Rev. angel Kyodo williams

"love and justice are not two. without inner change, there can be no outer change; without collective change, no change matters."

occupy movement

revolution in review | a year of change

By

akw-white150

transform., first as a monthly e-journal, and now as a full-blown blog, evolved from a simple newsletter that reported on just our little universe into the premier periodical for reflecting upon and lifting up the emerging field and movement that has become known as Transformative Social Change.

We are proud of not only our ability to draw forth the threads of connection that indicate our progressive movements are forming a fabric of something greater than the sum of its part, but also our moments of prescience, in which we named–or even called for–what was to come. Aptly, that occurred most often within this feature column, INcite. When you pronounce the name with the stress on those capital letters, you’ll see what we’d always intended to provide.

Like most pivotal elements of movement-building, the value of mirroring this “movement of movements” back to itself will be understood better, later. For our part, we hope transform. continues to be a resource and an inspiration for our grand work to continue in a way that is increasingly recognizing of both our shared intentions and our varied expressions. The Occupy movement, with all its challenges and yet-unknowns, has the tender beginnings of becoming a transformative social movement. It’s up to us to take what we know and make it so.

If you haven’t checked out the blog yet, you really should. The new content added every day is there to inspire and challenge you to see the thread of connectedness amidst the diverse expressions of deep change. In the meantime, these ten essays from the last year, including some timely reprints, tell the tale of the movement that was (and is) to come.

January | state of union: resolution for revolution
The year began with a call for a single New Year’s resolutions: that we commit to revolution. In order to do that, we called for forming a “state of union.” Union within our movement, union with each other, union with ourselves. The idea being to gear ourselves up towards “seeing beyond the crippling illusion of separation and acting from the abiding awareness of our fundamental, indisputable interconnectedness.”

February | red, white and black: standing with the people
Egypt provided our first massive glimpse into the possibilities that open when we no longer accept the weighty hand of domination and seek to return the lever of power where it rightfully belongs: to the People. We recognized early on that even though it seemed far away and under drastically different conditions, Egypt’s plight was really not so different than our own. “As movements of people calling forth transformative social change, we are further empowered when we recognize our relationship, deep connection and interdependence with the movements towards justice in the world.”

March | when the people rise: why self determination will always overcome fear
An explosion of uprisings by Arab peoples against their heavy-handed governments captured our imagination. We watched a single act of defiance become amplified across nations as people cast away false stability to regain that fundamental underpinning of justice that dominant forces most seek to control: the right to determine ones own way. “If nature abhors a vacuum, then indeed, it resists none more persistently than a vacuum of natural selfhood. When the breaking point of lack of fulfillment meets with the illuminating function of self-awareness, human beings, like nature, seek to restore balance.”

April/May | real and not real: on border and divisions
While countries scrambled to be on the right side of the revolutions, a reprint from May 2010 invites us to re-examine how we divide ourselves. With the only true race being the Human one, and all of us need to belong, this incessant separation sits at the root of our inability to co-exist, instead fostering fear. When that fear prevails, “i have found the thinking, choices, behavior and resulting consequences of our people…incomprehensible at a heart level.”

June | doing darkness: change vs. transformation
In another reprint, we revisited how to distinguish mere change from true transformation, with six tell-tale signs. The case was made for naming a movement, along with the recognition of what calls us to transform: “…it is birthright that calls. In this Way, we have to allow ourselves to hear and respond to the evolutionary and revolutionary call that pulls us inexorably forward into becoming our newly formed selves–personally, politically, organizationally, institutionally, across all society–making room for a vision yet to be seen.”

July | a more perfect union: using our wholebody
Back to thinking about union, the historic passage of the right for gays and lesbians to marry in the the good ol’ Empire State of New York reminded us to consider what an embodied movement would look like: “It will be self-determined and other-honoring. It will be systemic, endemic and talismanic. More than anything, it will, because it must, be transformative.”

