Writing the narrative of interdependance...

Some humans sit around a campfire on the beach, bathing in the shadows cast by a full moon.  We pass thoughts and insights around the circle, feeding each other's ears and hearts with the nourishment of listening and understanding.  We are sharing space and time and ritual.

Our discussion starts with naming and release of fear and frustrations.  We see war on the horizon, and we wonder if it might be inevitable, avoidable?  But we all feel it... the shifting.  The turning.  Are we on the cusp of an evolution in our collective unconscious?  A shift that will enable us to avoid these wars?  How do we fight the oppression of media, the oppression of isolation, the slow and seemingly deliberate undermining of the skills of every day life?  The oppression of this system we have created seems like a finely tuned machine directed with all of the skill and intention of a criminal mastermind.  The dictatorship of the church of Profit and Consumption. Cognitive dissonance gnawing at the psyche of our collective consciousness.

Stories.  We carry our collective identity in the stories we tell.  Movies, Television, novels, science fiction... And that narrative whispers to us the myths of our culture over and over again.  Whispers it so often that it weaves into our unconscious and feels like the fabric of reality.  The story of The Savior.  The Hero.  The One Who Will End All The Injustice & Make It Right.  Who Will Slay The Demon / Dictator / Evil King.  This story permeates our media and our society and our religion.  As children, we are taught that police and military are our heroes.  That these brave (mostly men) people go fight the fights to keep us safe.  Fight on our behalf, for our interests.  Fight to keep us safe.  Fight so we don't have to.  So that we can enjoy the benefits of our gloriously won freedom.  But the story is just that - a story.  A bit of programming.  A piece of computer code in our collective processor.  But it is the root of our decision making processes.  The story tells us how to behave, how to treat one another, how to organize our societies.

Oh gosh though, that Hero story doesn't match up with the daily reality of shopping malls and cubicles and gas pumps and the stifling bureaucracy of school and government.  But didn't we tell you?  Oh yes, we did.  There are campaigns for patriotism floating around every day.  We live in the spoils of victory.  That shopping mall is the American Dream that our soldiers fight and die for.  That shopping mall, full of plastic, manufactured, chemical, poisonous merchandise shipped from halfway around the world so that a consumer can purchase it, use it for a while and then discard it in a landfill.  That shopping mall is OUR AMERICAN RIGHT.  The rosy future that our heroes fought [are fighting] to protect.  DYING TO PROTECT.

And there is another story that we tell ourselves.  It is the myth of The American Dream.  The delusion of American Independence.  Suburbia is founded on this dream [nightmare].  The dream that we can be independent of each other.  The dream that we can move out into the country, set-up a homestead, and get away from all them "asshole" neighbors.  That all we need for survival is our own wits and the resources at hand.  But the 'country' became the suburbs.  And our 'wits' became the automobile and the cell phone.  And the 'resources at hand' became acre after acre of box stores filled with cheaply made products manufactured thousands of miles away and shipped to us on a daily basis, in a never ending supply of consumable goods.  What we got with our victory was isolation [desolation].  We got a culture of people who are dependent upon those box stores and mass-produced, over-processed, ever-plentiful consumable products.  Dependent upon the ability to go and buy the necessities of life in a store.  And all we have to do is work 40hrs a week, every week, and buy buy buy, and if our jobs don't pay us enough to keep buying, well we'll just buy some DEBT!  This is not independence. No, this is NOT in-de-pen-dence.  This is DE-pendence.  Chemical dependence.  Consumption dependence.  Convenience dependence. Take away those box stores tomorrow and what would happen to our society?  It is unthinkable.

"American independence" is the greatest cognitive dissonance of our history.  We are independent of nothing. We are DE-pendant upon the poverty of the 3rd world to manufacture our consumable goods at ever-decreasing prices.  While we sign away our freedom and security to corporate lobbyists one by one, and it becomes more and more evident day by day that we are not free.  We are slaves to consumption.  Because we have learned to be dependent upon the teat of petroleum... that collective addiction.

