(updated 6/15/23)

This Thrival Guide has a host of general guidelines and specific tips to help make the most of our time together at Mendocino Magic. Whether it's your first or your been-to-them-all Soup, please read everything through carefully, and ask yourself, or your inviter, how you can best help cook up the fun of Soup28. To make a truly tasty Soup, we all stir the pot!  “The more you put in, the more you get out.”

YOUR INVITER IS YOUR #1 GUIDE to a good time. They are your first resource for questions, and a great go-to person for connections and soup orientation.

If you still have questions after reading through this Thrival Guide, just reach out to BigSoupyLove@gmail.com.

BEFORE ARRIVING AT SOUP,
EVERYONE MUST:

Click here to SIGN THE WAIVER 

(when asked for the Event Name
enter ‘Stone Soup’)

THE STORY OF SOUP

Once Upon a Time, a group of friends had a grand vision. They conceived of a way to turn the goodness in their lives into something greater. They named their vision The Soup after the Stone Soup fable, where one simple stone could be transformed into a bountiful meal for all.

SOUP AGREEMENTS

Reach out of your comfort zone with respect for yourself—you are ultimately responsible for your own body, mind and spirit. Respect each person's whole being—ask before touching, etc. and use common sense and courtesy. Ask before taking photos and don't post to public places including social networks. There will be a web link provided for post-event photo sharing. Try to be quiet in quiet-designated zones, but understand that everyone is doing their best. Earplugs rock. Please keep cell phones on the down low; use them only in private.  Out of respect for our teenagers and others, nudity only in designated areas around the lake, showers — and off limits in the kitchen and main area near the stage. Read our Soup Anti-Racist Pro-Justice Commitment.

PRE-SOUP PICNIC

Mystical Soupsters — especially our new Soupsters! 

Come meet and make new friends at the Pre-Soup Picnic! 

Sunday June 11 from 11 am - 3 pm with a group activity starting at noon.

Mariner’s Lagoon Picnic Area at Robert W Crown Memorial State Beach, Alameda, 94501

Bring something to share and your own dishes/cups/napkins/utensils/picnic blankets.  Wine/beer OK! Located at the southeast corner of the large lawn off of the MacKay street entrance to the park. There are several picnic tables and BBQs.

COVID:

Take a COVID test just before coming to Soup; if it’s positive or you’re feeling sick, please don’t come.

ENTRY GATE:

The entry gate is open Thursday 6.22 from noon to 11pm and again Friday 6.23  from noon to 11 pm.  IMPORTANT: The gate may be locked outside of those hours; if you know you will arrive outside of these gate hours, write to <bigsoupylove@gmail.com> and tell us when you will arrive, so we can give you info on what to do.  

At the Entry Gate you should have a very short stop. Are you on the ticketed list? Have you signed the waiver? Was your Covid test negative? Then you are off to Welcome Gate to get properly loved and oriented.

Obey all posted signs and all staff requests.

WELCOME GATE 

Is open Thursday 6.22 from noon to 11pm and again Friday 6.23  from noon to 11 pm

*Consider bringing snacks, drinks and other goodies to share at the Welcome Gate*

• Welcomers will provide you with vital information about your stay at Soup; plan on parking here and getting welcomed. 

• You have arrived at Soup and there’s plenty of time and space; go walk around and check out our new site. 

• You can drive in to drop off your stuff only once you know where you’re going! 

•  If you are in a deluxe tent, the Welcome Gate will help you find the one designated for you. 

• Another important thing you’ll do at the welcome gate is choose your kitchen and community service shift times, or you can do that here and now…

Pitch-In Shifts available to sign up online until noon on June 20: 

Please be sure you’ll be present at Soup for your shift times and write them down so you can show up on time!

Soup Kitchen: Everybody 12-years and up, please click here to sign up: Soup28 Pitch-in Kitchen

Community Service: Everybody 12-years and up, please click here to sign up: Soup28 Community Service

IMPORTANT: If you plan on sleeping IN your vehicle (not near; no cars in camping areas) please tell us here: Soup28 Vanlandia so we have an idea of how many areas we’ll need for people sleeping in trucks, vans, or RVs.

