Don't stop Mr Hicks...

...They were not especially new shoes, rather they'd been polished, as they were every weekday morning to a high toe tip shine, as the silhouette stepped into the spotlight.

Shuffling stopped, mumbling hushed and as last minute mobile checks were made for fear of the embarrassing 'we're off to sunny Spain' ring tone bleeping out it's horror story amid the coming discourse; Mr Hicks fixed his gaze on the crowd in front of him, adjusted his glasses and drew a letter from his inside pocket

"Good evening Ladies & Gentlemen we have hurriedly gathered here this evening with a most urgent matter to discuss among us."

Only silence found Mr Hicks words, as all souls in the room hung on them.

A little awkwardly Mr Hicks unfolded the letter.

"Friends I will read the letter in it's full form to you now."

Mr Hicks drew a deep breath, tilted the pages to prevent the glare from the spotlight hiding the words and began reading aloud the contents of the pages in hands that might just have been trembling slightly, though of course it could have been a trick of the light...

Dear Mr Hicks 28th August 2042

Here is the copy of the message that went out on 23rd April 2008 as promised. It seems strange to think of a time when nobody knew their name. It took some time to find and some of the staff here couldn't understand why she had to ask, but I suppose back then people could still afford not to care about each other, they didn't knwo what was coming after all... however it should certainly help in your purpose and do let me know if I can help in any other way, Blessings Mr Hicks

God
x

Happy Tuesday everyone or for 364th quarters of you a very happy un birthday to you… if you see what I mean.
OK… It’s Cayce (She phoenix) here, you know how I always say I’m just going to pop in quickly for a few words and then end up writing an essay instead (that’s objectivity!) well tonight when I say as I do I’m just popping in for a quick word then you have been warned… =) If you believe me you are as foolish as I am because when I say this I REALLY think and believe I mean it!... But look… already I’ve filled all this space before I’ve even begun!... So can you then imagine after nearly two months of being unable to say anything here how much I’ve probably got to say now?... and actually I have got rather a lot to say tonight. However I am going to sit quietly writing the remainder of what I wish to say to you into a long document to post out bit by bit over the coming weeks, and for now wish to stick to just one very important item, and it is with this item in mind that I now remove my comedians head and if your still with me that I ask you to do the same please, and instead please spare me a moment of your more serious, empowered, and active self because I’d like your help please… yes I am that cheeky! Not only have I been away and ignoring you for the past two months but now on my return I’m asking you to help me make up the ‘lost’ ground that LTHf has experienced as a direct result of my absence.

I believe LTHf with it’s public face of She phoenix fire & light productions and it’s co operative, loving attitudes offer all of us here, all the individual friends, the fire friends, the autism friends, the business friends, the musicians and filmmakers, the retail spaces, and even some of you wretched advertising people, a place , a hub if you like to give something, to contribute something, to be part of something, even in the tiniest most unobtrusive way that still has the potential to change lives… maybe even yours… and I DO NOT mean this lightly. My own path has shown me the virtue in seeking to give not just take in life, my own years have shown me repeatedly that each one of us, that means you sitting smoking the cigarette as you read, or you my friend who has just finished watching the 10 o clock news, perhaps shaking your head at the disbelief of the horrors there nightly, yet feeling you have no way to do anything about it, perhaps even believing you have no way to change those horrors, even to a degree where it may not occur to you to try anymore as you, or you, or even YOU instead put the kettle on and blame geography and distance, bad government, or just a lack of power as one person, as the issue then slips from your mind… and by the time your alarm clock goes off for work in the morning?... Well, that 10 o clock news and the horrors you saw on it just 12 hours or less ago have as if by magic, and without you ever realizing it simply disappeared from your heart and mind. Yet as you shower or eat your breakfast, as you drive, take the tube or bus to work, even as you begin your working day, those horrors continue… it was just your feelings about them that stopped yet my beautiful friend, your lack of feeling does not change the facts that you found yourself so disturbed by just the night before.