So here is our greatest challenge.  There is no dictator.  There is no evil king.  In reality, the demon to be slain is only the story that we tell ourselves about what is real.  And even if there is a hidden conspiracy of evil men pulling the puppet strings of our society... they are not the demon.  We can kill them, but they will only be replaced by a new conspiracy of control and domination to fill the power vacuum.  Because violent revolution breeds chaos, and we will thankfully welcome the new, more blatant dictator who can restore order if only we give up some freedoms...  Because we are still telling ourselves the same story.  The story of the Hero Who Will Save Us.  The false story of individualism and patriarchy.  The isolation of top-down power-over hierarchy.

We slay the demon of Power-Over by weaving a new narrative.  A narrative of interdependence. Inter-deepen-dance. Dependence on one another, together, and on the land, and the creatures who help nourish us.  A narrative of working together to build balance and plenitude.  The revolution is not only a confrontation of power-over authority by protesting in the streets.  A vegetable garden is a protest.  A bicycle is a protest.  Sharing tools and resources with neighbors and community members is a protest.  Working together to share experiences and learn new ways of relating to each other is a protest.

Learning to make decisions together, with diversity and respect for each other, to make time to work through our thoughts and ideas - that is a protest.  Working together with friends and family to create an economy of giving and sharing is also a protest.  For those arbitrarily given a position of privilege: to support and promote individuals of marginalized groups, those who have been experiencing the most intense oppression for the longest time, is a deep act of protest.  One so deep that it may start out feeling uncomfortable - like a protest against our own selves.  But only in learning to let go of that power-over privilege can we really be free to find the power within ourselves.  The power of interdependence and individual autonomy.

On this moonlit night, we are still a group of people on a beach, sharing time and space.  We share a ritual of carrying water and holding our intentions.  And this non-religious ritual of open symbolism and intention is a joyful protest.  As I carry the vessel down to the lapping waves to claim my small cup of water and intention, I see a vision in the sky.  The clouds are making shapes and the moon makes them glow.  I see a phoenix rising from the horizon.  The head of this phoenix is distinctly chicken.  I see it as an omen of the coming shift.  The coming resurgence of life and vibrancy in our city cultures.  The resurgence of the skills to build and make our own goods within our own small, local economies.  The resurgence of chickens in our daily lives, because no longer will it be "efficient" to centralize farming and egg production.  Because as we free ourselves from the oppression of processed food, stripped of real nutrition, we free chickens of the horrible oppression of factory farms.  Because improving the lives and happiness of the chickens that help nourish us, improves our own health and quality of life, and re-affirms the value of our own humanity.

As we conclude our sharing we give the collected water, pregnant with our intentions, back to the ocean.  Practicing interdependence through giving and letting go.

Phoenix chicken.

watercolor painting: Solidarity

Yay!  More artwork.  These paintings I've been doing are really the first time I've ever used watercolors, so this one is the first watercolor landscape-ish thing I think I've done since maybe middle school art class.  I like it!  There's lots of things I find wrong with the composition and I want to work more on refining my techniques, but watercolors as a medium are losing the scary imposingness that I've always associated with them.

I also feel like I'm channeling my mother when I paint with watercolors, especially since I'm using her paints.  Watercolor was one of mom's favorite mediums and I spent a lot of time as a kid watching her paint beautiful landscapes, and fiddling around with watercolors on my own little projects getting frustrated at how annoyingly unforgiving they were.  So, never having felt particularly excited by painting as a medium, here I am with tons and tons of sketches and doodles sitting filling up my life and my brain, screaming at me to make them into paintings.

I used to mostly be a photographer because frankly, I hated drawing.  I felt like I could never satisfyingly draw realistic landscapes, or representation of anything realistic.  Being able to paint and draw now comes very much from a place of letting go of expectations.  The less I think while working on a piece, the better.  When I do, I usually have to be in a near trance/meditation state.  The less I'm thinking, the more clean and sure my hand is in making lines.  I gotta figure out a little bit how to plan and execute more cohesiveness in my composition though.

The one thing I know for sure is, I gotta do more!!!

Scratchboard doodle

Based on a doodle that I drew during a mind-numbingly boring driving safety class at Snohomish County.

