And we're off... the Twin Oaks Halloween Party is still going strong, dance music blaring from Zhankoye all the way down to the courtyard. I'm drunk on Tequila and Pax is sober to drive to Ohio in half an hour. That's right, in thirty short minutes we'll be on the road to change the fate of the country, headed to "the Heart of it All" in Ohio, my home state and major battleground -- or, to move away from militaristic language of the mainstream, major "point of interest" -- for the upcoming presidential election.

For the Halloween party tonight I dressed up as American Democracy. I wore a red and white leotard with shiney blue tights, and I painted my face like a ghost. When we showed off our costumes in the annual "costume parade", I said "Hi! I'm American Democracy! (cheerleader kick!) And I'm DEAD!" (more cheerleader kicks)

Now I'm headed to my room, to throw semi-respectable clothes (and my "American Democracy" costume) into a bag. Then we'll jump in the car and head off... updates coming soon about what transpires.

I just found out that Georgie W. is going to be in Cincinnati tomorrow... look for pictures of me in my blue tights on the national news...

Pax and I are going to Ohio for the next three days to support voter rights and entertain them in long poll lines. I'll be chronicling our adventures here, whenever I get a spare moment to breathe. Here's an article that Pax wrote today about our intent and mission:

Malcom or Martin in Cincinnati?
Why I am going to Ohio

I found myself in a rage and I could not stop talking about it. I was upset with FOX News telling students in Arizona they would be arrested for voting outside their home state. I was sadded to learn that there was going to be no paper backup to most of the 50 million electronic votes. But what put me over the edge was when I heard 3600 “poll watchers” had been hired by the Republicans in Ohio to harrass minority voters and deminish their numbers. It is what the beginning of fascism looks like.

One of the Ecotopia Princinpals is that your visa for complaining is your willingness to do something to create change. I had to stop complaining and pack for a trip to "the heart of it all" (according to Ohio's all-too-apt state motto).

This is my analysis of the election day and beyond. I think there are going to be riots in Cincinnati. Assuming the Republicans are smart and not worried about clean election ethics, the instruction they should be giving to at least some for the poll watchers is clear: Start trouble. Trouble at the polls means the flow of voting will be squeezed if not disrupted. The best case for the incubants would be small scuffles and disturbances, that don’t actually result in anything serious. They need just enough to get the police in, but no one gets hurt.

Cincinnati is a racially poloraized city which knows it is in the white hot center of this very close election. Black voters in the city have been more encouraged than ever before in their lives (there are reports of over 10,000 volunteers in Ohio alredy with more coming), and are understandably likely to respond adversely to being harrassed by poll challengers, especially when those challengers are distinctly absent in the polling locations of affluent whites. I think riots are a distinct possibility. If this happens, we will likely loose Ohio. If this happens, I hope it happens early enough in the day that it positively influences the voters in Western states which were supposed to go for Bush.

But rather than a path of violent resistance to white oppression, which might be advocated by Malcom X, the real power in Ohio is in the path of MLK. If we can be patient and non-violent, the votes are there to swing it blue. I’m going to Cincinnati to encourage and empower voters to stick out long lines, and thwart the effort to make voting too much of a hassle to bother doing. I envision cooperative sit-ins of voters in polling places, lively conversations in the voting lines, and theatrical performances (at legal distance from the poll) to reward and encourage people to wait it out for what might take a very long time with paid disrupters at work.

Regardless of who wins this election, we have a lot of work to do to move the country in a healthier, more sustainable direction. I’m going to Cincinnati because I’m certain that we'll be more successful in that endeavor if Ohio voters are actually allowed to vote.


Paxus is an anarchist organizer, recently published in Paul Loeb’s The Impossible Will Take a Little While www.theimpossible.org. He does recruiting and marketing for income sharing intentional communities in Virginia. He will be traveling with TickledSpirit, a native Ohioan and former Cincinnati urban rights organizer from Twin Oaks Community. The trip will be chronicled on her blog Over the Edge, at trespass.motime.com. You can send much needed gas money (by PayPal) or greetings to paxuscalta@yahoo.com.

last night we had our Samhain ritual, the pagan spiritual part of Halloween. It's the pagan New Year, the time when we acknowledge how thin the veil between the spiritual world and the physical world really is. We remember and grieve for who and what has died, acknowledging that "all that has passed comes around again, nothing fades forever, all that's remembered lives" (so goes one of the chants). And then we celebrate the babies that have been born in the past year, passing from the ethereal world to the physical.

Twin Oaks has a graveyard in one of our forests, high on a hill at the far end of the community, and we held most of the ritual in the large pasture that sprawls out beyond the graveyard's trees. After creating sacred space and drawing forth our most divine and wise selves, we traveled to "the Land of the Dead" (the graveyard), passing through a black veil as we entered. In the ritual, this space was the world where the non-physical reigns, where what has withdrawn from the physical world emerges. In the past, I've experienced this space metaphorically, doing the work in my head to feel the significance of the ritual and this space. And then last night, as we were walking though the forest, I felt immense grief welling up in me. I started crying, and then sobbing. At first I was worried what the people next to me would think, that they would be concerned for my sanity or be uncomfortable. But this is what we create this space for, to give ourselves the opportunity to grieve.

