.
Anxious? Find what you love. Ecstatic? Find what you love. Sorrowing? Find what you love. Angry? Find what you love. Hopeful? Find what you love. Despondent? Find what you love. Determined? Find what you love. Peaceful? Find what you love. Complacent? Find what you love. Joyous? Find what you love. Dying? Find what you love. Alive? Find what you love.
.
Let your soul rise to meet your life. Let body, emotions, and mind shift toward this matrix of union. You can be whole, and reflect a more clearly ordered world. You can weave the chaos into light. When you choose to be continuous, you choose to change the world. You choose freedom over complacency. You choose revolution over comfort. You choose to shine instead of hide. You choose to polish the places where grit has accrued, and learn something in the pain and joy of polishing. You are gorgeous and complete. Let your pain and suffering become places where the waters meet the shore. Things live in that liminal space that live nowhere else on earth. Let these things grow. The context for your life is the cosmos. The iron in your blood comes from the stars. 
Stop thinking small, unless you think of atoms. Dive toward that sort of smallness, ever multiplying, so small it becomes vast. The small view that causes us to forget both stars and atoms is a smallness we can no longer afford. We are simple: part of Hir body. We are human. We are those who know and those who perform tasks. Angels and demons, animals and Gods. We are everything, if we allow ourselves to be. Look inside, and look around. Can you gaze on self and other with eyes now cleansed by love? This is how we heal, repair, and grow: we allow that which has been ruptured to come home. Home is everywhere.
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
“I’m willing to put myself in harms way for my human & constitutional rights & those of others, but not for those that would condone violence.” - Spencer Mills (OakFoSho, citizen journalist, from his Twitter feed)
Dr. King, as we all know, was a champion of non-violent civil disobedience, social justice, the support of worker’s rights, and increasingly before his assassination, the end to war. The greatness of Dr. King rests not with his prodigious mind, his powerful oration, his ability to organize, or his charisma. The greatness of Dr. King rests in what Gandhi called satyagraha: the marriage of truth with the power of the soul to uphold that truth. It is sometimes translated as the insistence that the means bring about the ends, so it speaks to a consistency that must well up from within the individual to permeate society. If the person is acting from hatred or violence, this will permeate her soul, and permeate her actions, which in turn, permeate both the means and the outcome.
This is a hard lesson, because it requires of us a scrupulous attention not only to our hearts, minds, and souls, but to the ripple effect of our actions. What is the logical end to the means of our tactics? What effects do our tactics have, first on our selves and then on our social movement? We see the effects of greed and tacit violence all around us: suicidal iPad factory workers, families living in indentured servitude, poisoned water, clear-felled mountains. The means are clearly reflected in these ends. There is no satyagraha at work, no self-examination and insistence upon the soul’s truth has caused those who orchestrate these systems to recognize the way their choices in the boardroom affect everything that follows.
In Occupy Oakland, there is disagreement over “diversity of tactics”, a phrase that means each person or autonomous group within the larger whole can decide its best course of action, including property destruction or throwing projectiles from the back of the crowd, toward the lines of police. This is causing dissension, so much so that citizen journalist OakFoSho, en route to “Occupy Congress” was wandering the streets of New York last night sending out bleak tweets about his love for #OO and his despair at the fact that he did not know if he belonged there anymore. Why? Because he consistently speaks for non-violence and has apparently been severely criticized by other members of the movement.
I also speak for non-violence, and yet have at times argued that property destruction is not necessarily a violent tactic, or one that undermines satyagraha. I have Christian friends who are Plowshares activists. I honor the local legacy of the Black Panther Party. I have even spoken up for Black Bloc in the past. I point out that a smashed window is not to be put in the same class as smashed communities and lives. Yet I myself have had to shift my own tactics over the years in order to follow the call of satyagraha. Even shouting of slogans began to undermine the power of the truth in my soul. I took to other means to support justice: organizing meditation at large actions, feeding people every week, providing porta-potties to Occupy campers, offering free training to activists, marching when it feels necessary. None of these are grand actions, but everyone has a small part to play in bringing about a world in which love and consideration hold sway, sowing justice.
