The Stories We Hold Inside

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Human beings are wired to tell stories.  Whether we admit it or not we are constantly telling stories about others, ourselves and every situation we enter into.  “Nobody is doing as much work as I am”, “I’m not doing enough”, “They don’t like me”, “This room was poorly decorated” and on and on.  The funny thing is we often believe these stories, we buy into them lock, stock and barrel which affects how we relate to another, to a group, to “the world” as we perceive it.  We’re often quite unaware of the story we have operating at any given moment, but it sure has a profound impact on the quality of our relationships and interactions with others and “the world”.

I’ve come to believe that for a community (or family, or marriage, or friendship for that matter) to thrive we need to become aware of those stories and to bring them out of the shadows and to check them out in the sometimes harsh and exposing light of day.  There’s no denying, it can be a truly vulnerable act to share your internal world in that way, but it can also be incredibly liberating and it can create a much greater sense of connection and ease in the relationship after the initial wave of shame or awkwardness.  Sharing in this way can deeply feed, empower, and clear a relationship in unforeseen ways, making space for deeper and more authentic connection free of the static of assumptions and “story”.

At Full Bloom we have a commitment to “Clear Communication” in our Resident Agreements that everyone who lives here signs.  Its a commitment to speak directly to a person if their behavior has upset you and you feel estranged or “charged” as a result.  And if you need help to address the person you are requested to seek support from a neutral third party to facilitate the interaction.   Sometimes there isn’t much of a “charge” so to speak but there are those stories that are subtly at work in the relationship and that’s where I’m thinking we could use more work on here at Full Bloom.  We already have a structure for working with such dynamics (we meet twice a month in a “Matrix Circle” where in there is an opportunity to directly express to another community member anything that is present in your relationship within the presence of whole group witnessing).

I’m realizing how much I and, I believe many of us, skirt around direct expression of our stories about each other because we don’t want to “hurt” each other.  Yet it turns out it can be more hurtful to continue to carry an unchecked out story than to come clean.   In the end there’s no way around discomfort if you want to create and maintain a truly thriving, authentic, and intimate relationship with another.  And I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty much on the top of my list of wants for this lifetime.

Thanks for reading and I invite your feedback.

Ryan

Taking Care of Transitions in Community

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As it goes people come in and out of living in community here at Full Bloom.  This morning monthly “Heart Circle” was devoted to expressing our gratitude to 3 departing members of the Full Bloom community Miceala, Caleb, and their son Atreya.   Well before we got into the sappy stuff we had an amazing potluck breakfast of waffles, whip cream, fresh fruit, bacon and sausages.  Oh and if that wasn’t enough we had some fresh baked croissants from our bakery Rise Up!.

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There’s Micaela serving herself up some goodies.

We’re evolving a send off ceremony here where we give each community member an opportunity to share gratitude for the ways in which the departing friend has impacted their lives.  Its a means of honoring the relationship and emboldening that friend as they make their next step.  They can see themselves as somebody who positively impacts others and they can carry that way of being into the next community they go to live in.

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There’s half of the heart circle including some recent additions: Arlo and his owner Kurri.

Its natural human desire to honor life transitions with some sort of ritual or ceremony, that’s what birthdays, and graduations are all about: bringing one chapter to a close so a next one can begin in earnest.  I’m glad we found the time in our busy lives to honor this transition, to honor the relationships that make our community a community.

“One’s friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.” ~George Santayana

 

Winter Camp Winding Down…..

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The Consensus on the land here is that the inaugural Social Forestry Winter Camp at Full Bloom was a success!  (To be transparent: that’s not an official consensus, but I haven’t seen much in the way of sour faces or complaints either from the winter campers or the Full Bloom residents).   Yesterday was their “open camp” and they gave a tour or the their community and some of the forest tending they have down.  Very impressive.  What was a dense thicket of fir and cedar is now a spacious forest with a lot more breathing room and a lot less fuel for potential forest fires.

To know that this was all done within the context of a group singing songs about the land, having daily check-ins, and generally imbedding themselves in the forest ecosystem fills me with reverence as I move through the “treated” forest.

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An Oak woodlawn treated by Winter Camp

Winter camp was also successful in doing a small controlled understory  burn of an Oak woodlawn.   Periodic, if not annual, burning was an essential practice of the Native Americans who lived in this bioregion to maintain the fertility of the Oak Forests (a.k.a Acorn Food Forest).  Modern controlled burning has to be done in a different way as the amount of understory fuel has built up through years of fire suppression, clear cuts, and general lack of integral forest management.

DSCN1558DSCN1557 DSCN1580To me, the biggest success of the whole Winter Camp experience was that a group of individuals spent 5 weeks living in the forest, relating to it, tending to it and each other and now have a wealth of learning and experience to further themselves and all of us towards a truly regenerative relationship with forest.

“But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.“
Alan Watts

A reflection on our New Vision Statement: Recovering from a Culture of Separation…..