You can CARPOOL to Soup with other Soupsters! To coordinate this, sign-up on this spreadsheet, then check back to organize your ride, or riders.: Carpooling Soup Spreadsheet 2023

EARTHLY SOUP

Bring one (preferably organic) veggie to add to the pot for our Saturday night feast!

SUNDAY RAFFLE

Each year we hold a raffle; items (prizes) are donated by Soupsters, and proceeds go to our beneficiaries. If you have something cool and special that you think your fellow Soupsters would enjoy, please bring it!  All items need to be at the designated spot on Sunday by 9:30am, but feel free to drop them off anytime prior.  The earlier the better so Soupsters can see the cool special thing you brought! The Raffle will start at 9:30 am sharp on Sunday, so come with LOTS of cash to buy LOTS of raffle tickets so you can win the bid for all the items you desire. We will also be holding a live drawing and auction!

What should you bring as your raffle prizes? It can be a cool or artsy item, plant, service (massage, counseling, landscaping, maintenance, meal prep, etc.),  or gift certificates (restaurants, salons, wine tastings, etc.)  You could offer a vacation stay at your groovy getaway home (yes, please!). Be creative and please feel free to bring more than one donation. Note: It's not a way to get rid of something you don't want...it has to be special; something others will want to have, something you’d be proud to offer.  If you have questions or want to get involved in this fun Soupy tradition,  contact Karin Conn.

2023  BENEFICIARIES

Laytonville Healthy Start Community Family Resource Center  provides a wide variety of family strengthening services. The primary target populations for the Center are school children, youth and their families, but the Center does its best to serve anyone who walks through the door. Their top priorities at the moment: building a community playground, supplies for emergency shelter, food bank and emergency food program, and continuing the senior meals program started during the pandemic. 

Cahto Indian Tribe of the Laytonville Rancheria will host their 23rd Annual Cahto Coast “Walking in our Ancestors Footsteps" during Soup, on June 24th. This annual ceremony brings the community together for a 10 mile walk to Howard's Beach, culminating in dancing, food and connection, along with exploration of issues such as domestic violence and missing and murdered Indigenous women.

KITCHEN

The cauldron will be simmering and we can't wait to cook up special dishes — together! Everyone will put a little fun and meaningful time into the kitchen as part of their community service. We are also looking for: sous chefs, wannabe sous chefs, kitchen managers, wannabe kitchen managers, early-morning coffee sorcerers, wannabe sorcerers, and clean-up leads! Want to help?  Questions? Ask away. Contact Jim and/or Suzanni.  Yum!  Slurp!

WATER

Be Water Conscientious! Drought conditions have been ameliorated but could return any time so we should limit our shower time, and be conscientious of water use while at Soup. Also, keep hydrated! Soup, a ship of contrasts. 

SMOKING, FIRE & YOU

Please, don’t burn down the Magic!

· No open flames  · No fires · Smoking only in designated areas, including vapes

· We will be charged for every cigarette butt found after our event, which will come directly out of the funds we will use for our beneficiaries. You may be asked to leave if you play with fire.

TRASH

This is a pack it in and pack it out event. Please be sure all of your food items and trash are secured from critters. Bring trash bags for your campsite! We will need to pack out ALL trash and recycling and there are shifts for making a run to the Waste Management facility (5 minutes away) on Saturday and Sunday. Sign up for these shifts for extra bonus love!

NATURE AND THE SOUPERNATURAL

This is a safe Soup for all, and unless you have 100% consent from that lizard, butterfly, beetle, or frog, do not chase, catch, hold, grab or otherwise bother any creature we share this land with. Yes to observation, appreciation, drawing them, and writing them a love letter. 

I am Pacific Poison Oak. Know me. Be mindful when setting up your camp, because I may be hanging around. My leaves might be red, they might be green. Watch your step! 

Tick Safety: There will be ticks, and chiggers, in the brush, waiting to find a host.  Periodic tick checks (with your friends!) are fun and worth doing. Avoid the brush and you should be just fine.

