Today, I had great conversations with Chloe and Joshua Madara.  The conversation with Chloe was more personal, so I'll hold it close to my chest for now, but the conversation with Joshua doesn't need to be kept private.

My conversation with Joshua struck to the core of what is happening here, and simultaniously shook me and made me feel stronger.

These conversations and the topic of the last post here ("Why did other efforts fail?") lead me to post today about "The Plan."

By the Plan, I mean:  "What are you doing, Lion?  What are your steps?  How do you see, personally, yourself operating within this broader spirit that you are always going on about?"

So, here is what I am doing right now.  Here is how I see things going.

Phase I:  10 People

This is the phase that we are in right now.

There are two parts to this phase:

1. Self-Training.
2. Finding 10 People.

In a little more detail:

Self-Training:  This is my self-created curriculum, based on my study of skills that founders of Damanhur, Tamera, Bucketworks, and the House of Clay (Oberto Airaudi, Dieter Duhm, James Carleson, and Armen Moradians) have that I either do not have, or am weak in.  One principle that has guided me far, and never ceases to surprise me, is this:  Any skill that one person has, anyone else can have as well - and in particular, you can have as well.  Where there is purity and necessity, from within or without, there will be the necessary motion.

"The Four Skills," as I call them, are this:

• Void-Holding:  the capacity to create a collective engagement with the Void, with the creative space.  Here, books like "No More Secondhand Art" and "Impro" become key, become foundational.  (I learned today from Joshua about a third book, Theatre Games for the Lone Actor, which I am eager to study and apply as well.)
• Personal Transformation:  an understanding of how it is that people transform -- although...  (well, notes below)
• Vision-Expression:  the capacity to put form to inner vision;  this connects deeply with embodiment work, sensuousness, and romance.  This can be understood perhaps as the inner and solitary complement to void-holding.
• Personal Relationships:  an understanding, or perhaps better yet, a wisdom for personal relationships.

I once made a chart of the 4 skills for James Carlson, as part of trying to relate my idea to him.  It was thus:

                         Falco  Dieter  James  Armen  Myself  baseline
void-holding              HIGH?    MED?   MED    MED     LOW      NONE
personal xformation       HIGH?   HIGH?   MED?   MED     LOW      LOW
vision-expression         HIGH?    MED?   MED    MED     MED      LOW
personal relationships    HIGH?   HIGH?   MED    MED     LOW      LOW

Of the four skills, I rated myself highest in terms of vision-expression.  I know where this came from.  This came from ECKANKAR, which I am forever grateful to.  I need to continue to develop this;  Heck, we all do.  To be a visionary society, we need to very deeply look within ourselves, to find what is there, deep deep deep.  (It seems somewhat obvious to me.)  This is where I feel strongest, most confident.

In terms of the other 3, I feel very weak.  But, I have to learn these skills.  This is the conviction I have come to hold, from my study of the people who are making societies out there in the world.

Fortunately, I have good friends and mentors, and I have the time to work with them.  In particular, James Carleson is guiding me through my present focus, which is "Void-Holding," which he calls "Creative Encounter," following in accord with the language of Peter London.  I am incredibly thankful for this direct and personal guidance.

Now, I am beginning to feel different about "Personal Transformation" and "Personal Relationships."  In particular, personal transformation.  It is just a feeling at the moment, but I am coming to believe that personal transformation is not something that you do.  What I mean is:  When I look at these 4 great founders, I see lots of people transforming in the experiences that they create, and in response to things that they say and such.  So originally, I thought, "Wow, these people have skills for personal transformation."  But what I started noticing about a month ago- is that:  It's not really planned.  It's not like a psychotherapist, who, in theory, you go to in order to change, and then, by understanding and cleverness and such, "zap you" into a transformed person.  First, I'm not sure that psychotherapists really have this kind of power:  I have heard of many people seeing therapists for years, and never changing.  It is sad, but true.  (I once met a therapist who said he was all about helping people "cope," rather than "curing" their depression.  I thought - "oh God, that sounds horrible!")  I think now, rather, though, what is happening is:  You come to an environment, where people are sharing their deepest truths, and are really embracing one another, and helping each other out as groups, pairs, and people are reflecting deeply on their own independent of all outer council -- and in such an environment, it is natural that people will blossom and unfold and people will discover things.  Maybe there is a degree to which careful dancing and loving with another can help that person fulfill a transformation that they have been seeking, but I am coming to doubt that there is anything like a "skill" in creating personal transformation for people.  In fact, a part of me is even recoiling at the thought of even doing such a thing, were it possible.

