It's been a long week here on the commune -- last week at this time I was still in DC for the Inauguration protests, and I returned late Friday night to a snow- and ice-covered communitiy.  I've been deep into Cabaret rehearsals all week -- on Sunday I spent 7 hours working on the show!  It's so nice to get labor credit for doing something that I love...

We had parties three nights in a row last week -- on Monday, two Twin Oaks bands (the Vulgar Bulgars and Super Daughter) played at a bar in Charlottesville.   A bunch of Oakers went in and I had another "on the town with 20 of my closest friends" experience.  I loved watching other people watch us, seeing such a large group of people with such obvious connections with and afftection for each other.  Sometimes I wonder if we appear too "cultish", especially as we all pile out of our 15 passenger van... I guess we either look like a cult or a church youth group.

The next night we had a Twin Oaks version of an open mic, which we call a "coffeehouse" (I've talked about these before).  As always, I was struck with a mushy love bug for all of my fellow communards as they jumped up to the front of the audience to share themselves in their own ways.  We had a hilarious puppet show (a parody of a chaotic travelling puppetista performance that happened here about a week ago), belly dancers, guitar players, a trombone player, onomatopeic police cars, a cappella singers, the Vulgar Bulgars, and a couple more hilarious puppet shows.   I'm always floored by the onslaught of appreciation we have for each other at events like this.  People share themselves in such creative and often vulnerable ways, performing songs they've written or singing a much-loved song boldly and off-key.  We seem to appreciate each other more for the willingness to share than for the overall quality of the final result.  And I love that.

The night after the coffeehouse, this month's visitor group hosted their goodbye party.  Each month we have a group of 3-10 visitors here for 3 weeks as a way to learn about this place, and often at the end of their time here they throw a party to say goodbye.  This group decided to have a "Carnival" themed party, so a bunch of us went up into "Commie Clothes" (our communal cache of clothes available to any member) and found wacky costumes.  We went to the party, which the visitors held in our 6 bedroom visitor cabin.  We crammed into the living room and drank beer (delightfully provided by the visitors, who on average have more disposable income than your typical communard!) and ate little pies and chatted like old friends.  As a community, we go through this every month, so visitor parties are fun and festive.  For the visitors, though, it's a pretty significant rite of passage, I think.  Their three weeks are often intensely transformative, and the party is a way of letting go and saying goodbye, to the community and to each other within the group.  The group lives together for three weeks, forming their own sub-community within Twin Oaks.  Two other people from my 6-person visitor group ended up moving here a few months after I did, and we still share a bottle of wine on the anniversary of our initial arrival to Twin Oaks.

In other commune news: because of our economic "austerity" (due to losing Pier One as a hammocks customer), we've stopped buying communal coffee.  People now have to buy it themselves (we all get a small monthly allowance of $70 for personal spending), and there's quite an obvious coffee-crisis culture emerging here.  A buyer's club is forming.  Casual support groups form over lunch to talk about how their coffee withdrawl is going.   People are having "lack of coffee" nightmares.  Not much of a coffee drinker, I watch with curiosity.  Buying coffee has been a long-standing debate within the community.  We don't collectively buy cigarettes or alcohol, so why should the community support an addiction to caffeine?  That's the question... and lots of people, including non-coffee drinkers, answer: because it makes the community a more enjoyable place to be for a significant number of people.  "I don't want to be around 'Anonymous Co' when co hasn't had co's morning coffee!"

On the other hand, the catalogue company LL Bean is inquiring about the possibility of us making thousands of hammocks for them.  Questions abound in the community... wouldn't this be just the same as Pier One?  Do we want to be relying on one large account for a significant fraction of our income?  Do we want to be working for another corporation that caters to rich people?  And yet, it's money, and money is tight right now.  (TickledSpirit's take: I like it this way... I want to be more intentional about buying less and living more simply)

and finally, a friend of mine has bribed me to post his suggested links.  I can vouch for him,  he's a brilliant sociological nerd (much like yours truly), and he's full of interesting thoughts and ideas.  So, here's your first ever Raj Ghoshal's Link of the Day.  It's a network of folks who will let you sleep on their couches, in cities around the world.   I'd add my name, but I think I'd have to go through too much community process to have random strangers as my guests.  So, do it yourself and I'll live vicariously through you.