I speak these perhaps harsh words, not with judgment, but with humility because each beloved friend among you I too make this mistake far too often, I too turn blind eyes or take no action or do, or say nothing at times just as we all do most especially when I feel disempowered or disinterested… ‘I’m just one person what can I do’… yet the more loving and wise part of myself knows better than to allow myself this flimsy excuse because in using this excuse I have already made a choice, a choice to do nothing and in making that choice in truth I add my weight to the problem, I become another ignorant or passive bystander to the very things that I say I disapprove of, such as those horrors on the news, and in fact do not become part of any solution to them, rather a silent agreeable partner to them instead…

To feel disempowered or to use ones singularity to shrug off ones human responsibilities too each other is perhaps one of the greatest silent poisons among us. Put simply it is as though we are so busy in each of our own worlds we have simply forgotten to care about anything beyond them, and that perhaps this has happened as over many generations we have come to feel disempowered and that our single voice can make no difference anyway… so lets not be a bloody single voice… Lets instead be one unified potential with many voices creating a single voice, unified in purpose, nourishing itself and others, and empowered to make a difference… imagine that…!!!

And then…

Stop imagining and help me make it real here, help me make it real through LTHf and its myspace here, help me make it real through ‘Poi people’, with your own space there linked to LTHf here, help me make it real through LTHf and our public face She phoenix fire & light productions where many of you are already friends at it’s myspace and finally, help me make it real through LTHf and you, help me make it real in ways that mean you may not even notice you’ve done anything… but you will have, don’t be blinded by your singularity… YOU as one individual are more powerful than you could possibly imagine…you only think your not and joined together via a ‘central hub’ your voice united with others just by belonging or contributing too and of course benefiting in return from, the ‘central hub’ you are instead of behaving like a disempowered individual becoming a small element, contributing to a larger voice of passive, yet powerful change.

… That said happy head back on guys

So what the dickens does all this have to do with you?... and just exactly what has it all got to do with LTHf and the othe half and more ‘public’ face of this not for profit, social change company She phoenix fire and light productions? … in short what the hell is she on about this time?! =)

...well…and I’ve been waiting years to be finally able to say this…as it turns out…to YOU my friend…so…

I guess the best place to start is our name … L T H f…in its ‘name’ ‘LTHf’ is a very personal acronym relative to my own Autistic son ‘Leo’ hence the ‘L’ at the start…L for Leo.

Beyond this guys, that’s between me and god and Leo…a small sacred sharing between us if you like… but the initials LTHf also have a working purpose and a function attached to those four little letters L T H f that I’ve itched to tell you all about but that it has never quite been the time for…

So LTHf works in practise as a system…i.e…L = Let T = Them H = Have ‘f’ =…and here what ever ‘f’ you or I or anyone wants to fill in or take out from the central hub of LTHf is what the ‘f’ becomes… just as our ‘catch’ line if you like is

“LTHf…Whats your F word !?… ok it’s a little saucy, but then that gets a persons attention… and yet on deeper investigation that attention finds there’s actually some substance there after all… not just the potential of nakedness, pretty’s or eye candy alone!!!... though I hasten to add that of course any of those previous examples also seem fine in reasonable amounts but that in this instance there is rather more than those things alone lurking behind the LTHf ‘F’ word…

For example, through She phoenix fire & light productions, they add to the hub or to the ‘pot’ that LTHf is if you like…Let Them Have fIRE…fESTIVALS…fUN…fAIR OPPORTUNITIES…fRESH AIR NOT POLLUTION, fREEDOM OF SPEECH…fOOD…fAIR TRADE…and so on and on and on…

At LTHf itself as the hub of the ‘f’ word system, we then use our common aims and social objectives expressed in one instance via She phoenix fire & light productions to add some ‘f’s’ to the LTHf pot, meanwhile other people are and from now on will be free to add themselves, a skill, an opinion, resource, service or almost anything to that hub or pot that is LTHf too, by applying any ‘f’ word to their skill to do so…

In turn from every other contributor the hub can also potentially offer each one of those contributors something in return, or sit there waiting as an open resource for any time or any thing in the future...

