Chronicles of Archiarchy
4 Legends of Archiarchy-Making
ARCHIARCHY 1. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF DRIVING?
There we are, driving out of Paleochora to Elafonisi, with all the women in Wanda the car, and all the men in another car. Meredith wants a space to share and ask possibilities to the women, and since she kept letting that opportunity pass, Anne-Chloé took a stand for Meredith and proposed that the space happens in the drive back. Meredith starts speaking. With 7 women spaceholders in the same space, one might feel fear that there would be too many cooks holding space, each one asking completely different questions or proposing different things. But no, the women were working collaboratively, sometimes one would ask a question, other times another. At some point Sophia--who was driving--starts speaking and landing a couple of distinctions. I immediately notice how the quality of attention that Sophia has in the driving changes. I notice the turns being slightly more sharp, or the breaks slightly more sudden. It is not that Sophia is taking great risks, and the difference is there. I hadn’t noticed something like this before. And maybe I wouldn't have noticed had Clinton not brought in the first days of the Bridgehouse the context deepening question about who uses the car, and for what purpose.
But back in the car we are 7 spaceholders, so Sophia does not need to be the one landing distinctions while driving. In fact, after she speaks, and the space continues to unfold for Meredith, I notice exactly when Sophia’s attention is more on Meredith, and when it is more on the driving. Meredith’s space is in a delicate moment where Meredith is lowering her numbness bar and talking with her body and I am considering how to say something to Sophia in that temporarily quiet space. I snap out of my considering when I hear Meredith ask if Sophia could drive a little slower and Sophia slows down a notch. I keep noticing that Sophia still has a lot of her attention on Meredith, perhaps especially now. I am sitting directly behind her and so move closer to her seat and in a way that it does not interrupt the space, and that does not give Meredith the impression that she is in danger, I ask Sophia to put more of her full attention on the driving, and less on Meredith. Sophia does not protest, does not defend herself, does not shut down or makes herself a victim of this request. She simply says “thank you, Vera” and immediately shifts her full attention on driving. It is noticeable to me what changed. There was a tension of attention in the center of the energetic space that loosened up, and suddenly the outside that space strengthened. It was as if something was clogged and now the flow of energy was working well. I realised that that is how Sophia can hold space for Meredith: she can drive with 90% of her attention on the driving, and 10% of her attention on the kind of driving that best supports Meredith’s healing space. That’s exactly what Sophia did for the rest of the drive.
This realization that Sophia’s place as a spaceholder in Meredith’s process was to make sure we would get to our destination safely, as well as maintaining a quality of driving that supported the process, got me to look around at the other 6 women and their place as spaceholder in that car. Anne-Chloé holds the wider space of Meredith’s process, rolling it. Gabriela Fagundes became the scribe as Lisa could not do it without getting carsick and is writing furiously. Which liberates Lisa for the unique job of making sure that Gabriela Klara is physically supported by becoming somewhat of a human harness, while Gabriela Klara in the front passenger seat gently touches Meredith so Meredith can navigate her feelings and energetic body. My job? My job is to notice all of this, and support Sophia in making sure she knows she is included in the space, to let her know if anything else is needed immediately, so that Sophia does not have to move her driving attention to anything else.
At the start of the Bridgehouse Clinton shared his fear that if some drivers would drive and try to be in the extraordinary conversation and process spaces happening in the drives, and wanted to bring the purpose of driving as a way to serve the purpose of the Bridgehouse of Cavitating an ongoing space where Archiarchy thrives. I had never thought about driving as something that I could do in Archiarchy. When it was my turn to drive weeks later, I noticed how easy it was for me to let my Box drive, and when I repurposed my driving to come from unfolding Archiarchy immediately my driving changed. I was more with Meredith, and Daway. But that’s another story.
ARCHIARCHY 2. OPENING THE SPHINCTER OF ALIVENESS
The whole Cavitation Bridgehouse is sitting at the living room coffee tables planning our post Khaos Practice Expand The Box Training celebration. The question going around is what are you going to cook for the celebration meal? There are at least 3 pies, turkeys or chicken, someone is saying let’s get some red meat to roast, risotto and roasted cauliflower in the pipeline, there is a chocolate cake and a chocolate tart being dreamed up, some whipped cream, a fruit salad, and traditional christmas honey cookies from the neighbours. Smiles are abundant at the coffee table, all except for Sophia, who is freaking out. She raises her hands in the air, shaking her head, unable to put what is going on together. “It’s too much food” she says, “why are we doing this?” she asks, all the while her anger rising as if something was terribly wrong with this scene.
After a few questions it becomes clear that Sophia has an energetic sphincter that controls the amount of alive wildness that is possible for her. Her inner memetic structure is built in such a way that after a certain amount of abundance is necessarily decadent in moral values, and should be banned, forbidden, and it means she is necessarily a bad person that wastes things and does not value resources. This blind rule she adopted from her family so she could survive in the family values, is now affecting her ability to be abundant, generous, juicy, and celebrant.
After fighting the instinct of keeping her rule-protection survival strategy, Sophia agrees to open her energetic sphincter 10% more in the Bridgehouse and letting more unhinged aliveness in. Sophia starts being able to celebrate that others’ winning is her personal winning. She even makes one of the chocolate desserts and eats it! Legend has it Sophia opened her energetic sphincter more, and is now taking a stand for Archiarchy to happen in German-speaking countries, writing clear and potent messages that open possibilities for people to be their potentials in action, and is holding space for worktalks about what are Archan Villages contexted in Radical Responsibility.
