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 Rainbow Arts Medicine Alliance (RAMA), the non profit whose board I serve on.
In the spirit and namesake of RAMA, I wrote the following passage in response to the question of mobilizing people...
Idyllic Propinquity
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 a limitless, unlevy'd power-source; cheifly
connection and connectivity.
When we
connect people :
to themselves,
to their natural gifts,
to each other's gifts,
to one another,
to community,
to the language of the land
and we
Enable people :
to be the author and authority,
... the magic begins to speak for itself, activating the grid.
Take New Orleans for example...
New Orleans, the home of Jazz, is perhaps the premier example of community connection.The heart of the N'Oleans culture circulates a magnetic lifeblood, attracting locals and travelers alike - to gather together and celebrate. It is a cultural hub.
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 from the loins of the people who had the open heart to listen and hear the still-quiet-voice of the landscape.
Take a look at what you see during Mardi Gras. There is a song that sings, and a dance that dances through the people.
New Orleans is in effect, what happens when people become empowered among themselves, in a collective vision. Within (and through) communities like this, people naturally inspire one another, and inspire the world at large.
There is nourishment in reciprocity. Reciprocity is a generator of kinship and KINDness (..think in terms of the phrase "of the same kind"..). It dissolves the boundaries that otherwise withhold and represses the wellspring that irrigates the commons with edification. It is 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 with the land, each other, 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:
... the currency of co-operative economy.
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 (RAMA). Connecting to each other through sharing (gifts, spaces, holy-days), dilates our aperture and opens our lenses. Thus we are enabled to unfurl into fuller receptivity, as well as outpourings of our own personal, and collective genius.
If we can tend to the fertile heartlands of our intellectual property, by 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 eventual enlightenment.
Truly, no obstacle can stand against human evolution, especially when it is driven 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 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 and customs. It is a ubiquitous figure of speech. Although, in common talk, we often use the phrase the table in a figurative sense, not meant to be taken literally, it is in fact representative of something that is quite real.
Without the table, we have a sparse meeting place for very common customs. Family dinner, communion, exchanges within the market, and prayer, all (mostly) require a table.
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. Further more, the moon is also related to the table, or - the counter top - where exchanges are made and change is given.
Suddenly, it is clear. The table is an accounting device not unlike a ledger. The ledger is a form of technology - whose inevitable advancement brought to us the hope and promise of the BLOCKCHAIN.
Most importantly, the point I wish to draw is this; that the table is "sacred." As stated, "table," derives from the word "mesa" which is another word for "altar." It is a place of exchange, whether we are eating, praying, purchasing, or sharing ideas.
Symbolically, the table represents something that is unique to the human experience. Mainly, it represents our exchanges within the market. But additionally, it also helps us keep records, and account for our relations. Unfortunately this "inner-standing" of the market has become lost on us all. Because it is normal that we become swallowed by swells and waves of our mundane daily lives, we have grown accustom to it. Thus, so we forget about it, banishing it to profane obscurity.
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 in the first place?"
When studying Community Development, and asked, "What topic I want to put on the table?" I resounded loudly, "THE TABLE!" I mean, where is it? How come we aren't talking about that?
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 fixations with nationalism and our credence to statehood has conditioned us into a morbid culture of inbred values. This is especially true in the United States of America. We are literally fashioned by media overlords whose information - keeps us in - formation. When you combine these forces with the governing statutes that dictate our body politic, the narrative shifts.
Instead of each person being a living cell in a living organism, they are a working cog in a dead machine. Neatly ordered, in service, with unwavering devotion, we become unwittingly incorporated into an anthemic allegiance.
There are many distractions that reinforce a "united-division" which disperses and vamps our energy. People living in a fish-bowl-like-world, that is heavily perfumed by the thicket of consumer fetishism is a trusted and powerful weapon. But more dangerous, is the force of blind pride.
Reckless, unchecked patriotism stands above all else as the most powerful and effective mechanisms to protect against dissent of a corrupt system. Thereby, the natural energies which would otherwise flow into tributaries of localized "people-power," are usurped and siphoned into maintaining the false idols of Babylon.
"They've built their own prison, so they exist in 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 love affair toward necessitating "work" - in turn "breaks" our creative spirit. We simply have no time to tap the roots of our creative potential. Furthermore, there is no tolerance of talk about artisan economy. It's not on the table.
"The extreme uncertainties of subsisting with out work made excess necessary and brinks definitive"
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 continues to thwart our edification. In turn, we become crippled and petrified and we cannot blossom into the promise of propinquity. Truly, we are grid locked.
"The realm of the real spirit, the true artist, the saint, the philosopher, is rarely achieved.
Why so few? Why is world history and evolution not stories of progress but rather this endless and futile addition of zeroes. No greater values have developed... So what are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question, and that's this: Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?" ~ Waking Life
I agree that this stark reality might dim the hope of reaching our human potential, walling us into a worry that nothing can be done. But I urge us all to hold fast, knowing that we mustn't dwell on the disheartening, but allow it to fuel our new creation story!
Simply focusing on the eclipse, and succumbing to the fear that that shadows might elicit, undermines the over-soul of our what makes us human. We can rise into the memory of our infinite potential, it just might not happen all at once. One by one, step by step, we remember and teach each other how to reconnect with our limitless source, divorcing ourselves from oppressive gear works, and the agenda's that do not serve us.
Be patient. Connectivity happens in batches - slowly, over time. Stitch by stitch we sew, both seeds and seems. Eventually we will see the embroidery of our patchwork. In time we shall recover the quilt that tells our 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.
This is a hope worth holding onto.
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 or good alone." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Together we re-mind, re-member, and re-collect each other in this great web of connectivity. As we become caught in the mag-net we learn to cast it upon one another. This is the gateway to rapture and apocalypse - the lifting of the veil.
Through our creative ingenuity we make energy by connecting people and ideas. Together we weave the dream and build the language! For it is the miracle of language shared that breaks our banks, and cracks the code, opening the vault, giving access to the treasury of natures secret riches.
...this is how the networks, this is what the meta is phor (not my quote, but a friends).
What happens when bonds mature? What happens when we invest in the collective good, and take stock in building a trust in one another? We fully realize the fusion-power of relating to each other as neighbors, and utilize it for the good.
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 bonding element of our community cohesion. It allows us to query the building blocks for creating 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 arts, and through access to the resources of the new 1%, we can pave the way to these old truths and awareness's in support of ushering in the new paradigm, backed and stabilized by benefit and not pegged to predatorial profit.
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, to step into their creative genius without losing step with their day to day, or family duties. Hopefully, this will bring them into an awareness of an art alliance - a network of growing advocates tapping into the power of local-co-creative ingenuity ... which knows no limits.
The long view 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 sanctuary in the city as an outlet to plug into. To meet yourself, your gifts, and people like you. 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.
"An informed consumer collapses the dollar." ~ Richard Van Kaupp