So I guess we're live. Thanks everybody for joining us. Before I introduce our speaker today, Cassie Thornton, I wanted

to take a moment to explain why we're so glad to have her here, situated within this solarpunk pacemaking narrative. Because I feel that just as our external world scale energy systems need to change to become more renewable, so too do our interpersonal community scale energy systems.

Because yeah, we need to renewably power our computers, but we also need to renewably power our resilience in the face of these challenging times ahead. And from what I've seen of Cassie's work as an artist and activist, I feel she's playing

a really crucial role in re-situating what are essential practices of collective care into modern society again. And I feel like when we participate in these post-scarcity social technologies placed here among our daily economic agenda, it becomes this act of liberating disobedience that I think really puts the punk in solarpunk.

So Cassie is involved in feminist economics and a social scientist actively preparing for the economics of a future society that produces health and life without the tools to reproduce oppression. So with this, it's my pleasure to introduce Cassie Thornton, who's been exploring these practices,

whether it's finger painting with grime found inside banks or donating cursed paintings to profiteering bankers or hypnotizing hedge fund managers to inventing social technologies such as grassroots alternative credit reporting services for survivors of gentrification, or in this case, peer-to-peer health care.

She's often using institutional critique, insurgent architecture, and these healing modalities to find the soft spots in the hard surfaces of, at times, oppressive capitalist life. Cassie is currently the co-director of Reimagining Value Action Lab in Thunder Bay, and I'm pleased to invite

Cassie to walk us through her recent work, The Hologram, peer-to-peer health care for a post-pandemic future. Cassie, thank you very much for being here. Yeah, thank you so much for coming. What a great introduction. I like all the words you used are so right, like disobedience and post-scarcity.

And yeah, so I've been working on projects around like kind of anti-debt projects for about a decade, and so I think that's useful to know that that's kind of where I'm coming from.

I worked as a anti-debt activist and an artist, and you saw debt as the material that I worked with. And so kind of out of that work, I really hoped for and felt really lucky when I found a project that felt like it was like an antidote to the sort of super boring reality created by like debt bondage.

And when I talk about debt, I'm definitely, financial debt is definitely on my mind, but there's also all different scales of that and all different forms of debt that kind of control us and manipulate what we think is possible.

And so, yeah, I'm going to share my screen and just sort of like walk everybody through like where the project, what The Hologram is and where it came from and how to do it. And if, yeah, Chris and Henny, like if you have any questions along the way, just feel free to pop in. Everybody can see it?

Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, so The Hologram, I like to say that like it's a strategic peer support

project that rebuilds trust and begins to construct a network of transformation and interdependence that can outlast capitalism. I think it's a two part project. So part of it is like sort of telling a story that something else is possible.

Like we can organize our energy and our time differently to have a really different experience of reality using stuff we already have. And when I say stuff, it's like relationships, time, energy. And then the second part of it. Oh, so that first part, I mean, I think in a way, just telling a story that something else is

possible, that like maybe The Hologram is an economic model that suggests that a lot is possible with a little. And so I like to kind of think about it almost as a parafictional project, like you can talk about it until it becomes real. And I think that's what's been happening. I just keep talking about it and now many people talk about it as if it's something and that makes it real.

And then the second part is an actual pretty structured social practice that anyone can do. And it's been now practiced like heavily in the last just since the pandemic basically has been really heavily practiced online.

And so we have a set of really clear rituals and protocols that can help you get started so that then you can make it your own. But it's a viral peer to peer model and I want to make it really easy to do. So I'm going to try to help you guys to understand it today. I think it's really important to understand the roots of things.

And the roots for me really start with the social solidarity clinics in Greece that opened during the early 2010s during a time of total austerity like financial collapse and also a real refugee crisis. And there were clinics that opened all over Greece that offered totally free care.

And these are now like very well documented online. So it's really interesting I think especially right now and in the coming months to really try to understand what they were doing and how they were doing it. For our uses, there was one particular clinic that I heard about like a rumor that was in Thessaloniki that was

interested in not only offering free care but trying to offer non-hierarchical care and really challenge how we do medicine. And so this group was called the group for a different medicine. And I've been kind of like talking to them on the phone and learning about them for the last five years. And they came up with something called the integrative model, which is what the hologram is based on.

