The Serpentine Crossroads: On Desire, Being Lost, and Diving In

A few weeks ago we celebrated the autumn equinox, the time of the year when the night and day are exactly equal in length.  Now, with the moon waning above us, ebbing new, we move fully into the season of deepening, darkened nights.  It's a time for turning inward, of quieting down from long summer days with appointment planners and to-do lists that stretch for miles.  Where I live, in the San Francisco Bay, this is the time of pumpkin spice lattes for some and pumpkin chia smoothies for others, carrot cake (possibly gluten free), newly-planted kale in the ground and reddening leaves on the trees, chilly nights and warm afternoons finally free of fog.  

I may be a summer baby, born in June, but cozy-sweater-and-hot-cocoa autumn has always been my favorite season.  At the same time, fall can be hard for me.  I get moody, quit jobs, wake up too early, fall asleep too late, gain weight, and mull over relationship woes long forgotten by my partner (generally ones that I, too, had forgotten but that suddenly, and with great passion, rear up).  Often, I feel an intense longing in my chest that is almost like physical pain, cutting me to the quick, which no amount of coconut sugar or half-caff lattes can take away.  

To the ancients, this was a time sacred to the goddess Hecate, also known as Dadouchos (She of the Three Ways) and Phosphorous (Light bearer, torch bearer).  She is awakening magic and the dreams that whisper our secret desires in the night.  Hers were the in-between places, the places of choice, Crossroads.  Hers were long nights and the sky dark with starlight, or sometimes, glowing silver with the heavy moon.

In my own life, I feel Her crossroads as the difficult choice points before me: dive forward, drop back, or let go; focus on lucrative career moves or serpentine creative passions; invest in yet another promise-filled program or allow my autumn afternoons breeze open with emptiness and the perfectness of my imperfect life.  Which is easier said than done.  The cool sunny days feel moody and demanding, as usual.  I can't be easy inside for any notable stretch of time.  But maybe that's only what might be expected, if it's true that we are in her liminal realm. most of us still attempting to navigate by ordinary means and hold to a sense of time dictated by email, synching calendars and stock tickers.  

"The only way to gain power in a world that is moving to fast is too slow down," Marianne Williamson tells me this morning, by way of my friend Tara's status update.  "The only way to spread one's influence wide is to go deep.  The world we want for ourselves and our children will not emerge from electronic speed but from a spiritual stillness that takes root in our souls.  Then, and only then, will we create a world that reflects the heart instead of shattering it."

It's true.  With the summer's strength and sunlight becoming mere memory, I feel more in touch with my vulnerability than ever, the shattering my heart experiences every day, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot.  But even were it not so, one doesn't usually linger long at Crossroads, with the paths before, behind, and beyond all beckoning.  Stopping to breathe, feel, pray and play at the essential choice points of our lives is the wisdom She gave to her initiates, those who knew her sacred words and her sorcery.  Sometimes I feel like I've been here so many times that all I have to do is close my eyes and navigate by feel -- other times, lately especially, I just feel lost.

It's at least interesting to be lost -- you're never bored.  I like to notice what I do and how I act, being lost.  One thing seems to be a lot of free life-coaching calls.  You know, those beautiful thirty minute sessions that coaches offer up to tease you with the taste of another map or process or transformative philosophy with so little commitment required (after all, if I was in the right mindspace for committing to things, I wouldn't need the coaching calls nearly so much).

I'm pretty fortunate, being in a coaching program myself, because I have access to a seemingly endless supply of free thirty minute sessions with well-trained, wise people who want nothing more than to be the person that guides me through the dark crossroads.  A revolutionary life, thriving career, authentic creative expression, time for rest and dreaming: they all assure me that I can have it all.  And the beautiful thing is, they're right.  When I'm connected to the infinite, to love, to mystery, I know that is true.  The hard thing is, I don't want them to help me find my way -- not this time.  I want to go within, light a torch and find my own way through my lost recesses --  and in doing so, find my radiance.  

