Tinkering a Quink
This festival, QuinkFair, starts with two unusual challenges: embracing a new word and a dare.
The first idea is that there is an opposite of trauma: a specific event occurs and afterwards you experience healing or a shift in your life in a more positive direction. We have invented a new word to describe this phenomenon: a quink. Falling in love is often a quink, giving up a destructive habit or toxic relationship is a quink, finding a new hobby you love can be a quink. Spiritual enlightenment is almost always a quink.
The dare is that you will open yourself to experiencing this quink thing. You can increase the chances of experiencing a quink by talking about them, by listening to other people share their transformative experiences, or by putting yourself in an environment that’s different from your usual day to day life. We don’t pretend that this search for quinks is a scientific endeavor, it is far more mysterious than that, we don’t really know how to create quinks, they are more elusive than that. But we do believe there is potentially great value to experimenting with these stories and ideas. This festival is designed around tinkering to spark a quink.
Artwork by Dalle2
One of the tools we are using is the Dream Alliance. This small group workshop is where you tell a small group of strangers what you really want in life and they give you their advice in two forms. First, they share their advice as though they are your best friend – concerned for your welfare, wanting you to succeed and thrive. Then you get the reckless advice – out of the box thinking, break things and move fast – less concerned about being safe or sustainable. It turns out in post-Dream Alliance interviews, participants say the most useful advice is often a modified version of the reckless suggestions. This is likely, in part, because people can often forecast what the best friend might say. Thus reckless is novel and with novelty there is breakthrough. We are daring you to opt into this type of experience.
You don’t have to be actively on a path of self discovery and improvement to have a wonderful experience at QuinkFair. You can look at the quink idea as a type of frame. Experienced workshop facilitators are asked to discuss their own transformative journey that inspired them to share the content they are offering.
Books that changed people’s lives will populate our tiny library and someone you have connected with might press one into your hands. Because of its proximity to many intentional communities, including income-sharing ones, a piece of the festival is introducing participants to this unusual and sustainable lifestyle.
Artwork by Dalle2
We believe that the more we recognize quinks and we talk about quinks, the more we create the opportunities to have them. In this way our lives can become richer and deeper and far more satisfying.
It is important to point out this is a celebratory event. We are not serious folks. There are parties, dances, bubble machines, riddle gardens, bonfires, and adult high consent spaces. There is great food (we feed you!), fun kid activities, spiritual readings, and drum circles. Dedicated volunteers help usher in a safe, joyful, and supportive environment for the weekend.
Who is making this happen? Artists, transformative festival organizers, and folks who live in intentional communities. We are organizing the fourth QuinkFair event, which starts July 20th at the Conference site of Twin Oaks Community in central Virginia. [Get your tickets here, and join us July 20-24, 2023]
QuinkFair Program
Running Program QuinkFair 2022
(not all confirmed*, times in flux)
* All of these presenters have indicated that they want to do a workshop. Some have specified these things, others are just known for these things and we are guessing.