And so this is just a little diagram I'm showing now that explains a little bit about what they did. So I think really important is that when a patient entered the clinic, they were not called a patient, they were called an incomer.

And so that was with the idea that everybody needs care, that there's not really a difference between a doctor and a patient in that way. You don't go to the doctor just because you're broken and you need to be fixed, like everybody needs care all the time. And so, you know, it's just whether you're in the clinic already or you're incoming.

And so that incomer would be seen by a therapist, a social worker, and a doctor at the same time. And in a short amount, well, not that short actually, you know, in 90 minutes, they would ask loads of questions about all things about the patient or the incomer. Like who are they? Where do they work? What do they eat? Where do they get their food? To whom do they owe debts?

Like where, you know, like all the social, all the financial, all the body, what hurts, what doesn't. And then in the end, they would have the patient actually lead a conversation, the incomer, I'm even messing up. The incomer would lead a conversation about what they need, like what would it take for them to be healthy for the next year.

And then they would try to encourage the incomer to actually like use the doctors rather than vice versa, rather than the doctors telling the incomer what they need. And I thought that was really striking. And that project itself is still going on in Thessaloniki and it has been for all five years.

And one of the people that worked on it, Froso Morelli, is an elder psychologist. And she told me when I first met her that basically after practicing psychology for 30 or 40 years, this was the first time she could really see the whole person when she met with them. And that it made a person from a flat piece of paper or a number into a hologram.

And that's where we got the name for the project. And so ever since, it's just been a matter of learning about holography to figure out how we're using this metaphor for the project, which I love the challenge of working it backwards. But the big question, I think for all of us, always has been, but maybe more acutely now than ever, is how

do you organize your own care before and during an emergency, before or during an emergency in a set of completely unstable conditions. When this project first was being born, it was around 2016, and I was living in the US. None of my friends or I had any health care.

We also lived in a very precarious way with no stable housing, no stable jobs, and many of us having to leave the cities we were living in for a long time. And if it was bad for us, and many of us were white and able-bodied people, what would that mean for everybody else?

So we were really interested in how we would take the project of the integrative model and apply it in the states specifically. And so we were asking ourselves these questions when we figured out what to do. So can we do this without experts, without money, without space, without stability?

Can we do it when we're all a little bit sick? And then how do we deal with trust? How can we do this when we've been taught only to trust experts and maybe not to trust ourselves at all?

So our idea basically was to distribute the labor of attention and care that we saw happening in Thessaloniki. So now we call the person who was called the incomer a hologram, and the hologram invites three people to ask them questions. So one person asks the questions that a therapist would ask, one person asks questions like what a

social worker might ask, and one person asks questions like what a doctor might ask, but also much more. But that's a good starting point, I think. So the idea is to sort of distribute the labor of listening. So I think, as I said, it's a practice that is very much built about asking questions and curiosity, and that's the most central thing.

But it's also about doing it over time. So the hologram invites three people to meet regularly over a period of time. And as you can imagine, if you meet, say, every couple of months, for even let's just say for a year, imagine how

much the people, the listeners who we actually call the triangle, imagine how much the triangle would learn about the patterns of the hologram. Like there's so much, you know, just in terms of language, what she says over and over and over again, and what that triangle begins to observe in terms of patterns of behavior and language.

Imagine after a couple of years of meeting every three months that the hologram is told that they need a surgery. And the surgery, are you going to do the research to figure out if that surgery is right for you?

So I think a really amazing thing is that the triangle can offer the service of co-research in moments when the hologram needs to make a big decision. And over time, what I've seen happen in my own triangle and in many that I participate in is

that the triangle becomes something like a different sort of living medical record, because you actually can see all these different things happening in somebody's life over time when you get the chance to see it in isolation. So the goal, though, is that when it comes to making big decisions, nobody has to do it alone.

