So, You Want to Be a Vibe Mechanic?
My reflections and musings on co-creating the Microsolidarity Card Deck at the latest network retreat in May 2025
Hello and welcome to my first Substack post! Here, I look back on the latest Microsolidarity network gathering, where 18 of us descended on the lovely Casa Tilo in Catalunya, run by the fabulous crew comprising Rich Bartlett, Nati Lombardo, Gui Trevisian, and Martin Di Tomaso.
Over five days, we were led by the Sailor Wizard Captain, Michal Korzonek, through a process of designing a card deck whose purpose is to capture and channel the magic of Microsolidarity and bring this mysterious thing into people’s lives in a practical and playful way.
We explored crucial core concepts and practices such as Hermit Crabbing, Tapdancing on Tightropes, and Vibe Mechanics, turning them into playable cards that you can take and apply in your interpersonal context. To find out once the deck is out and for more cool stuff subscribe to the Microsolidarity Substack.
It was fun, it was nourishing, and we got stuff done. This post contains my assorted reflections and musings, triggered by the question: ‘What made this awesome and stayed with me after the gathering?’ Here goes.
Minimum Viable Structure
At gatherings like these, where it’s so much fun, great things happen, and I feel like I am in the right place, it is quite easy to start thinking that stuff like that just happens naturally—because it feels so natural. I mean, it kind of does, in the same way that awesome, tasty tomatoes happen naturally. In other words, they happen because someone did a meticulous job preparing the fertile soil and arranged the basic structure to nourish and support those tomato plants (e.g. waterin and nutrition schedule, physical support for the plants). Then the tomatoes do their natural thing under such exquisite conditions, reaching their full potential and becoming awesome, tasty tomatoes rather than scrawny little tasteless things.
I came to the Casa a few days before anyone else and observed Gui and Martin in full-on prep mode. Later, others arrived, and all of us just went for it. There was a whole bunch to do to reach that simplicity at the start—when everything is just right, ripe, and ready for the opening circle of an awesome gathering. It’s so easy to overlook this, especially when it’s done well and you just rock up for the start of the thing. Yet, it is so crucial to prepare this fertile soil and basic structure—from a well-stocked and running kitchen, ready rooms, and clean, well-arranged spaces to a solid idea of the journey ahead and the right tools or toys to get us through it.
Within this kind of structure, it was easy to pick Ondrej-sized challenges and contribute from where I’m at.
The Casa and Where It’s At
Kind of similar to the previous point, but it bears expanding on. Casa Tilo is epic, and you can literally walk a few metres and find yourself in a lush forest. To me, that’s maximum plus points. Nothing beats getting my brain sweaty during a co-creation session and then going on a beautiful hike, hanging out with butterflies on a mountaintop with a view of the sea, all of that before dinner. The place—generous, inviting, and bang in the middle of a forest—was a key ingredient of the essence of the whole gathering.
Just-in-Time Design
Having some kind of a well-thought out broad plan is great, but what I find equally important is the ability to be deeply in touch with the aliveness of the group and the process at hand, and steering the boat in resonance with this aliveness. The hosting crew were fully on it, and throughout the gathering, Captain Michal took us through creative blocs that felt like they came fresh out of the oven and were exactly what we were hungry for—all the while adhering to the purpose of our journey together. Oh, the wonderful chaordic space.
Being Surrounded By Gathering and Relationship Geeks
To me, the main vessel for Microsolidarity, in its essence, is gathering with others and relating with others. Be it with one other person or one hundred people, most of what I understand as Microsolidarity happens and grows when some people gather and relate in some shape or form.
At this gathering, every single person was a gathering and relationship geek who had been proactively developing their capacity to host awesome gatherings and to be an awesome participant at gatherings hosted by others. They have sought to become pros at helping others feel like they belong here and now and enabling each other to shine. And this really showed.
These capacities are, to a huge extent, a function of personal qualities and intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, all of which can be developed in the right developmental context. I wish everybody knew this (and they totally will, thanks to the new card deck)! From simple things such as saying the word “welcome” like you mean it or taking the time to be with yourself when you need it, to subtle vibe sensing and tending, or complex offerings like Circling—there is some powerful stuff that one can do to help make gatherings trully awesome.
Music!
There’s very little official talk about music when it comes to Microsolidarity comms, which, on the one hand, is perfectly understandable. However, on the other hand, at the gatherings that I’ve been a part of—including this one—music has been strongly present. Jamming, dancing, sounding, and singing together. Some folks even built a singing-based app in their spare time. To me, the overlap between one’s actively developed musicality and their likelihood of being drawn to this thing feels significant and important (I hereby admit to my bias as a musician, though!).
Serious Playfulness
Getting stuff done and having fun is not mutually exclusive. In fact, they go very well together. But there’s more to playfulness than fun. To me, it’s the ability to really seriously play with whatever is in front of us—be that concepts, practices, music, dance, or human contact. Like a child who gets so into whatever they’re playing with that emotions flow and sometimes erupt, but with a better handle on it because we’re adults now. Casa Tilo was full of serious players during the gathering, and it made things fruitful and fascinating.
Making Power Explicit
There was no nonsense around the shape of power and influence. People who came seemed to naturally accept Rich as the person with the vision and the ability to steer the whole spaceship whenever he deemed it necessary. This does not mean that he never faces critique, that everybody always agrees with him, or that he never has to retract any of his decisions. But he did come up with the vision for the Microsolidarity network and launched it, he keeps holding that vision, he has a strong personal brand and a gravitational pull that others are drawn towards.
And we all openly talked about it—he’s doing everything within his power to share that influence and bring others into it, all the while recognising that he holds that power. He was also a participant in the process facilitated by Captain Michal. Then there’s the inner circle who wield greater influence—you know who you are (also, we’re not a cult, lol).
The pathways towards increased influence over the shape of the network (and therefore also over gatherings such as this one) are not hard to discover, and they are open to anybody who is a vibe-match and prepared to take those steps. Some OG hermit crab out there has probably reached the limits of their shell and may be ready to hand it over to you so that you can grow into it—with their support. What’s all that talk about hermit crabs, you may ask? The answer lies in the card deck.
That’s it for now. I’m sure there could be more, but here’s where I got with this post. Thanks for reading—let me know if you found it interesting!