Expect mosquitos to be around in the evenings; spray your bod with eco-friendly repellent and you should be just fine.

Overall the property is quite alive, but thankfully has few awful snakes and bugs and mostly just blissful little fish and soaring graceful hawks.

AMBIANCE

Calling our creative, crafty Soupsters to the Ambiance Crew for Soupernatural! Have something you think might add flair? Sure, bring it! Just remember, come Sunday, pack it up and take it home!

GO GREEN

We have to pack out ALL of our trash and recycling ourselves. Bring a trash bag for your campsite. Let's play at the Soup in a way that treasures our planet! Our community goal is that Soup substantially reduces waste compared to prior years. Every trashy item that gets left behind will incur a charge and like ciggie butts that money comes straight out of the beneficiaries.  Avoid excessively packaged and disposable items (no styrofoam, or glow sticks), bring reusable water bottles, etc. Please label, and keep track of, your belongings.

Our Soup28 site has a very strict NO STYROFOAM policy. Nada, none, zilch. 
The Magic imposes a fine of $250 for each styrofoam item brought onto the property. 
Yep – you read that right.
LEAVE THE FOAM AT HOME.

KIDS & ADULTS AT THE SOUP

There are oodles of fabulous kids and teens coming to this year's Soup. We are putting together many fun and magical activities to make their Soup time creative, fun and unforgettable! We'd love your help in making our dreams come true. Leadership and contributions by teens and other youth are particularly welcome!  

We will again savor the traditional activities of The Retelling of the Stone Soup Fable, and Soup Shenanigans: The Kid's Talent Show!  Please reach out to Batya if your teen would like to emcee or do tech for the Talent Show, if you have room in your car for a box or two of kids' talent show presents (for all the kids, whether or not they perform), or if you or your teen is willing to teach kids the Stone Soup story and direct/co-direct or narrate their sharing of it. Parents, please start talking to your kids about what they might want to share at this year's SouperNatural Shenanigans, as this is a safe and sweet opportunity for kids of all ages to share a joke, cartwheel, song, poem, theatrical piece, magic trick or whatever. Adult/child acts are great. Thanks for considering supporting our youngest Soupsters in strutting their stuff!

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

We are all responsible for all our little Soupsters. Please be aware of where the kids are and be discreet when partaking of certain earthly delights. Do not give anything altering to a youngster without expressed permission from their parent/guardian, even if they tell you "it's OK." Let's all help keep our kids safe and supervised. While it is ultimately the parents or guardians who are responsible for their children, every Soupster is encouraged to play with and keep an eye out for the little ones in our community so that they are happy, safe and supervised. See a kid in a situation that does not look right or safe? Contact their adult human if you can, but also feel free to lead with love, change the situation, or remove the danger, and then let their adult know. See five kids having the time of their lives and you want to jump in? Jump! Kids are fun to play with and non-parents are encouraged to do just that. 

DEEP BOWLS

Deep Bowls are group sessions that will be held on Friday and Saturday morning at Soupernatural Soup, after breakfast and morning circle. They’ll  last 1-2 hours and are a chance to make meaningful connections and build trust in a more intimate setting. You get to choose which bowl you want to dive into and explore. From personal growth to compassion, curiosity to intimacy, kinetic to cerebral, Deep Bowls will be stirred by dynamic Soupy volunteer facilitators, and each session will have a "spiciness" rating to help guide Soupsters of all ages. We love the opt in aspect!  It’s your Soup ~ the choice is yours.

PLAYSHOPS

Playshops are a staple ingredient for The Soup that will be held Thursday afternoon, Friday, and Saturday at different times than Deep Bowls. Our own Soupsters will guide these playshops on topics ranging from games to healing, how-to to howdy, flirtation to end of life. Led by kiddos of any age, from ‘adults’ to child Soupsters.

ENTERTAINMENT

Every evening has a theme to spark your imagination and playful side.

