A guide to the cosmos and change in consciousness.

I was all set to make my yearly pilgrimage to Glastonbury festival. I have been going there since the age of 16 as a punter but this year I was curating an area with Artwork. Working with my friends (other graffiti artists) from London and Birmingham.
Glastonbury festival's location, (half an hour away from Bristol). Almost every year when the festival is running, nearly the entire population of Bristol leave, and go on a forty minutes drive down the road to one of the UK's biggest and longest running music festivals.
This particular year I had a lot of surface to cover and in the end, stayed on the festival site for 13 days! I made a huge mural for the given area. I then continued to organise other artists to decorate other boards that were being primed and painted almost as fast as the workers could attach them to the heras fencing.They were painted with bright murals, in fluorescent colours to give the revellers a right old eyeball bashing as they danced around large speakers in a wooded area of the farm land.

Artwork by "Neas and Haka"
So the hard work was nearly all finished, the painting was mostly all done. It was one of the last nights before the customers turned up. The site itself is huge and when it is all set up the place turns into a sprawling city. We were sitting up at one of the well known vantage points, myself and two good friends when a man walked past saying "Acid , Sid". The three of us looked at each other shrugged and ushered him over. "Have you tried it mate?" we asked. It was dark on the hill where we were sat. An unusually high voice replied back "Uh no but my friend has... ill give him a call" the young man said back. This did not sound promising. The shadowed person in front of me began to do one of the most unconvincing fake phone calls right in front of us "Hi mate how was the stuff... great ... brilliant". The alarm bells were well and truly raised. I shone the torch from my phone on to the rouge acid salesman's face and exclaimed "YOUR A CHILD!!!"
Before us was a young man of about sixteen years of age holding a pipette of liquid acid that he hadn't even tried.
We all passed another look at each other shrugged and held out the backs of our hands payed the Kid his money. I think I made a joke about him stealing the bottle from his Dad as he squeezed what turned out to be a very large dose onto my hand. I'm going to stop there and instead of boring you with the details of my trip or the actions that followed on that life changing evening. I'm going to tell you the aftermath.
I had eaten meat nearly everyday for twenty seven years prior to that evening. Barely a day had gone by when I didn't ingest some meat! My family had raised me as a meat eater. One of my first jobs was working in a butchers shop on a saturday morning! I used to joke with my mate who was vegetarian saying how weak he would be from his plant based diet!
I turned Vegetarian. I am now Vegan
I had owned a smart phone for about two years previously to that Glastonbury. In that time I was always worried about being tracked. I thought as a graffiti artist owning this bit of tech could potentially get me in a sticky situation.
I gave up my Smart phone. I still don't own a Smart phone.
Finally, I had smoked cigarettes since the age of 14 after being lured to the "smokers" area by a nicotine loving girl I was trying to impress at this young and impressionable age.
I quit cigarettes.
I also changed my approach to my art work, making an effort to do more imagery that made people think about the world around them. The focus before was more based around graffiti lettering and characters. I still do Graffiti but now it is mixed with illustrations and social commentary also. Check out my instagram @hakagraffiti for more.
I made some pretty big life decisions after that festival. I'm not endorsing the use of Acid (I have not taken that drug since) It very nearly left my mind in pieces. I do however still enjoy to trip with magic mushrooms. But I will say the effects of my trip afterwards did make an overall positive change to my life after a confusing few months afterwards. The main thing I tell people is be very careful with psychedelics and don't buy drugs from kids! I would advise anybody to go to Glastonbury Festival however, at least once in there lives. It is a very special place where free thinkers and visionaries come together to put on one of the greatest shows on earth. One of the few places I have found on the planet where you feel truly FREE. I will leave you with another piece I was commissioned to do with a friend and very talented artist Max Gregor. Thanks for reading