I think it is Dieter Duhm's book working on me.  The Tameran's have developed a theory of healing that I find incredibly meaningful and attractive.  It's on page 219 of "The Sacred Matrix," which, by the way, I'll have mailed to anybody's home.

10 Tenets of Healing

1.  (blah blah blah)

2. (blah blah blah)

3. You can enter into the healing process at every step in life, in every situation, and at every age, for the healing (sacred) matrix is ever-present.

4. All healing is self-healing.  As peace workers and healers, it is our task to correctly "nudge" an organism towards healing - be it a human being, an animal, a group, or a iotope - and to create the optimal conditions for the principle of self-healing to take effect.

5. (blah blah blah)

6. (blah blah blah)

7. ...

8. ...

9 ...

10. ...

All 10 points are really, really important.  Each is valuable.  But I just wanted to focus on #4, and included #3 because it came up today in my conversation with Joshua Madara.

This strikes me as a really sound theory.

It also reminds me of something I read in No More Secondhand Art (dangit, can't find the exact page,) where Peter was saying (can't remember where) basically:  "Look at what we've done here.  We've created an experience where a person can see from within themselves, connect within themselves, discover their personal subliminal language, and give form to it, and been appreciated as they wanted to be appreciated.  The person doing this is in control of the experience, so there are no 'teacher-student' relationships, -- it is a clean experience, and the person self-awakens."

A really key piece to all of this, this whole effort, is finding our wholeness, our inner confidence -- not being in dependence on anybody.  The "City of God," if you will, is a glorious and beautiful and loving thing.  Nobody feels like there is someone outside of themselves that they depend on for inner fullness.  This is spiritual self-sufficiency - it's very important.

This doesn't mean that we don't do anything, and it doesn't mean that we don't learn from others.  It doesn't mean that we don't teach, either.  I don't know how to give words to the difference yet, I know it in my heart and intuition, but it is important and worthy of study and fine articulation.  I like the word "nudge," though, that Dieter Duhm gave.  We are in a social world, we have gifts, we love one another, we care and we can help.  Maybe it's -- we don't "need" each other, but we are incomplete without one another.

At any rate --

The fourth one, I think goes similarly -- except that:  I think rather than this being something that "happens out there on its own" (where I have seen personal transformation occur in people around me, where the change was attributed to me, it was almost always something I said, but had not intended a direct and immediate change) -- I see the study of personal relationships as something that very much does require constant and active study.  In otherwords, the study of "personal relationships" is a life-long course.  The key thing here, perhaps then, is just being cognizant that that's what you are doing: understanding that you are inquiring into both the people you are in personal relationship with, and inquiring into the relationship itself between you and the person.  Both have stories to tell.  This was something that I discovered indepedently, but was pleasantly surprised to find confirmed to me by Larissa.

Oh dear, I've really wandered off the course -- so, briefly recapping:

I've made a curriculum for myself.  I'm learning to create creative encounters for people, I am writing, I am drawing, I am learning how to more deeply go into the visionary state, and learning ways of bringing people to that place as well.  At the same time, I am studying personal relationships and group dynamics and transformation.

It's not all just self-work though:

I am also writing this blog.  I am communicating with people.  I am connecting with (what the Tameran's call) "the Field."

The Tamerans say, "Never do anything by your own power.  Always the power of the field.  The field can acomplish what an individual by an individual's power cannot possibly."  I firmly believe this.  Everything inside myself and outsid myself tell me that this is right.

And the focal point of this is finding 10 people.

I'm looking for 10 people, 10 solid people, who are feeling:  "This is what I want to do.  I want to make a new society, and I want to do this with you Lion, and with the other 9 people here."

I have things for people who want to participate but don't want to be one of the 10 -- so don't worry about that, if that's where you feel that you are at.  It's okay.

But I'm looking for specifically 10 people.  Ideally 5 women and 5 men, but it might be lopsided one way or the other.

This is all -- this is from my study of Damanhur and Tamera.  But it's also:  It's what I have found is real.  It takes a critical mass to make something like this work, -- but why does it take a critical mass?  And it turns out that there's a very good reason, that I learned from a business investor incubator type guy that I met on my visit to Bucketworks.

He said:  "Seed investors won't even talk with individuals now -- the climate is now that they won't even talk with you if you are just a brilliant individual with a great idea.  They will only talk with teams.  Why?  Because:  If you can't sell your idea on enough people who will themselves say, "This is a great idea, I'm going to put my life and time into this idea for N years to make it real" -- then why do you believe you even have a product?"