(this doodle)

OS self-care: Proposal for 2012

I propose that Occupy Seattle spend the FIRST THREE MONTHS of 2012 working to address internal issues of racism, protest tactics, organizational structure & stability, and  greater outreach to the community.

Since we started, three months ago, Occupy Seattle has accomplished Feats of Awesomeness we only dreamed possible. In that time we have been overworked, over-rushed, and faced with direct and targeted opposition from systems of authority... As we close the year, it feels appropriate to end 2011 with celebration of our new community. 

In the past weeks, and especially days, deep systemic issues of prejudice and internal politics have arisen within Occupy Seattle.  These issues divide us, block us from making progress together and making decisions together, and threaten to tear us apart. 

I want to be very clear: I do not believe that our movement will survive further "splitting" and "factions".  I believe that it will dilute our power, de-legitimize our messages, and dissipate the momentum we have worked to hard to build. 

The issues that we face within our community are no less than the kernal of what we are fighting against in the state.  They are the internalized prejudices of living our whole lives inside a society based on violence and oppression.  How can we think to fight against the institutions of violence without seeking to heal the underlying causes.  Holistic healing (and common sense) tell us that you can treat symptoms endlessly, and create an illusion of "wellness" - but until we have the patience to dig deep and seek to heal the root causes of our illness, we will never truly be well.  This can be painful and scary, but only by looking our fears in the face, acknowledging our demons for what they are, and working to create new patterns of love and compassion, we begin to effect the systemic changed and radical paradigm shifts that we all talk about fighting for. 

Where there is fear, there is power.  So let us face our collective fears together, and together work to find the power within ourselves to BE AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE OF TRUTH AND LOVE. 

To that end, I propose that Occupy Seattle spend the FIRST THREE MONTHS of 2012 focusing inward on this journey.  By means of teach-ins, community discussions, art & celebration, and outreach to Seattle neighborhoods, communities, and social justice organizations. 

There are already several days of international action planned in the next three months.  I propose that we continue to plan for and participate in those actions, but that we back off of planning additional marches and actions focused solely on Seattle.  The internal work of building our community, strengthening our organizational structures, and fighting our internal demons is TOO IMPORTANT to be put off indefinitely, or worked with less than our full attention. 

Three months seems like a long time.  It is equal to the amount of time that we have existed, which would be symmetrical.  I do not expect Occupy Seattle to solve all of the systemic causes of hate and violence in three months.  But it is enough time for us to dig in and make significant progress within our community.  It is enough time to start building understanding amongst our many activists, and create a shared vision for our future world. 

In the next three months, we will be establishing a new camp in which we hope to model our positive vision of the future.  We will participate in international days of action and protest.  We will work to build and create networks of cooperation with Seattle neighborhoods and social justice organization.  We will work to grow our numbers and our movement by being actively engage with our communities. 

Because I believe that the only way forward is together, in solidarity, with EVERYONE. 

This proposal is open to modification and suggestions.  I intent to present this for vote at GA on Wed, Dec 28th. 

Love,
Ginger

Paining: Journey from Tuscany to Andalusia

This is a painting from a sketch that I drew on the airplane ride home from Barcelona, ending a one month journey through Tuscany and Andalusia last Feb (2011).

Occupy's Identity Crisis

A note for the continuity of this blog: I started out in Food Group. I got frustrated, and burnt out, and pulled back. Only to get pulled into Camp Safety a week later, in an effort to spread my secret subversive agenda of love & compassion in the most direct way I could find.

Occupy Seattle is going through an identity crisis.

Occupy [insert American city] is likely also going through the exact same identity crisis. So here's the thing... Occupy Wall Street started out as a very specific and focused protest against corporate greed. "Yes! Yes, I can get behind that!" we all said. "I want to do it too!" we all said.

In Seattle, we jumped in feet first, with all of the passion and enthusiasm of a population truly fed up with The Way Things Are. But "End Corporate Greed" quickly morphed and grew into "FIX ALL OF THE THINGS RIGHT NOW" and "BUILD OUR NEW SOCIETY WITHIN THIS OCCUPATION / TENT CITY". Holy shit. That's a big shift.