So we see the the incomer in Greece as the hologram here, and we see that person as a bit of like an expert about their own health. And we see them as a teacher. And I think it's really important when we do workshops and different types of courses about the hologram now,

it's really hard to figure out how to be the hologram, because in a weird way, asking for help and being vulnerable and articulate about what you need is really, really hard and super undervalued in our societies.

And so in a weird way, you become a teacher when you're a hologram, because the way that you ask for what you need shows that that's even possible for somebody else. The triangle, the three people that ask questions, I would say that the goal is not to solve a problem, even though that's often our orientation.

The real project is to kind of feel along with someone else, to really try to understand the nuances of their experience. And to let them know that you're just there with them in their story.

I think there's a really interesting dimension of curiosity that can be really generative and I think really liberating in a way.

So the fact that somebody asks you to be in their hologram, when somebody asks you to be a member of their triangle, I think it feels really good because it means that you have permission to ask questions and show how much you care. And the questions, the lines of questions, become very, very creative, because the job of the triangle is to figure out how to kind of like help the hologram to talk about what they need to talk about.

And that's not always so easy. So it's a really kind of dynamic and interesting questioning process. And then the triangle we think of as like a living medical record, who carries the story of the hologram for as long as they decide to.

So just a little review and I'm going to go over like how the kind of practice works online. So, as I had mentioned before, in Greece, the newcomer was seen by a doctor, a social worker and a therapist. Now we have three friends or acquaintances and we have been really sticking with the

idea of inviting friends and acquaintances and not people who are anonymous into your triangle. So one person asks questions related to the physical, one asks questions related to the social, and one asks questions to the mental and emotional.

And all of those things overlap. They're a mess. Those are not clear categories. All of them have a really important amount of bleeding into the others. And this is a social practice that like morphs with the people that use it. So in my triangle, I have three people so far.

One person always asks me the physical questions, one person always asks me the social questions, etc. And when we talk about what is physical, my house is physical, the land I live on is physical, my body is physical, the medicine I take is physical, the food I eat is physical, a lot. We're not just talking about how my heart is beating or how I'm breathing. The physical things that construct my life are what we're talking about.

The same with the social. Social might be money, it might be power relations, relationships to systems. Obviously, there's the obvious stuff like family and working relationships and living relationships. It might be about your home.

And when we talk about mental, emotional, it can be the normal stuff that you talk about with a therapist, but it can also be like belief systems, like intellectual endeavors, dreams. It's really, it's not so limited. So we already kind of went over like what the triangle does in a more like metaphysical way or something.

But now, like, what does the triangle actually do? Like they ask questions. That's clear. They notice patterns. And I think over time, they devise a way of taking and keeping notes, which so far has been different for everybody.

And we're working on making more better systems for how to kind of keep and organize notes, since this is a really important part of this kind of like endurance, the endurance part of the project. And then I think like time is a really interesting material in the project. So the goal is that we do these things for a long time.

So, so far, like some people have been meeting with their holograms for six months or nine months. But what if we imagine, like, okay, we meet every three months, spend about two hours in that meeting. And then we might start out by saying, let's do it for a year and imagine like what, what kind of trust

would be built and practices and like the nuance that would happen in a year, but then like, let's imagine five years. And the goal is that maybe we could even think about doing it for like 10 years or like 20 years, which is

really like beyond imagination in a time with like such a short attention span and so many different forms of crisis and distraction. I think this is something, this kind of radical planning is something that is really powerful, because it does expand beyond what we're like allowed to think about or plan, plan for in term. Yeah.

Um, and so I think the really, really important part is that it's viral. And so I'm just talk more about the viral nature of it in a minute, but I think it's really this colors, our experience of it so much because you don't give back what you receive in equal form.

So it's not like the other things we experience like we're not trying to like compensate somebody for what they gave to us in an equal measure. We are creating a culture of care where like the culture moves through people, and when everybody's getting what their needs, what they need. It doesn't matter if any gives me something and I give it back to them in exact in equal amounts like honey is going to get what they need.

And like that's the I think that we're looking at trying to make our energy and work flow, rather than getting stuck in a loop between people which always, which often leads to a type of burnout on multiple different levels.