As such we all then have created a ‘pot of stuff’ by putting a little in and taking what it has to offer each of us out too.

This is how we run LTHf.

How will it actually work though?

~OK here in Myspace we are asking you to think about this ‘f’ word principle for a while, let it soak in…then we’re asking you to reach out and let us hear your voice…what ‘f’ can you or would you like to contribute to…what new f category will you create…and is there an ‘f’ (clean ones please hehe =) ) that you would like to ‘use’ or that already exists in the pool?

Further, where will this pool be? How will you know what’s in it? Where will what you bring to the pot be shown or communicated to everyone else…

The answer is firstly by communicating with us here at LTHf myspace and soon when we have an idea of what’s out there among you all at our website that we are building around the ‘f’’ word principle and as a place to operate that system from…

In short the website will be the operating hub and all of us will put in and take out and arrange stuff between each of us or events, or service swapping or fundraising, or awareness pushes or, or, or,…see…

Together with a hub like that?...together we have a voice and we are not disempowered anymore to quite the degree we were before…

And imagine? What if we all as more and more people come, what if we all spread so far and wide that our single co operative voice starts tobe heard above the din of cash registers, politicians and guns, bombs and daily horror shows on the nightly news…well then…then we could really make a difference…

Couldn’t we?...

Well now… it’s now up to you dear friends… I‘m handing my baby to you, quite literally with tears of joy and a sense of bursting hope in what seems like such a small thing as a myspace or online community yet has the power and potential to be so much more…

It’s taken eight years to bring the ‘f’ word from nothing to here, ready to present to you…and there…its done… from two small grants in 2000 and no further loans or funding since, we have grown repeatedly out of the ashes of some hard boulders in our paths and we’ve grown from pure belief and defiance of the odds to this small day when now folks…it’s over to you…

SO!…as a starting point we have already been building one aspect of our ‘f’ word community if you like, an online ‘pot’ or hub if you prefer at ‘Poi people’ where co-operation between the world of Autism, Fire, Social change, The music and film entertainment world, green, loving and non-competitive people are gathering…and WOW! What a spirit of fiery empowered but not arrogant energy there is there. A place where fire, music, dance and video making has become an obvious and joyous accent among the community building there for example among the fire folk a wonderful ‘mind set ‘ of people, people who ‘feel’ and interact with nature in their very hands…fire the raw element in their hands naturally therefore, with a certain degree of instinctual humility as well as the personal empowerment such a relationship brings a person… humility becomes infinitely easier when your dancing with fire… ultimately fire is always the boss, the dancer it’s instrument, the fire lending never giving it’s will to that dancer.

But fire is not the only purpose or accent at ‘Poi people’…Autism for example IS … As is Fair trade Fair retail and a retail section to accommodate these are also sort after accents for ‘Poi people’… music is an accent there…green mind sets are the accent there…even spiritual values have an open forum of discussion there, and I might add a well attended forum too!!! There’s also an as yet unused conflict resolution area…we’re that keen to get along…and mean it!

They really are not just a bunch of wild fire waving animals my dear friends…they’re in many ways just like me…and you…and we need you to please come and have a look and then please take part…

