The following is a short write up I did inspired by the question,
"How to mobilize people?"
I had forgotten about this piece until recently when I it occurred to me that, I was (to some degree) talking about the principles of Steem.
My background is in the Pentecostal Church of God as a minister at age 19. But I left all of that behind to seek deeper truth. I later studied Community Development at Portland State University, and minored in Civic Leadership.
Now I help run a coffee shop in the heart of Portland, Oregon. Above the cafe is the head-quarters for RAMA, the non profit that I serve as a board member.
RAMA stands for RAINBOW ARTS MEDICINE ALLIANCE. In the spirit of this namesake, I wrote the following passage in response to mobilizing people...
Musings on Mobilizing Communities :: The Power of Local!
i·dyl·lic
full of natural, simple charm,
pro·pin·qui·ty
nearness in place; proximity
nearness of relation; kinship
neighborly; familiar
How do you rally the focus and intention of a community?
Simple!
Pay people for sharing their gifts. Honor and award the genius in people and you shall witness the wake of it's galvanizing effect.
The fiber of human potential is woven into an unseen network - a grid that awaits activation. This electric circuitry is a slumbering vital force. To awaken it, we must actualize our relationship with the limitless, unlevy'd power-source;
connection and connectivity.
Connect people :
to themselves,
to their natural gifts,
to each other's gifts,
to one another,
to community,
to the language of the land.
Enable people :
to be the author and authority,
...& the magic will speak for itself.
The grid will activate.
Take New Orleans for example.
New Orleans, the home of Jazz, is perhaps the premier exemplary hub of connection in general. The heart of the N'Oleans culture circulates a magnetic lifeblood, attracting locals and travelers alike - to gather and celebrate.
Etymological roots teach us that the word "Jazz" means, "vitality, fertility; the life of the land." Yes! The word JAZZ is a kenning with the word JIZZ (the seed, the spunk, chi, prana, and life force). Indeed, the Jazz music movement was beget by the loins-heart-ear - of the those people who listened to the still-voice of the land and scape.
Take a look at what you see at Mardi Gras. The song sings, and the dance dances - through the people.
New Orleans is in effect, what happens when people become empowered among themselves. Within (and through) communities like this, people inspire one another, and the world.
The nourishment of reciprocity is a generator of kinship, and KINDness (..think of the same kind). It dissolves the boundaries that otherwise represses the wellsprings that irrigate the commons with edification.
This what happens when people co-author their own story, craft their own narrative, and live by a mythos which was sounded through their own living relationships - and the wisdom of their ancestors.
There is perpetuity in our co-creative ingenuity - which is quite literally, generative! Through the generous giving of our gifts, we generate currents of energy, which is a currency - albeit "uncoined." So it is our latent talent expressed, our CO - CREATIVITY in action, which unearths the true coin of the community realm:
Our connection to our creativity is our medium. It is remedial and it is medicinal. This is the guiding principle of Rainbow Arts Medicine Alliance. Connecting to each other through sharing (gifts, spaces, holy-days), dilates our aperture and opens our lens. Thus we are enabled to unfurl into fuller receptivity and outpourings of our personal, and collective genius.
If we can tend to the fertile heartlands of our intellectual property, tuning into the sound advice and wisdom of those who came before us - we illuminate our paths to activation. Building integrity is required for establishing the stable grounds of community architecture. From these seeds, we all grow into our highest brilliance and enlightenment.
Truly, no obstacle can stand against human evolution, especially when it is fortified by the will of a recollected people living united, under the banner that - "we all do better, when we all do better."
But if this formula is so simple, why is does it remain un-grasped by so many?
Because, we can not enter into rapture when inertia remains inert. To put it another way, "out of sight, out of mind." If the light of these truths remain hidden, they cannot shine. The garden needs to be tended. The fruits of these teachings need to be cultivated. These things need to be shared, but the tables are turned so that, to do this work, we must go against the grain.
Consider the phrases,
"it's all on the table now,"
"let's table that topic for a later discussion,"
"bring something to the table,"
"getting payed under the table,"
"come to the table."
The metaphor of the table has a peculiar consistency in our language, customs, conventions, culture. It is a ubiquitous figure of speech. Although, in common talk, we often phrase the table as figurative and not literal, in is in fact representative of something that is quite real.
Without the table, we have a sparse meeting grounds for family dinner, communion, exchanges within the market, and prayer. The word takes it's root from Mesa and Mensa. Mensa denotes both, moon and money. We often refer to a woman's menstruation as her "moon," and the moon was often used to count the Mo(o)nths of the year. The moon is related to the table, or the counter top where exchanges are made and change is given.
The table is accounting device not unlike a ledger - whose inevitable technological advancement brought us the hope and promise of the BLOCKCHAIN.