Thursday evening: SuperNATURAL

Cross through the portal, leave the ordinary behind, and enter the mystical realm of the SuperNATURAL. Everything in this realm has a spirit: animal, plant, lake, moon...Tonight we will awaken the SuperNATURAL spirit within each of us. 

Costume inspiration: animal, plant, tree, mineral, flower, moon, sky, and lake. Everything in nature has a spirit awaiting your embodiment and belief. 

Friday evening: Bizarre Bazaar

Come frolic in the emporium of the strange. What fanciful offering will you provide? Mind reading, dark carnival games, freak show shenanigans?  The quirky carnival is calling you. The Bazaar will be serving its patrons throughout the evening when the live music is not happening. 

Costume inspiration: witches, wizards, monsters, mythical creatures, dragons, fairies, and ghouls 

Saturday late afternoon:
Pride Parade pre-Stone Soup dinner! 

Express your joy and solidarity with our LGBTQIA+ Soupsters and allies in Mendocino Magic's first SouperNatural Pride Parade. A Dress-Up-ortunity for sure; wear rainbows, sparkles, leather, or whatever way you like to express the importance of being fabulous in the face of incipient fascism. Bring flags, the colors of specific identities you want to represent. Stilt walkers, jugglers, mimes, musicians, and other colorful characters are welcome to join in. Look for related Deep Bowl on healthy masculinity and the joys of expressing non-conformity. Co-conspirators sought for organizing this parade of cool cats. Interested? Contact Kairo Weber or John Coveney.

Saturday evening: Afterlife After-Party

Saturday night we will enter the space after life — what lies beyond? Purgatory, heaven, hell, a timeless zone netherworld? We will have a blowout in the beyond — featuring some soul music for our lost souls. 

Costume inspiration: spirits, ghosts, vampires, angels, demons, zombies

Calling all Magical Mischief Makers!!

Sign-up here to help us make evening mischief at Soup! Do you read minds? Know magic tricks? Love leading games? Let your creativity flow! We need your help bringing to life the SuperNATURAL, Bizarre Bazaar and Afterlife After-Party. If you have children, teens or pre-teens joining you at Soup, please include them, especially in planning kids games, activities, Bizarre Bazaar personalities and costumes. 

THE LAKE (reservoir)

The Lake is about a 15 minute walk up a steep hill (this hill is actually the dam face).  We will have a shuttle operating for limited hours to convey things we need and people who cannot make the walk.  It will not be an on-call shuttle but will operate during posted times only.   There is no lifeguard on duty – keep an eye on each other, your (and others’) kids.  There are various boats and watercraft available for use but there are NO life vests or other flotation. The Lake is a strict no smoking area.  Please wear eco-friendly sunscreen only in the lake. No person with DEET insect repellent is allowed in the lake. 

THE LAKE IS OFF LIMITS  between 8 pm and 8 am.  Do not go to the lake or hang out there between these times. If you have teens, this is what is known as an “attractive nuisance.”  You are responsible for you and your kids knowing and following this rule.  Violators (and their family) may be asked to leave The Magic.  That’s how serious The Magic and The Soup is about this. No camping is allowed at the lake.

LOST & FOUND

will be marked with a sign. Brought stuff you’re fond of and would be bummed to lose? Please label your things with your name and phone #, do personal-stuff sweeps daily, and periodically check the marked lost & found location.  Be sure to check the Lost & Found on Sunday.  After Soup, only owners of lost and clearly labeled items will be notified.  All other items will be donated.

TRANSCENDENTAL DISEMBARKING:
SUNDAY DEPARTURE

Our exodus on Sunday will be chill and organized, with everyone’s help. Plan to stay the course! We’ll all need to help clean and pack out. At Soup, we leave with a sense of hope and the feeling that we've done right by the land, our hosts, and each other.

THOSE with a SIXTH SENSE know what to DO

1. In each camp, designate an angel to do a FINAL-final sweep of your camping area to ensure that we have left no trace.

2. Clear out of deluxe tents by 1 pm.

3. BEFORE 1 pm, grab your milk crate/coolers from near the kitchen and pack ‘em away.

4. Check communal areas for all of your stuff.

5. Help with communal clean up of shared spaces from 1-3 pm. Place trash, recycling and compost in their proper receptacles. 