Um, and so what do I want to say about this. So, this is really interesting because reciprocity makes the project grow because people don't want to be a burden, it forces the project to grow so I, my job as a hologram is to make sure that the people that support me get support.

And so I see, I see it as my job to make sure that my three people have three people and help them do that when they're ready. That's how I pay it forward. And that feels really important to the project. Um, the main ideas of the project which might be very obvious. I think it's good to say anyway.

You don't need to be broken or sick to need care and attention. It takes work to receive good care. It's not easy to say what you need and to actually follow through with it. It takes a lot of negotiation which is not something that we get to practice

so much, especially when we're talking about hardcore resources like time and energy and emotion. Um, the person who needs and receives care is an expert and teacher.

And the person just because you're giving care doesn't mean that you have power or that you are an advisor or an expert in fact it's the opposite. And it's like, it's an interesting that, like trying to ask good questions that don't that are not presenting your expertise is actually hard for a lot of people so this is like, it's kind of an interesting form of learning.

So, the practice now is a really quite coherent online ritual that a large group of us have been working on for, like, I guess now about nine or 10 know about, yeah, about 10 months. Um, and so I don't often get a chance to share it and so it's like with such

clarity but this is some people practicing it. So, this is when we're doing a facilitated online hologram. So it's like a one time shot and so that's why I'm might you can see my name there though I'm not participating because it's one person and then they're three people joining them and I was facilitating.

Um, I'll explain that more in a minute. But the practice as an online ritual has really basic components now. Um, the first part is stock dance which comes from social presence in theater. I see any smiling so I think that might be familiar.

Everyone in the group online, we suggest does this or some other embodying and kind of communicative exercise. So in my group we say hello how's it going and then we're like should we get into it and we do the stock dance and so every person stands up imagines a situation in their life in which they feel stuck.

They try to embody that as a shape. The other people in the group, go around and make a statement that does not analyze, but just explains what they what they witnessed in the sculpture, that is the body.

After that section, we do something really simple called marking the task. The hologram says what it is that they would like to talk about. And we divide that into two parts they say, what is it they want to talk about. Um, what kind of feeling do they want to create. So they want to produce more energy. Do they want to get themselves out of a

hole. Do they want to like create, like, do they want to create laughter like what is it that they really need and want for themselves and the group. Um, the next section is the biggest section which is usually we try to do it at least 45 minutes, where the triangle members just get to ask loads of questions so like, you know, based on what the body spoke in the stock dance and then also what the hologram said

when they mark the task, you know, like, you start anywhere. Um, like, how does it feel to be holding your body in that way, whatever. And it, it generally starts a little bit slow and crunchy and then quickly there becomes a kind of

rhythm, and we don't organize who asked questions when we let it flow and every group I think is different. Um, after that, we leave at least 10 minutes for reflections and reflections are like a chance for everybody in the group including the

hologram to say like, what was the most important stuff that happened like, and the original idea that was of this was to say what resonated with you, like, as a triangle member when you said this, it made me, it reminded me of something that has happened to me, and the goal of this was to make the hologram not feel like they were kind of alone in in having some experiences or showing

some vulnerabilities. But now we've kind of opened it up and it's like, really like what do you want to not forget that was said, what gave you goosebumps or chills, um, stuff like that. And then the last part is feedback. And this we'd like to leave like 15 minutes

10 or 15 minutes for usually give everybody a break to think about it for a second. Um, so we we use three forms of feedback. One is making a wish. So the triangle says like you know based on what you said, like, I think what I wish for you is x. Um, that can be alongside or separate from a with a pattern.

So like, I noticed, like you said this word many many many times and I just want to offer that, like I, you know, it's not the word advising but like, this is what I see. And then my favorite is giving a provocation. So like, what if you were to try x.

So it's not advice, but it's an offering of like a potential way forward. All together that usually takes it can take anywhere from an hour and 15 minutes to two hours. Um, so this is a little bit more about the viral ness but I don't.

So, I think I've actually already talked for 45 minutes and I want to have time for questions. So, I'm going to go and see if there is something that's really important here. When we do workshops online I think this is interesting. We do a lot we teach a lot of courses online right now so people can get used to using the hologram.

