Reviews of the summer 2009 camp

Lyudmila Oleinik

people

It has been a week since we got back from Khotsky (or Khotsky, who knows how the name of this inconspicuous little village, more than a hundred kilometres from the dusty capital, is properly declined). There are very many such dying villages, to my sorrow, in our most beautiful country. And it feels as if a whole life has receded into the past – that is how full of events and new information this “gathering” was for me. What can I single out, you ask? Nothing stands out! Everything is whole. And it was all ve-ery far from accidental! Day one. DEPARTURE AND ARRIVAL. A NEW LIFE – NEW NAMES, It began with my morning ride to the meeting place in Kyiv, in some Zhiguli of obscure origin (stolen or borrowed for a spin), with an even more obscure young driver, either drunk or stoned (or perhaps both at once), who had only the day before come back from “places not so remote”. Moreover, this colourful specimen of human recklessness turned up a couple of minutes after my daydreams of getting from my village to the city as fast and as comfortably as possible with my heavy rucksack. And vanished as suddenly as he had appeared, after our safe arrival in Kyiv. Then came the sequel, in the form of a timely (!) departure on the minibus we had ordered. Then – watching our “band of comrades” move through the forest in a lorry (I was lucky here too – I managed to ride this stretch sitting in a comfortable car) and waiting for something wonderful, the way as a child you wait for a present at New Year. And then… it all began! 🙂 There was a place of quite incredible beauty, with a sandy, steep bank, a boundless smooth expanse of water, fragrant pines, the sun and the sky, and a feeling of utter happiness that I was finally here. The fact that another party was camped not too far from us rather spoiled the arrival, but I paid attention to that only at first. Then there was no time left to bother about such trifles. In general, I suppose it is not going to be possible to write a short review of the Event (exactly so!) that happened in my life – there was just too much of everything. And I really did not know myself as I got to know myself at this camp. I could not even have imagined how hard it is to strip off the mask of society and come up with a new name. Or how much the eyes of a stranger say when you work with him in a pair in some practice. And how people cling to their sense of their own importance and furiously reject the suggestion to take a rest from it. And our first day, which ended after midnight with the successful renaming of everyone who had arrived, was so full of events that in ordinary life they would have been enough for a week or more. After all, to arrive, choose a place for the camp, put up the tents, bathe, cook a simple lunch, gather in a circle with thoughts of your goals, get to know better the people with whom you were going to make so many discoveries and live through so many pleasant and not-so-pleasant moments, think up a new name for yourself and support (or reject) your fellow tribespeople’s wish to call themselves this and not that, and a mass of other events besides – you must agree, it was a very full day! Day two. PUTTING DOWN ROOTS. And the next morning I woke up in an incredible state, as if “between” earth and sky – sleeping in a tent and the sound of the surf had finally shifted my “assemblage point”. Half asleep, I did not even realise that it was only 4.30 in the morning and that I had to be present at the Agni Hotra ritual. That too was a discovery (and it turns out you can eat dung, too, if it is prepared properly!). As for food, strange things happened with it at the camp altogether: sometimes I wanted to eat quite incredibly (probably when I was very nervous on the blind day), and sometimes I did not want anything at all – there was so much information to “digest”. The main thing is that an absolutely iron certainty appeared in me that it would be rather hard for me to die of hunger, because life is unbelievably abundant! And in fact very little food and drink was needed – some unassuming porridge, a mug of tea and a couple of apples with a rusk was quite enough. And that life and food without salt are possible was a great revelation to me! How much less water the body needs in that case, and how much less tired my legs are, because there is no swelling! And also – how much the taste of each ingredient of a dish stands out (tomato, cucumber, greens, bread, carrot and so on). The only thing I lacked was some order in the kitchen products and utensils, since a separate tent had not been taken for these things, and they periodically “surfaced” in various places of our camp, making me spend time on searches, when there was not enough time anyway for “digesting” what was going on. Well, listen to me – going on and on about the kitchen, as if I were at home! I suppose I still cannot let go of my “organiser’s” rushing about before the departure… Now – about the sea! Another discovery that shook me: it turns out that even a man-made, “artificial” sea, so to speak, behaves in a way that is absolutely no different from real seas. There are times when it is perfectly calm and the waves only whisper a little, times of surf when the waves make a noise, rolling softly onto the shore, and times of a real storm, when the white “lambs” on the crests of the waves make you think of shipwrecks! The weather during our camp is a separate chapter altogether. All the weather phenomena happened as if to order for a