Musings on Superhero culture

Friday August 17, 2012

Hall of Justice:  The Superhero Bicyle Ride

The Superhero Bicycle Ride is a phenomena that still eludes the internet's choking web, and, like most, I found out about it by word of mouth.  About one quarter of the riders on this August's Superhero Bike Ride were returners; the rest were new.

This is now the twenty second Superhero Bicycle Ride (Michigan 2012 among rides in Iowa, England, Thailand, British Colombia, Texas and Australia).  The first was a ride from Seattle to Boston beginning with Ethan Hughes (The Zing) in 1994.  Today, the Zing can be found creating an intentional, sustainable community at the Possibility Alliance in NE Missouri.  The space is petroleum and electricity free and hosts guests and educational courses.  Ethan, busy on the farm and with young children, did not attend this ride, which was called and organized by Laughing Moon and Stardust.


Beautiful Musings from My Time the Superheroes

The superheroes have a fantastic group culture that creates consistency year to year while honoring the uniqueness of each ride and its group culture.  Daily ritual is created morning, noon and night through words, games, and activities.  From our morning "Readings of the Great" to our daily "Dice of Destiny" and our evening "Goodnight Hugs", these rituals use a daily culture to create spontaneity and to invite fun and play.

Taking time off of work for service and often doing work like weeding that does not highight your abilty and talent, can become less than exciting.  As is usual in this sort of work, sooner or later it usually causes burn out.    Part of the necessity of the joy and silliness of dressing as a superhero is to bring levity to heavy topics.  The Superheroes try to inject play into our own space and in our public  service.

Creating the character is a giant part of the process, both in name and in Fantastical Superhero Costumes.  We went through a Superhero Naming:  The Spectrum of Perspectives training to help us find the superhero within us.   What part do we want to highlight?  Where are our personality strengths?  Are we leaders?  Teachers?  How can we choose a persona that will be the best version of ourselves?  Once we have a personality, we create a persona, with costume and all.  In costume, people are willing to act in ways they may not in other circumstances, and people receive us differently, as well.  I may not walk into a town fair and dance around to a kazoo while engaging anyone and everyone in conversation normally, but in costume, sure!  Here, we always have on our superhero capes, allowing or encouraging us to always be the best version of ourselves.

Example top--notch names of other superheroes:  Soular Eclipse, SerendipiTease, Lady Joystous, Laughing Moon, Stardust,  Bright Sky, Compashman.

We live without expectations.  We arrive to a town not knowing a) anyone b) if there is any service for us to do C) if there will be a place for us to stay.  These are all important things, yes?  Yet to plan them in advance prevents us from the meaningful interaction we have when trying to make those connections face to face on the street.  Perhaps we will get a community center to stay in; perhaps a backyard.  We may have access to a bathroom and heating; we may have a shovel, trees and an outside water spicket. 

We do not plan the number of showers one "needs" to ensure comfort.

We are comfortable making your bathroom--from toilet to shower to sink--in the woods

We enjoy camping...and get used to setting up and taking down camp frequently.

We enjoy bugs, slugs and dirt.

We are happy to have foraged greens, dumpstered food, donated food, and LOTS of bulk grains!  For breakfast, we are content to have cold oatmeal and no coffee.  We consider ourselves blessed to eat delicious food prepared with tender loving care!

We share!  In free-time, we do lots of skillsharing:  yoga, massage, co-councilling, cooking, Harmonica-ing, sewing.

We wear capes everyday!

Most importantly, after volunteering for any person or group, we make it clear to them that we are part-time superheroes who wear funny costumes, while they are the full-time superheroes, there day in and day out.  We surround them with a Super Send Off of a Supernova of Exploding love and Unending Kindness to honor the superhero within them.

After a month, I ask myself what more uplifting and healing way to spend a month every year than with the bicycling superheroes?