What I saw then was why the critical mass effects in communities formation works:  Because a group of people who are really deeply about an idea is a clear signal of value.  "Hmm, this isn't just a crazy guy with a wild - if intriguing - idea," the people go, "Hmm, perhaps there's really something here."

Other effects include:  There are more places to attach to.  For example, if you have a love of motorcycles, and one of the founding team is also into motorcycles, -- it's like an "attachment point," like cells use to communicate with one another.  (I understand.)  There are little hooks and badges and identifiers we can use to connect if we want to.  So if you have 10 people, 10 full personalities with all these different natures and sexualities and personalities and such, then there are all these ways of connecting.

An interesting mechanic, to be sure.  But it's practical and it works and it's real and it's tractable.

So between 2011, 2012, and 2013, I am writing here, and establishing personal relationships with people who identify with this work, or who are curious enough to take part in Phase II.

Phase II is a 3 year long experiment.

In Phase II, we are diving into a living inquiry into living in community.  And this is where the Big 4 that I wrote about in the last blog post came up:  This is an inquiry into Sex, Money, Love, and Power.  This should be very exciting, fun, at times dramatic, exploratory period.

We are learning about ourselves, about each other, and about the specific subjects of interpersonal relationships and the big 4 and our deepest dreams.

By the plan, in Phase I, people already have a sense of the field, and of the atmosphere we are going for, and the plan, and all of these things.  Book sharing, idea sharing, getting to know you exercises and intimacies, -- should all have happened in the prior two-to-three years.

So, we aren't going into this totally unaware.

But in another respect, we are going into this naive and unaware.

You know --

I look at the Damanhurians, the Damanhurian individuals that I have met, that I know;  And I look at the Tamerans, the Tamerans that I have met, and that I am getting to know, -- and I look at how much wisdom they hold, and what they are capable of -- and I am totally awed.  And I look at the peoples as groups as well, and I think to myself, "These people have been through a lot.  These people have -- all of them, to the person:  They have seen things that the vast majority of people don't even ever begin to have the opportunity of seeing."

This isn't book learning.

This isn't "oh, I took a class at Life U, and I learned these things..."

It's not even personal skilling.

Rather, it was deep, in the trenches, "We're fighting World War II," "I feel the rock of this trench here in front of me and I smell the air" -- it was direct.  World War II imagery and reference might not be the best choice here, but what I mean is:  It's really material and practical.

It's also interpersonal, and it is intimate.

There is no way around it, as far as I can tell, except to do it, to be it, to inquire, to share, to ask, to receive, to be intimate.

That's what Phase II is about.

I think -- I imagine that, for participants, for people who really do this -- I think that they will remember this period for their entire lifetime.  I think that -- whether they decide to go further into the Beyond with us, or not -- that they will find it to be a magical period, that they will learn things about themselves and humanity -- that they cannot learn anywhere else, and that the experience will be invaluable, and that it will serve them for at least the remainder of their lifetime here on the Earth as we know it.

I am asking for a 3 year commitment.  (It might be 2, it my be longer -- we'll know as we get closer.)  I am asking people to stay, to commit across thick and thin, -- to stay even across the hard parts, the hard places.  Hopefully they will be few, but we are all individuals, and there will be times, I am sure, where people will want to leave, and they will feel searing hurt somewhere.  I don't wish that on anybody, but we are walking directly straight towards and through The Big 4:  Money, Sex, Love, and Power.

The crucial factor, I have come to believe, for walking through all of this, is Trust.

And -- I'm not sure where this magical quality comes from, nor do I have a developed philosophy and language about "What Trust Is," and "What Trust Means" and such.  But I do have a belief that that is what we will be together to find and create for ourselves.

But one of the big things I see is:  Trust comes from transparency.  We will commit to really seeing one another, really knowing one another.

And so --  We will be engaging in activities, games, inquiries -- alone and individual, researching:  "Who are we?  How do we share that?  And who are you?" -- and developing a deep trust.  Trust in each other, trust in Life itself, trust in love, across challenges, cloudy days, and struggles and fears.

We will be living together.  We'll get a place together, or at least we'll move to live near one another.

There will be more than 10 people, most likely:  10 people will be the core group, 11 counting myself, -- but I anticipate that 40-50 people will be playing a part.

What I mean is that the core 10 people will have an attractive field effect, and people will say, "You are doing that?  Wow, that's amazing!  I want to participate in that!"  And people will test the waters, and people will show up, and people will be wanting to explore with us.  And some of these people will really stick -- and become core themselves (however that process works out,) and others will drop away,  or whatever.  But I am anticipating that it will be 30-50 people by the time we're a year into Phase II, and then fluctuate from there within that range.

