A Big Welcome to @jt!
The OG Node and Creekmasons' "First Follower" becomes the first Adeptus Maker
Remember the other group of stoners I found at the Flinstones-style rock-stacked creek furniture I tumbled together and christened “The Thrones?” The ones who were passing around a foot-long bong?
This other group of creek denizens were a vision in “hippy.”
They were probably high school seniors, like myself, but maybe college freshmen. I don’t remember asking.
One of the group was clad in a tye-dye crop top. Another in one of those headshop knit sweaters we used to call “drug rugs.” My memory is fuzzy for the other two, except they seemed equally beyond the social caste I cast myself into through overwhelming social anxiety. Ubiquitous self-consciousness that may or may not have been justified by—may or may not have engendered—a twitchy, needy, obnoxious personality.
I told them I built The Thrones. I don’t think they believed me.
Maybe out of nervousness, I made corny jokes about only sleeping an hour a night and sometimes speaking languages that no one recognized when I did. Tyler Durden-inspired rumors intentionally satirically self-mocking in their absurd self-aggrandizement. I was too high to be sure the jokes were landing or simply seeming desperate.
I felt desperate.
More recently, I’ve found myself wandering into the Creek again. Moving a rock or two each time. When I discussed it on the Creekmason Initiates Discord, one ‘mason observed that my evening meditating there was like a pilgrimage to our little cult’s first ever holy site.
The Tyler Durden thing was a phase. I don’t want to be in charge of Project Mayhem anymore. Christ, I hope we’re not becoming a cult.
But I admit, there was jhanic bliss available to me seated on the rocks that isn’t always so accessible. There’s often something special about a spot that people have poured their reverence into.
It continues to be more than just me maintaining The Thrones.
Even through our grisly “bomb cyclone”-rattled winter, with torrents of rain and biblical floods throughout the State, The Thrones still resemble chairs. Heart warmingly, the specifics of their superficial architecture is unfamiliar, but the person-sized boulders comprising their foundations remain the same.
That night a dozen years ago, the unfamiliar but blindingly cool hippies drove me to another of their favorite hangouts in our sprawling suburb. I had my best friend Will with me. The one whose butt I had invented Creekmasonry in order to seat.
The six of us hopped a fence and smoked in an abandoned, half-constructed house on the hillside of the valley. What had been put together so far was L-shaped. Nothing but one wall and a floor.
Behind us stretched a concrete canvas carved into the hillside, covered with vibrant graffiti. The city’s lights twinkled below us, a field of blazing stars I lost myself in with help from the pot.
I asked the hippies if they had ever moved a rock in the creek themselves. When they said yes, I declared them Creekmasons.
They were friendly, but seemed ready to part ways.
I’m not sure they felt honored.
More recent recruiting
The Creekmasons are a very different thing now than we were when I was 18. I had crazy visions back then of becoming an upstart illuminati group. I felt dissatisfied with the limits imposed by my middle class upbringing, and I wanted to be one of Margaret Meads’ “small group of dedicated friends” who “change the world” or however the quote goes.
It was always a little kayfabe: self-mockingly self-serious, like pro-wrestling.
I think it’s important to acknowledge that the ingredients for that kind of narcissistic cult-leader energy are still inside me. Without a loving eye kept on it via integration, I know my dominator shadow will be given free reign to direct my subconscious toward behaviors that actualize its harm.
More tangible safeguards are important as well, however. The Creekmason Content Collective is consciously designed, and subject to constant self-scrutiny, to prevent power from accruing that can become a temptation toward abuse. Wherever possible, we employ direct democracy to prevent any one of us from embodying the benevolent dictator archetype and leaving myself vulnerable to the inevitable corruption instigated by power.
Wherever possible, decisions that affect all Creekmasons are determined by a vote available to all Creekmasons. (For now, all members who have signed up to participate; eventually, only members who have skin in the game, demonstrated by paying dues.)
All decisions. Budgeting, salary, infrastructure, membership.
And with that said, I am honored, delighted and mad pumped to announce the newest edition to the membership roles of full-fledged Adeptus Makers: jt!
Liminal Trickster Mystic that he is, he was the only one to vote for his own addition to the official procedure of “a secret third thing.”
The First Follower
We’ve borrowed jt’s Discord role, First Follower, from the classic TED Talk in which one crazy dancing concert-goer, when joined by a trend-setter, inspires a whole lawn-seating section rave. jt has agreed he resembles the archetypal early adopter “who turns a lone nut into a leader.”
He’s essentially been the pilot audience for nearly every Creekmason public creation.
I can say with nearly absolute certainty that without his undying hype and brilliant vibe maintenance, it is entirely likely that I never would have emerged from my paranoia cocoon to begin to reclaim the name “Creekmasons” and begin to actually publish.
He dealt with me sharing poems nearly daily when I was writing Journaling in Verse; with several rough drafts of The Mental Appendage. His eyes were the first to slurp my early blog posts. He’s the OG Node in the Net.
And now he’s the first Adeptus Maker.
I may have made some things, but without his cheerleading, support, and encouragement, they’d have stayed as notes on my phone. Just as they had for the harrowing and lonely 10 years prior to meeting him.
jt has pledged that follower mentality—perhaps better described as a natural inclination toward service—to the Creekmasons at a vital stage in our development.
In my more manic moments, my cult leader shadow peeks from my inner cobwebby corners. All social media influencers—which, let’s be honest, is a category to which public intellectuals arguably belong—are essentially cult leaders.
I have sometimes found myself tempted by the modestly swelling ranks of subs to consider myself a dom.
Ew.
But yes, to inflate my ego and believe that I am somehow special. Gifted and Talented. More special than Mr. Rogers cooed. More special than the average person I might meet.
But jt has diligently kept me grounded.
Though he follows me into the heavens when I embark on my manic rants, he’s wonderful at reminding me that I still exist on earth. He uses careful, considerate, deliberate speech, and an enduringly warm wokeness to help others feel spacious, comfortable, connected and held in reverence.
I am grateful for the honor of splitting Creekmason Adeptus Maker responsibilities with jt. Not just because he symbolically represents an earthly tether. Not least because he’ll be taking over most of the Creekmason social media. (I hate that shit.) But because I know that he’ll faithfully represent the interests and vision of this budding community.
It feels like a palpable step toward Right Livelihood. Toward becoming a working Creative who belongs to and is uplifted by an egalitarian, anarchic, tight-knit and vibey af organization that enables its members to focus on the aspects of writing and publishing that they enjoy by making light work with many hands.
So! Introducing:
OG Node.
Indespensible First Follower.
Newest Adeptus Maker.
jt!
Thanks for joining me, fren.