Global Gaia Gathering @ the Emerald City

Just got back from the Gaia gathering here in the Seattle area (more accurately, Kirkland WA where I live). There were five of us in the group. As you can see in the photo we had a cozy and fun gathering (even if we're camera shy).



You might be wondering what those books in the photo were for. Here's what happened.

Prior to the meetup I asked the attendees to bring one of their favorite books -- a book that had changed their lives or had shifted their thinking. During the meet up each of us gave away our favorite book to other attendees. Here's where the "magic" comes in. We did it by intuition.

We didn't have pre-agreed upon instructions on how to do the book swapping. It all happened spontaneously. I just started out by presenting my favorite book (The Weblog Handbook by Rebecca Blood, see my review here), talked about why the book was important to me, and then I gave the book to the person whom I felt could use the book.

For instance, I just had a feeling that Alana would benefit greatly from the book so I just followed my intuition and handed it to her. Don't ask me to explain it. It just felt right. I think the feeling was the same with the other attendees. I'll let them tell the story from their point of view. Hopefully, they blog about it :)

Another purpose of the book swapping is paying it forward and letting go of attachment. The book swap is not temporary; we gave our books away. It's easy to give away something that has no value. It's a lot more challenging to part with something that has a special meaning to us.

We concluded our meetup by watching a short inspirational film courtesy of Spiritual Cinema Circle. (Disclosure: I work for Gaia. Same as Gaia Community, Spiritual Cinema Circle is also part of the GAIAM family. I've requested a bunch of sample DVDs from our head office and gave it away as thank you gifts to all who attended our small gathering.) All in all we had a fun and meaningful afternoon.

So that's how our meet up went. It was cozy, insightful, and serendipitous.

Thanks to O.M. Bastet, Marianna, and Alana for attending the Gaia gathering. Special thanks to my wife (a.k.a. ~myDakini) for preparing a delicious Filipino meal. Our meet up wouldn't have been as enjoyable without an abundance of food :) 

If you're planning to have a Gaia gathering in your community, I suggest that you give the intuitive book swapping a try. Or, maybe have a DVD house party with a meaningful movie and discuss how each of you relate with the theme of the film. That's sure to bring up a lot of interesting conversations.

Looking forward to our next gathering.

P.S. Check out how other Gaia Community members had celebrated our 2008 Global Gaia Gathering. Keep watching this link to see who are blogging about it: http://www.gaia.com/blog/tags/ggg2008