We had stopped around a grave and I sank down to my knees and curled up in a ball, my head resting on the earth, and I allowed myself to immerse in sadness and mourning. The intensity of the feeling reached a depth I don't often feel in day-to-day experience, being completely consumed by an emotion -- having no thoughts, just feeling. The grief wasn't specific or directed for me... some people called out what they were mourning (people who have died, children in pain, the state of our country, the destruction of the earth) and my grief felt deeper with every word they spoke. I felt connected with a universal experience of grief and sadness.

I realize that I felt able to do this because I felt safe. This is my home, and the people facilitating the ritual are folks who I trust. I knew that, having created the space for mourning, they would also guide us in moving out of that space. The power of community -- feeling safe, trusting.

We emerged from the Land of the Dead after being led through a trance to talk with a spirit. We returned to our circle in the pasture and spoke of dreams and moving foward in Life, intentionally creating the world we want to live in. We called out the names of the children who were born in the last year, celebrating and welcoming their lives. We danced the Spiral Dance, singing:

Let it begin with each step we take, and
let it begin with each change we make, and
let it begin with each chain we break, and
let it begin every time we awake.

only one guess from my last post, and it's not an apple. I thought about giving you one more try, but I'm guessing that your lack of response means that you really don't care.

so, you give up? It's a PEZ dispenser. A human PEZ dispenser... I'll remember that visual for a while.

a new batch of visitors arrived on Friday (each month we have a group of visitors here for three weeks), and tonight we had a social gathering for them, to give them a chance to meet people. We played a fantastic game called "Hoopla" where the group had to guess a specific word based on one player describing it in a certain way (of the Cranium/Charades/Pictionary/Taboo variety). A moment I will remember for a long while is one visitor standing with her hands straight at her side, her head moving waaaaay back (eyes looking at the ceiling) and then forward again. A second visitor reached for her neck, pantomimed grabbing something, and then put it in his mouth and rubbed his belly, smiling. "Vampire!" we guessed... "Nope." And then they did it again.

Any guesses? It's a "thing".

the Metaphysics of Duality
I posed for a 3 hour art class last night, which is a fantastic opportunity for metaphysical reflection. The body becomes merely an instrument, and the mind is free to wander with little outside stimulus. I wrote an email to Pax about it, and he promted even more reflection, which i liked, and wanted to share here. From the email:

> > I spent my three hours contemplating the importance
> > of the
> > differences between men and women (having the
> > differences
> > highlights the similarities, what it is to be human)
> > and deconstructing
> > the lyrics to "Phantom of the Opera" -- there's a
> > love letter to you in there somewhere.
>
> there you are in duality land again - talk with shayn
> about the differences and s/he will tell you about the
> blur which is gender. it is just lke this
> transendental right/wrong thing you are addicted to -
> give it up my love, it is a world of contradictions in
> which opposite things are both true and false in
> alternating moments.
> >

yes! It's a continuum, constantly changing, duality and constancy existing together. The duality acknowledges the extremes (which are limitless), and reality exists somewhere between those poles, constantly shifting between them -- I think the movement is in search of balance... maybe just in search of change. Understanding the nature of the poles can help in being more intentional about the change, or at least in understanding the journey more.

I've spent the past two days in the mountains of southern Virginia, at another community (Tekiah, a pod of Abundant Dawn).  I'm here visiting Paxus (the long-haired, big-nosed magician from many earlier posts) and his family, who are staying here on vacation from Twin Oaks for awhile.  The land here is magical, especially in this mid-autumn time of warm days and brilliant leaves and long afternoon shadows.  After a day of preparing carrots for storage (trimming the tops and scrubbing off the dirt), I spent the past hour sitting on a hillside, watching the sun filter through the leaves and dance on the wings of circling turkey vultures.  The giant birds were floating lazily overhead, rising high on the updraft of warm air over the nearby river, then folding their wings and plummeting downward headfirst, only to pull out smoothly and float upward again... aviary bungee jumping.