Most importantly, the table is sacred. This the point point I wish to draw attention to. "Table," derives from the word "mesa" which means "altar." It is a place of exchange, whether we eating, praying, purchasing, or sharing ideas, and it is unique to the human experience. It represents our exchanges of the market, and how we keep record, and account for our relations. This innerstanding of the market has become lost to us, we have grown so accustom to it. We forget about it as we become swallowed in the swells and heavy waves of our mundane and profane daily lives.
So the question I raise is this, "how do we come to the table, or put anything on the table, if there is no table?"
What topic do I want to put on the table? THE TABLE! Where is it? How come we aren't talking about it?
Humans today suffer the ill of illusion, the Maya of modernity. We suffer from a disorder known as "anosognosia," which basically means, "we do not know, that we do not know. We cannot know that we cannot know."
Our (especially the U.S.A). fixation with nationalism and credence to statehood has conditioned our culture. We are literally fashioned by media overlords whose information - keeps us in - formation. The structures that are, organize the cellar structure of our body politic. We are thus incorporated into anthemic allegiance, shifting from a living cell to a working cog.
There are many distractions that reinforce a "united-division," dispersing us, and vamping our energy. Living in a fish-bowl-like-world perfumed by the thicket of consumerism fetishism is a powerful weapon. But blind pride in patriotism stands above the rest, as the most powerful and effective mechanisms. The natural energies which would otherwise flow into tributaries of localized "people-power," are being siphoned into building they pyramids.
"They've built their own prison, so they exist a state of schizophrenia. They're both guards and prisoners and as a result they no longer have, having been lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prison they've made, or to even see it as a prison." ~ My Dinner with Andre (Movie)
Supported by the joistings of menial labor force demands, our patriotism toward "work" - in turn "breaks" our creative spirit. We simply have no time to tap the roots of our creative potential. Furthermore, there is no tolerence of talk about artisan economy. It's not on the table.
You work, period!
I was told I could be anything I wanted to be when I grow up, till I grew up a little - then I was told to get real, and get a real job in the real world...
In this way, like our fathers before us, we forfeit the idyllic. We forget the natural charm of local, familiar-kinship, and this spurious consternation thwarts our edification. We become crippled and petrified. We cannot blossom into the promise of propinquity. We are grid locked.
This stark reality can dim the hope of human potential, walling us into a worry that nothing can be done...but we mustn't dwell on the disheartening.
Simply focusing on the eclipse, and succumbing to the fear that that shadows might elicit, undermines the over-soul of our humaness. We can rise into the memory of our infinite potential, one by one, step by step, reconnecting to our limitless source. It just might not happen all at once.
Connectivity happens in batches. Stitch by stitch we sew, both seeds and seems. Eventually we see the patchwork and embroidery. In time we recover the quilt that tells the story of how we keep warm on these long nights, while we journey back home. In time, the whole grid will lightly blanket our global community.
But it starts with tending to the light, one person at a time. One by one by one ... this is how we illuminate one another.
"All are needed by each one. Nothing is fair of good alone." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Together we re-mind, re-member, and re-collect each other in this great web of connectivity. We will be captured and raptures by the net of connection as we cast it upon one another. This is how the networks - through our creative ingenuity. We weave the dream together. We build the language together. This is what the meta is phor (not my quote, but a friends.)
This is the fusion-power of relating. This is what happens when bonds mature, we invest in the collective good, and take stock in building a trust. It is a miracle of language shared. It breaks the bank, and cracks the code to the vault the treasury.
Without a common ground, we remain separated. Without common ground we cannot gracefully challenge our neighbors limiting assumptions - OR OUR OWN! Our time shared together is the glue of cohesion. Born of trust - we query the building blocks for connecting into communities that in turn, build us.
Community leaders in the know can turn to projects that interest the people. By exciting, inciting, and inspiring, we can create mediums for one another to express our fullest self. These are constructs of creativity that fortify community and lay the foundation for knowing our own inner genius - and returning to it.
Through grants that support cultural heritage, and through access to the new 1%, we can pave the way to these old truths and awareness's in support of the new paradigm.
As a 501.c3, our non-profit (RAMA) can illicit the funding needed to hold the interest of the overloaded and disenfranchised members of our community. This will usher them into an art-alliance and a growing advocacy for the power of local-co-creative ingenuity which knows no limites.
The longview vision of RAMA is 7 generations. The end goal is a connected global community. But we aim these arrows first, at local targets. RAMA offers a sancturary in the city as an outlet to plug into. Thus, we begin with each person, as a self-unit, in helping them connect first to their own artistic genius - offering their remedial gifts, and then by connecting to each other.
In this way, the circuitry lights up.
