Having introduced my observations of The Rent Tent space at the Retreat Yourself Festival 2024 (READ HERE), I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on the rest of the experience, considering the festivities of Saturday evening and the beginnings of Sunday morning. Hopefully, this will continue to illustrate the tone of the 3-day experience, in preparation for the upcoming festival later this week. What is this “New Hippy Movement” that has taken over Cape Town, and how can we change its culture for better?

Saturday Night:

The day had disappeared, and Saturday night beckoned. There were rumours of rain. I remembered the lopsided tent that awaited me back at the campsite. A grimace. A drizzle, and then a pour. Hiding under the food truck that sold dumplings, I looked around to see what other festivalgoers were doing about the terrible weather. While soy sauce pierced my nostrils and shouts for chilli oil permeated my brain, I noticed a large group of people huddled under a low-hanging tent. I made a run for it, braving the rain to join the group, leaving the hungry customers to fight over their condiments.

Crouching into the tent, I saw what appeared to be a group of gypsy travellers. A mottled group of people had formed a circle, huddling together to fight the cold. Two guitarists sat together, one strumming chords, the other plucking the strings. Folkloric music led a lone dancer, who tip tapped his feet in the centre of the circle. Most of the people were singing along to the guitarists, all familiar with the music that was unrecognizable to me. This was a cosy sanctuary from the miserable weather.

I was offered a cup of tea from a pot that was being handed around. There were three different flavour options, where each label described the different effects of the teas. There was a tea for each feeling: “Very giggly. Euphoric. In awe of the people and things around you. Energised. Excited. This tea has the same psychedelic effects as consuming other forms of magic mushrooms”. The effects range from euphoria to hallucination. I politely declined the cup.

Turning my attention back to the music, I noticed one of the singers, a young mother, breastfeeding her infant child while sipping on the mushroom tea. Other young kids were playing around the area, some singing to the music, all blissfully unaware of the shenanigans that their parents were indulging in. While the smell of marijuana blemished the crisp rainy air, the singing continued. I felt like an intruder amongst those who seemed so comfortable in this way of life. I wondered what these people did in their day jobs. Accountants, perhaps? Insurers? Did the notion of them having a convectional day job make them any less artistic in the present moment, sipping on mushroom tea and embodying spirituality? I envied the ease in which they seemed to open to the ethos of the festival.

Sunday Morning:

I made my way to the Soul Circle to “breathe into the morning”. The space was built from structured colourful material, which was attached to trees and wooden poles to form an encompassing communal space. Inside the formation, hundreds of people were lying down on their yoga mats, creating layers of rings with their bodies, all facing the centre. I followed suit, squeezing my mat in-between two other retreaters. My view changed to blue skies and fluttering leaves. The starkness of the sky was interrupted by strings of colourful flags that speckled the sky. A low hum of deep voices rang out of the state-of-the-art speakers, urging a meditative state.

A shirtless man in a kaftan and cowboy hat held a microphone: Ronald. He started to count from one to four, in a slow deep voice, overshadowing the hum of the speakers, but keeping with the same tone of meditation. Ronald expected us to box breath: “Inhale for four counts, hold for four, breathe out and repeated”, he chanted.

He continued to chant these words for what I estimated to be half an hour. As my concentration struggled along, and my mind drifted, I marvelled at how the host had hundreds of people enraptured in his slow and continuous counting. Captured by the simple act of breathing. Then, a change of pace. “And now faster breathes. One two one two. Use the diaphragm, engage the core. In and out, in and out. Release your breath, release your soul. This is the path to your chakra. Your breath will find your peace”. I sat up to review the scene. Bodies lying on the ground, breathing quickly and heavily. The woman on my right had tears in her eyes, taken with emotion. The man on my left was holding hands with his partner, who lay next to him. He got up and embraced his lover. The rapid intensity of breathing continued until: “slow down and return to normal breath. Stay here until you feel you spirit move you to release”. I got up swiftly. I was antsy, I needed to move around. I was not releasing my spirit. I was overtaken with millions of thoughts in my head, fighting for attention, buzzing with anxiety. 

Frustrated at myself for being unable to find the same kind of zen that everyone else seemed to gain so easily, I stood up and walked toward the edge of the circle. Finding peace and feeling comfort in this “New Hippy Movement” required practice, deep concentration, and a level of openness I had not quite found. People around me looked moved, changed, brought to a state of emotion. The movement toward self-exploration seemed to be a working for many. People were filtering out, coming out of the coma of heavy breathing. I asked a man with a long grey beard who looked particularly zen what he had been doing during the festival. He introduced himself as Andrew.

“From the panoply of experiences on offer, I sampled a few, mainly revolving around yoga and breathing”, he said. I was immediately surprised by his formality. “Pushing up my yoga quotient from twice a week to twice a day stretched me. But doing it outdoors, surrounded by mountains and with no pressure to grab a coffee and head straight to work immediately after rolling up my mat, I relaxed into the routine. And ventured to sample the forms of yoga I had not imagined existed.”

As we walked together toward the main market area, I asked Andrew which of these forms he had just discovered. “Yin yoga, the Muizenberg longboard in 2 ft foamies version of yoga. It’s just up my street because I’m a surfer. The name is a fancier version of glorified stretching, but it was deeply relaxing. I ventured out, pushed myself up the spectrum to various unspellable forms of yoga that made me feel like a stuck contortionist. But all good, calming and cathartic.” The surfing class had been packed out. People were instructed to balancing on blow-up surf boards on the river and then instructed to do downward dog. Many got wet. “Then I tried the ‘Laughing Yoga’. Not a happy experience.”, he said, crossly. Laughing is surely a spontaneous, joyful recognition of mutual wit or humour between people? It is reactive, not generative. We laugh in response to delight at irony, mutual recognition of something funny, and shy away from phony laughter. Laughing yoga is like being instructed by the apocryphal sad clown”.

Andrew’s expression of anger and scepticism at ‘Laughing Yoga’ questioned the authenticity and practice of some of the more extreme workshops at the festival, which moved away from introspection to a reactionary practice aimed at being as out-there as possible. I was glad to hear not everyone was immediately comfortable the all the workshops.  “Laughing Yoga” bordered on eccentric, and left Andrew feeling uneasy, forced into an activity that promised more than it gave. It seemed that though the festival’s energy was acceptance, people did not always feel the kind of ‘chakra’ expected. The bearded man was late for his next workshop and bid farewell. 

Settling into the culture of Retreat Yourself allowed me to gain a better understanding of what the “New Hippy Movement” meant to me, and to those who I observed. I am excited for the upcoming festival in February 2025, having experienced the power of the festival. The workshops left me with much to think about. I felt a blend of scepticism and excitement about this Hippy Movement. It had the potential to mould into something revolutionary.