I don't believe in the supernatural at all, or any sort of presence outside humanity, but I find things we do, as humans, far more interesting and evocative because of it many times. We are absolutely transcendent creatures and I am in awe of many things we can do, and music is the pinnacle of this. There is a single moment in my life that I know surpasses all else for this reason, and that surpasses the natural world that only humans are capable of, and it was at a concert, Coachella in 2010.

We had been standing in a mass of people for around seven or eight hours at this point listening to some of the best bands in the world, but specifically waiting to get up front for one of our friends to see Atoms for Peace up as close as possible. I was waiting myself for the act before that, Jonsi of Sigur Ros. If you don't know him or Sigur Ros, I highly encourage you to look them up. The music itself it... Otherworldly. It's extraordinary, but in concert he was even better. At this point, it was maybe 6:30, the sun was starting to set and the heat had broken, there were about 10,000 people behind us, and Jon is beginning the last song of his set, the last off the album too, Grow Till Tall (listen to this loud, with good headphones if you have them).

The song starts very softly, people are listening, but there are 10,000 in this crowd, most of them waiting for the next act. The instrumentation starts to grow some and the sky above us is gorgeous. Indio is the middle of a desert, so the sky is ablaze with oranges and purples in the clouds, the sun behind one right now. The song builds more, every piece of the band is coming into it now except the drummer and the bassist (Alex Somer's, Jon's boyfriend). The crowd is noticably quieter, absolutely drawn in by Jon's singularity in this, but by the time the drums come in, at the peak of the first crescendo, the clouds break and just drench the stage in sunlight. Every member on stage is deeply into what they're doing, in one of those moments where you can just see them love what they're doing, and the drummer is there slamming away with the biggest grin I've ever seen while Jon works the pedals, swaying softly as he brings in more and more distortion to the song. He falls to his knees as sings his heart out into the mic, and I swear to you, everything else in the world at that moment, every one of the people in the audience behind us, every other part of the field, everything is perfectly silent except the booming coming from the stage. He draws it out longer than the song goes on the album, and not one person around me that I could see wasn't in tears. I've been to a lot of concerts, but never one where every person around me was feeling what was happening more than right there.

It must have only lasted a minute at the most, but to have that musical oneness that lil aptly names with so many people, from a person that can capture emotion and create music that well, it felt like it lasted an hour. four years later I cannot think of that moment without tearing up and getting gooseflesh. That's spirituality to me, to have something that just ruptures a piece of your emotions as a whole, not an emotion, nothing specific, it just calls on all your emotions and to have that be part of the human condition, with so many others, caused by another human. Nothing will compare to that.