Being in a small community is such a different experience, compared with life in a large community like Twin Oaks.  There's much less structure here -- no labor system, everyone just does what needs to be done.  And "what needs to be done" is much clearer, because it's all so concentrated.  The folks here aren't directing musicals or running three businesses or feeding 100 people.  Abundant Dawn is divided into a handfull "pods", small groups of people who are responsible for their own day-to-day lives.  The whole group gets together for dinner three times a week, and they have agreements about their common use of the land.  Most people have jobs outside of the community to support themselves financially.  Pax, Hawina, Spot, and I (and two-year old Willow) have been doing chores around Tekiah during our time here, working in the garden, hanging laundry, preparing meals, and cleaning.  I've really been enjoying the lower-key nature of it, doing a job until I'm done with it instead of operating on a schedule (like so much of my life at Twin Oaks -- we have a labor system of assigned work so we can make sure that everything gets done -- pretty necessary in a group of 100 people).  We all woke up late this morning and didn't really meet for breakfast until 10:45.  We ate together and each talked a bit about how things were going for us, individually.  Through the check-ins, it came out that there was some underlying friction between a few different configuartions of people, so we decided to arrange the day so that different people could spend some time talking together while other folks worked and played with Willow (the highly energetic two-and-a-half year old).  Around 2:00 I realized I was ravenous, so I stopped working on the carrots and prepared lunch instead.  This "oh my gosh, I'm hungry!" never happens at Twin Oaks, because lunch is always at noon and dinner is always at 6.  Eating meals is so much a part of my routine that I just don't have to think about it -- it automatically happens.

There are really interesting (ha) Open Relationship dynamics going on here, too.  Hawina and Pax have been in a relationship for nearly 11 years, and Willow is their son (they co-parent along with a few other people).  Pax and I have been lovers for nearly 2 years, and he's just spent the past 4 months in Europe with Hawina and Willow.  And now we're all here together!  The last time we tried to do this it was a bit rough... differing expectations and indirect communication...  this time it's working much better.  Last night Pax and I slept together, and we were "on call" if Hawina needed help with Willow during the night(changing diapers, bouncing back to sleep, etc).  She was in the room next door, and she'd just knock on the wall when she needed help.  Pax would jump out of bed, go to help with Willow, then jump back into bed 5 minutes later.  The night before, Pax and Hawina spent the night together, and I slept alone.  And since I'm leaving tomorrow, tonight Pax and I are going to spend the night together and not be on call! (Willow's fairy godmother, who lives here, will be the nighttime goddess)

We're working it out... and right now it feels worth it.  Hawina and I had a bit of discomfort yesterday around expectations for time with Pax, and the three of us talked through it until we got to a place of saying "Let's try arranging time well in advance so that it doesn't come as a suprise, and see how it works.  If it doesn't, we'll try something else."   Oh my, this takes a lot of energy and talking and flexibility and emotional exploration -- and that's the piece, the emotional exploration, that's the piece that makes it worth all the struggles.   This type of thing just doesn't work if there's not intense and deep self-reflection going on -- so, just like the meals at Twin Oaks, it becomes a natural part of my life.

I joined the circus on Friday. A group of us went into town and performed on the large, open-air pedestrian Mall in Charlottesville. On Friday nights the area is alive with art openings, outdoor restraunts, and teenagers free from school for the weekend. We set up on a corner near the middle of the 5-block Mall, spreading out Anja's homemade T-shirts, stenciled with "Life After Bush" and "Quit Your Job, Join the Circus". John played the accordion, Hejira played the saw, Anja hula hooped, and I stood on my head. We drew crowds at times, children in awe of Anja's graceful hula hooping and giggling teenage girls in adoration of John playing the theme from Amelie. After a couple hours we made $28 (not counting what Anja made selling her T-shirts), and the $7 that was my piece of the booty went to a well-earned post-performance beer.

Even after two years on the commune, I'm still amazed when I find myself in situations like this. I love to perform. An actress and a dancer, I'm always ready to be the center to attention. And yet, I've never busked before. It hasn't fallen within the boundaries of what I accepted as possible for me. I grew up in the suburbs, and we didn't have buskers on the street outside of Kroger's or McDonalds. As I balanced inverted, my head on the cool brick and my toes wiggling in the air, I marveled at this unexpected manifestation of my life. I thought at 25 I'd be working for a non-profit in Washington DC -- instead I'm living on a commune and getting money from strangers for standing on my head. And I love it.

my dad has started his own motime blog! It's a collection of his memories of growing up on a farm in southern Ohio in the 1950s. He's written a few beautiful entries already, and I'd love for my regular readers to take a look: chanyata.motime.com

I just finished up a "meeting" with an amazing person here, Coyote. He's a former English professor in his 60s with fantastic stories about his time breaking codes during the Vietnam war, his realizations about government and power, things that I shouldn't write about in public, and life in general. We're co-managing a part of the community called "Outside Work", the system through which people do work off the farm and earn money that goes to the community, and get labor credits in exchange. It's the system through which I've been doing the college speaking tour, and now I'm helping Coyote co-manage it. We meet in his room once a week for an hour, spend the first 20 minutes talking about Outside Work, and the rest of the time talking about Life. He's always ready to offer any of various drinks he keeps in his room (this week it was Irish Whiskey), and can pull any book off of his shelves with a fantastic recommendation and a story about the author, like any good English professor.

Sometimes when we're sitting in his room, my consciousness just steps back and takes it all in: the lighting, the music in the background, the timbre of his voice, and the span of his smile. I file a mental documentary in my archives, intentionally storing the moment as a piece of my life, a slice of my experience that forms the whole of who I am.