Nice list from Kelly Bryson's website (NVC author and NFNC speaker) that seems to fit with the Aquarian age that we entered three months ago. Kelly refers to Aquarian relationships as Trust Based and Piscean ones as Traditional

Trust Based Relationships

This entry was posted on September 13, 2012 at 8:50 PM and has received 1071 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Barry and Cathy for many years presented all sorts of community events in the San Francisco bay area. Since moving to the mid-atlantic two years ago they have been offering similar activities here, including a monthly open relationship discussion group, quarterly Deepening Connections erotic touch events, workshops with national leaders, and more. They are members of the Polyamory Leadership Network, served on the final Board of Directors of the late Chesapeake Polyamory Network, have led workshops for groups and conferences, and are active with BmorePoly (http://www.meetup.com/BmorePoly/). 

They can be reached at polyjunction(at)gmail.com)

This entry was posted on September 28, 2011 at 5:53 PM and has received 1694 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Michael/Michelle here:
I love many Indian things - the country when I traveled there in the 80s, the food and spices, the music, some Bollywood movies and of course the dancing! I learned Bhangra dancing a few years ago and even if I was down or depressed 10 minutes of doing that dance and I was out of breath and happy again! Plus any minor sickness or stress and dancing just releases the stuck energy so I feel better and can easily rest fully. So this Wednesday Gathering on Indian Dance is great.

Here in Bolivia I visited the Salar de Uyuni in the south of the country - it is a vast salt flat from an ancient sea that dried up. Over 200 sq km it is like being on another planet - no animals, birds or plants. Just while salt on the ground and volcanic mountains on the horizon. I meditated on the salt - it is very cleaning of energies (I take salt baths at home to clean my aura). Away from anyone or any animal I heard a quiet humming in my head - to me it was the sound of god within each of us. A light that is always there but that I don't always notice unless I get very quiet. That night we stayed in a salt hotel - all the walls, floor, beds, tables, chairs are made of blocks of salt. Only the bathroom was not salt (it would melt with the water!). at I slept so deeply that night!

The next day we drove across the desert seeing wild gazelles and flamingos at icy lagoons. I thought flamingos were a tropical bird but here the temperature is -15 C at night and not so much warmer in the day! I explored lava fields and went for a dip in a hot spring. The hot water was great - the only problem was how to get in and out given that it was -10 C with a strong wind outside the pool!! On the final day we got up at 5am to drop off some fellow travelers at the Chilean border before heading back to Uyuni. Our driver, as many Bolivian workers do, was chewing coca leaves to stay alert. I guess it is a bit like drinking a coca-cola in the States. (In fact the original coca cola recipe in the 1890s included coca leaves...). Since president Evo came to power here a few years ago coca production has been liberalized and you can buy coca tea bags at the super market. Just don't try to bring them back to the USA as DHS will take them and may be fine you too because they are illegal in US (they think coca = cocaine which is a crazy as saying poppy seeds = heroin). I haven't tried coca tea but others say it is a mild pick me up.

Love
M/M

PS We have three talented healers living at my house: Randy, Rukmini and Sandra. Plus myself remotely. Learn more about what we can do and help support this Sandbox gathering place at http://abundantmichael.com/blog/page.cfm/Sandbox-Healers

This Wednesday gathering we learn how to do joyful Indian folk dances with Padma Foye. What would yo do with more joy and energy? How do you move stuck emotions (energy in motion) in your body? How would it help your life to express yourself fully in dance right now?

Indian folk dance (Garba and Raas) is mainly performed to express joy. All folk dances portray some expression of life and meaning. These dances are easy to learn and so much fun! And there is no need to be exact in the steps - these are dances for farmers and it is the intent you bring to your moves, not how well you do them that matters! 

Padma Foye is from the State of Gujarat in India. She enjoys performing and teaching Indian folk dances because this form of dance is spiritually uplifting to the dancers and the observers.  

- Michael/Michelle
http://www.abundantmichael.com/

This entry was posted on September 7, 2011 at 8:14 PM and has received 1524 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry. Download attachment.

