Archived from TacomasOutsidersGuide.com circa 2018·Today this work continues as THE WALL & Stars 4 Peace: y2112
Tacoma's Outsider's Guide Contents
Tacoma's Outsider's Guide — 1 Sound 1 Life, w/ Artists 4 Life in the Sound

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2014 The Soil of Earth

Recovered from the Internet Archive capture of 15 March 2018. Images not recovered: 25.

2014  Bringing it All Together

Sporty Lee played the 2014 Lumins After party (right).  As did Tacoma's Pig Snout. .

Our Work:  Authenticity in Multiplicity
Promoting the Grand Ways of Our People

Consider Spending with the Businesses Supporting Our Work (Click Here)

Introducing Bare Necessities: 
Life in the South Puget Sound

In the bigger picture, our aim is an essential learning platform useful for introducing ourselves and others to the basic elements of South Sound life.

In
2014, we held a series of events to demonstrate our intention and the function of our community work. 
The subjects were:  1st, Food; 2nd, The Body & 3rd, The Environment.  Present were representatives of  those at the ground level dedicated to advancing our knowledge and understanding in these fields. 

Building on this foundation, we continue working with others in our communities actively responsible for teaching and advancing our South Sound ways of life.  Below are examples of 2014's events:

Lumins: A Holiday in Autumn
Unique to Our City & Special to Sound

Festivals are everywhere - Holidays are rare.  It is not every day a holiday can be made; circumstances must be right, and the spirit must be shared.  In 2012 the proverbial stars aligned, and every year since we have added to the experience a tradition worthy of our city:

a)  There are no other inclusive holidays at the start of Autumn, and it is a favorite time of year for many of us
b) Luminaries are beautiful, exciting and rewarding to be a part of.  They are really magical.
c) It affords an opportunity for new meaning with great learning to come into our lives, with new traditions worth passing down to our loved ones. 
d) What we have done cannot be repeated in any city anywhere in the world, or in any other community or any age to come:  2012 and the global events associated with it happen only once every 5126 years.
e) Such things are simply unheard of anywhere: This is the genuine substance of legend - a great way to promote the mindfulness of our city and associate ourselves with the pioneering Spirit of the West. 
f) The potency for attracting visitors to our city is *vast*.  Earthbound Productions of Olympia brings ~30,000 people to downtown Olympia every year - a huge boon to the local economy and city reputation.

Life here is like nowhere else on earth - and nowhere else on earth can do what we have done. And it's fun.

If George Castanza's dad can start a holiday for his family, then our community can start a holiday for ourselves.  Beautiful, inspiring and useful for passing knowledge and wisdom down to next generations, the spirit is love and the object of our aims is joyful life.

2014  Year to Date

Nov 1st  Day of the Dead in Tacoma:  I was asked to lead the Dia de los Muertos Procession for the friends and families of the Northwest Detention Center Resistance group, which I did. 

The courage of those families in the face of the horrors their loved ones endure has left an indelible impression on me, and is an enduring inspiration to face the fears and concerns relevant to the lives of loved ones across our families and communities.

We also contributed luminary elements to the 6th Avenue Day of the Dead celebrations.


Sept 20th
 
Celebrated Tacoma's Lumins Festivus                   Theme:  The Soil of Earth  (The Why)
Sept 5th   John Stark Presents & a Musical Melange
                at the Northern Pacific Coffee Company
       Sounds & More Coming Soon Event Poster (PDF)
Aug 23rd  Hilltop Street Fair
Aug 16th  Music & Art in Wright Park: 
Announced:  The National Music Museum Desires a Satellite Museum in Tacoma; Started Petition (PDF)
Also Aug 16th  Downtown Block Party in Opera Alley
*Hosted SAMI Alumni Grant Carrillo's Basic Observation Buoy:  The B.O.B. named 'Jive'  (PDF)
Aug 9th  Stadium Street Fair:  Initial Season Presence
July 26  The Bodily Arts:  A Joyous Introduction
Hosted at Good Karma: Center for Joy  (Poster - PDF)
March 20  Spring in the Kitchen (Poster - PDF)
Late February Published Festivus Season starting
                        1 Saturday in Destiny

Emboldening the Spirit of the Young
Wisdom with Creativity is a Great

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The Great American Mercow came naturally: Peter (right center) and team created without direction a masterpiece of Artistic originality unique to our community in the South Puget Sound.
'Artists share the calling . . to cast the new images of mythology. That is, they provide the contemporary metaphors . . the essential elements of the symbols that make manifest the radiance of the world just as it is, rather than arguing that it should be one way or the other.'    - Joseph Campbell, Thou art That, p.6

The Purpose: Life Worth Passing Down
Every Culture has Traditions: With Shared Wisdom Comes Greater Life.  We Discover Together

Learning, and teaching to learn - this is the great work. All over our city and region are rich resources to teach about South Sound life for those so desiring to learn. 

Our community possesses a great amount of wisdom and understanding. Combining and sharing this wisdom, coordinating our knowledge and making it accessible to those desiring to learn, we begin to discover how to affect a tangibly better life for our families and loved ones.

Which lifestyles do we desire to pass down to next generations?  Engaging the dialogue among professionals, academics and the lay population throughout the South Sound and the Pacific Northwest, our aim is to effect a clear, readily understandable and intuitive introduction to the better ways of life that constitute the cultural experience unique to Tacoma and the South Puget Sound. 


