Minneapolis has an amazing charm and power, with people fleeing the rest of the Midwest to create havens of alternative culture and visionary possibility. A fantastic exhibit of Frida Kahlo's work at a museum around the corner set the spiritual tone for our visit, a Mexican artist with surrealist sensibiities, revolutionary politics, and a life wracked by trauma. We had the honor of spending time at the Seward Cafe, a worker owned collective coffeehouse with cheap drinks and nutritious food, where Sascha kept erupting in glee at reuniting with yet another long lost train-hopping buddy. Arise Bookstore, also collectively run, hosted an entire Mad Gifts Week extravaganza, with flm showings, discussions, and more. Madigan, Sascha, and Will facilitated 20+ people in a discussion on radical mental health, and Will finished up the evening with a chill out session of ear acupuncture in the back room.

Our last day was a last minute graffitti tour (the world's only goat mural?) and a sad goodybe as Will took off for two weeks in Buenos Aires Argentina to work with Mental Disability Rights International's human rights reform campaign there. Next stop: Ann Arbor Michigan.

-- Will

Christin, one of the alchemist psychonauts behind Icarus-Minneapolis, writes:

My favorite thing about Mad Gifts Week was meeting more kindred spirits and kind of looking at the Minneapolis group from a new set of eyes.  I think that mental health can be such an intimate subject that when one is able to talk about that personally and honestly, it's easier to just be more open about other things and cut out a lot of small talk and subterfuge, and kind of cut to the core of forming more meaningful connections with other human beings.  Like with the Minneapolis group besides my partner I didn't
know anyone before they came to Icarus, and now I consider several good friends.  And meeting someone from the Bay Area Radical Mental Health Collective stopping by for one of the events, or finally meeting Will, Sascha or Madigan in person, it was like there was already a common denominator.  Not a clique-y thing or some kind of subculture affinity -- because there is such a wide variety of people that I meet through Icarus-- but just this framework already in place. And I'm not shy, but I feel overstimulated or awkward around most people and generally have a hard time letting down my defenses.  So I have just been thinking how grateful I am to have this space and feel kind of tapped in to this collective consciousness of human beings even in places I've never been.