Poi people operates as a hub just like LTHf to try to effect positive change via co operation between the fire community members world wide and between the fire community and the autism one, or the green one, or the social change one and so on….so please no matter your life style, your beliefs or what you do or don’t have to offer or need or want in return, please help us to make a start on bonding and opening the channels of communication and understanding or cooperation and empowerment between the worlds of fire, autism, or fair retail, or fair trades and services, or green issues etc… just plain caring about each other just using Poi people as a place to care about each other at the same time as making a difference just in the same way that the LTHf website I mentioned above is planned to operate and that will be directly attached to both here at myspace, and the same again at Poi people, the beginnings of our network for social empowerment and change … if and of course only if we make it this… That means me, and that means as many of you myspace friends who visit us for some of the more substantial reasons in life too. To begin with as well as thinking about what your ‘f’ word is please go and experience just for a short time the community at Poi people, just 3 or 4 minutes reading some of the chat and messages, bulletins and other conversations there will show you how it is possible for a community to get on, to contribute to a greater whole or a hub nourishing each other without competition and with a common goal, and then please, even if you are unable to visit often, even if you create it as a place or a potential for the future, please create a Poi people profile of your own. It will take 2 minutes. Please think about that. 120 seconds, a tiny drop in the ocean of your life, yet a drop that contributes to the greater pool, where every single contributor is just like you… just one who took 120 seconds to reach out and in doing so are already making a difference. Please myspace friends, if I were afforded the grace to ask of you only one thing, then in this moment please have a peek at Poi people, add your voice to it, even if quietly and just watch us all grow together… because despite the fact I am clearly a complete and utter mad woman, I am also one who defiantly believes and hopes against hope boldly and without shame for my failings to strive and to dare to believe, that we, that is me, and you, and you, and you can, together with just a small effort make a big difference starting with a small box called a profile on Poi people

Heres a link to it, some of you have seen it before, others of you are already members or visitors there. Some of you have quite understandably been put off from going there by a ‘Stop message’ or what you may think is a ‘warning’ message that will appear when you click this link from your myspace in this message. This ‘stop page’ however is not a warning of a genuine danger but our myspace Tom advising you that you are about to leave myspace, and that the myspace terms conditions and security policies will no longer apply once you use the link, and of course he’s quite right, and not only bound to tell you this, but naturally he is telling you this in a way that makes you afraid of the new place the link takes you and as all of us on myspace know we have good reason to be afraid for the health of our computer or myspace account. A myspace where so many of us have been phished or hacked or even worse downloaded viruses to our computer through sites or links we never suspected till it was too late. However what Toms message does not convey is that the site you are about to visit i.e our Poi people site, hosted by an operator called ning instead of one called myspace, where the security, policies, virus protections and privacy standards are equally as effective, in fact at this stage far more so than those here at myspace. And of course don’t forget bless his heart Tom is also aware that this stop message will have this effect on you, it’s meant to and of course Tom doesn’t want you to leave myspace he’s afraid you won’t come back and we all know how successful myspace has been and still is not with so many millions of users online at any one time, all the time… it’s had a huge impact on our society globally and so as I draw this rather lengthy message to a close… see I warned you, I ask you one final question, if myspace has become such a global influence in so many lives, a part of, and link between millions of our lives around the world, something we look in on chat on and contribute to generally by doing so… then why my myspace friend… why not Poi people?

Visit Poi people...friendly fire!

Thankyou Peace, passion and smiles and please once you have your Poi people profile, let me know because I’m there too with mine… I’m the loud one who bores everyone with long blogs and waffles incessantly…

Cayce

…Weaving the threads from the ashes…
…it’s a kind of magic…

...Mr Hicks made no attempt to hide his hands containing the disarrayed pages of the letter as they shook openly now for all to see yet nobody did. Every single soul stood blinking the only sign they were real people, the only sign except the small wet trails on each of their cheeks, fallen from eyes that could not see their own hands trembling at their sides, and certainly not Mr Hicks hands, but crossed over his body and clasped himself to himself now.

A thicker type of silence filled the room now until finally the small voice spoke out looking straight into Mr Hicks eyes asking .

"Did they? Did they Mr Hicks?"
"Did they indeed dear friend, did they indeed?..."
"Tell us more Mr Hicks, Please tell us more"
Mr Hicks eyes scanned the room, but he made no more sound. More voices joined
"Did they Mr Hicks did they? Please My Hicks tell us more, don't stop Mr Hicks"...