I don't sign up for any new programs, but I do allow the sense of potential and mystery to infuse my feeling of being lost.  It reminds me of what one of my local heroes, Rebecca Solnit, writes in her book A Field Guide to Getting Lost:

That thing which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is just a matter of getting lost.  The word 'lost' comes from the old Norse 'los' meaning the disbanding of an army. I worry now that people never disband their armies, never go beyond what they know... To be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.  And one does not get lose but loses oneself, with the implication that is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender. 

I like that Rebecca reclaims being lost as a conscious choice (by the way, I've never met another Rebecca that I didn't like).  This is something I can get behind -- which isn't to say that there have not been times when I was physically lost, or emotionally, and it did not feel choiceful.  But I suppose even when being lost wasn't my first choice, going on the journey, was.  I chose to live this unconventional, creative, purpose-driven life, and to marry a broody Capricorn with strong opinions, and pursue dreams and ideals rather than security and respectability.  I took this path, which has led me to the crossroads now before me -- new in some ways, and in other ways, the same as before.  The path is a spiral, circling down into the dark.

This is another of Hecate’s faces -- the guide deeper into dark places, into the unknown.  Her wisdom is the wisdom of plunging beneath turbulent waters in search of the gold that lays in barnacle-covered, seaweed-tressed treasure troves rather than splashing and flailing around and begging for someone to throw you a white foam doughnut.  

As the archetypal queen of magic whose sacred texts detailed love spell after love spell, she is also the guardian of desire.  It is desire that pulls us forward, down, beyond, through, outside the box.  Sometimes that yearning feels like a prayer, other times, a curse.  

Solnit says this about Desire:

We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and sensation of desire, though often it is the desire between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing.

Here's another good one:

Desire is the absurdity that holds open the infinity of possibility.

-- Wendy Farley, The Wounding and Healing of Desire

And this:

We are desire.  It is the essence of the human Soul, the secret of our existence.  Absolutely nothing of human greatness is ever accomplished without it.  Not a symphony has been written, a mountain climbed, an injustice fought, or a love sustained apart from desire.  Desire fuels our search for the life we prize.  Our desire, if we will listen to it, will save us from committing soul-suicide, the sacrifice of our hearts on the altar of 'getting by.'  The same old thing is not enough. It never will be.

-- John Elderidge, Desire

She is stirring this up in me now: the desire for greatness, for mountains, for fighting for freedom and fairness and a kind world, and for navigating by starlight towards absurd, infinite possibility.  When I hide from it, when I close over-illuminate the early evenings with fluorescent light and turn away from the nip in the breeze so that I can tackle my to-do list and flash too-sunny smiles at my colleagues, its like pouring gray ash on my white-hot, brimming, vulnerable heart.  My heart, my desire, the blue longing that fills the gap between all that I've been and known and held fragilely in my arms, and all that calls me onward to her new moon.

I'm not going to do that anymore.

Right now, this dark moon time between Autumn Equinox and Halloween, is Her time.  It is not always easy, soft, warm, bubbling.  But it is rich: in the traditional seasonal cycle, we are headed towards the last of the harvest festivals.  There is so much here to reap, if we are able to open to it and stay open.

So tell me, what is being stirred up in you, and what are you sacrificing on the altar of 'getting by?'  What waits for you to harvest?  

What greatness is desire pulling you towards?

What magic is She calling for you to bring forth, that only you -- with your small, imperfect, beautiful and potent life -- can create?  Will you answer the call?  

If you do, I will stand with and for you.  Together, we can orchestrate symphonies, and create lives worth prizing beyond reason. 

Where There is Fear, There is Power

I could barely hear the man at the podium speaking, and the voices in the hall hushed to hear him.  We'd all been sitting there at the public comments hearing at the California Public Utilities Commission meeting for over an hour and a half, and folks were getting restless, their rancor most notably directed at the slightly plump young woman with the bell who's sad duty it was to ding you when you're one minute of airtime was up.

The man's white hair, which stood out starkly against his dark skin, fluffed out to the side, giving him a distinct likeness to Albert Einstein.