August | apes will rise | rebellion for the heart
Speaking of prescient, Hollywood’s prequel of a now-classic tale mirrored the uprisings taking place in the UK. As in Planet of the Apes, our primadonna-ish, puritanical culture was less able to see beyond the destruction to recognize the very frustration that we, ourselves, share. Revolution won’t always be pretty. Those rising up were indeed the voice of the people, because “the People are the shape-shifting stewards of our humanity who rise up cyclically to counter the forces that would have us tread backwards in our evolution by vying to protect the status quo.” Even when the form they take offends.

September | the transformation code: how to make a movement
Just before the Occupy movement parked itself in Zucotti Park, we began to recognize that an uprising does not a movement make. This essay points to HOW it is that movements comes into being. The assertion is that “Movements Aren’t Stumbled Upon. They’re Generated. Here’s How.” Taking the study of excellence in individuals to a movement level, three keys to more effective movements are shared.

October | where’s your wall street?: riding the raging bull to freedom
At this early stage, no one knew how far the Occupy Wall Street actions could go. It hadn’t yet clicked for most of us that the beginnings of a movement unlike anything we could have dreamed into existence was taking root. But, we could smell it. Because “by defying definition, flattening leadership and both utilizing and transcending organization as we’ve known it, shifting from spider to starfish, OWS creates within it’s morphing boundaries the one thing so many of our uber-defined efforts at movement-building have inadvertently managed to quash: opportunity.”

November | three lessons from occupy: practicing our values in times of change
Finally, having called for a movement, been in solidarity with others, explored how to make one and encouraged making an emerging movement our own, we learn in real time from the one we find ourselves in the midst of. “…we can afford to strengthen our practice in being present. So that we are able to withstand the sometimes very uncomfortable process of hearing all the voices that need to be heard.”

As one essay muses, “Who knows? Perhaps one day, we will look back on September 17th, 2011 as the beginning of the New American Revolution in which we finally captured not just votes but the imagination of the entire US as a People. But for now, it’s sufficient to seize the opportunity of this moment…”

We, the editors, contributors, tech-geeks and mid-wives of transform. hope you will seize the opportunity to journey back through this fascinating year of change, and get ready to throw your hat in to ring of revolution for 2012. A transformative movement of the People, for all People, is the movement we’ve been waiting for.
—yours in truth, aKw



—
copyright ©MMXI. angel Kyodo williams
changeangel: all things change. (sm)

angel Kyodo williams is a maverick teacher, author, social visionary and founder of Transformative Change.
she posts, tweets & blogs on all things change. permission granted to retweet, repost, repast & repeat with copyright and contact information intact.

Faceboook: Like angel on Facebook
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Blog: new Dharma: live, love & lead from the heart
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Three Lessons from Occupy

By

Practicing Our Values in Times of Change


INcite with angel Kyodo williams

Author’s note: During the last month I’ve visited the Occupy spaces of three different cities, including NY’s Occupy Wall Street. Yes, I know the name is a problem, but that is what they were called in these places. What follows is an edited excerpt from the subsequent talk I gave about my experience: Practicing Our Values in Times of Change. You can listen to the full talk here.

I’m from New York, so i made my way to the NY Occupy Wall Street site.

Both because I was curious and I had a sense that there’s something here. I wanted to drop myself into the container to really understand “what is this about?,” “is this just more hype?”, or “is this something that’s interesting, that’s going to capture our attention a little bit on Facebook and maybe even reach CNN, but then it’s going to disappear?”

I learned some lessons there that told me that no matter what the Occupy Movement does, that there exists in those spaces—many of them, not all of them, but many of them—some things that we can learn from. It’s not that whatever is happening there is different from the rest of us, but there, it is distilled.

One of the things that is most often repeated is that they don’t have a demand. And that is one of the best things about it.

We are so often trying to figure out how to match our corporate culture and go for the marketing. So we want to get a message and be “on message”. Even those of us that know intuitively that that may not be what this is about are asking “what’s the message?”

As best I can hear, the message…is to heard. The message is to make a space in which people can be heard. The first lesson I took away , is that if we are to have a world changed in a way that is going to be equitable, and accessible and viable for all of us, each of us deserves to be heard…no matter how long it takes.

