Birthing

I spent yesterday on site at Occupy the London Stock Exchange.  The occupation in front of St. Paul's Church is now one week old.  The London camp, in solidarity with camps worldwide, very much has the energy of a birth cycle.  From March 15th until now, from the Arab Spring to the rise of Occupy encampments in 950 cities worldwide (and counting...), feels to me like the moment when humanity has woken up - taken the pee test - and said oh my god..... There has been nausea and vomiting (fear and police brutality) alongside immense enthusiasm and expectation.   melbourne    police brutality usa    usa again
As the movement continues to gestate, the consensus process will ensure that we - one human family - create New Earth together.  "The time of the lone wolf is over..." - the time of greed, living in isolated single family homes, hoarding more than ones neighbor, and profiting at the loss of the earth-her animals-her beings, is coming to a close.  
As the second trimester of the movement begins, structures for what we want, what it will look like, and how it will function will begin to take form, they are forming even now as I write. participatory budget nyc As we persist through the winter, the dark night, we can expect a blessed spring. There will be a birth, and the millions and millions of us who are committed to the consensus process, who are working together and sharing the transition, we are and will be the midwives.
Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi writes, "The body,like a mother,is pregnant with the spiritual child; death is pain and stress of birth.  All the souls that have passed over into that next life are anxiously waiting to see in what state that proud spirit will be born."  This applies to the social body as well as the individual.  Inclusive in every way, some spiritual or not, we are birthing a movement based on human compassion, empathy, solidarity, and a possibility of love.  It is possible to found a global society upon these principals.  
Such a society is made up of the local connected to the global. Each environment will necessitate inventiveness according to it's own temperaments and dilemmas, yet we will be unified.

Saturday at Occupy the LSX

Monday at Occupy the LSX

To show you more of the local flavor...on Thursday there was a march to Dale Farm, a piece of land outside London which is owned by travelers, or gypsies.  For ten years they have been building their own community and fighting for the right to occupy their own land - in their own way of life. To show support, the occupy movement reached out.  We were met by 18 million pounds worth of helicopters, police equipment, legal representation, and suited manpower!  The structures on Dale Farm were forcibly dismantled and the people were thrown off their land. Dale Farm Tell me, is it not right and just to take responsibility for the creation of ones community and ones life? Occupy the London Stock Exchange supports the right of Dale Farm travelers to build living structures without permission from a local or national authority which is tied to a  power and profits structure. If we are forced to install city water, city sewer, and public electricity then the opportunity to create models which work -by drilling wells, harvesting rainwater, using self-composting toilets, solar panels, and wind turbines - are greatly impeded.    


What is unique about this revolution is that it is not about petitioning the powers that be to give us a voice. Our voices are intact!  It is about creating a new earth with or without the economic elite. They may join us if they wish, but they had better not stand in our way.  We will protest. We will demonstrate.  We will create. The revolution may not be televised - but it is blogged, tweeted, posted, downloaded, uploaded, and streamed.  The people are in the streets, and we are creating our own world. democracynow  live feed    occupy together  occupy lsx  cbs online
We hold it as our self evident right to: 
1. Create systems of exchange outside of current banking structures. 
2. Build sustainable living structures.
3. Develop clean and local food sources independent of Monsanto, the FDA (or other national equivalents), and trade/import-export taxes. 
4. Educate our children, not to be factory workers or slaves to corporate interests, but to be empathic, creative, self-fulfilled citizens of humanity. and 5. Utilize all methods of alternative healing and ceremony we ourselves deem effective as recourse to establishing bodily and social balance.  
This is not a complete set of rights, but it is a start!  We are tired of being poisoned by factory waste, landfill waste, emotional waste, and the run off of corporate lard.  We will no longer accept prozac and soma as solutions to our discontent.


Yesterday the Church at St. Pauls made a decision to close, citing public health and safety as the reason.  However, with just a few short phone calls it was found that the occupation in no way represents a threat to public health or safety.  Local barristers got involved and were told by the church, "We're loosing money.  We are closing. That's it."  The church is angry.  They have been in bed with corporate greed for at least 2,000 years now, and it is time for them to rekindle their original purpose.  The reality on the ground is that Occupy LSX is working very hard to navigate shared space with the church.  The tone is one of complete respect for the property and function of the church, and a subcommittee for interfaith support has been set up through the consensus process.  We, the children of this movement, have heart, we have courage.  We are righteously angry, but we are not seeking to slime anybody.  We are simply insisting on the right to create and inhabit a world in balance with itself.  For me personally that means a world wherein the cosmos-humanity-and nature dance in symbiotic function.

                                 Consensus Process in action. :)