April 2021 and May 2021
8515 Penfield Ave
Winnetka, CA 91306
Founded in 1987 by Terry Brussel and Brian Gitt
Based on the philosophy of Family Synergy,
Founded 1971 by Hy Levy and Pat LaFollette
LIVE THE DREAM FOUNDED 1987
UPCOMING EVENTS
Saturday May 15, 2021
11 am to 4 pm live (11a-12:30p on Zoom)
Burning Man & Poly Paradise led by Harold Goldstein
Saturday June 19, 2021 11 am to 4 pm live (11a-12:30p on Zoom)
Dragon Riders of (Poly/Group Living) Pern by Anne McCaffery
Led by Mark Merlino and Rodney O’Reilly (founders of Furry Fandom)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3175971626?pwd=NWVjU3A2M0I2Q29IUkI4L1lMRzd2QT09
Meeting ID: 317 597 1626 Passcode: Heinlein
Find us Always here on the 3rd Saturday from 11A-12:30P Pacific Time. This will be our Zoom ID from now on.
Please visit the Live the Dream website at www.livethedream.org to view current events, past articles, etc. Terry Brussel-Rogers is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Life Coach, & a 4th generation Matchmaker. We provide poly relationship counseling, hypnotic jealousy release, success coaching, and other services. See www.acesuccess.com or call (800) LIFE MATES (543-3628)
Live the Dream is an education and support group for those who, originally inspired by the writings of Robert Heinlein, Robert Rimmer, and Marion Zimmer Bradley, are now ready to LIVE such alternative lifestyles as cooperative living, open relationships, and group marriage. Many of our concepts on multiply committed relationships come from Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Live the Dream also sponsors a nest of Church of All Worlds, the real-life, over fifty-year-old spiritual movement inspired by Stranger in a Strange Land.
EVENTS
All Live the Dream LIVE events are 11am-4pm on 3rd Saturdays at 8515 Penfield Ave in Winnetka, Ca. 91306 (unless otherwise specified)
For all events: RSVP/more info call the LTD Hotline (818) 886-0069
The silver lining of Safer at Home experience: From now on, all our meetings will be available on Zoom for those who can’t get to us in person. Some will be hosted by speakers in other areas, too. We will be doing both Zoom and Live starting in April — Zoom 11-12:30 and Live 11-4.
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We had hoped to have a FAMILY SYNERGY 50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION at Freedom Acres on July 17, 2021, but do not know if they will be open by then. They are not open now and no one has gotten back to us when phone messages are left. It looks like this will be a Zoom/Live event at our home in Winnetka, though we will arrange for the Zoom event to go on until 4 pm. Those who come in person will share pot luck meals or order food from local restaurants. We’ll break for hot tubbing and evening events (to be announced in June Newsletter) at that time. Presenters will include Pat LaFollette, co-founder of Family Synergy, Oberon Zell, founder of Church of All Worlds based on Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and Glen Olson, Terry’s co-author of the book Fifty Years of Polyamory in America (Through Our Eyes) will be presenting in person and/or on Zoom. More in June 2021 Newsletter.
If YOU are coming in person (or just want more info), do let us know by calling our hot line. 818-886-0069
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SATURDAY May 15 11 AM TO 4 PM
BURNINGMAN: POLYPARADISE’S 20 YEARS IN THE DESERT
The Village of PolyParadise has been influencing the Hearts & Minds and Washing the Bodies of Playa Citizens from ‘2:00 – 10:00’ since 1999 and celebrated 21 years in BRC in 2019. Come sit & talk with 14-time Burner, Harold about Poly Paradise, the many other poly/poly friendly camps that have been at Burning Man since 2000. We will also discuss the difference between a Camp and a Village… and what it means to grow from 20 people to 300 including people from over 12 (probable many more now!) other countries! And most of all, how YOU can be a part of this yourself! We will also discuss how to plan your trip, what to expect and just why this is relevant to anybody that is Poly.
Please, if you have ever been to or camped with PolyParadise, we welcome your participation in this conversation, so Zoom on in and let us hear from you too!
For more updates as to virtual or LIVE BURNING MAN events for 2021 please check https://www.instagram.com/p/CNLPGM2MqVS/ or burningman.org
As announced April 27th, the 2021 Burning Man will again be virtual. The 2022 event will be LIVE!
HAROLD’S BIRTHDAY IS MAY 16! LET US KNOW IF YOURS IS IN THE MONTH OF MAY SO WE CAN INCLUDE YOU ON THE CAKE.
1 pm Pot luck lunch. Bring something healthy & delicious to share
2-3 pm continued discussion/planning YOUR trip to the Playa.
3-4 pm socialize in the hot tub.