They hold these General Assemblies using what they call a human microphone—if you haven’t seen the videos of how the human mic happens , run, don’t walk, and see it. In the General Assemblies they make decisions for not only the very intentional community that is formed there, but also, in that very moment whoever is there becomes the Beloved Community. And they will stay there as long as it takes to make sure everybody gets heard.

So the second lesson I got out of being at OWS is this: it takes time. That if we want change, real change, to come about, it takes time.

With the time that it takes, must come discipline. A deep discipline to be able to stay, to be able to stay present to all of the voices that must be heard.

In 140 characters or less, we are not practicing towards the discipline of being Present. So we can afford to strengthen our practice in being present. So that we are able to withstand the sometimes very uncomfortable process of hearing all the voices that need to be heard. Voices that are often being heard in public spaces for the first time, so:

They are not neat.
They are not on point.
They are undisciplined.
They are sometimes missing the point of the conversation totally.
They are often out of bounds.

And they should be heard…they must be heard.

Therefore, we need discipline as a community and as a collective. Just as they do with the human microphone at the General Assembly in which the facilitator clarifies the process and the collective echoes, we need to strengthen our discipline in order to both make space for people to be heard and to be able to say:

That’s a great question. That’s a great question.
And it should be taken up. And it should be taken up.
But not now. But not now.
This is not the time. This is not the time.
But we will make time. But we will make time.

(I wish I could do that as well as they do.)

Some of the Occupy spaces in the country use a bullhorn. My colleague and friend, organizer Marianne Manilov and I talked about what gets missed by not having the practice of the human microphone:

In that practice, you have the possibility of a 60-year old white male holding a Ron Paul sign tucked under his suit echoing back the words of a 24-year old black transgendered person. Holding the vibration of the words in his body. Not just hearing, but holding the vibration of someone that is coming from a profoundly different place in his body. You can’t help but find the sameness when you do that. Because when you hold someone else’s word in your own body, you naturally find the resonance. You don’t necessarily find agreement, but you do find resonance.

When we can find resonance,
when we have the space in which voices can be heard, and
we have the discipline to stay and take the time necessary to hear, and
we create the resonance of community,
we can allow for possibilities that were just not there before.

We can feel things that are unknowable to our minds. You can feel things that are unknowable—and should stay that way—to our minds.

That’s the third lesson that I learned, which I knew and which was affirmed by this profoundly messy, wild, disorienting space that Occupy Wall Street is.

In progressive community, we like to take pride in our willingness to extend ourselves into difference and bring difference forth. As profoundly important as that is, we have to find spaces of shared practice. We must. We have to get over ourselves and our individualistic ways and find shared practice, a unifying thread—I don’t mean a message, I don’t mean a brand—a unifying thread that calls us to attention, and lifts us beyond what is important to Me into what’s important for We.

And we can’t talk about it to get there. You know what I’m saying?

The shared practice can’t be something that we talk our way into. It has to be something that we be. It has to be something that we do.

—your in truth,aKw

dedicated to all the people willing to listen for the resonance, take the time, and share practice as we find our way to real change.


—
copyright ©MMXI. angel Kyodo williams
changeangel: all things change. (sm)

angel Kyodo williams is a maverick teacher, author, social visionary and founder of Transformative Change.
she posts, tweets & blogs on all things change. permission granted to retweet, repost, repast & repeat with copyright and contact information intact.

Faceboook: Like angel on Facebook
Twitter: Follow angel on Twitter
Web: Find angel on the Web
Blog: new Dharma: live, love & lead from the heart
Train: Train Your Mind with angel

where’s your wall street?

By

 

riding the raging bull to freedom


INcite with angel Kyodo williams


At first it was just a whisper that spoke more to what wasn’t happening than to what was: mainstream media was shutting out coverage of the thousand or so people that had begun to gather starting September 17th at the unfortunately named Zuccoti park. Even when 2,000 mostly black folks ended their march at the reclaimed and renamed Liberty Plaza to protest the Great State of Georgia’s sanctioned execution of Troy Davis, the media eye remained mostly blind. But the whispers turned to grumbles and those closed same eyes were pried open when police arrested eighty people and maced a woman.

