A Portal in the Basque Country - My Experience at Holi Nada Manifestival

Arriving at the Holi Nada Manifestival in the Basque Country felt like stepping through a portal - one where the usual rules of time and structure loosened their grip.

Here, the invitation wasn’t to follow a strict schedule or to look through a program where you’d find a list of activities. The only indication of ‘timing’ were three blocks - morning, lunch, afternoon. The team had carefully curated music performance, song and dance, interspersed with reflection and breathwork.

I landed at the event after a hot and sleepless night at a small hotel around 20 minutes away from the venue. This gave me a buffer from what promised to be a highly energetic day - and I wasn’t wrong.

For those unfamiliar, this wasn’t a conventional festival like Glastonbury or a funfair - it was a ceremonial gathering woven around solstice energies, music, and intention.

What is Holi Nada Manifestival?

Holi Nada is a solstice and equinox gathering created by philosopher and cosmic cartographer Matías De Stefano. The name is a poetic fusion: in English, Holi evokes both hole - a symbol of origin - and holy, meaning sacred. Nada is the Spanish word for “nothing,” but also references the Sanskrit for “vibration” or “sound.”

Together, Holi Nada points to something profound: creation arises from the void. Emptiness is not absence, but potential waiting to unfold. And this year-long festival is a living ceremony that seeks to transform chaos into harmony, and stillness into song with events happening each solstice and equinox, stating in Chichen Itza and finishing in Argentina. The location for the September equinox is yet to be announced.

Matías de Stefano is known for his memory of other lifetimes and multidimensional teachings, which he shares through gatherings like this one. You can learn more about him here.

Why Was I There?

Unlike many who came seeking healing or personal release, I arrived in service. As a breathwork facilitator, I offered a free morning activity many months ago and forgot about it when life’s other distractions got in the way. A week before the event, I got the message that my activity had been chosen, which I read as a call to help hold the energetic space. In simple terms, my role was to help others reconnect to their breath—and through it, to themselves.

Guided by intuition more than plan, I arrived with only a small backpack, yet somehow had everything I needed: an umbrella, a change of clothes, a speaker, and a collection of crystals that would become a grid for the session. Though I’d never built a crystal grid before, the arrangement I created came to me clearly, like a quiet inner instruction.

A Day Without a Schedule

Held at Amalurra - a sacred site whose name means “Mother Earth” in Basque - the gathering space was formed around a circular garden with an olive tree at its heart. A cross of stages aligned to the four directions created the perfect layout for what unfolded.

When it was time to guide my session as a free offering in the morning, I chose a place in the Northwest quadrant, a zone symbolically tied to integration and remembrance. My breathwork invitation was simple: reconnect to your foundation (the body), open your heart (the bridge), and extend upwards to the sky (the breath of spirit). The session’s purpose was to align with the event’s central theme—Puente Arcoiris, the rainbow bridge of remembrance.

When the speaker I’d packed didn’t work it created space for my voice to become the metronome for the breathwork. The absence of the music track didn’t surprise me in one sense - I’d contemplated the possibility before I left London. With sound checks and movement in the background, relying on entrainment through a track people couldn’t hear would’ve diminished the impact of the whole experience; so the loss of music was a net gain for coherence.

A Crystal Grid for the Void

The crystal grid became a quiet but potent focal point. Each stone seemed to choose its place - citrine at the solar plexus, a heart-shaped agate at the heart, and an old quartz named Ahnsi anchoring the crown at the centre. Behind Ahnsi rested a warm tangerine quartz, holding the resonance of quiet remembrance - an inner fire stirring the base of the spine.

Two ammonites, arranged in a figure-eight spiral, encoded the breath loop - inhale and exhale as infinity - while also honouring ammonite as one of Earth’s most ancient expressions of spiral motion: a fossilised memory of time and form breathing itself into being.

A small opal carried the frequency of the dreambody - fluid, multidimensional, iridescent - a gentle tether to the unseen realms of remembering.