6.  Soupernatural ends and all is tidy by 3:00 pm.

Soup28 is at Mendocino Magic                  

3000 Branscomb Rd, Laytonville, CA 95454

· We know that you want to get to Soup quickly, but please slow down and enjoy the ride. Arrive at Soup safely and with no speeding tickets.

Mendocino Magic is home to some of the best stargazing in Northern California, and also features the pristine Holland Reservoir, the largest private water holding in the North Coast region. Miles of trails wind throughout mountainous hillsides and scenic valleys. These former logging era pathways now lead guests around ponds, through manzanita groves and oak forests to numerous campsites.

IMPORTANT: Remember, tell us if you will arrive outside of the open entry gate hours on Thursday and Friday from noon until 11 pm. Write <bigsoupylove@gmail.com>

WHAT IS THE SOUP?

The Soup is a private, volunteer-produced event that builds community and fosters organic fun while raising money for worthy beneficiaries. There is no set recipe and each Soup tastes unique. Ingredients include gathering to share our natural gifts and talents and encouraging each other to tap into our potential. Sprinkle in some groovy tunes, primal rituals and collectively cooked meals and things are starting to simmer. And watch out! Spontaneous fun is around every corner. The Soup does not insist on only one way. The Soup goes beyond an event, beyond a group of organizers, even beyond a community. It's a way of  thinking, a way of enriching our lives and a way of making the world just a little bit sweeter.

WHAT IS A SOUPSTER?

The key ingredient that makes the Soup so delicious is the participants — Soupsters. 

Soupsters are made of…

One part Community, one part Creativity, one part Kindness, one part Justice.

COMMUNITY

The year-round Soup community and the annual Soup event is a family of affinity, an infinite and rich web of support and inspiration from which each of us can leap into our dreams. By being active participants — rather than just attendees — Soupsters are building a thriving, evolving organism that has the power to make a whole that is infinitely greater than its parts.

CREATIVITY

From decorating with ambience to playshops to frolicking at night, Soupsters are dedicated to high-end imagineering. When a Soupster dares to dream up an idea and offer it up to hundreds of supportive and open-minded friends, they watch their dreams rise and expand into the firmament.

KINDNESS

Soupsters that thrive in the community have one tasty thing in common: they are very, very kind. Whether reaching out to new friends or lending a hand when a hand is needed, the way we do things is much more important than what we do. Whether on the late night boogie train or the early morning breakfast crew, Soupsters treat each other with generosity, tolerance and respect. By offering our most loving selves to each other, our communal heart grows three sizes each year, and we use that heartbeat to pump kindness back into the world.

 JUSTICE

Soupsters believe in equity and striving for a more just world. We take action to acknowledge wrongs and create a more inclusive and equitable community where everyone is welcome and seen. Through deep listening, learning, examining ourselves, and owning our mistakes, we lovingly hold each other accountable, create systems of positive change, and take action against all forms of oppression.

The SOUP INCLUSION PROJECT (SIP)

is made up of volunteer Soupsters who meet monthly to discuss and map out initiatives and schedule “Real Talks.” If you’d like to join SIP in imagining and organizing Soupy initiatives, write Jeremy at <erisipgate@gmail.com> and he’ll add you to our email list.

A TASTE OF SOUP CULTURE

Soup is what you make it

Leap and the net will appear

The more you put in the more you get out

Be someone's SouperNatural Fairy

Dream it and it shall be

Fun Reigns Supreme

Wherever you are, that's the place to be

Stir in more love and less perfection

Smile, make eye contact and say Hello

to everyone in your Soup family

Be open to all the different ways we all celebrate

Soup, loud or quiet, spicy or chilled

Be yourself with all you got

Or put on a costume and be someone else

Respect yourself and your neighbor

You are always welcome so jump in

Show up to your shifts with enthusiasm

Be flexible, we are on Soup-time

Last one up, turn off the lights