Daré Details

THE TOPANGA BLUE FLAG DARÉ
Meeting on the Land and on Zoom beginning March 10, 2024
First Sunday after the New Moon or New Moon Sunday
Please check the calendar for the upcoming Daré dates.

Daré is the Gathering of the Community on behalf of healing, peacebuilding and reconnection to the natural world. There are essential questions and concerns that Daré addresses as we seek healing for individuals, our communities and Earth. Some of the questions are: What is healing? What is peacebuilding? How do we create and sustain communities? How can Earth be restored? How do we serve the Spirits? How do we live in ways that bring peace, healing, restoration, sustainability and beauty for all beings?

Meeting the Times. These times are particularly dark and we gather to see what healing we can create on behalf of all life, our own, the humans who are suffering so, and the non-humans equally. It is essential for the community to gather in council when crises arise. Aware of the great suffering that is afflicting the planet these days from the outbreak of war that affects so many of us to the climate emergencies that affect all of us, we are grateful that we can be together, honor the old, old ways and listen deeply to what Story, dreams, the spirits, heart, say to us to guide us.

In Daré, We Enter Deep Inquiry, Sit in Council, meet in Earth and Spirit based ways, respect and help each other and commit ourselves too fierce protection of the natural world and all the myriad beings. 

Much of the thinking that underlies Daré has developed in response to the vital principles of 19 Ways to the 5th World. You can read about them here.

DARE’ SCHEDULE

Daré meets from 12 pm PST to 9 pm. We are seeking to accommodate both gatherings, those who are here in Topanga, gathering between 10 and 11:45  and those who join us on zoom at 11:45.

We will begin to gather on the land from 10 am to noon. – Those seeking healing  should arrive between 10 and 11 to meet with Deena and or the community healers.

10:00-12:00 – Healing conversations and community gathering.  This will not be on zoom.

If you’re interested in a healing, we need to hear from you as soon as possible before the event. Please call Cheryl Potts (310-702-7313 or kody.bearclaw@gmail.com) and arrive.   

12 pm – 3pm – We will call to Spirit at 12 noon. Please have a drum or rattle with you whether you are online or on the land.  This will be followed by Healing Rituals. If we end the healings early, participants online will be divided into break-out rooms to be able to discuss healing and the times with small groups of peers. This is also a time to walk on the land or meet with each other.

3 pm to 4 pm – Free time. Take this time if you can as time with the natural world and/or the inner world, to walk on the land, gather with peers, nourish yourself and or meditate.

4:00 pm – 6:00 pm – Council. Daré means Council in the Shona language of Southern Africa. Council is the heart of Daré. The Council is led, collectively, by a circle of conveners from the community. We address the deepest questions that concern us as individuals and as a community at this time in history. We have created a practice of addressing the Council question by using stories of our personal experiences. We may also tell dreams that are related. Dreams will however, also be gathered in the Dream Council which will follow.

6:00 pm – 7:00 pm  – Take this, if you can, as time with the natural world and/or the inner world.

7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. PT – Dream Council. Dreamtelling occurs at the end of the day as if bridging to our own dreamtime. Increasingly, dreams are coming to many of us in the old ways, as teachers and guides. Sometimes, the individual dreams interconnect as one dream urgently teaching. This is a time to consider the dreams’ wisdom and instructions to the community.

How to Attend: Profound changes and transformations have occurred for many who come regularly and stay for the entire day. When we meet on the land we welcome everyone by saying, whoever comes “in the turquoise gate” is considered a member of Daré. We say the same to those of you online. The gate is symbolic but we welcome you through it. Daré exists because we gather together to hold it. Therefore, we request that you come at the beginning of whichever section or sections you wish to attend. That being said, it is best if you can come when Daré begins and stay through the end.

We thank you in advance for your presence, your participation in and contributions to the spiritual and physical well-being of the Daré. It cannot flourish without you.

If you have questions, please contact Cheryl Potts, kody.bearclaw@gmail.com.

PRINCIPLES OF DARÉ

The strength and essence of Daré is in the circle and its intelligence. Council is its heart. In Council one always speaks from the heart, listens from the heart and allows the spirits and ancestors to speak through one. Wisdom comes from the combined voices and presence of everyone who is participating. The purpose of council is to seek answers from the community that we can’t find ourselves. Asking and addressing a single question coheres the community.

