The new Age of Aquarius is upon us. Or at least upon 19-year-old Emily Anne, who sways her hips and twirls her arms in the center of a drum circle on Venice Beach. Transfixed, some 120 people gaze at the blond Salome in the turquoise bikini and blue sarong as she spins in the sand. The drumbeats grow faster. Her long hair slaps against her back.


Emily seems the ultimate blue-eyed California hippie girl, but in fact she’s only been here three days. Out from New Paltz, New York, she is on a “solo mission” to New Zealand for an exchange program in Victoria. Her friend Steve, who lives in Van Nuys, brought her here today. They had a “crazy connection” at a Granola Funk show back east so she thought she’d stop off on her way.


What will she study abroad?


Metalwork, photography and dance. She sees it all in her head with the dance, art and, oh yeah, the “massage.” She’s excited about the trip ’cause she read that New Zealand is the “purest place in the world right now.” She plans on making jewelry from the coral and shells she finds there.


Earlier, she and Steve went to the Self-Visualization Center.


“It’s been a beautiful trip, just soaking up the sun and the good vibes,” she explains. Steve is helping her “loosen my mind so I can find myself.”


What does Steve do?


“He does a lot of things . . .”


One of the things Steve does is a handstand, which he is doing right now in the center of the drum circle, shirtless. After a few moments of


circumventing the space on his knees, the 22-


year-old bolts upright and runs from the circle toward the ocean, which Emily considers “orgasm for the soul.”


Steve tears off his tan cords and dives in, in just his Calvins. He seems to be on a solo mission himself. Afterward, he returns to the sand and sits crosslegged to meditate. He is breathing heavy. It’s been an intense experience. Steve has never participated in the drum circle before. But, since his friend was visiting he wanted to show her the best parts of “Cali.”


Steve and Emily aren’t sleeping


together.


“We aren’t like that,” he explains, his now-wet brown dreads pulled back in a ponytail. “She’s a tight chick. I’ll kiss her sometimes, but she’s just a good friend. I dig her ’cause she is a free spirit.”


It takes one to know one.


Steve, who has played percussion for eight or nine years, is very “passionate about sexuality and sexual freedom.”


“I am never gonna make a promise to anyone again for the rest of my life,” he says in reference to a three-year relationship, which left his ex’s name tattooed in Chinese characters above his heart.


“I’ve had a revelation of how I should exist and it has to do with following my heart. I will argue monogamy to the death,” Steve says. He wears a strand of tiger’s eye around his neck, a gem that, he explains, is said to give strength, courage and power. Steve, whose e-mail tag is “loving life,” believes that everything has its own energy, especially old mineral deposits, crystals, fluorite and hematite.


“Like, I’m holding this sand right now and even this sand has a lot of love in it. I believe everything is a reflection of my own existence. We are all one and these rocks help me understand myself more. Help me have visions.”


Steve, who has read The Celestine Prophecy, Conversations With God, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, The Four Agreements and Creative Visualization, understands that his reality is his “intent” and perception. He has meditated and seen the future, and it is good.


“I’ve seen Zion. I’ve seen the future, which is the past. It’s all music, love and greatness. Everything lives in harmony and compassion.”


One thing Steve would like to try and hasn’t, is group sex.


“I think it could be very, very healing. I think it would bring a lot of magic into our lives. I think it would heal a lot of wounds.”


Steve is interested in healing wounds, psychic and emotional, through therapeutic massage. He considers himself a student, and his curriculum, like his dance, is freeform.


“Right now I study with everybody, just uniting with people’s energy. You learn that from everyone. Like here, at the drum circle, you are seeing the community of everyone’s energy together. The potential.”


One thing Steve knows is that there is rebirth happening, “a renaissance.” And, he wants to help out.


“I want to be a part of the energy that makes things more enjoyable, makes people live to their fullest. I think fun is the most important thing. People need to understand they have been misled. Human sexuality has been down-pressed. Female sexuality has been down-pressed. We need to remedy. We need to get to the source of the problem, whatever that wicked is, whether it is in us or in other things. I am just waking up from a dream, a spell that has been cast upon all of us. I think being next to the ocean is a part of that — dancing and drumming are a part of that. There are definitely some great things at hand. I can testify that when you believe in stuff anything is possible.”


Steve gets up to return to the drum circle. In his wake, he leaves a large vagina sculpted in the sand.

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