The
Potlatch Revival
A visionary initiative of The Infinite Program
…our goal is Spiritual Revolution –
We shall overcome with Deep Understanding, Bold Vision and the radical Spirit of Love
REAWAKENING THE POTLATCH SPIRIT
Potlatch, a word from the native americans of the northwest territories, described a practice which was once widely observed there and in many indigenous traditions around the world. In this custom the tribes would gather to celebrate life and share their abundance with one another. They celebrated the ability to be able to give away more. They understood the value of uplifting community for our spiritual health and our social cohesion.
The opposite of this spirit, the spiritual pandemic humanity has been in the grips of for generations upon generations, is Wetiko – The psyche-spiritual illness that short-circuits an individuals ability to recognize oneself as an interdependent part of a greater whole of a balanced natural world. It is the opposing force to oneness. It is the void that can exist within every one of us – that drives us into parasitic states where we feed off one another emotionally, physically and financially in attempts to fill that void which can never be filled. It is the force of greed that turns capitalism into an all devouring machine and that splits us apart as family and community and turns us into competitors.
Giving in the spirit of Oneness, altruism, is the antidote.
Potlatch is the powerful carrier for this medicine.
It is perfectly within the realm of possibility for us to unite and build a new way of conscious coexistence and a new way of conscious healthcre – where our collective abundance is gathered to be used in the service of maximizing our collective mental and spiritual health. The Portlatch Revival initiative seeks to be a spark to ignite the flame that will guide us to this new and beautiful epoch.
By creating an event where we give music, dance and quality healthy food freely so that we can connect and celebrate life together as community, we set out a demonstration of the spirit of Potlatch for the rest to follow. From this space we can invite and encourage the community to open their hearts and give to the Potlatch. By holding this event and providing a 501c3 destination for giving, coupled with a clear vision of how our giving will be used to uplift the community, we provide an easy way for individuals and businesses to awaken their altruistic oneness spirit. With the Potlatch spirit revived we will have the ability to turn the tide of of our collective mental/spiritual health decline and shine a beacon of hope and joy for the world.
The Potlatch Revival initiative is a tale to be told of visionary spiritual activism – the deep understanding that our societies challenges will not be solved through politics and law, but only through a reawakening of our oneness spirit – It is the call for us to step up to take action through and for higher principles and give wings to our belief in the power of Love to comprehensively transform our world.
CREATING SAFE SPACE FOR COMMUNITY INTEGRATION
Whether we have been attending psycho-therapy, sitting in plant medicine healing ceremony, or anything in between, ‘Integration’ is vital. Integration is the process of bringing our healing into our reality and solidifying our personal and community transformation to operate on a higher vibration. To do this we require opportunity to be in healing community so that we can practice being open loving beings at one with the world around us. Embarking on the healing process is made all the more difficult for the fact that our society lacks outlets for healing as a community. It lacks outlets to integrate ones learning lessons from the healing process.
With the Potlatch initiative we create healing for our understanding of and need for community. We create healing for the individual to practice being in an open loving and free state of self acceptance and community acceptance.
Our great return to Oneness will not happen in an instant and will not happen on its own. It will be part of a process of or own free will choice. It is a matter of whether we begin to choose Love, to choose Trust, to choose Hope….will we choose to open ourselves to belief in the possibility of bold visionary ideas to truly transform our world. The Potlatch Revival initiative is the necessary next step we must take on this noble journey of returning to Oneness.
REVIVING THE HEALING OF THE DRUM CIRCLE
Our Oneness spirit is our ancient indigenous spirit that is waiting within us all, ready to be awakened. The sound and energy of the drum circle is a healing vibration that beckons our indigenous spirit to flow freely and come alive. The gathering of tribe to dance to the beat of the drum circle has been the ultimate of healing modalities since humanity first began to connect to rhythm. It is vital for the process of our return to Oneness harmony that we re-embrace the practice of community drum-circle healing.
