CONTENTS:
Occupy Be the Change Pledge
Reader’s Responses

Occupy Be the Change Pledge

NOTE: Yesterday the newly formed Occupy Be the Change Caucus circulated the following pledge at the Occupy SF camp. About 90% of the people we asked signed the pledge. We now have 53 signatories. Please consider signing the pledge by going to http://groups.google.com/group/obtc?hl=en to join the Occupy Be the Change Caucus Google Group or sending an email to obtcc@googlegroups.com.

As a participant in the Occupy movement, I hereby commit my whole self to nonviolence. Therefore to the best of my ability:
I am firmly committed to nonviolence as a way of life, not merely as a tactic.
I meet violence with compassion for others and myself.
I walk, talk and act in love and nonviolence.
I refrain from verbal and physical violence.
I do not accept “a diversity of tactics” when those tactics are violent or damage property.
I am open, respectful, and kind with everyone I encounter.
I invite the 1% to join us and will not insult them.
I seek justice and reconciliation so that we are all winners.
I avoid both selfishness and power trips.
I strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health as we work to build a just and democratic society.

Reader’s Responses

Re: "Democracy, Power, Structure, Policy, Rules, and Authority"

I hope all is well. I wanted to thank you for your e-mail. Your have formulated a brilliant analysis. Your concerns and observations are duly noted. In any event, I just wanted to thank you for the document. It has definitely helped me re-think the challenges that the community must face.

I look forward to seeing you in the near future. Remember that there are a lot of good people working on this issue!

-- Adam Baratz

My reply: I very much appreciate your feedback. Especially as one who has demonstrated great skill facilitating GA, your comments mean a lot to me.

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I appreciate the individualism you are calling into focus. In my work abroad, both in Europe and Asia, I have come to see what a culture of rebels and individualists we are in the USA. I recognize both the power and the drawbacks of that fact. As to the drawback, our national form of narcissism - “Me first” or “it’s all about me” - is pretty strong. When I first started to work in Asia, I was astounded by the concern and attunement to group wellbeing that was intrinsic there. Don’t mistake me, in those cultures I see other forms of shadow that are equally problematic. Still, in America in general, we are very underdeveloped in our sense of being part of a larger organism to which we owe our existence. Or, that awareness is often relegated to some invisible higher power divorced from our tissue, our community and our daily life here as part of an ecosystem. This imbalance leads to difficulty but the dialog about considering both the individual and collective is a worthy one and leads to growth all around.

I like to remember the individuation in a human body – differences are so important to the organism but working together is the basis of that organisms survival – and no one cell ever mistakes itself as singularly important. A liver or heart on its own has no purpose or life, but a body without those organs also has no function. I feel this as individuation and interdependence at it’s most familiar.

So this is a note to say what you are addressing is a big deal in my experience. Seems like national archetypal DNA: our country was established in the rebel archetype with emphasis on “you can’t tell me how to think/ feel/ (worship)”. Funny, it reminds me that each of my daughters (who born 16 years apart), around the time they were 5 years old, said to me in the heat of a conflict, “You don’t own me!” Yes, we could write it off as personal to my mothering, saying it was due to me being controlling or being so open that they could say assert themselves without fear. But, even relegating this anecdote that way would be an example of how the personal is given such weight in the USA. I venture that their statement has been echoed by many a child here, in words or deed, but would not be as common a developmental declaration in other cultures. Development of the “I” doesn’t have the same weight and value. And that may be problematic for those cultures in some ways.

May the I and the We both find balanced expression in this movement – and in this country - and bring a larger view and awareness as that happens.

GOOD LUCK!!!!

--Chris Price

My reply: Beautiful! And heartwarming. Your story about your daughters is classic. I like your suggestion that it's not a matter of saying that the East is better than the West. As Emerson said, for every gain there is a loss, and vice versa.

And I like your body metaphor. Also, as with the body, no one element is in control in a social system or society. We are all responsible, and the top-level are expendable.

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Re: [wadesweekly] Occupy Turning Point

Glad you're there and participating. What's needed is a guide to herding turtles. Or an issue or leader to shape our discontents.

-- Mike Larsen

My reply: Thanks. I like your turtle metaphor.

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Re: [wadesweekly] Occupy SF: Be the Change

I want to do this in Occupy Oakland! It is amazing here as well (also feeding everybody, children's area, library, meditation tent) and yes, all those ideas about "be the change" is desperately needed. WE need to be reminded. We can't forget it the internal, the personal. I always say, we need an inward, mental revolution as much as an exterior one. We really have to imagine all sorts of new futures and that is going to take a revolution in thought at both the micro and macro levels.

Yes, and I am right across the street from Occupy Oakland and can host meetings in my office!

I am so excited about the possibilities.

--Vylma Ortiz

My reply: You state the need for an integrated approach very eloquently. I agree with you completely and am heartened by your interest in pursuing these thoughts with Occupy Oakland. In terms of the Support Circle, I would recommend that each small group of 6-8 individuals self-organize with one or two people inviting peers with whom they feel mutual respect and compatibility. Thus, all members might be more or less equally well functioning. Providing support for highly troubled individuals requires another approach. You might offer to facilitate the first meetings of a group that you initiate and join as an ongoing member, and later perhaps offer to facilitate the first meetings for other groups to which you would not fully belong.

Also, I’d recommend getting a copy of True North Groups. My proposed agenda is based on their “curriculum” for the first meeting. They have similar great thought provoking proposed questions for each of the next eleven meetings, after which each of their groups goes with the flow.

Regardless, let me know how it goes!

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Re: [wadesweekly] A Fascinating Discovery: True North Groups

I was just talking about you this afternoon. Here is one of the most meaningful groups I am involved with. I do hope that you will take a look at their website http://ecobodhi.org/guide/. I think you and my friend, Dennis Rivers, who is also very close to the Hartoughs, Joanna Macy and others, would have some interesting conversations....

--Sherri Maurin

My reply: Thanks much for bringing EcoBodhi to my attention. It seems that what they are doing is very close to what I’ve been seeking and proposing. I’m particularly interested in what formats and structures their support groups are using, or plan to use. I’ll contact Dennis and inquire.

However, on their site, “politics” seems much too hidden. The homepage makes no reference to political action. The Guide page states, “EcoBodhi includes a loose network spiritual friends who are practicing the above or similar meditations and who are seeking to bring the energies of beautiful aliveness out of the meditative state and into their work on such issues as nuclear weapons, chronic war, climate change, species extinction, and social/economic oppression.” But such work could include cultural work, or public education. It does not necessarily include action to impact public policy now or in the near term.

Moreover, in the section of “A bringing together of the different dimensions of our lives,” the site states, “As you scan the horizon of groups and organizations that exist today, among the many possible clusters you will find these four large clusters” and proceeds to identify four types of groups none of which are political action groups.

The site also states, “You are also welcome to use such a support group as a way of participating in a traditional peace, social justice or ecology organization as a circle of friends rather than as an isolated individual. (Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Earth Island Institute, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 350.org, Pachamama Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, and so on).”

This formulation suggests that some members of the EcoBodhi community are involved in political action while others are not. I am looking for a community all of whose members are so engaged. Perhaps there are some EcoBodhi support groups consisting of members of such organizations that I could join. I’ll ask Dennis.

Thanks again for the reference!