Friday Sept 23, 2022
Schedule
- 10am – Gates officially open / Orientation
- 12pm – Lunch
- 1pm to 5pm – Afternoon Workshops
- 5pm – Welcome and opening ceremony
- 6pm – Dinner
- 8pm – Talent Show – Jade as MC
- After the Talent Show – Dancing with DJ Arrow Chrome
- * * Temple of Oracles open into the wee hours of the morning
Afternoon Workshops 1pm – 5pm
- Call me by my name – new name workshop
- Storytelling Workshop by Paxus
- Starting a Black-led commune in Louisa by Moonseed Community
- Mushroom walk and discussion by Jules TO
- Ecstatic Dance
- Jamaica DC Micro Grid by Alexis LEF
- Temple of Oracles – open all afternoon
- Quink books dinner
- Intro to Fire Spinning by Wolf
Saturday Sept 24, 2022
Schedule
- Morning- yoga with Sarah Haley
- 8am Breakfast
- 10 am Meet the Communities
- 12pm- Lunch
- Temple of Oracles open all afternoon
- 6pm- Dinner
- 8pm – Effigy Burn fire spinners and dancing with Rio as MC
- After Burn – Conscious Cuddle Party hosted by Wolf
- ** Temple of Oracles open into the wee hours of the morning
Workshops start at 1pm
- 1:30pm Learn to do Tarot readings for yourself – at the Temple of Oracles
- 3pm Liberation Arts and Capoeira by Macaco at Acoustic Village
- Community Singing: the Craft of Co-Enchantment by Craig & Cleo Green
- Plant Medicine by guest guide
- Quink Stories
- Future-proof Your Home with Corb
- Consent is Sexy – Playshop with Wolf and Kaviar
- Bondage to break thru sexual trauma by Gereldine
- Self Love Language by Joy Smith
- How metamaterials might save the world by Spiderman
- Authentic Relating games by Mike Jaboo
- Primitive WoodWorking by Kyle
- Can Anarchists work on Elections? by Carlos
Sunday Sept 25, 2022
Schedule
- Morning Yoga with Coach Jade
- 8am – Breakfast
- 9am to 12pm – Sunday Morning Workshops
- 12pm- Lunch
- 1pm QuinkFair closing celebration, ritual and farewell
- 2pm – 5pm Open Space Workshops and other possible events
- 6pm- Dinner
- Temple Burn
Morning Workshops – 9am to 12pm
- Alleged Urban Squatting Workshop
- Honest Seduction Workshop by Angie
- Can Festivals Save the World – intro to funology
- Politics, oppression, and creative forms of liberation – Gil & Ella Cambia
- Quink Book Trade
- Kink Sharing Circle – Facilitated by Erin
- Ask a Dominatrix by Tarryn Torn
- Love Temple – Sacred Sensuality Collective Temple with Tantric Breathwork
- Sharing Quink Stories
Afternoon – Open Space Technology by you (you can present your own workshop)
Monday Sept 26, 2022
- Morning – Tours of local communities
- 12pm – Lunch
- 2pm- General attendees depart, some volunteers stay to help clean up
If this is compelling to you there is still time to buy tickets, until Thursday morning. We also have
discount and scholarship tickets available, call 541-505-0803 for more information.
Transformus Post Office
Transformus is a regional Burning Man influenced event which used to be on a glorious site near Asheville, NC and has moved to a different beautiful place near Masonville, WV. Rick from Happy Hill came for the first time to this location and observed things i never would have noticed. Specifically, that the huge fields were not actually a monoculture, but a complex mix of different types of plants as part of a sophisticated wildlife and field management program. There is a huge need nationally for this type of soil regeneration and specifically Rick pointed out that they had planted Asclepias which are critical for supporting monarch butterfly populations.
Transformus was the first time i really got to see Dash (our new conference intern) shine. Dash is a gifted cook out of Boston who is helping to organize the Communities Conference and they put out impressive meals on the Camp Contact stoves. No matter where people were in the sprawling Tranformus campus, pretty much everyone made it back to camp around mealtime, despite there being a lot of great food all free at the festival.
Jason Taylor is a hero of mine. A Louisa local who did not discover the communes til he was a teenager, he is now an integral part of holding them together. From building the replacement Llano kitchen (after the actual Twin Oak tree fell on it and crushed it), to repairing the Twin Oaks sawmill and kiln, to repairing and running the seed packing robot machine at Acorn – Jason is our favorite handy person who keeping the communes operating. Jason is the site manager for QuinkFair, last year in that role he manifested all manner of elements from designing and wiring the solar system to leading the effort to build and burn the effigy.
At Transformus he led the screen-printing workshop, using Acorn’s new screen-printing device. This was a test run for the Communities Conference where we plan to print dozens of participants’ clothes (as we successfully in some years ago).
In the above picture Jason is paying for his postage due, by stuffing a huge pineapple top in his mouth. Which requires me to explain a bit about the post office.
