The Implicit & Experiential Rantings of a Person

"Don't mourn, organize"

2012-01-30T08:24:00.000-08:00

In response to my last post my friend Paxus asked this:

"'Don't mourn, organize.' Okay so what is the fix? I think it is creating more intentional communities, both culturally and place based. Places which can deal with depression and other mental health problems, because they are culturally strong and because they are not economically destitute all the time.

(I)An-ok you have a massive intellect, what do you think is the key to creating more communities which are not just crash pads for drifters, but have some chance at filling the need for tribe and family that the mainstream has basically abandoned, except in its most sterile and insidious forms."

I wrote a reply to this, and I would like to share it with everybody here.

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I appreciate you asking me these questions, and nudging me towards thinking more proactively as to what can be done to prevent these kinds of things from happening repeatedly. I agree with you about “creating more intentional communities, both culturally and place based”. But I think that more needs to be done than just that. I have a lot of specific details in mind as to what I think can help here.

My personal vantage-point with all of this is through the three people who ended up committing suicide whom I befriended, each of whom lived or were somehow connected with intentional communities that I was also a part of. With each of these situations there was a combination three factors taking place simultaneously:

1) They all had physical body ailments that they did not fully understand and were not getting sufficient treatment for.

2) There was a lack of stable consistent ongoing emotional support and empathic listening for them.

And

3) On their part there was a personal shyness and social anxiety which would keep them from reaching out and really getting to know others, or letting others know them.

Addressing each point, the first part would involve having a good reliable health care system in place where people are getting quality treatment for whatever their physical ailments may be. This treatment would also include an educational or informative component where the patient learns all that they need and want to know about their conditions, body and health. Treatable conditions going untreated, or people being in the dark about what’s going on for them, does not need to happen and these kind of things can really just eat people alive. I totally see there as being a mind-body connection at play. In the cases of the folks I saw, I do think that there were psycho-somatic stimuli for their physical conditions, as well as their physical conditions reinforcing the shitty stories that they were telling themselves as a part of their depression & despair. So good medical care and education would be the first part.

The second part, regarding emotional support and empathic listening, would first involve have a stable reliable structure in place where you have people that are sufficiently trained in things like Nonviolent Communication and Focusing, so that they can empathically listen to folks. These two practices are teachable and learnable modalities where people can learn how to do sensitive-yet-active empathic listening. Empathy is something specific and something that can and should be learned. And underlying this, is a genuine interest on the part of the listener of what the actual lived experience is for the person whom they are listening to. Empathy cannot take place if genuine interest is not there. You cannot just go through the motions of empathy, you really have to be there for it.

With people trained in practical empathic listening, there would then be structures in place for everybody to go to, at least once a week, to candidly talk with someone about whatever is on their heart and mind. In other words, I would like for everybody to trust that there is at least one place or group of people whom they can go to to just totally spill their guts and drop off all the emotional baggage that they have unknowingly been picking up and carrying around with them. I would say actually that the more people whom are trained in stuff like Nonviolent Communication and Focusing, and Vipassana Meditation too, the better and more solid basis you would have for everything. But at the very least I would like for there to be one core structure in place for everybody to go to receive good solid reliable empathic support on a regular basis.

And finally there is the third part, which has to do with people’s personal shyness and social anxiety. This is perhaps the most important part, and in fact if this is not actively dealt with this can interfere with the other two parts even being addressed, let alone fulfilled. In other words, one can be so shy or socially anxious that one would refuse to seek medical attention for a physical problem, or would decline to speak up about some personal emotional thing that is troubling them, even if it is haunting their every living moment.

This is where I see Carl Rogers’ “Person Centered Approach” as coming in, as well as the “Radical Honesty” of Brad Blanton whom you are more familiar with. Carl Rogers speaks about the importance of establishing real person to person relationships, real human contact. This means that the “therapist”, or the “facilitator”, or whatever you want to call the person who takes the action of initiating the deeper more intentional relationship puts special attention on being really authentic and congruent with whatever they are thinking and feeling, along with being warm and caring and nonjudgmental, as well as having the qualities of being empathic that I spoke about earlier.

The “Radical Honesty” part is important too, in that one just says what is on one’s mind, rather than having it being implied or sort of hanging in the air of the room unsaid. This is vitally important, because often people who use things like NVC, for example, try using a method like that to skirt around being really honest about what they are actually thinking and feeling. I much prefer the approach that has been described as “just get it out there, and then clean up the mess afterwards”. That “cleaning up” can be done by having the dance of dialogue which includes the empathy and the caring, as well as the deeper and more focused work of Focusing, for example.

I have done this myself with shy and socially anxious people, I know first-hand that this approach can work, I know that this can happen. In fact, with the three people in question here, the three folks who prompted all of this for me, I did that with them. They were shy, reserved, socially anxious, and I was able to get through to them, to connect with them. The key is consciously approaching them with empathy, personal authenticity and genuine caring for them. This most often took place in one-on-one interactions, when nobody else was there to potentially derail the interactions. These experiences also are what lead to the additional frustration for me personally, later on, when I told people that I had some real, wonderful, heart-to-heart conversations with them. People often had a hard time believing me, because these folks were just so generally shy, quiet and reserved that they could not imagine them any other way.

And, of course, those wonderful encounters, those totally awesome connections, was not enough to save these people’s lives. I would say that this was because I was by no means systematic about the whole thing. I did not establish any reliable structure for support, as in having regularity of such interactions, follow-ups on continuing threads, goals-setting, feed-back, assessments, and such things. My interactions with all of these folks was more or less random, haphazard, sometimes the deeper more personal more intentional thing, and sometimes totally superficial and trivial banter. What I am saying is that, even with the shy and socially anxious folks, I believe that a more deliberate, intentional, systematic and structured approach can be taken to help “get through to them”, instead of resigning them to their own personal hell inside their head. Therefore, gradually, work together with them can be done towards uncovering whatever is most important and meaningful for them to work with internally.

Ultimately, I think that all of this can and should be done as roles and structures existing within intentional communities and other such communal enterprises. This is important, especially for shy and.or depressed people, because even if you have amazing authentic and deep human contact experiences, if that all ends and the person is totally alone for all of the rest of the week, this can pretty much undo whatever productive work was accomplished in those sessions. Within an intentional community, this work can be done as a part of a “mental health team” or a “conflict resolution team”. The essential thing is that the folks who are acting in such roles are trained in and committed to using the skills that I mentioned here (NVC and Focusing, for the sake of empathic listening), and that the three principles of authenticity, empathy and unconditional caring are the three guiding lights in all that they do. I believe that these three lights, when held to, can help people to avoid whatever rigidity or stiltedness that could creep in by virtue of someone acting within a role in a social institution.

I really want to emphasize here, if I haven’t already, the absolute importance of having regularity, continuity and reliability of support here. This is so important. All three of the people I mentioned had support in all three areas that I mentioned – health-wise, emotional & empathy-wise and in the area of breaking through their shyness. The thing is, a one-time thing or sporadic occurrences is not enough. This support was not continuous and ongoing. Without that, they fell through the cracks. All that I’ve said here is a part of what I see as being necessary for weaving a kind of social fabric that is capable of really “holding” people in a supportive way. The income-sharing intentional community structure would be another aspect of the social fabric that supportively holds people as well.

You said that it is important to create more “communities which are not just crash pads for drifters, but have some chance at filling the need for tribe and family” – I think that this needs to be addressed head-on. For all three people, and all three communities in question, the phenomenon of having “drifters” come and go was very much the norm. I think that in all three places the communities generally wanted a more stable solid group of community members who stayed put, but the reality was that people would just drift in and out. I think that this needs to be addressed explicitly and directly in dialogue – have all the parties take the time to sit down with each-other and to honestly address the questions: “What will it take for you to make a real commitment to stay put and really invest yourself in this community?” as well as “What will it take for me to make a real commitment to you to support you in whatever ways that you need support and to really invest myself in my relationship with you?”

So this is another part right there – the issue of the sustainability of the relationships of all of the people such that they will all stay put and stick it out with each-other to have there be a lasting ongoing community of people together. This involves having open direct conversations with each-other, distinct and separate from the other conversations that I was talking about which would exist more for emotional support purposes. What I am referring to here are more clearing-the-air, putting-all-the-cards-on-the-table kinds of conversations so that everybody knows where everybody’s at as far as their various relationships with each-other. One group that I am a part of, the “Consciousness Transformation Community”, has these kinds of conversations take place once a month. Perhaps that would suffice for an intentional community as well.

What I was just referring to would be for community-wide conversations. For individuals or small groups of people who have conflicts or other stuff come up between them, I like Ganas Community’s rule of “No Non-negotiable Negativity”. That is, if you have some kind of negativity come up between you and someone else, you are committed to openly addressing it and actively working on it. I consider this to be a very important common agreement to make, because I know first-hand how negativity, judgment, anger, etc. can just poison a community, as well as interpersonal relationships, and one’s own sense of personal well-being as well! Negativity can be a poison that seeps in and ruins everything. So to counteract that, I would like for everyone to make an agreement right upon entering the community that they will work on their shit when (not if, but WHEN) it comes up.

To rekindle that sense of tribe and family that people are missing, I think that it is important for people to ask themselves – “what makes me come alive?”, “what helps me to feel closer and more connected with others?”, “what helps me to feel like I belong?” – and then actively take steps, create action-plans even, based on the answers that come up for them through these inquiries. Through purposefully discovering your own authentic self, together with others, the ground-work is laid to then have the conversation about how to live authentically with others who are doing the same. Step-by-step it would be a kind of re-creating of tribe, or family, but in a way that actually works for the people involved.

Looking back at what I wrote here, it seems as if what I am advocating is conversation after conversation after conversation. Well, that’s true, but all of it must be done intentionally. Intentional conversations for and within intentional communities. I think that after a while, after people have been habituated to it and it settles in as a cultural norm, the specific formats and structures of these conversations will cease to be such a big thing, and the general attitude and “consciousness” behind the whole thing will permeate people’s lives in general. That kind of environment of casual free-flowing connection is so totally different from the world that we live in, so very different from the background context of those whom I mentioned lived in. I am awe-struck by the disparity between the two.

These are my ideas, for a start. There is certainly more that can be said about everything. Feel free to ask me more questions. I would love to develop these ideas further.

"In a world full of no ones, I am a someone"

2012-01-29T11:14:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I found out that a good friend of mine died, probably by suicide, but I’m waiting for the police report to arrive before that is confirmed. This is news to me, and for a number of other people who knew him and were friends/friendly with him. But the actual death happened about three years ago. To me this is the kind of silence that says a lot.

His name was Mario, and I lived with him in two different intentional communities, and we both volunteered in post-Katrina New Orleans at the same time as well. He originally knew about me from my anarchist writings on the internet and in radical publications before we even met. It was only when we were first living together and he saw how my name was spelled that he realized that I was the same guy whose writings he read. We had many different interests, values and ideals in common, and he was one of the folks whom I wanted to create a wonderful new utopian community with together, but it never quite happened.

Mario was a very shy person, admittedly socially awkward, and as a result of that he was pretty chronically quite lonely and longing for social connection, friendship and romantic relationship. His great fear was social isolation, and that much-feared result very often was a part of his day-to-day reality. However, he was quite personable, quite friendly, quite knowledgeable and he opened up quite readily to me. He held an ideal for a kind of drop-out crusty-squatter way of life, along with a desire for authentic spiritual experience and authentic interpersonal connection, anarchist social revolution, communal living and the kind of tribal social structures that I wanted as well.

The reality was that we drifted in and out of each-other’s lives, and the kind of engaged constructive work of building what we wanted to see in the world kept on getting deferred to some vague distant future. Eventually we parted ways, he ended up traveling cross-country to various places, and I started traveling cross-country to various places too. We never met up again, although we did stay in touch somewhat via e-mail. He started talking about increasing health problems, as well as depression. His health deteriorated to the point that he could not do much, so he took refuge at the home of his one parent that he was in contact with, and stayed there. He was quite socially isolated there, a crippled radical anarchist in the middle of a small town in Kansas. He began to despair that he would ever get better emotionally or physically. I don’t know what happened after that, but eventually he died, in May 2009.

None of the deaths that I have experienced before has ever felt as disconnected as this one. He died in a place where hardly anyone knew him or could grieve his loss together, I am in a place where nobody around me knew him and can grieve with me, and everybody I know who knew him is living in a different geographical place. That, and it has been years since any of us had any contact with him, and years since he died as well. This whole situation is like a picture-perfect example of social fragmentation.

I look back at this story and I feel quite angry. I feel angry because I feel quite certain that if he had a strong, supportive and loving community surrounding him, that this would not have happened. I am convinced that things do not have to be this way. If he did kill himself then that would mean that I have now had three close friends/coworkers in my life who have killed themselves. Each time, I speak the rhetoric of community, emotional health and personal growth, and each time these people feel increasingly estranged, despairing and completely powerless about their personal circumstances.

I do recognize that suicide and the choices that one takes to get to that point are all a matter of individual responsibility ultimately in the hands of the person who takes that action. However, I do not see the matter as being entirely about that. I see our human reality as being inextricably a kind of social fabric in which we are inter-related and connected with each-other, for better or worse, like it or not. We all make choices in relation to one-another to help or to ignore, to listen to or to write off, to engage with or to mind your own business. All too often I believe that we all, including myself, make the later of these choices.

And here’s the clincher – this is happening everywhere. It’s not just Mario, it’s not just the other people in my life who have committed suicide, it’s people all over the place. Just because I do not know personally all of the different people who have, or are, or are considering right now committing suicide does not make it any less important. Joseph Stalin is reputed to have said that “one person dying is a tragedy, many people dying is a statistic.” I believe that suicide, and the isolation, the despair, the lack of meaningful social contact that is underlying it endemic to the world that we live in, to the kind of society and social organization that we participate in, and that ultimately we each need to take personal responsibility for this happening just as much as each individual takes responsibility for deciding to kill themselves.

To me, the kind of profound social isolation and disconnection that Mario lived in, which is also reflected in the way that so many people in our society live their lives, is completely and totally unsustainable. People need connection, community, belonging and care. Without that, suicide, homicide, and any number of other horrible things, is just a matter of time before it happens.

I don’t want your sympathy. I don’t want to hear any condolences, any “I’m so sorry for your loss”, because ultimately this loss is not my loss – it is our loss. Even if you did not know the guy, this has affected you, the underlying social condition affects the context that you live in, and you helped to make it happen. We’re all in this thing together. Let’s start acting like it.

The Middle Way

2012-01-19T07:59:00.000-08:00

So often in my life I have felt like an extremist. I have continually been drawn to the most radical views, the most fringe life-styles, and I have cherished the most extreme experiences. As a child I felt inside like I was extremely weird and different from everybody else. As an adult I have somewhat consciously longed for the most extreme results for the future of humanity. In many ways all of this is still the case for me. At the same time I am having a dawning appreciation for something else – balance.

“Buddhism” can mean many different things to many different people, but one key idea in it is that of “The Middle Way”. This idea got started as being about the “middle way” between hedonism and asceticism, indulgence and denial. But this can also be interpreted as being about the “middle way” between nihilism and absolutism, atheism and theism. This interpretation is one that has particular resonance for me right now.

A lot of the time my view-points tend to fall into the extremes of nihilism or absolutism, despite my conscious wishes to the contrary. “Everything is shit”, especially everything that we see in this world – nihilism. Or, “here is The Answer”, and over the years I have posed so many things as being that – absolutism. Back and forth, back and forth I’ve gone, sometimes reflecting a kind of internal mood swing in the process. At times I’ve also seen anarchism as by necessity incorporating these two elements, as being a kind of marriage of nihilism and absolutism. I don’t think that that approach really works, at the very least it is sort of crazy-making, but more than that there are other approaches out there.

A “middle way”, or balance, can be an integration of the two in the sense that it recognizes and acknowledges the best aspects of both. When something is destructive, it is seen as such, no need to deny it. When something helps with health and well-being, then that is acknowledged as well. There is no need to find fault with everything, nor is there a need to find the bright side of everything. Although both faults and bright sides do exist, when they exist, and that is recognized. An approach of balance would then be based on a profound acceptance of what is. There is no need for rose-colored glasses, or dark-tinted glasses either.

This is definitely an area where it is far easier to talk about it than to actually practice it. As I write these words even, I see within myself a desire to put up “The Middle Way” as being “The Answer”, my old absolutest approach. Swirling around this are my critiques of all that’s surrounding, something that can very well lead to an “everything is shit” conclusion, my old nihilist friend. I am so used to either trying to recruit everybody to The Righteous Cause For a Better Tomorrow, or to rain on their parade and dynamite their hopes & dreams. The radical notion for me then is to do neither, or aspects of both. There is nothing to be recruited to but there are better ways to live. There are flaws and draw-backs to everything, but not to the point of everything being worthless.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to grasp, or at least one of them, is that there are no beliefs that can console you. Nothing can really comfort you, for it is all an illusion in the end. This is one of the great back-handed gifts of nihilism. This sentiment is best expressed by this poetic phrase by Vasily Rozanov:

"The show is over. The audience get up to leave their seats. Time to collect their coats and go home. They turn round...No more coats and no more home."

Conversely, the Buddha is claimed to have said:

“Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge.”

In other words, stark reality is to be faced, point-blank, as it is. It is not to be denied, nor is it to be all puffed up with some grand theory of something-or-other. Perhaps it is not as bad as one makes it out to be, perhaps "making it out to be" anything is actually part of the problem. Straight down the middle, with no hiding from it or craving for something else, a balance can be found. That is the middle way.

2011: Looking on from afar

2011-12-31T12:56:00.000-08:00

I have an annual tradition that I do around each New Year of publicly reflecting in writing on my personal experience of the year that just ended. Here is my experience of 2011.

The main general theme that I can think of that runs throughout 2011 is “looking on from afar”. The first half of the year I was looking on to my up-coming move to Minneapolis with great anxiety, uncertainty and anticipation. The second half of the year, after having moved to Minneapolis, I looked on to various places, people and situations of my past with nostalgia and sometimes yearning to see them again. My experience with life first-hand has generally been second-rate with thoughts of what might-be, what has-been, and what is going on over-there.

And this year, out over-there has been absolutely amazing! This has been the year of the Arab Spring with the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and the uprisings in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen. This has been the year of the big protests in Spain and Russia, the riots in Greece, Rome and England, and the end of the Iraq War, Osama Bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi. Most strikingly for me as an American radical, this has been the year of the Occupy movement, something that I totally did not see coming and have been totally transfixed with.

However, all of those things have all been stuff that I have observed from afar, as a kind of politically engaged spectator of sorts. The Occupy stuff I have only marginally gotten involved with. I have intentionally kept my distance from it all since I do have some strong reservations about it. I have not really gotten deeply involved with anything this year. If anything this year has been marked by me getting more un-involved with stuff instead of involved.

There have been some things that I have gotten involved with this year, or rather, got RE-involved with once more. One of them is anarchism – I realized that I am now and have always been an anarchist all along ever since I first discovered the philosophy. I have re-gained my comfort with ideologically and socially re-associating myself with things A-word-related. It also became very clear to me as the year progressed how much disgust and aversion I have within me to mainstream contemporary ways of life.

Then there is Vipassana Meditation (as taught by S.N. Goenka). This year I sat another ten-day course, volunteered at another, and then volunteered at the Illinois Vipassana Meditation Center during some periods in-between courses taking place. This is the most involved with Vipassana Meditation that I have been since 2008, which is the year that I first got into it. I have also publicly introduced people to Nonviolent Communication this year, which is something that I had not done for a long time.

There are some other things that I have more-or-less gotten involved with afresh, such as Buddhism. Now, Buddhism is something that I have already been interested in prior to this year, but this year I have studied the subject more than I ever have before in the past. I also took part in a short class on Buddhist history here in Minneapolis, taught by Rita M. Gross, the author of the book “Buddhism After Patriarchy”. That experience was very informative for me, and was quite mind-blowing at some points. Related to Buddhism I also got into reading the works of the Beat Generation, namely Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. The first two were self-proclaimed Buddhists, though they had some different perspectives on the matter.

Gary Snyder’s perspective on Buddhism has been very influential for me this year, for 50 years ago (in 1961) he wrote an essay entitled “Buddhist Anarchism” (also known as “Buddhism and the Coming Revolution”) that I first read this year. Reading this inspired me to write two articles on the subject of “Buddhist anarchism,” to produce a pamphlet about it and to give a public workshop presentation about it. I have been very excited about the possibilities around this semi-new philosophy of “Buddhist anarchism”, yet I have also felt very wary and reluctant around it as well. This latter is because I am afraid of creating a big new Identity around it all. Building up and clinging to some self-constructed identity is what I have done many times previously in the past related to my identity as an “anarchist”. I know first-hand the profound suffering that can come with clinging to a particular identity (or anything else), and it would be of the utmost irony if this occurred related to something with the philosophy of Buddhism! The challenge for me here is to appreciate and cherish something without clinging to it.

I also have to say that all of these things are essentially about ideas – the reading, the writing, the theorizing. These particular ideas have not really impacted my own personal life that much. My actual real-life experience day-to-day this year has actually been pretty dull and bland for me. The dullness of my life has not necessarily been “bad”, it has all been rather nice, and keeping in mind all of the different horrors and atrocities taking place in our world I am very much appreciative of what I have experienced. I also feel very grateful for the continuing relationship that I have with Liz. However, I’ve also had very few close personal friendships with people this year, and these mainly have been with people who live somewhere else and who occasionally I’ve visited with for at most a couple of days. Some of these friends, and family members too, have had some amazing experiences and adventures this year as they traveled to different places and countries abroad. I have only been able to enjoy these experiences vicariously, mainly through reading written accounts about them online and imagining.

Looking back on it my own personal favorite experiences of the year, the ones that most stand out for me are ones that also involved traveling. They were the trips to Twin Oaks and Acorn communities in central Virginia with some other coworkers from Camphill Soltane in March, going to the New York City Anarchist Bookfair and tabling and co-facilitating a workshop there in April, going to the Christian anarchist festival, called “PAPA Fest”, in rural Pennsylvania and giving a workshop there in June, and visiting Camphill Village Copake in up-state New York in July. These were the experiences where I personally felt the most alive, the most free and in integrity with myself this year.

As the year ends I am left with a continuing sense of uncertainty, of not-knowing. In a way I have learned quite a lot this year, and in another sense I feel like I have learned nothing at all. I do not know what the up-coming year of 2012 will bring me or where it will take me. The very best thing that I can think of in terms of finding comfort with the uncertainty and peace with the not-knowing is the philosophy of Buddhism and the practice of Vipassana Meditation. These are some of the reasons why I like them so much and why they have been such important parts of my life this year. I feel grateful that they are there and reassured knowing that I can relate with this proactively instead of just reactively.

One of the things that I learned this year is that you cannot repeat the past when it is something positive and you try to intentionally re-create it. However, you can repeat the past when it is something negative and you unintentionally stumble upon it (again). This to me implies an additional lesson of the importance of going into things with a clear mind, free from preconceptions of “the way things ought to be”, and allowing whatever arises to be there. This way the not-knowing can be an ally and not a menace.

May all beings be happy, be peaceful, be liberated, for the coming year. :-)

Envisioning a Buddhist Anarchism

2011-11-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

I see Buddhist anarchism as being important for two reasons. I see Buddhism as essentially being about the individual’s personal liberation from unnecessary suffering. Anarchism I see as essentially being about freeing the world, through a profound social and political transformation, from unnecessary pain. We create all of this unnecessary pain and suffering ourselves.

The distinction between the two is that pain is usually a physical or an "external" thing, such as what you would normally think of with pain. There is also emotional pain, such as what comes with the loss of a loved one. Suffering is the particular kind of agony that comes about by holding onto an idea that something "should not" be happening that is happening, or "should" be happening that is not happening. This turns whatever pre-existing pain into something else, something worse. That's suffering. Suffering is created by our own habits of mind, where we choose to put our attention and what we choose to hold onto. Pain on the other hand is inevitable in life, however the social systems and institutions that humanity has chosen to organize the world with creates more pain for people than is necessary. A Buddhist anarchism would simultaneously be eliminating unnecessary suffering in the psyche and unnecessary pain in the world, and towards more joy and appreciation of life.

The other reason why I see a Buddhist anarchism as being important is that I see the two philosophies as complimenting and completing each-other. It is a union of the personal and the political, the psychological and the social, so to speak. This is ultimately about liberation in its fullest sense – both on the individual personal level and within the larger social body.

The philosophy of anarchism implies that a fundamental shift in the consciousness of people is necessary. In order to have a new world without domination, property or authority, people would need to be accustomed towards living with more benevolence, attentiveness, caring and flexibility with each-other. However, this shift in consciousness is rarely explicitly stated or elaborated upon in anarchist discourse, and the skills necessary for how people can achieve this shift in consciousness are almost never taught within anarchist circles.

The other angle to this is related to the arguments for what is called “Engaged Buddhism”, and that is that far too often Buddhism in practice becomes a means for people to escape from the world, to ignore the sufferings of others, and to blindly contribute to the injustices of the world. If one really does wish for the liberation of all beings, then one would inevitably be drawn to more thorough social engagement for working towards this.

Time has passed

A number of months have elapsed since I wrote my previous essay about this subject. I’ve received a number of different responses to it, all across the board. I’ve had some time to reflect further on the matter. One thing that has struck me is that there really is no pre-existing philosophy that is formulated which goes into depth about “Buddhist anarchism”. Various people have used this label to describe themselves, different articles, blog posts, audio or video recordings have been made, yet there has been no real lineage or tradition established for “Buddhist anarchism” as such.

This term was first publicly noted as being used 50 years ago, in 1961, by Gary Snyder with his essay entitled “Buddhist anarchism”. Given that Snyder is still alive, that means that we are still in the period of the first generation of living “Buddhist anarchists”. The whole thing is still very much in its initial formative stage, which means that we all can still define and lay out what we would like for a Buddhist anarchist philosophy to be. I would like to contribute a few more pieces here about what I would like for such a philosophy to include, this time drawing more from the core tenets of Buddhist philosophy than my previous essay did.

Disclaimers for potential subtlety

One thing that I would like to say right away is that I do not see Buddhist anarchism as being in any way connected with the various tyrannical governments, religious superstition and patriarchal traditions around the world that are associated with Buddhism. The “Buddhism” that a “Buddhist anarchism” is connected to would be the core philosophical tenets of Buddhism. The various outgrowths of Buddhism which are fundamentally at odds with the philosophy of anarchism are not a part of Buddhist anarchism as I see it.

I do admit that there are many different kinds of Buddhist philosophies out there. There are many different kinds of anarchist philosophies out there as well. Put together, this means that there exist innumerable different ways in which “Buddhist anarchism” can take form and be expressed by different people. My own background that is influencing my perspective on Buddhist anarchism is coming from my experience with Vipassana Meditation, which derives from a Theravada Buddhist tradition, and anarcho-communism which is associated with the writings of the Russian anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin.

Core Components

Despite all of the diversity within Buddhism, there do exist some things that are core to Buddhism and that all of the different traditions have in common. Looking at these core elements, I see a number of parallels and cross-overs with the philosophy of anarchism. Let’s start with the Four Noble Truths.

The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is that suffering exists everywhere. Wherever you look you will see people miserable or in some way experiencing some degree of suffering in their lives. This would then correlate with anarchist philosophy which says that the world that we live in is organized in a way that is fundamentally corrupt and harmful to life. Anarchists everywhere share the commonality of looking around at the world and seeing a society that is deeply and pervasively against life. The world as we know it is really messed up.

The Second Noble Truth of Buddhism says that suffering has a cause, and that is craving, aversion and ignorance. In other words, “having to have” something, having to avoid something, or simply refusing to look at life as it is are the causes of suffering. These three causes of suffering correlate with the anarchist philosophy’s pointing to the institutions of capitalism and the state, and underlying that domination per se, as being the cause for all of the corruption and oppression of the world. Domination at its root is based on craving and aversion for it comes about when those at the top of the hierarchy “have to” have things their way, even at the expense of others, and no other possibilities are tolerated or permitted.

Anarchists frequently decry the ignorance that is prevalent in society as well, seeing that as being a fundamental part of the problem. Anarchists see the social tendency for people in our society to ignore or disregard the various injustices and horrors that exist in our world and instead focus attention on trivialities, superficialities and entertainment. This social dynamic of continuing distractions ensures that all of the injustices and horrors will continue.

The Third Noble Truth of Buddhism is that it is possible to overcome suffering. There exists a psycho-spiritual condition called “nirvana” or “enlightenment” and individuals through their own effort can attain it. The correlation of this with anarchism is that of the vision of a new utopian society which exists without the state or capitalism, without domination or hierarchy, and that instead is based on free people organizing together directly as equals and sharing all of the world’s resources in common. Similar to the Buddhist assertion that it is possible for people to reach this radically different condition through their own efforts, anarchists assert that societies of people can create this radically different world through their own efforts as well.

The Fourth Noble Truth of Buddhism is that there is an explicitly delineated path for people to follow to reach nirvana. This is called the Noble Eightfold Path. I won’t go into each of the points for the Noble Eightfold Path here, perhaps that can be a topic for another article. Instead I will look at the three categories that the Noble Eightfold Path is broken down into: morality (sila), mastery over one’s mind (Samadhi) and experiential wisdom (panna). For the philosophy of anarchism there is also an explicitly stated means for achieving a social revolution that has three different components. This involves practices that are characterized by the principles of prefigurative politics, self-organization and direct action.

The Buddhist concept of morality (sila) is basically that one should not do or say things that will harm others, and that one should work towards doing and saying things that helps others instead. The idea is that if one does or says things that hurt others, one is also at the same time hurting one’s own self psychologically and spiritually as well. I see Buddhist morality (sila) as corresponding with the anarchist notion of “prefigurative politics”, which is the principle that one’s actions and the projects that one engages in now should reflect the kind of world that one wants to see in the future within it. “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” At the heart of an anarchist morality, expressed through a prefigurative practice, would be relationships where the autonomy of each individual is respected, without coercion, and where everyone’s needs are valued equally. Altogether this would mean that one’s actions and projects would be done for the benefit of others as well as for one’s self, and that they are done for the sake of a better future as well as for the present.

Mastering one’s own mind (Samadhi) is about developing the ability to control what thoughts one has on one’s mind at any given time, being able to choose where one places one’s attention, and being able to clearly make decisions and follow through with them. Meditation is a kind of practice that is used to develop mastery over one’s own mind. The anarchist correlation that I see with this is the principle of self-organization, which is where a group of people organize their own affairs together directly and democratically without utilizing social hierarchies or groups outside of them to make decisions for them. I see this as relating in that in order for a group to survive and thrive in a self-organized way, they need to develop means to facilitate what is being talked about, where the group’s attention is placed in a given situation, and to make collective decisions and carry them out effectively. In a way Samadhi and self-organization are both forms of “self-organization”, just one is on the individual level and the other is on a larger social level. Self-organization within a group would require the same kind of cohesion, clarity and self-discipline that are characteristics of Samadhi.

Experiential wisdom (panna) is about experiencing a deeper understanding of the nature of existence personally and directly. This kind of understanding goes beyond what can be read about in books or writings. In fact it goes beyond what can adequately be expressed in words at all. It has to be lived to be understood. I see this as correlating with the anarchist principle of direct action, which is that of meeting needs and making necessary changes without being told to or asking for permission from some form of authority. I see these as relating in that what is learned in the process of carrying out direct action and the kinds of changes that this brings about within people by going through this process is beyond anything that can be learned or gained by writing or talking alone. Direct action brings about a deep fundamental shift in people, very similar to the kinds of shifts that come from panna. These are both shifts on the direct experiential level. Direct action dispels the illusions of authority, panna shatters illusions altogether. When you are able to see first-hand things getting done without authority, you get a sense of what a straw-man authority is. When you experience the truth that is beyond all words, you can see how paltry words are.

Marking a new existence

Buddhism also has a particular understanding of the nature of our world. This is summarized by what are called the “three marks of existence”. Looking at each of these I realized that each can form the basis for an argument for an anarchist world. The three marks of existence are impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha) and no-self (anatta).

The idea behind impermanence (anicca) is that everything is always changing, everything comes and goes, and that nothing stays the same forever. “This too shall pass.” I see this as being an argument for anarchism in that I see the complexities and constantly changing nature of things and situations as being beyond the scope of authority figures or institutional bureaucracies to be able to understand or handle. Things just change too much and too often to keep up. In my view the people who are living and experiencing the changes themselves are those who are in the best position to understand the situation that is going on, and hence are in the best position to be able to deal with it appropriately. For those who are cut off from the situation itself or detached from others who are also experiencing it, the understanding can only be partial.

Suffering (dukkha) was already discussed above as the First Noble Truth of Buddhism. It is that suffering exists and is a fundamental part of the human experience. This in turn relates to an argument for anarchism in that the world that we live in now is filled with immense pain and injustice, and subsequently that this is unnecessary and that we can do something about it.

The third mark of existence is no-self (anatta), which is that there is no essential permanent “self” for an individual. In other words, everything that comprises “you” is so contingent on innumerable different factors and variables, be they biological, social, cultural, material, etc. that there is no basic core “self” which exists independent of all of that. That is, if all of the different contributing influences and components from different sources are taken away, nothing is left.

I see the anarchist correlation to no-self (anatta) as being that all of the notions of property, social status and political power exist as mere social constructs that are comprised by innumerable different factors all coinciding together. The efforts of countless people combined to make a material object that someone considers to be “theirs”. Generations of acquiescence, obedience and the social construction of meaning combined to create what is called a “king” or a “politician”. All kinds of factors reinforced by scores of people created what we have now. No Divine Intervention came and created relationships of domination, nor did capitalism and the state naturally exist since the beginning of time – we created it all ourselves together and it would not exist without us.

