LIVE THE DREAM

8515 Penfield Ave

Winnetka, CA 91306 

 

 

Founded in 1987 by Terry Brussel and Brian Gitt

Based on the philosophy of Family Synergy,

Founded 1971 by Hy Levy and Pat LaFollette 

LIVE THE DREAM FOUNDED 1987

UPCOMING EVENTS

Saturday September 19 11AM-12:30PM      Intersection of Poly and BDSM

(In Phoenix & Perhaps in Your Backyard) led by Paul Gibbons and Chris Deaton

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86033608683?pwd=MnBVU0JzdzY5czBIQmVRODRLS05Sdz09

Meeting ID: 860 3360 8683

Passcode: heinlein1

Saturday October 17 2020   11 AM TO 12:30 PM     INTERSECTION OF SWINGING AND POLYAMORY: BLACK AND WHITE OR SHADES OF GRAY? 

(continuing to 4 PM if new guide lines permit live as well as Zoom by now)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84816101343?pwd=cll1MUxLVDdEQXEvY3Q5RklMR01CZz09

Meeting ID: 848 1610 1343

Passcode: heinlein1

 

Large Private Room for rent with en-suite full bath available in poly group house West San Fernando Valley. Part time job with 30 second commute also possible with room. (coaching/hypnotherapy career opportunity) Call 818-886-0069 See page 5 & 6 for info

Note:  Items marked with an * are not Live the Dream events.

 

Live the Dream                        September and October of 2020

Unless otherwise noted, all events are at 8515 Penfield Ave Winnetka 91306.

Group house- home of Terry, Craig, John, and Rita.

For all events: RSVP/more info call the LTD Hotline (818) 886-0069

 

Please visit the Live the Dream website at www.livethedream.org to view current events, past articles, etc.

Terry Brussel-Rogers is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Life Coach, & a 4th generation Matchmaker.

We provide poly relationship counseling, hypnotic jealousy release, success coaching and other services.

See www.acesuccess.com or call (800) LIFE MATES (543-3628)

Live the Dream is an education and support group for those who, originally inspired by the writings of Robert Heinlein, Robert Rimmer, and Marion Zimmer Bradley, are now ready to LIVE such alternative lifestyles as cooperative living, open relationships, and group marriage. Many of our concepts on multiply committed relationships come from Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  Live the Dream also sponsors a nest of Church of All Worlds, the real life, over fifty-year-old spiritual movement inspired by Stranger in a Strange Land.

 

EVENTS

All Live the Dream LIVE events are 11am-4pm on 3rd Saturdays at 8515 Penfield Ave in Winnetka, Ca. 91306 (unless otherwise specified) 

Donation for 3rd Saturday 11-4 events:

$10 for nonmembers, $5 for members. Bring something healthy and delicious to share for the pot luck lunch

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86033608683?pwd=MnBVU0JzdzY5czBIQmVRODRLS05Sdz09

Meeting ID: 860 3360 8683

Passcode: heinlein1

 

The silver lining of Safer at Home experience: From now on, all our meetings will be available on Zoom for those who can’t get to us in person.  Some will be hosted by speakers in other areas, too. We had hoped to be offering something in person for those who wanted to come by now, but with Covid-19 continuing to make that questionable, we are being safe.

 

Saturday September 19 2020 11AM-12:30PM      Intersection of Polyamory and BDSM

led by Paul Gibbons and Chris Deaton

Chris Deaton and Elisha Thompson facilitate the Arizona Chapter of Loving More and present at Arizona Power Exchange

Paul Gibbons (now living in Phoenix) facilitated Live the Dream for many years with Terry Brussel. He joins with Chris Deaton to discuss how power exchange, BDSM and polyamory weave together. Why are there so many non-monogamous relationships in the BDSM community? Some of these are a Dom male with several women like a harem. They are just as likely to be a Dom Female with more than one man in her life, her bed or her home.  Some things are not as they seem.  One poly family in LA looked like a Dom Male with a harem.  Actually, his submissive wife enjoyed the ladies in their home at least as much as he did. Whose harem was it? The important thing to notice in this poly family was that the man and his wife cared deeply for each other and also for anyone who joined their Family. They cared about the growth, health and well-being of each person they included in their household as human beings and as successful members of the community they live in.   Jay Wiseman, who wrote S&M 101, and is a top speaker on BDSM including at Threshold Meeting here in LA over the years, also demonstrated those characteristics.