The post office is a Burning Man inspired activity, which we ran at Transformus back in 2013 when i was a dual member at Acorn. Burning Man influenced events discourage the use of money internally (as does QuinkFair). Instead of monetary transactions they encourage cultural and comic exchanges. So to get a inter-festival letter sent, you need to pay into the post office with perhaps a skit or a joke or a dance. Similarly, your incoming letter is “postage due” and the postal carrier may try to get you to perform out of character. Asked to “read something that moves you”, a postal customers name Snax who was working registration at Transformus read the section of the Velveteen Rabbit on being real and started crying during their rendition – momentarily all activity stopped at the busy registration to witness this dramatic rendition.
The power of a post office funologically, is it can bring a little culture bomb into a camp. Another postal recipient asked for one of our “Daring” cards and got. “Make out with someone you have never kissed before, consensually, for 30 seconds starting now.” The dare was heard by a lovely person named Freefall, who after a short discussion about risks and STIs, they kissed. Somehow the 30 seconds recommendation got blown threw.
One of the modifications we tested on the regular post office format is we developed a number of postal challenge cards. These including Daring, Beautiful, Funny and Wild Cards. This allows the postal customer to think about what type of way they want subsidize the mail service by delivering a tiny cultural performance of these different types.
Spacious is the principal organizer of the Camp Contact theme camps within several regional burns and at the big burn in Nevada. To the untrained eye, his principal contribution is a tremendous amount of specialty hardware – kitchens, giant shade structures, domes, chill spaces, solar powered refrigerators, drinking and cleaning water systems, showers, bikes, trucks, hand tools and much more. If you are a decerning organizer, you know that the inter-personal stuff is more complex than even the most sophisticated of these inanimate objects: lovely attendees, who can’t afford camp fees or telling prospective participants who make people uncomfortable that they cannot be part of the camp or figuring out how to cover an internal camp task which someone promised to take responsibility for, and then they flaked on it or dealing with people who promise to pay their camp fees and then do not or getting exhausted campers to break down many structures before the rain hits at the end of the event or figuring out just how much the camp attendees are open to building without deciding not to build it or not to come back to the next camp ‘cos it was too much to build.
Camp Contact would not exist without Spacious, the hardware (as complex as it is) is the easy part, creating a harmonious, financially viable, well-equipped camp with a bunch of diverse participants who are not always reliable – that is the heavy lifting of an organizer.
Perhaps because i am so disorganized, one of the things i appreciate in other organizers is being nimble. Being regularly interrupted and still being effective, being able to change plans gracefully on short notice, rapidly adopting to the shifting variables are all signs of a nimble event organizer. Orion Posey is the son of one of my favorite activists Susan Posey and the generous traveling electrician Milo MacTavish. Orion was supposed to be performing in a play near Norfolk, a few days before Transformus, but the play got cancelled and Orion reached out to me about being a conference intern. He agreed to come to Transformus, without really knowing what it is, but knowing that their festival activities would be secondary to the networking and outreach work we wanted them to do. Orion delivered a bunch of mail, dispersed a number of fingerbooks, acted as an ambassador from our events to workshops on topics we are interested in. With Twin Oaks population the lowest it has been in years; we can use all the help we can get, and Orion is the addition of a nimble set of hands.
If you are interested in our small regional burn in Virginia Sept 23 thru 26 – check out QuinkFair:
- Tickets (discounted til Aug 15th)
- Report from last year
- Inspiring influences
- What is a Quink?
If you are interested in intentional communities, consider our Labor Day (Sept 2 thru 6) event, the Communities Conference:
- Tickets (discounted til Aug 1st)
- Call for Presenters (til Aug 1st)
- Better than Burning Man
- Meet the Communities
Balloons is Popping
The pandemic disrupted my life a bunch. I was on leave from Twin Oaks and when the commune locked down, i had the choice to be in or out. Because Jade, who was not an Oaker, could not join me, we decided to leave Virginia and by summer of 2020 we were settled in Springfield Missouri hosted by the lovely and talented Bliss and her tennis prodigy son, Solace.