 We've had a student group from Berea College here for the past 2 days.  It's a group of 19 students and 2 professors, from a class focused on studying intentional communities.   The students have been helping out with some work -- onion peeling, cow herding, dinner cooking, calf feeding -- and hanging out around the community and getting a sense of how we live here.  Some of them seem really interested, others seem too "cool" to enjoy it.  For the most part, it's fun having them here.  I love sharing this way of living with people, watching them open to new ways of doing things (like not flushing toilets after every pee -- or peeing outside, for goodness sake!).  On their first night here, I sat with them and talked about my journey to this place, sharing with them my conviction that collaborative living is possible and vitally necessary, and reminding myself at the same time. 

A large group of Oakers are preparing to head up to the inauguration tomorrow.  My personal theme is "inaugurate yourself!".  I'm going with the intention of celebrating the idea of self-governance and claiming responsibility for creating the reality I want, instead of complaining that other people (especially those who make up the current American government) aren't going to do it.  It's not just George Bush, but the entire system, that's out of whack.  And so I'm going to the protests to invite people to find a way of living that's not (as) dependent on the system.  This isn't recruiting for the commune or anything like that -- it's wanting to inspire folks to consider the possibility of a radically different way of living, whatever that may be.  Off I go, with my dancing clothes on...

 And now, for your viewing pleasure (and for the memory of warm days)...  photos from the commune!  Thanks to Serenalu for instructions on picture posting.

This picture is from Thursday afternoon.  Today is Sunday.   It's snowing in central Virginia.  On Thursday we were hula hooping in tank tops.  It was such a beautiful day, 80 degrees (F),  and we decided to have a Twin Oaks Cirque de Soleil in the courtyard.  I got out my flag from this summer's flag corps extravaganza, and we busted out the giant hula hoops as well.  Ta da!  I skipped a tofu management meeting to hula hoop, and it was worth it.  Neither one of these people is me, FYI, and because I haven't told/asked them about using their photos on here, I won't tell you their names...



The other picture is from New Year's Day, the morning after the grand party.  It's quite the ideal vision of life on a hippie commune, and I love it.

Now that I know how, I'll post more photos in the future.  This is just to whet your appetite.  You can also go to the Twin Oaks homepage where you'll find a link to our online photo album, if you can't wait for my photojournalism.

 The weekend here was amazing.  Sean had his art opening, and carloads of Twin Oakers went into town to support him.    We have many small cars, a minivan, and a 15 passenger van (and a dump truck, and a couple big pickup trucks, and some cargo vans...), and we had at least 5 vehicles in town that night.  At least.  We filled Blanche Whipple (the 15 passenger van -- all our cars have names so we can tell them apart), Vandrogony (the minivan), and a couple station wagons, and the Vulgar Bulgars took in one of the cargo vans with all of their instruments.   This may sound like a lot of vehicles (it IS a lot of vehicles!), but each and every one of them was completely full of people.

We showed up at the gallery just as Sean was starting his puppet show.  He's legend at Twin Oaks for performing hilarious, off-beat, and very strange puppetry.  There was a crowd of at least 50 people gathered around him when we arrived, half Oakers and half not.  Sean had constructed a small wooden puppet booth, and multiple wooden puppets.  It's impossible to describe the show itself... suffice it to say that it ended with a felt puppet of Ernie (from Sesame Street) chatting with a wooden puppet of James Brown, then being accosted by a giant one-eyed Bert.  I have some great pictures -- if I could only figure out how to post them...  (any suggestions?)

