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For nearly four years, I have been on what I call my pilgrimage, staying with friends around the world on their couches and in their guest rooms. I’ve been all over the continental United States, Canada, and have visited Portugal, the UK, Austria, and Singapore. I’ve deepened old friendships and made new friendships, and the whole time I’ve worked on service projects of my own choosing.
I call this way of life a pilgrimage, in homage to one of my foremost heroes, Peace Pilgrim. Peace said that “a pilgrim is a wanderer with a purpose”—that while “a pilgrimage can be to a place… it can also be for a thing.” Hers was for Peace—mine is for Fun. That’s why I use the moniker “Fun Pilgrim.”
I use these words in a very specific way, which U may not be thinking of. I don’t mean that fun is “pleasure without caring about what is good or right.” And I don’t mean that service is “self-sacrifice for the benefit of others.” These words may seem opposite in words and connotation, but they are deeply connected in reality.
Over the past years, I’ve discovered what my pilgrimage is for. I am currently describing my vow as “to demonstrate the intimacy of Fun and Service.” True fun and service are joyful and beneficial, for self and all. I mean to live that with my life, to show it to the world.
Tasshin’s Version of The Service Guild Oath
Over the course of these four years, I’ve worked on countless projects, of all shapes and sizes. I’ve led guided loving-kindness meditations, hosted podcast interviews, run mettā dance parties and small retreats. I’ve written blog posts, books, novellas, newsletters, and countless tweets and threads. I’ve learned to DJ and how to produce music, and to create music videos from the tracks I create. I’ve become a visual artist, and learned to shepherd my friends and allies in finding their own relationship to their vows through fun service projects that enliven them.
Honestly, I’m probably forgetting a fair bit of what I’ve done over the last four years. Odds are, if U are reading this post, U have a sense of who I am, what projects I’ve done, and what they mean to U—what U have personally been inspired and impacted by.
I just throw myself into each next thing, and do it completely. All of these projects have been fueled by my own sense of fun and aliveness, with a view towards benefit for others and the world.
I wouldn’t fit in at a typical 9-5 job. I wouldn’t necessarily be very good at working for someone else. I tried that, I really did—and it always felt like it was going to crush me, break me. Instead, I’ve had to find my own way, to LARP my way into a Tasshin-shaped way of life and working in the world: one that uses all my diverse gifts and skills (and what an odd collection it is), in a way that enlivens me rather than deadens me.
Over time, I’ve assembled a crew of friends to collaborate with, friends who I enjoy working with, who share similar values and ideals for what might be possible for the world. We call this crew The Service Guild—and I am its Guildmaster.
Within The Service Guild, we have three teams, which we call “departments”: The Love Department, The Curiosity Department, and The Empowerment Department. These crews work on fun service projects related to their respective themes.
Love ❤️
The Love Department aims at spreading love in the world through the meditation technique of loving-kindness, the brahmavihārās, and creating culture, art, and expression based on those techniques ❤️
We want to spread love in the world. We do this by practicing and demonstrating it ourselves; helping others to learn the practice through various instructional opportunities and materials; and inspiring others to practice through the creation of various love-themed cultural events and artifacts (visual art, music, etc.).
The Love Department is currently the largest Department, with six members (including myself). Its current endeavors include:
- Saturday Night Mettā: a weekly online event for love meditation practice, with recordings shared online in a variety of forms for those who can’t attend live.
- Mettā Dance Parties: in-person practice periods combining love meditation with dance, held roughly quarterly in major US cities
- Mettācine 3: an in-depth, in-person retreat focused on offering love meditation to deep practitioners of the brahmavihārās
- Love Library: a library of resources for self-paced deepening of Love practice, built around The Path of Love Skill Tree
- heart kiss: a music collective of musicians creating Love-themed music together, for use in mettā dance parties and to inspire people to practice Love
Curiosity ❓
The Curiosity Department is a crew of learners following our curiosity, asking the questions we find burning in our hearts, supporting each others’ learning practices, and sharing what we learn ❓
It is, first and foremost, a safe haven and nurturing environment for its members’ own learning practices—both their input and output, their divergence and convergence. For myself, this means supporting my endeavors into learning more about, e.g. visual art, writing fiction, music production, humor, movement, leadership, etc.— and then sharing those learning endeavors through my blog, podcast, Twitter, etc. This looks different for the other Curiosity Department members, of course.
From there, we are learning how to support others’ learning endeavors as well, to weave aligned learners together for mutually supportive feedback loops between their respective ongoing educations.
In some ways, The Curiosity Department is like the R&D department of The Service Guild. What we explore there plants the seeds for The Service Guild’s future projects and flourishing.
The Curiosity Department’s current endeavors include:
- Curiosity Crews: creating small Microsolidarity-style crews of happy, curious learners exploring a specific topic together and sharing their learnings, based on what we call The Solar System Model of Collective Learning
- Curiosity Agora: Maintaining a Discord where learners can share what their current learning interests and projects are.
- Curiosity Calls: Recurring calls between Curiosity Department members for supporting their own learning practices.
Empowerment 🪄
The Empowerment Department believes that everyone has a vow—a life purpose, a calling, a mission—and helps people to find theirs through fun service projects 🪄
At this point, we have worked with ~42 people on projects, through our Give Your Gift cohort program, our rolling admissions Hero program, and the Level 2 version of those programs. These helped people find fun service projects of their own, discover their values, and come into deeper alignment with, understanding of their vows.
We are trying to take a step back and better understand who we are serving, what their needs are—and from there, redesign our offerings to better meet these needs.
