When Chuck was in the military, the higher-ups would tell the lower-ranking or newer soldiers to go somewhere and get them a tube of elbow grease. Elbow grease, of course, is not an actual thing. The more experienced, older soldiers and members of the military were in on this joke, it was a sort of initiation.
Monthly Archives: May 2018
Fijian Kava
Chuck spends a lot of time in Fiji, where he owns property. He lives around villages and considers the locals his family. Every Thursday he goes to the village and drinks Kava, a Fijian ritual drink that the locals often consume to “destress after a long day in a social environment”. He sits in a circle with whoever else in the village decides to join (around 6-20 people depending on the night) on the bamboo floor of a bungalow. They take positively about each other and their lives.
The Rainbow Serpent Festival
The Rainbow Serpent music festival takes place near Melbourne, Australia. Luke went to this festival and found that it was a way of honoring the Aboriginal culture that modern Australia destroyed years ago. Aboriginal people dance and sing in traditional performances as a way of practicing themselves and educating others on their lost culture and spirituality.
Burning the Man
Luke went to the Burning Man festival in Nevada, where he participated in the ritual of burning the man. There is a giant wooden sculpture of a man’s head in the center of burning man, that festival goers burn to the ground at the end. This symbolizes the end of a dreamlike experience and the purging of “negative energy that Burning Man helps cleanse, it’s a new beginning”.
Howling at the Sun Ritual
At a music festival in California called Lightning in a Bottle, Luke participated in a folk ritual where he and other festival goers would howl like wolves at the sun, just as it was setting. They would all meet on the top of a hill in the festival grounds for this ritual. It was supposed to wish good luck upon the night as they continued to dance and listen to music, like a blessing.