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WHALEY IMPORTANT STUFF

  1. All attendees must SIGN THIS WAIVER before entering gathering

  2. Registration on the 28th closes at 1pm. Period. Please aim to arrive by 11am or noon at the latest so you give yourself some extra room in case you need it during your travels. Opening circle begins at 3pm. We ask all attendees to be present since this is the beginning of our container setting for the entire weekend together. Please check out a summarized version of our weekend flow here. 

  3. Bring your own personal dishes + cutlery: Everyone will be responsible for bringing, washing and keeping track of their own plate, bowl, mug and flatware (spoons, forks, knives). If you forget, town is close by and you can run there and find yourself something!

  4. Our gathering depends on some community sourcing. Can you bring something to donate?

  5. Carpool organizing (volunteers arriving the 27th, attendees arriving the 28th)

  6. CHOIR PRACTICE

    1. THIS PAGE IS FOR WAILS CHOIR ATTENDEES ONLY

    2. I (ahlay) ask that you keep this page confidential, please

    3. This page is best utilized with a desktop

    4. You need this password to access the page: WailsChoir2023

    5. Here are the songs we will record at the gathering!

  7. Joining the choir? Learn more about the dynamics at the gathering for recording. 

  8. Can you join us in the studio sanctuary (where we'll be recording the choir) on July 28th from 12pm-1:30pm for our engineers to do a sound check? We need at least 20 volunteers. Please sign up here. 

  9. Please bring (and see more below on this)

    1. 2 ounces of water from a body of water near you to add to the collective waters altar

    2. A coal from one of your bonfire’s to add to a collective bowl by our “sacred fire” (during a likely burn ban) 

    3. A bouquet of flowers and a box of (preferably herbal) tea if you are able to donate to the gathering. 

 

THE LAND

  1. Cedar Springs : 31459 Barben Rd, Sedro-Woolley, WA 98284

  2. Site MAP with camping, tents, portapotties, etc. 

  3. Cedar Springs Lodge & Retreat Center is situated on nearly 50 secluded acres.

  4. 220 people will be in attendance 

  5. It’s less than 30 minutes east of Mt. Vernon and Burlington, 90 minutes north of Seattle, and 60 minutes south of Bellingham, WA. Just east of Sedro-Woolley.

 

WHAT YOU MUST KNOW IN SHORT (FOR MORE DETAILED INFO READ THIS PAGE)​​

  1. Count on camping having no shade (if you require shade, please consider bringing shade structures for your tent. 

  2. Hopefully folks can bring some wagons and or wheel barrows for all attendees to borrow to get their gear to their campsite, it will be about a 2-5 minute walk depending on where you choose to camp. 

  3. There are NO SHOWERS, plan on rinsing and cooling down in the creek. 

  4. No Electricity for charging phones or other devices, please come prepared with what you need to survive unplugged

  5. DEPARTURE DAY: Our last meal will be Monday’s breakfast and we will be closing out our circle around 11am’ish. We are asking all attendees to be fully checked out/off the land by 2pm on the 31st so we have time to clean up. The land stewards need production off the land by a certain time and we need time to sweep the land and pack up. 

  6. Lynching Installation (Optional): Tender touch has been taken from black bodied people, with the invention of The Black Brute archetype to justify lynching. The Tender Touch: Lynching and the Unrested art installation speaks to one of the more common ways America chose to terrorize black bodies. With a lynching art installation as an anchor point, we will meditate, pray, and examine the lineage of black bodied people. There will be specific time set aside for people of the global majority to be with the art installation. For white bodied folks, we invite you to be careful to not out-grieve the grievers. Further learnings recommended on Aaron Johnson's site, The Chronically Undertouched​

  7. THIS IS NOT A GRIEF RITUAL as some of us might know them. This is not a Dagara ritual. We will not be holding a 220 person grief ritual at this event. There will be, however, continuous invitations for us to be with our grief the entire weekend. There will be altars on the creek for grief and rage. 

  8. Burn ban. We will be guests on the land during the time of year when burn bans happen. Please no fire, no smoking, no candles, no food stoves. This is a direct request from the land stewards. Please support us. Please take smoking onto Barben Road—fully off the property and on the asphalt. Cannabis users are welcome to consume edibles. 

  9. Please make your best effort to be at our morning community circles beginning at 8:30am. When we all utilize this opportunity to come together every day, it strengthens our community web, ensuring we are all on the same page, receiving all the same information shared, and spending these precious moments together while we can. Please try and make a point to get your breakfast and come straight to community central. Thank you! 