Eight Streams Leading to One

It has been said that the entirety of Buddhism can be summarized with this phrase: “Abandon unwholesome qualities, cultivate wholesome qualities, and purify your mind.” Similarly, a take on anarchism can be: “Abandon capitalist and state-based ways of doing things, create and participate in free and cooperative-based ways of doing things, and clean your mind of the mainstream domination-based programming that fills it.” But what does all of this look like in practice? And what would a specifically Buddhist anarchist approach look like?

Towards this end I have identified eight different pre-existing independent practices, projects or sub-cultures which I believe that woven together could form the fabric for what a specifically Buddhist anarchist practice can be. None of these are explicitly “Buddhist anarchist” per se, but they form the beginning foundations for the practical expression of it.

1) Engaged Buddhism: This is where Buddhism and activism formally meet – where Buddhists do activism (or activists practice Buddhism). Under this name, various groups like the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, the Zen Peacemakers and Thich Naht Hanh’s people do the political and social activist work that they do. It could be said that a Buddhist anarchism by definition is a kind of “engaged Buddhism.” The only difference is that the political orientation here is a radical anarchist one.

2) Vegetarianism, veganism, animal liberation: There are some folks, and anarchists and Buddhists are often among them, who say that animals have rights, that animals should be free, and that they should be treated with care and respect. In practice this view-point can be expressed by refusing to eat animal flesh, by abstaining from animal products altogether, or by engaging in more militant actions to free animals from captivity. From an anarchist stand-point this can be justified by the desire to do away with all forms of domination and oppression, and the captivity and killing of animals can be seen as one form of that. From a Buddhist stand-point this can be justified by a desire for compassion for all living beings, by the wish of “may all beings be liberated”.

3) The Public Meditation Project and meditation flash mobs: Anarchists often have the desire to reclaim public space, to open up space for everyone outside of the control of the state or private property. Buddhists often want more people to know about and to practice meditation. Put these two together, and you have the Public Meditation Project. This is an endeavor to have people practice meditation out in the open in public spaces. This can also be done as “meditation flash mobs”, where people semi-spontaneously arrange to all meet up together at the same time and place to meditate in public. Reclaiming public space does not have to be aggressive, in fact no talking even needs to happen at all. It can be done sitting down in complete silence and stillness.

4) Dharma Punx: Since the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the philosophy of anarchism and punk rock music have been strongly associated with each other. The anarchist sub-culture often blends into the punk rock sub-culture, and vice versa. Because of the efforts of authors such as Noah Levine and Brad Warner, and others, a new sub-culture has come about of Buddhist punks, or “Dharma Punx”. While not explicitly “anarchist”, Noah Levine’s writings at least often make casual reference to how what he is advocating is “revolutionary” and “radical”. Often-times the Buddha himself within this sub-culture is referred to as being “the rebel saint. This particular sub-culture has probably done the most to help develop a Buddhist anarchist culture.

5) Nonviolent Communication and the Consciousness Transformation Community: Coming from the self-help scene is a practice called “Nonviolent Communication”, or “NVC” for short. This is a series of conceptual and interpersonal tools that can be applied to help with resolving conflicts between people, developing personal clarity or sensitively listening to others. From a Buddhist perspective I see this as in many ways being a kind of “applied Right Speech”. From an anarchist perspective the principles and theory underlying NVC explicitly rejects relationships of domination, and NVC is viewed as being a way to help overcome it. Most recently something has emerged from NVC that is called the “Consciousness Transformation Community”. The CTC is based around a set of 17 “core commitments” which basically summarize the kind of consciousness that NVC aims for. In the realm of interpersonal relationships, NVC and the CTC can be viewed as tools and a framework for practicing Buddhist anarchism.

6) Radical political straightedge: In the hard-core punk sub-culture there exists a tendency called “radical political straightedge”. This is a kind of social intersection where people are into punk rock music, hold radical political views, and abstain from all forms of alcohol consumption, recreational drug use and intoxication in general. Within the Buddhist morality (sila), there is a precept where one who wishes to develop along the Buddhist path vows to abstain from all forms of intoxication. Radical political straightedge can be seen as one step on the Buddhist anarchist path within a (sub-)cultural context.

7) Buddhist atheism and Critical Buddhism: There is an author named Stephen Batchelor who is a former Buddhist monk in both the Tibetan and the Zen traditions who has renounced his monk-hood. He has recently been writing about what he calls “Buddhist atheism”. This approach is basically where all of the metaphysical ideas within Buddhism such as the notions of rebirth and reincarnation, as well as beliefs in deities and “higher” and “lower” cosmologies, are stripped away from Buddhism.

Similar work has been taking place in Japan with something that is called “Critical Buddhism”. This has been the work of some Japanese Buddhist scholars to modernize Buddhist beliefs to make it all more relevant and applicable to a contemporary audience. Given that most anarchists are atheists (ie, “no gods, no masters”), or at least come from a Western secular outlook on life, such forms of Buddhism would be the most appropriate for a Buddhist anarchism.

8) The Gift Economy: This is a way of arranging economics where all goods and services are offered freely as a gift. With this nothing is offered with a price-tag or as a part of a trade or exchange. Everything is given without any strings attached. People may give things to the original giver, but that is done so as a gift in itself, not as “payment” or “reimbursement”. A number of different anarchist events and projects operate as a gift economy, as do a number of Buddhist events and projects as well. Within the Buddhist context the practice of operating with a gift economy is connected with the virtue (Pāramitā) of “Dāna”, or “generosity”. Within the anarchist context, the gift economy would form the basis for an anarchist-communist society. There is much potential within the gift economy to be explored.

Letting Go For Freedom

Perhaps the most succinct to-the-point summary of Buddhism is this one quote that has been attributed to Gotama the Buddha: "Nothing whatsoever should be clung to." Clinging to ideas of the way things should be, what should be happening, what people should be doing, etc. is one of the sure ways to ensure that one will experience suffering. Likewise, for anarchists, clinging to ideas of how the world should look, how projects should be carried out, ideas of identity or ideological purity have also caused a lot of suffering. I believe that one of the biggest contributions that Buddhism can make for anarchism is precisely this peace of mind which comes from not clinging. Without clinging, desperation, anxiety and putting demands on one’s friends and comrades goes away. Instead, projects can be carried out with calm, clarity and a sense of inner spaciousness. This in turn can set the tone for the kind of world that we would like to live in.

Taking Up Responsibility

Having said all of this, I want to emphasize - anarchism and Buddhism are not the same thing. They are two separate traditions. They are two traditions that complement each-other like two sides of the same coin of true and total liberation. Buddhist anarchism is something new, even though it has very long and ancient roots. My hope with writing all of this is to help to make space for this something new to emerge further. Both traditions emphasize responsibility, individuals taking responsibility for themselves in the fullest way possible. The same goes with the future of the philosophy and practice of Buddhist anarchism. If we want for it to grow, develop or evolve, the responsibility is up to us. As with everything, when it comes down to it, it is always up to us.

A remarkable man, a remarkable book

2011-10-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

I recently read a book that in a sense I have waited for years to be published. The book is entitled Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader, and it was published last year by PM Press. The book is a translation and collection of writings of Gustav Landauer by Gabriel Kuhn.

I have been interested in the work of Gustav Landuer for years, since pretty much around the time that I first discovered the philosophy of anarchism. However I have never before actually read any writings by Landuaer directly. My experience with Landuaer has been through reading various descriptions written by others of his work, his philosophy and his life. Plus, there is one well-known quote that is attributed to him that I have always loved and held dear to my heart, and that is:

"The state is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behavior; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one another."

There are quite a number of different parallels between the philosophy and outlook of Gustav Landuaer and my own. For one, Landuaer was an anarchist-communist, a pacifist, and a spiritual mystic. He advocated the creation and proliferation of intentional communities and other forms of alternative institutions to meet people's needs so that folks can start living a new socialist way of life right now, as opposed to waiting for a revolution to create it. As he put it:

“If you want socialism, i.e., if you want to live in communities of justice and solidarity, then create it! Look for the cracks in capitalism and find ways to escape the economic war. Figure out how to no longer produce for capitalism’s commodity market, but to satisfy your own needs. This is a collective process: the more that individuals are able to unite their needs, their creativity, and their lives, the more effective they will be.”

And, as that afore-mentioned quote demonstrates, he emphasized and insisted on an anarchist outlook that really focused on social relationships per se and how they reproduced authoritarian structures or not. As he put it:

“It is indispensable to distinguish material realities like the land and its products from complexities like the state and capital. Without such a distinction, neither real understanding nor real action are possible. The state (and the same goes for capital) is a relationship between human beings; it is a form of (active and passive) doing and enduring that has been passed down from generation to generation.”

Reading this book of Landuaer's writings I was struck by how many other ways Landuaer's views dove-tails with my own. From the very beginning, he outlines very clearly and succinctly what all of this "anarchist" stuff is all about to begin with, why it is so important to him:

“Anarchism’s lone objective is to end the fight of men against men and to unite humanity so that each individual can unfold his natural potential without obstruction.”

That being said, he also makes a point to say that this and other such labels are not important to him, and what really matters instead:

“I could not care less whether one calls me a radical or not. I can easily do without labels. Neither superficial garishness nor garish superficiality are indications of radicalness. The same goes for smashing fanfares. ‘Radical’ is not, as it is often claimed, the opposite of ‘moderate’, but of ‘superficial’.”

This search for "depth" that he speaks of is related to his spiritual beliefs, and the importance that he places on people, everyone, actively engaging in sincere self-reflection and striving for an authentic personal spirituality. This is, as he put it, the “…the even more important, yet slow and gradual work of freeing and creating spirit…” This is because, as he said:

“Socialism has to be constructed from an inner desire and requires the awakening of a new spirit.”

To do this work he said that it is important for people to occasionally take the time to pursue active spiritual retreat. As he said:

“Since the world has disintegrated into pieces and has become alienated from itself, we have to flee into mystic seclusion in order to become one with it again.”

At times, when speaking of this kind of spiritual or "inner" work, Landuaer even mentions the kinds of "parts work" that various self-help/emotional healing modalities talk about, such as the Inner Empathy process and Inner Relationship Focusing. Doing this kind of work, and finding peace and harmony with the various aspects of one's self is actually a pre-requisite for finding peace and harmony with others. As Landuaer says:

"Once individuals have transformed themselves into communities, then they are ready to form wider communities with like-minded individuals. These will be new kinds of communities, established by individuals with the courage and the need to separate from the dullness of superficiality."

Coming from an understanding and acceptance of all of the difference aspects of one's self, one can likewise be in a better position to see and accept that society as a whole is also comprised of many different varying perspectives. As Landuaer said:

"Our world can only be understood if we understand the several parallel supplementing perspectives by which we have created it."

Likewise, Landuaer explicitly took steps to avoid painting specific individuals as being the enemy. As he put it, “I felt disgust with society way too early to still feel fury or hate towards individuals.”

Concepts of "us vs. them" as a whole were rejected by Landuaer, and he chose to focus on what the specific behaviors were that people were engaging in instead. As he said:

“I refuse to divide people into those who are the masters of the state and those who are the state’s servants. Human relationships depend on human behavior. The possibility of anarchy depends on the belief that people can always change their behavior.”

This then leads into Landuaer's perspective of how a new society, a socialist/anarchist society, would be primarily based upon a kind of nonviolence. As he said:

“True socialism is something entirely different from the fight of a social group against another. Being unable to enter the ranks of the rich – as a result of both external and internal circumstances – does not make you a socialist. Being a servant to a master or to your own reflexes and instincts does not make you a socialist. Socialism is not a war between people. Socialism is first and foremost a struggle of man against himself; secondly, it is a war against war.”

This view inevitably lead to a great deal of difference and antagonism between Landuaer and others within the anarchist and socialist milieu of the time. As he once lamented:

"Within all this calculating bleakness one longs for a word from the heart. However, no such word can be found; let alone a word that leaves behind the paradigm of war and heads for the true foundation of socialism."

Likewise, he considered all of the revolutions that most people thought about when they used that term as being “little more than champagne to a patient who is slowly and painfully recovering from a deadly disease.” As a result of this, instead of advocating for a "revolution" per se, he considered it to be vitally important to instead work for the "preparation and creation of spiritual and economic foundations for a stateless society of societies.”

The kind of work that Landauer is advocating I would say could be described as being a "Person-Centered" way of being. As Landauer put it:

“We must not forget that the masses have been turned into what they are over hundreds of years. The individuals who are different show themselves because we approach all individuals as if they were different – this is how we find it possible for them to join us. This is an apt and well-tested strategy: if you want to awaken reason and energy from dormancy you have to assume that they are not dormant.”

I find the whole thing to all be quite astounding. Through reading this, I feel as if I have found a tradition that is associated with the A-word that I can more whole-heartedly identify with, compared to most everything else out there that goes by that name. It is a shame that this lineage was pretty much entirely wiped out in 1919. But that is a topic that will be covered in another book

A new kind of communism

2011-10-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

I have come across a lot of sentiments lately from well-meaning peace-loving Nonviolent Communication-oriented folks, in response to the Occupy Wall Street movement, about how they want to overcome the divide between the 99% and the 1%. The idea is that this kind of language is an "us vs. them" language, with the 99% being "us", and the 1% being "them". The implication is that if a series of mediated dialogues could take place between the two "sides", then we can have a new era of peace and harmony as a new unified "100%".

I don't buy into this.

The way that I see things is that we live in a class society, and that capitalism makes this the case. The 1% is another way of saying "the capitalist class". In other words, they have all of the wealth and the power that they have because of their ownership of capital. Their money makes them money, and a lot of it too. The 99% is "the working class", ie, they have to work for their money, and if they don't then they die because of the lack of things that money can buy. The labor of the working class goes to support the capitalist class, for the working class makes it possible for the capitalist class to have all of the wealth and the power that they have. All of this was thought up of and talked about long long before the current Occupy movement got started.

I am going to take a bet here that everybody who will read these words is a working class person, a 99% person, regardless of what your political views may be. In fact, I would go so far as to say that chances are that you have never even met a person who is a part of the capitalist class. These people keep themselves socially and culturally separate from working class people and (with the exception of those who have jobs as butlers, waiters, chauffeurs, security guards, etc. who are directly employed to serve them) we never come into contact with these people. We may see a few of them from time-to-time on TV, but then one can see a lot of different crazy stuff on TV, so it's best to not take that too seriously.

Recently I have seen a few signs of folks in the Occupy movement saying that they have inherited some money, so they are actually a part of the 1%, and yet they still stand in solidarity with the 99%. I don't believe these people. The way I see it is that the working class includes a broad and diverse bunch of people, folks from all kinds of different backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, etc. These people may come from relative privilege, ie, they are more well-off than most people, but as long as they still have to work for a living and they can not totally rely on their money to make money for them so much so that they can comfortably survive, then they are still working class, and hence, they are still "the 99%". A feeling of personal guilt over one's relative privilege does not change one's class status.

A few Nonviolent Communication folks have occasionally mentioned from time-to-time that they would be into having "both sides come together", they they would be into giving empathy to "both sides", that they would like to overcome all of the "us vs. them" language, etc. Here is my take on this. As far as I am concerned, there is only "us" - the working class. The working class makes everything within this society possible. The working class makes everything "work", it runs the gears, operates the computers and harvests the fields of our society. The working class is by and large operating within a frame-work of capitalism, that is, we have capitalist models within our heads and we act accordingly, hence we all live in a capitalist world. If we had a different frame-work that we worked with, a different model in our heads, and different actions as a result, then we would not have capitalism, we'd have something else. The thoughts and actions of the working class determines all of this.

What I would like to see is a complete social revolution that abolishes capitalism. I would like to see spaces and things occupied and used in different ways under different models and paradigms. To the extent that one believes in what is called "property", then what I am talking about here is collective "expropriation", but in a massive revolutionary context. What the "capitalist class" or "the 1%" think or feel about this does not concern me. This is because I see capitalism as such as being a social system that inherently, by it's very nature, utterly disregards and is destructive towards all life. Humans and animals, physically and spiritually, mentally and ecologically, within the U.S. and internationally, capitalism is a negative force that has got to go.

This inevitably will involve a degree of coercion, however this can be worked with in a compassionate way. As I see it, the 1% / capitalist class are like people with a mental illness, completely delusional about these notions of "property" and various things that they supposedly "own". Similar to people with mental illness, we usually are kept apart from them and we do not see them or interact with them. However, unlike with mental illness, we reinforce their condition by saying and doing things that encourage their delusions. By our very thoughts and actions we are encouraging a mad world. If someone were walking around pointing to various different buildings and things saying "that's mine, I own that", we would think that that person is crazy. However, if that person were wearing a suit and had a piece of paper that we call "a deed" or "a title", then we would reinforce these ideas they have. We don't have to do this, these are all choices that we make.

If there were to be a revolution, I would want the health and well-being for what is called "the capitalist class", as well as for everyone else. The capitalist class would probably have experienced coercion, they would probably be going through emotional pain and suffering as a result, however this can be worked through with care and sensitivity. Given my experience working with people with developmental disabilities and mental illness, I know first-hand how people can be completely delusional, how their personal attachment to their delusional ideas can cause emotional suffering for them, and how other people can do things to help them to experience more calm and peace as well as to work towards more social integration and productive harmony within society as well. This is the same process that I'm talking about here, just with different specific details.

Ultimately what I am wanting is communism, but a different kind from all of the stuff that has come before with that name. The old communist dictum is "from each according to their ability, from each according to their need." To have this along with ensuring the presence of the qualities of care, compassion, consideration and participation, I would amend that phrase to be this:

"From each according to their ability and willingness, to each according to their needs and feed-back."

I do find it very inspiring to see that behind this current international Occupy movement there is a living practice of various forms of decentralized, non-hierarchical decision-making. The consensus process, direct democracy, as well as networking and ultimately federations, this is how I would like to see a new kind of communism to be organized - not based on the decisions of elites or top-down models.

Another thing is the idea of needs, as in, "to each according to their needs" - I would like to see the whole conceptualization of needs be changed around. I do appreciate Nonviolent Commmunication in that it brings to the fore an understanding that we all have a variety of different kinds of needs - mental, social, spiritual, intimacy-related, as well as the more traditional physical needs that we usually think of when we use that term. With capitalism, huge swaths of people are starving in a whole wide variety of different ways, it's not just the lack of material food. A new kind of communism would actively address all of the different needs for all of the different people.

I really don't want to gloss over or overlook the vast differences and diversity of people out there. Cultural (and sub-cultural) differences between people can really make the differences seem like we all come from different planets. However when it comes down to it what I think should be actively looked at in terms of implementing the kinds of fundamental social changes that I am talking about here can be broken down to these questions:

1) Where are people spending their time?

2) Who are people spending their time with?

3) What are people talking about?

and

4) How are people talking with each-other?

A change towards a more directly democratic, non-hierarchical, egalitarian, sharing-based society would address these very questions and try to answer them as objectively as possible. To have power together in our society we would be talking openly about the things that concern all of us together. The general tendency towards individual isolation and the common banter about topics without any real meaning or relevance to us is totally antithetical to this. The idea of the "General Assembly" that is used with the Occupy movement is a step in the right direction for this change that I am wanting.

The way I see it, "we are the 99%" is a mnemonic device to help us to all remember that we all have more in common with the social situation that we are in than we have differences. I do not see this as a divisive thing for in the end "the 1%" is irrelevant. It is us who make this whole social system that we are in possible, and it is us who can make a new one too. The important thing is to continue moving in that direction.

The Other "N-Word"

2011-10-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

For a number of years now I have noticed quite a disdain among people who identify as anarchists towards the philosophy and practice of nonviolence. Just mentioning the word "nonviolence" among anarchists pretty reliably will result in setting some people off. The idea seems to be that advocates for nonviolence want people to basically be human punching-bags, willing victims, lambs waiting for the slaughter. There also exists an idea that advocates for nonviolence are highly judgmental, extremely moralistic, and are willing to call the cops when somebody crosses the stark moral lines that they have drawn on the sand. In a number of different instances, this in fact has been the case.

For myself though, I have always had a sense that I have somehow walked right into the middle of this raging battle going on between the "nonviolence" advocates and those who think otherwise. This all has been going on long before I arrived, and I have never felt like I was really a part of either one side or the other. At the same time, I have always felt at least intuitively drawn to nonviolence, but in my own unique way.

Back when I first discovered the philosophy of anarchism and got into it all, I initially considered myself to be an anarcho-pacifist. I've since dropped that phrase, and at different times I have stopped talking about the question of violence altogether. Instinctively, though, I have always been into the idea of a nonviolent anarchism. The reason for this is that as I see it anarchism as a philosophy advocates for people to not use force, coercion or domination within social relationships or organizations. Anarchism instead advocates for a new society based on voluntary cooperation, free association, and people coming together as equals. As I have always seen it violent acts are by their very nature is an instance of coercion, domination, and one person (at least) exerting force over another. I've never seen it as being possible to have a true anarchism be anything other than nonviolent.

Conversely, I have never seen it as being possible to have a philosophy and practice of nonviolence without it being a form of anarchism. As I see it, institutions like the state and capitalism inevitably entail the use and threat of institutionalized violence. What are things like prisons, militaries, and police forces if not organized groups of people committing or threatening violence? Creating social or political change while at the same time keeping those groups of people around is maintaining a steady and constant presence of large-scale violence. Placing the label "nonviolent" on oneself while at the same time overlooking the presence and actions of these institutions have never made sense to me.

For a period of time I openly distanced myself from "nonviolence" and such ideas, and in retrospect that very much was related to my own sense of distrust and exasperation with people and the possibility of real social change. At one point I discovered the practice of Nonviolent Communication, and that re-introduced me to nonviolence in a whole new and different way from what I was familiar with before.

Nonviolent Communication speaks of, and provides tools to work towards, a whole other way to perceive and relate with life in general. It is based on the idea that all human beings share the same fundamental human needs which motivate everything that is thought, said or done. Ideas of "right" and "wrong", "good" and "bad" are abandoned, and in their place are assessments of whether particular actions or ideas are really meeting people's needs or not. Using this perspective, nobody needs to be blamed or judged, and no matter how scary or different the actions of somebody may be. Everything can potentially be understood through empathic listening and dialogue, if the skills and the determination to do so are present.

That is the basic idea behind Nonviolent Communication - in practice it has not been used that much so far in actual social struggles and political campaigns. However, the potential behind it still does excite me. As far as I can tell, the majority of the history of nonviolence has indeed always had a strong sense of moralistic judgements and condemning others who think and act differently than oneself. People had the best of intentions while doing that, but those actions did take place, thereby creating unnecessary barriers and obstacles.

More recently, coming out of the Nonviolent Communication scene is something called the "Consciousness Transformation Community", which is a group of people organized primarily around a set of 17 core commitments. As I see it, these core commitments form a written expression of how nonviolence can be seen and lived in a way differently from what has been the norm before. This particular articulation of nonviolence very explicitly includes a rigorous practice and commitment to things such as empathic presence, authenticity and loving no matter what. This is important because this enables real deep-rooted change to take place.

I say this because I view social dynamics as being inextricably tied together with psychological dynamics, and that social change is very much interwoven with psychological change. Society is after all comprised of people, real human beings with their own individual lives and personal psyches, as well as broad social forces and institutions. Based on this, I have been deeply informed by the work of the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers. Carl Rogers had the notion that real and substantial change within people takes places when at least three factors are present within an interpersonal relationship - authenticity, empathic understanding and what he called unconditional positive regard. Without those things present, behaviors such as defensiveness, abstract intellectualizing, and a more superficial examining of one's life will be the kinds of behaviors that will be the norm. As I see it, those kinds of behaviors are the norm in the world that we live in now, but they don't have to be.

Authenticity, empathy and caring can not only serve as a force for positive change, but also can be at the root for nonviolence and anarchism. We don't want people to be hurt, killed, bossed around or dominated because those things completely work against heart-felt authenticity, empathic understanding and true caring being present in relationships. This all then calls for a radically different kind of nonviolence than what we are used to or what we have generally seen in the world up until now. This kind of nonviolence emphasizes things like caring, sensitivity, and deep personal expression. These kinds of things are more the norm in social circles like psychotherapy and self-help, but are not at all the norm in circles based around radical politics and activism. This can be changed.

One way to help to implement a change towards this direction is to intentionally create new social situations where people can openly express and actively listen to one another with care and empathy. To use the parlance of Nonviolent Communication, the appropriate social "containers" need to be created, with the presence of skilled facilitators, where people can be "held" in such a way that people feel safe and secure enough to speak more honestly and candidly about themselves and about life. This in effect is a series of actions that can be taken to more consciously humanize people and relations with each-other.

Dehumanization and depersonalization are two tendencies that have contributed greatly towards both the domination and the violence that exist in our society, and this can be counter-acted by establishing new and public social forms where people can be more openly human together. This is something that can be done, involving skills that can be taught and learned, and it all begins with a choice and a decision to do so.

Back to the Future: modern-day utopian strivings for tomorrow

2011-07-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

by some forward-thinking anarchists

[We were recently asked to describe our vision for the year 2021, ten years into the future. Here’s our best-case scenario. We're not saying that this is this future is likely. We're presuming there will be no technological singularity, no disclosure about extraterrestrials, and neither a New Age mystical ascension nor doomsday in 2012. This may not be the best nor last such piece we write. It’s not everything we would like, but it’s headed in that direction. If you think you could do better, please write your own and post it.]

A general paradigm shift has emerged over time regarding how people view the nature of humanity itself. People increasingly have moved away from relating based on static labels and moralistic judgements towards instead seeing all human beings as having the same basic and fundamental needs. Increasingly there is also more open acknowledgement that each person is responsible for the choices that they make, that the choices each person makes affects others, and that healthy social relationships are necessary in order to survive. Subsequently there is more of a generalized respect for the autonomy of each person, and for the sake of healthy relationships there is less reliance on coercion, intimidation or manipulation. Because of this, new forms of group facilitation are created and gaining new interest, facilitation that can be said to be more "person-centered", as opposed to the old more "agenda-centered" ways of having conversations and meetings.

With this form of group facilitation gaining popularity as the preferred approach for running formal meetings as well as informal gatherings of people, both the character of organizations as well as for the culture at large begins to change as well. More and more people try to relate with each-other in ways that prioritize empathic understanding, honest self-expression and valuing everyone's well-being. This change is having it's effect on how people address conflict towards more restorative justice and mediation as opposed to the traditional punitive justice. Romantic relationships gradually shift towards becoming more free-form and focused on open and direct dialogue. Parent-child relationships become more non-coercive, creative and cooperative. Family structures become more open, pluralistic and affinity-based. Overall, voluntary cooperation and mutual partnerships are becoming more of the favored mode for social relationships.

Government as we had known it is clearly on the way out. A large majority of people have realized that they were not served by the left/right split which was largely concocted by the rich and powerful to keep the masses divided and fighting among themselves. Dialog and deliberation methods have become popular and Citizens’ Deliberative Councils with randomly selected members are temporarily convened to arrive at consensus about all the contentious issues of the day, producing breakthrough solutions that divisive party politics was never able to achieve. Politicians who once pandered to corporate special interests are now bending over backwards to rubber-stamp the proposals of the Citizens’ Deliberative Councils, lest they lose what little public credibility they have left. A large, growing minority is loudly questioning what we need these politicians for at all, and it looks like the era of representative democracy is drawing to a close, in favor of something much more participatory that works for everybody.

A Truth-and-Reconciliation Commission has been formed in which members of the intelligence establishment, military-industrial complex, Wall Street, and the corporatocracy confess their crimes and publicly discuss their impact on others in exchange for immunity from prosecution. People who've been involved in running corporate and political structures are beginning to talk about their pain, and listen to affected people talk about their pain as well. In awkward fits and jumps, the crypto-fascist regime that has ruled since World War 2 and before is seriously in the process of unraveling in the face of an informed and determined public unwilling to tolerate its continuance. The wars have ended, the foreign military bases have closed down, and returning soldiers have been deprogrammed, rehabilitated, and reintegrated into supportive communities.

Much more food is grown cooperatively and locally where people live. Nowadays pretty much everyone agrees about the importance of local food independence, organic methods, and composting. All genetically engineered seeds have been safely destroyed and replaced with heirloom varieties.

Most people have come to understand the value of unplugging from the mass media and corporate culture. TV, movies, video games, glossy magazines, and pop music only have a shred of their former audience and big mass media companies are going bankrupt. Grass-roots autonomous culture has risen up to replace it, and people who were once made to feel isolated, inadequate, and powerless by the onslaught of advertising and corporate and government propaganda, are now enjoying a new depth of meaning and thrill of empowerment as they begin symbolically representing their own lives and struggles in art and music.

Traditional models of education (both childhood and higher education) are seen are irrelevant and not worth the resources that people used to put towards them. For learning people form informal small groups to study, discuss and experiment together. Occasionally skilled facilitators are sought out to stimulate and guide the interest of these groups to get past problems or stuck spots. Mentorship relationships also flourish between people with more knowledge and experience in given areas and those whom have an interest in learning in that area. When wanting to work in a certain area, people openly talk about what their own personal strengths, weaknesses and interests are without shame, and what they would need to learn in order to effectively carry out the necessary tasks.

Petroleum has begun phasing out of our lives and we’ve risen to the challenge of coping with this shift gracefully. We’ve relocalized our production and drastically simplified our consumption patterns. Fuel rationing is being handled by neighborhood committees, reserving gasoline for the most vital transportation, such as ambulances and moving food. We’re clustering into fewer homes in the winter in order to burn less heating oil. All the nuclear plants have been shut down for the sake of public safety. Wind and solar has made up for some of the shortfall, but mostly we’re making due with less and creatively stretching out what’s left.

The economy has taken an unexpected twist as the GDP and average per capita income has taken a nose dive while surveys of subjective life satisfaction are soaring. Widespread unemployment combined with massive shocks of inflation and deflation has lead the market to distrust money in general, so monetary exchange as a means to get what one wants is falling into disuse, replaced by decentralized volunteer groups coordinating labor and food distribution on an ad-hoc basis. New intentional communities are springing up everywhere as it becomes common knowledge that we need to come together in a spirit of cooperation if we are to survive. Few people have real jobs or income any more, but willing workers voluntarily contribute their talents to the greater good, guided by needs-and-wants bulletin boards and consensus town meetings to set priorities. Consumerism has fallen into ill repute as many have realized that once basic needs are met, materialism produces diminishing returns, and that nothing is more satisfying than pitching in to make one’s community a better place to live for everyone.

Community done intentionally

2011-07-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

Ever since I discovered the existence of intentional communities I been a stronge supporter of this way of living and I have known that I want to live in one. For me, the very name says it all - to have community and to do it intentionally. Usually communities come about unintentionally, comprised of whoever happens to be around in a given situation. Things don't have to be that way.

The kind of intentional community that I have always been in favor of is the structure of an income-sharing commune, where people both live and work there and where everything that it's members need is provided for by the community itself. This way of living is a part of my ideal for a future society, and it is possible to implement in small-scale forms right now.

This is a very close-knit way of living, people are all up in each-other's business all the time, and frequent meetings are necessary in order to navigate through all of the matters that are affecting everyone. Despite all of this, I say that it is worth it. For one, social needs are met through this model, such as meaningful interactions with others and belonging to something greater than one's self. Also, people always affect each-other all the time regardless of which social models and structures they live within, so having an intentional community structure in place simply provides a way for people to come together to openly talk about this. Pretending that webs of inter-relation and interdependence do not exist makes social fragmentation so much easier to occur.

More importantly, the intentional community format, in particular an income-sharing commune, provides a clear and explicit basis for mutual support. Instead of each individual being left on their own, or even each couple or family being on their own, you have a whole group of people (which includes individuals, couples and families) who are working together to ensure the well-being of everyone. Instead of abandoning people to chance, people explicitly have each-others' back and are looking out for one-another. This is an incredibly strong form of social "safety net" or "insurance", stronger even than what is normally thought of with these words, given that what we're referring to here are people whom one lives with and sees and interacts with every day. Paperwork and relationships of buying and selling can not even compare to that.

The Camphill model for intentional communities intrigues and inspires me in particular. This is because Camphill communities take all of the collective strength and wealth that are created by the pooling together of resources into an income-sharing intentional community and uses that to support people who are in need of special care. I like this, because it ensures that nobody is overlooked, that nobody is left out. On top of that, Camphill adds a dimension of awareness of spirituality and mindfulness that does much to enrich the quality of life that one can experience in community.

What originally inspired me to write this here is my reading of a recent blog post by a friend of mine. The post is The Problem of Sociability. I agree with what he says there about social fragmentation, and the investment of time, space and people as the way to remedy that. In particular these three sentences stand out to me:

"I have seen in Europe that the strongest political groups begin with groups of friends whose political life looks like a daily life that includes each other. This looks like intentional living and daily meetups in public space. In the US we are together, as radical subjects, only as long as our shared living space or clubhouse lasts and no longer."

Based on this, I then think about Camphill Village Copake, where I am currently visiting. This is a place that is an income-sharing intentional community that this up-coming September will be celebrating 50 years of being at this location. However, it started out as a group of friends who previously knew each-other, spent a lot of time together and were committed to this project regardless of what specific physical space was available. This kind of investment, I believe, helped to make this project such a long-lasting endeavor.

