AN EMAIL FROM MOSES (reprise)

It all began on 5 March 2010 with an email from Moses (above, left), who said he got my contact from Jason Rao - a young Malaysian who relocated to New Zealand a few years ago and found himself living with his German girlfriend in an artists' colony. Moses asked if he could come to Magick River "to meet indigenous people, learning from them to make music in their ways, spend good times together, eat, share and come together for a better world and understanding."


I replied: "Sure, you're welcome to spend a few days up here, especially if you smell good and are musical 😁 You may be a bit disappointed if you're hoping to jam with the Orang Asli (the indigenous folks who live here). The women and children are irresistible but the adult males are, for the most part, a lost cause. Anyway, I have a few instruments lying around and we can always have some fun on my scenic veranda. The biggest attraction here is the river. You didn't mention whether you're traveling alone or with friends..."


The Love Bus rolls up at Magick River

Next thing I know, Moses shows up at my doorstep accompanied by nine members of the Love Bus. For a moment I was aghast at his huge entourage, but as they trudged up the steps lugging heavy backpacks and various musical instruments, a quick scan revealed them to be mostly human angels, accompanied by a couple of monks in mufti. So I welcomed them all with a big grin, little realizing that this was the beginning of a new era at Magick River.




As it turned out, Moses is a 31-year-old former theology student from Germany officially named Andreas Moser. He's also a consummate musician and composer with a passionate, theatrical singing style. In Australia he had met up with Mitch Gittoes (a talented rapper and street musician) and a French accordionist named Pierrick Hamonet (who looks like a Merovingian prince).


They began busking together and subsequently were joined by Josh Lee (right) and his sister Tabitha (both inspired singer-songwriters whose Malaysian-born mother works as a policewoman in Brisbane). They talked about buying an old bus and driving around the country making music and generating happy vibes. Someone suggested the name "Love Bus."

The Love Bus traveled to New Zealand where they picked up audio engineer Charlie Baggins (not his real name) and Erin Crowley (a pixie-faced singer-songwriter). By the time they arrived in KL the Love Bus had attracted many more ad hoc members - mostly musicians, but those who couldn't play any instruments just sang and danced and looked incredibly appealing.



They busked at various locations in KL, using a backpacker hostel named Le Village as their base. The owner let them stay for free and they reciprocated by luring more travelers to stay at the guesthouse. Many ended up joining the Love Bus, which is a constantly changing molecular Rainbow Family.

Living outside the 3D Matrix

When we started the Magick River project in 1992, part of the vision was that we would attract a small transient population of musicians, writers, sculptors, dancers, poets, painters - and perhaps a handful of visionary engineers, permaculturists, ethnobotanists, and so on - who would form a self-sustaining, synergetic community of kindred spirits. One thing we would all have in common is an unwavering commitment to co-creating heaven on earth.

Over the last 18 years we have seen many colorful characters pass through the Magick River portal, some staying for weeks or even months, others only a few days - but each one has left an indelible energy imprint or at least a few fond memories. Magick River co-founder Mary Maguire, now my next-door neighbor, was equally receptive to the arrival of the Love Bus. "These are the beings we've been waiting to connect with for a long, long time!" she pronounced.

Most of the rainbow group are considerably younger than Mary and I - so we both feel a bit like surrogate parents. Yet in terms of our shared vision of what life could - and will - be on this planet when we've shed the old skin of reactionary competitiveness and scarcity conditioning, the Love Bus is like a massive shot in arm of pure youthful optimism.



These youngsters from the Love Bus are so open-hearted, clear-headed, receptive and savvy about what's going on in the world - and each one so eager to learn and to spread the Aquarian theme of universal love, reconciliation and redemption - Mary and I could only conclude that the Love Bus was an integral part of Magick River's ongoing evolution.

Who will inherit the earth? Cold-blooded corporations or warm-blooded human beings?

Anyway, since that first email from Moses, more than two months have elapsed. There has been a major political battle fought (and lost) in our neighborhood and a whole lot of murky water has flowed under the bridge. But the Love Bus is still around - though many relocated to Penang during the by-election, trickling back shortly after the dust settled. Now a handful of them have been recruited as extras in a feature film, Hanyut, directed by U-Wei Haji Saari. So they have been commuting between KL and KKB.

Nobody can predict how the story will unfold. Will the energy that brought the Love Bus together begin to dissipate along with the group? Or will their lively, colorful and highly musical presence spontaneously evolve into something as yet unimagined?



The Love Bus is an organic extension of what began in the subtler dimensions as the Earth Ascension project. I can't delve into the full story here but the same evolutionary impetus resurfaced more recently in the 1950s as the Beat Generation - with iconic characters like Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg and Richard Fariña setting the tone for their 1960s successors, the Flower Power movement whose credo - Make Love, Not War - is still the soundest advice humanity can possibly follow.

When Big Business and Big Media figured out what was happening, they wasted no time co-opting the revolution and turning it into a fashion statement for weekend hippies. Thus began the materialistic Yuppie Era of the 1980s which appeared to have thwarted any possibility of real transformation within the human psyche. A new incarnation of fascistic totalitarianism began to rear its hideous head, manifesting most prominently as the Bush-Cheney regime in the US.

The real hippies simply moved out of the big cities, found some land to grow vegetables and raise their families. Some formed molecular communities with varying degrees of success. A few of these pioneer communities have lasted nearly 40 years - some fizzled out after six months. Those who found themselves displaced traveled to Asia - disappearing into the complexity and diversity of Mother India where they became known as Rainbow Families.



Many of the "original" hippies - some of whom became celebrities and gurus (like Tim Leary, Jerry Garcia, Ken Kesey and Terence McKenna) - are now dead. However, we are witnessing the third generation of this evolutionary impulse to break free of the Greed and Power Matrix of Fear and master the art of co-creating a conscious community of self-reprogramming humans - individuals who can enjoy their own brilliant uniqueness and yet effortlessly merge into a democratic group mind and function intelligently and creatively as One Being.





COMING UP NEXT: THE LOVE BUS @ MAGICK RIVER