Three Things (The Course)

 Welcome to the Information Center for all details about "Three Things" - a yearlong course of personal and collective transformation, launching in 2024!

What is "Three Things" about?

This coursework will take us on a shared journey of re-creation and expansion, re-patterning our senses, our perception, our thoughts and stories, our play... so that we can become passionate and flexible agents of nature and wisdom, capable of bold and creative and attuned action. 

Three Things give us new definitions of ourselves on every scale, from individual to community to society to cosmic collective. 

Listen: at least four million years of hominid experience has instilled in us an ambush-fear mentality. What does this mean? We see from our closest ape relatives, and from our own anthropology, that our earliest pattern of existence revolves around small groups of variable size living together and holding territory, and ambushing unlucky members of other small parties who wandered too far toward the edge of their hunting grounds. 

Yet we also know that our earliest ancestors found it continuously necessary to explore the edges of familiar territory: for more resources, for ambush opportunities...and for something else. 

Though our ancient people generally held to the middle of secure ground, again and again they had to venture to the boundary of safety. Why?

Everything important happens at the fluid boundaries of order and chaos, safety and wonder, the old and the new, creation and destruction, stability and disruption! 

Yet, understand, every time we approach the edge of the familiar, our hominid instinct has us on guard for the ambush attack, hyper-vigilant for threats to our safety and survival. (This is actually fairly unique in the animal world, because most predators like us don't experience perpetual ambush dynamics at all.)

Three Things teach us that we perceive so much more of reality that our threat-awareness filters out -- that there is a vast, interconnected reality radically different than the perceptual cheat-code models our brains use to highlight potential dangers. 

We perceive this interconnected reality and we participate within it, in ways that are different and strange to the set of behaviors from ourselves with which we are consciously familiar. To understand our participation in the larger scope of reality, we need to refresh and reinterpret the stories that we tell to explain ourselves; and we also need to reawaken and live through stories that aren't just human in their shapes.

What are the Three Things?

I can name and tell you the Three Things right here and now...but, you know, in order to fully absorb the truth of these points and unlock their power, we can't just crystallize them into statements. A journey of initiation must be undertaken with each one, in order to transform our relationship in thought and action to their truth. That is what this course does, so that we can become new through fully knowing them.

The Three Things are:

1. We are never alone in sentient awareness.

2. Everything changes everything.

3. A thing exists if and only if it is a metaphor and a talisman (a sigil).

At first glance, these might sound very familiar (well, okay... probably not the third one). However, in this journey of initiations into the full meaning and truth of each one of these points, we will reach uncanny depths and towering heights of perspective, wisdom, and direct experience, that sets you free in ways you won't even imagine. 

Through a large and diverse set of activities and initiations, we will grow beyond our current sensory world ("Umwelt") of awareness into an expanded "supernormal" (paranormal?* ultranormal?) life we're leading.   

*Yes, people. We are, ourselves, paranormal entities.

What is the approach?

In the course of the year, we will work with each of the Three Things. We will spend three months working with point #1, three months working with point #2, and six months working with point #3 (because it is the most unfamiliar and mind-bending). 

There are stories and perspectives that are so deeply intrinsic to our perception-matrix that they arise and go with us every day, every moment of our lives. What makes our work challenging and interesting is that these stories are obstacles to expanded awareness. We can't truly see or know the Three Things as long as these perspectives are coloring everything we see and feel and know. 

There are six obstacles we will focus on during the course of the year, perspectives that separate us from the direct experience of the Three Things. Through our workings throughout the year, we will fundamentally change and dissolve these six obstacles, taking us through the gateway to the Three Things themselves. 

The six obstacles are:

1. The Mirror of Insignificance

The pervasive sense that you don't deeply matter to others, and that others do not share your passions in the same way. 

2. The Inertia of Apparent Randomness

The pervasive experience of events as being random, difficult to organize or keep united.

3. The Spectre of Fait Accompli and Adversarial Superiority

The perception of reality as being severely predetermined, and that the forces of regression and oppression are more powerful than the forces of change and creative surprise.