The thing is, Camphill communities are not really a "political" project in any way, which is something that I am OK with. Perhaps this is something that reflects my own tendency towards the kind of "puritanism" way (as spoken of as a "wrong" approach in that previously-mentioned blog post) in which I have approached radical leftist politics. At the same time, I am a strong believer in the need to integrate "personal" and "political" work together, as I have talked about here previously. This leads me to wonder how "political" a person I really am, even though I believe that our world needs to radically be changed top to bottom, and every which way.

One project that I have been following recently is Shut Down Rise Up, based in Minneapolis in response to the recent "government shut-down" there in Minnesota. This project, in my eyes, is an attempt to create more "intentionality" and mutual support among pre-existing communities of people. This project also can very easily be said to be a "political" project. The problem with this kind of thing, however, is that when the specified time elapses people then relapse back into "unintentionality" and isolation. Structures need to exist more permanently, more ongoingly.

My ideal situation would be that of combining all of these different elements: income-sharing intentional community, supporting people in need of special care, recognizing & appreciating the spiritual aspects of life, integrating "inner" work and personal change with more "outer" social change, and, at the same time, making efforts to invite the general public to learn more about and participate in ways to create mutual aid, local self-sufficiency and intentional living.

I am at a place in my life now where I feel like I have a lot from my own past experience to draw from, while at the same time I am unwilling and unable to create the kind of life and projects that I want to engage in on my own. I am looking for comrades, networks and social structures that are in alignment with all of these things that I am wanting. At the same time, my suspicion is that what I am wanting is not all the different, on a fundamental level, from what most people are wanting. The question is to navigate through all of the particulars, and to talk about what we want consciously. This is something that we can choose to do together.

Reflections on a Buddhist Anarchism

2011-03-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

I suppose that all of this basically comes down to a deep dissatisfaction with life and the world that we live in. After years of grappling with this, trying on different approaches, lifestyles, ideologies, drugs, traveling, I now have come to see this world and my life in it in a particular way. My well-being, and the well-being of everyone in the world, basically comes down to our own choices that we make. Our choices have consequences. We can be happier, healthier, and live more fulfilling lives if we learn how to make wiser more skillful choices. This is what I call Buddhist anarchism.

What’s in a name

Writing all of this I have a concern that I am merely contributing another label, another –ism, another ideology to a world that is already saturated with these. I do not want to add another set of words and ideas to fight over, but rather I want to tie together some historical streams of thought and practice that I believe can be quite beneficial and mutually reinforcing.

When I say “anarchism” what I’m referring to is a social philosophy based on an understanding that leads away from domination, top-down hierarchy and coercion, as exemplified by institutions such as capitalism and the state, and towards greater social freedom, voluntary cooperation and sharing of resources. Two slogans best summarize this worldview: "No gods, no masters" and "liberty, equality, fraternity".

Buddhism to me is a philosophy of the mind based on an understanding that leads away from delusional thinking, attachment or trying to hide, and instead leads towards greater ethical conduct, control over one's mind, and experiential insight. The phrase that best summarizes this worldview is: "Discern what helps; refrain from harm; purify your mind."

Both of these philosophies emphasize a profound sense of freedom, community with others and with life in general, and a sincere goodwill being the motivating force behind people supporting each-other. I believe that both of these approaches are necessary in order for us to have real, meaningful and lasting change in this world.

The Buddha once said “even ignorant people look for a pathway to reality. But, searching for it, they often misunderstand what they encounter. They pursue names and categories instead of going beyond the name to that which is real.” My goal in writing all of this is to hopefully provide a few more useful guide-posts in the ongoing search for that which is really real in our world.

No separation from the personal and the political

Anarchists have long said that the "personal is political", that dynamics of authority and domination manifest themselves within interpersonal relationships and mindsets as well as in the larger institutions of our society. As a result, the choices and actions carried out within one’s life in relationship with others has been viewed by anarchists as being just as important an area to focus one's attention on as capitalism and the state at large. As the German anarchist Gustav Landauer put it, "the state is a relationship between human beings, a way by which people relate to one another. One destroys it by entering into other relationships, by behaving differently”.

Buddhist belief holds that there is no real separation between an individual person and other people, and the rest of life, around them. The idea is that our very nature is so inextricably tied together, so bound by various processes of cause and effect occurring between us, that there is no meaningful way to draw a boundary from where a person begins and ends. To quote the famous anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, “Man becomes conscious of himself and his humanity only in society and only by the collective action of the whole society".

This is one of the core ideas behind Buddhism, the concept of "no self", or “anatta”. One is to have compassion and kindness towards all sentient beings because, to use an anarcho-syndicalist phrase, "an injury to one is an injury to all".

Coming out of this understanding of "no self", there is the Mahāyāna Buddhist ideal of the "Boddhisattva". This ideal is such that the individual who chooses to go down this path does not achieve Enlightenment until all sentient beings achieve it first. A similar sentiment was expressed by Mikhail Bakunin when he said "I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free."

Accepting the Path

The end goal for all of this is Enlightenment and a utopian society. Enlightenment would be when one is fully aware, at peace and free from all suffering. The utopian society in question would be where the world has no more relationships of hierarchy and domination, and all human activity is carried out freely, as equals, and all collective decisions and resources are shared together in common. Both ideals can seem distant and unattainable, but the path towards attaining these goals is in itself fulfilling, in both regards.

The Buddhist path is comprised of three aspects: ethical behavior, control of one's mind, and experiential insight. Ethical behavior includes things like refraining from telling lies, stealing, killing, taking intoxicants, sexual misconduct, or in any other way harming people. This is not to be viewed as a kind of moralistic list of "do's and don'ts" to use to judge people, but rather as a kind of guiding framework that one can choose to adopt for one's life to aid in creating more personal stability and grounding from which to work from.

Controlling one's mind comes about as a result of a regular ongoing practice of meditation. Ordinarily our own mind is scattershot, fragmented, jumping around from topic to topic, and in many cases it is actively working against us. Very often we do not even know our own mind, let alone control what it does and where it goes. Various forms of meditation practice exist in the world, and simply by choosing one or a few of them and sticking with them as a regular ongoing personal practice, eventually one's mind will find greater clarity, coherence and sensibility.

Experiential insight comes about when one knows something not merely in an intellectual or abstract way, but because one has had direct personal experience with it. Through your experience, insight occurs. This is not merely a mental occurrence of conjuring up a memory of something, but a kind of bodily-felt experience where that which you know is felt and understood directly. This kind of thing can never be told from one person to another, each person has to come to it themself. Words that are spoken about this can at best be a guide towards personally coming to this kind of experiential insight. Unfortunately words can often be a distraction away from this as well.

The anarchist path towards social revolution could also be characterized as having three aspects: direct action, self-organization, and prefigurative politics. Direct action means doing something without asking for permission or waiting for an official stamp of approval. This is related to the goal of coming out of authority-based ruler/subject relationships, and instead finding one's own personal power to take action directly one's self without being told what to do.

Self-organization means that groups of people who do something together also have the role of organizing that activity together as well. Instead of having one group of people doing an activity, and another group of people doing the organizing work and decision-making for that activity, everything is all carried out by the same group of people. Where direct action can be viewed as people finding their own personal power, self-organization can be viewed as groups of people finding their own power together as a group.

Prefigurative politics means that the activities carried out and the ways of organizing and relating within them all reflect the kind of society that one wants to live in. This is in effect eliminating the separation of "means" and "ends", or as Gandhi put it, to "be the change which you want to see in the world". In practice this would mean establishing and spreading various social systems and structures to meet people's needs within our current society. Whether these needs are for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, sanitation, medical care, child care, education or skill-building, all of people’s needs can be met through social means that are cooperative, voluntary, egalitarian and free.

The point with all of this is to not get tripped up by focusing too much on the end goals – personal Enlightenment and a utopian society. The goals are wonderful, but we are living our lives in the here-and-now. Therefore more focus should be placed on walking the path to these goals, because that is where we are now, taking one step at a time. When done right, each step on the path towards these goals are fulfilling in and of themselves, regardless of when and if we get there. This is all about improving our lives, personally and socially, and the process in itself is worth the effort.

Taking Responsibility

In common with both Buddhism and anarchism is the whole notion that one ought to take responsibility for one's own life. With anarchism, there is a change of social structures and relationships towards recognizing and respecting each person's ability to make their own choices for their own life. With Buddhism there is a kind of investigative search towards locating one's core sense of choice, and from there consciously deciding upon one's own actions, words spoken, and even the thoughts that are held in mind. The psychologist Victor Frankl expressed the later sentiment well when he said: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

In a way, these two approaches towards looking at individuals taking responsibility for their own lives are two sides of the same coin. The anarchist approach is "from the outside-in", meaning that it focuses on how the community, the social structures and the relationships that a person is surrounded with can best acknowledge and support the individual in taking responsibility. The Buddhist approach is "from the inside-out" in that it focuses on the sense of choice coming from within an individual and extending outwards towards one's thoughts, onto one's words, and finally expressing itself in one's actions.

To have a Buddhist anarchist approach would be to acknowledge and support each-other in making our own choices and decisions, to make decisions collectively and cooperatively when they pertain to group or community matters, and to always keep in mind that we can and should continue to develop greater wisdom, maturity and skill in the choices that we make.

Developing good qualities

“Abstain from all unwholesome deeds,
perform wholesome ones,
purify your mind -
this is the teaching of the Buddhas.” - from the Dhammapada

At various points over the years that I have considered myself to be an “anarchist” I have felt discouraged, disillusioned and disappointed with the words and actions coming from different people who also consider themselves to be “anarchists”. These behaviors have ranged from very hurtful things that are written or spoken to one-another, to petty theft, lifestyles emphasizing intoxication, sexual assault, and other forms of violence. I have been astounded by this behavior, and at times have wondered if I really belong to the “anarchist community”, given that these kinds of behavior are not what I associate with anarchist values or the kind of utopian society that I want to live in. In other words, this is not what I signed up for.

Then I think about my own life, and how I myself have done various things that I regret and am not proud of. I remember how within my own mind when I was carrying out those actions, I felt quite agitated, confused, and in turmoil. My mind was not clear, composed and at peace with itself when I did those things. I recall the Buddha’s exhortations to “purify your mind”, and I think – what a remarkable difference that would have made in terms of providing the foundation for different, more beneficial actions to take place.

What strikes me about Buddhism is how seamlessly integrated the whole process is. The ethical framework that is provided is directly related to the mastery of one’s own mind, which is also related to developing one’s ability for concentration. Seen from this perspective, it is not surprising that such behaviors are found in the anarchist community, or other communities of people, because the perspective of the whole person is missing, as is the explicit commitment to positively developing one’s capacities.

A commitment to personal growth

I believe that the more one is genuinely committed to improving one’s self, developing inner strength and mastering one’s own mind, the more one is in a better position to contribute towards meaningful social change. The Sufi writer Idries Shah put it well when he said:

"The individual, and groupings of people, have to learn that they cannot reform society in reality, nor deal with others as reasonable people, unless the individual has learned to locate and allow for the various patterns of coercive institutions, formal and also informal, which rule him. No matter what his reason says, he will always relapse into obedience to the coercive agency while its pattern is with him."

In other words, we often produce and reproduce relationships of domination, authority and submission without even realizing that that is what we are doing. We are so accustomed and conditioned to these ways of being that we often are not even aware that they are happening. Cultivating greater self-awareness in the present moment can aid us in noticing this taking place. Buddhism provides various tools to assist in this. A real personal commitment to doing the ongoing necessary inner work of developing in these areas has to be present; otherwise “anarchy” would end up being the kind of nightmare situation that people usually associate with that term.

Intoxication and seeing clearly

Within countless anarchist circles I have come across there are problems that exist with drugs and alcohol. A lot of the time the using of drugs or alcohol is one of the factors contributing to instances of sexual assault and other forms of violence, as well as unnecessary run-ins with law enforcement. Overall the time, energy and money spent on the procurement, consumption and dealing with the after-effects of intoxication within the anarchist scene seems to me to be something that could be more productively put in other places.

From the Buddhist perspective of developing greater self-control, mastery of one’s mind and concentration, the act of getting intoxicated pretty much defeats the purpose. One of the goals with Buddhism is to see reality as it is, without delusions and confusion. The adding of the element of intoxication is contributing one more unnecessary barrier to achieving this desired clarity.

Part of seeing reality clearly also involves facing directly the reality that exists inside of you. This means not hiding from that which is unpleasant, and not craving that which is pleasant. Intoxication is a way to induce pleasant experiences, and to escape unpleasant ones. The more time that one spends with one’s self, directly and unobstructed, the more one eventually finds personal acceptance and comfort with one’s true nature.

Related to the anarchist punk rock scene there is “straight edge” (or “sXe” for short), a movement of people who abstain from drugs and alcohol. These folks have already elaborated on the draw-backs to intoxication, particularly as it relates to the effective carrying out of social change work. Many straight edge people tie their abstinence to their religious or spiritual beliefs, the most notable of which being Christianity and Hare Krishna. I would say that Buddhist anarchism would also have ties to straight edge (as well as “posi-core”, given the focus on positive values).

Selfless service

Turning the focus now from one’s self towards others (to the extent that there is a distinction between the two), I will say that one of the important aspects within Buddhism that has most struck a chord with me is what has been referred to as “dhamma service”, or “dharma service”. This is the voluntary giving of service for the benefit of others without expecting anything in return. This is to be done out of a spirit of love, compassion and generosity, with a sincere wish for the peace and happiness of those you’re serving. I have found this to be a very personally rewarding experience, which is ironic given that this activity is done out of a spirit of focusing on serving others, not yourself. That this kind of experience would be personally fulfilling makes the “giving” in fact be a kind of “receiving”. (To me this is an example that high-lights the principle of “anatta” or “no self”)

In the world of activism, the profession of those who want to change the world, I have been struck by the amount of anger that exists towards other people. I believe that this stems from a mindset of wanting to change other people. I do not see that perspective as going anywhere. Because when it comes down to it, each person is responsible for changing themselves, for determining their own future through their own actions. The mindset that I instead would like to use when approaching matters of social change is not the “activist” mentality, but rather that of selflessly serving others – dharma service.

The simplicity of giving

Another aspect of Buddhism, related to dharma service, is something called dāna. This is generosity and giving without any strings attached. It is giving simply to give, for the benefit of others. In societies that have an old history of institutionalized Buddhism, this virtue has enabled the profession of Buddhist monks and nuns to exist and be sustained over centuries. Because of people regularly giving to monks and nuns, they end up living more simple and austere lives themselves, in addition to the monks and nuns who live with very little material things to begin with. This results in a more simple life all around.

Within the anarchist sub-culture I have noticed a similar dynamic taking place. Anarchists regularly give and offer what little resources they do have to others, to comrades in need, projects worthy of support, and people who are in legal trouble. A culture of selfless giving is often the case within anarchist circles, and this often goes unacknowledged. I find this to be a very beautiful thing and something worthy of praise.

The delusion of ownership

Related to this notion of giving, I would like to propose another idea – that nobody really owns anything to begin with. In contrast to this, I would say that things exist, they move around and change, and eventually they go away. That’s the extent of it. The moment that the identification with a material object takes place, that the concept of “mine” enters the picture; the stage is then set for suffering to occur (and for systems of institutionalized domination, such as capitalism, to eventually come about).

From the Buddhist perspective, suffering comes about from craving things, from trying to avoid things, and from delusional thinking. To me, the concept of ownership has the seeds for all three within it. The craving part seems obvious – “I want what belongs to me”. The avoidance is evident in that there are certain thoughts and feelings that one is trying to escape confronting. In other words, what exactly will be there when you have “nothing” to hide behind? What are you left with when you do not have your stuff?

The delusion of ownership is evident in that the material objects that one considers to be their “property” inevitably breaks, get lost, or stolen. These material things are usually not physically attached to one’s body, so in a way they have a life of their own and wind up wherever. To consider material objects “yours” does not match reality, because they will go wherever they go, irrespective of your wishes. To think otherwise is to invite suffering.

The delusion of controlling others

Similar and related to the idea of controlling material objects is the idea of controlling other people. People will do whatever it is that they do, and to think otherwise is to invite suffering. Offering of suggestions, advice and support can be made to people, that is different from attempting to control. However it must always be kept in mind that in the end it is up to each individual to take it upon themselves to change in a more positive direction, if that is what they want.

To try to control people is to set one’s self up for disappointment - by the other people not following through, not fulfilling the vision that was anticipated,by resisting or rebelling, or by holding a resentment that will show itself as retaliation in some future time. Real peace of mind is neither present in the person in the position of being the controller nor in the person being controlled. To find peace of mind one needs to create social harmony, which means establishing cooperation between people as equals; always with an understanding that everything is impermanent, that change is a constant.

Practicing Nonviolence

As I see it, a common goal that both anarchism and Buddhism have is fostering social harmony. To foster social harmony there has to be nonviolence. This means actively making the choice to not harm others, even in the face of injustice and aggression. Instead of retaliation and harm, one seeks to support understanding, empathy and love. In order to maintain an active nonviolence, it is important that one remain clear about one’s values, authenticity, and to openly expresses these.

There are traditions within both Buddhism and anarchism of nonviolence; although nonviolence is not exclusively practiced within either one. To have a Buddhist anarchism, I believe that nonviolence needs to be a unifying principle - given that nonviolence emphasizes that a goal in common to all of this is real peace. Both personally and socially speaking, peace is what we seek. It is important that we remain as consistently in integrity with these values as possible, every step of the way.

Extending the Love

Common to both anarchism and Buddhism is vegetarianism (although this is not always the case). This is usually done for the same reason for both – an ethical conviction that it is wrong to kill animals for our own consumption. When striving to extend our compassion and care to others, no line is drawn between humans and animals. Animals can feel both joy and pain, hence they are seen as worthy of our concern and consideration when deciding on the kind of lifestyle we want to live and the kind of world that we seek to create. For this reason, Buddhist anarchism would include having a vegan, plant-based diet.

Nonviolence within Buddhism, and dharma service and dāna/generosity in general, all come out of a particular state of mind (or rather, a quality of heart). This is called “metta”, which means “loving-kindness”. This is a real opening of the heart, a loving no matter what, a sincere wishing of the best of everyone. The ideal is to have this quality be the motivating force behind all of the actions that one does in the world. Various meditative practices exist within Buddhism to help with developing metta. Having the ability to bring about sincere loving-kindness throughout one’s activities of daily life is tied together with cultivating personal happiness in life.

Compassionate communication

Coming out of a sense of both nonviolence and loving-kindness is a related practice that does not necessarily originate from either anarchism or Buddhism per se, but which I believe is essential for a real living Buddhist anarchism nonetheless. I am referring here to compassionate communication, also known as “Nonviolent Communication” or “NVC”. Briefly put, this is a system of tools to help people to communicate with more empathy, personal authenticity and caring, as well as translating judgements of people into a deep understanding of what is actually taking place. Compassionate communication is practicing in listening, with expressing, and also in terms of one’s own thinking. It is a tool to be used when addressing conflict situations, as well as a kind of “talking meditation” that can be used in the interactions of daily life.

I see compassionate communication as being a great tool to help one in practicing what in Buddhism is called “Right Speech”, which is a part of the “Noble Eightfold Path” towards the liberation from suffering. Within anarchist circles, I have seen countless projects, relationships and gatherings of people break down because of communication difficulties and how conflict is dealt with. This is an area where I believe some real skill-building is needed. Learning compassionate communication is one way to pursue building these skills.

Small is beautiful

Within Buddhism the goal is for one to live a life characterized by the renunciation of material things, making a living through ethical means, being moderate in one’s eating, and having patience, hard work and equanimity. Within the anarchist ideal of a utopian society, production and consumption would take place in a decentralized way through local small-scale face-to-face communities of people. The goal is to have everybody being nourished by local organically-grown food where everyone knows the people who grew it and the land that it was grown on.

These two goals to me seem to fit together like hand-in-glove. Taken altogether, one would live a simple small-scale life, hard-working and modest, living together with others whom you know, make decisions and share with. This is a goal which one does not need to wait for a distant future to achieve; this is attainable in our lives right now.

New kinds of social organization

Within the community of Buddhist practitioners, particularly the monks and nuns, the Buddha gave specific suggestions for how the organization of this community could best be carried out. The term for the community of practitioners is “sangha”, and here are two quotes that are particularly relevant when considering a Buddhist anarchism. These come from the book “An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World” by Pankaj Mishra:

“The Buddha was confident that ‘as long as the monks hold frequent and full assemblies the sangha will prosper, and not decline’. He did not think of himself as leading the sangha. Nor did he encourage any of his disciples to assume the burden after his death. He saw consensus as of the utmost importance to the life of the sangha. The Buddha also stressed the need for each local sangha to remain united. He allowed for differences of opinion, but he did not wish them to undermine the structural unity of a sangha and vitiate the experience of everyday life. Controversy, whenever it arose, could be settled by the method of the dissenting individuals removing themselves and forming a new group.”

This reflects a number of anarchist values, namely, that of including everyone’s voice and allowing for each person to have their own opinion, prioritizing a group consensus process, and ultimately making room for group self-determination and free association.

Mishra then goes on:

“The Buddha encouraged individual monks to become exemplars for the society of laymen; he may even have wished the organization of the sangha to become a model of a higher politics and morality. With its rules and its respect for consensus and tradition, the sangha does seem a prototype for the close-knit political organization – something that could conceivably serve as an alternative to the unmanageably large states in which two new human categories were coming into being; the rulers and the ruled.”

This then brings up an intriguing question – what could a Buddhist anarchist sangha look like? In our current era of digital technologies, globalization, and ecological crises, where the social categories of rulers and ruled have existed for quite some time now, how can we create an anarchist sangha that realistically addresses the needs of people where they are at? I feel that both the traditions of anarchism and Buddhism have a lot to offer in terms of beginning to answer these questions. However, in the end it is up to us and our own ingenuity and effort to come up with some answers.

Step by step

Both anarchism and Buddhism offer unique ways to look at the world to dispel all of the illusions that are cast around it - to see life as it really is. The reality is that we are all deeply enmeshed in different kinds of power relationships. This results in some people being placed on top of a social pyramid as a privileged ruling class, while most people are simply following the orders and expectations that are handed down to them from above. These relationships are created and reproduced by the choices and actions that we take, both internally and externally. We are ultimately responsible for our own suffering, both personally and socially. This suffering is ultimately unnecessary. We can find liberation from all of this.

To find true liberation, we need to face the reality that is before us without any illusions. We need to take full responsibility for our own lives. If we see and acknowledge that we are inextricably connected with one-another, and determine that we want to work together to create different kinds of relationships for a radically different kind of world, then we must learn how to communicate, share, and love without any reservations. Doing all of this takes practice. This is an ongoing process of development, and luckily the various tools that can aid us on our way are already before us. As a famous monk once said:

“Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue.”

Further resources

There are various websites, people and organizations who are out in the world doing things of a Buddhist anarchist nature. Here are few:

Buddhist punks

Against the Stream Meditation Society: http://www.againstthestream.org/
Hardcore Zen: http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/
Dharma Punx: http://www.dharmapunx.com/

Buddhist social change stuff

Buddhist Peace Fellowship: http://www.bpf.org/
International Network of Engaged Buddhists: http://www.inebnetwork.org/
Zen Peacemakers: http://www.zenpeacemakers.org/

Learning Buddhism

D.I.Y. Dharma: http://diydharma.org/
Vipassana Meditation: http://www.dhamma.org/

Secular Buddhists

The Secular Buddhist: http://www.thesecularbuddhist.com/
Confession of a Buddhist Atheist: http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/book-confession.html

Compassionate Communication

The Center for Nonviolent Communication: http://www.cnvc.org/
Consciousness Transformation Community: http://ctc.learnnvc.org/

Thinking Green

2011-03-11T12:26:00.000-08:00

In a way, I have been following what's been going on in Libya ever since when I was a little boy in 1986 and Ronald Reagan decided to bomb them. I remember that incident vividly, my parents' shocked and horrified reactions, and I recall taking out a globe that I had at the time and marking it with a big black permanent marker on the two places that were bombed by U.S. forces - the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi.

I was intrigued as well by the figure of Muammar al-Gaddafi, the leader-dictator of Libya. Something about him has always struck me as being a tragic and fascinating person. This interest only increased around 1996 when I became an anarchist and soon came across a copy of Gaddafi's Green Book during my lustful pursuit of anything radical in writing. I was fascinated by his theory of "Jamahiriya" that he laid out, and how it so much resembled an anarchist utopian society in it's description.

Then the question came up - how could Gaddafi have such a beautiful vision of a stateless society, organized along directly democratic lines, and the reality of the place actually be an authoritarian state with Gaddafi as the dictator-in-chief?

It wasn't until a number of years and many life-experiences later, particularly with Malik Rahim and Common Ground Relief in New Orleans and Marshall Rosenberg and the Nonviolent Communication movement worldwide, that I saw how this sort of thing can take place. Briefly put, the charismatic leader guy gets detached from the on-the-ground reality, is surrounded by Yes Men, and becomes totally caught up in their idealistic fantasy world to such a degree that that is actually what they believe is taking place in the real world. I've done that before myself, except that I've never been a charismatic leader guy, nor the head of a state.

So along comes the current Libyan uprising, and I find myself transfixed, checking the internet multiple times a day to see what developments are taking place in that situation. I also find myself wishing that the rebels win the conflict, sometimes rooting for them like one would for a favored sports team, at times even wishing that I was out there with them fighting these battles at their side. The irony, of course, is that the rebels generally are wanting a traditional representative democracy state, and that Gaddafi's vision, at least on paper, is actually more in alignment with my own.

Then, stepping back, one realizes something - the situation in Libya is getting the kind of attention that it is primarily because of it's oil industry. If the oil wasn't there, we simply wouldn't be hearing about Libya, autocracy or not. The petroleum industry in Libya is integrally connected to the global economy, as the recent rise in gas prices shows. Furthermore, the relative wealth that exists in Libya, the same money that is funding the current fighting there, all comes from money that originates from the Libyan petroleum industry. Suddenly the whole thing looks very dirty to me.

Petroleum, which quite literally fuels so much of global industrial capitalism, and which is also such a major contributor to global climate change, is also something of an inherently limited supply. Quite simply this whole situation can't and shouldn't go on - for the sake of the continued life on this planet. To have a society, be it an authoritarian dictatorship, a representative democracy, or an actual directly democratic stateless society, based upon the petroleum industry, seems to me to make the whole thing fundamentally flawed. It's not socially responsible, it's not ecologically considerate, and it's not sustainable. (The Post Carbon Institute has done some good thinking on this subject)

Then there's the human relations aspect of the whole situation - I firmly believe that if you base a social relationship, or a society, upon coercion, force or violence, then that right away invalidates the whole thing at the outset. If people are "made to" do something then they are captives to it, as opposed to collaborators for it. That kind of situation does not seem worthwhile to me. It isn't sustainable either, because once one side finds a way to do it, they will retaliate or sabotage the whole thing. As long as one side is a loser or is somehow suppressed by another, then the basis is there for the whole thing to be upset by them once they find the will and ability to do so.

Recently I read the book An End to Suffering: the Buddha in the World by Pankaj Mishra, which I appreciated a great deal for it's look at history, politics, sociology and psychology from a Buddhist-oriented perspective. This one part towards the end of the book stood out to me, particularly in relation to the current fighting taking place in Libya:

"Ideology - democracy, freedom, Islamic virtue - gave them the moral certainty with which they spoke of the necessity of violence for remaking the world. It made them assume, almost as a matter of course - reverting on a terrible scale to the bloody rituals of tribal societies - that some must die so that others can live and be happy and free.

Given their immense power to manipulate and coerce, it was easy to see individuals everywhere reduced to spare parts of an imaginary humanity. But there was something missing in this bleak, compelling vision of individuals delivered to vast blind forces.

It was what I began to see more clearly... what the Buddha had stressed to the helpless people caught in the chaos of his own time: how the mind, where desire, hatred and delusion run rampant, creating the glories and defeats of the past as well as the hopes for the future, and the possibility for endless suffering, is also the place - the only one - where human beings can have full control over their lives.

The mind is where the frenzy of history arises, the confusion of concepts and actions with unpredictable consequences. It is also where these concepts are revealed as fragile and arbitrary constructions, as essentially empty. What seems like necessity weakens in the mind's self-knowledge, and real freedom becomes tangible."

So, what is needed for Libya (and the world at large, too)? Well, that is not being discussed in the news reports and analysis that are coming out about the situation there. To me, what is needed is a change on all levels - political as well as psychological, economic as well as ecological, social as well as sincere self-reflection. The effort, creativity and perseverance needed for this kind of change would be immense. It seems like now the time for this has come.

Anarchy, again.

2011-02-11T05:59:00.000-08:00

I realize that I'm still an anarchist. In fact, I've always been one, ever since I first came across the philosophy.

For those of you who are not familiar with this line of thinking, what I mean to say is - I don't want capitalism, property, government, politics, bureaucracy and all of the top-down hierarchy, domination, alienation and coercion that makes those things happen. I see all "politicians" as being fundamentally the same - people acting out spectacular and limiting social roles. I see "bosses/workers" as being a tragic & unfortunate social relationship, and I see "prisons" as being absolutely reprehensible and disgusting. Price-tags, permits and police are unnecessary as well.

I want to live in a fundamentally different world where people are true equals with each-other, where people are free to make their own decisions for their own lives without underling unspoken threats hanging over them, and where collective group or community decisions are made together and all material things are shared in common without arbitrary hang-ups about "mine" and "yours", "us" and "them", etc. And I want this kind of world as soon as possible, because our very lives depend upon it.

This is a very radical stance to take, and one that exists far outside most of the world-views that are in circulation. It is often not the kind of thing that one talks about in polite company. I am entirely aware that this new world may never happen, and at the very least it may never happen in my life-time.

Part of the kind of change that I have been moving towards in recent years, a change to a new kind of "realism" you might say, is that I have been coming to terms with the fact that my ideals and dreams for a new utopian society may never happen, that all attempts at it may end in dismal failure, and that humanity and life on earth in general may all die a painful and complete extinction due to the actions & non-actions of governments, corporations, and industrial civilization everywhere. This is simply the world we were born into.

The trick is to come to realize this, accept this, and to really be OK with it. In other words, it's not the end of the world if it's the end of the world. The dream and values underlining an anarchist world-view are worth it even if it does not come to be, and that it is better to see the world as it is now, to call a spade a spade, to see tyranny as tyranny, regardless of what comes of it.

In other words, part of my personal struggle has been to find a way for me to approach all of this in a way that is really balanced, grounded, and healthy. In the past, I threw myself entirely into the "anarchist" thing, I built up my whole identity around it, and I bet everything upon the coming collapse/revolution/insurrection/what-have-you. I see now that one can hold ideas & ideals about the world, society, and social change, as well as about health, well-being, and living a good life. I see that one can have this world-view, and not necessarily have to surround one's self with others who also have this world-view, or to rely upon this world-view as a way to meet one's social needs in general. I also see the value and importance of having a personal religious or spiritual practice in one's life as well.

For me, one thing that I have gradually over time been developing and getting more interested in, and ultimately have been seeing inform & reinvigorate my anarchist views as well, is the philosophy & practice of Buddhism. Buddhism is something that I see as being a kind of ethical, psychological, and spiritual approach to life. The moments when I remember and strive to carry out the kind of things that Buddhism speaks to are moments in which I experience greater peace, balance, and positivity inside myself. I eventually would like to develop more of an explicit "Buddhist Anarchist" philosophy, but this is something that I want to treat with great care and not to rush.

At the same time as all of this taking place within me, many miles away from me in Egypt all kinds of different political unrest and uprisings have been taking place. I have been very much fascinated and enthusiastic about what has been going on there. At most I see that there is a situation where the people present having been finding & realizing more of a sense of their own personal power, collective power, and their ability to change things. I see this as a situation where people realize that they can mobilize and act without fear. It is precisely this kind of spirit that I see the philosophy of anarchism as pointing towards, and relying upon.

If the people there were to take the next step and to start occupying and running the farms, factories and distribution-points throughout the country, that would be a step towards an anarchist revolution. If the people there were simply to realize that they do not need official people in high-ranking positions of power to say any particular thing in order for them to be "free" or "democratic", that they could just do it all themselves, then that too would be another step towards an anarchist revolution. Because the revolution there is basically political in nature, and because the people there are waiting for official decrees of change to come down from above, this inherently makes the change there very limited in scope. Nonetheless, I see that what is going on there as being something that is far more meaningful and exciting than anything that is going on in the public sphere of my own country.

There is a connection too between what is going on in Egypt and my own renewed interest in anarchism. It is this: I am seeing in Egypt that it is indeed possible for people in this modern/post-modern world to be able to rise up and have a sense of their own power together independent of official sanction and without the leadership or direction of any central figure or organization. In other words, people still have the ability to break free, even today. This is something that I lost a sense of, that I lost hope for, because of years of disappointment, defeat and heart-break. I see now that a far-reaching social revolution can still happen, not necessarily that it will happen, but that the potential is still there. This is kindling for the fire to stay alive.

Walking Through the Valley: Personal reflections on 2010

2010-12-30T16:27:00.000-08:00

Carrying on a personal tradition that I have been doing for years now, here is a reflection on my own experience of the year that just ended, 2010.

Similar to last year, 2009, this was a year that I spent the entirety of living and working in one place - Camphill Soltane in southeastern Pennsylvania. I've been in a romantic relationship with one person the entire year, and have lived in three different houses at Camphill Soltane throughout the year. So outwardly there has been a lot of stability, but the experience inwardly has been a bit different.