"I was a veteran of Nagasaki," he said, or at least I think that's what he said.  He spoke with the very slow, barely audible mumble of someone well over seventy, but the woman with the bell had enough sense not to try and ding him -- whether because she knew it would send the already disquieted crowd into outright chaos or simply because her mother had raised her right, I don't know.  "I've served this country for along time.  But now... (mumble, mumble)... PG&E rate increases (mumble)... I was without heat in my house for five months this winter.  I lived in a cold house for five months.  (mumble, mumble) ...do not allow PG&E to increase our rates any higher."

Watching him, I was struck by his quiet power, the clarity I felt from him in spite of my confusion over his specific words, and the sadness of this small personal truth -- that this old man, and undoubtedly countless others like him, was going without power in the dead of winter and had traveled here to the pomp auditorium at the San Francisco Civic Center from West Oakland early in the afternoon in the pouring rain to challenge the CPUC's approval of smart meters.

At first when Jason suggested that we go to the public comments hearing to talk about Diablo Canyon, I had thought that it didn't make much sense.  We've been positively obsessed with organizing around shutting down Diablo Canyon since the catastrophic events at the Fukushima Daiichi plant earlier this month.  Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant sits on not one but two active fault lines, one less than 1000 feet from the plant.  These faults are in the same system as the one that caused the quake in Japan, and overall, there has been a growing amount of seismic activity in the Pacific Rim in the last ten years.  Excitingly, DCNPP is built only to withstand a 6.7 earthquake, has relatively no preparedness plan for a seismic emergency, is under such intense scrutiny that their backup safety mechanisms were not working for over 18 months, and is located about 250 miles from my house.

But, obsessed or no, I couldn't see what our arguments against Diablo Canyon had to do with a public hearing focused on smart meters, and I didn't want to distract the CPUC to get confused with too many issues at one meeting.  But as I heard the old man speak, and the countless others who had come, I felt a surge of intense emotion and a sense of belonging -- belonging to this group of people passionate, desperately passionate in some cases, about protecting our lives against corporate interests who are willing to take risks with potentially armageddon-inducing technologies just because the risk-to-benefit analysis somehow makes sense to them on their little calculators.

Elaine spoke first, then Marg.  Jason and I had to wait a long time, and by the time it was my turn to go, I felt my whole body shaking with emotion and was sure that I was either going to be moved by spirit to say things I would never remember but other people would think were pretty good, or would collapse into a pile of tears and gibbers like a total fool.

The auditorium is not set up to benefit the nerves of public commentators.  You stand off to the side, below a stage where the commissioners sit behind a tall desk in plush cushy chairs, seemingly completely at ease while you struggle to figure out how to adjust the mic to go near your mouth.  As I got up to speak, I noticed that while most of the commissioners appeared to be rather bored and trying to appear interested, they did at least look at me.  That was a good sign.  I decide to go for it.

Well, I don't remember what I said, but other people seemed to like it.  I know that I said something about the fault lines, and how we need to immediately shut down these reactors until the seismic mapping is completed and can prove that DCNPP is safe -- which simply won't and can't happen.  Jason went next, and as I watched him, I was struck by how incredibly sexy I find it to see him in his power, speaking strongly for the things that we're fighting for -- speaking in defense of the earth.  He told the commissioners that they would be held accountable for not shutting down the reactor if and when something goes wrong there, and I could see how that unnerved them.  Which I think seems like a pretty appropriate response.  After all, it's a pretty unnerving situation.

Now, a couple hours later in a cafe, I'm no longer thinking much about the commissioners, even though I do have a fantasy where they announce tomorrow that they've seen how dire the situation is and will immediately shut it down.  What is striking me is how beautiful the hills are around Diablo Canyon, green and covered in trees, like a small peace of heaven.  We've been given the keys to eden, and the sacred covenant of caring for one another: humans young and old, non-humans of infinite and majestic variety, the land herself which rolls like waves along the coastline where we've built this thing of terrible, awesome power.  Most of all, I'm remembering the thing that Starhawk says that I've heard so many times that it's almost cliche: where there is fear, there is power.

Immense power.  Sometimes, overwhelming fear.  Sometimes, immense power that helps us overcome our overwhelming fear, even in places as unlikely as bureaucratic meetings and from people as unlikely as you, or me, or an old man who's voice can barely reach above a murmur.