change of scenery in the theatre, and served only the fullest merging of person and nature, becoming our allies and at the same time displaying their might. Yes, it was surely not for nothing that after arrival the ritual of “putting down roots” in the new place was held. It looked like this: the offerings laid on the altar built by our “leader” (in the world, Natasha Valitskaya) were presented by each member of our tribe to the spirits and elements dwelling in those places. In general it was quite hard to get into the new daily routine: the morning Run of Power and Walk of Power seemed very simple actions, but far from all of us kept up this obligatory morning ritual. And the technique of the run (“vigilant relaxation”, it was called) – walking one after another “foot in foot”, relaxing the body – was absolutely unfamiliar to me. The way of breathing was new too. And the forest and the sea put you in no sporting mood at all! But we stoically fought our old attitudes, inspiring awe in the holidaymakers around us – getting up at 7 in the morning, the run-walk, bathing naked (which, of course, did not work out at once for everyone) and an excellent breakfast cooked on the campfire (there, the kitchen again!). And gradually the ossified notions of how to behave when a new day of life begins started to blur, sensations and emotions began to break through to the surface and let us feel the whole thrill of the beauty around us and of being a part of it. And to bring the tribe together faster, the practice of shamanic throat sounding in a circle worked very well: everyone sounded certain “sounds of the elements”, setting a flow of energy going with the vibrations of their voices. True, I was “switched off” every now and then by my neighbour – a man who very diligently howled along on the highest note, and I could barely keep myself from collapsing with laughter behind the nearest tree. Well, I can have some shortcomings in any practice, after all, I am only just learning! After the real “battles” for a new name that went on until late at night on the first day, I had to give a very vigorous stir to an imagination that had stagnated over long years of oblivion and make myself an amulet on the second day. It (the imagination) had already been well disturbed by pastimes half-forgotten since childhood – to make up something fancy and call yourself something prettier and more obscure, for example “Cowardly She-Wolf” or “Shining Emptiness” (thank goodness the council of the tribe did not approve such flourishes). There were, of course, desperately modest ones among our fellow tribespeople, who nevertheless won for themselves a name that went completely against the process: “Nameless” (afterwards, of course, it felt unnatural to call a person that, and he too felt somehow uneasy). I decided to call myself something very primitive, without excess: “Simply Living” (which I regretted the next day. I did not think it would all be so serious). So with the amulet too everything was serious, as in childhood: whatever materials came to hand were put to use – twigs, stones, shells, and I also managed to get hold of scraps of leather and laces from the kind fellow tribeswomen and from the chief (or chieftainess?) of the tribe – White She-Elephant. The amulet was born in snatches – I had to take an active part in the practices of getting to know myself and the members of the tribe (the question-and-answer practice “Who are you?”) and in trial walks through the forest with a blindfold (a sort of mini “dark retreat”). And my sensations from such walks were not like anything I had experienced in life before – it was as if I had landed in the scenery of some thriller. A clear feeling that I was in a dungeon, and that someone was pursuing me and my guide, almost made me run headlong, tearing off the blindfold. The world changed into something like an alien environment, everything was utterly unfamiliar and mysterious to the touch. And what happiness it was for me (and not only for me, I think it was a common feeling) when the leader’s signal for the end of the practice sounded! How differently the light was perceived! A side effect of our event was the attempts of huge forest ants to “eat to the ground” my gigantic (in height) guide – Phoenix Bird. That was when he had tied the blindfold on and I was “walking” him through the forest. For some reason all the ant trails turned up on our way! But a Phoenix is a Phoenix for a reason: quietly swearing and brushing the furious “beasts” off his feet, half-shod in flip-flops, he stayed alive all the same, and moreover was terribly pleased with the process. After a luxurious lunch in the fresh air by the water, a very pleasant feeling of relaxation came. I wanted to lie about on the sand, listen to the noise of the wind and the whisper of the waves… But my new name gave me no peace – somehow it did not fit with my inner state today. No, can one really be Simply Living in such a wonderful world? I am not grass, not some piece of wood, to feel no emotions about what is going on! And in me a desire grew to call myself something else. After thinking a little, after being in a state of bliss on the seashore, I decided to take the name “Accepting Everything”. Having gone for a swim with this thought, I realised that again it was somehow vague, like runny kissel on a plate. What on earth was I going to accept? And what if someone (not my fellow tribespeople, of course!) decided to throw something heavy at me? His mood might be so sad! So should I accept that too?! No