I spoke with Aya this morning who I know through Charles and Patsy’s online community NAAS. There are many powerful groups that meeting through that platform on Zoom. One that Aya helps facilitate is a Cacao and Coffee Creative Writing Circle. It is on Tuesday evenings, and I would like to attend one. The next one is scheduled for June 10th. I am also planning to do some personal work with Aya about my own healing related to my professional work as a doctor, and also the work that I want to be doing through my house as a community steward. I would love to host a community writing workshop or “retreat”.

What would come from a creative writing retreat? What do I need to feel better in my gut, in my mind and in my body? I am going over to Solara’s soon for the graduation party. Do I have an intention? To connect and to be present. I would like to share about the project of my house. What is the 30 second speech?

Why is my house called a healing center? I am focused on my own healing. It can be a deep process as I am connected to a system of deep suffering. When I am at the clinic I am with people who have very difficult lives and it is hard for me to integrate that without shutting part of myself down. I have become collapsed in certain ways, and I would like to use the home space to help reintegrate myself. I present myself a needy person, one who has something to offer by sharing my story with those who have the capacity to hear.

I am interested in creativity and performing. I went to an open mic Cabaret last Sunday, and I was inspired by the invitation to take the stage for 7 minutes. For an artist to create a story, an experience for an audience to witness. For an audience to be invited into the world of the creative spirit.

I am reading Rick Rubin’s book on creativity, and there is something powerful to me that speaks to processing our history, warts and all, including trauma, through artistic mechanisms that put our stories before an audience. I am doing that with this writing.

And I could get on stage to read a piece composed with an intention for a space. It could be a prompt for further reflection. What is needed to support and sustain community? Is stewarding community a new or ongoing role for me? I feel I have been somewhat dormant in areas where I have also previously been quite active.

This afternoon I am going to a “Permaculture Party” that is inviting a broad community to be together on a property, to work in the garden, to potluck, to play music and dance and enjoy the company and the space. This is something that could happen on my property as well, the land and the house at 3261 Quail Ave. I use the address to describe in plain terms what it is. It is a property of land with a house. There are so many words which could be used to frame what it is trying to be, and it can be helpful to keep it open too. I would like to have meals and music and conversation at the house. A bonfire creates a nice way to be in the yard together. At this point, there is a lot of neglect happening with the yard. I don’t think think I am going to fortify my resources before inviting people in, I think I am going to invite people in to whatever this is and develop it together.

I could have a roommate soon who helps me to develop this space. Or that may be a long way off, I don’t yet know.

On Sunday, I am hoping to visit the Minnesota Ecovillage. They have a nice website and have written about their intentions and manage several communication threads including a FB page and a Signal thread to share updates. (https://minnesotaecovillage.org)  It is an inspiring example of how to invite people in to a collaborative process. That project is more developed in some ways than this one, but there is no reason that the Creative Healing Retreat Center can’t be humming with good energy too.

On Tuesday, I am planning to go to the Rough Cuts performance on Augsburg’s campus. I like connecting with the community of performing artists and script writers who bring new works to audiences. Next Monday is Leslie’s Cabaret Open Gym. I don’t feel that I have anything to share this time, but I am inclined to go.

On June 14th is the Halfway to Harmony gathering at the Organic Compound which is always a beautiful community event. (https://www.organiccompound.org) On June 21 and 22nd Ahlay Blakely will be in town and leading song circles at New City Center which feels important to the process I am in with my Creative Healing Center. (https://www.eventcreate.com/e/minneapolis21)

There is a cultural healing center in South Minneapolis doing many wonderful things called Anam Cara. They don’t have all their events on the website, but it is a good overview of what they do: https://caralcarlson.com

Hello, I would like to share a story with you about performing arts and healing. When I was in high school, it was a big deal when I overcame my self-consciousness about singing to try out for the show choir as a Junior. When I made that varsity group as a senior, that felt like I was arriving to a new social world. Then I went to college and focused on earning good grades so I could get into medical school.

Our medical system is flawed. I feel ill from my participation in it. And I’m standing here at an open mic rather than at a therapist’s office because of my grandiosity. I think this problem is bigger than me, and that I am a symptom, not the cause of the illness. That is a bold thing to think and say. What is the problem, and what can we do about it? Can I explain in 5 minutes?

I don’t think everyone has to be a performer, but I started reading Rick Rubin’s book “The Creative Act: A Way of Being” and I believe that the energies of the universe move through us and what we choose to express means something. There is creativity to finding an audience, and a creative process around finding resonance.

