It Takes Courage To Be Here
When was the last time you were really there? In the moment? Fully with yourself?
Between devastating world events, galloping progress, and to-do lists that keep falling off the table, there is little room left to feel where we actually are at this moment in time.
Reflexively, we try to meet this growing overwhelm with even more stimulation. In a seemingly active flight forward, we scroll through the next bot-infested feed, just to avoid feeling what threatens to overwhelm us. But slowly, it begins to dawn:
We won’t get anywhere with our head stuck in a glossy display.
In the process of our festival this year we ask ourselves what it really takes to arrive fully in the Here and Now. Maybe it’s the bass vibrating in your chest. Your feet in the sand. Sweat running from every pore. The silence after a gong. The moment when we allow our full spectrum of emotions—grief and joy, anger and excitement, despair and lust for life.
And because there is no universal answer to this question, at the Bucht der Träumer 2026 we would like to explore together as many paths into the present as we are able to find.
We cannot change everything, but we can always choose how we act. - Melanie Wolfers, Nimm der Ohnmacht ihre Macht
The feeling of powerlessness is not a personal failure. Paradoxically, it grows especially when we try to suppress it. And it diminishes when we have the courage to share it.
It doesn't need a heroic act. A first, small step is enough: reconnecting with yourself and the world around you. From this encounter, something new can emerge: agency.
At Bucht der Träumer* we open up spaces where nothing has to be glossed over. Spaces in which we can practice holding inner tensions and learning to trust one another.
To quote Fatboy Slim: not somehow, somewhere, sometime, but
but Right Here, Right Now!
Sincerely, Bucht der Träumer*
PS: Als Festivalteam können wir immer nur einen Rahmen setzen. Das wirklich Spannende ist, was ihr daraus macht! Wie blickt ihr auf unser Jahresthema? Schreibt uns gern über diesen apply here.