 

SOME AGREEMENTS

  1. Photography + videos: We will have a professional videographer on site. This is the only person who has Wail’s permission to capture our communal gathering. If you would like to take any photos or videos, please make sure you have the consent of every single person you are capturing BEFORE you film/photograph. Audio recordings are fine as long as you have your phone on silent and we don’t hear the “beep” when you hit stop recording. NO RECORDINGS are permitted during our recordings of the album unless otherwise given explicit permission. 

  2. Take care of yourself and Ask for what you need

  3. Don’t try to fix each other. Allow people to be in their process and ask them how you can best support them before assuming they need something, like touch or a tissue. 

  4. If people are in a mood, don’t take it personally - as Laurence Cole says, “Be Kind, everyone carries a heavy load.”

  5. This gathering holds an awareness of the support needed for all bodies present.  We are particularly aware that song gatherings have historically been predominantly white bodied. As we dream into futures where gatherings like these are thriving in our diversity of sex, gender, race, abilities, cultures, etc. we recognize the importance of authentic relationship building and the responsibility of educating ourselves. 

    1. We encourage our white siblings to do some basic research (especially in the context of beach nudity at this gathering) on the narrative of the Black Brute and the ways in which white women’s bodies have been weaponized to justify the violence towards Black Men. And the ways in which white male bodies have been weaponized to try and control Black and Brown bodies in order to protect white women. Further learnings recommended on Aaron Johnson's site, The Chronically Undertouched. 

    2. This gathering is a nanochip within a larger culture shift that is taking place. We appreciate our willingness to learn together and from one another.

  6. If you are sharing songs in a smaller group context, please keep in mind the following:

    1. The term, “Call and Response” is birthed from Black Gospel. If this is not a background you identify with, we suggest using the command, “Echo” instead while teaching a song. 

    2. If you are sharing a song, please share songs from your ancestral lineage or songs you have been given permission to share. Please share the stories of the songs and the people they come from. If you are a white bodied person and carry songs that come from lineages of People of the Global Majority (i.e. Civil Rights movement or Indigenous Peoples), please consider not sharing those songs at this gathering. People of European descent are hungry to gather our own songs and traditions and to feed ourselves through these rememberings together. 


 

WHAT TO BRING

  1. Personal Dishes: Everyone will be responsible for bringing, washing and keeping track of their own plate, bowl, mug and flatware (spoons, forks, knives). If you forget, town is close by and you can run there and find yourself something!

  2. Altar Items to add to communal altars

    1. Additionally we will have a whales altar… in case anyone feels called to bring anything to add to this (this will be the only indoor altar) 

  3. 2 ounces of water from a body of water near you

  4. A coal from one of your bonfire’s to add to a collective bowl by our “sacred fire” (during a likely burn ban) 

  5. A trash bag for your own garbage. We have a pack it in, pack it out policy. 

  6. A bouquet of flowers and a box of (preferably herbal) tea if you are able to donate to the gathering. 

  7. Lawn Chairs (as many as you can) for group use

  8. Floor pillows (as many as you can) for group or personal use

  9. See our suggested packing list on the What you Need to Know page (scroll towards the bottom)


 

Learn more about the Wails production: Did you know that the Wails gathering, album and vision is 100% supported by crowdfunding? And that the Wails Gathering is but one stage of the entire project to complete the album? A budget page was added for those of you who would like to become more familiar with the project.

 

Refund Policy: All cancellations prior to May 1 will receive a 50% refund (of ticket price - we can't refund taxes). Cancellations after May first will only be refunded (50%) if we can fill your spot with someone from our waitlist. You cannot, yourself, transfer your ticket to a friend. Each person must submit their own separate registration. 

This policy asks people to be sure they are willing to commit to attending the event before buying their ticket because we know folks are unlikely to buy a ticket knowing half their funds would be lost if they ended up needing a refund. It is why we have it on our website and on each individual ticket sale to make sure folks are aware of it. This policy is on each ticket tier on the ticket page and on the What You Need to Know page.  

When an attendee purchases a ticket they are consenting to our refund policy which mitigates the additional labor of processing refunds and filling ticket spots on the back end of production who have limited hours delegated to ticket sales. Which is why the policy was created. We understand how that might make less sense for a one person request, but if there were dozens or more, the labor begins to add up. 

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