Believe in Your Community
(Living is Believing)

Artists 4 Life in the Sound:
What We Do

1) We Create with those that Care

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In April, 2014 Students Created 5 (Brilliant) Lumins
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In August We Created Lumins with Eastside Green Thumbs

2) We Contribute in Community

2012

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In 2012 we collaborated with Olympia's Earthbound productions to surprise birthday girl Vicci Martinez for her home coming acoustic set at Broadway Center's 2nd Annual Fall Free for All

2013

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We installed lumins at Le Diner en Blanc (a Fundraiser for 1st Night) on Sept 26, 2013

2014

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Also in 2012 we were invited to install for the closing ceremony of Tacoma's International Film Festival
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Installing lumins for the Hilltop Artist's annual VIP event on Dec 6, 2013.
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2014: Participating in 2 Day of the Dead celebrations, I was asked to lead the Dia de los Muertos Procession at the Northwest Detention Center, which I did. We also contributed lumins to the 6th Ave celebrations
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Because they hosted 3 talks on the social issues pertaining to homelessness in Tacoma, in our 3rd year we decided to do something new: Highlight their work with a first ever simple celebration of stars.

March 20  Spring in the Kitchen

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  Spring Equinox 2014
          March 20th

Our first official event of 2014, we introduced this year's theme, 'The Soil of Earth,' as we hosted an evening of food, music and presentations from professionals in the field.
Speakers included Scott
Heller of Tacoma Urban Land Trust and Alyssa Reeber of Sweet Maiden Honey.  We enjoyed music TR Stewart.


July 26  The Bodily Arts: A Joyous Introduction & Farm Fresh Potluck

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Midsummer New Moon
July 26, 2014
We hosted an afternoon at Good Karma Center for Joy to introduce our community to the 'Bodily Arts.'  The evening included acupuncture by Kirsty Docken, Chair Yoga by Angi Donovan and meditation by Ben Haslund.  This was also a midsummer potluck.

Sept 5  John Stark & a Musical Melange

image: PictureThe Evening's Program Cover
A preeminent world authority on the effects of toxins on the living environment, professor John Stark of WA State University is only 15 minutes away from our city, at the Puyallup campus - but almost none of our people had heard of him.  Not our teachers, not our leaders, not our organizations. 

And this is important.

John's work is literally world class:  It has led to historic legislative change in Washington State and even European Union legislatures.  When the White House in WA D.C. wants to know about shellfish life and other issues in the South Sound, they call for John.  And his work is simple - can be understood with a few short words at a dinner table.

I said, 'John, if I cannot read your work, because it has not been written in layman terms; if our teachers do not know about your work; if our students therefore do not know, nor their families - how:  How can we hope to change our ways to align with what your research shows?' 

It took some time (I think I had to prove to him my dedication).  But after knowing him for a while he finally agreed to speak.  He liked what I was trying to do:  Bridge the discrepancy between those at the higher levels of learning and us that simply want to know the better thing to do.  That is the worthy task.

So on Sept 5, our community came together and threw him a party; we called it a Musical Melange. 
Ed Cedras offered to host at his Northern Pacific Coffee Company; a wide range of musicians agreed to play, showing the depth of our community's support for his kind of work; Sean Alexander designed the evening's program; we made him dinner, and had the evening professionally recorded. 

What unfolded was an event unlike any of us had known:  We listened, we participated and we learned.  John says he has never known of anything like it - not anywhere among his peers.

It is an original expression unique to our city in the world, and in coming days you will be invited yourself to listen, and to hear the sounds.


Sept 20  The 2014 Lumins Festivus

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A Wright Kind of Tradition
for a Grand People
in the Spirit of Lynn DeNino


The traditions and meaning we pass down to our young will determine much more than most of us now realize.
Assembling in a positive, fun atmosphere, we celebrate life


Everybody's Dragon

At Hilltop Artists, one young man had a vision greater than his immediate peers were able to quite perceive:  Thomas' great vision was a giant Dragon, but he was was unable to finish it during the time we had at Jason Lee.  I said, 'Thomas, sometimes a great vision must be handed off to the care of diligent others, others that see your vision and desire to see it come to pass, others able to see it through to fruition.'  And I asked him at the end of class if we could have what he had made, which at that time amounted to a skeleton, a solid foundation of dragon bones.  He said yes, so we put the word out to others about his vision:  At the Downtown Block Party, one artist elaborated the head, others would add dimension to the wings, then put the foundation layer of paper on.  And he night before this year's Lumins our team finished his dragon with the help of the good samaritan shown smiling here - he created the 'scales,' and we worked on it until 5a.  A great team effort, we call it, 'Everybody's Dragon.'

3) We introduce you to those teaching about life in the South Puget Sound


Tacoma organizations have been contributing to the better quality of life for our loved ones for decades. Those like Hilltop Artists, Harbor Wild Watch, Tacoma Urban Land Trust and Hilltop Urban Gardens are great examples.  We are happy to introduce you to them.
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Harbor Wild Watch is a marine and environmental education organization dedicated to inspiring stewardship for the Puget Sound.
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Forage Pierce County & the Food Forest at Swan Creek
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The Ocean Intellect Group at UPS helped fund the official Lumins after hours in 2013
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Protecting, enhancing and restoring the Puget Creek Watershed and other streams, wetlands, and green spaces, PCRS serves South Sound communities. Providing hands-on participation through restoration, research, education, and advocacy, they promote a sense of stewardship.
Access is Progress