10 adults, 6 kids, 40 visitors…
Hundreds of hours of being together, raging, crying, laughing, and bringing our Fear forward.
This is how it was in our 30-day Polish Bridge House in Polana, near Warsaw. This Bridge House has transformed my thoughtware about Poland, Polish people, and our limitations. We were on the land of the former Polish army. What we did is the evidence that we can use our power, determination, persistence, and collaboration in the name of Life instead of Death. This is a paradigm shift in what we Poles can create when we come together.
How did that start…
There was an impulse to create the Bridge House in Poland with other Possibilitators to bring us closer to each other. We started collecting a group of people and made the first call. One month later, we were already in Polana creating a Bridge House. We were on the foundation's land where Basia, one of us, lives. At this moment, there were 20 empty tiny houses, fully equipped so that we could move in straight away. Besides, there were 3 huge yurts that we could use as common or training spaces. It looked like this place was waiting for us, to be inhabited and cavitated with the Next Culture.
We started every day with breakfast together, logistics, check-ins, and 333 rage, and in the afternoon, we had a 3-hour slot to do something together. We didn’t plan what to do at this time. Processes or activities emerged in the moment. One of the purposes of creating this Bridge House was to grow the PM community in Poland. We decided to create a 5-day long "open days" for visitors so they could experience living in the context of radical responsibility and take part in the training to learn new tools and skills. We created a program and sent the invitation to our circles. Ten days later, when the open days started, we welcomed 40 visitors from all over Poland into our Bridge House. It felt like we were in a huge vacuum space that was pulling in people hungry for connection, collaboration, transformation, and high-level fun.
Open Days
The first evening of our Open Days event, we held a space for a Women’s Circle where we shared our anger and longing for the life we want to live in. The next days, we held spaces for Rage Club, Fear Club, Being Unhookable, Forest Feelings, Intimacy Cafe, and other spaces that emerged spontaneously, even from visitors. For us, it mattered to create a space where everyone who is there takes responsibility for what she or he creates. Every new person who crossed the entrance gate was welcomed by us and introduced to the context of our village. For many people, that was already the point where they started to feel a lot, realizing that this is a different culture than the one they had been living in so far.
After the first day, we (space holders of BH) noticed that the space of radical responsibility was not working so well as mostly it was us who were space holders for context, training, logistics, meals, etc. We brought this to the bigger circle and shared our feelings about it. The next day, the space shifted. Others started to take responsibility for what was to be done in the space. They brought their own impulses not only for logistics but also for the spaces they wanted to create. I felt glad that this could work with such a big and diverse group. I also learned that for me, holding space for this event, training, and logistics simultaneously is too much. There was a moment when I felt a lot of fear that I couldn’t control anymore what was happening. New people were arriving, I lost track of who was accommodated where and who was holding space for what. At that moment, I noticed that I was not able to control this at this stage. At that moment, my controlling box freaked out, and I decided to try to let it go and trust the space. I felt a lot of relief in the next days, seeing that the space was held, and I didn’t have to control everything.
A magical thing happened with my sister, with whom I hadn’t had contact for more than a year. She decided to visit me spontaneously. At the moment she arrived, we had the Intimacy Cafe. I invited her to that space. Another woman joined us and started to share her story about her brother-in-law, whom she doesn’t have contact with. It opened a healing space for me and my sister that turned out to be an appreciation space. We were crying and laughing, hugging, and celebrating the new connection between us. I feel so lucky to have another powerful woman at my side.
Open Days was a wild and alive space. Some visitors joined the possibility teams that already existed, some declared they would come to ETB training, some were fired up to create their own Bridge House, and some decided to leave their corporate jobs. My heart jumps with joy from all these steps toward Next Culture.
Building the Village with Kids
One of my research focuses in the Bridge House was how to create an Archan Village with kids, where adults hold space for what they love to do and for kids. I loved the way we were living. Tiny houses located in a circle with a big area for free play in the middle and a big yurt as a common space for adults and kids created a great possibility to easily connect, join others in their activities, or just hang out together with tea on the terrace.
After two weeks of shared space holding, I noticed that my 4-year-old son was mainly with other kids and adults, not me. I saw his hunger and curiosity for meeting others, joining their activities, and constantly doing something different. There were moments when I proposed doing something together, but he chose to be with kids. I was glad to see his openness and natural way of moving in the village according to his impulses. I also felt sad as I missed him, and I am learning how to create a nest for him so that he can nourish emotionally while he is in daily life with the village. I noticed the difference between me and other mothers. I noticed how I let my kids do what they want and not model the activity for them, and I am left with the question – what is a way to raise a child so that he can discover his own desires and learn new skills?
There was a 6-year-old girl, Gaja, with us. She participated in daily 333 rage with us and morning check-ins. One day, when we were sitting in the circle, she said, "I propose to hold space for a workshop about emotions for kids and adults at 12.00 today. Who is in?” And she did it. She invented her own way of working with anger, fear, sadness, and joy. She held space with clarity, spontaneous ideas, and it worked. Kids learn very fast.
This Bridge House was for me an extraordinary space of collaboration, love, and connection. I am so grateful for the whole team – adults Wojciech, Ewa, Karol, Karol, Marta, Justyna, Basia, Marcin, Beata and kids Gaja, Leo, Leo, Stefan, Mia, and Miki. In this magical space, the idea of creating a long-term village in the context of Possibility Management in Poland has ignited. I see it as the next evolutionary step toward the Archan way of living.
Next Kid’s Culture
A year ago, when I was at the Radically Alive event in New Zealand with other women, we were planting the seeds that we are carrying. One of my seeds was to create a Next Kids’ Culture. Once I planted the seed, I saw an image of all the school books burning, and there was a clear message to us adults – create a space for kids to listen to their wisdom. This seed is now growing. In the Women on Earth Lab, where I was last week with 41 other women, once I was speaking from my anger about what I wanted, the vision of holding space for kids came back. It is clear for me to discover and experiment with what child-raising looks like in the Next Culture. That's why I took a stand to co-create a game world for Archan Mothers and bring our discoveries to a broader audience. All the kids carry the seed of Archiarchy. I want to listen to them.
In modern culture, adults care about what children are learning, but the first question that comes to me is how they are learning. From my observation, children learn by observing, being with, and experimenting. Learning is not a choice. It is natural for every being. We become what we experience, so the context is all that matters. I live in a space where Empowerment, Love, Clarity, Creation, Magic, and other Bright Principles happen. kids is to keep the context clear, and live it, and teaching without teaching will happen.
When I come back to my childhood the strongest memories that I have are the ones that involved all my bodies. I learned through experience and discovery. I see this natural tendency of my kids to be curious, to try things by themselves, to invent and create something from nothing. It is natural as we are here to evolve. What I want to do for kids is to not kill this natural force of Evolution in them and what I observe is that kids are doing great without us interfering much. It
doesn’t mean that they will not feel something.
We don’t have toys and at the same time my kids find toys everywhere. When they come across some piece of sand or they create all the words they imagine – hills, streets, food, castles etc. If you give kids toys you direct their activities. You teach them what you know. What if kids can teach you something? What if they will come up with ideas, and inspirations that you never heard about? I want to create Next Culture with them as I know that they transmit the information and
wisdom that we, adults, often do not see clearly.
It is scary for me to experiment with raising kids in the village, letting go the „good practices of parenting” made in modern culture and follow my instincts and feelings. I am aware that it is a
path that doesn’t exist yet and nobody will tell me how it goes. And I am excited to keep going this path with feedback, shifts, and goes.