If you’re new to energy work, think of a crystal grid as a symbolic map - an architecture of resonance, intention, and coherence.

I placed them all on a black cloth representing the void - that fertile, formless field from which all breath arises, and into which all forms dissolve.

Musical as Space Holder

Throughout the day, music became the stitching thread of the whole experience. Local Basque performers brought forward songs and dances rooted in ancient tradition, their rhythms echoing the heartbeat of the land. The txalaparta - a wooden percussion instrument - rang out with earthy resonance, awakening a sense of ancestral memory. Whether through soulful vocals, traditional instruments, or spontaneous drumming, each performance acted like a sonic bridge, reminding us that sound is one of the most direct pathways into coherence.

Laying down to absorb the beautiful voices, I noticed how the birds in the sky also shifted - from three raptors spiralling in flight on the thermal eddies to scores of andurinas (swallows) weaving their own grid overhead. It felt as if the land, sky, and song were in quiet conversation - braiding the invisible threads that hold us all.

Moments of Dissolution

At several points throughout the day, I felt myself gently dissolve. During music or ceremony, my body softened and leaned forward as if pulled by the land. My face felt porous while my breath synchronised with something much older. I wasn’t alone - others later shared experiences of tingling hands, deep vibrations, or a sudden urge to cry. Something was clearly moving beneath the surface. Some of that also happened in the morning breathwork session I led.

During the main breathwork led by The Breath Act, I had a very different experience to those around me. Many across the field moved through waves of release which I heard faintly over the music in my headset. Rather than join them, I felt a deeper call to remain relaxed yet fully stabilised and grounded with the earth. It was one of the few times in life I’ve recognised that I had a clear role without ever being told. Through the whole session, I breathed calmly, noticing the shifts around me until the heavens opened and the rain forced us inside.

Throughout the day, there were also times that might normally have irritated me - like people consciously standing in front of me, or crouching in front of where I was sitting so they could video or take photos. I felt these were personal invitations to shift my own perspective from judgement and frustration to acceptance. I remembered a simple truth: what the eyes can’t see, the heart can feel… so when those things happened, I simply closed my eyes and listened - heart wide open, without any resistance. That, too, was breathwork. I didn’t need the photos or the videos - I needed to feel the vibration of the music in my body.

A Closing Without Explanation

When Matías performed the final alignment, much of the crowd moved in close, once again blocking the view for many others. Lightning lit the sky, thunder rolled, and yet he continued the task as if nothing else mattered. I stood at the periphery - at both the olive tree and the stone circle, maintaining my role as edge-keeper, feeling the energy radiating from 10 feet away and tingling in the palms of my hands which hung gently by my side.

There was no speech or summary when the ceremony drew to a close - just completion.

Pure, subtle, and deeply felt.

Partial recordings have been shared on the telegram group, but I’ll wait until an attunement is issued later to truly understand what happened there in the Basque portal. And if it doesn’t arrive or I miss out on seeing it, that’s okay too. I was present. I played my part, and that’s what counts.

On the way home, a final wink of grace from the universe: despite a visible scrape on my rental car from a tight manoeuvre in the airport car park, the company chose not to charge me.

Why It Mattered

This wasn’t just a weekend retreat or music festival - it was a tuning of breath, of body, of land.

Some came seeking healing or release. I came as an edge-keeper and tuning fork, holding a field for others to find their own rhythm. I came to stand at the threshold where breath remembers, and coherence returns.

I made deep connections and gathered unexpected insights about places still calling me forward. Even the small grace of no extra charge from the car rental company for a scraped car door felt like a soft affirmation from the universe - alignment made visible.

I left with new friendships, renewed clarity, and a reaffirmed sense that Australia is a waypoint - not a final destination, but part of the spiral path.

I’m now in countdown mode - selling a lot of ‘stuff’ and gently prepping the ground for flat sale, pet export and a few months on the road.