Just a note here to say I've been in the Philippines since late January and expecting to be out here until mid-April. I've mainly been stationed on Cebu but have made some jaunts out to Mindinao, Palawan and Luzon. I have made some great connections with farmers doing sustainable farming in the hills of Alegria on Cebu, met people working to preserve marine life, and others into working with more varieties of bamboo found in the Philippines. I myself am seeking ways to do something worthwhile out here that can allow me to have one foot here and one back home in BC.

There are many signs of positive growth happening out here that warrant attention, biofuels, geothermal power generation and people working on bringing solutions to the forefront of the sustainability movement. It also seems that there is some challenges to things here when considering this country as a third world country that is exploited for its cheap labour and access to resources. It makes it hard for people here to not want to want more in return. A conundrum that I ponder..

There is an inventor here who has amongst his many inventions an engine that runs on tap or sea water that has been held back by seemingly insurmountable obstacles (getting a patent especially) and it all seems like gold that is too precious to relinquish but needs to at some point. Something has to give. It seems that when a good solution exists there are all sorts of people who want to capitalize on it 
and then it all gets into a hording pattern. How do we as a social movement overcome this obstacle?

Some thoughts along the way..

Intention 8 (early heads up on dates and location) Date & Time: Friday, December 29, 2006 - Tuesday, January 2, 2007 Location: Camp Elphinstone Sunshine Coast, BC More Info: www.tribalharmonix.org/www.intentiongathering.org The Intention Retreat returns to the Sunshine Coast BC to its most familiar home at Camp Elphinstone. At the moment the ground template is being re-tooled for raising the bar of community building that goes on at this event in an effort to generate more continued growth towards making change in the world post-event. In the near future this event posting will be featuring the official invitation with links to the new webpage being set up for this year so stay tuned. Before i get the usual requests to play music, let it be known to all newcomers that this is a participant driven event and that registration is the pre-requisite for playing music. The line-up is determined in that way a la Burning Man manner. Expect diversity in sounds and quality throughout. Also expect to hear new people getting their first launch. We like that aspect at Intention. This announcement is mainly to confirm the dates for marking the calendar, taking time off work, and making travel plans. Please note there is limited capacity of roughly 300 people and we do it all by pre-registration. Stay tuned also for regional orientations so far to happen in Vancouver, the Sunshine Coast, Victoria, Edmonton & Portland and wherever tribes attending are coming in from. These will be little samplers of what's in store. Registration costs are being worked out but the aim is to keep it at last years amount and subsidy fund system will also be in place for those in need of it. (no, u cannot go for free if u volunteer-we all is volunteers.) : Intention Orientation Schedule 2006 : Beginning Thurs.Nov.9 The preparatory incubations of this years Intention 8 are being held in Vancouver at 7 Studio's (440 W.Hastings @ Richards).Aside from a film screening and introduction to the retreat each orientation will layer a theme/exploration to enhance the dynamic of what we are unfolding together. In that sense Intention begins the moment you join into the process. While registration can happen online, it is warmly encouraged that past and potential future Intention citizens share in these specially prepared sessions which serve as samplers of what's to come. Here you can also register and tune in to the pod formations that will be setting up the dynamic cooperation that makes Intention what it is. Vancouver tribe mark the following dates and themes being dropped to inspire this years retreat: Thursdays at 7-10pm Sundays-2-5pm Thursday November 9th "Power, communication, action!" with Carmen & Garth facilitating * Optional writing exercise for all Intention kin: Write your own personal biographical story in third person (no one has to see this if u don't want to show it) that gives sense of where you've come, where you are now and where you wish to go with Intention as one of your springboards. As short or as long as you want in any format. We will be accepting submissions of ones that people are open to sharing at a later date. Sunday November 19th " Community Freqonomik Development" with Michael Bean & Sobey facilitating Thursday November 30th Sunday December 10th Sunday December 17th Thursday December 21st Stay tuned for Sunshine Coast, Nelson, Edmonton & Calgary orientation dates and locations. If you are from a region with more than 8 people attending and wish to hold an orientation with assistance please contact me. Also feel free to join IntentionRetreat.tribe.net if you haven't. This tribe is mainly for networking, learning more about each other-less for organizing but there will be updates on there. Stay tuned for www.intentiongathering.org which will be linked to www.tribalharmonix.org. Ok, that's all i'm allowed to let out of the bag for now. For more on what last years looked like go to www.intention7.com. Look forward to raising the octave with all the Intention citizens at the end of this momentus year and setting the coordinates for 2007 with maximum community involvement. Sobeyoneheartnation

