Wichita (9781609458904) by Thad Ziolkowsky Page B

please join us.
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    We Are Not Luddites But
    While we deploy such state-of-the-art devices as Mobile Threat Radar, cameras and video recorders are not permitted on Grateful Gaia journeys, since there is abundant and obvious evidence that such mediations prevent participants from being deeply present to the lived experience of divinity. Again, we are not interested in trophy-hunting.
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    Range
    We will be exploring storms in, near, or within a day’s drive of Wichita, Kansas. We are not going to be driving all over the Great Plains in a desperate quest for “experience.” Weather is everywhere.
Simply to be here
at this time of the yearly cycle is to know Her. We let Gaia come to us. Rather, we do not pretend to be able to do otherwise.
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    Rates
    $165 per person per day plus food, accommodations, and a per diem. On a Grateful Gaia Tour you will be in a vehicle with at most two other guests. You will in effect be part of a Goddess-loving
family
, not just another paid-up body shoehorned into a twelve-passenger van, as with other tour companies. You will be
in
a vehicle
with
vehicles of Gaia
as
vehicles of Her.
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    Accommodations
    One option is to reserve a room at one of the many fine and inexpensive hotels on the eastside of Wichita. We recommend the Marriot on Douglas. Another is to stay in one of the guest rooms at our home in Forest Hills. Health food breakfast prepared by Abby, massage, attunement, readings. [need more here—Bishop]
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    Store
    Grateful Gaia does not commodify the experience of Gaia, hence there are no photos or videos or sweatshirts or coffee mugs to “add to cart.” There is no cart; there is only the Earth, only Goddess: lay your head on the arms of the Earth.
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    Contact
    Email [email protected] mailto:[email protected] or call at 917 668 9234
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    He’s closing the laptop as Abby comes into the kitchen. She’s wearing a semi-transparent orange floral blouse, white slacks, white flats and has the refreshed air of having just returned from a spa. She sings out “Good morning!,” pours a cup of coffee and sits across from him at the round table in the breakfast nook.
    He slides the laptop toward her. “Bishop asked me to give this to you.”
    â€œMy website?” she says, clapping her hands. “Goody!” She taps a key and her image blooms on the screen. “I love it!” she says.
    Lewis goes to the cabinet for a glass, gets ice and water. He sits back down at the table, watches Abby reading over the text.
    â€œI’m not crazy about ‘Grateful Gaia Storm-Chasers,’” she says, looking up. “That was always Bishop’s thing—‘Goddess,’ ‘Gaia’: it all sounds so nineties now, doesn’t it?”
    Reading on, she chuckles, shakes her head. “No swag, I can understand, I
guess
. But no
photos or videos
? He’s out of his mind! No one will sign up! The whole
point
is photo trophies.” She hits the “delete” key, types a phrase. “When did Bishop turn into such a purist? Like he doesn’t have a thousand photos from his precious Burning Man trips.” She types something more, goes on reading.
    Finally, wondering whether she would ever bother explaining if he never asked, he says, “So what’s Bishop doing living in a
tent
in the yard
?”
    She looks at him like a parent about to explain something to a child who may not be old enough to understand. “Have you heard of polyamory?”
    Many loves? Lewis thinks. Much luvin’? Probably too literal again. Feeling a low-grade dread, he shakes his head.
    â€œWell, it’s basically just a movement to get past monogamy,” Abby says off-handedly, as if describing a software upgrade. “People have more than one partner, all very out in the open and negotiated.”
    â€œLike swinging?” he asks, screwing up his face.
    â€œGod, no, not at all!” she says,