are there …. How many beautiful people and colors one can see…. That would give us an extra boost to take off, see the world and get together with our nomadic families, prize Mother Nature and take care of each other.

That lovely family of Serbian neo-nomads, thought me through music and eye contacts, hugs and sips of water. Those erotic, Shakti like dancers would keep me from falling in to all masculine dominant mainstream, and though me to respect feminine. … ohh, those cosmic orgasms

Trance gatherings gave me and my people that light we needed, that direction that took us out on the path many of us still walk on today! Thought us what love, peace, unity means, what feeling of belongingness meant.

booom