Black Rock City Gathering of the Tribes Culture Lab (@ Burning Man Festival) (Nevada)

Date & Time: Saturday, September 2, 2006 2PM

Calling all tribalists and tribalista's, culture crafters, social permaculturalists,nexialists,promoters, artists,producers and people who support underground intentional tribal dance network aims:

Happening for the 3rd year running stemming from the Gathering of the Tribes event that brought together dance networks in LA and at Earthdance Laytonville (www.gottribes.org). A maximizing of the potential at Burning Man that aims to focalize the networks that amass each year in the desert.

BRC Gathering of the Tribes Culture Lab
Saturday, September 2nd
2:00pm-3:30pm
@ Evolutionary Center (4:30/Eager)
www.evolutionarycenter.net/workshops.html

Continuing the dialogues and mindmaps evolving at festivals across the westcoast and through Evolver Magazine, the Evolutionary Center hosts a salon inviting cultural creatives, permaculturalists, promoters and all BRC citizens to an interactive think tank and council. Our central focus will encompass the future of Burning Man as a green festival in gestation. We will be considering the synergetic leverage points that exist in the greening festivals movement and neo-tribal networks that extend from Black Rock City into our planetary culture.

Come on time for the opening ceremony featuring Eco-Burlesque!

For more about Evolutionary Center: www.evolutionarycenter.net
A camp dedicated to greening the burn and festival culture at large.

Please help spread the word to anyone you consider to be key in this discussion. For more info or input contact me thru tribe or at sobeyone(at) (gmail) (dot) (com)

Also needed: podcast recorder, photographers, live drawing artist, sign language interpreter, four directions council representatives (like in the 5th Sacred Thing), altar maker or crystal grid aligner to harnass the intention we are setting collectively, design charette artists.

& following this on the same day.....................................................................

www.matrixmasters.com/pn/BM-tule.html

beginning around 5:30 p.m. on Saturday Sept.2
@ Entheon Village (Esplanade and 4:00)
How do YOU see the future of Psychedelic Community?
The audience will be invited to respond to focused questions asked by:

Carla Detchon - Women's Issues
Seabrook Leaf - Small sacred gatherings
Sobey Wing - The dance community

Lastly i hope to offer a SexLoveIntelligence Culture Lab if i can find a suitable location for it. If you have one to suggest please contact me asap.

Hope to see some Zaadzters at these!

Heads up Zaadsters! An opportunity for us to get together and pump up the volume on making change in the world.. In the midsummer of 2006 the tribal dance network family are invited to pack their camping gear and join together at the first summer version of our annual winter Intention Retreat. Situated at our time honored Crystal Creek location on the Sunshine Coast BC, we join with the intentions set upon it, of crystallizing conscious community in balance with nature. As with all Intention Retreats, it is less spectacle oriented and more participant driven, with people encouraged to share their talents, gifts,resources,ideas and skills towards co-creating the micro version of the world we wish to inhabit on an eventual larger scale. At the same time we are each witness and encouragers to each others growth and our collective movement towards evolution in a spirit that contains child to elder. To increase the participatory levels and give time for the needed collaborations and projects that will be created to be ready for the camp we will be hosting a small number of local orientations in the community fold. At these working pods will be formed.Other visiting dance tribes are encouraged to host their own in preparation and will be given support to do so. To give a loose idea of how things will flow and how you can insert your flavor into things, the weekend may contain: Friday-Arrival/Final Set Up/Opening Ceremony/Caberet/Live Music Saturday-Community Kitchen & Sharing Mealtime/Plenary/Workshops/Community Kitchen & Sharing Mealtime/Celebration on 2 stages (uptempo/downtempo) Sunday-Community Kitchen & Sharing Mealtime/Plenary/Workshops/Community Mealtime/Temple Chill Night Monday-Community Kitchen & Sharing Mealtime/Perimeter Sweep to Leave No Trace We're keeping the price down as much as possible at $60 and will have registration up and running soon via online as well as by mail soon. May this serve as a midsummer check-in for us all to take the peak energies of summer with us towards living our highest potentials in celebration with new and old friends. May this serve to link generations. May this be practice for what it takes to live sustainably with each other and the Earth. May this be the reward of having found each other. For more info contact Sobey here on tribe or stay tuned for more announcements and also go to www.tribalharmonix.org For the flavor of last winters Intention 7 Retreat go to www.intention7.com