At the end of our 3 year period, the commitment is over.  All participants are free to go wherever they want to go.  (People are free to go, of course, at any point, ever, during the entire experiment -- but -- especially amongst the 10 -- I am asking people to commit through hard periods, and to allocate 3 years, because we want to do this thing that is hard and requires time.  But we also equally need to be purely voluntary, and if a person wants to leave, they will (must!!) always be free to do so without coersion to keep them in.)  I believe and I hope that at least a sizeable subset of the people who are involved will want to continue into the beyond.

Here, a story relating the history of Tamera will, I believe, be helpful:

Tamera is actually something like the 3rd or 4th community experiment that Dieter Duhm was engaged in!  First, there was the Black Forest experiment, and then Zegg, and then (I think...) a dissolution and recreation of Zegg, and then finally a bunch of them got cheap land in Portugal (I think) and they wanted to create a society there.  But between these different community formations, there were periods where there wasn't anything with specific location, specific social form, and the people who were involved in the one experiment were all familiar with and communicating with the others, and people were planning the next experiment.

What I am saying is that just because one form ends, -- the people still know each other, and the dream continues, and they reform in new ways.  Presently, both Zegg and Tamera exist concurrently, and the people still know and care about each other (as far as I can tell,)

So.

Three years to prepare and find 10 people.  You may be one of those 10 people -- I hope so.

In 2012, we'll start with the potlucks, and getting to know one another.  It's coming fast;  Buckle your seat belts, say your prayers, and fortify yourself.

We should start talking about ways of moving resources around -- getting and dropping jobs, putting the financial pieces in order, and:  "If I put $20,000 here, does that free you up to do X?", -- that kind of thing, that kind of thinking.  At this point, we're probably not moving money around -- mainly talking about it.

But by 2013, we should be putting in our final notices, making the crucial job changes, making the final financial moves, aligning our move-out move-in dates.  By the end of 2012, everyone should know everyone else, and what they're about.  By 2013, money is changing hands in major ways.

Everyone should be feeling really excited, and looking forward to the three years of our experiment together.

Remember -- during 2011, 2012, 2013, I'll have been giving classes and courses and talking with lots of people, and creating art experiences and discovery experiences.  The people who are participating will be learning and/or teaching things as well.  There should already be a stir of activity.  We will have met and encountered one another at many different venues.

But in 2014, it's real:  We're living in a house together -- perhaps a Capitol Hill mansion, or somewhere in the U District or Fremont or what have you.  We are stary eyed, and majorly stepping up our activities.  We are diving into dream, and making that real.  There are also lots of people around us, coming to events.  Talk of a second house are in order, as the new people (and we ourselves are already "new" ..!) are around.

Our financial foundations should all be solid.  I know that, for myself -- I'll be working at Pokemon, which I absolutely love working at.  Some people will probably be subsidized -- but not totally, and those who are subsidized:  We will (may) be actively involved in developing.  (I think.)  There are many ways of being involved -- there are jobs that do not require "having a job," in the traditional sense.  (I am now thinking of cooking, cleaning, scheduling, logistical coordination, publicizing,) etc.,.  Well, -- I don't have all the answers.  Again, part of our whole point here is to find reality on these subjects, and to discover what is possible and what is desirable.  This is the intimate sphere.

We will encounter sex, money, love, power soon enough;  We will not have to chase.

And we will dream.

We will dream the world, we will dream ourselves.

And dream itself will guide us into making dream real.

Really, I am so excited, just thinking about it!

But if there is a major point to Phase II, it's to find the beginnings of the principles that can carry us into the Beyond.

The Beyond is the territory of dreams, and the realization of Dream.

This is, by the schedule, 2017 and beyond.

Here -- here -- look at a picture of Dieter Duhm.

Look -- and do you see that?

He is an old man.

He was born in 1942.  That's when Christopher Colombus discovered America, that's how old he is.

I am serious when I say, "I am in this for the long term."  In 2017, I will be 40 years old.  If everything has gone according to plan, (and it won't,) there will likely be 100-150 people who have made some form of fundamental identification with our effort, with the tribe we are making.

The Beyond goes far.

And this really -- this really is where I need you to look to your own heart, and to your own dreams, to know what is beyond.