All of a sudden, not only were we engaged in an ideological protest... but we turned ourselves into a homeless shelter. Accidentally, unintentionally, without really thinking through what it means to preform that sort of service work. Idealists among us (and really, who among Occupy organizers is not an idealist???) talked about visions of inclusiveness, and healing the harms in our society, and meeting each person where they're at to participate in a movement that belongs to all of us... As we moved into the camp at SCCC, we tried over and over again to pass community agreements through the General Assembly that would govern our community and inform acceptable conduct. But those community agreements were flouted and disregarded by activists and hangers-on alike ("oh, that rule applies to those assholes over there, not to me. I'm peaceful..."). Anyone and everyone wandered into our camp with all manner of addiction, dysfunction, and mental instability.

And it was a clusterfuck. It was the wild wild west, and Lord of the Flies. And one-by one, committed activists packed-up their tents in fear and frustration, and a desperate need to sleep in a safe and restful space.  They left behind empty spaces to be filled by those with addiction, dysfunction, and mental instability.  They left behind a crew of organizers and activists (many of whom are also homeless), who just couldn't quit. Who were so obsessively focused on trying to make the camp at SCCC work that many of us lost site of the Bigger Picture of what we are trying to accomplish. And also those of us who desperately tried to work with this camp, such as it was, and figure out how to keep moving towards that Positive Vision... And those of us who were willing to take the risk, to open ourselves up to the trauma of others, hoping to serve and help those with addiction, dysfunction, and mental instability.  Because we carry with us a vision of the new world we want to create, and that new word is based on inclusion and healing and community support... and creating that new world starts with healing the harms we see before us because we cannot leave that trauma behind us or sweep it under the rug. We must face it head-on and see its source within ourselves. 

But there are some very harsh realities of the Existing World that we failed to consider...

#1 - We're not just working with the homeless and unemployed population.  We are working with some of the most violent, most dysfunctional, most mentally unstable population in the city.  We are working with those people who get kicked out of other shelters and other social service agencies.  Some of those people get kicked-out of their programs as a direct consequence to a violent attack.  And their next step is move to the Occupy camp.

#2 - We are working with less resources than any of the social service agencies in the city.  Resources in the sense of stability, training, emotional and psychological boundaries, accountability, personal protection...

#3 - Social service agencies all have rules, boundaries, and social agreements that limit their populations to those who can step up to them.  This is not a tool that they use for oppression; it is a survival mechanism.  Any healthy community includes rules, boundaries, social agreements, and consequences for breaking those agreements.  We want to create a new paradigm of community governance that focuses on healing and inclusion... But in the meantime, we must protect ourselves from the overwhelming needs of a population that is drowning.  Just as a drowning person will flail in desperation and pull an unskilled lifeguard down into death with them, this population of homeless is pulling Occupy down with them in a desperate and very human attempt to grasp onto any support they can find.  OS is beginning to realize this and pull back from it.  And to many, it feels like tragic betrayal and abandonment.

#4 - Compassion includes boundaries and consequences.  It is not compassionate or healing to enable violent and addictive behavior. 

#5 - We cannot serve ALL THE NEEDS ALL AT ONCE.  As we continue to grow - continue working to build the new world we all envision - our work is to focus on affecting systemic change; holding politicians and leaders and corporate moguls accountable for the oppression of us all.  In the process we want to model our future community, but that is a delicate balance.  Occupy Seattle needs to preform the same self-care that all of our burnt-out organizers so desperately need.  To find our emotion/psychological center, to be grounded and focused and open to seeing the whole big-picture vision of what we are moving towards.  To understand the limits of our resources, and understand exactly what roll we intend to play. 

So here is the heart of our identity crisis:

Are we a social service agency, or are we a GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR SYSTEMIC CHANGE AND REVOLUTION?  Okay, maybe I have a bias about which choice I think we need to make...  I think we already know the answer.  And we're not really making a choice to take one and reject the other.  I am making observation: a Global Movement For Systemic Change and Revolution has many faces.  It exists everywhere and nowhere.  It is an internet meme, and it is your neighborhood council, and it is your direct action network, and it is a general strike, and it is non-violent gorilla warfare.  It is an occupation of foreclosed homes, and it is protesters in the middle of your city every day reminding you and the 1% that THIS SHIT IS NOT RIGHT.

