Lessons we learned this year. Part 1. Yosemite: The lesson of being present 🏔💚

We came to North America with a tour plan that could’ve been a spreadsheet’s proudest achievement: routes, drives, deadlines, the whole carefully-engineered arc. But we also left a few days unclaimed on purpose, little pockets of “we don’t know yet.”

And that decision changed everything.

An interaction at Chivalry Fantasy Fest turned into an invitation. An invitation turned into Yosemite. And Yosemite became a reminder we didn’t know we were craving: life can’t grab you if your hands are already full.

The valley doesn’t ask you to perform. It asks you to arrive.
To breathe slower. To listen longer. To notice the way light moves across granite like time itself is stretching. And the people there… a community shaped by wildness and scale. Less pretending. More presence. Strangers becoming friends in the most natural way, as if the surroundings gently insist: “Be here. Now.”

We spent the day hiking beneath El Capitan and Half Dome, letting the waterfalls rinse the noise out of our minds. Then we played a concert for employees and guests inside the park, and something shifted. The music stopped feeling like a “show” and started feeling like a gathering. Like a shared campfire where everyone knew, without saying it, that this was a moment worth protecting.

And by the end, it became a folk-rave in the trees. Joy bouncing off stone. People dancing with that rare kind of freedom that only happens when you forget to film it and simply live it.

What we’re taking into the new year:
Leave space. Not as an accident, but as a practice. Build your plans, then loosen your grip. Give life a doorway. Because some of the best chapters don’t come from pushing harder, they come from being present enough to say yes when the moment taps your shoulder.

Important note: You need permission to perform inside Yosemite. Please don’t play there without it. ❤