The year has been marked by a kind of ongoing low-intensity inner conflict taking place within me. Most people in my life are probably unaware of this, and folks probably would not think to ask me about anything like this. Nonetheless this has been the main theme for me this year. There are a number of factors behind this.

One aspect is that for me throughout the year various practices, belief systems, and foundation stones for my own sense of identity have gradually been falling away. My sense of profound disillusionment with the philosophy and social scene that clusters around the term "anarchism", continued to grow & develop. This process started last year, and continued on into this year.

My biggest sense of loss and change for me, in this regard, came for me in relation to my no longer considering myself to be an NVC trainer or identifying with "Nonviolent Communication" in general. Similar to the whole "anarchist" thing, "Nonviolent Communication" was a large part of my sense of identity for quite some time. It changed my life, it quite literally moved me, and now I can no longer whole-heartedly endorse it. Ironically enough, the process to become an official certified trainer of Nonviolent Communication officially re-opened this year, just shortly after I decided to distance myself from it.

Another aspect of my ongoing inner conflict this year has to do with what in NVC-land is referred to as my "core jackals". This means my inner judgments and evaluations of myself that are a kind of deep-rooted belief that is wrapped around an emotional pain I've been carrying around with me for some time. This year I found my core jackals coming up again & again, in different forms, often not necessarily even in coherent words.

Because of all of this, as well as because of the general sense of heaviness & seriousness that pervaded the house that I lived in for the first half of the year, I had a pretty difficult time. The turning-point was pretty much half-way through, June 21st to be exact, when it was discovered that one of the people whom I lived and worked with had died in the house that we lived in. This was a blow to all of us who lived there, and it pretty much changed the course for the rest of the year.

The following month, in July, I then decided to join a sort of mutual support community of people with shared values coming out of an NVC background. This group is called the "Consciousness Transformation Community", and so far I have found my involvement with this to be very helpful for me.

The month after that, in August, I traveled to Virginia and re-connected with an intentional community of folks whom I used to live with. That experience was also one that I found to be very nourishing for me.

In September I by chance discovered and read this book entitled Razor-Wire Dharma: A Buddhist Life in Prison by Calvin Malone. That book was by far the most memorable and influential book for me of 2010. One of the effects that that book had was for me to gain an interest in working with men in prison in a Buddhist kind of way. Towards this end I discovered the non-profit organization called "the Prison Dharma Network", which I have since gotten involved with.

That book also re-awakened within me my interest in Buddhism, or the Dharma, and the various practices associated with it. That book reminded me that the times in which I remember and practice the various tenets associated with the Dharma are moments when I feel more at peace and on a productive path in my life. That is where I am left now, as the year is at an end. I realize that the Dharma (or "Dhamma" in the Pali language) is a spiritual/religious path that I have found to be beneficial for me when I walk it. This is something that I would like to commit myself to wherever I find myself in life.

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." - Psalm 23:4

Envisioning a new world

2010-12-03T07:43:00.000-08:00

I have long had a vision for how the world we live in can be organized in a very different way than things are now. The way that I have been envisioning this is something that I see as being more respectful and honoring of life in general, and in particular the needs and desires of human beings. I figure that it can be helpful for me to sketch out how I see it as being possible for the world to be arranged. Recently I have been inspired and encouraged by the work that Miki Kashtan has been doing in this area, she has really helped me to breathe new life into my thinking here, and I am delighted to say that I feel a sense of companionship as I elaborate here on what I see as to how a new world could look like. What I say here is a brief outline of this ideal world that I would like to live in.

A needs-based, willingness-based, gift-economy-based social structure

Within this new society people would have different ways of viewing themselves and their actions, different assumptions and understandings about social relationships, different values that are prioritized and emphasized in how they live out in the world, different ways of organizing and coordinating affairs among groups of people, and on top of all this a whole new overall global structure for humanity in general. Without referencing any kind of pre-existing philosophy or ideology, I am simply calling this a “needs-based, willingness-based, gift-economy-based social structure”.

Small-scale face-to-face groups of people

The primary social unit in the new society would be the small-scale face-to-face group of people. This would be a group of no more than ten people altogether, and these groups would be the social basis for the whole social structure. Most of people’s daily lives would center around the various small groups that they are a part of. There would be small groups for people’s work-places, small groups for people’s living arrangements (you could call these “families”, or not), small groups based around people’s shared interests, hobbies, recreational activities, passions, beliefs, what-have-you.

Likewise, when conflicts emerge between people, small groups of people will form to constructively address these conflicts. Small groups would meet to ensure common understanding and to make decisions and come to agreements together. Most importantly, the people within these groups would all feel a sense of authentic heart-felt connection with each-other. This is why I see it as being essential for these groups to be small as well as meeting face-to-face.

Authentic heart-felt connection

The basic social glue for society would be people genuinely caring for each-other and feeling a real sense of belonging, understanding, and appreciation for one-another. Various personal and inter-personal tools exist that can be utilized to facilitate this sense of connection between people. The key thing is that individuals and groups of people routinely check in with themselves to see what the current status is for this sense of connection, since the nature of it all is very fluid and always changing. If people see that the feeling of connection is not there or is weak for some reason, then this will be identified and steps would be taken to restore this connection. Within the small groups special meetings will routinely take place to check-in on the sense of connection within the relationships of the group. These meetings will be separate and distinct from whatever other meetings exist to address more organizational and logistical concerns.

Self-responsibility and willingness

An underlying common understanding within this society would be that each person is ultimately responsible for their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. In other words, each person makes their own choices and decisions about whatever it is that they do, and correspondingly, they each take responsibility for it. Everybody understands that nobody “makes” anybody else do anything – that everything is a choice.

With that all being understood, a second operating assumption also exists, and that is that all interactions and agreements between people take place without coercion and out of a sense of genuine willingness. That is, that people do all that they do because they are willing to, better yet, because they want to, and not out of a sense of pressure, guilt, duty or obligation. Everybody will make an effort to see and appreciate the needs behind everything that they do and will have their own desire to meet these needs be their motivating drive behind the choices that they make.

A needs-based paradigm

One of the basic ideas behind the practice of Nonviolent Communication (“NVC”) is that of seeing the underlying fundamental human needs behind everything that people do or desire. Fundamental needs are distinct from strategies to meet needs because needs are finite and universal to all people everywhere, whereas strategies to meet needs are infinite and specific to particular people and situations. This way of looking at people and actions will be a common underlying paradigm within this new society. Because of this approach, whenever people become aware that they are attached to a particular strategy, they will then take the time to identify and appreciate the needs that are underlying and associated with that strategy. By doing this, space can then be made for more strategies available to meet the different needs at play.

Giving gifts and sharing

Another foundational assumption for this society would be that all of the work that is done in this world, everything that one contributes to others, is done out of the spirit of giving a gift. When one gives a gift one has no attachment or expectation of receiving anything from anybody in return. One gives a gift simply to do something to contribute to the well-being and happiness of others. All giving will be done in this way.

Along with gift giving, a corresponding assumption would be that of sharing and non-possession. In other words, everything would be “ours”, not “mine” and “yours”. When people’s needs for privacy, respect, acknowledgement, ease of access, reliability, or trust (to name a few needs) comes up, then these needs are identified and spoken to others in the relevant groups, and strategies and agreements can be found to meet these needs. All of this would be done out of a sense of everyone’s needs being important, where everybody’s needs are held in common, where resources are available to all to help meet everyone’s needs.

Coordination and cooperation

We are blessed to live in a world today where modern communications technologies, computers, databases and internet systems make it possible for enormous numbers of people and resources to be both accounted for and moved from place to place. These already-existing systems and structures can be used in this new world that I am describing, in a new way.

Rather than accounting for and moving someone’s “property” with the expectation of “payment” in return, instead resources are moved from place to place according to people’s needs & requests, and where there are people present who are willing & able to work with these resources to meet the needs expressed. In a world of billions of people, this all would require systems of sophisticated coordination & communication, which luckily we already have the capacity for.

Bottom-up forming of agreements

As I said earlier here, the basic social unit within this new society would be the small group, whether it is in the workplaces, the living arrangements, or other activities. When it is found helpful to have common understandings and agreements that include more people than just a small group, then groups can communicate with each-other and work together. Depending on the situation, the needs at play, the resources available, the willingness of the people present, and other factors, groups can form small networks of small groups to meet needs. Or, larger and more formalized federations of small groups can be formed to meet needs in more ongoing and long-term ways. Networks and federations of small groups could be organized heavily relying upon computer and internet technology to facilitate communication, shared understandings and common agreements. Or, small groups could decide upon having mandated delegates from within their groups going out to meet with other small groups, or meetings with other mandated delegates from other groups, to come to common understandings and agreements together.

The key thing here is that all of the decisions and agreements made concerning larger bodies of people stem from the smaller groups of people, and that these groups of folks have within them a solid sense of connection and mutual understanding with each-other. The larger organizational structures that are created to meet needs can be dynamic, and the strategies that exist to meet needs are infinite, so permeating it all is a sense of openness, possibility, and creativity among everyone.

Keeping track

Part of having effective coordination & cooperation, and part of having effective group decisions & agreements, is making sure that everyone is aware of all that is going on. Therefore it would be important for everything to be kept track of, and for the information to be made available to all. Some of the things to be kept track of are: who is needing & requesting what, who is offering what, what resources are available, who is currently using what resources, what agreements are currently in place, what agreements are in the process of being created, as well as stuff like group schedules, timelines, inventories, etc. A total transparency and careful organization of all of this information would be available to everyone to support the smooth functioning of this society.

An invitation

There is a lot more that I can say here, and many more areas of life that could be addressed as well. I welcome your input, feedback, questions and suggestions on anything that I said here. My hope is that the general vision for a needs-based, willingness-based, gift economy-based social structure for the world can grow and expand.

Nonviolent Communication: Tools and Talking-Points for Practicing the Person-Centered Approach

2010-11-14T07:16:00.000-08:00

This is the article that I wrote that was published in the most recent issue (Volume 17, Number 1-2) of The Person-Centered Journal, which is a publication produced by the Association for the Development of The Person-Centered Approach ("ADPCA"). This article is based on a workshop that I gave at the annual ADPCA conference of 2009. This article, publication, and organization is all based on "the person-centered approach", which comes out of the work of the renowned humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers.

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Nonviolent Communication:
Tools and Talking-Points for Practicing the Person-Centered Approach

Ian Mayes
Camphill Soltane, Glenmoore, PA

I see the process of Nonviolent Communication (aka “NVC”) as being a set of tools to aid one in practicing the Person-Centered Approach (aka the “PCA”) within interpersonal relationships. The great value of NVC as I see it is that it enables one to take the PCA, which is usually looked at in a very theoretical way, and make it into a very practical thing that anyone can do. I see great potential for Nonviolent Communication being used to assist in the real-life applicability of the Person-Centered Approach in more and more diverse situations.

I will briefly examine here some of the key points of the Person-Centered Approach, with a particular emphasis on Carl Rogers’ 1956 document entitled “The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change”, and relate each to their complementary practices that exist within Nonviolent Communication.

The Origin of Nonviolent Communication

Nonviolent Communication was first developed by a man named Marshall B. Rosenberg Ph.D. Rosenberg was a student of Carl Rogers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the 1957–1963 time-period. Rosenberg cites Rogers as being a major influence in the development of his work. Towards the end of their time together they were also colleagues working on the Wisconsin Project. In 1966 Rosenberg was awarded diplomate status in clinical psychology from the American Board of Examiners in Professional Psychology.

The process of Nonviolent Communication came into being through Marshall Rosenberg’s work in the 1960’s providing mediation and communication skills training for communities working to peacefully desegregate schools and other public institutions. In the 1980’s an organization was created, the “Center for Nonviolent Communication”, to provide structure and coordination for all of the Nonviolent Communication training that was taking place worldwide.

Applying Nonviolent Communication practices to Carl Rogers’ six “Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change”

Here is what Carl Rogers wrote about the necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change:

“For constructive personality change to occur, it is necessary that these conditions exist and continue over a period of time:

• Two persons are in psychological contact.

• The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious.

• The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship.

• The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client.

• The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference and endeavors to communicate this experience to the client.

• The communication to the client of the therapist's empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved.

No other conditions are necessary. If these six conditions exist, and continue over a period of time, this is sufficient. The process of constructive personality change will follow.”

I will now elaborate on how Nonviolent Communication provides specific practices and means to assist one in creating each of these six conditions mentioned above. I will begin by discussing the three conditions which Rogers refers to as the “core conditions”, which are “authenticity, empathy, and unconditional positive regard”.

Authenticity

Nonviolent Communication has two practices to help bring out authenticity (aka “congruence”) within a relationship. The first is what is called “self-empathy”. This consists of stopping and asking yourself what you are feeling and what you are needing within a given situation. It is a form of “giving yourself empathy”, genuinely listening to yourself to discover what your emotional feelings really are and what needs are motivating them.

The second practice is referred to as “honest expression”. Traditionally this is presented as someone first saying what is observed (ie, what is specifically said or done) without any evaluation or interpretation mixed in. Then the speaker says what feelings and needs come alive for them when that observation happens. This expression of one’s own feelings and needs is where it is useful, perhaps even essential, for the speaker to go through a self-empathy process first before honestly expressing to the other person. Finally the speaker gives a clear and doable request to the other person describing what specifically could be done to better meet the needs expressed.

Empathy

The practice of empathy within Nonviolent Communication consists of attentively listening to someone with an active curiosity towards what the speaker could possibly be feeling and needing. This kind of listening could be done silently, or it could involve verbalizing guesses of possible feelings and needs to ask the speaker.

Within Nonviolent Communication empathy is something that is focused on to such a great extent that it exists as a specific practice that NVC practitioners often arrange to set aside specific times to practice exclusively. In addition to this empathy is also seen as an element that can exist within all interpersonal interactions, the presence of which it would be beneficial to increase. The NVC practice of empathic listening (often referred to as “giving empathy”) is explicit, intentional, learnable, and resources are available to support the development of this skill.

New social forms have developed within the NVC community to support people’s empathic listening skills. For example, there is the “empathy buddy” one-on-one partnership relationship where individuals take turns empathically listening to the other person and being empathically listened to. There is also the “empathy group” relationship where a whole group of people takes turns empathically listening to an individual.

Unconditional Positive Regard

An important differentiation within Nonviolent Communication is that of “heart-open” and “heart-closed.” In other words, “is your heart open or is it closed?” The phrase “heart-open” is synonymous with “unconditional positive regard”, whereas “heart-closed” is synonymous with “conditional positive regard”. Various practices within Nonviolent Communication exist and are being developed that one can apply to discern whether one’s heart is open or closed.

If one is holding judgments of another person, if one’s regard is given “conditionally”, then there is a process within NVC called the “Translating Enemy Images” process. This process involves learning what your judgments are of another person, seeing what demands you may hold of them and what your thought process looks like there. Then the NVC process of discerning the “Observations”, “Feelings”, and “Needs” is used – applied to both yourself as well as in guesses as to the situation of the person whom is being judged. Eventually through the use of this process the judgmental thinking (aka “enemy images”) is transformed into greater clarity and care for both yourself and the other person.

Another practice of unconditional positive regard is expressions of gratitude and appreciation to another person. These expressions can be aided with the NVC process through containing within the expression reference to the actions that have been done, the specific needs that have been met by these actions, and the positive feelings that arise as a result of all of this.

The Client’s Perception of the Core Conditions

There is a means within Nonviolent Communication to gain a sense as to whether the person you are interacting with perceives you as being authentic, empathic and caring. This is through using what are referred to as “connection requests”. These kinds of requests are focused primarily on the relationship itself in the present moment. Examples of connection requests can be things like “how do you feel hearing me say that?”, “can you tell me back what you just heard me say?”, “do you trust that I mean what I’m saying here?”, etc. Based on how the person replies to these you then have more information to work with to better access whether the other person perceives the core conditions as being present within the relationship.

Anxiety and Fear in the Client

One concept that is used within Nonviolent Communication is that of “edges” and “working with your edges”. An “edge” is the area where one’s comfort regarding looking at and talking about a personal matter suddenly shifts. This is where a personal area then becomes “too personal”, “too dangerous”, “scary”, etc. The “edge” is where one’s “comfort zone” meets “out of one’s comfort zone”. Various practices exist to identify these areas and to experiment with them.

Another concept and practice within Nonviolent Communication is referred to as “walking towards your fear”. This is done through first identifying something which one is habitually afraid of and then identifying a specific individual who epitomizes that which one is afraid of. After that is done then one approaches that specific individual and initiates a conversation with them. Throughout this conversation one tries as best one can to be authentic, empathic and caring, while also offering clear doable requests for what could be done to improve things.

A third concept within Nonviolent Communication that is related to this area is that of “scary honesty”. What this refers to are those things that are on one’s mind and one is aware of, but which one is too afraid to verbalize. Saying what is on one’s mind here would be honest, but it is also “scary” to do so. Developing a practice of conjuring up the courage necessary and then proceeding to say these things is engaging in a practice of “scary honesty”.

Psychological Contact

What is referred to by Carl Rogers as “psychological contact” is referred to in Nonviolent Communication as “heart-felt connection”. Within NVC establishing “connection” is highly valued, with many practitioners seeing it as being the entire purpose of it all. To quote the renowned NVC trainer Robert Gonzales:

“The primary intention of NVC is to create a quality of connection in which everyone’s needs are equally valued and met through natural giving.”

Similar to the other qualities mentioned above, various practices exist within NVC to discern and strengthen the quality of connection between individuals.

Additional Person-Centered Approach Key Concepts

The Actualizing Tendency

NVC has a core belief that everything that people do is an attempt to meet some kind of fundamental human need. A fundamental human need is distinct from a strategy to meet needs, in other words, it is independent of any particular person, place, thing, or action. For example, “love”, “acknowledgement”, “understanding”, “accomplishment”, “belonging”, etc. are fundamental human needs, whereas “Mr. Smith”, “sitting next to me”, “reading a book”, “winning the prize”, “having a membership card” are all strategies to meet needs and are not considered needs themselves.

The actualizing tendency can be seen then as being the basic drive that each person has to meet needs. The actualizing tendency is not the same thing as fundamental human needs, it is instead the basic urge that one has to have needs met. I believe that viewing things this way helps to give a clearer picture of how the actualizing tendency interacts with our day-to-day life.

Personal Power

I see Nonviolent Communication as relating with personal power in two ways. First, it strengthens the ability of each person to see the world in terms of concrete observations and doable requests that are separate and distinct from interpretations and evaluations. Seeing the world as it is apart from people’s thoughts about it I believe helps one to have more of a full understanding as to what actually exists that could be used to potentially meet needs. Secondly, NVC strengthens the ability of each person to be aware of the moment-by-moment choices that they make as attempts to meet particular needs. Once one is aware of which needs one wants to have met in a given situation, then one can re-evaluate one’s course of action and chose that which they think is most likely to result in those needs being met.

Nonviolent Communication as a Modern PC Approach

Teachable

There are very specific places to focus one’s attention on. For example, you can focus on “observations”, “feelings”, “needs”, or “requests” in a number of different ways. You can focus on them in terms of how they relate to you in the present, past, or future, or in terms of another person, or you can focus on them in terms of the thoughts that you have about another person. With the assistance of a skilled practitioner one’s attention can be repeatedly directed to areas where NVC concepts and practices can be applied.You can also break NVC down into bite-size “chunks”. For example, “observations”, “feelings”, “needs”, or “requests” can each be focused on individually until one feels comfortable enough with each concept before proceeding on to another one. One does not need to fully understand the other concepts in order to find value in working with one of them.

Learnable

There are specific step-by-step processes that can be applied for practice and learning. These processes can be gone through repetitively until one develops new habits around using them. Also, each step can be checked to make sure that it is actually accomplished correctly. For example, there are ways to check to make sure that a request is actually a request, to check that an observation is actually an observation, a need a need, etc.

Demonstrable

The Nonviolent Communication process can be embodied at will by people who are trained in it and who make the choice to use it. Situations where the process is demonstrated by one or more persons using the NVC process can be role-played by people trained in it.

An Invitation to You

For the sake of developing your own skill and proficiency in creating the six conditions that Rogers spoke of as being necessary for constructive personality change, I invite you to investigate more about Nonviolent Communication.

References

d'Ansembourg, Thomas. (2007). Being Genuine: Stop Being Nice, Start Being Real. Encinitas, CA: Puddledancer Press.

Rogers, Carl. (1989). The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change. The Carl Rogers Reader. Mariner Books.

Rogers, Carl. (1967). The Therapeutic Relationship and Its Impact: A Study of Psychotherapy with Schizophrenics. The University of Wisconsin Press.

Rosenberg, Marshall. (2003). Life-Enriching Education: NVC Helps Schools Improve Performance, Reduce Conflict and Enhance Relationships. Encinitas, CA: Puddledancer Press.

Rosenberg, Marshall. (2003). Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Second Edition. Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press.

Years of Fighting can change a man

2010-10-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched the movie Fight Club again. This is probably the movie that has most influenced and affected my life. If you haven't seen this movie before, I encourage you to go watch it before reading further so that you will understand more about what I am referring to here.

This movie had a big role in encouraging me to eventually move out of the safety, security and familiar comfortable sense of "home" that I experienced at Twin Oaks Community, where I was living & working at the time when I first saw this movie in 2000.

This movie also later on in 2003 had a big role in encouraging me to quit my job, leave my gated apartment-home and then-fiance in Phoenix, Arizona and embark on a new unpredictable vagabond lifestyle.

For years after that I would watch this film again for further encouragement in maintaining a kind of insurrectionary anarchist world-view and itinerant personal life.

Interestingly enough, my relationship with this movie and it's influence on my life pre-dated my involvement with Nonviolent Communication. However, even after I was involved with NVC, I was able to draw the connection between the two in that Fight Club emphasizes the importance of emotional intimacy, genuine listening, and real vulnerability & trust. To quote the movie: "When people think you're dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just waiting for their turn to speak."

For me the experience of being a part of groups of strangers who would vulnerably open themselves up in front of other strangers, cry and hug each-other mirrored what I was experiencing through Nonviolent Communication workshops, retreats, and practice groups. As the quote goes from the movie, "strangers with this kind of honesty make me go a big rubbery one."

This movie is filled with different quotes, lines, and exchanges that I have found quite meaningful, inspiring, and poignant. A lot of them sum up quite well different aspects of my beliefs and world-view, some more than others at different points of my life. Here are a few of them:

"You have to know, not fear, know, that some day you are going to die. Until you know that and embrace that, you are useless."

"You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank, you're not the car you drive, you're not the contents of your wallet, you're not your fucking khakis. You are the all-singing, all-dancing, crap of the world."

"Fuck off with your sofa units and string green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may."

"The things you own end up owning you."

"Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go!"

And then there is the description of an idealized future utopian society, that especially appealed to me during my anti-civilization phase:

"In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway."

Watching this movie again, now, a few different things stand out to me.

The movie is obviously now out-of-date. The people in it use pay-phones and land-lines throughout the movie, as well as filing cabinets and stacks of notecards. Digital technology is notably absent in the film. Plus, there is this line in the movie that describes "our generation" -

"We're the middle children of history.... no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives."

I would say that the international war against militant radical Islamism is now the "Great War" facing our generation, and the global financial crisis is now the "Great Depression" that our generation is going through. Of course, how we are experiencing and relating to these things seems very different for us now compared to what the people of the 1930's and 1940's were going through. But, that is a separate topic.

What especially stood out for me watching this movie again now is how incredibly male-centric the whole movie is. The story details how a nation-wide underground revolutionary movement of men forms and develops, while the only big female character in the whole movie is this one woman who has a lot of sex with the main character. The men who join and are active in this movement come together through physically fighting each-other, some kind of stereotypical macho-violent instinct is activated in them that gets them involved. This whole thing I find distasteful and disinteresting.

I do see and value how helpful it can be to get in touch with a more fundamental and foundational part of yourself and your base humanity, and fighting & fucking is one way to do that. However this does not seem to me to be that much of a step forward, nor that substantial in & of itself.

I see humanity as having so much untapped potential that can be utilized and drawn from, if we really wanted to do so. This sentiment is also expressed in the movie with this quote:

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need."

With that being said, then, how is forming groups of guys fighting each-other and submitting to a kind of top-down authoritarian organization (which is how the underground revolutionary movement is structured) any kind of a positive development? Men beating the crap out of each-other and barking orders at each-other has been the basic structure of society for thousands of years. The "revolutionary" model demonstrated in Fight Club is not really any different from that.

Then there is another aspect of "Fight Club" that I take issue with now. It is elucidated with these quotes: "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything" and "only after disaster can we be resurrected".

I have an ambivalent relationship with this sentiment because on the one hand I have experienced this as being the case with my life. It has indeed been the moments when I have lost everything, when everything fell apart, failed, when disaster struck, that I found the urge, energy, and ability to really change my life around.

On the other hand, I also recognize that many different resources, things, people, places, and practices exist out there to assist people in radically changing their lives around in more positive and healthy ways. In other words, people can choose to access these avenues of support at any time, without having a personal crisis spurring them on. People can proactively take charge of improving themselves.

This is directly at odds with the sentiment expressed in "Fight Club" - "Self-improvement is masturbation. Now, self-destruction..."

I would like to believe that he is wrong.

Out Beyond Ideas of NVC And Not-NVC, There Is A Field, I Will Meet You There

2010-08-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I stopped considering myself to be an "NVC trainer". However, if I were asked to facilitate an NVC training, I would probably still do it. I no longer consider myself to be an "NVC person" in general. However, I still associate with other folks in that scene, and I usually enjoy those interactions. I have given up on trying to get people interested and involved with NVC. At the same time, I still personally find great value and meaning in the practices, processes, principles, assumptions, and intentions that are all associated with the term "Nonviolent Communication".

This situation of no longer being something while still being something is not new to me. This same thing has recently come about for me regarding the term "anarchist" as well. In common with both of these I am hoping to take something out of it's label, out of it's terminological container, and still keep and use the good stuff inside.

This is all based on a belief that I have now that the term "Nonviolent Communication" more often than not serves more as a hindrance to the actual practice and proliferation of what is referred to with that term. There are eight points that I have regarding this which fall into three separate categories: "organizational", "social" and what I call "evolutionary":

Organizational

1) The request regarding the term.

The term “Nonviolent Communication” is a Service Mark belonging to the Center for Nonviolent Communication. This organization has requested that those who are not officially certified by them refrain from using the term "Nonviolent Communication" in what they do. The process for becoming a certified trainer with this organization has been closed to new people entering for a number of years now with no indication on when it will re-open. If everyone who has affinity with what is called "Nonviolent Communication" were to follow this request then most of the people who are promoting it would not be using that term.

2) The originator of the term

The term "Nonviolent Communication" is strongly associated with the Center for Nonviolent Communication and its creator, founder and main leader, Marshall Rosenberg. I no longer have trust in that organization or that individual doing the job that they have set out to do within integrity of the values that they proclaim. I am no longer interested in being associated with that particular organization or individual. Using the term "Nonviolent Communication" when promoting this kind of work regularly brings a conversation to the topic of Marshall Rosenberg and I am no longer interested in introducing, explaining, or defending the actions of this man. This topic has been discussed at great length elsewhere, and others share the views that I have as well. I consider my time and energy to be more effectively and enjoyably placed elsewhere.

Social

3) Turning off and misleading

The term "Nonviolent Communication" turns off a lot of people and it is often misleading. I have personally come across a lot of people who have negative associations with the words "nonviolence" or "nonviolent". People also often see these words as not relating to them and their lives. Also, a lot of what "Nonviolent Communication" refers to is not directly about "communication" per se, so using that word is not entirely accurate in describing what is being talked about.

4) Disembodied robot-speak

There is a very pervasive and recurring phenomena of people becoming very excited about and involved in NVC and as a result speaking to others when "using it" in ways that are described as being very robotic, formulaic, stilted and unoriginal. A lot of folks find these ways of speaking to be very disconnecting, whereas the whole intention behind it all is to increase connection! Additionally, an emphasis on the words used and the way that things are phrased often encourages people to loose touch with their bodily-felt understanding, to be "stuck in their head" so to speak. Abandoning the term "Nonviolent Communication", and these particular associations and habits that go along with it, could help with emphasizing other approaches based on more fully felt authenticity.

5) Priceless connection

What is called "Nonviolent Communication" is usually publicly presented in the social context of a commodity exchange relationship – the buying and selling of a product. Usually one person or a group of people are selling something, a training, a workshop, a retreat, a private session, a recording, a book or some other kind of written material, and everybody else is either buying it or are expected to buy it. I do not want to judge this kind of relationship as being "bad" or "wrong", but I do want to ask: Are there any other ways that we can be together where we are learning, growing, and deeply connecting with each other and are not expected to purchase something? I have known a number of people who when they saw the asking-price for an NVC event they immediately lost interest in it. I am convinced that there are other ways that we can organize these kinds of experiences without folks having to play the roles of entrepreneur and consumer.

6) Like-attracts-like

What is called "Nonviolent Communication" is popular among one particular demographic of people, namely, white women who are middle-aged, from a middle class background in a first-world country, and who hold views that are considered to be "liberal" or "progressive". There is nothing "bad" or "wrong" with this particular demographic of people, some of my best friends come from that demographic! However, I want to point out that there are many many many other different kinds of people in the human race besides that one particular demographic. I am concerned that the NVC scene, like every other social scene out there, has a like-attracts-like dynamic taking place. I am convinced that people are subconsciously drawn towards being around other people who are similar to them. In order to open up all that goes under the label of "NVC" to the rest of humanity I see it as being essential to go beyond residing with this one particular label and this one particular social scene of people that goes along with it.

Evolutionary

7) Evolving into something else

As more and more different people use what is called "Nonviolent Communication" the practices, processes, understandings, etc. associated with it will naturally over time change. Things will be tweaked and adjusted, other practices, modalities and traditions will be synthesized with it, developments will be made, in short, what is called "NVC" will evolve. As NVC evolves in different directions according to the contributions made by different people eventually what some people are calling "NVC" will look very different from what was originally called "NVC". Some people may no longer wish to call their developed version "NVC", while others may wish to keep that label. Some people may not recognize what other people are calling "NVC" as being at all similar to what they are calling "NVC". What I wonder is: At what point does the term "Nonviolent Communication" lose it's descriptive value in fostering common understanding between people?

8) People learning together

The learning-context in which "Nonviolent Communication" is usually presented is that of the teacher/student model. If the students persist in not having a sense of their own power, this eventually becomes the demagogue/follower model. This approach overlooks the fact that everybody's knowledge is incomplete, that everybody's perceptions are limited, and that everybody makes mistakes. With this in mind I would like for us to discover and implement ways for people to come together to learn with each-other. We all have stuff to share, things to contribute, and areas where we can learn and further grow in, no one is above or below this. I'd like to see this done together cooperatively with everyone's contributions being valued.

What to say instead?

If the term "Nonviolent Communication" is no longer used, what do I suggest be used to refer to what it refers to? Personally, I do not recommend any one particular term to replace it. Any one term used could eventually develop the same kind of problems that the existing term has. What I would like to see is a new approach of openness and versatility: different terms and phrases used for different people and purposes. Some terms would appeal to and make more sense to some people than other terms that are more useful for other people. A diversity of words and labels can be used to connect with a diversity of people. The key thing is that we continually check in to make sure that we understand each-other and feel connected with each-other, regardless of the particular words used.

Thoughts on "Self-Determination"

2010-04-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

This morning I presented a short talk for the last day of "Advocacy Week" here at Camphill Soltane. The word "advocacy" here refers to the "Self-Advocacy movement", of which a conference dedicated to that subject took place shortly after my speech.

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I want to say a few words about "advocacy" and "self-determination" here.

I do not personally have that much experience with "advocacy" in the sense that it refers to the "self-advocacy" movement. The concept of "self-determination", which is the theme of today's conference, I do have some experience with - but in a different context from what most people here have.

From about the time I was sixteen to around the time I turned 30 the concept of "self-determination" was in the front of my mind as a value that I held as dearly important to me. For about about fourteen years it was something that I thought about almost every day in some form. Why was this?

What happened was this: when I was a teenager I began to question things. I saw that the people in charge - my parents, politicians, bosses - did not know everything and that they made mistakes. I saw that because people did what they wanted, other people sometimes got hurt because of these mistakes or lack of knowledge.

Not only that, I began to look around at the world around me. I began to notice homeless people on the streets and I wondered why they were there. I noticed the wars going on in the world, including wars that are country is involved in, and I wondered why that had to be the case. I began to wonder if watching television comercials and sitting in traffic jams is really the most healthy thing for people to be doing.

Based on these questions that I was holding, I discovered this one particular philosophy called "anarchism". This philosophy says that everyone should be equals, with nobody placed above or below anyone else. It says that nobody should be forced to do anything and that everyone should be given what they need to survive. According to this view stuff like businesses and governments, politicians and bosses should be gotten rid of, and in it's place people should freely come together to share things, make decisions, and work out problems.

Absolutely essential to this philosophy is "self-determination" - the idea that everybody should be free to make their own choices, have their own lifestyle, and determine their own future however they want to do that. This idea is at the core of the "self-advocacy" movement too, the only difference is that self-advocacy focuses on people with disabilities and anarchism focuses on all people everywhere, in every aspect of life.

My passion for anarchism started out as a kind of teenage rebellion, and it grew and continued on to be a burning desire throughout my twenties to create a worldwide social revolution. The choices that I ended up making, the places that I went and the things that I did was all focused around this desire. I saw myself as being a kind of revolutionary and I wanted to change the world.