It may also be a community of activists sleeping in tents, some of whom don't have another home to go to.  It could also be a new tent city or a new ecovillage, built to model our Positive Vision; built to help serve those whom the system has abandoned.  And if some of us within the Occupy Movement choose to pursue that project, let us choose it consciously, with open eyes and open hearts and with the support and knowledge of the social service community that has come before us.

Let us make conscious choices about the work we take on and the paths we choose to walk.

Whoadreambig

It's nearly December.  This time of year, I would generally anticipate some crippling depressive apathy, a constant desire to stay in bed all day reading romance novels (but only if they were written +100 yrs ago), while lamenting my general incompetence at life.

But it's not there.  Well, I should be more accurate: the psychological patterns of seasonal depression are definitely still with me.  But feelings of emotional isolation, powerlessness, the burdens of unresolvable cognitive dissonance... these are the things that feed my seasonal depression and make it so deep. These things are conspicuously missing right now.    There is something else in their place.  Something like the spark of THE BIG THING.  Change is coming.  Change is already happening... 

Back in early September, I had these thoughts: 

This very basic dissonance [between needing to use a car & the belief that cars are fundamentally destroying our society] is at the heart of most of my current motivations in life.  The underlying paradigm that feeds this reality in our society feels very, very wrong.  On a daily basis, it makes me want to kick and scream and shake people (especially co-workers) and tear things down and fuck shit up.  But I can't, because that wouldn't really be productive.  So I channel all that energy into various ways that I can reduce the influence of cars and petroleum in my life.

And now I am all up in the Occupy Seattle.  Financial reform may not be exactly the same idea as creating a car-free society, but it is certainly on the same path.  It has the same seed.  Occupy Seattle offers me (and everyone else...) an outlet desperately needed to work to resolve cognitive dissonance.

I am working to help build Large Scale Awesomeness (both inside and outside of OS).  I am getting involved in projects and movements and momentum that are bigger than me.  WAY bigger than me.  Swept up in a current of change that is at once transforming our society, but also transforming my soul.  Getting me closer to the vision of myself that I see in my dreams. 

It is at once thrilling and terrifying and it all feels so right... down to my bones, and in my toes.  Is this what falling in love feels like?  Like falling in love... with myself... with all of society and all of humanity and all of everything.

 

Let my heart be so broken, that the whole world may fall in.  

Many people are frustrated with Occupy Seattle (and the greater Occupy Movement), as we get distracted by a scope of change that seems too big for anyone to accept.  As we get distracted by the needs of those on the edge of society who have wandered into our occupied camps with needs we can only begin to comprehend, let alone find the resources to address.  But compassion can never be a waste of time...

My agenda... the work I pursue within the Occupy Movement... is to try to convince people that we are not at war with each other.  Even as the police attack protesters and protesters battle back at them, even as our camps seem pulled apart by violence and addiction... even as those who believe in non-violence (including myself) close their hearts to the work of communicating with others who hold 'distasteful' viewpoints... We cannot start to make real change until we start to open up and communicate with one another.

This is the hardest, the most radical idea.  The idea that the only way forward is by continuing to show compassion - to those we disagree with, and those who oppress us, and those who harm our bodies.  And this is the biggest challenge I have ever given myself.  To transform myself and remake my mind from the paradigms in which I am taught to seek enemies and adversaries.  Taught to dehumanize and stereotype and categorize 'The Other'.  There is no OTHER.  There are only humans, desperately trying to make the best of the beliefs and the resources they have at hand.

To re-define the task: over and over again, at every possible opportunity, remind myself and otehrs of their own humanity.  Challenge everyone to love themselves, and in so doing respect the humanity of those around them.  Challenge people to see the humanity in those they see as 'enemy', and to seek the ways of finding common understanding. 

And it is still thrilling and terrifying.  And it feels so right.