4. Attempted Continuity of Identity

The desire to maintain a consistent and coherent personality and identity (both inwardly experienced and outwardly reputed, resulting in a narrow window of Self-recognition.

5. The Spectre of Absolute Moral Idealism

The desire to reduce reality to governance by a set of principles that apply universally and rigidly. This often takes form as a fear of making mistakes, and a fear of regrets.

6. The Fear and Sadness of Time

The perception of Time as moving from uncertain future to inaccessible past -- the root dimensional factor of all our experiences. 

What methods will be used?

Some of the methods and practices that we’ll be using over the course of the year include:

hypnosis, trance, altered states of consciousness, drum journey, tai chi, movement awareness, cranial sacral rhythm exploration, thereotrope and spirit invocation, paranormal stakeouts, poetry, egregoric manifestation, magical focused mind, improvisational theatre, sigil placement, divination, archetypal quests, Dreamtime walkabout, death and metamorphosis ritual, koan meditation, spontaneous oracular sharing. Music, created by ourselves and by others, will play several major roles in our methods.

Some types of landscapes and locations we’ll be using to focus and catalyze the process include:

rivers, forests, city streets, cemeteries, caves and mines, the zoo, open water, Randonautica journeys.

How will we relate to each other throughout this course?

We will become extremely close and dependent upon each other, to an extraordinary degree. This level of shared trust and dependence is very unusual in society outside of the military and police partnerships. Our model will be an orchestral relationship: we will respect the unique intricacies that are involved in each life, each sounding of the each instrument...yet will pay utmost attention to how we collectively harmonize and bring forth the symphonic sound in whole. We will speak together boldly and artistically about the music we are bringing forth together -- that is, the quality of the shared experience co-discovered. We will all come to know each other's parts in the orchestra very well, with keen awareness. The emphasis will not be on keeping each other's secrets confidentially, but rather on respecting the synergetic emergent discoveries. 

In the first part of the year, we will be focusing in depth on building rapport and confidence and trust with one another, and importantly, trust in this process itself. This aspect of the work will strengthen and deepen over the year. "As with stones in a bag, the monks polish each other." We shall be very busy. 

How will the course unfold?

In the beginning, we will meet in person for one week, to settle into deep communion with each other, attune our awareness, and build our rapport and relationships as a group.

Starting with the second month, we will meet together in person one weekend per month, from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon. There will be a 2-hour gathering by video conference offered once a week. We will mark the solstices and the autumn equinox with special ceremony and celebrations, as well as Samhain. As the course progresses, there will be invitation for self-directed journeying in the world. You will belong to working groups of three people each, called boats. Your boat will participate in real-world exercises and transformations together. 

Additionally, you will receive context material each month to provoke your own thinking, in the form of written essays and/or documentary video from the team leaders. 

At the completion of the year, each boat will lead the entire group in a journey, adventure, or challenge.

Where will we be meeting, and what are the logistics and the cost?

We will be based in the Pittsburgh area for our in-person gatherings. We will have use of an indoor conference and studio space, and we will be sharing extensive outdoor adventures when we are together. Additionally, you will be practicing out in the world where you live. Accommodations and meals will be provided during in-person gatherings, but participants will be responsible for their own travel expenses. 

Service animals and comfort animals are welcome. Unfortunately, we are not set up at this time to facilitate the participation of individuals with mobility limitations. We gratefully welcome participants of all persuasions, of all sexes and genders, ethnic backgrounds, religious affiliations. No one with a conviction record of violence will be permitted to take part in the course at this time. 

The tuition cost of the course is $4,000 per participant for the entire year, which enables the leadership team to focus on holding the course and participants as our primary work during the year, and also facilitates subsequent future courses and efforts of The Agency. A discount of 15% is available for early registrants. $500 (non-refundable) is required upfront to reserve your seat. The balance of the tuition can be paid in two monthly installments of $1,000 and a third installment of the remainder. 

Further thoughts...