As the years went by and I had more different experiences, met more different kinds of people, and read more different kinds of things, I began to notice some stuff. I began to notice that when people make their own choices without an authority telling them what to do that they do not necessarily make better decisions. I noticed that people can hurt themselves and hurt other people just as much without an authority present as they can with one there. I began to change my beliefs towards thinking that self-determination is not the most important thing to be working on.

There is a phrase that people say sometimes, perhaps too often, without people thinking about what it means. The phrase goes: "With freedom comes responsibility."

What this means to me is that with our ability to make choices and take action, we also have to think about what effects these will end up having. Will what we choose to do end up helping people or hurting people? Will we end up helping ourselves or hurting ourselves? Will what we want to do help us just now, or will it help in the future too?

Many different times I have seen people, insisting on their right to make their own decisions and to be free people, end up hurting people by the choices they make. Many different times I have seen people hurt themselves because of the decisions that they make too. I myself have at times hurt other people as well as myself by the choices I have made. In other words - free decisions, making your own decisions, does not mean that it will be good decisions.

On the other hand, just because one is a boss or somehow has authority over other people does not mean that one will make good decisions either. History is filled with stories of different people in authority hurting, killing even, many many thousands of people because of the decisions that they made. So what does all of this mean?

What this means to me now is this: I now think that what we need to work on improving is our own wisdom and maturity. I see this as being the most important, because with this regardless of whether someone is making decisions for themself or for other people - people get helped.

When I say the word "wisdom" here I mean the ability to think through things to see what effects your decision will have. This means having the ability to see who will be affected by the things you could do, as well as being aware of how they could be affected. I also mean being able to tell what would help people the most in a decision you could make, what would be the most healthy, as well as what would be the best things for the future as well.

When I say the word "maturity" here I mean, for one, remembering that whatever emotions or feelings you have in the moment will at some point go away. No matter how happy or excited, or angry or sad, that that too will go away. Maturity involves not letting your emotions make your decisions for you. It also involves taking a bigger picture view - it means that you remember that hopefully you will still be alive in ten or twenty years from now, and that what you decide on now will have affects on you then. It also means remembering that people other then you exist - they exist now and are affected by you now, and they will exist after you are gone and will be affected by you then as well.

Advocacy, or anarchism, or "self-determination" in general, can at times focus on the importance of wisdom and maturity, but they do not have to. As I see it no philosophy or movement can completely talk about it either - because wisdom and maturity is something that we work towards, that we grow into - it is always a work in progress.

I do not trust any person who says that they have all the answers - whether it be one person talking about their own life or an authority figure talking about large numbers of people. This is because part of being human means that we have limited knowledge, limited awareness, and that we can make mistakes. Therefore part of embracing our humanity means opening ourselves up to learning more. This is the kind of free choice and social change that I am interested in working towards now - the art of learning together.

A world where everyone's needs matter

2010-04-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Recently I visited Pittsburgh, PA and Columbus, OH and hung out with a bunch of different folks who either now or have in the past identified themselves as being "anarchists". This has been interesting for me in that on the one hand I no longer consider myself to be an "anarchist" and there are a number of different things about "anarchist" culture that I am personally very uncomfortable with. On the other hand, anarchism, and particularly the philosophy of anarchist communism, is simply just common sense to me. It always has been.

Here is the Wikipedia definition for "anarchist communism", in case you don't know what the hell I am talking about here:

"Anarchist communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct or consensus democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: 'from each according to ability, to each according to need'"

(if the phrase "anarchist communism" here gets in the way of you understanding, or wanting to understand, what I am saying here, then please just pretend like I never used that phrase. You may substitute in your mind a different phrase that helps you hear better what I am trying to say.)

The "common sense" aspects of all of this goes like: "of course we all would want to share everything, not put anybody above or below another, and all work together voluntarily to figure out how we all can get our needs met." Any other system has simply never made any sense to me in a very core way.

Thinking about this, I also immediately feel fundamentally different from anyone else who would have affinity with this philosophy. My reason for this is because I also agree with this quote:

"The individual, and groupings of people, have to learn that they cannot reform society in reality, nor deal with others as reasonable people, unless the individual has learned to locate and allow for the various patterns of coercive institutions, formal and also informal, which rule him. No matter what his reason says, he will always relapse into obedience to the coercive agency while its pattern is with him." - Idries Shah, Caravan of Dreams

What this means to me is that I think that even if the miracle of an anarchist social revolution is achieved, everything that the critics of anarchism say will happen will happen. This is because people still carry within them the same personal and interpersonal dynamics upon which the structures of authority, domination, hierarchy, class, etc. are built.

This has been the case in my own life and in the case of different anarchist/counter-cultural projects & scenes I have personally come across. I have seen time & again how when an impasse is reached & the pressure is on, "when push comes to shove", that authority/obedience - in short, domination - is resorted to. This is done either by reaching for the roles & power that is offered by the larger social institutions surrounding us such as property ownership, laws, social norms. Or, it's done by recreating them anew within the social relationships themselves, such as giving up on your personal desires because of social fear, submitting to the rule of the heavy talkers, establishing a new informal alpha male elite, among other things.

The principle of "from each according to ability, to each according to need" mentioned above also stands out to me, particularly in light of the Nonviolent Communication perspective on fundamental human needs and my personal experience working with people with developmental disabilities.

Basically, what this all teaches me is the incredibly vital importance of sorting yourself out internally. This means doing the work, so to speak, to get really clear on and make a heart-felt connection with your own core motivating intentions & values that surround and underlie both the work that you do and the people whom you live with. Without doing this personal work & getting your heart back, the principle of "from each according to ability, to each according to need" won't work, it all will remain simply a vague nice-sounding slogan that is said.

At the same time, taking a path of simply just "working on yourself", "personal growth", and "creating a different kind of life for yourself" without an emphasis on profound broader social change as well does not appeal to me either. This is because, in my eyes, the world we live in is absolutely insane and genocidal to all life.

It does not make sense to me to ignore the world around us as we retreat either into a nuclear family structure, a self-help sub-culture, or an intentional community counter-culture that is primarily focused on profound personal change. Disregarding the suffering/oppression of those around us will inevitably result in those people who are pain-crazed and desperate enough interfering with your life. When people are in pain and craving relief they will do whatever it takes to get attention, and the world we live in seems fundamentally designed to create lots & lots of suffering for lots & lots of people all over.

In other words, no matter how wonderful a social bubble is created where health, growth, and positive relationships prevail, the rest of the world ("the real world") will sooner or later come crashing in. We still live together on the same planet. This also needs to be taken into account.

So that's the dilemma - how to support profound personal change, redoing your own fundamental personal programming, while at the same time supporting profound social change, rearranging our relationships & institutions in ways that address all the needs of everybody.

A third factor then enters the picture - how to do all this profound personal & social change stuff while at the same time actually surviving in this world - that is, getting your food, shelter, medical care, etc., needs met in sustainable ways that do not support or reproduce the old ways. This usually ties in with the previous question of how does one relate with the rest of the world, ie, "the real world", because often these needs can not be met now without interacting with everyone else.

Often I find myself faced with the sheer intense enormity of these questions, particularly all of these questions all at once, and my response is simply to shut down. It just gets to be too much. With that, it is easier to just ignore it all, to put everything aside and simply just live my life. But we still continue to live in this world, still continue to live with people, so really truly ignoring it all in the long-term simply does not work.

I also often find it challenging to try to reflect on these questions within a group of people, because either: a) what I am trying to say & address is either not understood or considered interesting enough to really think about b) the people listening already have some kind of pre-formulated ideology or system that they are trying to sell or c) one of the three factors that I mentioned above gets routinely overlooked or not sufficiently considered.

So this results in a certain kind of seemingly dead-end that I do not know what to do with.

Motivating me with all of this:

I know that I want myself & others to feel truly free, being keenly aware of our actions, reactions, and choices made.

I want both myself & others to have healthy, happy, mutually supportive social relationships where everyone, the whole world over, has their fundamental needs seen, valued, and considered.

And I want all of this to be very much practical, tangible, based in the real world that we all actually live in where we can all actually do this.

I continue on, as always. The only difference is that now I am a little less keen on finding a label and saying "this is it!", or finding a particular group of people and saying "these are the ones!" It all seems much bigger than that.

Stay Down: A reflection on my experience of 2009

2010-01-07T14:01:00.000-08:00

When I look back on my experience of 2009 in many ways the main underlying theme of the year for me, personally, was that of recovering from and integrating all that I experienced in 2008 - and to some extent the last ten years (1999 - 2009) as well.
(for a brief re-cap this music video pretty nicely sums up my experience of 2008. This song accompanies the title for this entry here.)

In a number of ways I feel as if I had quite a few traumas, unresolved pain, and just a general sense of "what have I done?" left over from the last ten years that I had to work through. And this year, 2009, was the first time since 2001 that I was living at one place for the entire year, thereby providing a nice, safe, stable living environment conducive for me to do this kind of inner work.

The first five months of 2009 I was primarily focused on traditional organized religion as a way to support me in finding more stability, grounding, and healing in my life. Primarily Buddhism, Christianity, and the Baha'i Faith were the religions that I was exploring. The Baha'i Faith, which is the religion that I was born into and raised with, I became so involved with during early 2009 that I came very close to officially re-joining as a member. I did not end up re-joining it, however, for I was clear-headed enough to be able to realize that there are a number of different statements and beliefs coming from the Baha'i central figures that I fundamentally disagree with. I yearned for a deep sense of devotion, belonging, community, and faith, and for a while I was attached to the idea of the Baha'i Faith being my means for getting all of that in a sustainable and ongoing way.

An interesting thing is that during the time-period in which I was doing the prayers, meditation, and other devotional acts within the Baha'i Faith I did indeed feel more grounded, healthy, and spiritually nourished than I have felt for a long time. When I stopped doing them I felt differently. Different, not necessarily worse, for other needs were then focused on and met.

The period of time after this (May, June, July) I was focused very heavily on doing Nonviolent Communication work in the form of empathic listening, self-empathic inquiry, and self-reflection using NVC for guidance. It was also during this time that I discovered the work of Stephen Schwartz that goes by the name of "Compassionate Self-Care". This had a profound effect on me, enabling me to go through an experience of mourning, and from that find a level of self-acceptance and self-valuing that was deeply supportive for me to move forward.

Another factor that was helpful for me regarding all of this was the existence of regular ongoing empathy partners throughout the year, that is, people with whom I regularly met with in-person or on the phone to give and receive empathic listening with. This is something that I have very much wanted throughout my life, but have not had due to the instability in my life for so long. Now with one steady stable home-base and a daily/weekly schedule present in my life, I have been able to establish these kinds of ongoing regular supportive relationships.

Speaking of relationships, the whole second half of the year contained within it a big element of - being in love. In June I entered into a new romantic relationship with a coworker at Camphill Soltane. The experience has been deeply nourishing for me. The person is a very calm, grounded, and secure person, and being around her I believe has aided me in developing these same qualities within myself as well. With this, it is not a particular belief system or series of spiritual/self-help practices that has supported me, but a real human relationship of depth, meaning, intimacy, and partnership. I feel profoundly grateful for this.

The experience of being a part of a community, engaging in meaningful work, having ongoing mutually-supportive relationships with real people in my daily life - has been quite profound for me as well. In many ways living/working at Camphill Soltane is nothing new for me for I have been a part of communes before, I have done the circuit of esoteric spiritual ideologies, and being around different weird & crazy folk has been my bread & butter. So that has helped to prepare me for all of this and life at Soltane has been no "shock" for me as a result.

This is not to say that it has not been challenging for me at times. I have struggled at times with great frustrations and judgments. Sometimes I have managed my own inner-energy poorly, resulting in me feeling quite "burned-out". But at the end of it all, it all seems manageable to me, with lots of learning & growth to be had from the experience.

Although I have been living and working surrounded by people, many of whom are often quite loud, dramatic, and seemingly unpredictable, the real work for me this year was primarily internal, as you have probably already guessed by now. I began the year by reading the book "Walking in the Shade" and ended it by reading The Golden Notebook, both by Doris Lessing. These two books each in their own ways document a certain period of time of Doris Lessing's life which she describes as: "I was writing my way out of one set of ideas, even out of a way of life." Through my own ongoing year-long process of self-examination that was my experience of 2009 as well.

Many different core pieces of my old identity dropped away this year. It was this year that I stopped referring to myself as "(I)An-ok", that I ceased to consider myself as being "an anarchist", and that I no longer saw myself as being some big drop-out/commune guy. No big new identity, label, or grand agenda arose to replace all of that - and that feels pretty good. Many of my core values are still the same, although a lot of the outward forms and content are different. I simply no longer feel the drive to be quite so ostentatious about all of it.

System Blindness

2009-12-18T04:30:00.000-08:00

Wonderful thinking on justice, systems, relationships, living your life...

System Blindness from Restorative Circles on Vimeo.

Ten years after the day that changed everything

2009-11-30T02:30:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago today were the Seattle WTO protests, a real turning-point for the anarchist scene, and as a result a turning-point for my life as well. Before that point most people outside of radical and counter-culture circles had never heard of "anarchism", after it, all kinds of folks were talking about it. Suddenly mainstream media venues were talking about "anarchists", as were my relatives (totally unprovoked by me!). More important than that, within the anarchist scene in general a new sense of hope, optimism and possibility emerged that we can and are going about changing the world.

After November 30th 1999 the momentum from that carried on to other big protests and events as the "anti-globalization movement". Summit protest after summit protest around the world the excitement continued on until September 11th 2001 when suddenly everything changed and the ground we were standing on shifted. The "anti-globalization movement" then lost steam and in it's place arose the "anti-war movement", which simply was not as much fun. It was a long dark night of the soul living under and protesting against the second Bush administration and it's blatantly militaristic and authoritarian approach. That all continued on until essentially last year, 2008, when Obama and his rhetoric of "hope" and "change" took many activists who were simply worn-out by the years of Bush.

From the anarchist perspective, specifically, by the time that Obama emerged from when the Seattle WTO protests happened it was by and large an entirely different crowd of people who were around. Most of the people who were actively involved as "anarchists" then had essentially moved on, and an entirely different, younger generation, came in to take their place. The new generation of anarchists had known of the Seattle WTO protests as recent history, much like how my generation of anarchists had known of the anti-nuclear and Autonomen movements of the 80's.

From my perspective, by the time last year came around I had largely burned myself out on "anarchism". I had for a long time had a critique of protests as being an effective strategy/tactic for social change, while despite all of the similar critiques out there protests remained the main thing that seemed to inspire and mobilize anarchists out there. When the Republican National Convention protests happened in September of last year, the combined effect of police repression against activists, lack of a coherent public message on the part of the anarchists, failure to inspire people outside of anarchist-activist circles towards radical action, and the fact that this protest event was so anticipated, planned for, and worked-towards for so long - my final reserve supply of enthusiasm for what is called "anarchism" had run empty.

Another aspect of the whole thing was that I had always seen anarchism as being equally positive as well as negative in it's focus. "Positive" in the sense of presenting an inspiring and moving picture of a beautiful new world that we can create afresh, as well as pointing to the power that each of has individually as well as collectively to radically transform our lives for the better. "Negative" in the sense of openly critiquing and rejecting the existing structure of the world today, it's historical precedents, and the various mainstream movements to change it, from a comprehensive and fundamental stand-point. For a long time I have seen most people identified as "anarchist" as focusing very heavily on the "negative" aspects, that is on the critiques and denouncing, while focusing very lightly or even not at all on the "positive" side of things. Having such a lop-sided perspective eventually leaves very little emotional/spiritual "fuel" for people to keep going, I believe.

Over time I have come to adopt more of what could be considered to be a Buddhist Tolstoyan perspective (although I don't identify as such), part of which could be summarized with this quote from him:

"The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power ... There can be only one permanent revolution - a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man."

It's an evolving ever-changing work-in-progress, I admit - my beliefs, the various movements for social change, as well as the world in general. Ten years after the anarchist scene was so radically catalyzed by the Seattle WTO protests we all seem to be at some very different places than we were before. I wonder where we will be after the next ten years.

(I) is for identity

2009-11-28T12:53:00.001-08:00

About ten years ago at Twin Oaks Community I wrote on a 3 x 5 notecard announcing to the world that my new name is henceforth "(I)An-ok", which is pronounced "Yan-ock". Since then I have traveled all over the country meeting all kinds of different people, introducing myself to them as "(I)An-ok".

Nowadays, after all that time, I commonly introduce myself to others using my original and legal name, which is "Ian". Increasingly those who know me by "(I)An-ok" are making the switch back as well. "(I)An-ok" is dying.

I adopted "(I)An-ok" for a very important reason - I was creating my own new identity for myself. I objected to how others saw me previously, as well as to how I saw myself. I saw "Ian" as representing passiveness, acceptance of the status quo, and bland un-original conformity. I began at that point a decade-long quest to re-create and re-define myself in opposition to how my parents molded me as well as in opposition to how the world-at-large constructed me. I wanted to be a new person and to live a life that is radically different from everything that I had ever known before. I wanted to live outside of what most folks even considered possible.

The name in itself signified something of a unity and identification taking place between myself with the philosophy of anarchism. I didn't think about it this way explicitly as such, but on a very core & fundamental level that was the case. The name is a combination & synthesis of my original name "Ian" together with the word "anok", which is a little-known punk rock abbreviation for "anarchist", "anarchy", things of that nature. My name did not explicitly "mean" that, I usually told others that "(I)An-ok" did not actually "mean anything" per se. But on a deep level, it did.

That all feels over, or mostly-over, for me now. One reason is that increasingly I find very little to gain of value by holding onto "anarchist" as an identity for myself. A friend once told me that he essentially had anarchist views but that he never refers to himself as one. He said that to introduce oneself to a stranger by identifying yourself as an "anarchist" is for many folks the equivalent of meeting a stranger and saying, "hello, I am a violent asshole". It simply is just way too much work to clear up that kind of initial misunderstanding, so it's best to start out some other way.

I feel as if I am entering a new phase of my life now in terms of how I see myself, how I would like others to see me, and more importantly in terms of the general underlying sense or feeling that is moving through me in what I do. For most of the last ten years of life I have felt a general underlying sense of opposition or desire to destroy all that is around me (in terms of social institutions, life-styles, standard operating procedures) and now - I yearn for more peace, acceptance, and stability throughout all that I do.

That all being said, I really do not feel the drive to identify myself with any particular group, belief system, cause, ideology or movement. There are many different things that I like, many different things that I have identified myself with in the past. But now, the whole thing seems like a receipe for disaster. I say this because every belief system is limited, every person is fallible, and everything is impermanent. To identify with something like this is to set oneself up for needless suffering - something which I have put myself through again and again repeatedly these past ten plus years.

So there are many different things taking place all at once here:

For one I no longer feel the great burning desire for myself to stand out, to be unique, "to make a name for myself" so-to-speak.

At the same time I do not feel a particular affinity for that which falls under the name of "anarchist" above or beyond other labels, belief-systems, and ideology-based social scenes that I also have affinity with.

And I do not feel a particular desire to identify myself with any particular belief system for I see that as a way in which one creates unnecessary suffering for oneself.

As a result of all of this, "Ian" emerges once again. I've been around a bit, through a bunch, with a few others, and here I am again.

Now I'm back to where I started.

But not really.

Anicca Yearnings

2009-07-31T07:53:00.000-07:00

I feel the urge to write some kind of up-date-on-my-life post here, since it has been so long (since mid-February) that I did such a thing and much has taken place in my life since then.

However, when I think about itemizing & explaining all of the different changes and developments that have occurred in my life, I really have no interest in going through it all. I have talked with a number of different people in-depth about these things, and I have thought, worried, emoted, mourned & rejoiced - gone through the whole theatrical deal - so the possibility of writing it all out now feels something similar to filling out paperwork. I'd hate to see our relationship degenerate into something like that.

So I'll write something different here, while hopefully still relatedly on-topic. Hopefully you will be able to figure out what's what - or at least enjoy the confusion & your own varyingly vivid imagination.

Tomorrow (August 1st) is the last day of the "school year" here at Camphill Soltane. After that, people are then released, different folks are moved around to different places, and everybody gets a new label as to what their status is. There has been very much anticipation and excitement leading up to all of this all-around. The day after tomorrow my "August break" begins with various plans, commitments, and intentions hopefully kicking into place. Come September, we all return in a new constellation for a new "school year" to begin again.

I too am eager and excited for this new phase to begin. Perhaps I have been looking forward to this too much. Perhaps we all have. But I am getting ahead of myself.

At this point I actually feel exhausted and depleted - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I am needing relief, rest, and rejuvenation. I am also wanting to integrate all that has taken place over the past couple months, but I do not know how to do that without first attending to these three "R"-needs.

I suppose that part of my feeling of energy-depletion comes from how I have been living with four developmentally-disabled people who habitually turn to the volunteers of the house for attention, direction, and orientation. Usually this takes the form of them asking questions, and usually these questions are very similar and repetitive. I suppose that I have not learned to respond to these ongoing patterns in ways that are sustainable for me. I realize now that, over time, this has worn me down, and I am unsure of how or why this has occurred.

It seems to me that some of the most important things that I want to look after now are ways for me to honor and reinforce my own personal energy, focus, and momentum. Without these, everything all goes to hell, and I have seen/gone-through it enough times now to know exactly how this happens.

Looking after these needs, personal energy, focus, and momentum, seem to be of the nature of a spiritual practice - as well as a getting-things-done practice. Interesting, that. But as "interesting" as that may be, all-too-easily my attention can be snagged by the inane, the irrelevant, and the unnecessarily burdensome. This has happened to me, now. Or rather, the leading-up-to-now.

Right now though, literally speaking, I find myself in the familiarly-unique experience of conceptually clearing the fog from my head and realizing all that I have before me, options-wise and wisdom-wise. The path (or paths) to personal energy, focus, and momentum can be seen here.

Recently I have been reading the book "Don't Push the River (it flows by itself)" by Barry Stevens. In it can be found this quote:

"I think I need to be reminded of things I already know more than I need to be told things I don't."

That applies to me here as well.

When I wrote my last up-date on this blog about my life at Camphill Soltane, I was still in the midst of a kind of euphoric I'm-in-love-with-this-place state. Now, I am in more of a settled this-is-my-home-despite-all-the-weirdness state. Settled as well as in flux, because the whole thing is in flux. The "settled" comes from a great deal more familiarity and depth & variety of experience with the place.

Friends from different places often write to me asking me how I am doing, how things are going, etc. I really don't know what to say to that, really. I often respond by not writing back, ie, overwhelm = mental shut-down due to the encroaching waves of cascading thoughts & my attention going else-where to retreat to "higher ground". Or, I feel like answering their question with one four-letter word ("good") and then following that up with a long personal ramble that answers their question more fully but in an indirect way.

Another pertinent quote from "Don't Push the River":

"Whatever clarity I achieve is refined out of so much confusion that I am often more aware of the muddle than anything else."

Interactions with other people can help me to achieve clarity - or at least the kind of clarity that I want. However, to get this is not just a matter of "interacting with people", but is more about "interacting with people in particular kinds of ways". Usually I come to associate these "particular kinds of ways" with "particular people", which due to circumstances immediately begins to narrow down my options for support for clarity. I want to break this open - open it up - for more to use for everybody. In other words, if these "particular ways" really are supportive, why not share the wealth? And then, how can I do this meaningfully?

This then leads me to how often I adopt the missionary approach to whatever it is that I am into. Spread the Gospel, Teach the Faith, Reveal God's Word (even if the word-on-the-street appears to have it all be atheistic in nature). So now I am wanting ways to help others to help me (and to help themselves & help each-other) achieve clarity. Earlier I said that I want to find ways to more sustainably meet my needs for personal energy, focus, and momentum. Chances are that if I found ways to do that too, I'd want to share them, reproduce them, get others to get into it too. So what is that? Missionary-ism? Proselytism? Yet another wingnut pushing yet another cause?

I'd like to think that we all can go down together, and we all can go up together too. And the building-up part can happen consciously, by choice. The opposite usually happens through the opposite way, that is, sleep-walking off some cliff. Or listening to the voices in our heads instead of really listening to those around us. Or, particularly in my case, listening to the idle chatter of bored/nervous people instead of listening for deeper meanings.

I feel like I am burned out because I have burned up all of my own sense of personal meaning more quickly than I could generate it. And I generate it by "really listening", or really feeling, which is a kind of listening. When I distract myself by gazing entranced out the window at the pretty scenery moving by, I am not keeping an eye out on my fuel-meter - or watching where I am going for that matter!

About a week from now I will willfully lock myself into a series of cages (metaphorically & somewhat literally-speaking) to help "force" myself to more fully practice / immerse myself in all of what I am going on about here. I will do that with the help of these two organizations. I am eagerly looking forward to it, which is perhaps an unhealthy way to look at it, from a number of perspectives. In other words, I am intending on getting myself back "on track", and plans are in the works for that.

Also from "Don't Push the River":

"We set up all sorts of difficulties for ourselves like a barricade, haul ourselves over them, then pat ourselves on the back for our accomplishment."

Yes, that is what I am doing. I suppose that I am wanting to do this a bit more intentionally now, with the idea being that through doing so I would then be able to better appreciate the clear path for when it is clear. And to notice when I am habitually reaching to clutter up the path with fragments from a dead mind - another form of busy-work.

My energy for writing this has gone, and I am too, seeya.

Step-by-Step Compassionate Anger Transformation Process

2009-03-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

Below is a step-by-step process for transforming anger that myself and a group of others worked together on co-creating last year. I am posting it here so that it will not be lost to the world, and so that I can get some further feed-back to use for developing it.

This process is based on the work of Nonviolent Communication.

Please speak up if you see how this process can be improved to be more beneficial and effective at transforming anger into further clarity, mutual understanding and harmony.

________________________________________

Compassionate Anger Transformation

By Ben Spencer, Conal Elliott, Parenthesis Eye, Susan Livingston and Milli O'Nair - Coming from collaborative dialogue at Acorn Community and NVC Evolves

Have you noticed that when you behave and communicate in anger, you are less likely to get what you want? You would probably prefer to respond to anger in a way that results in reconciliation, healing, peace, and harmony. Anger is a compound made up of feeling/s and thought/s. The following approach is offered to empower you to separate the components of this compound and harvest these gifts.

Step One - Anger alert

As soon as you notice anger in your heart, say, 'My heart is closed right now. I must go and open it.' And then go. As you go, ask, 'is my heart open, or is my heart closed?'

Whatever the answer, promise your heart that you are holding it with care.

Step Two - Connect with your intention

Are you enjoying your anger? If you are, then take a 'time out' and enjoy your anger! If you are not, then continue.

Step Three - Identify your thoughts

Are you telling yourself that you are right / wrong or good / bad, or what you want / need / deserve, or should do?

Are you telling yourself that the other is wrong or evil, or what s/he wants, needs, deserves, or should do? Stay still and silent and adopt an attitude of intense curiosity. Accept whatever comes up without censorship or clinging.

Step Four - Examine your thoughts

Repeat the thoughts you identified in Step Three, and ask again after each one, Is my heart open, or is my heart closed? If your heart is open, take that thought off the list. If your heart is closed, carry that thought forward for further processing.

Intermission

Now it's time to slow down, breathe, and celebrate the work you've done so far. Taking the first four steps as quickly as possible will restore safety and balance, but it is important to take your time as you continue the process. When you are ready, offer yourself a choice about how to proceed. For example, if you would enjoy processing privately, then you might choose to meditate or go for a walk. If you would enjoy processing during heart connection with another, then you might choose to talk with a friend, peer or mentor.

Step Five - Dance between each thought and identify the need

And now how do you feel having recognized your need?

For example, 'I'm telling myself, he is rude.' I need respect and now I feel frustrated; 'I'm telling myself, he always does this to me, I'm sick of it.' I need progress and now I feel hopeless; 'I'm telling myself, how many times do we have to go over the same thing?' I'm longing for movement and connection and now I feel relieved, as I connect to my needs.

Ask yourself after you translate thoughts into needs and feelings, 'is my heart open, or is my heart closed?' If your heart is closed, there are deeper needs and feelings to be found in amongst some thoughts, continue the dance - thoughts into needs and feelings now. When your heart is open you have connected to the beauty of your needs, you are ready to proceed.

Step Six - Make a request of self, the other or another

When you reach the 'sigh' and are connected, see if a request emerges of self, the other or another to move forward in the situation.

Step Seven - Healing and Reconciliation

When you see the other with unconditional positive regard, you are ready to engage in empathic dialog. If you are not comfortable or confident about doing this, ask a third party who was not involved in the stimulus incident to hold the space. This works best if this third person is equally known or unknown to each party.

Step Eight - Celebrate

When you both have open hearts and there is peace and harmony between you, celebrate!

The Fundamental Choice

2009-02-21T18:10:00.000-08:00

Tonight I got to experience an old Camphill tradition, "Bible Supper". In it, everyone all dresses up in their Sunday finest, a dinner is prepared with the table set nicely, and an attempt at "higher conversation" is had. After dinner is over, everyone retires to a separate room to collectively read from the Bible and discuss the meaning contained in the verse therein.

The verse read tonight was about a woman who was sick for years. Then she one day came across Jesus. She knew that simply by touching him, she would be healed. She made her way through a crowd of people, touched his clothes - was healed. Jesus then said in response something along the lines of: "It was the faith in your heart that healed you".

The conversation following this I found to be quite interesting and meaningful. At one point someone said: "If faith can heal people, why can't we be healed from our disabilities?" It felt to me then that there was a sudden shift in intensity throughout the room. "You can't be healed from that", was said in reply. Resignation. Angst seemed to emanate.

I then felt struck to say, "Disabilities or not, there is always one fundamental thing that you can control, and that is your own heart. We can always choose to love or not, we can choose to be closer to God or not."

I admit, this sentiment did not originate from me. For one, there is Victor Frankl:

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

And, similarly, there is the old religious sentiment of - have every moment be taken in prayerful communion with God. This too is a choice that one can make.

It may not seem like much, but at the same time it seems like an incredible foundation to start with.

My new anthroposophical community-life

2009-02-16T10:46:00.000-08:00

A number of folks have asked me what my new life here at Camphill Soltane is like. Here is a brief little description for you...

I've been getting more and more settled here at Camphill Soltane, with my own room, work that I enjoy, and people who I appreciate living with. Despite my initial anxieties, the living / working with developmentally disabled people thing turns out to not really that much of a challenge for me, since I see how they all have their unique talents, contributions, hang-ups and short-comings just like everyone else. Continued time and interaction has enabled me to feel more and more comfortable with them. There is still much to learn in this area, and I look forward to it.

My room is something that I really feel grateful and content with here, and I am increasingly finding it reflect who I am. It has a hardwood floor, a large wicker cabinet, a large comfortable padded wood chair, a desk with chair, a tall vertical mirror, a window-seat, and a door that opens directly to the outside that has a paved path connected to it that wraps around the house to the nearby parking-lot. In all of the places that I have lived, I have always wished to have direct access to the outside so that I could avoid interacting with people whom I lived with if I so desired, and now I finally have it. My room also has a door that locks too, which is helpful since a number of the disabled folks have a tendency to abruptly open doors if they can. A number of people have remarked that my room looks like a monk's quarters, and I love it. I guess I mention all of this stuff because it provides a place for peace, quiet, and solitude, as well as a "space of my own" which I have not had in a very long time.

The architecture here in general is something that I really love. A lot of the buildings here are designed in an anthroposophical style, most notably with very few right angles. A colors and decorations for the buildings too also has it’s own unique style, apparently prescribed by Rudolph Steiner to be the most effectively soothing and nourishing for the soul. The whole effect of it all on myself is really nice, I think that it supports me in having more of a sense of inner safety and stability that I really like.

The work that I do here is relatively easy, so far it mainly has been stuff like collecting trash & recycling, cleaning things, moving things around, and accompanying people places. I also help assist in a class here, and am working on designing my own new classes here in Nonviolent Communication. The challenging thing here is not the work per se, but the interacting with the disabled folks such that they feel a greater connection to and harmony with the work that we are doing together. I am also gradually learning how to cook here. I cook one meal a week for the house that I live in, and am looking to move that up to two so that I can get even more experience with it.

The house that I live in is an old traditional style farmhouse that was here before Camphill Soltane even got started. I live with seven other people - three volunteers and four disabled folks, and the name of our house / group is "Nantmel Farm". The group living quarters are separated by gender, with the men in the basement and the women upstairs, with the kitchen and two living rooms on the ground floor. I do feel a real sense of care and connection with the people that I live with, but often find it frustrating that the main topic of conversation is schedule-related matters - who is going to do what when. I would like to introduce more meaningful conversation topics for us all, and I believe that the work that I do with Nonviolent Communication here can contribute to that.

One thing that this culture has is a lot of meetings, meetings of all kinds, pretty much every day some group is meeting about something here. Some people are frustrated with the number of meetings that take place, but I really love it. For me, I view it as a way to have greater mutual understanding, awareness of what is going on, and trying to consider everybody's needs. I could easily see myself, if I am not careful, get totally overwhelmed and immersed with meetings here. I enjoy meetings, but I also see how I too have my limits with that, and I want to be sure to honor that.

The Rudolph Steiner / Anthroposophical orientation underlying Camphill I find to be really interesting, but I also recognize that it is not for me. I love religious and spiritual matters, but when it comes down to it I am just not a Christian or an esoteric-minded guy (despite my previous flings with Gurdjieff and 2012). I do hope that I can learn and grow spiritually and personally through the Anthroposophical stuff here though.