Which makes me think of something else that I know about power -- that it's in each of us, and that it grows when we're together.  I can feel that I'm at the beginning of another journey with this Diablo Canyon thing... I hope that you'll come with me.

Tears and Tear Gas

Twitter texts transcripts from our Comms people:

12:16 am - Units are responding to hotmetal bridge for reports of protestors gathering.

12:06 am – Student dorms blocked by police with weapons. 

Lots of police need Fuel, can’t find Fuel.  Trying to get Tanker Truck to fuel humvees.

11:51 am – Forbes and S. Craig, protestors breaking out windows.

Police not responding to other calls.  “All units are in Oakland.”

11:30 pm – RIOT POLICE MARCH DOWN FORBES, SENDING STUDENTS SPRINTING TOWARDS TOWERS.  TEAR GAS SHOT AT CROWD.

Giving dispersal order – probably 200 people at least there.  Almost entire perimeter is surrounded by riot cops. 

Near cathedral of learning & heinz chapel:  POLICE JUST PILED OUT OF BUDGET TRUCKS.  SOUND CANNONS BEING FIRED AT CROWD.  COPS HAVE GAS MASKS ON.

11:00 pm – Radical marching band playing on the steps of cathedral, and riot cops continue to launch smoke bombs at them. 

Gray 2000 Chrysler town and country w PA registration — get the fuck out of there!  The police are looking for you!


And so on...

* * * * *

I didn’t really want to go out dancing when it first came up tonight.  It was a really long day today — the first day we’ve seen chemical weapons (and no, just to end the tension right here and now, the cops did not stick to or even attempt to begin the “escalation of tactics” they mentioned to the press.  They went straight for the gas and this weird sound thing they have that makes you feel unbalanced and confused, followed by rubber bullets).  We set out in the afternoon with a student march from Carnegie Melon University and joined up with a bunch of Black Bloc kids on what Delylah, our medic and spokescouncil rep, was affectionately referring to as “the death march” -- an unpermitted march that involved going down a street with a river on one side and a cliffside down the other.  We had subdivided the cluster into two or three loose groups — the green group, those who desire to stay as safe as possible; the yellow group, in-between; and the red group, those who wanted to wade into the fray and see what’s going on, and yet, because we’re pagans and peaceful, also get out before things got all crazy.

Jason and I decided that we were more yellow than green, and, that decided, tramped off with the college students through an economically disadvantaged area to meet up with the Black Bloc cohort.  I was still feeling ambivalent about that, because it seemed to me that there wasn’t a strong message or intention to what we were doing, and that some property destruction and police violence would ensue.  But, that said, I wasn’t about to sit back with the Greenies while Jason was out there marching around with them, because doing so would be more painful to my psyche than rubber bullets by far. 

It was wonderful to march through the neighborhood: so many people there clearly supported us, and called out to us and honked there horns in support of our message, which although confused, still resonated with them.  Soon, however, the tone changed.  We wove through the streets, corralled here by the cops and then there, and finally being blocked in on two sides and given the order to disperse.  This announcement was followed by a weird, creepy beeping, kind of like a siren but somehow different.  Suddenly, I began to feel very afraid and ungrounded, even more so once I saw the plumes of tear gas up ahead at the front of the march.  Although it felt important to be with the cluster, I realized very quickly that I was almost as afraid of the Black Bloc people as I was the cops — not because I thought they’d attack me, obviously, but because I had heard rumors of many of them wearing football pads and helmets and being ready to physically attempt to take on the police, and I wanted to be nowhere near anything of the sort.  That’s not what I’m about, and breaking windows is not what I’m about.  And I’m certainly not about getting gassed and arrested for them. 

So once the heat got strong (on both sides, for with a crash, the first window — a Boston Market, of all things — was broken), I felt a very strong desire to take off.  In fact,  I was terrified.  The weird siren was going off in my ears and the gas was blowing up ahead, and there were riot cops with batons on both ends of the street.  After a brief debate with Jason, we took off down a side street, leaving the crowds and the cluster behind.  As soon as we emerged onto the next block, however, we saw the march running towards us, followed by another line of riot cops.  Jason swore under his breath and we took off again, attempting to run perpendicular to the march that seemed to follow us wherever we went. 