Besides running the comic and poignant novelty textile company Lewd Linens, Bliss manages the Farmers Market of the Ozarks (FMO). As part of her management of this large market she needs to chat with vendors, collect fees, repulse anti-mask idiots and generally make sure things are running smoothly. This leaves her little time to monitor her own Lewd Linens booth at the market, so Jade and i stepped in and watched her booth on Saturday mornings.
Booth watching gave us time to practice balloon animal making, something Jade had been teaching herself by watching youtube videos. We gave balloons to kids at the market for donations. It was quite a hit and over the course of a Saturday morning we would often make $50 to $75 in donations from parents who were happy to have some small joy inducing present to give to their kids and because it was “pay what you like” everyone was a winner.
Fast forward to the 2020 elections, Jade and I joined the Flip team and worked in Maine to try to save Democracy from the Trump madness. Balloon making followed us and was incorporated into a number of political actions and our repertoire of balloon animals expanded. Jade taught the whole Flip Maine crew how to make balloon animals.
But it was really not until we got to New Jersey that the balloon animal business took off. The Collinswood farmers market was initially very reluctant to have us be part of it or even near it. It was pre-vaccine covid and the organizers were under tremendous pressure to do what ever they could to minimize risk. A couple of folks drawing crowds of kids at no gain to the market felt like a losing proposition.
So we located ourselves a bit far from the entrance to the market, around the corner towards the parking lot and connected to kids as they were heading towards or away from their parents cars. Business was good and by the end of the summer of 2021, we had moved ourselves to across the street from the entrance and owner Dave had warmed up to us, because we were bringing in kids who were excited about getting this week’s balloon. And in my version of the story, because we were donations, no one felt pressured to pay anything in particular making it accessible to all participants and we actually give away a fair few balloons for free.
Enter Filbert. Just before Thanksgiving 2021, we met Josh who “used to be in the balloon game”. He had held onto his large specialty pump for reasons which were a bit mysterious to him, but he sold it to us quite inexpensively. This changed everything. We call the pump Filbert (because that is the company that makes it, because it is a funny name and because it actually fills the balloon extremely effectively, with a single push, as contrasted with 14 pumps of our previous hand pump). For a team that prides itself on quick turn around (otherwise you end up with a line of impatient kids and frustrated parents) this was a breakthrough.
Spot often comes and juggles and sells buttons with us. The juggling draws onlookers, especially kids and the coat tree holds the colorful balloons making us easy to find. As business grew we started to bring inventory to Collinswood, typically making 40 units (mostly swords and flowers) the night before we arrived, always selling out within the first couple of hours, despite replacing it often as fast as we can pump and tie. As we had bigger crowds to handle, Jade’s mom, Maureen joined us. Maureen worked the line, got orders from kids who were waiting (what color balloon, what type of animal), she counted and sorted money in our donations basket and would bring water and cookies she made for us.
We have a collection of pitches we give to the parents “So if part of your balloon sword pops while you are still here at the market come back to us, we have the only free, while you wait, balloon repair service in New Jersey”. Alternatively, i say “If the balloon pops you might be tempted to explain Zen non-attachment to your 5 year old, or describe the ephemeral nature of all things. Don’t do that. Come get another balloon. We have a bunch of data on this, trust us, everyone is going to be happier this way”. We explain that we have the only warranted balloons in the state (likely the world) and if they pop we will replace or repair it for free and parents often laugh at this, but the kids always remember and we get perhaps half a dozen repairs most Saturday mornings.
And in our effort to reframe kids scary experience of balloons bursting we often say “When a balloon pops we tell people you should make a wish, but you should wish for something nicer than a balloon”
We do have quite an array of balloon colors and types. Typically we use 160 and 260 balloons (which are one and two inches in diameter and 60 inches long, respectively) and get a number of fancy colors including reflex gold and silver, which are popular blade colors for swords and neon pink which is often requested as flower pedals. In quantity, balloon prices vary from 7 to 10 cents. They are all biodegradable latex.