Along with the question of “does smashing windows or throwing projectiles bring us closer to satyagraha?” I also have to ask, when are these tactics effective? When Jose’ Bove’ dismantled a McDonald’s restaurant, he did so to call the world’s attention to the plight of French small farmers. He knew something needed to be done, and organized his community to help. This act of property destruction was not the act of a man high on adrenaline, overtaken by strong emotions and a need to act out. It was a clearly thought out strategy that involved people from all facets of the community. It was a strategy whose power was witnessed globally, providing inspiration and galvanization for people in far flung places.
Occupy has also provided inspiration. As long as Occupy Activists continue to choose smart tactics that bring communities together to demand a more just society, it will continue to be a success and we can continue to work in various ways to build a society based on mutual respect, creativity, love, and justice. As long as some Occupy Activists continue to choose to smash windows, light fires, and hurl bottles in small skirmishes with police on the streets after dark, the movement runs the risk of alienating the rest of the community that brought out 10,000 people to shut down the Port of Oakland in November.
By changing discourse in the US to put the problems of gross inequity at the forefront, Occupy has already accomplished a huge thing. There has been a great awakening. On the other hand, without a commitment to non-violence, the parents I saw New Years Day who brought their children out on scooters and in baby strollers to the Oscar Grant memorial march, or the workers who blockaded the port and shut down banks, are likely to drift away, crippling any further actions on the part of this great social movement.
The legacy of the Black Panthers in the Bay Area comes from the amazing work they did making sure children were getting fed, medical care was provided, and people received a radical education not offered anywhere else. That is what has lasted. While I, raised a working class white person, cannot begin to criticize their insistence on having guns for self-protection, I also know that it was not violence that made the Panthers effective. It was the deep love they had for the people they were serving. Service, based in love – including a great anger that arises because those that you love are being hurt – is part of satyagraha. That is what changes culture in the long run.
On this day in which we honor Dr. King’s birth, I give thanks to all the activists who came before me so that I can even have the privilege to ponder these lessons.
May we continue to strive to not only speak truth to power, but to live powerfully from our truth.
Please take 23 minutes to listen to Dr. Kings’ speech on his opposition to the war in Vietnam. It is important.
Photo taken by me, of our signs at the Oscar Grant memorial march in Oakland, CA New Year’s Day.
.
This morning, pale light shining in the darkness of the living room drew me west in my home, instead of east where I usually do my morning sitting practice, exercise, and altar work. I looked to the deep blue sky slowly lightening to turquoise, and there was the moon – gibbous, on the wane from full – peaking through the branches of the tall sycamore. Instead of going to my altar for my usual morning practices, I decided to make a cup of tea and do some moon gazing first.
Communing with the moon, I heard the rattling of bottles and saw a man with his cart, collecting recycling. This caused me to wonder if our housemate had remembered to take down our bottles. Back into the kitchen I went, gathering the bottles to take out into the cool morning air, saying, “Excuse me!” The man stopped and came toward me, proffering his plastic bag to receive the glass.
He rattled away, about his business. I went back to the moon.
There are always things occurring that we are not waiting for. When we open to the unexpected, to some measure of spaciousness and listening, we make connections that help us to deepen. These shift something in our hearts and souls. Even if it is only for a second in the midst of some task like getting the kids off to school, rushing to finish a paper for class, or hurrying back from lunch, if we can pause internally, sometimes a tugging will say to us, “Look here!” or “Listen!”
Open to the voice that spoke beneath my ability to consciously hear, this morning I turned west instead of east, and found the moon, a beacon, a benediction, a bright thing enjoining me to take a moment and notice something new. My day will go differently because of that moon, and I was already gifted with an encounter I would not have otherwise had. Our lives can be full of the same things, over and over, and those simple things are helpmeets, if we notice them. But all too often, we allow them to become a wash, a backdrop, neither seen nor heard, just there. Until they aren’t. Sometimes we miss them, and other times, we just notice that something in life is slightly more irritating than before, but we’re not sure why.
Today, can you slow down with me for at least one moment? Can you draw a breath who’s inhalation and expulsion requires at least six seconds in its cycling? Recall your feet upon the ground, and notice the stillness at your core. In this moment, what is in front of you? What asks you to listen? What enjoins you to look up instead of down, or left instead of right? Can you allow yourself a moment to hear and see?
We don’t know what we’ll encounter. That’s a good thing. The universe is filled with surprises, gifts of earth and air, of someone needing help, or the morning moon offering a new perspective: yes, we are grounded on this planet, and together, we also tilt in space, reflecting beautiful light.