The Vulgar Bulgars, our very own klezmer band, had come in to possibly play at the gallery.  There just wasn't enough space with all the people that showed up, so they jaunted down the plaza (or, as it's known in Charlottesville, the Downtown Mall) to the Twisted Branch Teahouse, a funky little venue where they've played many times before.  There wasn't a band scheduled for the night, so the folks at the Twisted Branch offered them the stage.  After leaving Sean's art opening, a large group of us trucked over to the Twisted Branch and listened and danced to the Vulgar Bulgars for hours.  It was a "Twin Oaks invades the Charlottesville arts scence" night.  I was so tickled to enjoy my friends as they created and shared their art with the world.  As I sat in front of the stage, adoring each band member in turn, I wrote in my journal: "Here we all are, enjoying the collective creation of us as creative beings, all feeling part of the the effort because our lives support this -- I work to support Sean and Ezra and Kassia and Matt and Ben, and tomorrow night when I'm on stage, their work will be supporting my art."

And so it was.  After a fantastic night of funky art and funky Klezmer, we headed back to the commune, where I woke the next day to get ready for the opening night of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (photos should be on the Twin Oaks website soon).   We performed the show on Saturday and Sunday, to deeply appreciative and deeply disturbed audiences.  It's not a happy show (though it ends with hope), and people here are used to happy, silly, weird shows.  We usually manipulate the script in some way, but we just did this one straight.   We tried to have a cast party on Saturday night, but no one was in the mood for dancing after seeing the show so we all just  sat around and talked.   We didn't "wow" the audience, we stunned them, and that makes this performance a much different experience for me than I'm used to.  I usually feed off the energy of the audience, thriving on their laughter and delight, and the effusive appreciation afterwards.  Not so with this show.  In absense of the thunderous applause and cheering, I've found myself drawing energy from my own appreciation for myself for doing this show, for seeing it through to completion, for challenging an audience (and a community) desiring easy laughs.  And now we're moving on to Cabaret, another dark show (but at least it's got musical numbers and dancing!).  Gamma Rays ended on Sunday, and we had our first directors' meeting for Cabaret on Monday.  Where did I get the idea that I couldn't be an actress if I moved to a commune?

Even on January 7, folks are still recovering from the New Year's Eve party.  The physical recovery was easy enough with the 80 degree (F) weather on New Year's Day.  People gathered in the courtyard to sit in the grass in shorts and tank tops, drink carrot juice (quite a treat with homegrown organic carrots), and play music and sing and enjoy living on a commune.  Quite the vision of utopian life... whatever hangovers still lingered were melted away by the sunshine and commune love...

The real recovery is of the "I can't believe that really happened/did that really happen?" variety.  The party was an extraordinary experience, and now people are figuring out how to move on with reality.  Maybe it's just me... I had an amazing time on New Year's Eve, and now I'm looking at how to incorporate all that happened then into my daily life now.

 The New Year's party is a time out of time.  It's culturally developed into a space of unlimited possibility.  Twin Oakers anticipate the experience of wild magic, and create a collective energy that allows anything to happen.  Old relationships are rekindled, emotional wounds are spontaneously healed, and vibrant new connections are formed.  Dance music plays from 8pm until at least 4am, and the dance floor vibrates with raw energy -- sometimes packed to capacity, other times vacated for a spectacle of performace by a few wild people.  Musicians filter in and out of the acoustic music room, the ladder to the "cuddle loft" is often occupied, and an upstairs living room hosts the "Temple of Oracles" where folks can go for tarot and rune readings by empaths, healers, and wise ones. 

Ex-members come home, some even flying halfway around the world to be here on Dec 31.   Friends and other guests come for the experience too, so the community is full of people we don't usually get to see.  The days leading up to New Year's Eve help build the energy, as more people arrive and the excitement amplifies as we welcome more people we love into our home.  A friend and lover of mine came down from Massachusetts, my ex-member partner who lives down the road was here, and Pax --  who has been travelling for the past six months -- was home for 4 days before jetting off to Europe again.  All this, in addition to the ex-members and other friends who made it out here for the party.  What a full life!