This last Saturday there was a street fair in Collingswood, which we walked to from the farmers market. We had lots of attention at both venues, we burned thru over 60 inventory items and spent much of the afternoon with no inventory and Filbert going full blast. Jade is modest about our take, but let me just say i have not been paid this well since is was a software development consultant 30 years ago. We’ve come a long way from the Ozarks.
Communities Bounce Back – 5 Events
Most intentional communities took a population hit during the pandemic. Germs and illnesses spread quickly in communities because of how much we share- food, homes, bathrooms, work spaces, etc. With this in mind, most communities that those regular visitor sessions canceled them (at least until there was a vaccine) to protect their more vulnerable members. It was likely the best, safest choice, but meant that members who left communities during the pandemic weren’t replaced with new folx and populations dropped significant. At Twin Oaks we went from 85 members to 63 members at the lowest point (we are back up to 78 now).
The pandemic also forced many to deal with unusual isolation and question our relationship with groups and what people in close orbit are important to you. Intentional community is an invitation to being part of a group designed to foster and take care of each other, and while it does not always succeed the intention and results are favorable (or prove worthy .. or something)
This summer and fall there several events which showcase these intentional communities which are bouncing back or in the case of Serenity Community springing forward from the George Floyd energized racial justice movement.
These events are celebrations of many different identities all seen through the lens of intentional community. If you want to feel what it is like to live with others cooperatively, this is a glimpse.
The Community Festivals, Gatherings, and Conferences are Coming Back!
Mark your calendars, there are several different weekend events which you will want to consider.
- Serenity Food Sovereignty Festival June 24 thru 26
- Twin Oaks Queer Gathering Aug 5 thru 7
- Twin Oaks Women’s Gathering Aug 19 thru 21
- Twin Oaks Communities Conference Sept 2 thru 5
- QuinkFair Sept 23 thru 26
All of these events are happening in Louisa County and the first 4 of them are all happening at Twin Oaks. Here are the brief descriptions of the events and how to RSVP.
Serenity Food Sovereignty Festival June 24 – 26
Learn about mutual aid and BIPOC centered intentional communities that focus on restorative agriculture and ecovillages. BIPOC activists and organizers are working in conjunction with the central Virginia income sharing communities movement to host BIPOC participants and our allies, to bring incredible food and learning opportunities to attendees. POC farmers will discuss their techniques and challenges and participants will learn about income sharing communities and Serenity Community projects.
White allies can attend this event if they are genuinely interested in this cuisine and culture. We ask white participants to step back and let BIPOC participants drive the conversations and workshops. This could mean your question might not get answered in the workshop or you should hold off on getting seconds.
RSVP via this free ticket survey required (or via Facebook optional).
Twin Oaks Queer Gathering August 5 – 7
Join us for a weekend of queertranstastic fun, learning, workshops, networking, revelry, and more! This is a participant-led/co-created event, so while the organizing team will set up the event site and create a general schedule of activities, the content is largely up to YOU! There is opportunity to lead a workshop, DJ some of the dance party, bring your instruments to jam, offer an interest/identity-based meetup (BIPOC dinner, non-binary lunch, comic book breakfast, etc), and more! Registration fee is suggested at $80 (sliding scale – pay what you can : $40-$140) includes all meals and tent space. Work trade available. No one turned away for lack of funds. BIPOC travel stipends available by emailing us at queergathering@twinoaks.org.
Get all the details at www.twinoaksqueergathering.org
Please RSVP by pre-registering at our eventbrite page!
Twin Oaks Women’s Gathering
The Women’s Gathering is back in 2022! The event will be a three day conference on themes ranging from sex and sexuality to positive relationship building to DIY music, art and movement. There will be scheduled workshops and performance spaces, as well as lots of free time to network, drum, dance and play. Registration fee $85 (sliding scale – pay what you can : $80-$160) includes meals and tent space.
