PLUR: Peave, Love, Unity and Respect.

PLUR or Peace, Love, Unity and Respect is the essence of the way of life being aspired to by 'ravers'. But what does it really mean? Peter Douglas from the uk.music.rave newsgroup dared to try to define it and succeed-ed rather well.

Peace:

The reason we like the music that we do, and dance like we do, is because it helps us achieve a state of inner peace, particularly peace with ourselves. For me the music that catalyses this state has a sticky label on it that says 'goa trance', sometimes 'psychedelic trance', and includes 'tribal trance'. Being able to dance the way we do is being able to be four years old again, to be free of ego like we were before self conscious-ness took control. When we dance free of ego, we are at peace with ourselves, and at peace with all those around us. In the peace of a good trance, when someone stands on my foot I get a real buzz out of it because it's a chance to put some of that peace 'out there' as well as having it inside. With a big grin and a squeeze of their shoulder I've been able to say "Hey! Isn't this great?" without being dorky about it.

Peace People!

Love:

It means you can turn to a complete stranger who's sipping a bottle of water, and they'll see your sweat dripping and ears glowing and your eyes dark and deep, and they'll smile and offer you the bottle. It means people not only call out to you "Are you okay mate?" when they hear you heaving your dinner in the toilet cubicle, but they care about the answer.

Love is the reason the people at Return to the Source hang crystals, sprinkle essence and otherwise prepare the space for us to be in together. Love is .... (fill in your own - hey, maybe there's a cartoon strip in there somewhere!)

Unity:

I think this one shows the widest gap between the aspiration and the realization. There still seem to be anorak wars between disciples / acolytes of various stylistic sub-genres, by people who've forgotten that preferring green to blue or liking cardamom more than coriander is not a sign of intellectual under endowment and spiritual inadequacy. For me the concept of unity is not us against them, but trying to give 'them' a glimpse of the wonderful space we experience at a good party.

Respect:

Sometimes I fantasize about a club with coat pegs all round the periphery, where everyone just hangs their stuff and it's still there when they come to wear it home. Hey, and you can even leave your money in the pockets - now that's *respect*.

Respect is also about realizing that everyone's different. Bizarre as it may seem, not everyone thinks your whistle-blowing next to their ear enhances the total dance experience. If you really think people enjoy your trilling, and are blown away by the musical mastery evident in your one note mantra, then be fair and move around a lot. That way you leave everyone wanting more (maybe) rather than one poor bugger in front of you wanting less, much less.

By Peter Douglas