I am very excited to be promoting a special 2 part session of Kundalini Dance in LA on Thursday evening June 8 and Friday June 9 @ Abundant Sugar. A chance to share this experience with the amazing friends and family in LA as well as partake in Moontribe's 13th year anniversary in the desert! I hope some Zaadzters can join in too! For more info and to pre-register and save go to www.ekstasisdance.com. Can't wait to return to the City of Angels. Sobey

I think Zaadzanians will appreciate the newly launched Urban Hippie website which is so far mainly focused on westcoast BC "hippy" culture. It began as a free publication and has migrated to cyberspace. The spring equinox issue is on the theme of "community" and features an article I authored and would like to share with you here. Comments and feedback most welcomed.

Sobey

http://www.urbanhippie.ca/spring06/04.php

Communitarian Movement By Sobey Wing

Spring Equinox signals the return of Persephone from the Underworld with the return of life to the land. The return of the sun after an epic winter of rain and snow brings relief for the cabin fevered existence created around keeping warm. It's time to spend more time outside, and time to prepare gardens. With the new growth occurring in nature to inspire, it is the goal of this issue to look at growth within community at this time of year.

As a dictionary definition shows us community is derived from things "common" formed through locality, through common interests, identity, and through sharing as well as participation. The ecological definition of community for me is a most poignant way of looking at community. It makes me think of the interconnectedness of all life, not only human, a web that extends from planetary to galactic proportion. This grand sense of connectedness is something that tribal societies have maintained more so than the contemporary world has managed to maintain to the detriment of our environment and social fabric.

Our North American social networks were seen to be unraveling in the late 20th century as communitarian authors began to note the decline in civic organizations from bowling leagues to groups that care for others. The ennui of existing in a cultural setting that lacks the mentality of looking out for each other has resulted in a social fabric that has been described as "dog eat dog" and driven much more individualized tendencies that include higher levels of alienation even within social networks.

The communitarian movement that arose in North America was to address the fundamentally necessary ingredient to making democracy real. This movement is characterized by a need for a renewed sense of morality, civic responsibility based on genuine caring for others beyond the self absorbed individual domain. The renewed interest in traditional tribal culture that grew out of the sixties movement has been seen to run at odds with a democracy that has taken a more capitalist definition. Author Robert Putnam contended that the health of democracy rests with social capitol, the collective value of social networks and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other.

As I look around me I can see the tug of war of the individual and the collective mentality in our society. As a part of a communitarian movement that for me has been developing in the counter-cultural lineage with the underground electronic dance community network I see a bridge that exists between that individual and collective polarity. It arises in a wonderful way as people rediscover through sharing their individual gifts the joys of being in community. Hopefully this doesn't reach its limits in the narrow confines of a single community network but will permeate into the larger Mother culture that needs it even more.

The task of bridging networks is being accomplished by numerous means that are heartening from potlucks that bring together diverse people to credit unions that favor the health of society over the benefits of an elite few. In this issue we explore various doorways into increasing community with the hope of supporting that process. The starting points for building a society that reigns back accountability away from "the powers that be" and back into the hands of faces that we recognize can be numerous once we set the intention. It could be with immediate family that this is cultivated. Raising children in a way that recognizes the African proverb "it takes a village" can help draw community out further than the isolated version of the nuclear family. Exposing children to a community life based on morality, mutual benefit and support lays a blueprint for life.

 This will need to be also found in schools and unfold into all areas of society if we are going to survive as a planetary culture beyond a consumption based society. As we harness the potential of community we may see in it an anthropos, a collective spirit that includes infant, adolescent, adult, and elder to form a complete spectrum. We may see it through its shadows as well as its shining beauty. Learning ways to harness this potential is a worthy task that will yield greater abundance as time goes on. Every community will have its shadows and light whether it be alienation brought about by poverty, addiction, heartbreak, grief, illness, desire, criminal labeling, abuse-the list goes on. How a community can encompass these and hold together shows its health and vitality.

