Hi lovely people,

Collective effervescence.

A sociologist called Durkheim gave us that phrase more than a hundred years ago while studying religious rituals. It is the charge a group generates when it moves and feels as one.

He was describing church.

I want to tell you about another kind of church, one I have been attending this past year.

Raves. Festivals. Techno, deep house, whatever is playing. Beaches, warehouses, a field somewhere.

My mum does not get it. My son is low-key cringed.

This is therapy

I move for hours, and something I did not even know I had stored inside me leaves, and it comes out through the shoulders, my hips, my arms, my hands.

The movements come naturally. There is no thinking about it. I would almost call it primal, if that didn’t sound derogatory. But perhaps that is the point. Even that word reveals something about our conditioning, how suspicious we have become of what comes naturally.

We spend so much time monitoring ourselves, correcting ourselves, holding ourselves within the boundaries of what is acceptable. Dancing like this feels like a physical release from that rigid programming. My body has an intelligence of its own, and I can feel it when I give it room.

My girlfriends and I often call it our conversations with the gods.

No eye contact. No small talk. Still not alone.

More liberating than six months of therapy.

And what comes after?

Awe. Psychologists have studied it seriously for about twenty years. Awe shrinks the self, not in a diminishing way, in a relieving way. Attention lifts off your own concerns and lands on something larger. It makes people more open and more interested in each other. Music is one of its documented triggers.

And there is a microdosing connection here too. In a placebo-controlled study of psilocybin microdosing, participants reported more awe while watching short videos, with the clearest differences appearing in clips that were not designed to be particularly awe-inspiring. Ordinary things. That is an interesting thought in itself. Most participants correctly guessed whether they had taken the microdose or the placebo, though, so expectation could help explain the result.

A different kind of therapy.

Turns out I am not the only one to feel this

A study came out of the University of Leeds, published in Psychology of Music. They asked women over forty who still go out. 136 of them, aged 40 to 65, all regulars on dancefloors and at festivals.

91% said it contributes to their wellbeing.

66% called it spiritual.

63% said they go to step out of ordinary life for a while.

58% said they get to be a different version of themselves out there.

And almost nine in ten said it helps them connect with themselves and with the people around them.

The “drugs”

Many associate these parties with drugs, and that is true to an extent. Personally, I take 3 doses of our truffles; this allows for a (for me) deeper experience. It also means I don’t have the desire nor the need to have alcohol, and that changes the entire experience, not only in the moment, but also the day after.

The stigma, but only “outside”

And let’s be clear, this isn’t about women having a “phase”. This is a practice with a shape to it, spreading across a whole generation.

I’ve written about this before: the script that tells a woman past forty she is past her prime, that it is “nice she still does that”, at “her age”. It is very much present here too. A woman my age is not supposed to be dancing free and wild. She is supposed to be domesticated, at home, with a man.

But this point of view is only outside these parties. Inside, nobody is measuring anyone here.

And we ARE the ones showing up, more and more. Women in their forties, fifties and sixties, in growing numbers.

One summer, at a beach, I met Sigrid. She had travelled down from her farm in Lofoten, which is about as far north in Norway as you can go, all fjords and mountains, and where part of my family comes from. She is 68. She wore a midnight blue gown covered in hand-embroidered stars, and she danced like she was in conversation with the gods.

Her presence was incredible, and it felt empowering to be dancing next to her. Watching her so alive, so connected, and defying what is expected of women over a certain age.

I’m in my forties, and yes, I wore some tiny shorts. A bit daring, maybe, but I said to myself, there is an 80-year-old version of me looking at that photo and saying, yes girl, you rocked those shorts.

Just join us

All of which makes me wonder whether we are further along than the men our age. More ready for something else. More willing to open the gate and look at what is behind it.

So gentlemen, if any of this sounds appealing, consider it an invitation. Just join us.

And I mean that literally. I connect with my partner in a completely different way when we are in that space, with that music. It creates a closeness and a trust that we would not reach anywhere else.

Tell me where you dance

If this is a door you have been standing near, open it. The music asks nothing of you.

And if you are already in this world, write back and tell me where you dance. I would like to know how many of us there are.

Playlist

Listen to the playlist on Spotify →

Because I could not send this without one. And if you are a musician, a DJ, or you make anything in this world and want to collaborate, please reach out. I would love that.

The rabbit hole

If the letter made you curious, here is where to look.

Resident Advisor: the deepest listings for this music anywhere. It also has a filter almost nobody notices: you can search day parties. Same music, same crowd, home before midnight.

Shotgun, at shotgun.live. Independent, strong across Europe, and good for finding things you were not looking for.

Dice, covers Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany and the UK.

Follow an artist, not a venue

Pick one DJ whose sets you already love, follow them on any of the above, and go where they go. The hard part is not finding an event. It is knowing which one is yours.

Look outdoors

Beach and forest parties tend to have a much wider range of ages than city clubs.

Ecstatic dance, if you want the release without the club. No alcohol, no phones, barefoot, and no talking on the floor. There are groups across Europe, and the site lists them by city, and plenty of people turn up on their own.

Mush love,Pernille