Saturday October 17 2020   INTERSECTION OF SWINGING AND POLYAMORY: BLACK AND WHITE OR SHADES OF GRAY?  11 AM TO 12:30 PM (continuing to 4 PM if new guide lines permit live as well as Zoom by now)

Led by Terry and Craig Brussel Rogers

Terry has attended Poly and Lifestyles convention since the 70s, presenting at many of them. Craig is newer to all this, though he has certainly lived poly since becoming involved with Terry at Los Con SF convention in 2016…from being in a residential triad to a non-residential quad which takes vacations and celebrates birthdays, Thanksgiving, etc. together. They bring their different backgrounds and points of view to this meeting.  The difference between swinging and polyamory is supposed to be that while both allow for multiple partners, polyamory is more about love and commitment than about recreational sex.  However, where do you put the lifestyle practiced by, say, the Hospitality Group at Lifestyle Convention put on by Wide World of Swingers for many decades? They took care of everything needed to make the convention work from making sure the food was right at the Lunch with Keynote speaker to things involved with the Parties and Masquerade. They met frequently between annual conventions for business and pleasure. They had been to each other’s weddings, their kids Bat mitzvah s, etc. Many of them were THERE for each other when they were needed in an emergency or someone to talk to a 3 am.  When they shared sexual delights at a swing party it did not negate all that. Were they poly or swingers? At Sandstone, the well-known sexual freedom nudist resort which existed in the 70s and 80s, some people lived there for years while others came only to the Swing parties on Saturday nights. Those who lived there might be in anything from core marriages to triads to residential or semi residential group marriages. When they attended one of the swing parties and bedded someone new, what did the sex mean to them? Might that be only the start of something which could last for years? We will discuss all this, our own experiences and help YOU figure what shade would bring you the most joy.

About Truly Beloved

We, at Truly Beloved, are dedicated to the education and support of a sex positive lifestyle. We conduct classes and discussion groups in the kink and polyamorous communities.

Chris and Elisha have celebrated more than a decade together as a polyamorous couple in a power exchange dynamic. They live in a 24/7, negotiated authority transfer dynamic and are the Arizona Master/slave 2018 titleholders. They believe that continued growth is important to a successful long-term relationship and to that end are continually pushing their own, and each other’s, boundaries. They are both graduate students looking at various sex positive related topics.

Chris identifies as a cisgender, heterosexual male and as a leather Master to his leather slave. Academically, he is looking at perceptions of hierarchy and power exchange in long term polyamorous relationships and negotiating and respecting consent issues. He believes that the lessons learned in the BDSM, leather, kink, and non-monogamous communities can play a vital role in teaching and informing the best practices surrounding these concepts. He concedes that they have our own set of problems in the community with this, but they have learned to discuss these issues more openly and more aggressively and that will help create a better future for all. He is currently working on a book related to his journey into the worlds of polyamory and leather and his becoming a Master/slave titleholder.

My Experiences at Loving More Conventions in the 80s, 90s and Early 21st Century

By Terry Brussel-Gibbons (at that time)

Opening circle. Lots of new faces here almost (?) outnumbering the old friends, presenters and poly icons seen each year. The net with its poly activity actually is drawing some real people who don’t think our life style is an new fantasy game.

A lovely woman with an even lovelier voice sings songs which stir the blood and are poly oriented. She sings one about being her whole untamed self rather than “shrinking to meet your expectations” and wanting her love to be his whole self too…Rough Ride and so it can be. Her other song at opening is written for the poly family she is part of — Ravenheart. I discover this delightful creature is wife and water sib to Morning Glory and Oberon and therefore part of my own nest. I resolve to grow closer as way opens.

Women’s circle Saturday morn and someone’s in pain because her lover let her sleep alone while exploring someone new. They needed clearer agreements and she needs to work on jealousy. How many times have I heard this story in 25 years of living this lifestyle? Too many, but each time the pain is real and cutting. Couples attending a poly conference or even a party need (preferably written) agreements to keep someone from getting hurt. Leaving a lover alone who feels abandoned can be as bad if you are poly as if you are not. Consideration and compassion must be combined in an arcane mix with freedom.

A bisexual married couple who have been involved in the polyamorous lifestyle of multiply committed relationships since their teens shares how each of them discovered their bisexuality and how it has affected their experiences in relating to outside lovers together and in bringing special loves into their lives. They are part of an intimate friendship network, some of whom have been in relationship with them for 20+ years.

A workshop on conflict resolution presented by Lver and Patty was excellent. It seemed to speak directly to some stuff my own partner and I were going through, so I dragged him over to it from the video presentation.

