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Solaris

Solaris 2013 is coming!

HEAR YE! HEAR YE!!

Hello Nature Lovers. Mark your calendars for the weekend of June 20th-23rd and get the days off work now: Solaris is back for another long, leisurely weekend of Spiritual Renewal.

This year we will again be having two-track of playshops: A more meditative track and a more energetic one.

New this year:

Our grand poobah this year will be the lovely Karen.

Thursday Tea Party!

Sliding Scale Pricing! Registration before May 5th is just $100 – $130 for 3 nights and 4 days of camping, rituals, playshops and fun!

For Friday arrival (2 nights and 3 days), we will set you back a mere $80 – $110.00

Some things never change:

• Clothing Optional camping.
• Morning gourmet pancakes from the Chef Without Pants.
• A community ritual presented on the day we all write it as a group.
• The entertaining and moving evening Bardic.
• Snaps. Hundreds and hundreds of Snaps.
• The wood-fired hot tub.
• Jigsaw puzzling, dancing, lounging, laughing and on and on.

How does it all work?

Here is a typical day of Solaris at Earth Matters:

1. Morning Pancakes and Coffee, from about 6am till 9am.
2. A brief, brief! gathering at one of the circles, where we will announce the day and connect as a group.
3. First Playshop. This usually lasts about 90 minutes. There are two tracks for the morning, the meditative track and the energetic track.
4. Lunch break. You’re on your own.
5. Second and Third Playshops.
Each of these are also 90 minutes.
6. Dinnertime. You’re on your own again. (Solaris does not have a meal plan per se, but there is always chips and salsa and gorp around. Bring an ingredient for the “Stone Salad” and enjoy an impressive salad buffet for lunch everyday.)
7. Evening events.

• On Thursday this will be a small welcoming ritual for us all, with a drum-and-dance jam session to follow.
• On Friday this will be a large group ritual that we will all write earlier in the day.
• On Saturday we will have the BBQ Potluck Social and the Bardic.
• Sunday at Noon is the infamous ‘snaps’ closing ritual, and then we all pitch in and clean the place before departing.

Variations occur, the unexpected is always welcome, and Eris will be served, but generally that is the way things are supposed to go.

Fun? Oh yeah. But that’s only the Official Program. There are plenty of…..

Other activities at Earth Matters:

• Hiking. There are miles and miles of lovely, graded trails throughout Earth Matters. See what grand projects Noel and Jody have underway in their beforested valley.
• The Cold Plunge. And we aren’t kidding. A great shaded area to dip your feet in.
• The Hot Tub. Seats 10 or so. But this is not without its quirks as well: It’s wood-heated.
• The Knitting Minions. Karen and her merry band will be clicking and clacking all weekend. Follow the little bits of yarn and you’ll find them. Bring your skeins, spinning wheel and latest project, or start your first!
• Bring your acoustic instruments. A jam session is liable to happen at anytime, and is always welcome.
• Alternately, bring your iPod and take your turn as the Guest House DJ.
• Stand by the kitchen counter and eat the trail mix all day. Some folks seem spend their entire festival doing this.
• Napping. Cannot be overrated as an activity.
• Sun Worshiping. It IS called Solaris after all, and it IS clothing optional. The wrap-around deck on the second floor of the Guest House is prime real estate for this.

Central to each day are the Playshops. (Our name, because “workshops” just sounds so dour.)

Playshop Guidelines

The theme of Solaris is: “Sharing Our Knowledge and Power.”
We encourage campers to apply as presenters of Playshops, giving you the opportunity to offer your skills to the community. Applications will be evaluated – we want to know how well your Playshop fits in with the theme and fulfills the purposes of Solaris 2012.

• These purposes are: Building Community. We would like the playshops to be participatory and to help everyone get to know one another more deeply to build that good ‘ol community spirit. Think a circle, not a lecture.
• Developing Leadership Skills. We are especially drawn to those playshops that allow participants to acquire and practice communication and facilitation skills, which will make us more capable leaders in our community.

And with only two full days of playshops, this means that the slots fill up fast. Please understand that we simply may not have time to schedule your playshop. Then again, someone could be unable to make it at the last minute and we just may need someone to fill in. Stuff happens and we are pretty flexible with regard to changes. So please, APPLY!

Please download the playshop form and let us know how your proposed activity will address our stated purposes. If all this fancy “purposes” talk sounds intimidating, please apply anyway. We want to make Solaris as exciting and enjoyable as possible and, most of all, we want it to belong to ALL of us. So, ALL ideas are most welcome.

• Ideas like what, you ask? Well, over the years we have had several dance classes (salsa, swing, belly),
• body painting (Solaris IS clothing optional, after all),
• gourmet chocolate tasting, backyard forge making,
• create your own action figure,
• Mud People,
• beginning knitting/massage/drumming /reiki and on and on and on.
• What are you into? What’s your mad skillz? We wanna play!!

Snail mail your playshop registration form to:

Angus McMahan
Data Wrangler
134 May Avenue
Santa Cruz, Ca. 95062

But the flipside of play is work. At registration you will have the opportunity to sign up for a shift on one of our teams. Helping out is a great way to meet people and help the festival run smoothly. Shifts are short, generally no more than an hour or two a day. Here are the teams, descriptions and facilitators:

Solaris Work Teams

• Fire Witches – Team Salamander! There is a fire circle, a wood-burning hot tub, an outdoor BBQ, and tiki torches. Our mission is to start these fires & keep them where they belong. Led by: Ryiah. Shifts throughout the day, with emphasis on the preparation for the nightly events.
•  Housekeeping – Hestia is Nacho Mama! We will ensure that group areas (and that includes ten toilets, most out on the property) are maintained in a clean, safe and orderly state. Led by: Willow. Shifts throughout the day, most of which involve some hiking.
•  Kitchen Witches – “Kissin’ wears out – Cookin’ don’t”. From the early morning, to, well, the early morning, and all eatings in between. Led by: Nancy H. Three shifts available per day, plus duty before the big BBQ social.
•  Safety Rangers – keeping us from ourselves. They roam. They Help. They check for water bottles. They keep us all okay. Led by Ranger Skot. Shifts periodically each day, with emphasis on the beginning and end of the festival.
•  Dishwashers – The Studs of the Suds. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Led by Steve. Three shifts available per day, outside, and yes, you will get wet on this ride.

Registration

All Set? Excellent. Let’s sign you up then.  And pay attention, because we are experimenting with sliding-scale payment.

Alternately you can contact us at info-at-communityseed.org and request a registration form. We’ll mail it to you, you fill it out, add a check, and snail mail it back to us. Here’s the smail mail addy:

Please do not hesitate to ask any questions: solarisinfo@communityseed.org

Thank you very much for considering our festival. We would be honored to have you at Solaris.

Blessed Be,

Community Seed