In New Culture, you are always at choice about your participation in any workshop or activity. Honor your intuition and follow your joy and excitement.

It’s okay to ask, if it’s okay for the answer to be “no.”

Getting in touch with what you want in the moment and sharing it creates the possibility for more freedom and intimacy. It is a radical act of love to share our honest “no” as much as our honest “yes”. When we honor ourselves, we can trust our own yeses and nos, and then we can connect with less fear.

Wow! Why did that happen? Why did she react that way? Why am I feeling these feelings? A curious person is an empowered person. You are not your feelings; your feelings visit you, like houseguests that can be entertaining or difficult. When your feelings become your masters, you have lost your freedom and autonomy.

Part of New Culture is learning to take 100% responsibility for one’s feelings. A key insight is that difficult emotional issues that arise in everyday life are opportunities for personal growth. The internal conflicts must be calmed before the external stresses can be dealt with. There is an opportunity to exercise personal power to turn towards those feelings and look inside. This means that the person with the feelings is the person with the power to learn and grow. Intimate relationships are a crucible in which people can heal themselves, find joy with each other, and look outward with hope and energy to transform the larger world. So, if feelings are coming up for you, take this as an opportunity to practice what we are learning.

Flexibility and Non-Attachment: Attachment to a specific outcome — needing to have things a certain way — is often rooted in old hurts and can cause new ones. In New Culture, we are learning to stay light on our feet and to adapt flexibly to new situations. “Huh — I didn’t get my needs met the way I wanted. How else could I do it? What new amazing thing could happen next?”

How can we increase intimacy and connection if we are not open and transparent about who we are and where we are in our lives? Sharing what we like, what we feel, what pleases us, what distresses us, what we want and what we need is essential to being seen by and seeing others. Transparency and openness require the risk to show up as you are and relinquish controlling the outcome, in other words, someone else's response to your honesty. Camp is a supportive environment where we can practice taking risks and inviting the truth.

We are building a New Culture together. We honor each other both in our strengths and our imperfections. If you see an area that needs more attention, you are invited to communicate this lovingly, and to think about how you can act powerfully and gently to make things better.

We work together to serve our community’s physical needs (for beauty and order, good food, healthy spaces) as well as our emotional and spiritual needs. Notice how you feel as you serve — are you joyous? Tired? Happy? Frustrated? What is it like working with others? All feelings are welcome.