Posted by @CaptainPookie in the SBIX Essay Contest.

I live in Watkins Glen. I was born and raised here. And other than a collective five years in which I flittered and searched up and down the east coast in my early twenties, this place is all I have ever called home. I spent my childhood diving into these huge, glacial lakes (that never seem to get warmer than the ice-continents that carved them), hearing local Seneca "Indian" elders pass on the oral traditions of the Iroquois Confederacy that once called this place home - and also believed that it was the cradle of civilisation. After-all, we call these "The Finger Lakes" because the Seneca believed that the Creator was so partial to this part of the world, that he showed his approval by sinking his enormous handprint across and deep into the landscape, forming the five, vaguely finger-shaped bodies of water.

There are endless acres of Hemlock-heavy forest that carpet hidden grottoes and gorges. And often, the trees grow horizontally out of the sides of limestone cliffs, and the whole sculpture will trap the morning fog and mist well into the afternoon, adding another entire layer to the already dense sense of "otherness" that absolutely oozes out of the soil here.

Where I live, summer is a deeply moving time of year. At night you can walk around, drunk on the scent of florid, thick forest, lilies, grapes, wet earth and enormous bodies of water all swirled into one cacophonous but soothing scent that you can't experience anywhere but here. The blend of Water Energy; cleansing and always moving...swirling...undulating - mixed with an equal dose of Mountain/Forest Energy and it's dense, labyrinthine, healing energies is a humbling potion to live saturated with, and suspended-in. And I know spots where you can go late at night and count on being able to stand amidst a swarm of hundreds of thousands of fireflies, under a spangle of millions of twinkle-stars and the stretch of cosmic-cotton candy that is the milky-way.

I've become rather provincial about the place that I live over the years. It's not a holier-than thous-home attitude as much as it is a great and swelling pride that I have been blessed enough to sprout from this particular garden.

***

If I had to enumerate the things about the Phish that I love the most, the fact that they play to their environment or to the emotion of a space would be right near the top of the list. So needless to say, when I heard that Phish was coming to do just that in my backyard...in my beloved home that I already have a near-unhealthy reverence for - my mind was immediately filled with fireworks and thoughts of how they would consciously or otherwise weave their tapestry of musical energy throughout the trees and valleys as they play, overlooking it from one of it's highest places. I was convinced that something deeply beautiful would result from such a collaboration between conscious musicians and a conscious landscape that is absolutely alive with the spirits of so many things ancient.

And they delivered exactly what I had been hoping for. Beautiful, dense and multi-faceted readings of songs that already resonate with beauty. A minimalist, yet soaring Reba, a beautifully deep and moving Mike's> Bug> Horse> Silent> 'Paug. A dark, haunting Song I Heard the Ocean Sing and a Light> Waves> What's The Use? that I believe I can still hear blowing around on the breeze when I go for my night-walks in the woods.

But the most symbolic moment of the weekend as far as I am concerned was hands-down Scents and Subtle Sounds. It's no surprise that the beautifully emotive first-movement was attached to this piece once again in this place, and truer words never travelled over waves of energy in such an appropriate location. This Eden of ancient lakes, hidden waterfalls and natural sensory overload. The even-tempered, graceful resolution of this song was pulled and molded into form by the same good and healing spirits that hum electrically in the summer air while I lay in the grass of hidden fields, staring into the stars. And I suspect that large amounts of the music that Phish played at Superball this summer lovingly package a Rosetta Stone of sorts, a cipher to decode the ancient languages left lying around by myriad consciousnesses that once existed as flesh in these hills and have long-since gone to dust.

And that is what Superball represents for me. The energy, ideas and emotions created from the harmonious blending af two of the most touching things I have ever experienced in my life. The improvisational, stream-of-consciousnesses beauty that is Phish at their best, and my home.

At Ease,
Captain Pookie

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