wesjournal – Page 2 – world meets boy

Returning To Tomorrow

April 16, 2026 · 12:47 am

Pete’s Grill in Greenmount, Baltimore, MD. Photo by Wesley Wolfbear Pinkham.

The powerful force of nostalgia has been on my mind. The tensions between memory and prayer, between returning to and creating toward. I create maps of covers, this artist with this song, this artist covering that artist, the way the songs fill time and space and connect us to subtle hints about who is valued, who is remembered.

And so this blog, relaunched, redesigned, with a certain time in mind, when writing was easy and emotions were strong and the consequences of honesty seemed to be less than the consequences of lying.

It’s hard now in my 30’s to feel like I can write honestly, freely. Every word seems to be a trap. Why this one or that one? Why this narrative or that one? What am I withholding because of the publicness of the forum? We’ve seen so much of the internet disappear. So little new is made. So few words are written when we used to write like our lives depended on it. For many, our lives did depend on it. Those days on LJ with our small circles of being known, with very real struggles and very dangerous consequences.

We will see what comes out of this latest edition. If nothing else, to get my hands moving and my mind connected to the choice to hit ‘Publish’. There’s a lot I need to publish over the next 10 years, so let’s get writing.

I just love writing about music so much

July 25, 2025 · 11:52 pm

Art Outside Festival 2013. Austin, Texas. Photo by Wesley Wolfbear Pinkham.

I just love writing about music so much

And talking about it, thinking about it.

Hell, sometimes, I even like listening to it.

Music was in many ways a great equalizer.

The highs, the lows, I could understand their forms.

(more…)

As I Stood in the Ashes of My Childhood

December 30, 2017 · 6:09 am

feeling:

nostalgic

On my last trip of the year, through Sonoma County, I stood at the gates of Camp Newman, outside Santa Rosa. Fire consumed much of the property and the surrounding area. Yet, across the street, some properties operate seemingly untouched.

Now, instead of campers and counselors, its inhabitants are maintenance and security staff, EPA and insurance inspectors. No one is sure of the future of the camp.

Fire has nipped at the heels of most of my childhood retreats. Years ago, much of Camp SWIG suffered the same fate. It was sold off. The Yosemite fires nearly consumed Camp Mather, and Strawberry Bluegrass Festival may never return to that magical home. I remember when flames have threatened Brandeis-Bardein Institute in Simi Valley.

(more…)

Finding Direction at The Compass [Lightning in a Bottle 2017]

June 5, 2017 · 3:15 pm

Video by Optimystic Media — Megan May Stone and Wesley Wolfbear Pinkham

I’m searching. I’m guessing you are too. Me, I’m here at Lightning in a Bottle 2017 and I’m searching for my keys. Fortunately, not the ones that start my car, I’ve got those. No, I’m looking for those keys, those symbols, the ones to unlock the destiny ahead.

I’m drawn to The Compass, the educational peninsula. I look around and I see each of us finding our own sacred keys. My feet follow fingers fluttering across the skin of drums. I dance alone. We dance together.

Lightning in a Bottle has always been a complex entity to write about. Critiques I’ve written in the past have been dulled on the cutting room floor. Both by myself and by others.

(more…)

It’s Time to Defriend Evolvefest

January 7, 2017 · 7:46 pm

Note: This article/editorial originally appeared in Fest300/Everfest, now defunct.

Well, that got weird. And not the good kind of “where is this going because why the hell not” kind of weird, or the clowns in Lucent Dossier Experience start parading as half-naked goblins kind of weird.

No, over the last two years, Evolvefest producer David Bryson has weirded out all over the event’s massive social media channels with a steady stream of overt, Christian, apocalyptical soapboxing. With tirades covering perceived enemies from every corner of society, the event has gone from a perennial stalwart for the East Coast Transformational Festival scene to something more resembling a Donald Trump rally.

It’s a unique blend of conspiracy and paranoia, the kind that turns Uncles into embarrassments at Thanksgiving dinners.

(more…)

2017: A Call to Hearts

January 3, 2017 · 8:04 pm

This originally appeared on the Lucidity Festivals blog.

Captured by Kaylie ‘Violet’ Starkey of Violet Visions

Alright you Lucid rainbow warriors. We got clobbered. Swept up. The world turned upside down and we lost our footing.

Now what? It’s a new year. It’s a new world. We’re back in the counter-culture. So let’s dig in. Let’s act like we have a message and we believe in it. Let’s organize and support one another in deeper, more meaningful ways.

I’ll tell you this, in 2016 at Lucidity, I didn’t talk about Trump once. He never came up. I even mentioned it on a panel and almost everyone in the audience had had the same experience. He didn’t exist.

It wasn’t even about whether it was a possible reality. It just didn’t change the reality we were creating together. He doesn’t. We weren’t afraid. And that’s all that needs to be said about it right now.

It just doesn’t change the reality we are creating together.

Did you know that in 2016, we bought land for the Lucid University initiative? And that there are founders of Lucidity Festival currently living together on land that we all bought right now?

(more…)