way, I am not that enlightened yet! And then – whether under the influence of the warm sun or out of the gratitude of my well-fed body – I caught such a feeling of delight in life that the new name literally floated up before my eyes. Why, I am getting so much pleasure right now! There it is: I will be a woman Who Gets Pleasure! Phew, it is not easy, being someone in this life! And on top of that, to express your inner state in a way that is clear to yourself and to the “sisters” and “brothers” living alongside. And a couple more words about the inner state. The truth that the outer world is a reflection of our inner world was confirmed once again (and not just once!) at this camp. Since the people in our tribe had gathered very different, with different understandings of what was happening and, accordingly, different reactions to it, the world around us kept “throwing up” “reflections” of someone’s behaviour. For example, a company of three loudly laughing fellow tribespeople “attracted” to our camp very similar noisy neighbours, who in addition “greatly respected” friendship with the bottle. And in response to a conflict over whose turn it was to bury things in the graves, a couple of Kyivans appeared, much too sure of the rightness of their claims to our territory. Luckily the situation dissolved at once, and we managed without “defensive moves” on the part of the men. Later, when we were sitting in an exclusively women’s circle, discussing our purely women’s subjects, a car drove up to us, a very beautiful woman got out of it and, for some reason calling us “guys”, asked whether we had come across her friends here. In general, everything around us literally strove to join in and take part in our “action”, to make it even richer in content – both the weather and the people. But we managed to coexist quite peacefully for all seven days, both with our neighbours and with nature, and all the events happened at the right time (the rain, and the storm, and the strong wind that left our shore deserted for the time of our practices).

As for the amulets, in the evening I got several lessons in how to play up beautifully completely inconspicuous objects: tree bark, shells, feathers, stones… The main thing is to SEE the unusual essence in ordinary things and invite them to play the part of your friend. And almost all the fellow tribespeople accomplished an incredible transformation of everyday little roots and feathers into works that took your breath away… Day three. THE FIRST BLIND DAY AND NIGHT. Having settled into the new place, the tribe began its third day. For some it was the first “blind” day, for me it was “kitchen day”. That is, besides everything else I had to cook for my fellow tribespeople and at the same time try not to drop out of the process. This was rather hard, because while you are peering into the pot something is going on right beside you, and then you have to realise that you are not taking part in it! And that is sad already… Still, I was glad of the second “squaw on duty”, called Clear Life, and of the help the men of the tribe could give. And in general I found it extremely hard to deal with household matters, because I lost the connection with something very important to me as a person. Meanwhile the people were diligently mastering the science of being “disabled”, that is, as if having no sight. Those who remained sighted kept catching themselves and remembering that they were responsible for the wholeness of the “blind”, and set about helping them this way and that: now correcting with a loud shout the trajectory of a lost “blind” poor fellow, now putting more food into a bowl (as if this could speed up recovery), now helping to choose suitable clothes. Speaking of clothes: during the day it turned cold, and a fairly heavy rain began. Half of the “sufferers” and guides hid in the tents to sit out the bad weather. Part of the tribe took shelter under the “food” awning and watched this scene: a man called Phoenix Bird led his “blind” friend – a girl called Flying-to-the-Target – out for a walk. She was clearly nervous about how she looked, and kept asking what colour the raincoat they had put on her was. For some reason she thought it should be lilac, but her guide diligently assured her that it was blue and she looked great in it. The girl would not give in and insisted that she felt exactly as if she were in lilac, until all the sighted onlookers said in chorus that, yes, there really was lilac in her outfit, and she looked fabulous in it! So just try now to guess by what principle people distinguish colours – with the eyes that are “ON the head” or with those “IN the head”? As for me, I did manage that day to get an amazing experience of recognising a person without seeing him, only by touch, working out who was in front of me by the hands. Before that we all together became “blind” by putting on blindfolds, and “caught an elephant” (that is, the She-Elephant). And I managed to move blind only when I shifted my “centre of feeling” from my head to my belly. And the gamut of sensations and feelings when you get to know a person’s hands blind I can compare only with the reaction of the discoverer of some unknown land. How much some people lose by ignoring bodily communication! I could write a whole book about this now, in which I would call on everyone to learn to feel and touch the people who come into their close circle. You would find out mu-uch more than from an ordinary conversation or sex! After meditating on the theme “the inner Man and the inner