SolSeed Services
From SolSeed
The SolSeed Services are regular in-person gatherings in Portland, Oregon.
They are designed to be spiritual but not religious, creating a space for the appreciation of Life, of each other, and of the sacred. The goal is to create and nurture a sort of "spiritual community."
Each service has a "seed" topic that guides discussion as well as choices of music, poetry, and other creative aspects.
List of services
Service February 6, 2010 - seed: Empathy
Service March 20, 2010 - seed: Balance
Service June 5, 2010 - seed: Meditation
Discussion at the Longest Night Festival
Participants
- Ben Sibelman ... convener
- Brandon CS Sanders
- Art Brock
- Mickki Langston
- Shelley Schoepflin Sanders
- Keith Lofstrom
- Judy Sibelman
- Steve Sibelman
Discussion
- Keith: We could have karaoke set to space and growing/life imagery
- Art: Organizations/structures to shape the social architecture to give room for every voice to be heard
- Steve: L. Ron Hubbard treated religion as a business model
- Keith: Figure out how more women can get their concerns into the story
- Generative ideas rather than just starships
- Ben: Tell a story about a wonderful community that lives on a starship?
- Generative ideas rather than just starships
- Judy: My story about singing in a choir and helping this corner of the world
- Via audience donations that all go to a chosen beneficiary
- Yearly "iSing with Cake" event is a cake auction to support the choir itself
- Brandon: I like this model
- Art: What is the context/purpose for the services
- Aesthetically pleasing services
- Bring community together
- Judy: The best services I've been to were ones where I could feel like potentially part of a community of the people in the room
- Art: Sense of belonging
- Ground you in the now
- Give meaning
- Steve: But what does that mean?
- Mickki: Give a space or a vessel to be filled
- Steve: Opposite of other religious leaders who created some meaning first in order to pull people in
- Ben: Can provide a general framework at least
- Brandon: Bringing life and the mythos of TheDestiny make a good filter for who would be interested
- Keith: Individual productive work during a service while singing (or talking) would attract me
- Art: Different from a work bee session, where the work replaces the discourse
- Brandon: I like Keith's image of a woman holding a baby while working on building a starship (or sitting in the captain's chair on its bridge)
- Mickki: What is the content or inquiry for the community at the service?
- Incorporating co-creation into the structure of a service
- Judy: Have a "seed" for each service to which everyone contributes (wisdom, a story, music, etc)
- Steve: Continuity/reliability of structure (Art: and schedule) from one meeting to the next
- Rituals to begin and end service
- Announcement time for what will be happening in the community
- Some part of structure that is aesthetically focused (ex. singing)
- Space within structure for interchange
- People talking about what matters to them
- Art: Making meaning together
- Art: Informal social space just afterward, particularly related to food
- Models to look at
- Mickki: look at Jehovah's Witnesses' Theocratic Ministry School meetings
- Anyone can be assigned to deliver a specific piece of content
- Very rigid, but still some room to be creative
- Opportunity for feedback (because speakers are trainee ministers)
- Steve: We could have readings without an actual scripture
- Mickki: Readings could range from transcendent to utterly practical
- Art: Christian Science
- Ministry serves terms in different positions, usually with elections
- Testimony meeting: space for anybody to share stories about what's working
- As opposed to "trauma sharing," i.e. complaining together
- Mickki: look at Jehovah's Witnesses' Theocratic Ministry School meetings
- Art: Twice a month is a bare minimum in terms of community continuity