There is a Family’s panel which includes Ravenheart and other successful multi adult families. We all field questions with Ryam moderating on what works and what does not, who sleeps with who and when, etc. Some questions are deep and insightful inviting answers, which require thought and careful wording. Most are asked with and honest curiosity or real need, unlike the conflict seeking of some talk show hosts and morbid leering audiences. The people in this room have either been this road or are ready to travel it and want reliable signposts along the way. While still a lifestyle of pioneers, we have reached a point where it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel at every turn. Enough people have been doing it long enough to have developed some workable rules which are being shared in this panel and others being presented during the weekend. Articles in Loving More magazine, and in Ryam’s Polyfidelity Primer and Deborah Anapol’s Love Without Limits provide many well worked out reliable guide posts to joy in poly relationships.

How Robert Rimmer Joined Us for our August Meeting

by Terry Brussel-Rogers

“Harrad Experiment and Proposition 31 by Robert Rimmer:  Couple Meets Couple, They Fall in Love and Get Married”

This was the August 2020 meeting description. It did NOT say that Robert Rimmer (who had passed on August 1, 2001) would be joining us…

Live the Dream, founded by Terry Brussel and Brian Gitt in 1987, carries on the philosophy and traditions of Family Synergy, founded by Hy Levy and Pat Lafollette in 1971.   Robert Rimmer was one of their inspirations.

Before our August meeting, I had been thinking for weeks about how lucky we had been to have Robert Rimmer connect with us by speaker phone for a similar meeting about 25 years ago. I had been wishing I could interview him and ask such questions as how his own life had given him the ideas for some of his stories, how polyamory and politics fit together and how he saw the future of this lifestyle.  To my great surprise, Paul Gibbons asked after about 10 minutes into the meeting, “How would you like Robert Rimmer to join us right now?” As I wondered if he was about to conduct a séance, I suddenly remembered he had recorded that meeting! To my great delight, Paul played the whole thing for those who attended our August Zoom meeting. Bob Rimmer discussed his Dreamer of Dreams which featured a poly-based Church with some similarity to Church of All Worlds in Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. He talked about Thursday My Love which has wives changing places for 2 week vacations in other states—what starts as very upscale swinging becomes (of course—this is Rimmer) Couple Meets Couple, They Fall in Love and Get Married . Could something like this actually work in today’s world? Would it lead to something more than sexual connection alone? I believe it could.  Probably post Covid -19, but that will come.   Thursday My Love also features a commitment ceremony between secondary partners both married to someone else. I have actually done this both with that secondary partner alone (in a relationship which lasted 30+ years) and with my own legal husband at the time in a triad ceremony. Marcus Jenkins, Paul and I did it very formally at Renaissance Pleasure Faire June 2, 2001 in the presence of friends and loved ones with my father giving me away and making Marcus a member of the Brussel Clan.  Rimmer’s Love Me Tomorrow winds up with a man in a triad nearly moving into the Oval Office in a definitely Science Fiction themed story.  All those years ago, I had asked and gotten answers to so many questions I had wished Rimmer could answer now…

 The recording is available to those of you who would like to have it. Just pay your annual $25 membership fee to Live the Dream by 10-1-20 and get membership for the rest of this year, all of 2021(when we hope to meeting in person again) and get this amazing recording as a bonus.

Robert Rimmer wrote many fictional books on multiple committed relationships from the dating stage to the group marriage stage. Harrad Experiment takes place at a supposedly fictional university (except that we had a housemate who went there) which features co-ed rooms, classes on sex and love and co-ed naked gym classes. There is a lot of excellent instruction in this on how to handle polyamory as the college students who deal with the usual jealousies involved in dating more than one person deal also with the complications of one of them being your assigned roommate to whom you are expected to make love. It eventually evolves into a six-way group marriage. Proposition 31 starts with what looks like a familiar relationship train wreck as a married man impregnates his married lover leading to the threat of divorce of both marriages. Except it winds up with the kids from both marriages getting a new sibling and extra parents instead of losing those they had. The wife who did not get pregnant attempts to get group marriage legalized as the story proceeds…not a bad idea when you look at the alternative.

Robert Rimmer himself was in a four-way group marriage which lasted 25+ years but was kept secret due to his co-husband’s work situation until the man passed on. Bob claimed throughout that his stories were fictional. He was an honorary member of Live the Dream and gave us a  meeting by speaker phone after all this was no longer secret.