And we try to use the personal pronoun we threw a lot of it which has really really affected what's possible to stay in a group of 28 people from around the world online, it's been really interesting. And then if you if anybody ends up practicing the hologram in a real regular way or just like even as trying to set up

their hologram we offer, we have a telegram group called the community of practice, and then a monthly meeting where between like 10 and 30 people get together and speak about how it's going using the hologram, and this is where we learn a lot about what's happening with

people and how to change and adapt the project and it feels like a really amazing laboratory so if anybody is interested that is on the website. You can join a public part of you can join a channel at the moment from the website. And then I would bring you into the zoom if you wanted to.

I think that's about it. Hope that was useful. That was brilliant. Thank you, Cassie. Definitely added some new dimension to what I already knew of the work from reading the book but it was really nice to

hear you articulate it, and especially to what really resonated with me was, I was looking for pieces to dispel how big a task it seems to ask for help from people. And then one of the things I really liked that you mentioned is that the people who are giving

help aren't the experts, they're not there to give you advice on specifically what to do but they're just there to be in your story with you. And as you write in your book like so much of what we seek for health is outside of the domain of medicine. And I think that is

just such a huge component of it right we just seek people to be in our story with us and to help give us some outside perspective and advice. That was that was really, really meaningful for me. Thank you. I have a couple of follow up questions but I don't know if any if you want to mention anything before. Um, yeah, I, I just want to kind of, I mean you address this a little bit in your book.

But for those of us including myself who are super eager, just to get to that entry point. I would like to know like, yeah, like where, where to begin, because you have a lot of

sets of questions. And there's you address this thing about feeling maybe you don't have time for it. And so like just getting to that point of entry, so that it's like super doable. If there's these groups that are online that are regular or which part of the book

is the best place to start or, you know, like, where's to just get in there. Um, I'm going to share with you guys, I meant to do it earlier, I have a document about how to set up your first meeting that a bunch of us have worked on and like some extra advice about being a being a triangle member.

Um, I think the book is what was written very soon after we started to like really practice it and have an online kind of like, like, right after the project has an online life, and it, it.

I don't know that the book is actually the manual that you need to get started, I think it, it really helps to get you the feeling and the ideas, but I don't think it's like quite a manual and we're making a manual now that will be much more direct in that way.

And, um, but I think like the project also is an oral tradition. And I think that, or something like an oral tradition I wish I had a better word but it's like something that moves through people so like, um, you know, after you like when you

get this set of instructions I'm going to send you and that you guys can post online if it's useful anywhere for anybody that's watching this. Um, I think that the, the key is you can read about it but you really need to talk to somebody about it because it brings up a lot of stuff, and there's a lot of questions. And I think it's like, like the structure has a bunch of nuance to it, which is useful for getting started.

And I think it's like, you can read it, and you can have somebody tell you about it on zoom. I think the really key thing is like having relationships with other people that are doing it and who can talk you through it. And so we're coming up we're working on lots of different ways that that can happen more easily, but like

the top of the instruction manual says like you can read this but after that you should probably call us. Um, the other stuff that we're up to that that's really like accessible and online, is that we were launching our third online course in that will start in February.

And our hope is to have half of the people there healthcare workers and half can be anyone. And the applications will open on the website on January 4. Um, that's a six week course and it's really, it's really interesting what happens because I

think, you know, people really have to explore like why it's so hard to ask for help. And, and how do we like establish a practice of making sure that the people who are doing the care worker getting cared for it. It's deep. Um, and then the other thing that we have taken a pause on but will be up

and running again in February is a thing called the minimum viable hologram, which is a thing where you could basically sign up online to have a facilitated two hour session so like Chris could sign up, bring three friends, and then Chris is like, I just, I like I can't find a new apartment. And like, I'm really overwhelmed, and it doesn't

seem like something that I should be talking about given that I'm a white guy and like the whole world is collapsing and, you know, blah blah blah. But, like, I'm freaking out. And then Chris has three friends to like hear that with him and then by the end of the conversation, give some reflections and feedback, that's usually like pretty fricking helpful.