I am eager for it to become Springtime here, for I have a sense that what I have been experiencing of Camphill Soltane is just a fraction of what is possible here. Being able to go outside and enjoy outdoor activities and leisure time here seems like a whole other world here that I have yet to experience. I have seen pictures of this places and the people here during Spring and Summer and I often find it hard to believe. It has been quite snowy and icey here, which I also greatly enjoy, but after a while I begin thinking about this season moving on.

Overall, I am finding my life here to be quite peaceful and enjoyable. I feel very content here, and I can very easily see myself being here for longer than the one year that I signed up for. I enjoy the connections with the people, the shared values with folks, and the structure and stability of the place. I love the overall sense of awe and beauty that I feel for this place, what it is trying to do, and the whole area surrounding it (two other Camphill communities and a Waldorf school are nearby).

I am wishing you all the best, my beloved readers!

Coming & Going: Reflections on 2008

2009-01-01T22:37:00.000-08:00

I would characterize my experience of the year 2008 as: my holding a fierce determination to "change" my life in some radical way, come hell or high water, for better or for worse, often in a blind thrashing-about kind of manner.

I will elaborate.

The year began in Jacksonville, Florida, alone, lonely, and confused. Then it continued on in Jacksonville, with family. From mid-March on the experience was a wild cross-country excursion of (in my own mind, at least) epic proportions. In late October, I turned 30, adding an additional layer of meaning & importance on all of this for me.

I write now from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awaiting my new life to begin tomorrow - literally. Perhaps this sentiment of the heart is one that I have carried with me all throughout the year, coloring the whole experience everywhere I went: My new life begins tomorrow, somewhere else.

For the sake of posterity, and for my own aging memory, I will briefly list all of the places that I have been in 2008:

Jacksonville, Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Folsom, West Virginia
Washington, D.C.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Warm Springs, Georgia
Williamburgh, Virginia
New York City, New York
Acorn & Twin Oaks Communities, Virginia
Takoma Park, Maryland
Troy, Pennsylvania
Canton, New York
Athens, Ohio
Rural southeast Ohio
Mieggs county, Ohio
Lee, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Boise, Idaho
Seattle, Washington
Vashon Island, Washington
Tacoma, Washington
Eugene, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Skokie, Illinois
Pecatonica, Illinois
Madison, Wisconsin
London, Ontario
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Springfield, Missouri
Austin, Texas
Bradford, Pennsylvania
Egbert, Ontario
Toronto, Ontario
Roseville, Michigan
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

This list is roughly in chronological order for the year. Many of the places in the list I went to multiple times throughout the year and I did not bother to write them out more than once here. To qualify for the list means that I spent the night there and had a reason for going there. There are a number of places that I was planning on going to this year, and that I wish that I went to - such as the San Francisco Bay Area, New Orleans and Las Vegas - these I will have to forever keep in the "I wonder what would have happened if..." pile.

I went to all of these different places in search of meaning, purpose, and direction in my life. I have gone to all of these places to see where I can be.

The funny thing is that I did this same thing (with a somewhat different list) the year before. And the year before that. And the year before that. Ad nauseum.

In fact, I have a long tradition now of going out, seeking my meaning, purpose and direction in other places. It's my own yearly pilgrimage. I believe the novel thing for me now is to find these things in one place over an extended period of time. And that is exactly what I intend on doing in 2009.

Every year has it's own themes, I believe, and here are some for this one.

Deeper meaning of Nonviolence

In 2008 I read a number of books. The author who had the biggest impact on me this year by far was Mohandas Gandhi. I was also affected by reading a book by a Buddhist monk on "the Noble Eightfold Path", a book by a Buddhist nun on doing social work during wartime Vietnam, "Island" by Aldous Huxley, and "A Confession" by Leo Tolstoy.

Altogether, these books have helped me to see nonviolence in a different way than before. Both inside and out, I see how this is a beautiful value to strive towards. I also see the importance of having a living faith in God to back it up - to sustain it, to give it energy.

Reading these books, I am left with a renewed inspiration and commitment to live out nonviolence in my own life.

Straightedge by not brahmachari

Inspired by reading Gandhi, I have considered and toyed with the idea of taking the vows of Brahmacharya. These consist of refraining from consuming intoxicants, caffeine, sugar, animal products, and spices in one's diet. Sexual desire is also curbed. In place of all of this, there is daily prayer & meditation, periodic fasting, and a general focus on & devotion to God.

In September and October I took some vows in hopes of becoming a brahmachari. By November they had mostly fallen apart, broken & disregarded. One thing did come out of all of this, however - I became Straightedge.

Straightedge is a lifestyle that came out of the punk rock scene which consists of abstaining from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, eating meat, and engaging in casual sex. The definition of "straightedge" is debated a lot, but this is how I define it, and this is how my life has shaped out - with ease.

There were times in my past when I could not have imagined that I would not desire meat, marijuana, and sleeping with whoever I found attractive - and now these desires have all just slipped away. I am grateful for that.

I still do desire the path of Brahmacharya - I want that in my life. The time-period this year where I was living up to my vows was a time where I found a particular kind of peace & contentment that I really enjoyed. I see Brahmacharya as best being done in steps, in increments, instead of all at once.

So this year, beginning on New Years, I renounced caffeine and sugar once again - and I have the headache right now to show for it. My intention is to gradually eliminate animal products and spices from my diet, and to establish a new daily routine once I have moved into my new home which includes regular prayer and meditation. I would also like to engage in fasting on a periodic basis, in a context other than riding a Greyhound bus or being broke.

The intention behind Brahmacharya, for me and in general, is to purify one's mind & body and to re-direct one's attention to that which is truly important - devotion to God.

Service to others, changing the world

My deep desire for a long time has been to be a positive contribution to others and to help to bring about meaningful social change (revolution or otherwise). I don't think that I've been that good at it.

This year I volunteered at a Vipassana Meditation course - twice, at two separate locations. These experiences, and the ethic and context in which they are done, "dhamma service", gave me a new insight into how this kind of service can practically be carried out. Most importantly, the spirit behind this way of doing service was made clear to me, experientially, beyond just books & writings. I am grateful for these experiences, and hope to embody dhamma service more & more in my life.

Now, thanks in part to the recommendation of some friends, I am joining a Camphill community as a volunteer for a year - 2009. Camphill has a policy that they call the "80/20 Ratio" for their volunteers - that is, 80% of one's time, energy, and attention is to be spent on serving others, and 20% on one's self. In the context of a Camphill organization, I have faith that this is a good structure to aid me in carrying this out.

Grounding out, moving forward

The ironic thing that I find now in my life is that in order to move forward I need to stop traveling. I already have plans for this, like I mentioned. More than anything, I want to build myself up as a solid and capable person. In order to do this, one needs a solid foundation and a steady hand.

I have certainly learned, the hard way, what the lack of all of this is like and what it results in. Now, I want to take concerted steps towards what the positive is like. I want to see what the previously-missing qualities are like when present, in practice.

What this entails now for me is going to Camphill. Beyond that, it can look like more volunteering at Camphill communities and/or Vipassana centers. It can look like me going back to college to complete my degree. It can look like me going abroad to teach English. It can look like me getting a normal job or getting married.

All of what I do with these "next steps" I think are best done when planned out, thought out, connected with my needs & values, and surrounded by adequate "spaciousness" through regular meditation, silence, & stillness.

I want to increase my capacity to serve others, and I want to grow & develop as a person as well. If anything, 2008 has been a series of "trial & errors" with different people, places, conversations, and series of events unfolding with the same themes threading through them all.

The Obama election and the responses to it from both the NVC scene and the anarchist scene have all given me hope for the future. Most important, though, is realizing that hope can be found from within myself and that there are practical skills to use to do it.

There is much to be learned.

To positive growth, development, health and well-being!

Happy New Years!

Mirrors & guides

2008-12-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

This is a reply to a blog post written by my friend bel.

I enjoyed reading your post, and I always appreciate a good ole' Rogerian shout-out as well. :-)

One thing that I was thinking about, regarding this topic... There is an approach to these spiritual / personal growth stuff that says basically that people are so un-self-aware, so very mechanical & predictable, and the old repetitive patterns that they carry out when left to their own devices are so self-destructive, that what is best for people to do is to find & totally dedicate themselves to someone who is more wiser, evolved, aware and more developed than they are for guidance. In other words: find your Teacher and commit yourself to them. I think that the Sufi tradition is the best example of folks who take this approach.

To a much lesser degree, this same mentality shows up in the NVC scene as well. I have found places where great importance was placed on having a "mentor" relationship with a certified trainer, or emphasizing "coaching" as the primary mode for learning. The whole Focusing partnership process, and Focusing-oriented psychotherapy as well, also has an air of a wiser person pointing the direction towards what is best for the person to focus on in the moment. As a result of all this, the whole question of "non-directivity" vs. "directivity" within a helping relationship is a huge one in the Person-Centered Approach scene. Regarding this Gendlin once told me: "be shamelessly directive, but always pause and check in with the person's experiencing".

Speaking for myself here, I recognize that it really *can* be quite helpful for me to have someone who is more aware than I am at the moment to guide me back to more "sanity" or balance. There have been moments when I have felt very weak or confused that you have served that role for me. Sometimes I just get so very caught up on my own thoughts and reactivity that it is quite helpful for someone to say "Stop. Breath. Step back, and look at *this*"

However, at the same time, I notice also that I feel much more free, happy, and I generally just enjoy myself, humanity, and life in general so much more when I take the straight-up Rogerian approach that you talk about here. In other words - TRUSTING PEOPLE, trusting life, trusting yourself, is all so much more uncomplicated, free and at ease, I find.

Perhaps a crucial part of the "empathy session" relationship, one of the things that makes it such a helpful experience, is that at that moment one of the people is more grounded, balanced and aware than the other, and the two are having an honest open-hearted conversation. Eventually, the person who is distraught and "receiving empathy" takes guidance and inspiration simply from from this way of being of calm groundedness & awareness that the other is embodying.

Conversely, perhaps part of the helpfulness of the Carl Rogers approach is that it is a set of stories, particularly, stories that say that you can trust people, that you can trust yourself, and that we all have it naturally built into us already to grow, heal, and to develop in positive and healthy ways. That story almost goes hand-in-hand with a big sigh of relief for me.

So perhaps in the empathy session, with the Focusing partner, the Teacher or guide - it best can be seen as being a kind of mirror for yourself. In other words, the parts of yourself that you want to see, that you want to remember, you go find this mirror... to reflect.

Changing

2008-10-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

This up-coming October 29th I turn 30. I've decided to celebrate it by going to a 10 day Vipassana Meditation retreat and volunteering there ("dhamma service" they call it). I've also decided to take two more vows, to add to my six other ones.

7) No eating meat

8) Meditate for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening daily

These two vows I will experiment with for a full year - until I am 31.

I suppose that these two vows both fall into the "cleanse yourself of unnecessary toxic crap and have more awareness & focus instead" category. All of this I am doing out of a desire to improve myself, to change myself more into the kind of person that I want to be.

Taking Vows

2008-09-10T10:51:00.000-07:00

In a sense I feel as if my life fell apart recently on Vashon Island. Alone, lonely, hungry, broke, cold, wet, and without any plans for the future, I had the opportunity determinedly stare me in the face asking me - "What the fuck are you doing?"

Since then, I have been looking at everything, how this happened, and what is going on.

From this, I have determined that I am wanting to move into more of a disciplined way of life. I would like to on more of a regular basis identify my needs and take responsibility for these needs being met or not met through my choices & actions. Part of this, I see, involves foresight into the future, anticipating my needs for the future, and planning and preparation for taking actions to get those needs met.

One of the things that I see as supporting me with that is having more structure that I am a part of. That is: agreements, expectations and standards which I and others around me hold around the choices that I make. This all presupposes me being really clear on what works and what doesn't work for me in terms of effectively meeting my needs. The structure would be applied & implemented around this understanding.

I have been able to identify some of my actions which have consistently distracted my focus from that which I want to focus on or have lead to my energy going into areas which I don't see as effectively meeting the needs that I want to prioritize meeting. I have written some about this here.

From that line of thinking, and also inspired by the vows taken and applied in the life of Gandhi, I have decided to come up with and apply some vows to myself. I am viewing these as being experimental religious vows.

They are experimental in that I am doing them for an initial six-month period. After that time-period is up, I will re-evaluate how it all went for me, and determine then if I want to keep those vows, add to them, drop a few, or alter them.

They are religious in the sense as defined in this Youtube video Freedom Requires Religion (beginning on minute 1:25):

"When we say 'religion', what we are actually talking about, is something like ‘a series of values and guiding principles along with standards and specific behaviors that are designed to keep me in harmony with those values and principles.'"

The word "vow" also is particularly important to me, in that it is stronger, more binding, and cherished more personally than a "promise", "agreement", or "commitment" is. A "vow" is all of that, but done before God. It is a promise that you make with God, about your relationship with each-other. This chart here helps explain what I mean when I say "God".

Here are my vows:

1) No marijuana or other intoxicants (eaten, smoked or second-hand)

2) No coffee or other caffeinated beverages

3) No sugary foods or beverages

4) No alcohol or tobacco consumption

5) Celibacy – no romantic or sexual relationships, or masturbation

6) Daily prayer & meditation upon waking and before going to sleep

I am really seriously wanting to make some substantial changes to my life right now. I have seen myself play out the same self-defeating patterns in my life for years, if not decades. I have much understanding and desire towards certain things that I want in my life, but have not had the kind of movement and effectiveness that I'd like. I find myself perpetually craving direction, focus and meaning, and am repeatedly left feeling depleted, lost and anguished without it.

In the past I have gotten tattoos with spiritual significance and have even shaven my head a couple of times. I have read, written and talked spiritual/religious matters for hours on end. None of this has gotten me to the place that I want to be. I am wanting to take some new, clear, concrete steps towards the direction I want to go.

With all my thinking, and all my talk, when it comes down to it I do not trust myself on my own to know what it is that I should do with my life. I trust others' advice even less. I want to establish a stronger relationship with God. All other options seem empty, while those brief fleeting moments that I have felt close with God have meant everything to me.

With these vows, the sixth one is really what holds it all together, while the other five all support the clarity of focus in the sixth one.

I will take these vows tomorrow, September 11th, and will re-evaluate them on March 11th. These dates in themselves are significant, in that they are both days in recent history that have contributed much to the mass hysteria, fear and reactivity in our society. I really want more balance, peace and understanding all around.

With that, I imagine that I can do some more interesting shit.

Cycles

2008-09-07T00:27:00.000-07:00

Here is an account of my summer from mid-May to early July this year. Much more has happened after that point, so much so that what I outline as my thoughts & feelings in this post seem pretty “old” to me.

And yet, I simply have not felt drawn to write about any of the newer stuff yet. I figured that since this piece was already-written, waiting to be released, I would just go ahead & post it. Those of you who have been out of the loop of my travels (inner & outer) can now get somewhat more of a glimpse into my life.

- (I)

___________________________________________________________________

It’s now after midnight, I’m waiting for the beginning of a massive Greyhound bus ride west. I don’t know if it is late, not going to happen, or if everything is all right. This sums up how I feel about a lot of different things right now.

I last posted on my blog here on May 15th – the beginning of my latest round of cross-country traveling. That post was not that thorough or explanatory, I admit, and I wrote it when I was tired & weird. Now I hope to be thorough & explanatory, while still feeling tired & weird.

Riding Greyhound is like entering into a massive circulatory system. Walking into a station is puncturing the skin – buying the ticket is being injected. From there, you have surrendered yourself to something much larger than you. Starting & stopping can not be foreseen, the omnipresent heartbeat is far beyond your understanding. All you know is that you will go, through whatever route is predetermined before you, when the force moves. Whatever filth or construction clogs the way, protector cells examining your every inch or synapses noisily clattering away, you move along, always, through a wondrous maze that seems endless.

The principles remain the same – you deprive yourself of oxygen, you’re dead. You jump track, you’re lost. Whatever happens happens. You surrender yourself to it – for what else is there to do?

You’re just along for the ride.

On May 15th I left the Acorn commune in central Virginia where I was for about a month, for Washington D.C. There, I stayed at an abandoned old Victorian mansion called “Common Ground D.C.” – the first of a number of interactions there. Based on the model of Common Ground in New Orleans, a group of volunteers had an arrangement with the owner to be able to live there for free and live semi-activist lives, in exchange for fixing up the place. Similar to Common Ground in New Orleans, the confusion, apathy and beaten down spirits lead one to wonder whether that will actually happen.

Then I flew to Jacksonville, Florida again to see my family. My youngest brother was graduating the 8th grade, this was my last opportunity (presumably) to see Jacksonville, and the whole family was there. Like before, I found it hard to avoid sinking into depression while being there. Being around my family’s collective narrative stories I find it difficult to maintain my own sense of direction and feeling within.

I did have an experience at Jacksonville that seemed quite remarkable to me. Using meetup.com I found a group of New Age spiritual-oriented people who were meeting while I was there. I went.

What the group ended up being was four hours of reiki and guided meditation on the beach under the full moon. This was among people whom I did not know and do not ever expect to see again. Yet, the sense of care & support was real, and that is what I find remarkable. Intimacy and mutual aid among strangers.

After that, I flew back to Washington D.C. in time for four days of workshops by the NVC trainer Robert Gonzales.

The first day-long workshop, entitled “The Way of Connection”, stands out to me the most in that the whole experience was on of great harmony, flow and grace. The whole day just seemed miraculous, perfect. I didn’t even stay at the actual workshop the entire time – just being in that space, the vicinity, seemed to have a kind of magical air about it. It was beautiful.

With the workshops ending, some friends & I met to plan out taking a big cross-country trip together. The trip with these people did not actually end up happening. We met and talked at the Common Ground D.C. house, where I later found ut that an assault happened. And then another. And another.

I was out staying at a separate place when the first assault happened. Similarly with the second and third. Apparently the guy who perpetrated the assaults was kicked out of the house and now has a criminal court case pending against him.

I say all this about Common Ground D.C. not to high-light how fucked-up it is, but out of a sense of frustration and yearning. Similar to Common Ground New Orleans, what I want throughout all the violence, drama and dysfunction is a solid base for an alternative volunteer corps to go forth and build something new in the shell of the old (so to speak). I continue to hold much hope with this model, provided that the process is gone through with sufficient attention, intention, thorough commitment and consideration.

Also around this time my relationship with my friend Geri shifted into something else. I never know how to discuss these things, nor do I know what label(s) to put on it – which is an unfortunate position to be in because nonetheless the whole thing is to me a meaningful factor in my life. I would like to have the words to discuss it, for it to e understood accurately, without any sense of expectation, narrowed role, or even guaranteed continuity implied. One way that has helped me to look at it in this was ys, based on the list of fundamental human needs, viewing the relationship as having made a shift towards meeting more of a full spectrum of the needs listed.

I then went to Pennsylvania.

In northern Pennsylvania lives my friend Martha Lasley, an NVC trainer, mediator, and professional coach. She also lives on a piece of land that she and her husband bought 20-something years ago in a house tat they built themselves, from the bottom-up. They used to live in a number of different communal groups in the 60’s & 70’s, and now live as an organizational development consultant and a property rental manager.

The two still hold to their old radical beliefs, of sorts – Martha into a kind of NVC-based social change thing and the philosophy of John Heron, her husband Dave focusing on the imminent collapse of the U.S. economy and the need for a new kind of socialism.

It was here, in Troy, PA, where Martha facilitated a mediation session between me and my father who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years. I wrote a long piece about that mediation in another notebook of mine, and then later lost that notebook in the middle of the night while transferring buses on Greyhound. So, just imagine something intense.

I then continued on north to up-state New York – “North Country”, they call it. It is here, the area around Canton, NY, that my friend Becky lives. She is a part of two separate intentional communities – Ness & Birdsfoot. These communities are both derived from the old “back-to-the-land” movement of the 60’s, and continue to survive with a large degree of self-sufficiency.

Birdsfoot is the oldest of the two, and the most developed in terms of infrastructure. They have a number of buildings built with materials on-site and have a large garden which supports a CSA, local food co-op, and a food bank. They also have a small private school on-site where children from the local area go for a one-room schoolhouse John Holt-inspired experience.

Ness, six miles away, actually has more people and acreage, but less history & momentum. That community is primarily focused around one guy who owns the property, built almost all the buildings, and has been there since the beginning. The people there recognize the power-imbalance in all of that, and slowly seem to be addressing it.

More interesting to me than either of these two groups is the surrounding local community. This is where a lot of the back-to-the-land hippies wound up, settling in the 60’s & 70’s and not moving out. Their lifestyles ranged from having cars to having horse & buggies, having full electrical conveniences to making almost everything themselves. But nevertheless, they have all built their houses themselves, grow a lot of their own food, and most importantly help each-other out. It’s an odd dichotomy of both isolation from the world and immersion in a local area.

To counter-balance it all, I next went to New York City. Emerging from the filthy subway, I had to exit through the emergency exit because my large back-pack wouldn’t fit any other way. Alarm blaring with nobody seeming to care, smog in my face and sweaty, I emerged above-ground to the crowd-filled streets of Manhattan – I felt at home.

I stayed at the home of my friend Sarton, a professional Manhattan psychotherapist whom I’ve known through the Person-Centered Approach scene. Despite the full amenities of modern life, everything all felt so… Short.

Choppy.

One thing that I’ve noticed about my NYC friends is the incredible difficulty of having a spacious conversation. The act of communicating with them often leaves me with the feeling that I am talking with someone who is flipping through the channels with a remote control, and it’s my job to provide interesting programming quickly before the next commercial break.

Whether it is perceived time-scarcity, overwhelm, panic, or the persistent changing of topic, I often leave the interaction with them extremely frustrated and with a desire to wrestle them to the floor and pin them down to a topic of interest for a period of time.

That all being said, NYC is still the age-old lover calling me at 3am inviting me to join the millions of others in their particular brand of insanity. As potentially self-destructive as that is, “moving” to NYC is still an option that I consider frequently.

Thanks to the Craigslist rideshare, I then was able to catch a ride out to Pittsburgh to meet up with Geri. The ride was with two other guys my age, one financial analyst and the other a real-estate broker. Seeing the finely-braded hair of the one guy, and the “Israeli Defense Force” t-shirt of the other, I wondered how I would connect with these two. Hours later, we were all talking about anarchism, alternative lifestyles, and 2012.

Now, as I write this, we are driving through the rolling prairies of Kansas. “Americas heartland”. I wonder where my own heart is now, given that every one of my travel plans has been changed, and I do not know where I will wind up.

I am fasting, now, as I go across the country on this Greyhound bus. We pass fields of cows and windmills, while the people in front of me talk world affairs. As always, I want where I go and what I do to somehow, in some way, be a positive contribution to the world. The fast is to help me to remind myself of my intentions behind this trip.

In Pittsburgh Geri and I stayed for about five days at an intentional community called “the Landslide”. This place consists of twenty-something twenty-somethings, two houses and a big piece of land. The twenty-somethings are anarchist activist squatter types with dreams of inspiring off-the-grid sustainable ways of life in Pittsburgh. The houses are old multi-story buildings, one of which has electricity, running water, and internet – the other with none of these things.

The land which the Landslide owns I find to be absolutely amazing. For one, everything is tilted – sliding off a hill. The property has a stunning view of downtown Pittsburgh and you have to climb up and down the hills in order to go anywhere.

About 40 years ago there was an enormous landslide in the neighborhood there, and that was how the name came about. This has resulted in the acreage that they own being pretty much rural land, with a forest, trees, plants all over it – with torn & cracked-up concrete of roads, sidewalks, and stair-cases interspersed everywhere. Tent and tarp structures are all over this property, forming a kind of squatter shanty-town – except that this property is owned, since property is so cheap in Pittsburgh.

The Landslide has a unique & interesting feel to it. It seems part income-sharing commune, part squat, part community outreach project, part back-to-the-land project, part typical activist house. It is hard for me to put an accurate label on it, and I thought that I would have gotten over that habit by now anyway.

That all being said, coordination & work seems to happen quite fluidly there, and the people seem happy. In the end, that goes a long way.

I realize that with each place I visit on this summer traveling journey, and each place that I consider visiting as well, always on the back of my mind is the question – is this a place that I can live at? This also happened back in 2004 when I traveled cross-county, the big difference now is that this time I have less money and more of a vision that I would like to go towards. This puts a very different lens on things.

The crippled man shuffles towards his seat, positions himself into his chair and moves his cane & legs into his space.

“This is what I call ‘war stories’. I might have a couple for you, my friend.”

And so we’re off, now leaving Boise, Idaho via Greyhound bus. I am now traveling along again, after being from Pittsburgh to Boise with Geri. I feel sad to be leaving her, and have the sense that once again, I am stepping out into the void.

I always return to the void.

After the Landslide, Geri & I got a ride from Pittsburgh to Athens, Ohio in a U-Haul truck with a man and his cat. They were moving. The man was an artist, and one of our first impressions of him was his artwork – a pink skin-colored monitor with a large vagina on the screen.

The deal was that we would help the guy load up his U-Haul in exchange for the ride. One of the most poignant moments is of us carrying and loading onto the truck these enormously large ceramic art pieces of what looked like huge bottles of “Tide” laundry detergent. Instead of saying “Tide”, however, they said “Terror”. Lugging these around, in the rain, across state lines, had an interesting incriminating kind of feel to it.

Then we went to the annual Earth First! Round River Rendezvois in south-eastern Ohio. The event was a week-long, camp-in-the-woods, communal meals, free, volunteer-based kind of thing. It was also anarchist as fuck.

Attending the Earth First! Rendezvous was a fall-back position, a second choice for me. My real heart and passion was in going to the national Rainbow Gathering, taking place in Wyoming. The intention behind that was to organize an “NVC Camp” there, an experimental place to offer Nonviolent Communication to people in public for free. I instead chose to prioritize other things.

I went to the Earth First! Rendezvous because I did not want to be alone. I had for months been anticipating a certain particular summer itinerary with a particular group of people. Faced with the soul-piercing prospect of possible loneliness, I chose the surest travel companionship I could find. It all happened semi-consciously for me, but I think that my other travel companions from Washington D.C. dropping out of the trip, combined with the changing nature of my relationship with Geri, lead to me being reluctant to go out to Wyoming by myself.

My actual experience of the Rendezvous was by no means horrible, nor is it something that I regret. My old friend Marc was there, who I unexpectedly got to spend some time with. I gave an NVC workshop, and I met someone who is working on creating a new federation of anarchist intentional communities, a project that is dear to my heart.

What struck me the most about this gathering was the anarchist ethic of organizing things. The low-budget, pooling resources, chipping in when you can, somehow-make-things-happen attitude – I totally love. This inspired me to thinking – what would an NVC gathering look like organized along these lines? Taking these same values, but applying them to learning & practicing the skills of heart-felt honesty, empathic listening and care for each-other? This challenge is something that really excites me - that I want to pursue.

Walking the Straight Edge

2008-08-29T19:45:00.000-07:00

Somehow I found myself thinking about Ian MacKaye. Besides "Minor Threat", one of the things that he is well-known for is popularizing the whole Straight Edge thing. So I started thinking about that. And I started thinking about how all of that relates to my life, values, and the choices that I make.

I notice that so very often I fall into the habit of thinking about something, rather than from it. That's how this all got started. I want to instead "feel into" something, and then open my mouth. This is a Focusing thing - but we don't need to stop because of that.

My mind is often like an ice-skater, constantly moving, doing tricks, perhaps even quite majestic – but not even acknowledging the treasures of the depth below. There is much to be found in there, and you can move up & down as well as side-to-side. So many possibilities. I forget so much of what is possible by entrancing myself with old patterns.

I notice different habits of mine which support the same-old continuing on as it has. Some of this has to do with drugs and physical shit, and related life-style choices.

Take marijuana. With it, my mind goes all over the place – wild, crazy, fantastic ideas. Big Thinking and paranoia. It has given me many wonderful experiences, as well as ruined me. It can help me with relaxation and creativity, but at what cost?

With caffeine, my body tenses up. I feel "on the go" with my mind racing. I can't feel the inside of my body though. It gives me energy, and I am addicted. Do I really want that? In that way?

I hate alcohol and cigarettes, we can just skip those.

As far as sexual / romantic relationships goes, I've considered celibacy, monogamy, polyamory - all the different "policies" that one can apply to these things. None of them really fits me thought, not really. I like the Straight Edge stance against "casual sex". I also like Gandhi's "subordination of sensual desires to the primary devotion to truth", the basis behind his vow of chastity. And if there is a strong drive to enter into a romantic relationship, well, I ask – Why? That prompts an inquiry into meaning.

A lot of Straight Edge people are vegetarian or vegan and I definitely see their reasons why. There is a very strong basis for this. For me, with my life of chosen poverty and unpredictability, relying on non-animal products alone doesn't seem really reliable. In other words, countless times I have found myself in situations where I have no money and a meal is offered to me – a meal of packaged toxic factory-torture crap, but a means to survive another day nonetheless. I have yet to find the faith to survive other ways.

What appeals to me the most diet-wise is Freeganism. - you eat that which is free. This has a direct "you work with what is there in the present moment" foundation, as well as no money going towards the meat industry. This to me seems the most in integrity with where I am at.

From all of that together, I would say that I want to pursue meaning, depth, connection – and all of which follows from that is secondary, incidental.

With all of these reflections & attitudes of Straight Edge is a shared value with Gandhi of living a life of Truth. For him, "Truth is God." He wanted "to see God face-to-face", or, as the Baha'is would put it, to "be close to God."

I prefer slightly different words. The words which most resonate for me are "Meaning" and "Clarity".

I crave meaning. I need meaning in my interactions with others, meaning in the work that I do, meaning in how I spend my time each moment of each day. I need meaning in who I am just with myself. Without it I feel shallow, empty, with a background soundscape rubbing up against my soul like an itch that you can't scratch. I just go nuts. Meaning drives everything that I do.

Meaning is a felt-thing, inside my body. My body, my whole being, tells me when I have it or when I don’t. It seems Big. Meaning, to me, is God.

And I crave clarity too. Clarity in what I want, in what I am doing, where I am going, why I am here. Much of my life feels as if it has been a perpetual quest for clarity, hanging just over me. Just within reach - with proper effort.

I want clarity in meaning. That is, "to see God face-to-face."

And how does this relate to Straight Edge? Well, with pot and drugs, my mind goes for the fantastic and amazing, not clarity. With caffeine my body just closes up and I can't feel meaning inside of me. With a focus on sex, meaning goes out the window and it just becomes a body-thing, reaction-based.

Aside from renunciation, there are things I can do to get that which I am wanting here. I can set aside specific times and places to put specific effort towards searching for the meaning behind things, within myself. A kind of inner-pilgrimage to a deeper place for communion with what's there.

And with others, I can search for the meaning that exists between us. I can turn down the noise and direct attention to what's there. Whether it is shared or not is not totally important, but the more we are walking astride the same path the more likely we can see where we are going together. If all else fails I can interrupt and ask about that.

I often despair over not finding the meaning I need or not having the clarity I want. But what I am despairing over exactly? Why? What's really important to me there? That's the way out right there.

The door is open.

Shaved, tired, wondering

2008-05-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

Last night, I shaved off all my hair. Later I walked out of that room, now filled with friends yelling in anger, to join other friends now fleeing in disgust. We stayed up late talking about our different frustrations and desires. I slept in a decrepit empty house woken a couple hours later by the sound of homeless men I've never met sharing condolences about how fucked-up the world is. I left, walking in the rain past trash in the streets and liquor stores to gather together my thoughts.

Tonight I might facilitate a meeting between people who may or may not show up, to help sad lonely people wanting meaning, support & community to maybe... Listen to each-other.

I want hope, and ironically enough, the woman who has made this entire situation all possible has that name. What are we doing here? My thoughts despair, but my spirit says that we all already know.

Jax Learnings

2008-04-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Jacksonville, Florida early last December heart-broken, beaten-down and confused. I then proceeded to spend the next 3 & ½ months there, in some of the most lonely, depressed, desperate and intensely self-hating mind-storms of my life. But, I think that I needed that.

The other perspective is – I went to Jacksonville from New Orleans with the explicit clear understanding & intention that I needed to take some serious time for self-reflection, integration, and personal clarity for my future. And as painfully agonizing as the process was for me at times, that was what I got.

Some of the products of this process, you have already seen here in this blog – my rantings & ravings about last year, as well as my dreams & ambitions for a new kind of group. Other things came to me as particular phrases.

There’s this quote that I found by Carl Rogers, “Learning goes on best, lasts bests, and tends to lead itself on more, when it grows from a real focus of interest in the learner.” That really hit me. This explains every boring fucked-up robot, as well as every amazing lively genius. What it means, for me, is – at any given moment, each person has a focus and an interest. They may not be aware of what they are focusing on, nor may their interest be a conscious one at the moment. But these all can be found. The very notion of finding this excites me, and captivates me with the potential.

Then there’s the phrase & understanding that I call “concision and the consolidation of meaning”. That is, taking all the wordy, obtuse, heady shit, all the running-off-at-the-mouth, and consolidating it, making it compact & concise. This may result in far less talking - but the talking that *does* happen is far more potent & meaningful. I notice that I tend to talk a bunch when I am nervous, or when I am not that clear on what I want. Keeping this principle in mind could perhaps counter-act that. I also notice that there is a discernable felt-difference between not speaking out of shyness vs. not speaking out of wanting to consolidate attention & meaning.