Learn more at womensgathering.org
RSVP via Facebook or email gathering@twinoaks.org
Twin Oaks Communities Conference
If you are looking for an intentional community, or if you are in a community looking for new members, this is the event for you. The Twin Oaks Communities Conference brings experienced collectivists and communitarians to central Virginia over the Labor Day weekend. We expect at least 40 different communities to be represented, workshops in intentional community specific topics, and open space so you can bring your own content.
There will be an opportunity to tour the communities of Louisa county (including Acorn, Cambia, Community of Peace, Living Energy Farm, Serenity and Twin Oaks). There will also a separate Monday (Labor Day) program hosted at least at Acorn and Cambia.
The Twin Oaks Communities Conference is a kid friendly event which can accommodate many different dietary needs- meals and tent space are included in the registration fee. Full price adult registration is $125, full price youth ages 6-17 is $40, kids 5 and under are free. Early bird discounts, work exchange, and scholarships are available.
RSVP via Facebook or buy tickets at our eventbrite page.
QuinkFair
QuinkFair! is a celebration crafted to spark personal and collective positive change and healing. Through a colorful and chaotic mix of exhibits, interactive art, music, guides & readers, workshops, dance, books and your own curiosity, we will seek experience and insights as a catalyst for personal growth and cultural change.
Inspired and influenced by several festivals, QuinkFair asks every participant to step away from being an amazed audience and into being an inspired co-creator. If you want to be entertained enjoy a music festival, if you want to become someone new come to QuinkFair.
Adult tickets are $160 (or $128 if you buy early) and kids between 6 and 17 are $80 (or $64 if purchased early). Kids under 6 are free. This is a camping event and food is provided.
QuinkFair takes place not at the Twin Oaks Conference Site (like all these other events do) but instead at the beautiful Happy Hills land in Mineral VA.
RSVP via Facebook or Pre-register on our Eventbrite page. Tickets go on sale June 1.
Internships available
If you are interested in supporting the first 4 events all hosted at Twin Oaks you could apply to be a Conference/Gathering Intern If you want to help manifest the QuinkFair celebration consider applying to be a Festival Intern
The importance of the Right Allies – Serenity Community
When the nation was exploding in protests over the murder of George Floyd, some skeptics, perhaps tired of the nations inability to hold Trump for any of his many crimes, said “these protests won’t change anything”. They were wrong.
Viewers of mainstream news could be forgiven for thinking the big effects were removal of confederate statues and the confederate symbol from the flag of Mississippi and NASCAR races. And i fear the biggest effect of the Trump presidency is that many news sources now focus more on telling us what we will get upset about, rather than what is actually important.
However this short list misses most critical reforms and changes, many of which took place shortly after Floyd was murdered. Some terrible laws were cancelled, including A 50 in New York which protected criminal bad cops by hiding their disciplinary records and complaints filed against them. Colorado stripped cops of qualified immunity. LA cut over $150 million from the police budget and redirected it to other community services. Over a dozen police chiefs were forced to resign, including in large cities like Atlanta, Tucson, Richmond and Louisville. Police chiefs almost never resign suddenly or are fired. Letitia James, the Attorney General of NY State made history by being the first AG to sue their own police department for use of excessive force. At one point, i started to track all the things which had actually changed because of this uprising, it ended up being overwhelming by it and i quit.
The communes also changed. There were disruptive internal protests at these intentional communities about systemic racism and there was a lot of education of white communards about how despite their best intentions they were maintaining racist systems. And in part because of these internal protests POC members of communes started more seriously considering options which had only been discussed before. Importantly, a number of BIPOC community members realized there was a need for a BIPOC led income sharing community near the cluster of communes in Louisa county. And so Serenity Community was born.
While Serenity (taken for the name for the starship in the Firefly TV series) is still forming, it is already making good things happen. One of the things we are especially excited about is that Serenity has taken on the difficult task of dispersing scholarship (discount) tickets for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ folks who need economic assistance to come to QuinkFair. Recently, has also agreed to take on the granting of scholarship tickets to other economically disadvantaged participants.