If we are to continue down a path of innovation and creativity, we must learn from those who came before us, and be open to the inspiration of those who follow. Living well is a multi-directional task. Each morning at my altar, I honor the lineage of ancestors and descendants.* As ritual orients us in space, honoring the ancestors and descendants orients us in time. We are helped by this awareness.
Last weekend, I went to hear L.A. punk band X. They were favorites from my youth, when I was a teenage Gen Xer and they were ahead of the curve Boomers in their late 20s. Now in their mid 50s, and with a lead singer with MS, they still pump out speed, volume, and sincerity. Unfortunately, many of their old political songs are still topical. Before I headed out, I quipped on Facebook (and Twitter and Google+, for good measure), “I wonder if there will be a middle-aged mosh pit?”
There was. But you know who started it? It wasn’t the early Gen Xers like myself in the crowd, nor the late Boomers. It was the Millennials, and young ones at that. The ones who started the mosh pit were around 16.
Here’s how it went down:
The club was full. Older folks had staked out the stage, a few of them with their tweens in the very front. About three bodies deep from the stage at this point, my friend and I remarked on the paucity of young people in the crowd. I’d seen only a handful, despite the popularity of Old School Punk in certain circles. Then, right before X came on, a group of teenagers appeared behind us, lips and tongues blue from suckers, backpacks taking up precious space. When the music started, they rushed forward and began slamming. The adults who had claimed territory were not pleased. We had earlier attempted to diffuse two pissing contests about space, but these Millennials didn’t care about turf wars. They were here for music, movement, and the energy rolling off the stage. We happily bounced and slammed with them. As the pit grew in intensity, some of the adults scolded the teens, repeatedly trying to control them and keep them out of their space. The mosh pit increased despite these efforts.
I was having a blast. I’ve written before about the magick of the mosh pit, and though I tend to mostly stay on the edges, I appreciate their beauty. This one was no different. When the middle-aged big guys discovered the teens and 20 somethings having such a good time, they moved in, and the slamming intensified. I moved, catching the waves pounding outward, becoming an edge holder who helped push people back into the pit when they veered off course. I was knocked back a few times and have a bruises from being stepped on. One young man asked if I was OK. I grinned and said I was just fine. A man a few years older than I told me I was brave. That last comment sheds some poignant light on the sociology I kept witnessing:
The skirmishes continued, with some people still fighting for territory. At one point John Doe admonished a man from the stage, saying, “You do realize this is a punk show, don’t you?” And the staff who descended to keep the edges of the pit safe spoke sharply to someone else, “This is the pit. You have to let people have their fun!” Meanwhile, the Millennials, having instigated the process, pushed toward the front and bounced in place, leaving the pit to the middle aged men who realized they could work something out by hurling themselves against each other. The Millennials only returned to the pit near the end of the show.
The lesson I took, as I avoided flying beer, slammed, danced, and grinned, was this: You cannot control the descendants, nor should you. The mosh pit would never have started without them, and we need the mosh pit. We need high intensity created by an exuberant joy in simply being alive. We need instigation. Without it, we grow comfortable in our own little worlds, in our own little homes, in our own little corporate fiefdoms or wherever else we stake a claim. I have taken inspiration from my ancestors and from those who have paved the way, including the members of X, who are at least a decade ahead of me. I also honor the Millennials who are figuring out a way to live vibrantly in this messed up world they’ve grown into. They are taking to the streets and the dance floors, and they are helping each other.
We need to seek out that which jars our status quo. That isn’t brave. It is simply practical: We need openness to that which shocks and irritates us, or we become moribund. We need to not grow comfortable in our place in the hierarchy. We don’t own space just because we decide to stand there, especially if we haven’t built it with our own efforts. Change is coming. Change is always coming. We may as well make room.
Millennials, I salute you. I salute your verve, creativity, and anger. I salute your mapping of uncharted territory. I hope you learn something from us, as I’ve learned from my predecessors, but more than that, I hope to continue to learn from you. The only advice I might offer? Stay engaged. Stay interested. Stay strong. And pay the $2 to coat check your backpacks. They are a pain the ass for the other people trying to share the pit.
I leave you all with my favorite image from the night: a 20 something in full hipster regalia, including ugly glasses, bad facial hair and a wooly hat, saw that a teen was trying to get up to crowd surf and couldn’t figure out how. The hipster went to help him, but the teen shrugged and said “That’s OK” when the hipster insisted, and crouched, offering his hands and shoulders for the young man to climb. He was hoisted into the air and we all caught him, passing him overhead, lit by the stage lights, as we danced and crashed along in anonymous darkness, one body, trying to figure out how to get along.