Um, and you have a bunch of friends that really know where you're at. So we've been facilitating those and now there's a team of like six facilitators that can do those online. We're just like trying to redo our website and like what, like the ways that people sign up and everything so by February that should hopefully be going.

But yeah, I mean I think the project is still just like making the tools that needs to actually become accessible. And in the meantime, like, I think it's, it really is about just like getting your three people together on zoom or in person, and kind

of feeling it out. And in the 10 months that you said you've been in practice. How often do the meetings occur that you feel is effective. I've been saying every three months and I started to do every three months with my

group, because I was thinking that I would do it around like the solstices and equinoxes. Um, and then I had some health problems, and we've been meeting. Now, we were starting to meet every month and now we're going to meet every week until, like, we kind of figure out what the deal is with my body.

And I think that that is amazing. But I think you can just, you can start with something really gentle like even just do one and say like, we want to just try this and see how it feels. I think, and just for anybody, like any of you guys that wanted to set up your first meeting if you're going to do it online. I would

be more than happy to show up, or one of the other people that are involved would be happy to kind of show up and like help you guys sort of set up your first meeting, you know, 15 minutes and we can help it. Super generous Thank you. I wanted to ask a question about in approaching this minimal viable hologram like you said, how to get over the indecision of like

who to choose, because there's especially when you're talking about a length of commitment that might be six months, a year, five years, 10 years it's kind of like choosing three people to marry.

So, yeah, I wonder if you could give any given speak to that as all of just how to start with it or and how much. Yeah, who to choose and what you should consider in choosing. I mean the goal is I think that like potentially people who are not used to being in a supportive position could participate in this and learn.

So it doesn't have to be somebody who you think is like really good, like, like, you don't have to pick like your, your friends that work in social worker or anything. And I think, for me, I was really clear about wanting people that make that like if I walked into a room with a three

of them, I would be comforted and like calm and not like, yeah, just not like sweating, you know, I picked people that I have been. Either I've organized with or done a lot of like seen that who I've seen work with other people who I know

can play with others. Well, and that like kind of give other people dignity who they work with that seemed really important to me, because I don't want to have to be like a sort of mediator for them if they don't feel well together.

Um, and I also chose people who I feel like do different things for me. One person is like a very, very old friend who I feel like I can be myself in front of no matter what, who's really like a calming person.

One person is a person who like challenges me a lot, who's like, who I know would like not let me like go too far, like, in any one direction without helping me question it. And then one person who I think it represents a bunch of qualities like like is really, really gentle but in a way that I'm

so not. And I just wanted them around to kind of like help me to help be like the opposite of me in a weird way. Um, but I felt like together they represent really different things to me. Um, other people talk about how they almost like see people as colors and they try to like make a color palette

that's balanced. I just think it's like, it's really, I think, up to you to figure out, like what would make you feel really comfortable, because potentially at first, it's a bit nerve wracking to have all that attention and feel all the responsibility.

I guess the last thing I'll say about it is that the people that I chose, um, was really, really, uh, they were people who when I received like a transmission from them, like an email, a text, a phone call, whatever, I always look forward to it. They're people whose communications I really understand and who like, like deep down I'm like tickled by when I receive something from

them. That was, that felt really important to me because there's a lot of people who I think are like would be good. But I don't know like something about our chemistry makes me actually feel like happy and comfortable, and that's not everybody, you know. I would say it's not a good idea to choose people who you think would be interested in the project.

I think this has, we've seen that this failed a lot when you're like, I think these people would find this project interesting, like this is the kind of thing they do in their own practice, they would probably like it. I think it's more about like you and your connection to them. Hmm, that's beautiful. Those are some really good tools to work with and templates to consider that way. Thank you.

That actually, I don't want to take up too much time, but that actually leads me brilliantly into the next question because you talk about just there ending it on the note of it's really you and how you approach it, your responsibility to ask for help. And in the asking for help, you also grow the capacity to teach others about how to ask for help.

