Burning Souls Day
From: EllenHertz (EllenHertzaol.com)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 13:35:26 -0500
Thanks, Sherri, for your words of support for Kathryn and me, as we did go
out on a limb on Burning Souls' Day, to be sure! We took in a lot of
reactions from how the day went, and, I think I can speak for both of us,
felt basically good about the direction we took, and good that we trusted
(and were trusted) enough to diverge from the "rationalist" path.

For folks who weren't there, the BS day (hmmm) was originally intended to be
a pre-conference meeting day for people who are involved in the coho movement
on a larger scale than their own communities, i.e. regionally or nationally.
Two years ago, about 20 people attended this session. Last year, 80 people
showed up, and this year, 60, leaving the day's organizers in a bit of a
quandry as to how to have a meaningful "meeting' with so many folks, many of
whom had been involved in coho stuff for years, but many of whom were in fact
brand new. 

We decided (rather at the last minute) to scrap the traditional coho "here
are the problems, let's make a list of things to do" approach, in favor of
one that might help cohousing Burning Souls to feel supported in continuing
to burn for another year. We asked everyone to think, ponder, and talk about
the questions they faced about cohousing, the movement, etc. We asked them,
"what do you need on a personal level to keep going?" The answers that were
shared were very personal, sometimes difficult to hear, and revealed much (to
me at least) about us and the work we are doing. 

It *is* hard sometimes, to keep going when the process is so slow, to fight
at every turn to make this more mainstream, even to live in cohousing on
occasion. But if we can't talk about these things among ourselves, how will
we get the support we need to go back and keep making it happen?

I'd certainly be interested to hear more from folks who were there in
particular, now that you've had a chance to sort it all out. Was there value
in what happened?

In community even when out of community,
Ellen Hertzman

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