Tell your Poly curious friends to look us up! WHAT EXPERIENCES/Book reviews, etc. CAN YOU SHARE RELATING TO THE POLY LIFE STYLE? We’d like to run it here.

 

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During Safer at Home mandates, we have continued to have these meetings on 3rd Saturdays as we have done since 1987.   11 am to 12:30pm, until the meetings are Live again  

If you have a

“What do you do when?” question for us,

or any Poly related article for publication:

Please E-Mail to:  newsletter@mail.livethedream.org

Or mail it to 8515 Penfield Ave. Winnetka, Ca. 91306.

We will take it with your solution or brain storm and give it one or more of our own.

 Let’s have fun with this and learn from each other.

*********************************************************************************************

 

 

LARGE PRIVATE ROOM WITH EN SUITE BATH IN POLYGROUP LIVING HOUSE

Full length closet and plenty of storage space!

AVAILABLE IN WEST SAN FERNANDO VALLEY, CALIFORNIA 91306

$995/month rent (Couple $1150)

(First & last month’s rent+$150 clean up deposit required)

Utilities, Internet, shared washer/dryer,

designated parking spot — All Included

Optional: You are welcome to dine with us—at least 4 shared dinners each week with access to kitchen+ food in refrigerator at any time–$70 a week includes food and such sundries as toilet paper, dish washer, laundry detergent etc.

NON-SMOKING

 2 FELINES IN RESIDENCE

NO MORE PETS, PLEASE

Our home is a beautiful one in a nice neighborhood of the West San Fernando Valley. It has two fireplaces, a high-ceilinged grand living room, dining area and big country kitchen. Washer and dryer available. We have a clothing optional hot tub. We share good conversation, holidays, outings, special occasions, hugs… and household chores.

Imagine coming home to a beautiful house, a well-kept yard filled with flowers and trees. Space for a garden if you have a green thumb. The fire place may be lit if it is winter. You come home to the smell of something delicious being cooked by one of your housemates. Or perhaps you are the housemate doing that cooking—that nurturing. You share a good dinner with whoever is at home tonight. Afterward, you might go to the privacy of your room, soak in the hot tub with good friends, or join a lively discussion in the living room. Sound good? MAKE YOUR FANTASY A REALITY…

 

If you have an interest in living in a lovely home with warm, caring people

Call Terry Brussel-Rogers (818) 886-0069

                                                     

 

Meet Ups & Other Group Events

NONE OF THIS IS COVID 19 UPDATED. GO TO THEIR WEBSITES TO SEE HOW EACH GROUP IS HANDLING IT.

First Saturday of every month is Deborah’s meet up at Fuddr–uckers

221 N. San Fernando Blvd in Burbank at 8 pm. It’s a dinner and socializing meeting.

Go to www.meetup.com/SoCal-Polyamory  for more info on this meeting

Also check outwww.meetup.com/Loveopen  & www.meetup.com/loving-more

and other SoCal poly groups (40+ groups in the Greater LA Area!)

The Southern California Naturist Association Meetup http://www.meetup.com/nature-519

This is the largest non-landed clothing optional club in California 

Other Poly info:   

 www.lovemore.com                                        www.polyevents.blogspot.com

Other groups friendly to Polyamory

KARL HESS CLUB www.karlhessclub.org

meets on the 3rd Monday at Dinah’s Family Restaurant, 6521 Sepulveda Blvd. (at Centinela), Culver City. Phone: (310) 645-0456 West L.A.

Burning Man Festival August 30-September 7, 2020 for details www.burningman.com!

LTD DUES ARE $25.00 PER YEAR FOR ONE PERSON, $40 FOR A COUPLE, $10 EACH FOR ADDITIONAL PERSON(S) IN THE SAME HOUSE. DOUBLE THAT FOR FREE ATTENDANCE AT ALL REGULAR DAY TIME 3RD SATURDAY MEETINGS.  TO BECOME A MEMBER OR TO RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP, PLEASE COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING FORM AND EITHER E-MAIL OR SNAIL MAIL IT TO THE ADDRESS LISTED BELOW.  An E-Mail NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTION ONLY IS AVAILABLE FOR FREE.  JUST BE SURE TO PROVIDE US WITH YOUR E-Mail ADDRESS.  REGULAR MEETINGS ARE $5.00 WITH YOUR CURRENTLY PAID MEMBERSHIP CARD (FAMILY SYNERGY OR LIVE THE DREAM) WITHOUT MEMBERSHIP MEETINGS ARE $10.00.

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Live the Dream Newsletter August September 2020