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Saturday June 19, 2021 11 am to 4 pm
Dragon Riders of (Poly/Group Living) Pern by Anne McCaffery
Led by Mark Merlino and Rodney O’Reilly (founders of Furry Fandom & a group house which has been together for decades) and Dreena Grace who is quite an authority on Anne McCaffery and all her Dragon Rider books as well as one who has formed her own unique Nest of blood/water family…
Both the books and the online role-playing experiences available NOW will be discussed. Want to ride a dragon? Participate in a Mating Flight? Perhaps you can—in Virtual Reality.
In a world protected from life destroying spores “Thread” by genetically engineered fire breathing dragons bonded at their hatching to empathic human dragon riders, the social structure is an unusual one. The Holds have the purpose of housing people during thread fall and in the century or more between such Falls. They are supposed to be strong enough to keep the inhabitants safe and to provide support to the Weyrs which house dragons and dragon riders. They are generally large extended family arrangements with Aunties, Uncles, a Lord and Lady Holder, many children and servants in this central Hold. There are many individual cottages for the smaller households of such a hold, but all inhabitants can be sheltered in the big Hold during Thread Fall. Sexual Mores appear to be fairly monogamous in the Holds, though dragonriders do go on Search for teenage boys and girls who could become Dragon Riders. Sometimes the male riders will woo such potential queen riders spreading “dragon seed”, one way of passing on their empathic genes to insure more dragon riders. This is not always acceptable to the parents of such young ladies. The Weyrs have a more free sexuality. The Golden Queen dragons are ridden by women, Browns and Bronzes by males. Bronzes mate with Queens. However, males as well as females can bond with and ride female fire breathing green dragons. Browns mate with Greens and Greens mate with each other as well. When a rider’s dragon makes her mating flight, the passions of their dragons causes the riders to mate in their own way. In the Weyr caves which house dragons and their riders, sexual mores are different from those on the rest of the planet of Pern since dragons may not honor the current romantic bonds of their riders when mating. Since the Weyr’s are group living arrangements in any case, children resulting from such liaisons are raised by the “village” with a foster mother and/or father doing the primary parenting. The latest books by Anne McCaffery’s daughter are not only Poly, but actually offer what amounts to a how to on building poly families.
1 pm Pot luck lunch— Bring healthy and delicious dishes to share.
Terry’s birthday June 15—cake for her. Do you have a June Birthday? Tell us and your name will be on it, too!
2-4 pm Hot tubbing and/or listening to Pern inspired music—tends to be pretty Celtic. Schooling on Pern is done by Harpers from the Harper’s Hall where musically inclined lads and lassies are apprenticed as early teens to become storytellers, singers, composers and musicians.
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POLY IN THE NEWS
So, while working on this newsletter, saw a wonderful piece on the News. Willow Smith discussed being Polyamorous with her mother and grandmother on Red Table Talk. Sam Ruben had this as a segment of his entertainment report on Channel 5 with his reaction. Should not have been much of a surprise to her mother, Jada who came out years ago in an open relationship with her husband Will Smith. Took a bit of discussion for her Grandmother to understand, and then SHE said she may try it herself! Now that is a good multigenerational Poly family!
BURNINGMAN: MY 14 YEARS IN THE DESERT
Let’s start off with a short description of Burning Man:
Burning Man is a week (9 days!) long festival of Self Expression through Artwork in any form. It is about participation, inclusion and LIVING! So, what does this have to do with Polyamory? Please note the first two of the three descriptive words I just used…. participation=communication, being part of the group, not an observer. Inclusion = all parties connected and acknowledged. See the connection? Black Rock City is one of the very few places you can see three men, an obvious Triad, walking down the street arm in arm and totally accepted by EVERYBODY that sees them! The Ten Principles of Burning Man: Radical Inclusion, Gifting, Decommodification, Radical Self-reliance, Radical Self-expression, Communal Effort, Civic Responsibility, Leaving No Trace, Participation and Immediacy (goto https://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/10-principles/ for the full description of each) cover much of what makes a good Poly relationship work! Decommodification is really the only one of these that doesn’t apply to the Poly world. Each of the others cover aspects that make Poly work.
Since my first year on the Playa (the name for the dry lakebed that is Black Rock City/Burning Man’s home), I have been part of and/or visited many different Poly camps. Any given year, there are between 4-12 Poly/poly-friendly camps. The two oldest, continuously existing camps are ” …and then there’s only LOVE” (since 2003, ATTOL for short) and “PolyParadise” (since 1999, PP for short). ATTOL is somewhat wider ranged in its 100 or so members than PP, but then PP is (and has been for a number of years) a Village of over 250 people, not just a camp. A Village is a collection of similarly themed camps all together in one location.