Woman”, making a number of discoveries in the process, by the end of the day both the “blind” and the “guides” looked tired. Grumbling began about the bitter fate of those deprived of health. So even before dinner the “blind” regained their sight and bustled about happily around the fire. This tense day was ended by the ritual of drinking maté, during which I again found out a great many concepts unknown to me: what maté is, how it is gathered and prepared, how to fill the calabash properly and how maté is drunk. It is interesting that the interconnection of the masculine and feminine principles was present in this ritual too (the calabash, it turns out, personified the feminine womb, and the bombilla – so to speak, the object of male pride). After “taking on the chest” such a marvellous drink the people of the tribe could not disperse to sleep for a long time. Or perhaps it was also because the next day threatened to become a serious trial of “blindness” for the members of the tribe most hardened in harsh battles with society – me (Who Gets Pleasure), the brave big Phoenix Bird, the extremely energetic and bright man Paradise Island, two of our young fellow tribeswomen – Clear Life and Playful Wave, and also the would-be Cowardly She-Wolf (that is, the woman named She Who Picked Up the Trail). But by all the laws of nature this day too was coming to an end, and I had no choice but to crawl into my tent and put the blindfold over my eyes (this was for fully entering the role of the “blind”). As it turned out in the course of the practice of the first “blind” day, a person’s having some physical defect need in no way affect his relations with society, if it is taken adequately. Such people simply see life from the other side and interact with it differently, not as absolutely healthy people do. In some ways they even feel it better… I thought that sometimes (and even quite often) a game of guilt goes on, when healthy people rush to the aid of the not entirely healthy, for the most part to “atone” for their guilt at being healthy (!). Absurd? No, that is life. And, as we can see, little has changed since the time Jesus said to the cripple lying by the water and waiting for the “miraculous” ripple to appear on its surface: “Rise, take up your bed and walk!” People sometimes like to turn a person perfectly adapted to life into a cripple, in order to have a chance to play “saviour and victim”. Day four, or I AM IN THE LAND OF THE BLIND. Whether from the worry I had lived through for my “blind” fellows, or from sensing a threat in the prospect of being “sightless” all day, I slept badly that night. Towards morning I had a dream in which my fellow tribesman, smiling, came out from under the ground, opening a grass-grown door and inviting me to “dive” into the cave he had just left. Trying to open my eyes and discovering that there was a blindfold on them, I at once remembered my “bitter lot”. Having crawled out of my “cloth dwelling” I decided to call someone for help right away: I had a perfectly distinct feeling that I was on the edge of a cliff and that if I took even one step… But, thank God, my fellow tribespeople were not asleep and at once sent me straight off on the run. I had to run, gripping the shoulder of the sighted “brother” ahead of me for dear life. Something unbelievable was happening to me: at first it seemed that the world had shrunk to the size of a trench with walls of planks, getting narrower and narrower. Then, when we turned off the path into the forest, I imagined a landscape with huge mountains and hollows, and again I found myself on the edge of a cliff! (Later, in the discussion, it was explained to me that this is how I perceive my life and myself in the world around me. Well, yes, there is something to work on there!) The familiar picture of the world was gone! My brain was lost and even stopped giving the command to move to some limbs (when the practice of massaging my neighbours in the circle began, for some reason I did not use my right hand). The return to camp seemed unimaginable – on the way all the snags and pits were mine. Having hobbled my way to breakfast, I could not believe my luck. But then my brain underwent another trial: how can you eat something if you can’t see what it is and how much of it there is? Breakfast turned into real torture for me: the porridge in the bowl would never run out, and everything else that could still be eaten turned out to be invisible, I had to wait patiently for my turn to receive some “bonus” in the form of a date or a rusk from a sighted fellow tribesman. The complete helplessness gradually began to irritate me, and I was glad when the ritual of the morning eating of food was over. The blissful lying about on the grass of our group of the “blind” was interrupted by a call to undergo trials in the forest again. This time we laughed till we cried: we built “figures”, or, as Paradise Island put it, “played Baba Kutsya”. That is, first the “blind” had to repeat as exactly as possible the position taken by a sighted brother (or sister), and then everyone turned “blind” and carried on with the group creation by mirror reflection. It is impossible to convey in words the delight of this practice: it was as if we had returned to childhood! Feeling out and thinking over the combinations of human bodies offered for reproduction completely absorbed all the participants, and what was unusual for me was that I easily gave up my role of “eternal leader” to another woman. It turned out that life is even simpler this way!