When I look ahead, I see magical, extraordinary things.  I see amazing programs at work in the city, I see people who are deeply in love with each other and with their lives, I see a spirit of hope and spring and optimism.  I see black people, mexicans, asians, white people, and the indigenous connecting in ways that they have never been able to do so.  I see school children playing, running, creating.  I see neighborhoods.  I see journalists, city officials, dialog and deliberation groups, -- figuring out how to involve people in the dreaming of the city.  I see sensuous, sexual and charming illustrations on the walls.  I see groups of people -- journalists, artists, politicians, organizers, collaborating over light tables and with new technologies to invent new processes so that the city can prosper.  I see a 17 year old girl writing on her tablet, and the drawings appearing in the walls of the building.  I see the arts inverted -- no longer as decoration, but as life.  I see science schools and esoteric schools working in parsimony.  I see the ways of building remade.  I see the people drawn on the walls.  I see a cybernetic infrastructure developed, an augmented reality, as well as a deeper inquiry into the very meaning and nature of cybernetics.  I see music.  I see food brought in from the local farming groups.  I see vines on the sides of the buildings, and I see animals brought back into and with the people in the city.  A place for the nest attached to the house.

(Feh;  I am still embarassed and weak.  I hesitate, I fear.  Please excuse this weak expression.)

(I'll put another blog post to describing ideas that I have heard people speak, and my own ideas, that strike me as extraordinary.)

People come to me with fantastic project ideas, and profound thoughts.  All of these require time and a form.  (But this is all that they require.)  Some have already been working on what they are doing, and they are skilled.  Others are full of promise, but they don't know how to make first steps - they do not know how to "drive their mind" yet, or are caught by circumstance.  Both of these are okay.

Where I am concerned, and where I step in, is where the person says, "This is what I want to do."

I don't care if they can slide in easily, or if they have no idea how they can engage.  But if a person can say, "I believe in myself, and I believe in this, and this is what I want to do."

Do you tremble like a leaf?  Are your feet unsure?  Do you feel like there is nothing inside of you?  Are you weak?

All of this is okay.

Because:  If this is what you want to do?  That wanting -- the very fact of that wanting, that is what I am here to focus on.

I feel like:  In a new society, we all have a part to play.  The part you play, you find it in yourself.  If you haven't found it, I deeply and sincerely believe that you will find it inside of yourself.  The magic is inside of you, and it will work its way out, and you will smile when you see it.  You will know it in your heart.  It will be recognition, like recognizing your face in your child's face.

But there's also -- you will know your part by your desires.  Armen once said to me, "The thing that you most want to do, that is your role."  We are making a society of dream.  Right out of our hearts!  What you believe, who you are, and what you desire, -- this is where we are going.  We are here to wish upon a star.

At some point -- whole city blocks, condominiums, towers -- the dream of the city, the Emerald city, this will all be realized.  Love, confidence, activity, -- there will be many, many societies.

The "Federation of Damanhur" is called a Federation for a very good reason - it is the internal organization.

But I am drifting now -- what I wanted to say is, part of what I really believe in, a big part of what I am really about, a huge part of who I am, one of my core convictions is:  I always dreamed of going up a step of the great infinite pyramid of life, and lowering a ladder down for others.  So it is really, super-important for me, that:  For the people who hear the call, for the people who can hear the divine voice calling to us all from the top of the infinitely tall pyramid, -- that those people who can -- from a place of merely identifying the voice, -- that I can work with them to help them climb up.

I care a lot, and there have been so many times where I've had questions, and it took a really, really long time to figure out the answers.

Practically everything I write about here in the blog, there wasn't really anyone around to put it all together for me.  I feel like:  From Damanhur, there's a sort of "radiation" emmanating from it -- and I piece it together how I can.  The Damanhurians have a word for it -- they call it the synchronic lines.  They are very conscious that they are emitting to the world, and they are doing this deliberately and with careful intention.  But even with them emitting so loudly, -- I am so many thousands of miles away, and I am two languages removed.  It is very difficult.

So a big part of what we are doing is establishing a center within the United States, and specifically, within a major city, to set as a beacon so that the massively parallel distribution of these very long-term processes can be enacted on the globe.  (And from here follows "the plan of healing biotopes," or what the Damanhurians call "spiritual greenhouses.")  Then people from nearby cities and all around can come and see a living example, something that they can replicate with their own spin, identity, nature, and desires, and then we can connect and federate.

OK, it's way late here.  I need to go to bed.

But I hope that this gives you some sense of the plan.

There's still so much that I want to write about, to share, but:  There is time.  I am looking now at the scale of years.  There is time.