The party was extraordinary for me for a few key reasons.  I had a reconciliation with someone who I've had some friction with for the past year.  He and I had been getting close early on in our friendship, and then we both started to distance ourselves when things got complicated.  He and I ended up on the dance floor together in an intense dance that evolved into quite a fantastic spectacle -- we're both "contact improv" enthusiasts and we ended up doing lots of acrobatics together, rolling around and throwing each other alll over the place.  We ended up in a tangle on the floor and hugged, and he whispered to me "Let's learn from our past mistakes."  Then we both jumped up and started dancing, and I smiled and laughed uninhibitedly.   We shared a sweet kiss later on in the evening, and I'm excited about the potential for our deepening connection.  Part of my "party recovery" has been checking in with him about his experience of us that night, and finding out to my delight that he's also interested in exploring a deeper connection.   I also had lovely moments with other friends -- jubilant declarations of appreciation and affection, and intense confessions of respect and admiration.  Seeing these people around the commune in the past few days has been fantastic, reconnecting with that energy of love from the party.

The party was also an experience of much of the inner work I've been doing for the past 6 months (uh... 10 years?) coming to fruition.  Something about the extraordinary "carnival" nature of the party (time out of time) helped me allow myself to BE who I've been TRYING TO BE.  I got rid of the trying, and just did it.  In the midst of the experience, I took a step back for some brief analysis (so I could have a better understanding of it later, outside of the context of the party).  I realized that I allow myself to be more free when I don't feel responsible for the experience of other people.  When I trust other people to take care of themselves emotionally, I can act from a more authentic and clearer place.  AND, when i don't make myself responsible for other people's experiences, I also don't make other people responsible for my experience.  If I'm not enjoying myself, it's completely within my capabilities to change how I'm engaging with a situation -- I don't have to blame anyone for my dissatisfaction; I can simply choose to shift my
participation in whatever it is.

An example of this for me was when I was engaged in a conversation with a woman at the party.  I realized pretty soon into the conversation that I wasn't very interested in talking with her, and that I actually wanted to be talking with other folks across the room.  I noticed myself trying to make a graceful escape, and getting bitter at her for not taking my subtle hints.  I didn't like being bitter with her (I actually like her!), so I decided just to be clear.  I smiled, and said "I really want to connect with some people over there -- have a great night".  I hugged her and moved away.  I felt GREAT having communicated what was really true for me instead of trying to negotiate through social conventions.  I don't want to put my energy into trying to figure out the best way to take care of people.  I just want to say what's most true for me and go forward from there.

Of course, the broader view is that I DO care about how my actions impact people and I don't want to ignore my effect on the people around me.  This "New Year's Revelation" is mostly about moving in a  direction on a spectrum -- I've been so focused on taking care of other people to the point of not taking care of myself.  I see the freedom in taking responsibility for my experience and giving other people the space to take responsibility for their experiences, and I want to cultivate that more in my life, while still maintaining a deep awareness of what's happening around me (and within me!).

so that was my New Year's experience.  We're all getting back to business here now, as the ex-members head home to their post-commune lives and we get back to figuring out our drastically-reduced finances for 2005.  There's still a feeling of festiveness in the air as we head into this weekend.   One member, Sean, is having an art opening at a gallery in town and 40 people from the community are going in to support him tonight.  Some folks are making treats, and our own homegrown Klezmer band (the Vulgar Bulgars) are going to play.  I'm warmed so sweetly by the care people here show to fellow communards, especially around individual pursuits like this (though admittedly, this isn't always the case... just to be honest).  And tomorrow night is the first performance of the play we've been rehearsing for two months -- The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.  It's an intense emotional drama, and I'm excited to share it with the community.  We've taken over one of the larger living rooms (the same one used for the New Year's party, in fact!) and converted it into a theater.  We've got stage lights and everything!  For those of you who know the show, I play Tillie.  For those of you who know me, it's quite a challenging role for this former cheerleader, the character's personality highlight being restrained exuberance.

well, I hope this post satiates all you hungry readers who I've slightly neglected for the past couple months.   Carry on your merry ways, and enjoy yourselves.