ARCHIARCHY 3. YOU INTERVIEW ONE ARCHAN, YOU INTERVIEW ALL ARCHANS.
Clinton announces that he has a recorded interview planned with Archan Eco-philosopher and Earth Guardian Derrick Jensen, co-originator of Deep Green Resistance. The online call is planned for 11pm, and after sharing with Derrick that he is living in the Cavitation Bridgehouse with a bunch of other Archas, Derrick asks Clinton to bring us all to be on the call. Clinton makes the invitation and 8 of us say yes.
The interview is really set up with Clinton. He’s the originator of Possibility Management. So he could just do this interview himself, probably better than any of the other less experienced speakers in the Bridgehouse. But Clinton decides he wants two Archans in the front by his side, so it’s not Clinton’s show, and the rest sitting behind as closely and as visibly as possible, signalling to us that anytime we want to say something and add to the conversation to just go straight ahead. Most of the Bridgehouse residents are already in bed at this hour, so we are all in solidarity with each other and are 100% committed to this space being useful and inspiring and expressive of the integrity of our stand of unfolding Archiarchy.
I watch Clinton from the first second practice everything that each of the Possibilitators practices: he speaks slower, from the unknown, without being so bothered if it makes logic or linear sense to Derrick, or to anyone. There are movements in his body that I see are about letting the conscious fear circulate, and being in the small here, small now. Exactly like our training and practice, and exactly as described in the Cavitation book. At some point Gabriela who is sitting next to me in the back row starts speaking and landing distinctions. I’ve never heard Gabriela speak like this, and since her joining the Bridgehouse she has been diligently working on her clarity, on her speaking and taking space. She beautifully unfolds an aspect of Archiarchy with simplicity. Devin takes a turn also to speak. Sophia too. Hands start waving in silent celebration when a powerful realization is spoken aloud, and now even Anne-Chloé who was sure she was too tired to participate, is swiftly bringing guardian clarity about gameworlds so that the conversation does not get stuck in technicalities. Everyone is helping rowing the boat to new findings, new celebrations, new possibilities.
In the end there was a big celebration. The whole team was working together! The interview could have been the same old set up of someone speaking about themselves, or about what they already know and repeating it like a parrot selling books or workshops. It could have been a philosophical intellectual inner-circle space between two thinkers, where only some people can accompany the extraordinary conversation. It could have been a polite “oh how amazing is your work”, “no, let me tell you how amazing your work is” Oprah-style showcase.
It took consistent work for each person to be present in that interview and be able to speak. To be able to contribute without making it about themselves. To be able to land distinctions in front of a camera. To be able to speak from the unknown or from the Bright Principles. To be able to speak in front of other powerful people, or even bigger people. And also to be able to be quiet, to be able to listen, and to empower who needs to be empowered so that the next treasure can come out of someone’s mouth, it doesn’t matter whose. It took time, healing, and transformation for each personality, needy-insecurity, or self-importance to get out of the way and let the most important thing happen: that the treasure does come out, and that it is recorded.
ARCHIARCHY 4. A NEW LOVE STORY.
Being at the Cavitation bridgehouse has brought a unique edge for me. Over a year ago, the Archan village of my close friends and colleagues held a tight and clear space for me and Devin to get to the bottom of the Low Drama Gremlin addiction feeding that had taken over our relating. This meant countless Emotional Healing Processes, listening spaces, decontaminations spaces, practice spaces, starting with a firm and clear end in the way we related, and by not making any contact with each other for about a year. My friends at the Bridgehouse consistently were on my team so I could look deep inside my underworld and see all the ways I created and benefitted from the painful insanity of making a beloved my enemy, and not only how that affected our lives, but to see how that affected the gameworld of Possibility Management. And they were on Devin’s team, consistently and firmly, too.
Having grown up in a violent family, I learned to hide this part of my life in shame that my school friends would find out that there was something wrong with me, and then tried to figure it all out by myself in crippling despair.
The gift of Archiarchy was that my relationship was a public affair. My colleagues and friends know my Bright Principles, but they also know my Underworld, and would make boundaries and radical proposals, even when I could not see the benefit of them. I decided to radically trust the very same team that had been by my side for all these years as I became what I am now, and put myself in the hands of my beloved Archan Village. Devin did the same.
So it was after one year at the Cavitation Bridgehouse that Devin and I would see each other live for the first time. Even after being in online calls for some months, spending time together in the same physical space would act in a way as a clear evidence that our work to transform ourselves was not only successful in our separate lives, but that it had actually worked in creating wholly different relating qualities and results.
Committing to starting over form scratch, having the Village witnessing me and witnessing Devin taking careful, new steps into getting to meet each other anew, from the new shapes of our Beings, was a surprising and ecstatic experience. When there is nothing to hide from the Village not because the Archan Village accepts everything and is without condition, but because the Village needs and wants you to be your full radiant Being, and will guard against your Underworld, then you are really an Archan Villager.
I have the impression that everyone was silently and invisibly holding space for us to meet, without any agenda or secret betting on what would happen. It was the Village of highly committed and fierce Archans, and our hard work in breaking down patterns and carving new behaviours, that made a new love story possible.
It takes an Archan Village to create New Love Stories.