And while they have been actively dispersing scholarship tickets, there are still more people who want to come to this event than can afford it. If you could help grow these scholarship funds it would be quite helpful. If you are on Facebook, you can donate at this fundraiser or you can venmo 541-505-0803, be sure to include a note “QuinkFair Scholarships”
George Floyds death forced America to admit it had a systemic racism problem and while these important changes are to be lauded, we know the real work lies in front of us, but i am glad and excited to have the talented and energetic Serenity folks help in crafting a more fair and equitable world.
Meet the Communities – An evolutionally stable design
[Update May 2023 – the dates for QuinkFair have been updated in this post]
There are some evolutionary marvels out there. Designs so stable that they make the dinosaurs look like the new kids on the block. I am speaking specifically of dragonflies, jellyfish and cow sharks.
Say you have an event where you have brought together 200 participants and perhaps 100 of them are hunting for a new community (the others are from communities or are just community-curious). Let’s say there are 40 communities represented. How do you get the key information to the right hunters so they can make good choices?
I don’t know exactly who developed the Meet the Communities format that the Twin Oaks Communities Conference has used for decades, but it is an evolutionarily stable format, because it works so well.
You could say it is basically formatted around the controversial propagandist axiom “there is no such thing as a long story”. You line up all your communities and say “you have 1 minute to present yourself and then people who like you will come for more personal and longer talks after all the communities present themselves”. Yes, the communities movement basically invented speed dating.
After these introductions community presenters spread out to picnic tables and put up their signs and hunters who were intrigued at the short presentation come and have a longer, more personal and more focused conversation.
There are some organizational pieces you have to include to make it work. You need someone who is watching the clock and when people hit their 1 minute mark gently moves them off the stage. Ira did this for many years. [Which resulted in Pat Therrian intentionally running over her time so Ira would have to grab her, which Pat quite liked.] And you have to explain to the sustainability network guy how, while his project is important, he can not get up and present himself as a place based residential community.
Another proof of evolutionary stability is imitation. The West Coast Communities Conference (when it was happening before the pandemic) also used this format as does the QuinkFair event happening July 20 thru 24, 2023 at the Twin Oaks Conference Site. These are the communities who have been invited to present themselves during MtC which will be the morning of July 21st.
| Acorn | Mineral |
| Abrams Creek/CFNC | Storm Mountain WV |
| Baltimore Free Farm | Baltimore |
| Cambia | Louisa |
Community of Peace | Louisa |
| Cosmic Honey | San Francisco Bay a |
| Cuckoo Compound | Cuckoo VA |
| Cville Ecovillage | Cville VA |
| Federation of Egalitarian Communities | US |
| Foundation for Intentional Community | North America |
| Glow House | DC |
| Hawks Crest | Richmond |
| Living Energy Farm (LEF) | Louisa |
| Little Flower | Louisa |
| Magnolia (LEF affiliate) | Louisa |
| Open Circle | Etlan VA |
| Twin Oaks | Louisa |
A Festival with Homework
[Update May 2023: This post has been updated for this years dates and new site.]
This is an ambitious event. We are striving to create a temporary community celebration where we positively change the lives of participants. This experience strives to strike the delicate balance between joyous celebration and transformative self reflection. We want you to have a crazy good time, and we also want you to walk away from the event a wiser, wilder, and more inspired person.
To this end we are trying some unusual things: this festival has homework you need to complete before arriving. We are asking everyone to bring a very specific type of memory. A rememberance where you made a choice and things in your life improved. It could be a little thing, standing up for yourself or taking a small risk. It could be a large thing, like breaking an addiction, falling in love or reaching a spiritual enlightenment. Reflecting back on the lock downs, how are you different in an improved way and how did that happen? This memory will be the core of a story we want you to tell.
Homework for a festival?
What the talented storytellers explain is that the way you improve your story is to often retell it. And this is also the way you understand your own story. But we are often discouraged from telling these types of stories culturally because they are immodest. Yet especially in these extraordinary times, modesty is dangerous and we need to honor and herald these heroic choices.