Which brings up another point – the “felt-difference” thing. That’s important. I know that I’ve been ranting about this shit for years now, preaching the wonders of “Focusing” and what-not, but I really get it now! In other words, I see how whenever I go towards things “looking” a certain way, I get lost, hurt, and confused. But when I go towards things “feeling a certain way”, that that is a reliable guide, that things usually work out for the best then. If things feel freeing, connecting, true to me, then that feels good and it tends to work out well also. If I go into anything feeling apprehensive, shitty, uncertain, sad, scared or self-hating – then it won’t work out. I’ve seen this all happen over and over a million times now. I need to talk more with my own inner guide.

Dove-tailing into another point here – when I am wanting to know exactly what to do next, where to go, how, who, when, etc!! “I already know what I want, I’m just not in touch with it at the moment.” This phrase I find to be a real blow to my ego, in an odd kind of way. As well as stimuli for pausing & shutting up. My mind goes around & around & around, and through telling myself this phrase, things get quiet. Oh.

Intermediary Steps

2008-02-14T20:41:00.000-08:00

I have had quite a number of different thoughts, feelings, and needs in relation to that document that I posted here on January 20th. One of the big ones for me has been a kind of discouragement, wanting to receive more feed-back, acknowledgement and active interest than I have been. But then I realize - I primarily wrote & worked-through that material for myself and my own clarity & understanding of what I am/have been wanting. Partnership is better acheived through other means than text.

One problem here is that I think that generally-speaking, people's attention gets lost in too many words. After a certain number of words, people's minds begin to wander, and they lose interest in the text at hand. I think that one of the big problems facing society today is people's lack of control over their own attention & ability to concentrate. One of the ways in which this is expressed is through the decline in reading, in general.

So if I express myself in writing here, in too many words, people will get lost and I will never hear from them again. If I express myself in person with too many words, people will tune out then as well, but I can notice that and then try to find their attention again. That is one advantage to face-to-face contact.

To be effective in conveying concepts to others, writing needs to be concise & consolidated in meaning. What is truly important & relevant to the situation at hand can be found and expressed succinctly. Approaching it in any other way is to do so primarily for my own benefit, or for the entertainment of the select few who possess the extraordinary stamina required to keep on reading.

I still feel as strong a desire as ever to create a new kind of group. This desire comes from my wanting to help in improving myself, others, and the world in multiple ways simultaneously. I do think that it can be done, and I want to do it.

One of the areas of improvement that I did not directly talk about in my last text and which I since have seen as being increasingly important to include is that which we can call "spiritual".

When I say "spiritual", I am referring to a kind of quality of experience, that we all have had at different times, in which we feel a connection & appreciation to something bigger & beyond ourselves that runs throughout all of life. The feelings associated with this kind of experience ranges anywhere from humble content-ness to ecstasy, from "subtle" to fully-immersive. The very nature of this experience is such that when words are used to describe it, they come out either sounding like poetic metaphor or jibberish.

The best means for understanding the "spiritual" are your own personal experiences with it. I am talking experiences here, not beliefs. Beliefs (religious or otherwise) at best can point to or guide one's spiritual experiences. At worst they get in the way of having them.

So why do I say that spirituality is so important? Well, consider these recent news stories.

Why would people do these kinds of things to other people?

I see this all being the result of people losing touch with that which is authentically spiritual in us.

I see things this way... People generally refrain from killing or abusing one-another out of a fundamental respect for people. We have this respect because we see people as being a special kind of life. This has meaning to us because we have at different points felt that particular kind of connection to "something greater" that flows throughout all of life - and that leaves an impact on us. This gives us a deep, perhaps even non-verbal, understanding that these people too are connected with that. Hurting others then doesn't make any sense, because it is akin to hurting yourself & more, and it feels wrong in a very profound way. Having spiritual experiences tends to predispose one to do the opposite of that.

I think the more that people have a "spiritual poverty" in their lives, ie, less & less contact with authentic spiritual experiences, the easier it then becomes to see other people, yourself, life itself even as being utterly meaningless & devoid of value. I say "authentic" spiritual experiences to make a distinction from moments of being carried away by emotions or imagination which can lead to fanaticism or psychosis. I see authentic spiritual experience leading inevitably to a pure compassionate desire to serve life.

One thing that stands out to me during my times in New Orleans is the difference in character and energy-levels between those who were volunteering there for spiritual or religious reasons, and those there for other reasons (including myself). The spiritual-oriented folks seemed to have more of an optimism & vibrancy about them, and this seemed to be the case regardless of any particular religion or spiritual path.

This all leads me to see spiritual experience, of any form, as a source of a kind of "life-energy" needed to keep going - especially in tough times or situations. I had a few spiritual experiences in New Orleans, some of which were written about here. These were scattered & irregular, and I would like to find ways to consciously induce them. To have a sort of steady reliable fuel source, so to speak.

So I would like to be a part of a volunteer group that has meditation and spiritual exercise as a part of it's daily routine. I think that daily routine as a group supports greater discipline and likelihood of actually carrying it out, as well as lending more of a context for meaning to the activity. A practice of regular meditation I believe can strengthen the abilities of concentration & control over one's own attention.

Essentially what I am looking for now with others to move forward in creating this new volunteer group are people who simultaneously have these three qualities to them:

1) A shared understanding of the nature of people and general outlook on life

2) A shared committment to practicing present-moment life-skills (inter-personal, emotional, meditative, spiritual)

3) A shared fundamental comfort with living in an alternative non-materialistic (ie, "dirt poor but loving it") communal life-style

I admit, this is a relatively rare and obscure grouping of people that I am looking for. However, I was recently heartened to read these words by the fringe New Age theorist Tom Montalk:

"Your spiritual family exists right now scattered about, it's just a matter of timing and preparation for these to gather."

So what I have committed to do now is to take steps to better prepare & improve myself, as well as to meet others with like minds/hearts/paths. I will also continue to put more attention into the vision of the new volunteer group that I want in hopes of getting increasing clarity & self-understanding around it.

When ready, what is needed will appear. This is a certain kind of trusting + action.

What I'm Getting At

2008-01-20T20:31:00.000-08:00

There are intentions behind actions, grand visions behind actions, and the results. I have been thinking about how it is that I went down to New Orleans last year with such a firm intention to bring empathy, compassion & awareness to the volunteer work that I wanted to do, to "walk in the dark without getting lost"... And yet I ended up with the results of... feeling very confused and in a lot of intense emotional pain. And other people were feeling very up-set & various other different un-met needs feelings. How? How did this happen?

I now see that sheer passion, excitement, and fervor simply is not enough to cut it. Nor is having extensive training in Nonviolent Communication and other related practices. Nor is even having a group of beloved friends. These are all important, but something more is needed. What is needed is a solid well-thought-out foundation and structure of support to withstand all the different chaotic forces of life.

First, what am I getting at here? What am I talking about and what I am wanting to have happen? "What" & "Why", before "How".

The summer of 2004 was a big time for me. One of the reasons is because that was when I discovered the work of Carl Rogers (also called the "Person-Centered Approach"). He talked about something that was then only semi-coherently formulating in my mind through my work with Nonviolent Communication. He said that through three specific qualities simultaneously being present in a relationship, constructive social/psychological change will inevitably occur. These three qualities are:

1. Being aware of yourself & your inner experience and honestly speaking about it.

2. Sensitively listening to & empathically understanding the other person.

3. Caring for the other person in an unconditionally accepting way.

The theory goes that when these three qualities are all simultaneously present in a relationship, either with one other individual or as a group, that positive growth & significant learning then comes forth. My own personal experience of the moments when I have been present with these three qualities together says that this is true. I view NVC as being a set of teachable skills to help bring these three qualities out into practice consciously at will. This is one reason why I am so enthusiastic about NVC.

Rogers then went on to say, particularly in his book “On Personal Power: Inner Strength and Its Revolutionary Impact”, that facilitators skilled at embodying these qualities within groups can potentially have a transformative effect on society. Revolutionary, in the anarchist sense of the term meaning people finding within themselves their own ability to act directly and decisively to meet needs and to act cooperatively & respectfully as groups to support each-other. Rogers' own experiences with group facilitation in this kind of way backed up this hypothesis. My own experiences with groups in NVC lead credibility to this theory for me as well. The idea now is to try out & apply this theory in "real life" – outside of a workshop setting.

I like New Orleans as a place to bring out new ideas/systems and to offer them for public use. The reason for this is that many of the different social structures there which exist to meet needs for the local community of New Orleans are simply not working, and people there openly acknowledge this fact. Whether we’re talking education, housing, the criminal justice system, trash removal, public safety, healthy food or clean water, the place is just a mess. When people's needs are not being met, people tend to be more open then to new kinds of ways for meeting needs – as long as they have trust that the new strategies have a chance of working. I would like to have this trust be based on a belief in one-another and in one’s self. This is because the kind of strategies that I would like to see used would come from each-other and ourselves. Not from outside of us. This is a new kind of foundation that I am talking about here.

I have been in touch with a friend of mine recently whom I met at the ADPCA conference last summer in NYC. She was a friend of Carl Rogers back in the day, and she said this in a recent e-mail:

"Carl often spoke of the idea that CHANGE (his favorite topic he claimed) was too much for the person if they did not have "a critical mass" or nucleus of at least six supporters."

This got me thinking...

In 2006 I went to New Orleans with 1 – 5 other people who had some degree of NVC experience. In 2007 I was in New Orleans with 0 – 3 other people with some NVC experience. I can’t give any set numbers with any of this, because there was a lot of coming and going involved both times. In 2006 I co-facilitated some NVC introductory workshops, but no ongoing NVC support structure came of that. In 2007 I reached out to all of the local NVC supporters in the New Orleans area, but no ongoing support structure came of that either. Both years, myself and the other NVC people there had no existing plan, agenda, routine, etc. Our intention going in was to volunteer, help out the people of New Orleans, and see what it is like. I am thinking of having something that is a bit more focused than this.

I would like to draw out in a bit more detail here the kind of group that I would like to create and be a part of. I realize that in some form this vision has been in my mind for at least the last ten years. This is both the culmination of what I see as being the ideal role of an anarchist revolutionary as well as where I see NVC training going when outside the bounds of the commercial workshop model. Ideally, groups such as what I describe would operate in areas of profound social/economic collapse – places that are in obvious "need" and where large institutions are not effectively addressing the situation.

I think that in such an environment it is important for everyone volunteering there (or, hell – anyone else who happens to be around at the time as well!) to receive some genuine empathic listening on a daily basis. I say "on a daily basis" because I have seen first-hand how things such as anger, frustration, disappointment, despair, guilt, etc. can just grow & grow, and I have seen (and experienced!) how if they continue growing unchecked and unattended to, they can eat you alive. New Orleans in many ways is a very "toxic environment", and in the emotional/spiritual realm I see things such as anger & despair as being some of the "toxins" that are going around. I see "sarcasm" as being another big one, and that some refreshing personal honesty & candor is quite needed. So a daily empathy group among volunteers in such an environment would be the equivalent to a daily cleaning – of the soul.

Here is a summary that I wrote up recently on how to have empathic listening groups:

"Empathic Listening Group

We all want to be heard and understood by other people. There are some practical skills that we can learn to get better at doing this. Here are some things that you can do as a group for supporting each-other in learning these skills and receiving empathic understanding.

Format for the group

- The group (3 people or more) sits down together in a circle with the clear explicit intention of having an empathic listening group.

- The setting is such that every person can make eye contact with each-other and physically hear each-other. External distractions are minimized as much as possible.

- The group takes turns with one person at a time being the focus of attention while the others are listeners.

- Divide the time equally, so that everybody can have the experience of both listening and being listened to.

- The person who is the focus of attention can talk about anything that is important and relevant to their lives at the moment. This can range from being a problem that they are facing or something very painful that they are going through, to something that they feel really good about and want to express.

Your Role as a Listener

- The listeners' job is to listen. This involves mainly shutting up, and keeping eye contact and all of one’s attention on the focus person.

- The purpose of this group is to develop skills for hearing and understanding other people. If thoughts come up about how you have had a similar experience, how the problem can be solved, what type of person the focus person must be, etc. then your attention right then is on the thoughts inspired by the focus person, but not on the person themself. Try as best as you can to put yourself in the speaker’s shoes as they are experiencing it at that moment.

- To help yourself in having a better understanding of the focus person’s experience in the moment, silently ask yourself: "What is this person feeling right now?" and "What is this person needing right now?"

- Consult the feelings & needs lists (http://cnvc.org/feelings.htm and http://cnvc.org/needs.htm) to guide your curiosity towards what this person could possibly be experiencing. Do not look at the list if you are not genuinely curious, instead, look at the focus person.

- In order to make sure that your guesses are on track, ask the focus person if the feelings & needs that you previously identified are accurate.

- If during this session you find yourself eager to share some thoughts that you think would be really supportive, but that are not along the lines talked about above, write it down to remind yourself to talk with the person about it after the group. If you can, write down just a word or phrase of what you want to say, so that you can remember it later and spend more time listening and less time writing.

- If you find that it is hard for you to be fully present with the other person, feel free to ask yourself what your own feelings and needs are at the moment. You can use the lists for guidance (http://cnvc.org/feelings.htm and http://cnvc.org/needs.htm).

- Take your time! Don’t rush things. Pauses and periods of silence can be very helpful in creating the space to fully reflect on one’s own experience.

Wrapping up

- Don't be attached to results – things are not supposed to look a certain way. Each group has its own unique flavor.

- When everybody has had a turn, do a brief go-around where people can say how they felt about the group, what they liked & didn't like.

- Ask to find out if there are any specific requests and agreements to make for the future to adjust these groups towards being more supportive for those who are there. "

What I would like to have is a group of people regularly supporting each-other in a daily health-oriented routine way like this. I like Rogers' idea of the group being a minimum number of seven people because that accounts for a few of the people possibly being up-set, judgmental, distracted, etc. and still have enough people present with sufficient skills to "catch" them through empathic understanding & care.

Given that this is a public service volunteer group that I am talking about here, through regularly giving & receiving this kind of support, those involved will then be ready to more effectively go help others.

But how do you do this? How do you effectively help others? Keeping in mind what I said earlier about community self-reliance – how do you effectively help others to help themselves, and not be dependant upon aid from the outside? In New Orleans I thought about this question a lot, since the phrases "rebuilding" and "reconstruction" were used frequently. What does it mean to "rebuild", outside of the material construction of housing?

I recently came upon a body of work called "Human Scale Development" originating from a man named Manfred Max-Neef. This man is from Chile, and his work originated from his experiences in Third World countries in Latin America, engaging in what he called "barefoot economics." I believe that this work provides some direction towards answering these questions.

Human Scale Development, like Nonviolent Communication, is based on the notion that all human behavior exists to meet some fundamental human needs that we all share. The strategies (or "satisfiers") that exist to meet these needs are infinite, and may or may not work. According to Max-Neef the fundamental human needs that people have are quite finite (nine in total) and he categorizes them as being:

1. subsistence
2. affection
3. understanding
4. participation
5. leisure
6. creation
7. identity
8. freedom
9. protection

Nonviolent Communication basically uses the same categories of nine basic needs, but uses some different words:

1. physical survival
2. nurturance
3. mental
4. social
5. celebration
6. self-expression
7. integrity
8. autonomy
9. spiritual

I would contend that "protection" is the equivalent to "spiritual", and that the difference just depends on whether you are viewing it from a mindset of scarcity or a mindset of abundance.

Manfred Max-Neef then takes these nine basic needs and looks at them from a lens of four different existential categories – Being (qualities), Having(things), Doing(actions), and Interacting(settings). He makes a grid using the fundamental human needs as one axis and the existential categories of being as the other axis. Different possible strategies (or "satisfiers") to meet these needs fall within the grid. Here is an example of what I am talking about.

This grid is then used as a possible tool. Here are some excerpts from the book "Human Scale Development: Conception, Application and Further Reflections" by Manfred Max-Neef. These excerpts explain some ways in which this is done:

"Applications of the Matrix

The schema proposed can be used for purposes of diagnosis, planning, assessment and evaluation. The matrix of needs and satisfiers may serve, at a preliminary stage, as a participative exercise of self-diagnosis for groups located within a local space. Through a process of regular dialogue - preferably with the presence of a facilitator acting as a catalyzing element - the group may gradually begin to characterize itself by filling in the corresponding squares.

The outcome of the exercise will enable the group to become aware of both its deprivations and potentialities. After diagnosing its current reality, it may repeat the exercise in propositional terms: that is, identifying which satisfiers would be required to fully meet the fundamental needs of the group. As the satisfiers are selected with increasing levels of specificity, they should be discussed critically by the group in terms of their characteristics and attributes, in order to determine if they are - or should be - generated exogenously or endogenously by the community itself. Such an analysis will demonstrate the potential capacity for self-reliance. The same analysis of proposed satisfiers will enable the group to assess not only whether their positive effects are singular or synergic, but also whether the negative effects are violators, inhibiting satisfiers or pseudo-satisfiers. The next stage of reflection of the group is to determine whether access exists to the necessary economic goods and material resources.

The proposed exercise has a twofold value. First, it makes it possible to identify at a local level a strategy for development aimed at the actualization of human needs. Second, it is an educational, creative and participatory exercise that brings about a state of deep critical awareness: that is to say, the method is in itself a generator of synergic effects. (More about this in the following section.)

The technique described is not restricted only to an analysis of local spaces. It is likewise applicable at regional and national levels. In local spaces, it can be a broad-based participation process where those representing the interest of the economic, political and social domains of the community may express their ideas.

At a regional level, the exercise should be undertaken by a carefully chosen team that not only represents the different domains of endeavor, but also by virtue of its representative nature combines both public and private interests. At the national level, it is essential that the task should be approached in a transdisciplinary manner because of the complexity of the issues. " - pages 37 & 38

A Note on Methodology

The Effort to Understand

Since the publication in 1986 of the Spanish version of Human Scale Development, considerable experience has been accumulated about the utilization of the matrix of needs and satisfiers(outlined in the preceding section) for analytical purposes, with diverse groups in different countries. The methodology developed so far has shown that it allows for the achievement of in-depth insight into key problems that impede the actualization of fundamental human needs in the society, community or institution being studied.

Starting from the assumption the author has developed elsewhere, it can be said that we know how to describe, and that we have learned to explain. However, what we often overlook is the fact that describing and explaining do not amount to understanding. The methodology developed so far may probably allow for that additional step into greater awareness.

For a simple yet comprehensive presentation of the methodology, we shall follow the steps of an imaginary two-day workshop attended by fifty people. The purpose of the exercise is to allow participants to reflect on the reality of their society at large in the light of Human Scale Development theory, in order to design ways of overcoming or coping with the most important problems detected.

Phase One. The group is divided into five sub-groups of ten people. (Experience has shown that ten seems to be an optimal size for the purpose.) The proposed task for each group is to construct the matrix containing the destructive elements (satisfiers) affecting their society - that is, all those "destroyers" that impede the actualization of the fundamental human needs. For the purpose, all groups receive thirty-six self-adhesive pads, numbered from 1 to 36, each presenting a blank grid of the matrix to be filled in.

Phase Two. For the first two hours, the groups are requested to concentrate on filling in the grids corresponding to the column of Being: that is, grids 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29 and 33. Each point entered in the grid must be the result of group discussion. It is stressed by the seminar coordinator that the column headed Being registers attributes, personal or collective (negative, in this case), that are expressed as nouns. For example, in grid 17, Participation, negative elements could be: authoritarianism, discrimination, indifference, etc.

Once the two hours are completed, all pads are collected and pinned on the wall, thus representing five columns of Being, at a sufficient distance from one another to allow space for the other three columns to be produced in order to complete the five matrixes,

The next two hours are devoted to filling in the grids of the column Having. Participants are reminded that the column Having registered institutions, norms, mechanisms, tools (not in a material sense), laws, etc. that can be expressed in one or more words. Again, examples that have shown up are: national security doctrine, repressive instititutions, discriminatory education laws, and so on. Once the time is completed, the pads are again collected and placed on the wall next to each of the corresponding previous five columns.

A break of three hours is taken, and the participants gather again in the afternoon. A long break is important because, if properly carried out, the exercise is very intense and demanding.

The next two hours are devoted in an analogous manner to the column Doing. It is stressed that Doing registers actions, personal or collective, that are expressed as verbs. As a mere illustration, examples could be discriminate, oppress, impose, censure.

During the final two hours, the column Interacting must be completed. It is explained to the participants that Interacting refers to locations or milleus in the sense of times and spaces.

The day finishes with five negative matrixes - matrixes of destruction - placed on the wall.

Phase Three. During the evening, a group of volunteers is requested to consolidate the five matrixes into one. The practical way of doing this is to take all five number 1 grids, eliminate all repetitions and synonyms and produce only one grid representative of the whole. The same is done with all the other grids until a single matrix is produced, representing the perceptions of all fifty participants. The matrix is drawn on a large chart (say, 120 by 80 cms) and placed on the wall so that on the following morning it can be examined by the participants.

Phase Four. In the next session, the participants are divided into nine groups; one for each fundamental human need. The matrix is cut with scissors into nine strips so that each group receives one part. It should be clear that each strip represents one need with its four grids filled in with the negative satisfiers.

The group is asked to start a discussion in order to select from each of the four grids the one element they consider to be the most important and decisive. In other words, that destroyer must be selected that carries the greatest weight in the lot. In exceptional cases, two can be selected from a grid. The selection must in each case be a consensus reached through debate and discussion. This phase should take as long as it requires.

Phase Five. Each group delivers the list of the four to eight negative satisfiers selected. The list is now written into a new blank matrix, which will be identified as the synthesis matrix. It represents the picture of the most negative elements affecting that society, community or institution (as perceived by the participants) inasmuch as the actualization of the fundamental human needs is concerned. It represents the paramount challenges that must be tackled. Therefore, the discussion and interpretation of the synthesis matrix must be carried out in a plenary session.

Phase Six. If time allows, or if the coordinator is able to establish a long-term relationship with the participants, an additional exercise is highly advisable. Employing exactly the same procedure as for the construction of the negative matrix, the participants are asked to produce a matrix of their Utopia; that is, of how their society ought to be for them to feel really satisfied. When carrying out this part of the exercise, the negative matrix should not be in the hands of the participants, since they might simply be tempted to fill in the new one just with the opposites of the earlier one.

Phase Seven. Once the second exercise is completed, the participants are confronted in a plenary sessions with both synthesis matrixes: the negative and the positive. What follows is a discussion about the bridging from one to the other. Here again small groups can be organized, the idea being a sort of game where the winning group finds the most synergic "bridging" satisfiers. Hence, each one that is proposed or suggested must be jointly analyzed in order to establish its characteristics. Is it endogenous or must it come from outside the community? Is it singular, linear, or synergic? Such a participatory discussion can turn out to be rich and stimulating and in itself represents an experience with synergic effects." – pages 39 – 42

This all presupposes that groups already exist through which to have these conversations within the community. Sometimes these groups do not exist, and there are only random conglomerations of strangers in public spaces. I have thought up a structure which could be used to try and stimulate such a meaningful conversation in public:

"Creating authentic public conversation spaces

1. Seven people are required before-hand: two facilitators, four para-people, and one info person.

2. Clearly delineate the space somehow(markers, borders, decorations, etc.) so that people can easily discern that it is a special/unique space

3. People can enter & leave the space at any time. Being there is entirely by one's own free choice.

4. The space is distinctly marked with an information spot nearby that carries contact info & literature to explain the ideas behind the space more thoroughly

5. The space is arranged so that sound intrusions and distractions are minimized as much as possible

6. Political signs and slogans are kept away from the space.

7.The conversation space is arranged in a circle, with seating arrangements already available.

Para-People

8. Multiple NVC-trained people take on the responsibility of watching the parameters of the space at all times

9. The para-people keep people from unknowingly wandering into the space, and thereby help to preserve the intentionality of the space

10. The para-people introduce/explain the intentions & assumptions of the space to those who wander in or pass by

11. The para-people answer questions and give empathy

Facilitators

12. The facilitators of the conversation circle are trained in NVC, Strategic Questioning and the Person-Centered Approach.

13. NVC is used to facilitate depth & self-awareness, the Person-Centered approach to help with real-ness & care, and Strategic Questioning to move things forward and provide direction.

14. Have at least two facilitators of the conversation - one to help pick up when the other gets disconnected.

Info-Person

15. Have a knowledgeable person staff the information spot with contact info & literature to explain the ideas behind the space more thoroughly.

16. Have border people and the information people continually invite people into the circle, to help there be people there engaged in the conversation.

17. The information person goes into more depth about the processes, the conversation facilitators are skilled at embodying the processes, and the border-watchers are a mixture of both with their answering of questions and giving of empathy. "

So, what else would I like to have my dream volunteer group do, besides facilitating amazing public community conversations? In short, whatever needs to be done. I would like to have this group operate out of a real spirit of service, honestly asking "what can we do to help?" while at the same time being self-connected and aware enough so that people wouldn't take on tasks out of guilt, a sense of obligation or habit, and would make sure that work was done in integrity with their values.

This vision of approaching people asking "what can I do to help?" is the complete inverse of what is usually expected when approached by strangers on the street. This is radical in that it is a sincere offering to contribute, heart-felt and honest. This implies a desire to listen and a willingness to trust.

The honesty part is important as well in terms of what the group has to offer. If people in the group do not have the knowledge, skills, resources, etc. needed in order to help out in a certain way, they would openly express that. They could still however be an extra pair of hands and work under the supervision/mentorship of someone who is more skilled & knowledgeable. Likewise, they can offer supervision/mentorship to others to learn the skills that they have. I agree with Carl Rogers when he says: "Learning of all kinds goes on best, lasts best, and tends to lead itself on more when it grows out of a real focus of interest in the learner." So the learning of new skills and the establishing of relationships of mentorship would hopefully have this in mind.

The list of fundamental human needs can be a useful tool to have on hand when approaching people to do service work. The needs list illuminates the fact that we have a whole array of different areas in our life that can be addressed constructively. We don't just have the needs for food & shelter, although these two needs are certainly vital. Through these dialogues which address the whole spectrum of human needs, new kinds of working relationships can be created.

The means used by this group to meet needs would be primarily low-cost or no-cost(ie, recycled or salvaged materials), Do-It-Yourself or making do with the resources at hand, and sharing & consultation with all present. The idea behind this is to help the individuals and communities at hand find real empowerment and to diminish as much as possible dependencies upon experts or outside institutions. Approaching things in this way would hopefully strengthen the qualities of resourcefulness, adaptiveness and creativity.

I envision the group living together in abandoned buildings. The intention behind this is to contribute to group cohesion, non-attachment to material things, and ease of logistical coordination by virtue of living together. Ideally the group would fix up whatever space they use and turn it over to someone(s) else when they move on.

I would like to also somehow convey something of the spirit behind which this group would operate under. Perhaps I could put it this way: The group would operate with an appreciation of fallibility, a presence for pain, a desire for partnership, and an offering of love. This would work on all levels – the personal, the inter-personal, the local community and the global. What we would be working towards is providing a practical tangible new way of being. A new way to bring about supportive accepting human closeness.

Beyond just big-sounding phrases or buzz-words, this is something that I would like for us to address directly through our actions. This is done within the group through regular evening "encounter" discussions & empathic listening groups and with the public through facilitating open community meetings. This is moved forward through asking each-other and the community directly – "What can I do to help?" This is given clarity & focus through the use of the list of fundamental human needs and the NVC understanding of clear do-able requests.

I understand that what I am wanting might be asking a lot from people, because part of what I want is a lot more discipline and a lot more commitment than what I or most people currently have in our lives. Through working closely together, though, this could be created. In essence, I want to be a part of a dedicated group of people who have sworn a commitment towards simultaneously improving themselves, connecting with each-other, and serving the public, and who adhere to a certain daily routine that brings focus towards having this come about.

Throughout all of this I see an underlying theme, motto or mission statement for this group being something like:

"We are all people in a process of learning. We are also offering a hand and are trying to be of service. We are in a process of both rebuilding ourselves as well as being a part of rebuilding this local community."

I believe that groups of people can either support each other towards improvement or support each other towards deterioration. I would like to have this be a group explicitly committed to the former. The mentality behind the group is "rebuilding ourselves as well as rebuilding the community", so the group is not seen as being separate from the community. I am hoping that whatever momentum towards positive development that comes from the group would also have its positive effects on the community. And likewise hopefully whatever positive momentum that is coming from other places in the community would be noticed by the group and be engaged with, supported, and drawn from.

All that I am writing about here regarding my ideal group, my dreams, etc. I am writing out of a desire to improve myself as well as others and the rest of the world. In other words, I am seeing my communication, my connectivity with others, my needs-based awareness, and my directly questioning & addressing needs as being areas that I want to personally grow and improve in my life. I am so convinced that this way of going about things is healthy and productive that I am proposing it not just to/for myself, but the whole world also.

I would like to move forward with turning this vision into a reality. A new program is currently in the process of being developed that is called "Facilitating Change: An Experiential Program on Nonviolent Communication for Organizational Development and Social Change". I am quite excited about this program, because it intends on offering activists and community organizers a kind of structured guided support in integrating NVC skills & consciousness into their work. The group that I envision would be heavily focused on using such skills – it will be the lens chosen to see humanity. I hope to work with this program as a way to help move forward this group project that I have discussed here. I am open to other means for developing this as well.

As Rogers indicated, I would need six other people with these skills and commitment in order to have the change that we are trying to undertake be grounded and sustainable. Who are these six other people going to be?

In Summary

A public service, personal & interpersonal connection-oriented, social change-focused, volunteer-based organization

1. Is volunteer & donation-based.

2. Group consists of at least seven people total, all trained in Nonviolent Communication and with a commitment to practicing it.

3. Determines public service projects by going directly to members of the local community, & dialoging directly - asking how we can work together to meet needs, & explain intentions.

4. Goes door-to-door, organizes public meetings, tables in public space, approaches people on the street to solicit input when having these conversations.

5. Is based on the needs list, asking: "How can we meet this need together, for everyone?" for each need (http://en.nvcwiki.com/index.php/Needs_list)

6. Is based on personal transformation, interpersonal connection, and public service.

7. Group establishes relationships of mentorship for skills offered/needed. People’s focus of interest is the primary tool used to facilitate learning.

8. Group lives together communally in abandoned buildings. The building is fixed up and offered to others when the group moves on.

9. Daily rhythm: meditation -> movement exercises -> breakfast -> coordination meeting -> work -> dinner -> empathy/encounter group in the evening

10. Interpersonal and group problems & appreciations can be addressed in the evening meeting.

11. Group organizes & facilitates public space conversations for the public.

12. Focuses on areas of social/economic collapse, eg, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans.

13. Seeks low-cost/no-cost, D.I.Y., off-the-grid, cooperative, sharing-based ways of meeting needs.

14. Have an explicit attitude of: "We are fallible & in a process of learning. We are also offering a hand, and are trying to be of service. We are in a process of trying to rebuild ourselves as well as trying to be a part of rebuilding this local community."

Waking Up and Switch-Dreaming

2008-01-07T08:09:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a night-mare. I, among hundreds, was in this massive concrete facility with armed guards, police, and soldiers everywhere. It was cold, with high walls, razor wire, angry guard dogs and people, armored vehicles and shadows & flood-lights. Thematically it was a mixture between Guantanamo Bay, OPP, and the movie Children of Men. Everyone was harsh, people were controlled, I was afraid - "What will happen next?" "What will they do next?"

People were getting hurt.

Every moment was terror.

I then realized at one point: "I am dreaming. I do not want this - wake up." There was a certain pull to keep on sleeping, to stay in the dream. It took effort - I was enchanted by the immaculate fear sequences. I chose to resist it.

I woke myself up.

Then these words came to me, I turned on the light, picked up my notebook & pen and wrote them down. They seemed important:

" Notice your thought-processes and trances that produce hopelessness & despair.

Develop your ability to stop, pause, and distance yourself enough to consciously choose to insert a new story in its place.

This new story is based on choice, meaning, inderdependence (this is a part of you), and care.

Have the new story form the basis of the new operating assumptions for your actions that you take.

After surveying the situation, pick key specific areas to take key specific actions.

Act out of care, show care. Ask questions. Say things to high-light care for all & our interdependent nature - "I see that a lot of us are wanting trust/respect right now and are making choices where people get hurt."

Point out the zeitgest that we are all under and feeling, but do so with care. Eventually point out the choices that we make to carry it on.

Multiple personality disorder is when you have more of an identification with the different parts within yourself and not with the internal collective identification that you call "I".

The kind of identification ("We", "I", fragmented self) that you have determines the kind of decisions that you make, the reasons that you have for making them, and subsequently, where your attention is placed.

Your identification can either scale-up or scale-down, but regardless of that, your attention can be placed anywhere.

Doris Lessing said: "I don't see ideas as being personal, they're collective experiences going on simultaneously. It is not 'my idea', rather, there is 'an idea that is around'". Based on this, look for others who hold the same idea, & more specifically, that carry the same idea onwards - 'the next piece'. "

From the Finders to Lost and Beyond: A Reflection on 2007

2008-01-03T17:21:00.000-08:00

I would like to talk some & reflect upon 2007. You are welcome to join me.

When I think about the year 2007, two things strike me the most. It is that I did a lot of traveling across the country in hopes of discovering a new way of life and "what to do with my life." The assumption was that if I figured out one, then the other would be easier to get as well. This isn't all that 2007 was about for me, of course, but this is what jumps out at me as being the lesson for me to learn for the year.

2007 began for me high & embittered & alone at a party at Twin Oaks Community. My experience at that party was not quite what I had wanted, and I ended up sleeping in the back seat of a van curled up in a fetal position to stay warm in the early hours of the morning.