___________________
* Honoring the descendants as well as the ancestors was inspired many years ago by Ravyn Stanfield, a priestess from Portland, OR.
pic is by Shadow Tannin at deviantArt
.
In this time of fading empire,
Of violent uncertainty and the
Giving way to new upheaval,
Let it be known, let it ever always
Be remembered:
This is the year the porpoises swam
Through the Golden Gate.
Spinning in the water, calf and mother,
Heralds of some time we could not see.
Grey multitude returned
To grace cold waters.
What else came back,
Without our noticing?
Time can heal.
Time, effort, and the leaving things alone,
To make their way.
pic by Isidore Szczepaniak/Golden Gate Cetacean Research
Harbor porpoises have not hunted in the Golden Gate for more than 60 years. Their numbers have been increasing in the last several months. In other news, this week marked the first foray of a grey wolf into California since 1924.
“A great question is one you can ask yourself, one that disturbs your status quo and scares you a little bit.” – Seth Godin
I’ve been pondering a lot, lately. As many of you know, over many years I have trained myself toward discipline, movement, and action. These past couple of months, I’ve not been doing as much as usual. This includes paring down exercise and spiritual practices to bare bones. Parts of me resist this, greatly, but I’m hoping to learn some things. This necessary shift came about because I overextended myself this year. It was a worthy experiment, a lot got done, and it proved to be a bit too much in the end. I’ve chosen to listen rather than fight the need for rest, and to take time to reassess.
One product of this hermitage time is that some things have been allowed to bubble to the surface: questions, observations, and an intriguing limbo of not knowing. My curiosity is piqued, and, since I have this self-imposed contract to not act right now, I’ve been able to ponder, to observe more deeply and more broadly.
I’ve been pondering things like the effects introversion has on generosity, on what actions we might take as citizens of the world to fix the messes we’ve created, on how to be a better friend, on what ancient Pagans have to teach us about living well and thoughtfully, about how science reveals spirit, and how to best study economics. I’ve pondered the Gods and Goddesses, and dipped into books from my spiritual library. I’ve watched the birds…
One thing I’ve been pondering is naturally giving rise to an answer, all on its own. I haven’t tried to “figure it out”, but the process of giving space to the question has also given space to at least a partial answer. I’ve been looking at how I work, teach, and write, and musing: “Where is the energy going? What feels effective for me and those I reach?” I will likely still launch classes, continue with the video teaching series, lead some workshops, keep up with my students and clients, make some music, even work on a new book, but… what pondering is teaching me right now is that, surprisingly, what I wish to share with the world is getting out there via blog posts, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. This wide-scatter method feels satisfying, as does the one-on-one work I’m doing with clients, and the range in between. Published books are no longer a holy grail; clear communication is what I seek. Traveling all over the world to teach? I’m barely scheduled for 2012, when the calendar is usually booked solid by year’s end. In other words: the things that can look like success just don’t matter. What matters is following the waves of connection.
As I said, this is only a partial answer that is arising, because there is no business plan being written, no particular deadlines, no cutting out this thing for certain… Mostly I’m staying with the observation of, “How interesting.”
If I hadn’t taken this space to allow questions to surface, I would likely have just kept pushing toward the known. I still have classes coming up, and eventually plan to finish the book I’ve been slowly working on – with more than 200 pages written, and more importantly, with ideas still percolating, it feels right to do so. But it feels just as right, if not more so, to send out a tweet each morning that tries to communicate something, connect something – from my soul to the souls of thousands of people who, amazingly enough, are not part of a void, but rather, part of an interpenetrating, enveloping web of light, sound, particle, wave, and evolving motion.
There is also another lesson here to continue to ponder: sometimes discipline means taking two steps back. My status quo is disturbed, and I’m staying with it. I actually kind of like it.
When we seek to know ourselves, and seek to follow desire, when our want becomes our heartfelt wish, we can listen, we can question, we can ponder. Making space for questions allows us to risk what we think we know and enter the fecund world of not knowing.
When we have a center, we can hold space open and not collapse.
What are the questions you are willing to ask of yourself, of other people, of the world? Can you make some space to ponder?