Someone asked me recently to share with them how I got to where I am. I just wrote them an email, and I wanted to share it here. Enjoy...

(updates about the holidays here -- especially the New Year's Party -- coming soon!)

Asking me how I got to where I am is a great way to get me to talk. My journey is still fascinating to me (especially since I'm still on it!). The root of it was a deep belief that there was more to life than what I was experiencing, and I wanted to seek it. I graduated from college with degrees in Sociology and Religion, and a passion for social justice. I was involved in social activism at different levels, and I got a job doing residents' advocacy in an economically (and otherwise) oppressed neighborhood in Cincinnati (where I grew up). In all that I was doing at that job, I felt like I wasn't really being effective towards making anything better. I was doing band-aid work, trying to heal the wounds created by an exploitative system, without doing anything to change the system itself.

I had already accepted a job as an actress with a children's theater company before I took on the residents' advocacy work. When it was time for me to go into rehearsals for the show, I was ready to leave the first job. I felt totally ineffective and I was ready to be doing something that I was good at! I toured with the theater company for 8 months and loved it. We performed in elementary schools around the country, teaching about science and simple machines, and entertaining them with stories about the Pied Piper. I loved the work I was doing, and I still wasn't feeling satisfied with my life. The actress job was a way of me making my life great and enjoyable in the moment, but I couldn't see myself living like that for the next 40 years. I was convinced that something more was possible. I wanted to be working towards a deeper, richer way of living and making it accessible for anyone, long-term. So at the end of the tour I left the company, packed up my apartment, and got in my car. My plan was to travel around the country and find other people who were seeking a different way of living. Before I left, I did some research, looking for apprenticeships and internships and other experiential opportunities I could plug into, and I found the website of the Fellowship for Intentional Communities. I had read about communes when I was in school, and for a while I had gobbled up any book I could find about people's experiences from communities of the 60s and 70s. I had no idea that any were still around, or that communal living was something that actually worked (I thought they all crashed and burned because of some flaw in human nature). There were hundreds(!) of communes listed on the FIC website, and I started an extensive exploration of communes' websites. There were lots that were in the early, formative stages, and I wanted to visit a community that had been around for awhile, so I could get a sense of people doing something that actually worked! I found Twin Oaks, which at that time had been around for 35 years (now nearly 38). There was a structured visitor program that I could come to for 3 weeks, and I liked the idea of visiting a community with a group of other people who also had no idea what they were doing (for an anarchist, I really appreciate structure sometimes!).

The rest is history. I visited, loved it, traveled for a little while but felt so clear about wanting to be at Twin Oaks. I've been here for two and a half years now, and I'm still learning so much about myself and how I want to engage with the world. I'm realizing how much of what we experience as "reality" is actually human creation -- I've really been getting into History as a way of understanding the present, specifically how things got to be the way they are; it's not just fate or "this is the way it's always been". So much of the world is the way it is because someone or some group of people made a decision to make it that way, or made a decision that had an unintentional effect of making things happen that way. That awareness empowers me to make choices towards things being different. That's a big piece of the "anarchist" mindset for me. I'm also learning how to live collaboratively, creating "power with" people rather than "power over" them, and this feels like a key understanding that I want to share with other people in the larger. I travel around the country and share my experience of communal life at conferences and in college classes, and I feel more effective in creating social change than in any of the other work I've done in my life. And I'm HAPPY doing it! My life at Twin Oaks is rich and full of delight (and struggle and conflict and friction and confusion, too -- that's all a part of the richness).

in joy,
TickledSpirit