Tomma Mueller
The ONE Project: Breaking It Down
When we were all sitting around the fire and someone started with the "The first time I was at piercing camp..." joke, I think I might have come close to dying with laughter. Then again, that happens a lot there--the laughing. Trying to explain to people where ONE came from and what ONE is can be very difficult. I generally just tell them it is amazing, and leave it at that. For you, dear reader, I will try a bit harder.
My knowledge of the beginnings of ONE is this: Corey and Spike started it almost 8 years ago. They had just returned from the Ti Puson (s/p?) festival loosely based around suspension in Thailand, and jumped into their idea with both feet. It was small the first year, and ended with everyone covered in ash in the group shower trying to clean up. Now if I left you all with only this, you might not understand. I can assure you, there is much, much more.¦
The first year I went I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was very angry about things going on in my life, and pretty lost spiritually. I arrived early to help Corey, as that was my nature--to show up early and tell everyone what to do. But I was not a piercer, and I initially didn't feel like I fit in. That feeling was quickly squashed when I learned there would be several non-piercers there. In fact, there were several non-modified, non-industry people there. This was a very refreshing concept in general.
I had been introduced to suspension many times, but always in a performance aspect. I had never had a "ritual". The word itself led to images of naked hippies and pagans dancing around a bonfire during the full moon chanting to their gods and/or goddess. I never really grasped the concept of making one of my own, to mean my own things. I really wasn't sure what to think about going up a mountain for four days with no meat, no cheese, and no animal products of any kind. No cell phones, no computers, no MySpace, no BME, no TV. Did I mention yet that we would be camping? In Tents? In Southern California in August? The only thing that was solid in my mind at this point was "What the hell am I doing here? What has Corey dragged me into now? (Anyone that knows Corey knows that she can drag you into some pretty screwy stuff, all the while telling you it's okay.)
The first few days of preparation were filled with nothing but non-stop phone calls and running all over town trying to buy things like 20 lb. of unbleached jasmine rice and cases of soy milk and tiki torch fuel and quick links and hooks and tools and unrefined sugar and 100 bundles of sage, the list went on forever. People started to slowly trickle in, and that is when the real excitement started. I was beginning to meet all these very interesting people, and we were all excited about the same thing.
When we finally got to the mountain a few days later, I was sure we had lost our minds--but we came out seemingly unscathed on the other side. Madre Grande was beautiful. The land seems to go on forever there. The outside kitchen is always buzzing with energy when we are there. There is the amazing bathhouse with lots of windows and skylights (but a surprising lack of stalls, which really took me off guard at first). There are many sacred spots--the first is the grove. It is a place where the trees naturally grow in a circle, that people of all walks of life have been using to do their thing for years. Different tribes have been traveling to Madre Grande for centuries to visit the fertility rock, the oni rock. (It's absolutely amazing.) If you stand on the platform by the bathhouse closest to the oni rock, you can see the mountain that forms the shape of a woman lying on her side. The oni rock and that mountain range is how the land got its name. (Madre Grande, or "Big Mother") There is a tree of life where Lakota Sun Dance ceremonies are held yearly, and then there is the space where all of the sweat lodges are.
The main group of facilitators (about 14 of us) went up that first night to do a sweat lodge. I had never done this before, and did not think much of it. It would be kind of like going to the sauna room and the gym but with rocks and no lights, right? Wrong! Have you ever attempted to come to the terms with the fact that one day you are going to die? How about coming to terms with it because you think it is happening to you at that moment? That is what it was like for me the first time. (Although I do not say that in a bad way.) I thought I was "hard" I get suspended all the time, I wasn't afraid of anything, right? Wrong! It was a mind-altering experience for me. Now it's something I now look forward to every year.
I think that this is the most important thing I learn from ONE: Face and conquer your fears, whatever they may be. It's surprising how many people come there ready to defeat something undesirable in them, and then realize they aren't even looking in the right direction. There were 3 days of different group rituals. They can be very hard to explain without actually experiencing.
On the last day each year we do the body rituals. This is the day we bleed. Every year the numbers of people that show up to participate in this event astound me. There are people that have been piercing and doing suspensions for over a decade, holding the most knowledge of anyone on these subjects. The fact that we are outside presents us with several different problems that must be overcome. (It is very hard to organize ritual piercing between 60-100 of your closest friends in the middle of a dirt field.) Most of the piercers are APP members and follow a very strict regimen for cleanliness. I have been participating in suspension shows for about 8 years now, and every year I go to ONE I learn new techniques for piercing outside of the nice clean rooms all of us are used to--if you have ever been around a group of good piercers, you know that there are at least 50 different ways to do the same thing correctly. There is also a friendly knowledge exchange constantly happening. The only time that I have seen anything like this is at the annual APP Conference. This is simply more hands-on.
The suspension and pulling ritual generally starts around noon, and continues until all are done. It is a crazy and amazing day. The first year ONE had 50 people doing a chest pull. Everybody was facing each other, and it was very serene. (The pulls that I've witnessed in the past have all been very violent and aggressive, so this was a welcome change.) So many people experiencing things for the first time or just getting to experience things outside of all the daily routine they normally have. When the suspensions started it was a beautiful scene.
I went that first year with the intention of doing away with hatred and anger that I carried around with me all of the time. I was always blaming it on other people. I was always holding on way too strongly. I needed to be tougher than everybody else. I had very little idea how to conquer this huge outside exterior that I had created to protect myself. I had done many difficult suspensions, ones that made people cringe, but I had never conquered the chest, or Oki Pa style hang. I was so afraid of that pain. I needed to know how to believe in myself. I found that belief there, amongst the community that we had created. There has always been a lack of community in our industry. I think this stems from the never-ending need to compete inside of it. It is nice to get to go some where with everyone that I hold so dear and have them be a community. I thought that it might all stay up on the mountain, but the next few times I saw every body I realized we get to take this with us. That is one of our biggest lessons each year: We learn that we are a community, and a very strong one at that.
When it is over each time, the hardest thing to do is leave. Every day, we want so badly to be connected to everyone, but we attempt to accomplish this through technology. We are so used to not having to actually see or touch each other and that gives us the ability to not show our true selves. ONE forces us to unplug once a year. The first few days after, it's so hard to be assimilated back into the grind. The phones, the computers, the TV's--It seems so loud for weeks afterwards (or maybe it is just my body still ringing from everything that has happened). At ONE we are asked to step outside of our comfort zones and actually think about what we are doing and why. Why are we so connected to this group of people? Where and how do we find the connection in these things? These questions aren't really pressed onto us; we must press them onto ourselves.
