By Alex McRobs
I am currently writing this note to all of you from the Vienna International Airport. This last week has been a whirlwind. If you follow me on social media, you'll know that I spontaneously decided to fly to Vienna for the Taylor Swift concert. I am probably one of the biggest Swifties that I know. For the last 1.5 years as the tour travelled the world, I was refusing to buy tickets because it just felt like it was too expensive to travel internationally for a concert. As the concert has toured around the world, I've felt more and more like I was missing out by not going, so I last minute booked a flight to Vienna.
I kind of had a gut feeling that things were going to go wrong. I kept telling people that I was convinced my ticket was a scam. The interesting thing was one of my friends who I was with also said he had a gut feeling for almost a year about this event and kept thinking it was something else that would go wrong - like missing the train, the tickets not working, etc. Yoga Sutra 3.3 speaks to the intuition we strengthen through quieting the mind. When we quiet the mind through our practices, we can hear the whisper of the heart. “Pratibhad-vaa sarvam.”
On Wednesday night, we got the news. All concerts were cancelled in Vienna due to a terrorist attack threat. As I learn more and more about the attack that was planned, I get more and more convinced that I narrowly escaped my death.
There are two spiritual practices that I connected this moment to from the Sutras. (Sutra 1.12 - “Abhyasa Vairagya Abhyam Tan Nirodhah”). Abhyasa is putting in the work - devotion and dedication - and Vairagya is detachment from the outcome. Abhyasa is wise effort, and Vairagya is wise concentration. So we do our best, and we let it go. So I did everything I could to make this concert happen, but I was also detached from whether or not it turned out the way I wanted. And when we cultivate a loving heart through our practice, we are protected from the suffering caused by unskillful mind states.
On the first day that Taylor Swift was cancelled, my friends suggested that we walk down to Corneliusgasse Street in downtown Vienna. We thought we were just visiting a friendship bracelet tree and didn’t realize it had become a spontaneous crowd of hundreds of Swifties. I saw a boy in a Reputation costume, little kids who were coming up to me and trading friendship bracelets, and moms who were crying. Later on, as the day progressed, and we had our mini Taylor Swift party, I met dads who were trying to save the day by holding space for their preteen daughters’ tears and running around to help us find speakers so that we could run a fake concert, whilst teenage girls shouted “fuck the patriarchy” with me when that song lyric came on (their parents too). I saw people of every nationality. People from India, people from the Middle East, people from North America, people from Austria, coming together. I saw men proposing to each other during ‘Love Story.’ I saw policemen wearing friendship bracelets. I saw Viennese people making posters, handing out drinks, shouting “we support you” from their windows. I was emotional, and I couldn’t figure out why.
As I come to the end of my #unprecedentedtimes week in Vienna, Austria, I’ve come to the following conclusion. I think coming to a Taylor Swift concert (for me) isn’t actually about seeing Taylor Swift live. It’s about healing and being part of a safe space for girls, women and queer people. And it’s not just for women and queer people - it’s also for dads, brothers, partners, friends and allies to hold space for the experience too. It’s about feeling seen and heard and understood and supported by them, and by each other. And I do believe that is why there is so much hate towards Swifties right now. Because women and queer people and our allies are mobilizing and connecting and walking beside each other worldwide in a way that possibly hasn’t been seen before.
If you don’t follow Taylor Swift’s journey and don’t know why this feminist aspect of her story is so big, I invite you to watch the documentary Miss Americana, which covers so many important moments: from overcoming slut shaming to taking back her music to winning a lawsuit with $1 after being sexually assaulted. From voicing her political opinions to defying the stereotype that “good girls” are just nice. Her dance team, band and back up singers represent all ethnicities, sexualities, body types and ages, and every single person who sees the show can see themselves in one of them. As she has evolved over her journey. She has started to represent the feminist movement in her actions and song lyrics. So I realized this weekend that the whole Swiftie thing right now is no longer just about her. It's so much bigger than that. It’s about how she is empowering women and queer people to do the same and bringing in dads, partners, allies and friends into it, too. And I think for people who don’t want to see this movement happening, for whatever reason, that’s what they hate.
I realized that the Swiftie community, the Yoga Community and the Sober Community share a lot in common. These communities are all about compassion, kindness and belonging. Often, we have leaders within these communities who organize and create these spaces for us to connect in. But what I discovered this week is that we don’t actually need Taylor Swift or a guru to do any of this. She wasn’t here in Vienna, and we still made this whole experience happen for each other. Maybe on a bigger scale. Taylor Swift has facilitated this movement and brought together this community, absolutely. She deserves every bit of credit for her amazing work. She lit the match. But the movement remains within every single one of us at this concert and all her fans around the world. She lit the match, and now we can carry the torch.
Yoga Sutra 1.26 reads “sa esa purvesam api guruh kalena anavacchedat.” It speaks to how sometimes in yoga, we can get lost idealizing a teacher or guru. We look up to a teacher for answers and wisdom. But in reality, no teacher should be our idol or guru. Because attaining union with an inner guru, an inner guide, the universe, this force - THIS is the goal of yoga.
The guru is not within Taylor Swift - it’s within all of us. And this weekend, we saw this to be true. Yes, Taylor Swift brought this together. She initiated this movement. She may have lit the match - but we carried the torch. The legacy is there and cannot be undone - no matter what. And we can continue to carry the legacy whether or not we’re at a Taylor Swift concert - or within the presence of a guru, or teacher, for the rest of our lives.
Love,
Alex
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