At present what is available in terms of drum circle experiences provides only a fraction of the potential healing within this practice. In southern California, as with many places in the world, many of the drum circles contend with disruption from people who are high or drunk, and there is often little to no mindful cohesion amongst the drummers, thus causing a chaos of sound. Additionally, for those who seek the healing drum dance experience, this can be difficult to have when there is often a dysfunctional use of space and the drummers are not organized to be in-sync.
The vision of the Potlatch Revival initiative is to create the ultimate tribal healing drum and dance experience. To form a drum group from those who have a proven ability to stay in a harmonic beat. To gather some of the best drummers from the region to create a solidly transcendent sound that comes only from drum circle in harmony. To make a mindful use of space to ensure cohesion amongst drummers and to ensure open free space to allow dancers to have full expression. To make use of space to bring the community into unity dances that effect us in a deeply somatic and spiritual way to revive our spirit of Oneness.
Additionally, by creating a professionally organized drum circle we have the ability to add in amplified sound of additional instruments such a flute, didgeridoo, chanting etc, to create a more complete sound and sensory experience that will greatly help to captivate the attention of those present and to inspire deeper connection to the experience.
With this vision we have the power
to unleash the transformational healing magic of the drum circle.
SHIFTING OUR FOCUS AWAY FROM TRANSACTIONAL GATHERING
When events have ticket sales, vendors etc. It reinforces the transactional mindset that dominates our society. The domination of transactional mentality acts as a barrier for us as a collective to drop our fears and barriers to come together as one and remember how to be in harmony. It is vital, on the path of our return to Oneness, that we practice and experiment more and more with ways of gathering and creating that open us up to trust, cooperation and altruism. This initiative is an opportunity for us to begin rebuilding the method and spirit foundation of community Oneness.
THE PRACTICAL ELEMENTS
We are seeking to create a gathering that is 100% free – fully sponsored by business and government. A dogma-free neutral space where all people are welcomed. Where we invite the business and government community to attend, join as community and to offer up donation to this cause so that we can expand it further and so that we can begin establishing permanent spaces for our community healing – thus serving as an example of the Potlatch spirit. A space for us to remember our home in the Circle of Life where we are all one. A space where we tap into indigenous wisdom to heal our society. Where we rebuild community by practicing sharing free sober space to celebrate life together. Where we cook and eat as tribe. Where we stretch and move our bodies to the drum beat to root ourselves into our home earth. Where we ignite the spirit of giving so that we may all rise.
All the elements for this initiative are present and ready to be harnessed.
We simply need the resources and collective will to give wings to vision.
LOCATION
We identify west LA as the place most likely to attract the most enthusiastic attendance and therefore the best location to begin this initiative. Once we secure a primary financial sponsor we will be seeking the backing from local government to sponsor and co-create this initiative in the form of providing permitting, liaison with authorities, and public support/advertisement as a partner in the drive to rebuild community. We envision the potential to expand this project to creating events in other locations such as San Diego, Santa Barbara, Long Beach….and beyond!
NEXT LEVEL ENVISIONING
It is vital for the cause of reuniting as One that we embrace the healing medicines of gathering, music, dance, body-care(yoga etc), sharing food abundance together, connection to nature and uniting in one dance. Though we are experimenting with these different elements in different ways, we have yet to bring them together and to practice them in devotion to unity in oneness. We have yet to return to being one with our home Earth together.
The next phase of our conscious evolution requires us to reawaken our primal consciousness of oneness with earth that bonds us in oneness with all life. It is vital to bring humanity back in the space where we have our feet in the earth, where we move as one harmony to the sacred drum beat. In this space the healing medicine of the drumbeat and unity dance reawakens our indigenous spirit that intrinsically understands and knows harmony. When we can do this in the context of an initiative to build a movement for social change through community healing, then we have momentum to build a 21st century potlatch – gathering our collective abundance to lift all together up into oneness!
THE SUPPORT WE ARE SEEKING
We are seeking monetary sponsorship and promotional partnership.
Furthermore…
what we are seeking is ideological partnership – an exploration of a conscious cooperative effort to pursuing mutually shared vision of action in the cause of reviving Oneness!
We seek to unite as One to build a beautiful new world from the inside out!