While all of the Poly/poly-friendly camps at BM do somewhat similar things during the week, these two camps stand out miles above the others. All do classes/workshops during the week, most only 1-2 a day. ATTOL & PP both do 4-6 per day. This does not include PP’s Poly High Tea and the Carcass Wash, two of the premier events at BM that happen daily! These Classes/Workshops can include everything from Poly 101 to Tantra to basic BDSM. Most are relationship building in one form or another, how to communicate and find what YOUR inner YOU is!
If you are not camping with and feel your time limited, the three events that (to Me!) are the most important to be at are PP’s Poly High Tea, the Carcass Wash and ATTOL’s Sex and the Law. The High Tea teaches you how to present yourself & meet other Poly’s, the Carcass Wash teaches you how to really see yourself, and Sex & the Law teaches you how to function in the general society without conflict.
I can easily go on for pages and pages with stories, most are much better spoken than written. One I will share here, how I earned the coveted “GOOD POLY” award from PP! One year, (I don’t even remember if it was 2005, 2006 or 2007!) I did what I dubbed my ‘Wild Ride’. The Saturday before leaving for the Playa, I was bicycling to a Live the Dream meeting, stopped at a yard sale and made one of those dream purchases for $5, and entire case of 32 oz bottles of ID lube (about $600 worth!). The month before, working the San Diego Pride, I had been gifted with 8 boxes (100/per box) of flavored condoms. I really don’t know anyone that could make use of 800 condom except as water balloons…. but figured I’d be able to give them away at Burning Man. Once I had the lube, I repacked it so I had three batches. The Wednesday at Burning Man I did my ‘Ride’ to three camps as far apart as can be from my starting point.
The first stop was ATTOL, then PP and finally Camp Beaverton. I gifted each camp with 50 of each of the 4 flavors of condoms and 2 bottles of lube for their specific Play spaces (ATTOL’s Orgy Dome, PP’s the Perfect Place for Poly Play). Beaverton, the all-woman’s camp was hosting their big event (the annual Strap-on-a-Thon) that night and I had not known they were desperate for lube.
One of the PP long time members spotted me in Center Camp the last morning of BM and presented me with the ‘Good Poly’ award, a 4-inch patch with a parrot surrounded by the words Good Poly for one of the two people that contributed the most to the camp’s success that year. Since that ride, I have received repeated thanks from people everywhere! At other Poly events here in the LA area, on the Playa, at nudist resorts, and I even had someone recognize me and thank me while I was in Vegas for a non poly event!
Hope to see everyone that reads this on the Playa in 2022!
Check out www.polyparadise.com & www.andthentheresonlylove.com for details on these camps.
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If you have a “What do you do when?” question for us, or any Poly related article for publication WHAT EXPERIENCES/BOOK REVIEWS, ETC. CAN YOU SHARE RELATING TO THE POLY LIFE STYLE? We’d like to run it here.
Please E-Mail to: newsletter@mail.livethedream.org
Or mail it to 8515 Penfield Ave. Winnetka, Ca. 91306.
We will take any question with your solution or brain storm and give it one or more of our own. Let’s have fun with this and learn from each other.
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Meet Ups & Other Group Events
NONE OF THIS IS COVID 19 UPDATED. GO TO THEIR WEBSITES TO SEE HOW EACH GROUP IS HANDLING IT.
Check out www.meetup.com/Loveopen & www.meetup.com/loving-more and other SoCal poly groups (40+ groups in the Greater LA Area!)
The Southern California Naturist Association Meetup http://www.meetup.com/nature-519
This is the largest non-landed clothing optional club in California
Other Poly info:
www.lovemore.com www.polyevents.blogspot.com http://openingup.net/resources/local-orginizations-u-s/
Other groups friendly to KARL HESS CLUB www.karlhessclub.org meets on the 3rd Monday at Dinah’s Family Restaurant, 6521 Sepulveda Blvd. (at Centinela), Culver City. Phone: (310) 645-0456 West L.A.
Burning Man Festival virtual or in person? For details www.burningman.com!
LTD DUES ARE $25.00 PER YEAR FOR ONE PERSON, $40 FOR A COUPLE, $10 EACH FOR ADDITIONAL PERSON(S) IN THE SAME HOUSE. DOUBLE THAT FOR FREE ATTENDANCE AT ALL REGULAR DAY TIME 3RD SATURDAY MEETINGS. TO BECOME A MEMBER OR TO RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP, PLEASE COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING FORM AND EITHER E-MAIL OR SNAIL MAIL IT TO THE ADDRESS LISTED BELOW. An E-Mail NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTION ONLY IS AVAILABLE FOR FREE. JUST BE SURE TO PROVIDE US WITH YOUR E-Mail ADDRESS. REGULAR MEETINGS ARE $5.00 WITH YOUR CURRENTLY PAID MEMBERSHIP CARD (FAMILY SYNERGY OR LIVE THE DREAM) WITHOUT MEMBERSHIP MEETINGS ARE $10.00.