For me one of the most powerful times I have witnessed community has been in the times of disaster, natural and wrought by mankind ie. 9/11. It is in the times that we are tested that we see the essential goodness or as Lincoln put it, "the better angels of our nature." These angels arise when we go beyond ourselves in community, when we go beyond satisfying personal needs and wants that we gain from a social setting and begin to give in earnest with no hooks or need to be reciprocated or raised high for glorification.

Try to imagine this, what a community of superheros would look like watching each others back and having the capacity to extend vigilance, support and nurturing beyond itself. It is this that the world will benefit from and always has. I encourage a love for community therefore, like the raising of a child to eldership. If we can love it and let it grow, give it support whenever it needs it, we too will benefit. The ancient Greeks understood that a person completely private was lost to civic life. It is too easy to disconnect from society, from the world and thereby lose the gift of each other.

www.ibogatherapyhouse.net

The Iboga Therapy House situated on the Sunshine Coast BC is open again to further research on the treatment of addictions with Ibogaine for MAPS. More info on the website above. We are looking for suitable applicants seeking treatment for their addictions who have adequate support and desire to get off of substances. Treatments have been done for heroin, methadone, crack, cocaine, and nicotine. The treatments last 5 days with staff on hand to monitor and lend support to this rite of passage. Meals are all organic and prepared with love. Treatments are not covered so please do not ask for subsidy.

One of the things I am working on this year is supporting the Kundalini Dance phenomenon as its promoter for facilitator Luna Ravenchild. I am interested in finding out about any suitable studio space or festival/gathering that can accomodate this work that has a decent sounding stereosystem that a laptop can plug into and room for a minimum of 20 people. While based in BC's lower mainland Luna is open to travelling to many places. For a full package description of what she can offer a festival please contact me. To learn more about Kundalini Dance check out:

http://www.ekstasisdance.com (Luna's website)

and her mentor Antara Decker, founder of Kundalini Dance:
http://www.kundalini-dance.com

Anyone who has done ecstatic dance will find this a nice extention of that and anyone who likes good electronic dance music will appreciate the music that accompanies a Kundalini Dance workshop. As a participant in her workshops I feel good about promoting this means of transformation. I have witnessed its benefit in many others as well.

Kundalini Dance is coming to Portland May 12-14.

and to Los Angeles June 8,9

Looking for people to help spread the word about this. I am going to be pre-registering people. Discounts available to those who help with postering. Registration will be available thru paypal: www.ekstasisdance.com/register.htm

Hope to dance with some zaadsters this year!

http://ionatopia.50megs.com/photo3.html

ASSACON 2006

ALTERED STATES & SPIRITUAL AWARENESS

Some decades ago, a generation of questers pursued a spark of interest to delve into the human spirit in ways previously unknown. They kindled that spark and brought to humanity a fire, a flame that warmed souls and shone light on paths of wisdom. Now, another generation seeks to discover their own truths. Tantalized by the telltale dance of distant shadows, they begin to make their way toward the light source. The flame, well stoked by elder pioneers, can provide lamplight, guiding their journey as they blaze their own trails toward deeper knowledge.

ASSACON, May ’06 http://www.assacon.com
San Francisco, California; Memorial Day Weekend
Workshop Title: Altered States of Sex, Love, Intelligence
Co-facilitators:
Sobey Wing, Vancouver B.C. and Iona Miller, So. Oregon

The mixing of the psychedelic experience and the world of relationships can be a road to enlightenment or suffering. Love itself being considered a drug gives rise to possibilities of harm reduction approaches to the way we share energies. Sobey Wing and Iona Miller provide an inter-generational bridge in a culture lab investigating the potentialities of dyad voyages from preparation to post-integration of the entheogenic experience. Use of aphrodisiacs will also be touched upon. Looking at questions that hinder our intimacies and create armoring of the heart, we will seek ways to empower the resource states in ourselves. Applications draw on tools that including free writing, discussions and breakout groups, movement and self hypnosis as we explore ways to re-pattern mind states to anchor more sacredness in our love and sexuality.

 Bridging the divide
 with light constellated
 the illusion of separation
 has been highly over-rated
 keeping on the vector
 music is the soul reflector
 with auric fields our protector
 from all that does not bring the nectar
 we dedicate to mother earth the love
 we send to her
 her children will not abandon her
 her children will stand firm to nurture
for future generations that we feel beneath our feet
as we keep up the dance of the galactic heartbeat