A New Kind of Gathering Place
posted by John X | June 30, 2009
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A Nexus Garden is a place designed to expand the heart, mind, body, and soul.
Not a nightclub. Not a performance venue. Not a museum. Something like a permanent festival art installation; a mix between the Buddha Bar, an indoor botanical garden, and Seattle's Experience Music Project.
Imagine a place where people come together to raise their consciousness, and to share and delight in music, art, and ideas.
In the main hall, TEDx talks, and all manner of art and cultural education will occur during the day, amidst the sculpture, plants, and sunny ambiance created by skylights. Children are welcome during these times.
Later, beneath the stars, aerial performers, fire-spinners and yogis will play, and DJs will spin music that perhaps elicits a Gaian consciousness. Above the visualization screen, iso-booths are dimly lit, each one with instruments: drum kits, tablas, bongos, gongs, laptops running beat generators, turntables. Players enter from the rear and experiment along to the beat, and the sound from each booth can only be heard in the Master DJs headphones, ready to be mixed in to the main hall when and if it's the right groove. Imagine: a blue spotlight goes on in the iso-booth with the congas, and the people gathered below soak in the spontaneous solo.
At the other end of the hall a separate room is playing different beats, and onstage are not girls grinding for tips, but a man and woman dancing the pole, together. Later, the stage will be open to anyone.
We are responsible for each other, here as elsewhere. Peace is kept not by bouncers, but by the patrons themselves. Healthy food is available to be prepared by the patrons, not by kitchen staff.
A separate reading lounge is always lit, and filled with books.
This can only be a collective effort. Who is ready to help create it?
Comments
Anywhere...
— Jul 03, 2009
This could sprout up anywhere enough people have the will to create it. If you're interested, I would start looking for where circus performers gather and practice. While sometimes a gym, classes are sometimes held in nightclubs, Either could be the type of physical space that could be transformed. Your husband can handle the audio, it appears.
Or, join us in Boulder.
:)
How can I help?
— Jul 19, 2009
I'm in Colorado Springs, and more and more I have been feeling the need to relocate to boulder, to be among a community of like-minded individuals focused on evolving consciousness, do you already have a space? Is this project already underway?
We're trying...
— Jul 21, 2009
We're trying to get people interested in putting some resource behind this. There are a few spaces that could work, but nothing for sure. Talking to business types about possibilities for investment... but I think it will ultimately be a labor of love no matter what.
By all means come join the effort!
Hey. I like your idea alot.
— Jul 21, 2009
Hey. I like your idea alot. I'm on a mission to create a very similar type of place.
Ever since I first set foot in the nightlife scene when I was 18, I've been terribly frustrated with the lack of decent venues for real, genuine dancing and self-expression. It seems like every place you go is mostly about looking cool for other people, and the venues themselves treat their customers pretty much like shit - making them wait outside in the cold, not providing basic creature comforts like places to sit down and easy access to water, and generally producing an "every man for himself", "dog-eat-dog" atmosphere of mistrust and thick social masks. It's really retarded.
So a project like this has been on my agenda for a long time. And within the past few days it's really grown. I've finally decided that I'm going to do it.
I live in Baltimore right now, which if you don't know, is only 45 minutes from Washington DC, and the two make up a combined metro area of about 8 million people. The area doesn't exactly have the most evolved consciousness in the country... but I don't think it has to, in order for a project like this to work. That's because we don't need to bill it as an unusual new-agey kind of place - in fact, average everyday people will be more likely to come to it (and thereby LEARN from it) if it's dressed like a normal (albeit much higher quality) club, at least on the outside.
So here's my plan. You can take from it whatever you wish... it's not patented. :)
First of all, it has to start small, and expand gradually. I'm probably going to find some unoccupied house on craigslist, rent it, and turn it into the venue.
It will be a hot nightclub by night, and a yoga/meditation/other-kinds-of-dance center by day.
I'm going to decorate the inside of it with spiritual messages and artwork, to help the dancers let go of their inhibitions and programming. Examples will include large signs on the walls that say "let go", "open your heart", "you are loved", and much, much more. There will be sacred geometry everywhere, from the golden mean to the flower of life, and more. The inside of the place will literally be a chamber of hypnotic, subliminal messages that will help free the patrons from whatever subconscious programming normally stops people from dancing truly, and relating truly with one another.