Then began a practice that completely changed my idea of the masculine and feminine components of the personality – “Find Your Own”. All of us (and everyone was “blind” at that moment) were given the chance to determine whom we were more comfortable with in our lives – a man or a woman. From my own experience I already knew that with a man I would, naturally, be more comfortable, so, choosing between the two people standing in the clearing – a man and a woman – I intended to stay by the man. And having come across the woman first, I somehow did not dare to settle on her. But after a short search for the “reliable and responsible” one and feeling him over, expecting to get reassurance, I suddenly realised that I did not really want to stay beside him. And I darted straight back, to HER! And a crowd had already formed around her! So that is how precious a Woman is – and not by her strength, but by something else, inexpressible in words. Later, in the discussion, the one being chosen admitted that she had been terribly worried about the prospect of “being left alone”, of not being chosen by any of us. But then she decided to let the situation go and simply stand. And then everyone piled onto her! To the man, by the way, only one person “attached” herself… Imperceptibly lunchtime came. Back at camp, the tribe rushed to bathe. Everyone dashed into the water – both “blind” and sighted. And they were not afraid to strip naked: the “blind” did not care (they see nothing, so they do not perceive the judgement of others), and the sighted were the former “blind” of the day before yesterday, they had already swum like that, and nothing terrible had happened to them. Our neighbours, though, were rather alarmed by this turn of events and even tried to force their company on some of our squaws. But all their advances were cut short by the appearance of a gallant team of naked warriors of the tribe. I would never have thought that the sight of naked people could sow such panic in the camp of the beach-goers, who had covered their most intimate places with scraps of cloth for show (or rather for “invisibility”)! And in general, bathing naked and, on top of that, “blind”, turned out to be very pleasant for me. I would say that I experienced a relaxation like that when I swam at night without a swimsuit, not being altogether sober. Lunch that day seemed to me truly royal: the list of dishes was announced by those on duty, and I asked for the whole assortment to be moved closer to my bowl. After “strolling” in turn through all the delicacies and feeling their unrepeatable taste and aroma, our “blind brotherhood” prepared to recline at ease and talk about the usual subjects (more typical of pensioners). We all felt about the same: as if in a care home we had been washed, fed and left on little chairs by the wall to doze until the next feeding. I distinctly felt a kind of uselessness and loneliness. Irritation at my helplessness slowly crept up on me. And then… I suddenly thought of my mother… she too sees very badly at 82. And it is already rather hard for her to do certain actions that are habitual for healthy people. And I could never understand why this was such a problem for her, it always seemed to me that she was skilfully pretending in order to extract yet another portion of attention from me, and it enraged me terribly… Well, here was a chance to experience for myself the whole “charm” of her present condition – the condition of an aged and not entirely healthy person. For this experience I would express separate thanks to White She-Elephant, since in ordinary life I would hardly ever have put myself in such a position voluntarily. And with the help of our lead… I don’t know the right word – just like that, at once, I “moved” myself 40 years ahead and stood on the same footing as my mother… Another upheaval in my worldview, another insight… But I did not have time to develop this theme in conversation. Again we were pulled into the forest. This time we had to do something creative: to model blindly from clay whatever might come into our heads and could be made by hand. I was given two lumps, and told that they were of different colours. I began to knead this damp mass, supposing that it would be quite simple to sculpt something, but it was not to be! Not one sensible fantasy came into my head – whether from tiredness, or from being overfilled with other thoughts (before the clay we had had a meditation on the theme “Animal of Power”, during which I began to see a whole zoo). One of the lumps of clay was big, the other smaller, and I reasoned, quite rightly, that I would use the big lump for some “monumental” work (something like a majestic image of my close and beloved man, whom I so long to see beside me), and from the second I would knock together a compact “love nest” for our living together with the man. Getting down to work, I clearly felt that the clay did not much yield to my hands, and my super-man was, in the literal sense of the word, “born in pangs”. Having somehow stuck limbs of different sizes onto an unidentifiable torso and a completely disproportionate little head on a mighty neck, in frustration I tried to take revenge and make a masterpiece of house-building, but there too a complete fiasco awaited me! The clay seemed to live by its own laws, it did not want to submit stupidly to the actions of an element totally foreign to it – me! We had not established contact, had not come into resonance, so to speak, and so it wanted to keep its original state and stubbornly resisted me! …I did not manage to make a house. After struggling a little longer, I decided to give up the fruitless attempts to become an architect, and hastily rolled a long clay “sausage”, then bent it into a pretzel. I called this “work” “The Free Heart”. I think my second attempt at making friends with the clay will be more successful, and I will be able to give shape to my boldest fantasies! I have already learned something of the rules of behaviour with this “element”. Utterly dismayed by my unsuccessful creative efforts, with the help of a sighted sister named She Who Found Love I carried my “voodoo doll” and the heart “pretzel” to my tent and put them to dry in a sheltered spot protected from sun and rain. This was what the technology of making things from clay prescribed. The endless “blind” day went on, and again we were led into the forest. Howling inwardly and begging for mercy, I “trotted” along exhausted in the column behind my sighted guide. Several more practices lay ahead of us, one of which was “The Family Boat”. It was this that finished me off. Having split into threes, we had to take turns being old people, fathers and children. And we were seated so that, pressed against one another, we could feel all the “generations” – the youngest, the middle and the eldest. I again landed in some sort of “pit”, as it seemed to me. And my whole role of “grandmother” came down to “not rolling into the abyss” (by my sensations). I barely held out to the end of this practice, wild irritation seized me, I wanted to get up at once and leave this place… interestingly, another woman felt the same in the place of “grandmother” – Flying-to-the-Target, who was also “sailing” in our boat. Now I think that perhaps this place was somehow so “irritating”. Like in Castaneda, it seemed to take away strength! Needless to say, I waited impatiently for the end of my torments, and could not properly join in either the discussion or the process of gathering firewood. Although the practice was in fact a very powerful one, and I could describe my conclusions after it for more than one day. In the end this day too came to a close. After dinner we took off the blindfolds, and I felt how much everything had changed in this one day and night. Fatigue rolled over me in a heavy wave, my eyes ached from being unaccustomed. The faces of familiar people looked completely new. And it was so joyful that the familiar feeling had returned – the illusion of “being in control of the situation”. All the same it is still hard for me to trust this world, and that is sad. I cannot yet relax and “make myself available” to the force that so obviously protected and supported me all this day, and perhaps all my life. It is remarkable that while we sat and discussed the events we had lived through in our circle, our neighbours decided to brighten their tipsy leisure by listening to musical works by folk authors. From their car blared a cheerful song about a boar who “squealed all over the village” because they wanted to slaughter him. I don’t know what suggested such a theme for the “work”, but somehow it did not go with our processes. And the brave man Paradise Island, for some reason, very easily put an end to this “concert”, simply walking up to the neighbour and asking him to hold off the “disco”. The neighbour was moved by our problems and “stepped on the throat” of his spirited performers. He held out surprisingly long, until it got quite dark and we began to disperse. Then he crept quietly up to Paradise Island and, apologising politely, asked permission to continue the party, to which Island gave his consent. After that the music at the neighbours’ played very quietly, and we made merry over it for quite a long time.

Day five. GRAVES AND OTHER INTERESTING THINGS…