I genuinely think you will experience this course as a formative moment when a new direction and outlook awaken and take flight within you for the rest of your life. I am looking forward to all of us growing and transforming together profoundly through this journey. It will be deeply fulfilling and surprising. I am not aware of another course that is bringing together these elements, teachings, and practices to create a fresh basis for perception and action. You will emerge from this having become a leader sustained by peace, joy, and vibrant enthusiasm for life. These all live within you already -- together, we will help these qualities take the ascendant position in ourselves personally, and in our communities. We will collectively become the kernel of a new social awakening. 

At times, this journey will be scary, painful, mind-bending, confusing. At times, resistance will arise within us. That is only to be expected when we venture beyond the safe harbor of our familiar experiences. We will support each other through these moments. 

I truly believe with heartfelt certainty that the experience of this course will form a cornerstone of your way of being truly yourself in the world, and will light a torch for your future work. 

Who are we?

Gavain U'Prichard is a 2002 graduate of the California Institute of Integral Studies. For the past 25 years, Gavain has explored and focused his work on developing avenues of sharing wisdom from Deep Ecology and Deep Cosmology as a living transformational practice in our personal lives and collectively. He received a Holistic Health Practitioner certificate from Heartwood Institute in 2005, and has been a licensed massage therapist and cranial sacral therapist. He has worked extensively in theater and music, developing original interactive stage productions and revolutionary audio theater, as well as street theater. 

Gavain has been a student and facilitator of intensive personal transformation workshops, he has participated in the rebirthing techniques of Stanislav Groff, altered-consciousness drum-facilitated journeys of Ralph Metzner, and was mentored by Brian Swimme of the Center for the Story of the Universe. Gavain has led multimedia concert series and rituals involving video imagery, dance, music with primordial and modern instruments, organized around themes, and has facilitated numerous drum journeys himself. He is a practitioner of divinatory arts, and a paranormal researcher.

Gavain is a friend of the Possibility Alliance (now based in Belfast, Maine), and spent the years from 2012-2020 in a focused effort at communicating the context of current climate change, including participating in an 8-month cross-country march with an extended consideration of the nature of "extraordinary action." He is a student of nonviolent civil disobedience, and has participated in various capacities in numerous actions. 

Gavain brings his studies of the philosophy of science, history, cognitive science, and anthropology to the table in preparing this course, as well as permaculture,  mutual aid networks, and cooperative living. Gavain has spent time living in and exploring intentional communities in the U.S. and Findhorn Community in Scotland. 

On the wall of Gavain's childhood bedroom (along with glow in the dark stars, a large poster of Saturn and a "Map of the Universe") was an abstract design poster with a quote from Einstein: "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Kristin Pomykala

Shakuur is a dedicated leader and educator whose profound experiences shape an impactful teaching approach. With a solid five years of military service, Shakuur's leadership foundation is grounded in discipline and strategic thinking. Beyond the barracks, they embarked on a two-year journey, navigating various states and immersing themselves in the wilderness. This extended expedition not only honed survival skills but fostered a deep appreciation for living in harmony with the natural world. 

Driven by a passion for spiritual growth, Shakuur seamlessly integrates wisdom from their military and wilderness experiences into the realm of self-discovery. Their teachings serve as a guiding light for individuals navigating their own paths, offering a blend of military precision, wilderness resilience, and spiritual enlightenment. 

Shakuur's philosophy on mistakes transcends conventional views. Mistakes, in their eyes, are not setbacks but opportunities for profound growth. Shakuur encourages a mindset of self-curiosity, where each misstep becomes a portal to deeper understanding. This philosophy extends into an embrace of toughness – a resilience cultivated through experiences in the military and the challenges of the wild. In the realm of personal development, Shakuur places a strong emphasis on self-love and extends that compassion to others. The art of making mistakes, coupled with cultivating inner strength, forms the foundation of Shakuur's approach. This blend of toughness and empathy creates a leadership ethos that inspires both personal and collective transformation. 

Shakuur's journey is not just a narrative; it's a testament to the intricate interplay of military precision, extended wilderness survival, and spiritual enlightenment. As a guide in the pursuit of constant improvement, Shakuur stands as a figure, offering a detailed roadmap for those seeking to enhance their leadership skills with purpose and motivation.