The dance floor will be carpeted, and there will be no drinks or shoes allowed on it.
There will be water coolers in all four corners of the room - no need to stand at a fucking bar just to get a drink of h2o.
There will be plenty of places to sit, including couches, and loveseats for partners (some of which will have curtains around them, so that people can make love inside).
The music will be inspired, heartfelt, passionate, and healthy. There will be no gangsta rap whatsoever. It'll be dance music, the fun, open-hearted, impassioned kind that's reportedly found in European clubs.
We will have a doorman outside to greet people, and he/she will be authentically friendly and caring, and will 'set the tone' for all people who come in, so that they know what type of personality this club is about. Care, respect, and good times.
As for alcohol, only wine and some high-quality beer. The emphasis will NOT be on the alcohol, and we will encourage people to drink only a mild amount, if at all - because alcohol is not what it's about. There are other ways to make money, such as charging a decent-sized cover. I have confidence that if what we are offering truly is good and amazing, people will see no problem in paying for it. After all, most people spend 20-30 bucks on liquor at bars anyway. Why not spend half that, and have a good time that's actually good?
So those are my ideas for now... I'll be coming up with a lot more, surely. If you like em, feel free to use em!
Courage!
~ Dan
And by the way, if anyone
— Jul 21, 2009
And by the way, if anyone reading this lives in the Balt/Wash area and wants to help, I can use every bit of it.
-Does anyone have a house where they'd let me throw some "practice parties", before I get an actual venue? (this would be REALLY useful right now)
-Does anyone have capital they're willing to put up for renting the space and creating the club?
-Anyone have artwork they'd be willing to donate or lend for the inside decoration?
-Any graphic designers willing to help design flyers? Any marketing/advertising folks wanna help with that stuff? People familiar with business?
-Even a talking partner, to discuss the ideas with, would be greatly appreciated and helpful.
thanks! And good luck with your venture John X :-)
Nice.
— Jul 21, 2009
Dan,
Thanks for your words of support, and for sharing your ideas. I'm impressed with your passion, and obviously I think the idea has legs. I wish you all the best in setting up a new kind of space in the DC area.
Also, I was interested in your treatment of the drugs/alcohol component. I struggled with that as I was jotting down my ideas, and decided to delay making any hard and fast decision about it. While I personally agree with you that the focus should not be on such substances, I also know that altered states can be a gateway to personal growth and expansion, albeit not a gateway that should necessarily be walked through repeatedly. I also would hesitate to completely remove social lubricant from a gathering place. Further, I don't like the idea of using such powerful medicine as a cheap money-maker. So how does it fit in? Or does it not fit at all?
I'm interested in the thoughts of other Evolvers on this.
JX
Hey John,I understand what
— Jul 23, 2009
Hey John,
I understand what you're saying about drugs and alcohol, and my response is that not all social lubricants are created equal. Alcohol tends to loosen people up, but it also "turns the lights out" on higher awareness. In this day and age, cannabis is extremely easy to come by (and will only get easier), and is a much more effective facilitator of opening consciousness, and I'd much rather the participants be high than drunk.
Considering the fact that half the country uses pot, and especially the younger generation, and even more especially the ones who go clubbing, and even more especially the ones who go clubbing and would be interested in a place like this... I think most of them will take care of their social lubrication themselves, without any encouragement from us. We can sort of drop little hints (in the artwork, for instance), that we accept and appreciate the responsible use of pot and other entheogens. Admittedly, I don't know what the laws are like concerning whether a venue can get in trouble for what its customers bring in. I hope not. Might have to check with a lawyer.
And anyway, alcohol will be available - just not given the central emphasis it's given in most other venues.
And concerning money, this is not a "cheap money maker" at all. The plain simple fact is that in the present society, it's necessary for operation. If and when the world evolves beyond its bizarre fixation on symbolic wealth, then we won't need to charge - but until that happens, money will be necessary. I, for one, need to eat and put gas in my car - otherwise the club wouldn't get run. And it would be foreclosed. You get the point. ;)
It's Time
— Jul 24, 2009
John, et al
...In case you wan't to read the substance and context side-by-side I just added the business plan link here again: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AV7y9yc-doINZGRuN2Z4c21fNmZjNmNrdjN2&h ...