Daré begins by calling in the spirits without words so that all traditions and ways are honored. Everything depends on this. The invocation allows spirit to inform the participants. It creates a field of knowing and remembering. Daré also centers on telling dreams and receiving dreams as gifts from the ancestors to the circle. Council and dreams are channels between the world of the living and the world of the invisibles.

Music is an essential element. For thousands of years it has been the way that people have called spirit and that spirit has made itself manifest. So, in the Daré, the voice, movement and the drum as well as other instruments are essential components for invocation as well as healing.

Daré is for the sake of healing, but we don’t presume to say we know what healing is, how it occurs, or even how, always, to recognize it. We do know that healing calls us to wisdom and to living healing lives. To being healing presences for ourselves and others. We know that healing often requires another to assist in the process.

Sometimes one is the healer and sometimes one is desperate for healing. Sometimes the two activities are one in the moment. Healing is, thus, an interchange, the dynamic of giving and receiving.

Everyone is welcome and welcomed in Daré. Everyone is listened to and heard without judgment. This generous mind is not easy to attain, it takes time, practice and dedication. Welcome, praise, compassion, being present and blessing are the core of it. Daré is the place where each person’s individual genius, intelligence and particularity is sought out, acknowledged and called forth. It is important that there be a place where people can come when in need.

At Daré heartfelt alliances of all sorts are nurtured with different cultures, spiritual identities, ethnicities, indigenous traditions, organizations, individuals, activists, communities, national and international. Daré is truly composed of all the members of the community, living and non-living, visible and invisibles, the humans and the non-humans, the people, trees, birds, animals, stones and elementals. When all the beings gather, Daré comes to be.

These are some of the basic principles, but it isn’t a checklist. Daré emerges when people gather, some familiar, some strangers, with the intention of manifesting in the moment a community in which such principles are vibrant and alive. Each gathering, then, is different as it responds to those who have come together, their joy and suffering, and as it responds to the circumstances of the times. When we leave each other, we are different because we have allowed ourselves to be altered (altared) and because we are carrying Daré mind into all our other relationships. But, all of this comes about because everyone who comes is deeply committed to and engaged in the on-going process of exploring how such a way of being might come to be.

Village Sanctuary / Daré Council Guidelines

In Council, we seek to access wisdom we do not carry individually.

We do not teach, lecture, reference teachers or gurus, insist on our ways or our traditions. We do not assume we know ….  We accept that we don’t know.

Listening to each other is more important than speaking. We are gathering because we don’t know the ways and so hope that the stories, responses will reveal what is needed.  We are gifted by being able to contemplate what has been offered to us. 

When we gather in such a Council, we are focused on the subject. We are seeking to gather wisdom by what arises among us.  

Silence is also welcomed. Not responding creates a space for us to listen to what is in the silence and also to hear what might arise and surprise us.

We speak from the heart and listen from the heart.   

We are mindful of what needs to be said and what needs to be heard.

When we speak we are speaking to all beings. They are witnessing us.

Speaking in Council is commitment. It is truth telling. We speak from our deepest selves and stand by, live by, what we say. We are also speaking to ourselves and learning from what we say: how we shall live?  

We depend on the diversity in the Council. There is no cross talk, no criticism, no disagreement, no argument, no offering of opinions or judgments, no liking or disliking.

Council depends on respect for each other, curiosity and openness. When possible, we speak in story, dream, vision, event, synchronicity and personal experience.

We pause between speakers to integrate what was just said and to make a place for the ancestors and other beings to speak through us. We do not prepare what we will say. We honor the wisdom of the present moment and also we consider our responses thoughtfully.

And, finally, we speak leanly.  

Blessings.  Mitakuye Oyasin

PLEASE DRIVE SLOWLY up the roads, especially once you turn off Topanga Canyon Boulevard. There are children and many animals along the roadway. The slow speed also lessens the noise for the neighbors. Park only on Deena’s land past the chain link fence at the very, very end of the road.

For directions and more information, email Cheryl Potts or call her at (310) 702-7313 or email Tobi Fishel or call her at (615) 218-6020.