Sometimes, healing is blocked because the environment is wrong. It’s too much of the same patterns repeating themselves again and again. Going on vacation, to a retreat center or even a friend’s house can represent and opportunity for reset. What I’d like to do is reset myself and reorient towards a position facilitating a guest house for creative healing processes.

It is a Creative Healing Institute. And I am just in the brainstorming stages, but I write about the process on WordPress, and I am talking about it today. On Tuesday I am going to host a potluck and I want to welcome people who are interested in this project I’m describing, and maybe over the next few months, identify people who would like to be involved and who may even live here with me.

I will open up applications for people to suggest a creative healing project that they would like to work on at the house. Something is out of order. I get energy from imagining these steps in the future, when in reality there are obstructions right in front of me that I’m not dealing with very well. The dishes in the sink, ain’t going to do themselves. The yard is not being well-maintained. I am a human who has a story that I am failing. I am failing at home ownership. I am failing at healing medical clients through my work as a physician. I am failing to address my own healing. Until I put the words on a page. It is a step. It is a prelude to the first step. It is describing the situation now. And I am not afraid of the situation right now, but I do need to be clear about where we are so that I can move forward. 

Thanks for listening.

Hello my friends! I would like to invite you to a potluck dinner on Tuesday night, and I would like to share with attendees about my vision for this house as a Creative Healing Center. We will have a conversation about what real health is, and what it looks like to practice that. I will be sharing about my own processes, including reading the book The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. It is a kind of guidebook for a creative life. A life with the energies flowing. Source energy flowing through us, and our creative projects at the Creative Healing Institute. Come and make art. Come and eat and talk with other humans about what it means to live “The Good Life”.

I named my clinic in 2019 as part of Powderhorn Shark Tank. I didn’t win any prize money, but I made a big poster and gave a little speech at the community center about my vision. And I just wanted to promote natural health. I wanted to teach about nutrition and exercise, and to demonstrate and support that. I wanted to focus on mindfulness and social connection. Being part of a framework of community. And I have gotten away from that and worked for the last 5 years at a community health clinic. We prescribe drugs and fill out paperwork. We complete charts and bill the insurance companies. It is a complicated pyramid of work, and what doctors do makes it very difficult to address the root causes of healing like I would like to. So instead, I would like to create that healing environment in my home, for myself and for guests and visitors.

So if you are free on Tuesday night, come to the potluck for this conversation. It will be informal, but basically we will eat ~6 and have music ~8 with conversation in between about creativity and health. What kind of workshops or retreats would people like to see here? What kind of contributions would you enjoy making to the space? Maybe you want to offer a sound bath or concert? Maybe you want to come and work in the gardens or come for a bonfire?

I am having one of those tonight (Saturday) and if you want to come, send me a message on Signal.

Otherwise, if you want to come on Tuesday to the potluck, it will be about six to nine. 

Thanks for reading. There will be more in-person events ahead.

There is a Facebook group for Intentional Communities in Minneapolis, and though I haven’t posted there, I have wondered what my message for that group would be if I wanted to communicate about my vision. Here’s what I came up with last night:

I have been in Minneapolis since 2016. In 2022, I bought a house in Golden Valley with grand ambitions for a community house. Initially it was 5 of us living together, 3 adults and 2 kiddos. Since then, there have been a few other visitors and residents, but I have also been spending a fair bit of time here on my own in a kind of community house failure.

It’s given me space to daydream and imagine. I want to do something a bit different than how others have done this. This house has a kind of mission, which I am only just starting to understand. It is a guest house for theater. There is a living room rehearsal space for music and storytelling. There are mostly guest rooms, with only a couple rooms for the house managers to live. There are frequent, if not daily activities at the house for friends and guests.

We cook and eat together, and the food is grown in the garden and comes from local sources close to the earth. We drink clean water and avoid products that are designed to cause harm. We are aligned with music and harmony of the universe.

The house is still in the womb so to speak. Or it’s been neglected. It is too much house for me to manage on my own. I didn’t move here to have a retreat from the world, but that is what it has become, and I’m ready to invite others to join me.

So, if there is something intriguing about my vision, feel free to reach out and I will plan to have a house meeting for folks who would like to be involved in the creation of this Residential Healing Center. It will be a site for retreats and healing workshops. It might be relevant that I work as a Medical Doctor, and what I would most like to do is to show people about healthy living by inviting them to come stay at my home as a “high touch” AirB&B. Do you understand what I’m describing? A home that invites guests to go on a deep healing journey. Who would like to be part of that? Who wants to help?