Photos by Sheila Loney.
The next two Shamanic Booms are in Cheyenne, Wyoming at the Terry Bison Ranch.
July 30th “Under the Stars”
and August 26th, 27th, 28th “Journey” Has been cancelled.
For more information about future Shamanic Booms go to either of the following pages.
https://www.facebook.com/Shamanic-Boom-800553136629142/timeline
To listen to some of Techno Shaman’s music go to
https://soundcloud.com/techno-shaman
By Sheila Loney, photographer and writer for Sweet as Cotton Candy
(owner of Silver Negative Photos by S. Loney on Facebook)
On May 27th, 28th and 29th, 2016 The Shamanic Boom Immersion took place at Grant Farms CSA, just north of Wellington, Colorado. The Boom is an eclectic combination of healing dance music, live art, alternative health modalities, workshops, food, performance art, yoga and creative play. The festival is a place to be with people who encourage you to be yourself, to live through your creativity and show up with your vulnerabilities. It was a three-day event where you could choose to camp or come and go as you pleased. I chose to camp so that I could dive into the full experience of it all.
The loving community spirit that arose during the weekend was awe inspiring. Spirits soared high with the looming storm clouds overhead. People would walk up to total strangers, hugging and thanking each other for their presence. If you needed food, water or even a cup someone would be open for giving. Vendors were open to trading with people for their goods. Cash was not always a necessity.
The weekend started with a Peruvian Fire Ceremony led by Mike Watts, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, to officially start the boom. Daniel Donovan, then called us in to form a circle and welcome everyone. He challenged us all to delve deep within ourselves for self-discovery and releasing of false belief patterns, even if that meant having our buttons pushed by others. We then went off to be our little creative selves and dive into the transformational music that would be going on for most of the weekend. It was an overall uplifting experience.
Saturday started with a plethora of workshops including, yoga, belly dancing, transformational breathwork, music and so much more. Saturday evening the music started and went until sunrise on Sunday morning. The headliners were Subaqueous, Antandra, Stratosphere, and Cualli. The music, was mostly Electronic Dance Music with many different subgenres, however, they all had one thing in common, as Daniel told me….”they were all created by sound shamans. Music that is based in sacredness to heal people and themselves through their music.” It had a pleasing, blissful feeling that just made you want to flow and become one with it.
Sunday was more of a laid back day, continued with more workshops and music including the very talented Techno-Shaman accompanied by SamOurEye. When the music ended in the early evening, everyone headed over to the fire pit for the closing ceremony. It was a beautiful ceremony hosted by Gene and Jiiniikwe Mills from South Dakota and Mike Watts.
Shamanic Boom is the brainchild of Daniel Donovan, aka, Techno-Shaman. Daniel discovered his love of playing music with the trumpet at age 11. He participated in school band starting in middle school through college in which he majored in music. Six years later, after leaving the Christian church, he traveled to Peru and was working with plant medicine ceremonies with a shaman named Javier. During a ceremony, Javier told Daniel his spirit name is now Techno-Shaman. He is named this because he is supposed to help bring Shamanism to our technology-based society. After arriving back in the states he started going to raves. At these events, the music moved him in a spiritual way, much like being at church. He was so intrigued by this, that he started learning about the Chakra system and discovered that each Chakra has an animal sound, keynote, instrument sound, bija mantra and seed vowel sound to them. While DJ’ing he started practicing and experimenting with using animal sounds and frequencies infused into his productions. He then would use people’s feedback to perfect his craft. He describes his music as “a journey through the chakras while making your booty shake.”
He came up with the idea of Shamanic Booms after going to numerous music festivals and on the following Monday feeling “hungover”. He wanted a festival where he could go and leave feeling truly transformed. He found himself feeling bitter about his festival experiences. So, he asked himself, “are you going continue to complain about it or are you going to show up and change it? If you want to create something, don’t wait for someone to do it for you.” He wanted to evolve the transformational gathering. “A representation of true freedom.” He told me “it was all about me, everything I wanted in a festival, live art, healing music, food. A place for people to hold space for free creativity and self-expression.” He describes the Booms as “a transformative gathering to allow space to show up and be infinitely creative, co-create a space that gives people the freedom to show up however they need to. An event that relentlessly allows you to grow, change, inspire, create and feel different on Monday without being hungover. Every time it gets better and people level up.” His vision for these festivals has come into reality. He has started traveling to additional states teaching others how to organize and carry out Shamanic Booms.
I asked him what inspires him. “Everyone that comes to the Booms to create inspires me”.
I also had the pleasure of talking to Stephen Morton, aka, O.B.E. and Sampson Middel, aka, SamOurEye. Daniel calls them his RHM’s (right-hand men).
Stephen is originally from Oklahoma City and Norman Oklahoma. He spent the early nineties in Dallas, Texas working, and Dj’ing. He told me that he knew he was coming to Colorado for something, some kind of purpose “After meeting Daniel, I really wanted to play to people who really heard me and got the emotions I was putting out.” He was tired of being background music for people to get numbed from alcohol consumption. He and Daniel became roommates about a year after meeting. Stephen helped co-create Shamanic Boom. He loves the leveling up that is happening in his life since coming to Colorado. His intention is to heal people through his music as he, himself gets healed in the process.
Sampson met Daniel about a year ago at the same site as the Boom was on this weekend. They met around the fire while Sampson was playing his didgeridoo and beat boxing. He always wanted to be a musician. Was always wanting to learn the electronic side, DJ mixing and production. They started working together, activating the ascension current for each other’s music. “One night Daniel and Larry told me that we have a DJ name for you….Samurai, I immediately saw the spelling of it plastered on my forehead, an insight… SamOurEye.” He told me that “working with Daniel is ruthless, relentless and Rad. It is awesome experiencing the welcoming into the vortex of this profession.” He asked me to add “Thank you Techno-Shaman for holding space for me to initiate myself as a musician and this amazing journey of putting on these amazing festivals……AHO”
Life is as Sweet as Cotton Candy 
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