The Empowerment Department’s current endeavors include:
- Give Your Gift Cohort: a two-week program where people can learn about and act on our view on fun service projects, values, vows
- Give Your Gift community: Maintaining a Discord where people can share about their fun service projects and work, as well as associated support like regular coworking calls and other events.
The Service Guild and Its Impact
Over the past several years, I’ve assembled a team: heroes with resonant values, incredible skills, integrity and virtue. All told, including myself as Guildmaster, there are currently 10 people in The Service Guild.
This is a crew that understands the larger vision we are aiming for, that has the talent and dedication to work towards it—that can “gel,” work well together, coordinate effectively. We’ve already collaborated on a large number of projects in each Department—we want to do each next project bigger and better.
I find it fitting, aesthetically pleasing, to be a Fun Pilgrim, running The Service Guild. To be an individual devoted to fun, creating a group or organization dedicated to service.
Something I’ve come to value is what I call “duct tape”—the capacity to do a lot with very little, to make big projects work with specific constraints. We’ve been able to make our service projects of the past years through my Patreon, timely one-off gifts, a bit of creativity and the grace of God.
We’ve already had an enormous impact through our projects. As a simple example, we often hear after running our mettā dance parties something like this:
I usually hate dancing and parties, and usually only tolerate them if I’m drinking. Dancing makes me feel awkward and self-conscious. I was nervous to come, but the guided meditation just made me feel safe and happy, and when it was time to dance, I found that I was just able to enjoy the music and moving my body—I really liked dancing after all!
This is a pastiche of a comment we’ve heard five or six times after our parties—so consistently that we’ve almost come to expect it.
And Mettā Dance Parties are just one of our offerings, from one of our Departments!
Now, it’s time to level up. To take my pilgrimage and The Service Guild to a new level.
Guild Finances
As of today, I am currently receiving $1,662/month on Patreon. In practice, actual monthly income is variable based on when individual patrons subscribed, and whether they pay monthly or annually. This month, for example, my check was $706.95.
These funds go towards both my own personal livelihood as well as The Service Guild’s projects and operations. While exact expenses vary from month to month, we are currently operating on approximately ~$4,000 a month. That means Patreon is covering something like 42% of our expenses, give or take.
Expenses have risen over the years, as my interests have expanded beyond my own personal sustainability to creating group projects, with increasingly large scope and impact. My top personal expenses are travel and food. I’ve also had a number of unexpected medical expenses in the last six months. The Service Guild expenses include funding mettā dance parties, other events, and a growing number of software subscriptions that make our online projects possible.
I would love for my Patreon to one day cover 100% of expenses—my own personal expenses and Guild projects. With roughly a third of my expenses covered, I have been able to steer an organization, write books, novels, blog posts, & tweets, host online events, make music and music videos, host parties and retreats, lead guided meditations, interview people on podcasts, and make abundant art. Imagine what I could do with 100% of my needs met, what The Service Guild could do if all our expenses were covered!
It is difficult to measure the value of a kind word, or a good question, or a meaningful reflection. It is difficult to measure the value of a good idea, or a loving friend. It is difficult to put a number to the value of a friendship or relationship or connection. A novel’s meaning cannot be quantified, the beauty of art cannot be weighed, there is no profit to be made in the soul of a moment.
As a Guild, we seek, are drawn to projects that have this kind of value, this kind of meaning and importance—a felt value, with qualitative benefit. The kind of value that brings laughter at a wedding, or tears to eyes at a funeral. Generosity is for those who see the value in such things and wish to support it, see it thrive. That’s why it’s a a core value of The Service Guild.
Spiritual truth should never be sold—those who sell it injure themselves spiritually.
— Peace Pilgrim
Supporting The Service Guild
If U love what I’m doing, if U believe in The Service Guild, and want to see more of our work in the world—if U have a disposable $5 or $10 or more a month—I would greatly appreciate ur support on my Patreon. This is one of the best and most impactful ways to support The Service Guild directly.
Patreon Members get access to detailed monthly updates of what projects I’ve been working on (U can see all ~40 past updates for free, which might give U a more detailed sense of the specifics of our projects and the trajectory of our evolution ), and quarterly community Zoom calls.
If 24 people signed up for my Patreon at $100/month, the current gap between my monthly Patreon income and our expenses as a Guild would be covered. Alternatively, that gap could be covered with ~230 people signing up for $10 a month, or ~470 people signing up for $5 a month.
Every donation counts, and I am grateful for every Patreon supporter—from the people giving $5 a month, to the generous soul who has so kindly decided to give $1,000 a month at this time. Whatever the donation amount, I am so glad to be connected to them, to have someone who believes in me and The Service Guild, who wants to support our work and learn about what we’re up to. We flourish together.
Conclusion
All who act upon their highest motivations become a power for good.
— Peace Pilgrim
I feel grateful every day that I can work on work of my own choosing—work that feels fun, aligned, interesting, enlivening for me—work that uses all my skills and gifts to benefit the world. Thank U to everyone who has already made this journey and our projects possible! Thank U to those who have generously contributed to allow this work to continue!
I pray that I will live a long life, of tremendous benefit. I pray that The Service Guild will flourish—that its Love, Curiosity, and Empowerment Departments will flourish, as will the lives and work of its individual members. I pray that we will one day be able to host and support other departments, including Art, Earth, and Peace Departments. And I pray that our work will benefit as many beings as possible, as deeply as possible. That our efforts, our vows will benefit all living beings.