What event is this? QuinkFair is an event on July 20th through the 24th. It is located in Louisa, Virginia at the Twin Oaks Communities Conference site, so it is close to the several communes of Louisa county. A festival inspired by many other events and cultures including the rainbow gathering, burning man, and the intentional communities conferences.
The story we are asking you to develop is about a quink from your life, a quink is roughly defined as the opposite of trauma, where after some identifiable event your life improves or you experience a healing. When people share these positive stories we observe two important things happen. The first is that you think more about these experiences and pay attention to how they might happen in your future life and how you might best ride them. And secondly, these are intimate stories of (in part) how you became who you are and this vulnerability brings intimacy with the group.
Beyond crafting a story, we are asking folks to consider presenting about their quink experiences so others might learn from their paths. Examples bondage class, group building with challenge course material, or try your hand with divination at the Temple of Oracles. We discourage the term audience in favor of participant and co-creator or maker.
We borrow from other festival cultures and are strongly committed to both a high consent culture and a decommodified one. Consent culture means we have a shared respect for bodily autonomy and feel safe. For example, one of our the consent examples on the QuinkFair website suggests to “Ask open ended questions- for example, avoid saying “It’s okay if I hug you, right?” Instead try saying “I’d like to hug you, how would you feel about that?”
Decommodified cultures don’t use vendors internally: no vendors, no service fee, no barter, no corporate sponsors, no money based markets, and nothing for sale.
Can we guarantee you will have a quink at this event? Certainly not, but we do have both clever guides and powerful tools to help you find at least where you might look for your future quinks. We also have intentional communities and especially (income sharing) communes coming to present themselves, so perhaps your Quink will be leaving your straight job and moving to a commune in the country?
Tickets are on sale here [2023]
Lots more info about this event at www.quink.org
Finding your Origin Myth
I am facilitating an online workshop on how to tell your own origin story. It is on zoom on Monday June 15 7 PM Eastern time and here is the event link on Facebook. [If you would prefer email me at paxus@twinoaks.org] There is a donation requested, which is going to front line activists in Minneapolis.
I want to disspell a myth about origin myths. An origin myth need not be part of your early life. In fact regardless of your age, the pandemic or the Floyd Uprising might be the center of your personal Origin Myth.
Your origin myth is it is a story that helps other people understand both an important life transformation as well as something about the trajectory you want to be going in. An origin myth is the truth based story you might offer when someone you were excited about connecting with asked you to tell them about yourself. And you could have more than one.
My origin myth is about a train ride and a curious character. And about how i became a story teller.
When considering your origin myth review events which have most shaped you into being the who you are and especially the parts of yourself that are helping you to be who you want to be. But a good origin myth is not completely true, it gives you room to be a bit better than you really are or were, it is supposed to be an inspirational tale. This gives you license to polish the characters, including yourself.
In this two hour workshop we will share rough origin stories and likely break into small groups for everyone to tell their story and get some constructive feedback from other participants. I’ve never done this workshop before, so it might be a bit rough, nor have i ever done breakout groups on zoom, hopefully i will figure that part out by Monday.
There is a requested donation for this workshop, with 100% of the money going to front line POC activists in Minneapolis working on the uprising that city has sparked.
To get the link to the zoom event, you have to RSVP on the Facebook page or email me.
Facebook anarchist collective simulator
The corona virus lock down has exploded a number of social media destinations. One of these which i have been enjoying in small doses is the private Facebook group with the long winded name:
“a group where we all pretend to live in an anarchist collective together“
Here is an example of the content.
What is especially fun about this group (which you can join freely) is that many of the posts are right on quotes from actual community life and a whole bunch more are easy to imagine in places where things have comically gone wrong.
There are over 4K people on this group, having more than doubled in the last couple months. There is lots of traffic on it everyday, so i would recommend getting notifications only when your friends post.
There are other lovely parodies of commune life. My personal favorite is the Hollywood B-grade comedy is
If you have a favorite, put it in the comment section of this blog for others to enjoy.
your passport to complaining 