The year exists within an incredible context - the fact that everything is going to hell. People everywhere tell me not to read the news, that I'd be happier that way. But I can not ignore the world that we live in. Everything is just so amazing. So the context is always on my mind, not out of wanting to overwhelm, but out of a desire for... Realism?

My first big journey of the year began in January to go to California to visit my romantic partner. Most of my time there was spent with her, and that really was my primary focus for that trip. That time there, and the relationship throughout the rest of the year, was characterized by a lot of caution, intensity, and pain. Vacillations between wonderful connection & agonizing disconnection.

Coming out of that relationship, I seriously question now how, or if, it is best for me to relate with the concept of "romantic relationships". My history with these things, when involved, is for me to put in far more time, energy and feeling than what in retrospect I think is healthy. I get consumed by them. In 2006 I went through a vasectomy operation so that I can guard against a possible situation where raising a child would be my (or someone else's) primary use of attention. Perhaps it would be wise for me to draw a similar clear-cut line against my involvement in romantic relationships? (what would the physical surgical equivalent be - castration?) Perhaps it would be best for me to put my attention onto other things?

After California, I went to Florida. This marked the beginning of a pattern for me. You see, when I say that I went "across the country", that is not really true. There are certain places that I went to again & again throughout the year. All in all, in 2007, I went to Mississippi & Michigan once, California & up-state New York twice, New York City, New Orleans and Florida three times each, and Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC countless times. The rest of the country was pretty much unseen by my eyes, or at most was a brief passing-through.

Why did I do all this travel? A lot of it was circumstance - so-and-so was going to such-and-such and I was invited to go along. A lot of it was event-oriented, a specific event was happening at a specific place and I was encouraged to attend. The rest of it was me drifting, just floating along following the strongest currents.

As I said earlier, I did a lot of my travel with an underlying theme of "searching" going on in my mind. Wanting to know what to do with my life & energy. Hoping that going to a certain place would reveal it to me, or that at the very least I would have a profound revelation along the way, at some airport, bus or gas station. Things never quite worked out that way, although I did find a lot of my experiences to be quite meaningful nonetheless.

One of the most powerful things to strike me this year is the sheer potential behind what I call "dispelling the illusions". By this, I mean what Nonviolent Communication calls "observation without evaluation or interpretation" or what others call E-Prime. In other words, being able to identify exactly what happened and not mixing that in with what we think about what happened, or any supposed meaning behind what happened. I have been talking about this principle for years, and am just now realizing how very little I have been applying it in my own life. This seems to me to be an un-used foot-hold to use to walk out of the cloud of incessant thinking, back into the world of tangible reality.

For the sake of transparency, most of my year when looking back at it from this lens without illusions, has been spent by me sitting down, reading, walking, talking - all-the-while thinking thoughts. That's what a camera would show. Well, I guess that a camera couldn't "show" the enormous role that thoughts have in my life, but that's how I experience it. To use an analytical term, I have been lost in a cloud of thoughts. The impetus behind these thoughts, generally-speaking, has been me wanting to find meaning & direction.

One thing that I have wanted to find meaning & direction with is regarding the issue of group identity. This year I made my own list of fundamental human needs(you can see the list here) and one of the needs that I listed there, in the "social" category, is "group identity". This is important.

Group identity, the story of who "we" are together, provides a sense of purpose & strengthened cohesion to a group. Groups sometimes go to war with each-other or persecute individuals when they sense that their group identity is threatened. For me, this has always been a very important need of mine, and much of 2007 was spent with me trying to find ways to meet that need.

Throughout the year I have had different experiences with different groups, resulting in this need not being met for me. With CapitolNVC there never fully evolved a story of "we" that everybody agreed to and felt good about, although people certainly did try! With the Finders we eventually discovered that the story that I wanted and the story that others had didn't exactly match up, even though there are some strong over-lapping similarities. The story that Common Ground tells I like a great deal, however the pain:processing ratio was not balanced enough within that group to have it be sustainable for me. I like the Baha'i story of "we" for humanity, but the story of what it means to be a Baha'i does not fit for me. Other groups that I have been involved in initiating have not sufficiently cohered, with enough subscribers and faith invested, for me to have this need met through it.

The romantic relationship thing that I was talking about earlier is a kind of group identity, I believe. It is a story of "us", of two. It is precisely the collective identification within this kind of relationship that I am questioning.

All of this aside, I also want to acknowledge that a great deal of pleasure, and pain, can be had from these group relationships regardless of identification. Heart-felt connection is the key. A strong group identity just adds a certain magical something special to it - the magic kiss that turns the living beautiful frog into the living beautiful prince. I got a great deal out of my relationships with my partner, the Finders, and then later Common Ground. It has been very hard and painful for me to have all of these different relationships end this year, or rather, transitioning-out-of-intimacy.

What I want is this - an intimate (not to be confused with sexual) relationship with a group of people, consciously committed to supporting each-other through pains & hardships, all subscribing to a story of "we", a group identity, that matches up with the meaning & purpose that I personally find in life. The meaning and purpose that I find important is grounded in values of sharing, respecting autonomy, and mutual care, while directly addressing the situation of the world. Using the mindset of "dispelling the illusions", I would have to translate what this would look like into terms of concrete doable actions. I have not found the mental stamina to do this yet.

One experience that had a big impact on me this year, that I am still trying to make sense of & orient myself around, was my time spent in New Orleans. Both my experience at Common Ground as well talking with different activists & organizers there, left me very shaken up by the real-life effects of violence & social disintegration. At Common Ground there were sexual assaults, fights waking me up in the middle of the night, open alcoholism, unexpected expulsions and a large bloody fight that happened among a large group of volunteers. In New Orleans itself outside of Common Ground, I knew people who were assaulted on the street, witnessed open gang warfare, locked away in jail for a month for no real reason, had their neighbors unexpectedly murdered in their own home, and who had their house torn down without their permission.

Within myself as well, in New Orleans I also felt myself disintegrate. I felt more anger there, more contempt, and more desire to commit physical violence than I have in a very long time. All my compassionate values, my Nonviolent Communication training, my Rogerian revolutionary aspirations, was not strong enough for me to embody it and bring it out into the world. In New Orleans, I felt as if I was living within a fractal reality of violence & disintegration. Within myself, a group of 30 people, a group of 274,000 people, and a group of 6.6 billion people, the same fundamental dynamics & patterns were playing themselves out simultaneously. I can not live like this. This experience more than anything re-affirmed for me the importance of having a conscious & committed social support structure.

Throughout the year I have met a few people through which I have found inspiration to continue pursuing the above-mentioned vision. I will name two.

On July 4th I met Dominic Barter in Oakland, California. This guy is a Nonviolent Communication trainer currently living in Brazil, originally from England. Dominic is well-known for developing & implementing a widely-used Restorative Justice process for the education & criminal justice ministries of Brazil. He is also an anarchist, was once a squatter, and has an interest in the work of Carl Rogers, similar to myself.

What I like about Dominic Barter, what I find to be personally meaningful, is the clarity through which he thinks and the fearlessness through which he acts. I like his beliefs & values, of course, but it seems as if he has somehow applied them in a way that so far I have only aspired to.

Dominic has a process that he calls "Walking in the Dark", which consists of identifying your fears and going towards them instead of habitually away from them. You identify whatever blocks that you have which keep you from doing that, and you address them. Then you find someone who has power in the situation that you are afraid of, and you have a direct conversation with them. You make clear doable requests of them, and you stay within an NVC-style dialogue. I would like to do this.

The other person is Lost. This is someone that I met in New Orleans, an ex-Common Ground volunteer, and someone who I interviewed for the "Just and Sustainable New Orleans" radio project. Lost is the founder and main person of the Termite & Vine: Home for Lost Girls & Boys", the "Re-Thinking the House" project, as well as a well-known advocate for "homesteading"(the term here referring to a more sophisticated version of squatting) in New Orleans.

I was struck - I had just come from the Finders, and here was "the home for Lost Girls & Boys". The sub-title of Dominic Barter's "Walking in the Dark" process is "Without Getting Lost", and here, was Lost. The name seemed fitting though, because all of New Orleans, including myself there, and especially the local anarchist scene, all seemed so very... Lost.

What I like about Lost, find inspiring, is the open-ended creativity that I see in her and her fearlessness. I mentioned "fearlessness" with both Dominic & Lost, so I guess that this is a big thing for me. Both of them have the ability to talk with bureaucrats & cops as well as criminals & drug addicts. They both can establish working relationships with people on the top & the bottom of the social hierarchy, and still remain true to their anarchist principles. With Lost I perceive a creative imagination that sees a million ways to express one's self, a million ways to potentially meet the need for housing, and a million ways to make things work.

There are two authors who made a big impact on me in 2007 - and these ones aren't dead guys for a change! They are Doris Lessing and Manfred Max-Neef. Lessing showed me that it is possible to think comprehensively about spirituality, sociology, and psychology and still express it in a poetic & compelling way. Max-Neef is the originator of the list of fundamental human needs that Nonviolent Communication is based upon, but he is not an NVC guy. He is concerned primarily with local community development in areas with very little monetary resources, and he is essentially anarchist. Now that really got me thinking...

2008 rolls around, and I am on the moon-lit sand dunes of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. The waves of the ocean are whispering behind me and the conversations of small groups are murmuring around me. The clock strikes midnight and loud electronic music starts thudding wildly in front of me, spark-blasters begin at full-force to my sides, and rockets take off into the sky behind me. I walk through the enormous iron gates into the rave of well-groomed yuppies.

So, then, where now? I don't know. I have a bunch of different options before me, and a bunch of different things that I can say. I don't know where I am going to live or what I am going to do. I don't want to buy into any of the pre-fabricated options before me, because that just wouldn't feel right. I feel as if I have all of the thousand puzzle pieces out on a table in front of me, and I don't want to just give up & buy a sleek pre-made print.

Dominic Barter says to have your requests be as clear & specific as driving directions. In order to write that out, I first need to consult the map, my heart. If there is any lesson that I can draw from 2007 it is that my own guide is within me. We just need to talk.

Drama As Addiction

2007-11-08T20:13:00.000-08:00

I find myself drawn to drama. Everybody around me seems to be that way as well. Acting out scripted roles, full of emotion, entertainment for a higher realm. The world is going to war over this, as the scenes unfold.

For me, I seem to seek it out, in a way. It's like I'm drawn to it, and in so doing, it is drawn to me. It is a common topic of conversation for me, it occupies a lot of my thoughts and worries, it seems to be a common way for me to live my life.

Oh My God! Oh My God! Oh My God! Can you believe it?! How could he do that?! What will happen next?! Oh no!

That's the template - just plaster it everywhere. It passes the time and it gives a quick-fix of artificial meaning. But more importantly, it fucks you up. It gets you high. Strategy then becomes "need", and it is an addiction.

There are lots of addictions. I have lots of addictions. Everybody has lots of addictions. You can't walk five feet without somehow stumbling on somebody's addiction. Same goes with drama - also an addiction. Why addiction?

Let's take sugar, for example, as a point of comparison or analysis. I am addicted to sugar. I crave that shit, I eat/drink it every day. It fucks me up. I've grown used to it though, I've had it regularly since I was a child. But I see the effects - on my body, my teeth, my face, my moods, my energy - I see how all of that is affected by it. But still I go for it, and often I don't even see myself going for it.

Sleep-walking to my doom.

And I think that the same goes with drama.

Oh, the injustice of it all! The unfairness! How could they! How scary! How nerve-wracking! What to do next?! Fuck you!!!

Around and around it goes, until eventually somebody gets hurt. Or I get hurt. Or I notice that I have been spending the last 29 years of my life watching the television of my own thoughts, and they scare me. And so I don't go outside, and my muscles grow weak.

So, what am I doing?

I don't want to blame "it". ("It" being the world, institutions of oppression, my parents, you) Because I realize that "it" is really a series of choices that I am making. I am choosing my own prison, I am choosing to ride the roller coaster of drama, and I am choosing to eat shit.

And I can choose differently.

And so can you.

Vignettes of Hope

2007-10-27T19:25:00.001-07:00

Sometimes moments of beauty, hope, inspiration only comes in flashes. Brief moments, it's here, it's experienced, and then it's gone. Swallowed up by the monotony & despair of everyday life (which is one possible story that can be told). These times are a divine source of fuel.

Here are a few.

____________________________________

It is night-time, dark. The block is filled with drunk people & inane conversation. I go to the levee, to escape it all.

"What hope is there? What point???" I ask myself.

I hear a voice and I follow it.

Somewhere, someone is singing. Gospel. I don't know where, but I follow it.

Along the levee, around the turns, I go. I follow the voice, and it only gets louder with each step I take, the closer I get.

Finally I come to a house. It's the only house in the vicinity, all the others have been wiped away. Inside this one house there is one light on. And that is where the voice is coming from.

The voice is beautiful, amazing, bellowing with passion, celebration, worship and praise. Shameless, unrestrained, filled!

Parked outside is a pickup truck, a pile of rubble, and a man sitting on top of it. He is smoking a cigarette. I sit down too, taking it in.

Outside it is dark, except for that one house, with that one light.

____________________________________

A squad car pulled up to the main community house at Common Ground. Then another pulled up behind it. They bore the markings of being "military police."

A group of Common Ground volunteers was curious & concerned. We walked over to see what was up.

A C.G. volunteer was in the midst of a heated argument with a group of four young people in military fatigues, sporting "MP" arm-bands. He was angrily calling them "stupid", "control-freak", "fascist" - they were shouting back with "crazy", "delusional", "ignorant". Eventually the irate volunteer left the fray, hands in the air cursing all the insane shit that he has to deal with.

I approach two of the soldier-cops and ask about what is going on. Apparently the volunteer was seen sitting cross-legged at the end of a bridge connecting the upper & lower 9th ward. He was openly praying in a median next to cars taxiing off the bridge. This man was once a preacher, before he gave up on all of that. The soldier-cops confronted him, and after hitting on a female soldier-cop & protesting the injustice of the situation, he left. Somehow the intensity of their interaction was so strong, that the after-glow of the whole thing drew them together again once more - in front of my home.

I was curious, and asked the two of them nearest to me: "Are you all in the army?"

The female soldier-cop replied: "We", she motioned to herself and the black guy soldier-cop standing next to her, "are with the army national guard. They", motions to the other two men in uniform, "are from the air force police." I notice that the later group is wearing jungle fatigues, while she & her comrade are wearing desert fatigues.

"How old are you? I'm curious." I ask the female soldier-cop. "22", she replies. "How old are you?" asks her uniformed companion. "29", I respond.

"Do you get hit on a lot?", I ask. "All the time," she says, "you get used to it."

The two Air Force soldier-cops were excitedly talking with a group of other volunteers, while the other army reserve soldier-cop was looking back & forth between them & us.

"Have you been to Iraq?", I ask.

"We're going in a few months," she replies, "we all have to go sometime."

"Are you scared?"

"No. I don't focus on that. If I focused on that, I would more likely do something stupid. I would more likely get hit with an IED or something if I focused on being afraid."

A short-term volunteer appears. He's a big white guy, tall, muscular, crew-cut.

"I signed up", he says. "I'm in the Marine Corps. I'll be in boot camp in a couple weeks."

There is a brief silence, everybody is stunned and impressed.

A bond is then formed, and the soldiers, would-be soldier, cops, are immersed in conversation. They talk of boot camp, contrasting Army with Air Force with Marine Corps. And they talk about uniforms, and boots.

Later on, I would see the Marine recruit and his girl-friend alone standing in the middle of the street. They were directly in front of each-other, eye-to-eye, arms folded. They each held an intense stare, lowered voices, tight posture. They were Talking.

____________________________________

It was a night when the block was empty. It was somebody's birthday, and people were out drinking.

I was lonely, and I wanted to be around people. I found myself in the company of two people, one enormously well-read guy waxing eloquent on abstract philosophy with no obvious relationship with anything in real life. And the other person considerably less well-read, bitterly repeating himself about how you can't understand the Lower 9th Ward unless you were fucking born & raised there.

I wanted out. So I proposed to the group that we all go outside, to go find someone, somewhere.

"C'mon, man, everyone is out at the birthday party. Nobody is here! You know that," one of them says.

"I want to go find something to drink," the other person says. He then disappears into the night.

Jesus Christ, I thought, I will never find companionship in this place. I will never find someone whom I can talk to, have a real conversation with.

"No!", I blurt out, "we'll find someone! Let's go!" I then march off down the street & after a moment of hesitation, the other guy follows. I did what I did half out of sarcasm, half seriously, half for myself, half for show. I figured that the worst that could happen is disappointment, which is nothing new.

We come upon a Common Ground house, darkened & empty. We find two people up in the balcony talking. It is a CG volunteer and a woman whom I've never met before.

We climb up the stairs and introduce ourselves.

"My name is 'Nola'... I am named after New Orleans. I was born here and my parents really loved the place... I'm moving back here because I really need a change in my life... I want to devote more energy to public service... I want to work more on my writing... I felt called to come to New Orleans."

After that, things began to change.

____________________________________

I open a door, and find that there is a full-blown political rally/pep-talk taking place. This is unexpected. I walk in and take a seat.

Malik is standing up addressing a group of volunteers, seated & gathered around him, holding their attention.

He said many things, among them:

"Every big movement, every big thing, begins with this..." he looks to the ground & takes a few steps forward "...the first steps."

"I see people here walking around confused, I see people walking around feeling sorry for themselves. But this is not the time for that. This is the time for action, this is the time for getting it together."

"People come up to me, 'Malik, can you help me with this? Malik, I need that...' But this here is not about that. This is not about 'I', not about 'me'. This is about 'we'. What is it that 'we' need?"

"Sometimes I worry that I haven't done enough. Sometimes I think that I haven't taught enough about collective living, how to do stuff as a collective."

"People come up to me all the time, wanting to interview me, wanting to talk with me about what is going on here. But it shouldn't be like that. It should be that they can come & talk with any one of us here about what is going on."

"What is the first thing that you see when you cross over the Claiborne bridge into the Lower 9th Ward? Common Ground. I'd like it to be so that as soon as people cross into the Lower 9th, that they see a beacon of hope here, and they are drawn to it. Inspired."

____________________________________

It was a wet & rainy day. The entire day seemed to be painted in a dismal bluish gray and soaked in mud puddles. This lead to a kind of captivity in a way: You have to stay inside & work with others. The entire day my spirit felt cooped-up, constrained. And my soul was fed the soup that looked like a mush of bluish gray.

Then at some point it all stopped. The sky was no longer falling and the puddles ceased to grow. It was now safe to go outside.

I ventured out and the place was empty - nobody was out to be seen. It was a barren & glistening wet landscape.

And the sun was shining.

Everything out was given a different tone and a different color. Everything out was of a twinge of yellowish gold. Warm.

And my spirit felt alive. All around me, I felt a resurgence of energy, a replenishment.

Where at once I felt a drain, now I felt a revival.

This is a moment where it felt good to be alive.

____________________________________

Children & barges, gang-bangers & tourists, saxophone & powdered sugar. I watch the solemn mellow light of the sun permeate the sky & fade, water of the Mississippi lap up by me with a riverboat echoing jazz. And the street lamps turn on.

I love New Orleans.

Communication for a Better New Orleans

2007-10-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote this up for the Common Ground web-site, and am posting it here to help further elaborate on the picture of life here in New Orleans - (I)

________________________________

In these times of widespread social violence, a devastated city, & devastated lives - an honest public dialogue, conversation without selling an agenda, is all the more important. That is just what happened on October 17th of this year, thanks to the Communication Department of Xavier University of New Orleans.

The event took place in the cavernous ballroom on campus, five people in a row on a panel, moderator at the side by a podium, numerous seats pointed towards them. Presented with the title of "Media, Communication, and Community: Private & Public Interests in Rebuilding New Orleans", this dialogue was moderated by Bruce France, a former public-speaking professor of Xavier University and a co-founder & co-artistic director of the local art company Mondo Bizarro. France began with a few remarks of his own, one of which was a question which he used to present to his students at Xavier:

"Are you paying attention to the world around you, or are you paying attention to what is going on for you?"

He then answered this question, for himself: "I can barely be paying attention to any of this stuff (world events). Why? Because I live in New Orleans." He then remarked on how "more people die per capita here in New Orleans than in Baghdad," and on some other challenges the city faces, and thus, the discussion began.

This dialogue consisted of a panel of five people, and the audience at large. The panel was comprised of: Bart Everson, a local activist & blogger and multimedia artist for Xavier's Center for the Advancement of Teaching. Nick Sile, a co-founder and co-artistic director of Mondo Bizarro and director of Theater Studies at Nunez Community College. Jarvis DeBerry, a writer for the local newspaper Times Picayune. Rebecca Snedeker, a documentary filmmaker and director of the film "By Invitation Only". And Sakura Kone, the Media Coordinator for Common Ground Relief.

Bart Everson spoke first: "Different demographics in this city are impacted in different ways. Middle-class, home-owners, whites - have the easiest time in coming back. Working-class, renters, blacks - have a harder time in coming back." He quoted the author Naomi Klein in her new book, "Disaster Capitalism", in regards to how disasters used to be a great social leveller, and now they have the opposite effect - leading to more stratification.

Nick Slie spoke next: "If we want to live in a different way, act in a different way, to exist in a different way, then what are we offering that is different? How do we come together to address how we share resources together?" He spoke of a philosophy of mutual aid that he believes in: "We try to say: 'if we are partnering with you, you will have the full weight of what we have, for better & worse.'"

Jarvis DeBerry then spoke: "Usually when people think of a ravaged New Orleans, what they are thinking of is the results of the free market." He added that "when I think of the free market, I usually think of corporations displacing people. But sometimes it means that nobody comes at all."

Rebecca Snedeker then spoke: "There is the important question of: 'who are we, what is our history, and how do we see ourselves?' ... when we are in this time of chaotic change, we need some beautiful images of ourselves." She ended her remarks with "the ability to absorb stories and to be inspired by them can be a valuable way for us to move forward."

Finishing the panel statements was Sakura Kone: "New Orleans was once the place with the highest rate of slave rebellions, now it is fast becoming the suicide capitol of the world ... It is incumbent upon us to not allow the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans to occur. Because if that happens, then the flood-gates would then be open, and no place will be safe." When he spoke of his coming out from California to volunteer in New Orleans, he said, "Confronted with the spirit of the people and their will to survive, I found that I could not turn my back on the situation out here."

After that, the floor was opened up to audience participation. The audience was mostly comprised of young students from Xavier University, Xavier being the country's only both black & Catholic University. The first to speak directed a question to the panel:

"How do we not become discouraged and just...leave?"

Jarvis DeBerry gave a thorough response: "Keep in mind that no other American city has ever had to deal with having 80% of the city being under water, first figure out how to rescue people, then figure out how to pump out the water, then figure
out how to rebuild. ... I think that all of us are torn between patience & impatience. ... But we need to figure out how to do something that has never been done before."

After that, the group conversation traveled to a number of different areas. Some of these included such topics as...

Collaboration, to which Bart Everson said "For just about every particular aspect of recovery, there is some organization that exists to address it." And Nick Slie said: "The big question is one of processes - how do we work together?"

Artistic expression, to which Rebecca Snedeker said, "To see some ripple effect of some project of yours, gives you the energy needed to ask for support for another project." And Nick Slie said: "How can we have a cultural economy here in this city, where we are not investing in the cultural production, but are reliant upon the marketing of culture?"

The plight of home-owners, to which Sakura Kone said, "The city passes ordinances to punish property owners who are struggling with insurance companies playing word games." and Jarvis DeBerry commented "Everybody is afraid of their property being taken away, but we can't have the alternative being nothing being done."

At one point, an audience member asked: "What are we going to be doing in the future, when we don't have people in New Orleans running things in New Orleans, because they are not educated?"

The general sentiment that was the closest to "answers" to all of the problems addressed, was two-fold:

There was the call for more discussion. To quote Jarvis DeBerry: "We need to have conversations where we ask: 'How can we build a city that works for everyone?'" An audience member said: "Just sit down and listen to someone, because everyone just wants a good ear."

And there was an explicit can-do attitude. To quote Sakura Kone: "You are only as limited as your imagination." And paraphrasing Gandhi, "Be the change that you advocate."

At the corner of breakdown & hope

2007-10-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

This is an account of something that happened last night. I was interviewing two visiting college kids about their experience at Common Ground, while other activity was going on outside.

------------------

“You can’t have positive change unless you have negative stuff,” he said, the naked bulb hanging above him, lighting up his face, illuminating a particular glint in his eye, the gaze following a partially-seen rat scurrying by his side. “They just feed off of each-other, you know?”

Outside, there is chaos. Shrouded in the darkness of the night, with gutted desolate houses on either side, is a road. Right now that road is filled with people, some of whom are screaming at each-other. $280 is reported missing, and many suspect that a thief is in their midst. For some, this is a final straw, and they demand resolution.

“That’s it, this is enough!”, said the man in the white shirt, voice booming, striding determinedly down the street. “I want everybody up, I want everybody out! We are going to handle this right now! We are going to figure out who’s who, we are going to figure out what’s what!”

“So”, I ask the woman interviewee, now sitting under the bulb, “why do you think this is happening?”

“It was building up”, she said, leaning forward in her seat, “I have been noticing the tensions. The tension was really high, and then it just exploded. I was not surprised.”

We are at the Common Ground Relief site, in the lower ninth ward, in New Orleans. We are at the spot referred to as “Ground Zero”, where the levees first broke, flooding 80% of the city.

The male interviewee speaks: “Coming from our up-beat, cheerful lives, and then coming here, it is a real kick in the face. It’s definitely a depressing place to be in.”

The devastation is everywhere, the obvious physical infrastructure, as well as people’s lives. It’s all observable in some way. “I definitely see that the government is not helping in any way,” the female interviewee says.

The male interviewee looks at me, pauses. “When people are talking with you here, you definitely feel what they went through. And it has an impact on you.”

Two Katrina survivors are in the street now, locked together in a stare of rage and combat. The man lost his house, previously on this block, thrown out to a couple of blocks over. The woman was at the superdome during Katrina, experiencing a collective horror forever etched in so many people’s lives.

Now the accusation of thievery is screaming before them, and none will have this stand. Chests puffed out, hands & arms at the ready, these people are poised to tear away injustice – their shouts tell their willingness to fight.

Inside I ask “How”. How can we fight in a different way? In a way that works for all. This is, after all, what Common Ground is here for. “Solidarity, Not Charity” is a guiding principle for the organization.

She replies: “I am not really sure what will replace that kind of thing. Maybe more strength of community, more social ties. People need people.”

Outside, nervousness, a cacophony of chatter, people on cell phones, others asking each-other what to do. Nobody has any answers.

The man being interviewed thinks that what we need is hope. He sees the bringing of hope as being the most important work that Common Ground is doing. “Perhaps it takes things breaking down, the levees to break, whatever. Perhaps it takes dramatic break-down to inspire people to work together. Hope is generated by what people see is being done.”

A car speeds up to the site, and stops next to the crowd. A bunch of Common Ground coordinators jump out. They fan out throughout the crowd, each one approaching one of the most obviously distressed-looking individuals. An air of relief washes over the crowd, while many others remain uncertain of what to do.

“Community is more than building houses”, she states, “it is more social interactions.” She pauses to watch a cluster of people walk by from her group. They are carrying back-packs and bags to load up their vans. A man in a door-frame peers out from behind a curtain. “It is about having people to rely on,” she says.

Outside, the man in the white shirt screams: “We are having a circle! Everybody in the circle! Right now, we are all going to get together, and we are going to find out just what the fuck is going on!” The onlookers are stunned. Nobody knows how to respond. The crowd moves back & forth in indecision.

“By bringing people in, you’re bringing in a community”, the female interviewee says. “You need to have something with more meetings between people. You need a place for people who don’t have anywhere to go, who need that, that sense of community, that wholeness in their life.”

Inside one of the houses, about 20 college kids cringe together in fear. Some people are crying, others complain, others yell. Nobody knows what to do. They feel trapped in a place where they do not want to be. And they are terrified.

“What is this about?”, I ask. The male interviewee responds: “When you’re going through rough times, this kind of stuff is more bound to happen. People still need some hope though.” He smiles. “I know it sounds cliché to say, but hope really is the most important thing.”

Outside a steady stream of college kids are forming a moving line, like ants. They are carrying back-packs & bags from the gutted-out houses to their vans. They are walking past drunk screaming people, across empty lots where houses once stood and concrete slab foundations now remain.

“I definitely see that a lot of people rely on a kind of faith here,” the female interviewee says, “it definitely helps people to continue seeing & relating to the world around them. It almost seems, like they need it, it keeps them going.”

Outside the man in the white shirt is leaning against the tail-gate of a pick-up truck. His head is hanging down, and he is regretting yelling at the woman earlier. “We’ve always been good with each-other, me & her. I didn’t mean to ruin that. I guess it turns out that we are just too similar. A part of me is also in her.”

Inside, the woman remarks: “We saw the destruction with our own eyes. He showed us that, we can see it, and now we can spread the awareness around.”

The draw-bridge nearby is now mysteriously broken, dis-connecting the lower & upper ninth wards. Traffic is backed up on it, on both sides. The vehicles are beginning to turn around and drive away.

“Hope diffuses through the neighborhoods,” he chimed in. “Once it’s there, in a community, it just gets out there. It’s all one big diffusion.”

The doors shut on all the vans. The people are inside, the engines are running. Two roads form an intersection, and there is a van at each corner. One-by-one a vehicle takes off, until all four are leaving, in one big caravan.

The block is then empty, and quiet.

A spiritual kind of yearning

2007-10-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning, I wake up, and I have a desire to go to church. I ask myself, what needs are driving me to want to go? Greater meaning and a stronger sense of purpose, is the response. Like that I/we are going somewhere important.

I react. I chicken out and choose not to go. It's a pernicious persistent response, wanting safety. I worry about the lack of social acceptance. I am also stunned, realizing that me wanting to go to a church out of my own personal heart-felt desire to be at a church with people, would be a drastic difference from how I have so far been living my life. In other words, I have never freely chosen to go to church before.

The options abound here. A Common Ground co-worker has a brother who is a local preacher. There is a local Baha'i (the religion that I grew up in) community here. And a child on the street the other day invited me to go to a church that meets in somebody's house each Sunday. I am certain other interesting spiritual-oriented places exist here as well.

I have a definite desire for more of an, I don't know, spiritual feeling in my life. I have been noticing this lack for years now. This yearning has only strengthened over time.

I also notice that I have been wanting more of a sense of "community of faith" with others. In other words, I have a strong desire to live with others who tell each-other the same stories of what is the meaning within life. I want to collaboratively create meaning together, with others. To creatively draw patterns and weave texture onto the contours laid out by our actions. To fill in the void, with something beautiful (or ugly).

Having a sense of meaning does something for me. It gives me a sense of confidence that ultimately the world that we live in and the things that we do with our lives is fundamentally both safe and good. I don't know what it does for others, but I would like to know. I have all my life, in some way or another, sought solace through living with others who in some way share a sense of faith together in something. This has never changed for me.

The last few days, I have had a spontaneous prayer flash through my mind at random moments. It is a prayer that I memorized and used to recite as a child. It goes like:

"O God, guide me, protect me, illumine the lamp in my heart, and make of me a brilliant star. Thou art the mighty and the powerful." - Abdu'l-Bahá

Thinking about this prayer has given me a sense of comfort and solace.

I believe that together, based on the meaning that we share with each-other correspondent with our actions, we can actively support each-other in either improving ourselves or destroying ourselves. It all depends on what kind of qualities we want to support into coming out. What kind of world do you want to live in?

Personally I want to support the qualities of compassion & care among people. I want a sense of freedom & being true to one's self. And I want us all to be clear on the reasons for doing things & understanding each-other on that. This is a personal value-statement on what is important to me.

The thing is, I think that everybody deep down wants these things. I am by no means unique on this. With that in mind, I then re-frame what I want, and also take it a step further by putting it in the form of a question:

"What specific agreements can we make regarding the actions that we do, in hopes of encouraging the qualities that we want to come into play?"

First off, we need a space to make these agreements. I can't even imagine having the conversation to begin with, where such a question is openly posed and seriously considered. We are so mired in superficiality and lack of focus. The first order of business then is to create the spaces where the conversations can be had.

Places for collective meaning-creation. Both the strengthening and negotiation of it. Particularly I am looking for a kind of life-inspiring meaning, something that stirs up a sort of constructive collective activity. For me, what this is referring to is a church.

Seeing this line of reasoning, I am again stunned. "Church". Perhaps it is that word. What is the meaning that I give it that makes it so?

Respect. I am so used to viewing churches in such a way that I associate them with a lack of respect. I don't think that everyone has this kind of association with the term/concept. Otherwise, how else can one explain this kind of profound motivating-energy that people affiliated with churches tend to have?

I don't know what I am going into, actually. Part of me wants to go off and join some kind of seminary or spiritual movement somehow. I just know that I want to live in a kind of shared faith together with others. And I want us to all consciously choose the stories that have of our world & that which we do to be the most wonderful as can be - all the while keeping an eye on what we are actually doing and how we are affected by that.

Ideally, everything would all be seen in the same light: the beautiful thing that we are going for, where we are, and our experience of the whole situation.

To quote the Nonviolent Communication trainer Miki Kashtan:

"Practice supports vision, community supports practice."

In short, I want it all. And I know that this involves walking forward into the dark. But I want some people there with me, to hold my hand as I stumble in the dark. The comfort of shared faith. To know that you are not alone dreaming the dream - that other people can see it too. You can see in the dark, this particular kind of vision.

I wonder what next Sunday will bring.