What IS This?

OGRe
OGReHome offers Outsider Grief Relief through understanding, conversation and play.   For humans (and many other animals), grief arises from exclusion--the process by which we cast off what we cannot accept.   If we have issues with weakness or dependency, we diminish our crips and our mothers.   If we fear our unbounded sexuality, we punish our queers.  Or mock them.  Or put them in the teeny margins of our culture where no one has to look.    Here at OGReHome, we say "look," "touch," "embrace."    Intimacy heals the split between self and what we think is "other."   Conversation and play transform the inevitable and necessary conflicts into fertile ground for creative solutions. 

So, come play with us, and play with your insides.   Learn about Outsiders who are like you and not like you.   Read up on PsychoZen:  methods from psychology and zen.   Watch some video, read some musings, get some practical tips, and make some comments.  Dive in to what interests you and we'll find our way to each other.

We offer 4 portals, ways to discover stuff. 

Home!
This is the center of the site.  Here you'll find Conversation--essays and encounters on every topic are posted and referenced by tags.   Videos are included in many posts so you might just stumble on one that could change your life.  Updates are also here, as well as great connections and a way to subscribe and share what you like. 

Outsiders
Here you'll find groups:  people who do not get to participate as equals in our dominant culture.   Unapologetically Us and Them.  Niches.  Why?  Because it is so damn painful to not belong, we Outsiders do some weird and unhelpful stuff.  Some of us reject the majority group.  Some of us push our way in, compensating for or hiding our difference. Some of us wage war against those who rejected us.    What if we cross boundaries instead? Can we go beyond just getting along, and actually locate our insides within others as well as ourselves?   If we could just stop making people into Others, we could eliminate oppression, disrespect, marginalization, war.....

Here we have a place to talk, to play, to support each other.  Click on any outsider to read Notes from the Inside, watch a Video, or Explore Connections.   And you are cordially invited to tell your story or suggest connections.
   
PsychoZen 
Psychology + Zen = a synergy of philosophy and technique designed and tested to relieve suffering and foster happiness and peace.  You'll find bonafide psychological techniques, supported by research and Elena TaJo's nearly two decades of experience as a clinical psychologist and nearly a decade of Zen whiplash.   You'll also find encounters and stories, video on occasion, and lots of tips tips tips, and steps steps steps. 

Video
This section is for those folks who just wanna have fun.  Go straight to the videos to see how we play with this heavy stuff. 

Collaborators:
ETaJo, director and primary writer, has the advantage of belonging nowhere, as well as experience as a clinical psychologist, performer, video-maker and zen student.  Matthew Polis, our webmaster, is an uber tech whiz kid, sound designer, photographer and an all-around creative force of nature.  Molly White is a musician, a producer, an ethnomusicologist and poet, as well as an excellent organizer.  Janet Hamlin, an extraordinary artist, created our Ogres and beautified our layout.  And of course, myriad family, friends and beloved outsiders contribute endlessly.   Click to read more about Collaborators.