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“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.”
― Mark Twain

Last Week the four land partners of Full Bloom:  Myself, my wife Eden, Jo Ferneau and Rosie Demmin collaborated on a new vision statement with the intention of having the statement be something we could read at the beginning of any meeting or gathering to remind us why we do what we do, to awaken our deeper purpose behind all the myriad things we do to keep Full Bloom growing.   I’m finding that one of the lines has been really working on me ever since we nailed it down:  “We are recovering from a culture of separation and disembodiment, rediscovering what it means to have a sacred relationship with the mundane”.

I find that uttering that line leaves me with a sense of relief.  I believe it has something to do with the admittance that I am in the process of recovering from certain patterns and conditioning that have led me to feel separate and either ambivalent towards our downright disrespectful of my body and the earth body.  This shows up in pushing my body to just do one more thing regardless of what its telling me through back pain or fatigue, or buying the new shiny thing rather than repurposing what I already have.  These habits disturb me, or not in alignment with the kind of person I want to be.

But rather than expecting myself to not feel separate, to feel deeply connected to my body, to always be a model eco-citizen this statement allows me to say: “I’m working on it, I’m doing my best to remember that this earth, this body, this food is sacred and not separate from me and to relate with it accordingly.”

Over the years I’ve frequently fallen into a state of guilt or shame around the habits I have that place my needs above the earth, other people.  Habits of mind that turn me into an island to defend and bolster rather than a node in a web of relationships to enjoy and honor.   Bit by bit I’m intentionally shifting those Habits and giving up the tendency to try to “fling them out the window”.  Patience, acceptance, self-compassion are virtues that are becoming my refuge as I mature.

All I know is it is of utmost importance to me to have companions to explore these difficult issues.  Friends in recovery from patterns that don’t support life of deep connection to the earth and all living beings.  Friends who can offer that gentle reminder of why I’m here and what really matters.

Below is the Vision Statement in its entirety:

We are a community weaving a web of heart intelligence so that every being we interact with is inspired to thrive.

We are in recovery from a culture of separation and disembodiment, rediscovering what it means to be in sacred relationship with the mundane.

We are committed to deep connection and radical care with ourselves, each other and the earth.

Thank you all for reading and please post any feedback and/or thoughts about this post.

Ryan

Winter Camp has Begun….

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The beginning of 2014 brought with it the arrival of an amazing crew of devout forest tenders, naturalists, and bold experimenters in “social forestry”:  Winter Camp.   What exactly is Winter Camp?  Its collective of 10 mixed gender individuals committed to learning together what it means to truly care for the forests of this Bioregion.  Using whatever skills and practices they have at their disposal (Permaculture, Regenerative forestry practices, primitive skills, non-violent communication/process work) the winter campers are discovering and rediscovering practices that bring human beings into a more intimate, regenerative and sustainable relationship with the forest ecosystem.  And by all accounts they are having a fun time doing it!

Yesterday most of the Full Bloom residents participated in a work day at their site, where we helped gather and burn the lopped branches from several days of  thinning the forest (Historically the native people performed periodic understory controlled burns to keep the larger trees healthy, reducing competition and cycling in nutrients) and peeled usable poles that came from the forest thinning.

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Burning Cedar branches and returning nutrients to the forest soil, while providing the most pleasant of aromas…..
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Burn Pile
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Pole Pealing Party. These poles can be used as posts and rafters for small cabins on the land.

After a morning of working together on the poles and the burn piles we gathered at their camp headquarters for a delicious meal then the group as a whole began a ceremony initiating the restoration of an Oak woodland that had been taken over by conifer species (cedars and firs).   Rather than going right at it with a chainsaw we started with song and hand tools, which felt good and not so much like work.

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The beginning of our ceremony: we are all gathered around an old oak tree that is barely perceptible amid the crowd of conifer trees.

I feel deeply appreciative for the vision of these young folks to have put together such an undertaking that provides untold benefits to the land and to the residents here at Full Bloom.  Yay Winter Camp!!

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
John Muir

“If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?”
Steven Wright

The Art of Meeting

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For Full Bloom to continue to function, grow, and ideally thrive we (all the adult residents of Full Bloom which is currently 11) choose to have a community meeting once a week.  I thought I would share a little about how we structure our meetings so that they are both nourishing and effective.

We begin each meeting with 2 minutes of settling time.  This may be guided by the facilitatator (a position which rotates weekly) or may be simply time for each person to arrive and settle into being with this particular constellation of people for the next hour and a half.  We then move into engaging with each other using the Matrix Leadership model (www.matrixleaderhsip.org) of group facillitation.  In this model members of the group connect with another member directly in “the eyes and ears of the whole”.  This allows for connections to be fed that may have been underfed during the week.  The sharing from individual to individual may be an expression of gratitude for what the other has done or a “check-in” about what’s been going on emotionally for the person during the week.

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We intend to keep this heart connection as we move into the logistical portion of the meeting where we take agenda items from all the residents such as: Chore check-in, food garden planning, plan for upcoming party, work day, compost pile location etc.  As you can imagine it can be difficult to keep the group on topic and to move through a topic in a reasonable amount of time.  That’s where strong facilitation comes in.  It is an art and we are all learning it as our live unfold here together.

“The facilitator’s job is to support everyone to do their best thinking and practice. To do this, the facilitator encourages full participation, promotes mutual understanding and cultivates shared responsibility”  Sam Kaner et all “The Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision Making”