But still after reading the book and reflecting on thinking about practicing this myself, I still find that as quite a big stumbling block, this overcoming the hurdle of asking for help. And I identified a few things in the presentation you gave actually that were some nuggets of things

that I thought would help push that a bit forward because I feel I was specifically looking for them. But I wondered if you could maybe reiterate, if you feel I've already said them, or just speak to this idea of how to overcome this stigma almost of asking for help. I mean, in my triangle recently, I was like, I'm too tired and too overwhelmed to do it. I was like, I need

you guys to schedule our next meeting because it's like all my batteries of taking risks and being an organizer are worn down.

And I just don't, I just can't, I literally could not just write the email to schedule it or set up a doodle poll or whatever. So I think like asking for help could be asking for help asking for help.

Otherwise, I don't know. I mean, I think that the thing about this is that like, for those of us that are like wired for like social organizing and that like need to feel like we're part of like something good that's happening in the world outside of ourselves.

I do think it really helps to have a group of people to talk about it with who make it feel like this is something we're all doing. And it's like, like when we have these community of practice meetings, it's like a bunch of badass people are all trying this, and it's hard for all of us.

And so then we talk about it and it makes it feel more like we're part of like a sort of different form of a social movement than it feels just like we're like just needy people that are kind of like looking for a new form of therapy or something. Because I just think like, it's so easy.

We're just, yeah, like the forms of kind of like help and support that we have been given for most of our lives are like tied to monetization but are also just like, like cheap or something or like they, they didn't. I don't know, I just feel like it's, it's, it's social for me. It's like, it's easy for me

to ask for help if I see that like the other people in my pack are doing that too. Yeah. Yeah, thanks for that. That's something you reminded me in the presentation that in receiving care, as you participating as a hologram, pretty quickly it's then your job to help those people form their own hologram

and I think even that is help me at least towards feeling like it's like I'm not taking. Yeah, I guess the other part of it that's quite surprising is that the process can be very fun and funny. Like, it's not like it's like just dragging people through the muck with me, like, you know, we're not like just like we're not broken.

I think this is the big trick is that like, deep down a lot of people fear that they are like broken they're like if you start to ask them questions there's like a dark tunnel that leads to a chasm that like everybody that like gets in there is going to get like,

like sucked in and turn to goo or something but actually, like we're all like dynamic people with like really good things and then like hard things. And the conversation is like not dark. Most of the time, maybe sometimes. But I think it gives it gives more energy than it takes to go away, and to not just to the hologram to the whole group.

And that's really important to keep in mind in terms of like getting away from the idea of like scarcity like everybody's running out of time and energy and you're going to be the burden that breaks everybody it's not it's just not the case. So then maybe asking for help. I don't know that help is ever the right word in the situation I just haven't had a better word come.

But like, um, maybe like asking for what we're asking for is not a subtraction. Like, and that is different. It's not, it's maybe even an additive process.

That's the beautiful framing. Yeah, that's a beautiful framing. Thanks. I picked up on something that you said also in the presentation there that in asking people to be part of your hologram you're actually giving them permission to ask curious questions, or to invite them into the curiosity of another person's life that they might otherwise feel that they can't ask or

that they wouldn't ask otherwise but it would actually be quite entertaining and it would be quite this like a mutual mutually joyous ritual. So, yeah, I'm just dying to know like when all of you woke up and what you ate for breakfast and like how you're like, how do you handle really bad news or like

it really, it, it's like so interesting actually and it's so comforting to know like more about other people. It's like, you know, it really helps to feel like part of society or part of the species or something. I don't have any more questions I just am so over excited to be everyone's triangle in everyone's triangle. You just want to get started now.

It's funny it's like, I mean, so when we, after we did the first course, and the courses are really focused on trying to get people to become holograms. At the end, everybody was like, I want to be in everybody else's triangle, and no one wanted to be a hologram.