From there, Facebook posts and Twitter tweets multiplied and #OccupyWallStreet staked its flag firmly in the public sand.

I’m no reporter so it’s fortunate that in an era when hashtags (#) are the in-fashion symbol and symbolism, you can Google an education and Wiki the timeline. What you most need to know though, in case you didn’t, is that no matter where you are, #OccupyWallStreet is the movement made for you.

The only question is whether you’ll choose make it yours.

With decisions made by the General Assembly, “a horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based system with roots in anarchist thought,” OWS seeks to stand for “the other 99 percent” of Americans that are on the stinky end of the economic shitstick that’s been beating the crap out of us all, while the 1% at the top of the food chain get fat eating off the plates we made for minimum wage.

No matter that it once looked like mostly disgruntled and disheveled white kids camping out because they could. Forget the fact that the initial call for this possible American Spring came out of Canada. Ignore the pundits that dis it for not having demands. By defying definition, flattening leadership and both utilizing and transcending organization as we’ve known it, shifting from spider to starfish, OWS creates within it’s morphing boundaries the one thing so many of our uber-defined efforts at movement-building have inadvertently managed to quash: opportunity. You only need to bring your voice, show up and choose to be who you are. By doing so, you cause this emerging movement to be yours. That choice, my friend, is freedom. Liberty Plaza, indeed.

Not enough women, you say? Call CodePink and now there are more. Want gays and blacks? Elders and immigrants? Grab your AfroCuban-born lesbian granny and go. Where are the gender queers? If you show up, they are there.

Having grown up in downtown Manhattan, I’m no stranger to the bizarre Wall Street world of high stakes gambling where the losers don’t even get to play the game. I’ve even ridden the back of the 7100 pound raging bronze bull that has come to epitomize the same financial aggression that has driven the economy into the ground. With each passing day, I am more certain that when I get back to my hometown next week, the protesters will still be there for me to join them. If it gets exceptionally cold or exceptionally rough, I’ll have the luxury of walking just a few blocks to return home.

But you need not have lived on the doorstep of the corrupt capital of Capitalism to smell something rotten in Denmark, not to mention DC, San Francisco, Chi-town and Everytown, USA. If not you yourself, you know someone who knows someone who lives on main street and was bummed out while wall street was bailed out:

  • someone who hasn’t been able to find a job for two years
  • someone pushed out of their home because they couldn’t pay a falsely inflated mortgage
  • someone who watches institutions of education fall while institutions of incarceration rise
  • someone whose grandparents or parents helped build this country but their family fears being torn apart and kicked out.
  • someone whose people picked cotton, built railroads or had their lands taken away, yet to this day have insufficient clothes, transportation or security of their own.

and all the while, politicians play footsies with all our futures.

Whatever you used to believe, what’s coming into plain sight—if you’re not the 1%, that is—is that this system has failed us all. And we each deserve to Thrive. On October 6th, DC’s K street gets occupied and a feverishly-growing number of inspired cities are determined to Occupy Together. So wherever you are, there’s a Wall Street near you and there’s never been a better moment to take it over and make this a movement for you.

Who knows? Perhaps one day, we will look back on September 17th as the beginning of the New American Revolution in which we finally captured not just votes but the imagination of the entire US as a People. But for now, it’s sufficient to seize the opportunity of this moment, by finding the raging bull of determination and riding it out to #OccupyYourWallStreet today.

—your in truth,aKw

Dedicated to the 99%. ‐aKw


—
copyright ©MMXI. angel Kyodo williams
changeangel: all things change. (sm)

angel Kyodo williams is a maverick teacher, author, social visionary and founder of Transformative Change.
she posts, tweets & blogs on all things change. permission granted to retweet, repost, repast & repeat with copyright and contact information intact.

Faceboook: Like angel on Facebook
Twitter: Follow angel on Twitter
Web: Find angel on the Web
Blog: new Dharma: live, love & lead from the heart
Train: Train Your Mind with angel