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To be at peace is the heart’s deepest longing. In these challenging times, how can we all develop the qualities that lead to peace both in ourselves and in our communities? Can we set ourselves the aspiration to become carriers of peace? 

In 2024 we were joined by Hiroki Okano, an elder from the Japanese Shinto tradition, who brought the Peace Flame to our gathering – a flame lit from the atomic fires after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima in 1945, a flame which had been kept alight to this day.

Tatsuo Yamamoto lost his family in this attack, and on returning that day to the terrible devastation, lit the flame from the smouldering remains of his home. Initially, holding it as a symbol of anger, grief, and vengeance, over the years, as he kept the flame alight, this slowly transformed into acceptance and forgiveness. From this was born a desire to bring a message of peace to all. As he journeyed the world carrying a living flame, it received millions of prayers and wishes for peace, undergoing its own transformation from a symbol of unimaginable terror into one of peace. 

Our 2024 theme “Carry Peace”, continues to invite us all to walk the path of transformation together. We are each asked what kind of a flame we wish to carry in our hearts. Can we, like Tatsuo Yamamoto, continue to find a way to bear and transform our conflicts so that we can become an active embodiment of peace in this world. Can we find the spirit of kindness, gentleness, compassion, and patience to support ourselves and each other as we walk this path of peace.

Artwork by Scarlet Butters 

‘I AM BECAUSE WE ARE’

The year leading into 2021 was intense and difficult, full of echo chambers and wormholes that engendered isolation and polarisation for many around the world. For this reason, the team behind Medicine felt deeply inspired by the concept of Interbeing, which we chose to explore and celebrate together at our gathering that year.

What did we mean by Interbeing? Simply put, the concept was a celebration and acknowledgement of the fact that we are all physically and energetically interconnected; interwoven and indivisibly created from the same matter, the same fabric, the same web of consciousness that binds the whole of existence together. Interbeing tells us ‘what I do to you, I do to myself’, whether good or bad – there is no separation, and this knowing leads us towards sacred guardianship of self and other.

It prompted questions such as: Where do you begin and I end? Where is the boundary between us and our natural environment? The food we eat? The microbes in our bellies and in the soil? The animals we share our planet with?

Interbeing is underpinned by the principles of reciprocity and gratitude, which inspire reverence for the sacred force of life – or love itself – that we can invite to flow through us, knowing that each of us is a unique, yet interwoven part of the whole of creation.

Interbeing is a concept developed by Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh, and by writer, philosopher and sacred activist Charles Eisenstein, but it is a universal principle celebrated and acknowledged across different cultures in various ways: it is known as Ubuntu in Africa, Bhakti in India, and Kanyini in Australia. Throughout history, Indigenous cultures have developed ecstatic practices to engender states of consciousness where the ‘Many’ can become, feel and act as ‘One’. All these cultures speak the same truth of Interbeing: that we are ‘One’, not separate, and of the importance of coming together to remember and celebrate this unity.

So, in 2021 at Medicine we sought to explore, feel and celebrate our Interbeing-ness. After a period marked by individualism, isolation and polarisation, the medicine of that time was community; the shared experience of our mutual interdependence; the safety and warmth of the whole; the profound joy of remembering the timeless presence and bliss of the group bodymind.

To this end, each day at the festival everyone was invited to gather for a collective ceremony where we explored, inhabited and celebrated these principles. All programming in the different areas paused for an hour every day so we could come together as an entire community and experience some of the most celebrated, fulfilling, fun and transformational technologies available. One day we sang together, the next day we danced together, then laughed, and finally we sat down and ate together.