And I do, I think it's like, it's such a thing. Because it is like it's really fun to be in the triangle like you're, you're kind of in a bit of the passenger position. But then, in the second course that we taught, it was, which was called like, we must, the first course was called. Is

this the beginning or is this the end. The second course was called we must begin again asking for help as a new world. And so in the second one it was all about why it's so hard to ask for help, and like, maybe the second or third time we met, everybody went around in this like sort of question section

and ask questions about like, or basically said that in some way, they didn't feel like they could ask enough questions. Like, they felt like totally insufficient and that like the holograms were all like so powerful and like amazing that like how could they possibly support these amazing people how could they ever ask good enough questions.

And I think, yeah, it's so interesting because I feel like there's a kind of, there's a kind of path that most people take where it like starts out but it's like seems that the role of the triangle is like the, it's like really attractive and easy. And then once you get into it, there's a moment where you're like whoa, actually this is like, this is a big job.

Am I up to it. Do I deserve it, blah blah blah blah blah, and of course you can total anyone can do it. It's the most natural thing to be curious and to learn about somebody but it's interesting because I think there's like, there's a kind of path that's been carved a little bit for us.

I think it's such a soothing perspective to, to have the hologram be the expert, because the way that we've been doing health care for so long is that you don't know anything and you're kind of a number and you just, you know, get prescribed something or you

knock on the knees and, you know, rest for three days or so the endless. It's not addressing like the whole, the whole person. It's just such a nice refreshing approach. The whole project, really.

I mean I find that it really helps me. It helps me go to the doctor in a way, like, it makes it a lot easier for me to be ready to talk to doctors who have only 10 minutes, and who they just want to figure

out the quickest way to get the crazy person out, you know they're like what's wrong with you, get her out. That's their job. And I think that the, the amazing thing about the hologram is that like, you're like, instead of just feeling like you're labeled as like crazy or sick, like, all of that becomes so much more complex.

And I think to have people that actually understand the sort of like long term trajectory that you're on of like how all the different parts of yourself are developing that you can like, it's so much easier to sort of see like see what the doctor is working on

as one small piece of the larger picture and so then it's much easier to sort of like negotiate with them and ask for stuff. And I even like process with my group sometimes like I mean a lot lately. What is it that I really need to know from the doctor, like what is it that I really like they have their strategy but what's my strategy.

So that's, I think it's really interesting because I think for those of us that are like trying like seeking and needing to get care from biomedicine. It's really nice to have some people along with you on the journey, because it's a long process.

Yeah, we had a question in the chat also about the phrasing of asking for help and the fact that this practice is actually much more than just asking for somebody to help and I think you spoke to that and we were searching also for this other framing and for me it's kind of, it's almost what comes to mind is asking somebody to learn about care.

Would you like to learn about how to care for ourselves and each other, and indeed the world with me through this process. Yeah, because this it's so much more than just asking for help, isn't it, it's benefiting both sides.

Yeah, or like mutual support. I mean, I asked me for partnership. It's interesting I mean I think there's like a fine dance, because the, like, we don't want to like overwhelm. Like I think that it's so much about trying to figure out the language that's like precise enough.

And that, that brings people in and instead of pushing them away, because like, I think one way that I think a lot, one thing that many people have told me that they've experienced is that when they've asked people to join their triangle even for just a one time thing some people have actually said no, because it's overwhelming. And it's not overwhelming and experience, but it sounds overwhelming. So how do you make his partnership less overwhelming

than help, I don't know, I think it's like, maybe it really has has to be like low hyper local like, you know, like each person in a weird way needs to figure out what they can say.

Although it would be nice if we had some. I mean, I think we're working on like some really solid like linguistic system so that like we know what we can say and that stuff can be like used as a tool so that it's not so hard every time you want to set a hologram up it's not like reinventing the wheel, but for right now it is.

Great. Yeah, thank you so much Cassie I think we're approaching the end of our time now. I just encourage anybody if you don't already have it to pick up the hologram by Cassie it's a really short book and it helps situate the practice and really color it and I know Cassie you're working on other resources too.

Is there any, any place you want to direct people who are interested in practicing this or learning more? I think the easiest thing at the moment is the hologram.xyz it has, it has a lot of really clear information on it. And I think for now that's probably the best bet. Thanks and stay tuned everybody to this channel where we'll continue to publish any resources that Cassie sends us.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Henny.