Damian Lazarus talks about Day Zero

How on earth did Day Zero come about? When did the idea come to you and what’s the process of bringing it to fruition been like?
“Back in January I had something of a cosmic experience which led to me creating Day Zero. I had been told by a Shaman that I needed to place myself underneath the moon with my arms raised towards it for one hour between 10 and 11pm in order to draw power from the Universe. And so one night my friends and I were hanging out on the beach in Tulum and I decided to give it a go.
“With my legs apart and feet digging into the sand, I raised my arms to the sky and within seconds I felt the strongest sensation: the universe was sending a very powerful energy through my hands, arms and entire body, and I was locked into this electric forcefield. And finally when I let it go after some 15 minutes, as it was so strong, I fell to the beach exhausted. I re-joined my friends and everybody could feel a bizarre heat coming from my hands hovering over them. They told me that it was a sign and I needed to realise what it meant – with Mayan ruins just further along the beach to where we sat, I decided there and then to create Day Zero.
“Day Zero has been on my mind every day since. It’s tough but fun work organising an event of this nature but I’m very lucky to have a great team of people around me working on this. There is a lot of love and good vibes surrounding this event so whilst it makes me frightened of the scope of it, I feel very positive that we’re going to pull off a once-in-a-lifetime event.”


Tell us a bit more about the location, and what’s being done to it to make it special for Day Zero.
“I discovered this incredible place shortly after, along with some friends who run Sacbe, an eco/artist community in the jungle in Playa del Carmen. Our location for the event has three pyramids, two lakes and four swimming pools – it feels like stepping back in time with the Mayans to the 10th Century. This place is so beautiful it just felt like the perfect place to celebrate the end of the Mayan calender with 24 hours of the best electronic music in the galaxy.
“We’re working with Secret Productions who create the Secret Garden and Wilderness festivals in the UK and with one of the world’s leading video mapping/visual designers, Sila Sveta from Moscow. We have invited Mayan elders and their families from Mexico and Guatemala to join us and lead our ritual processions and ceremonies during the event. The artwork was brilliantly conceived by Ana Rifa and the incredible animated film on the website by David Terranova.
“The people helping us on the ground with logistics and organisation are friends who run another very successful festival and the stage designers have been friends of mine in Mexico for some years. The whole thing for me is an attempt at making a dream come true, it is a very ambitious event and I’m confident we’re about to make some very special magic happen.”


Do you believe there’s some kind of transformative power or special energy that’s going to be unleashed on the occasion? How does the event align with your own spiritual beliefs or sympathies? What does it mean for your personally?
“On this day there will be a very rare alignment of the planets. We’ve been feeling the energy leading to this moment for a while now. 2012 has already been looming in our consciousness for some time and many people around me have been talking about their recent life-changing experiences. It feels like we’re on a path to something new, something as yet undetermined, but it feels like a positive force is guiding us there. The mystics and soothsayers believe we are about to enter into a new dimension, a new chapter – others believe this is the apocalypse, the end of the world. I figure that whatever may or may not happen at this moment in time, what better way to spend it than with amazing friends from all over the world celebrating, dancing and enjoying life together for 24 hours to a soundtrack perfectly orchestrated to take us to this next stage.
“I believe this is an amazing opportunity for us to come together and take stock of our lives, our loves and set about on a new, better journey from here. I’m not a spiritual person in the hippie/yoga sense but I like to think my life is being guided by the stars and the planets, I like to think the signs for positive progression are all around us, and that we just need to notice and realise them.”

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