Fantastic! It’s great to know that the urge to facilitate the most accessible and attainable type of evolver projects is still kicking! Really, the notion of holistic, synaesthetic, "total throughput" event centers is where "We" (evolvers in common) make our outstanding and undeniable marks in society.
I have created a business model and organization structure that comprehends the aspects developing local community reselience and leverages diverse niche industries abroad. If anyone reading this is serious about sustainable business, new value-creation and enhancing the expediency of new-paradigm mobilizations at large-- please contact me for the full plan. ((A brief is linked at bottom.)) The business structure is intended to be strategically located and dispersed abroad. Leveraging the best social networks (CurrentTV, twitter), sacred technology (astrology, sacred geometry, sound therapy) neo-tribal music initiatives (..!..) and sustainable business practices (Meshworking, Integral Praxis), the business, Access Lounge (one of a nexus) was originally devised in Boulder Co. I have since moved away, though probably returning and the tactical formations are enhancing everyday.
Viewing the enthusiasm of this thread so far, I do need to foreground a slightly critical-dialectic of what these types of project seems to signal at large (that is, from within the production horizon and outside, appearing to qua “others”).
John, et al, as you describe such a venue, many of us on Evolver may know that the nature of it already exists in spread out de-territorialized communities, the peripherals of mainstream activity, non-localized intentional works and inter-dimensional quests for right-livelihood (just some of the myriad character of the creative-evolutionary set). Thus far, in the stabilizing process between setting intentions into structures for good, the primary challenge is to bridge the differences in kind amongst superficial-state-appearances in community identity with the differences in degree of deep-structure-significance held in common, in post-post-modern contemporaneous society. In terms of the latter (of development), we can speak of contemporaneous forces, at once multitudinous and singular—any conscious awareness with technological import can fabricate an event of meaningful, if not sustainable, effect. In plain terms, the challenge to “evolvers“ is one in common with “others:” to see each other, respectively, as equal in the capacity for growth—along different development lines, value memes, types of interactions and spheres of activity in life.
Such an integral pivot point, I feel, simply widens the “Access Points” for realizing the promise of what everyone on earth came here for….connection with a common source of life, that may be experienced at appropriate stages and remembered through both peak states of unconscious awareness and transformations of conscious activity.
In this staggeringly awesome arena, I have contemplated many pursuits that can align oneself for the highest good with the most expedient use of resources. I keep coming back to a framework of sorts, a human oriented type of ”Meshworking” (originally termed in the language of IT), on which a great portion of the “business” proposal is based. Meshworking as an organizational framework for enlightened social services utilizes the term “Access Points” as a general orienting principle for integrating the Identity, Assets and Values (e.g. personal-“energetic“ types, skills, resources and value-memes) which are disparate, dispersed and politicized- yet which must be addressed for any sustainable-type venture to have critical import.
The importance of these points may comprise a rather seamless substrate for any high-vision business network, and yet if it can be utilized by an "entertainment" venue then it may be able to Transpose, Translate and Transform the depth of "Meaning-Markers" into various scale of unassuming practical works. Such are examples of how virtuous access point are transposed into another area of life activity: one's self-image may be recognized in an outlet for stage performance dance; the production scale of raw-foods sold at a venue can become cost-effective by offering trade-labor incentives for distribution and marketing (reduced cost admissions); relief efforts for aspiring scholars and visionaries can be arranged with municipal support organizations to strengthen mutual benefits to society.
It keeps going. The original intent of entertainment wakes to its publicity-shy and virtue-panged responsibilities. WE all have the power to believe that the next-door ruffian is as hungry as anyone for change! From the depths of our bellies, to the highest exaltation of spiritual laughter rendering the common body spirit.... This party will remain at attention.
Again, this is extremely viable, changing the conception of how value is conceived and abundance accessed.
Please see my profile and webling for the synopsis or direct:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AV7y9yc-doINZGRuN2Z4c21fNmZjNmNrdjN2&h... Be in touch
~Kairos