Barry Smiler wrote a great article There's No Such Thing As Polyamory and in my view spot on. We are moving to more personal freedom and responsibility. As Barry says:

The basic idea is that polyamory can be seen as simply a
subset or special case of everyone's right to self-determination in
all aspects of their lives. That is, polyamory could be reframed as
simply self-determination when applied to one's relationship life.

And If you haven't read Pete McWilliams book "Aint nobodies business but yours" it gives great arguments for ending Consensual Crimes including current sex crimes such as the law in some states against oral sex

http://mcwilliams.com/books/aint/toc.htm (free to read online or you can buy print copy at Amazon)

    This book is about a single idea—consenting adults should not be put in jail unless they physically harm the person or property of a nonconsenting other.

Chapter on relationships and the law is http://mcwilliams.com/books/aint/308.htm

    As of early 1996, adultery (sex with someone who is married, or sex with anyone other than your spouse if you are married) is illegal in twenty-seven states. Oral sex (called sodomy in some states)—either giving or receiving—is illegal for consenting heterosexual adults in fourteen states. Even missionary style, conventional, heterosexual sex between unmarried consenting adults is illegal in nine states. Cohabitation (living as married with someone you're not married to) is illegal in ten states.

    And let's not forget local ordinances. There are any number of laws—such as this one from Long Beach, California—which sound more like a passage from a Sidney Sheldon novel than a legal statute:

            No person shall indulge in caresses, hugging, fondling, embracing, spooning, kissing, or wrestling with any person or persons of the opposite sex . . . and no person shall sit or lie with his or her head, or any other portion of his or her person, upon any portion of a person or persons, upon or near any of the said public places in the city of Long Beach.

If business law had an equivalent to the laws concerning personal relationships, it would say, "If you're in business, you must have one partner, and only one partner, and keep that partner, until one of you dies." If this were the law, can you imagine the state of business in America? The same is true of the state of personal relationships.

This entry was posted on April 7, 2011 at 11:05 PM and has received 1024 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

This Wednesday Sandbox gathering we join Cathy and Barry Smiler who will lead a discussion of Polyamory As A Spiritual Path. Our format will be more conversation than lecture as we explore this topic together.

Polyamory can be a powerful path of personal growth, a framework for
considering deep issues of self-empowerment, responsibility, community and what keeps us from real emotional intimacy and deep communication with ourselves and others. It's a truism that everybody does poly
differently, but what that really means is that if you want, every aspect of how we live and relate can be on the table for
consideration, not simply the elements around sexuality. When seen in this way, the poly vision of co-creating relationships offers a powerful opportunity to reconsider who we're close to, and why and why not. Taken the right way, this ongoing opportunity to re-evaluate all our boundaries to intimacy can be a powerful and growth-expansive spiritual practice.

Cathy and Barry have been leading poly discussion groups, workshops, and other events for years, initially in California and nowadays in the DC/MD/VA region, and especially in the Baltimore area where they
live. They can be reached at polyjunction (at) gmail (dot) com or through the BmorePoly Meetup at http://www.meetup.com/BmorePoly/

This entry was posted on March 31, 2011 at 8:31 PM and has received 1323 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I went ot Reid and Marica's (Of Cuddleparty fame) workshop pn poly-mono relationships last weekend - it was very good. One idea I got from it is that both poly and mono are preferences of loving, like the type of music we prefer. Just because I like jaz doesn't invalidate that you like rock.

Also that one of the key wants of poly folks is freed to love and for mono folks it is security of their love. And that both can met if we work on increasing trust.  (which is a good thing for all relationships!)

And that for a poly-mono relationship to work all parties need to be skilled at relating and not taking stuff personally.
coments?

This entry was posted on September 29, 2007 at 5:31 PM and has received 1184 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

This is a greet song about poly relationships called complications called "My boyfriend's girlfriend isn't me"

This entry was posted on September 25, 2007 at 3:52 PM and has received 1275 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.