Meanwhile, people were coming out of there houses to see what was going on — old men, women with children, teenagers with gaps in their teeth.  “Get inside, get inside, there’s cops with tear gas,” we’d say, and they’d stare at us confused, and say, “What’s going on?”  But we couldn’t stop long enough to tell them.  We wove our way through the streets, getting further and further away from where we wanted to go and closer and closer to downtown Pittsburgh, which is where the g20 is actually meeting and is therefore the most heavily guarded area in the city right now.  Jason wanted to cross back towards where we’d come from, but my heart was still pounding from being up there, and I couldn’t stand the idea of going back there.  Eventually, though, it became obvious that we couldn’t go forward anymore, and we had to go back.

It was a trek back, and along the way, Jason and I started to squabble.  He hadn’t been afraid, apparently, and had only left because he’d seen how tripped out I was getting about the whole deal.  At first I was irritated with him, because he’d told me otherwise at the time — but then, as we continued to talk about it, I realized that I’d been much more triggered than I had first thought as soon as the police began to get violent.  I’d thought I was being reasonable, intelligently deciding to get out of there when things looked hot; but I wasn’t acting reasonable, or grounded, or like myself at all.  Every time we’d go over what happened, my story was different.  I needed to slow down, to think things over, but there was no time for that.  We had to keep going, to get back to our friends and regroup.   He kept asking me if I wanted to join the green group so that he could run off with the yellow group and not worry about me, but I didn’t want that.  I didn’t want to be afraid, especially to be overwhelmingly, out-of-my-body afraid.

And so, as we walked, I started to ground out the energy through my feet, noticing each step connecting me to the earth.  I touched the part of my body where I have the feeling of groundedness and the memory of the redwoods at camp anchored into my body, and said the magic word I say to ground.  I walked, and grounded.  We would run into cops, and my breath would quicken until we were safely away again, and then I’d go back to grounding. 

Eventually, we did get back to our friends and made our way (appropriately) to Friendship park, where half of the march had gathered to chill and decide what to do next.  There, I had an opportunity to check in with Lisa, who’s been doing this stuff for a long time.  She knew I was getting tripped out, and promised to look after me and reminded that we were all committed to being safe and unarrested this day, no matter what “color” we were running at the time.  Somehow, between grounding out the energy and her support, I found a measure of my courage again.  It was only later that I learned that the strange sirens I’d been hearing were sound cannons — devices that play a subsonic noise that disrupts the equilibrium of your inner ear and causes you to become confused, disoriented, unable to think straight or move easily.  Although some of the fear and feeling of overwhelm was my own, and brought about by the reality of the violence of the situation, I had also fallen pray to this weird device, which in me disrupted my very though patterns and certainly my energy body. 

Suddenly, the other half of the march — who we had believed to have been cornered by the cops — miraculously reappeared and came sauntering into the park amidst cheers and cries: “Who’s Streets?  OUR STREETS!”  It was amazing.  The last we’d seen of them, they’d been goners.  And yet here they were, reborn.  I felt inspired.  Somehow, these kids had made it through the cops in spite of their many tricks.  We could do this.  I could do this.  And I wanted to do it, to find my voice and not let them cow me.

And then we were doing it.  We swarmed out of the relative safety of the park and headed back down the streets, following the Black Bloc kids as they flowed here and there, sticking with them but not totally immersing ourselves in their doings, which had indeed turned to breaking a couple of windows and such (Elizabeth told me that she thought that at least some of this started with provocateurs).  Flow in, flow out.  Move down this street, move over a block, go back a block because a line of riot cops are blocking the way.  Chant, sing, drum.  Yes, this is what a police state looks like — but its also what those who would live a different way look like, in all that is positive and negative about that. 

Eventually, it was really time to go home.  The march disbanded, we regrouped, and found ourselves a lovely Thai restaurant to nurture ourselves within.  Once there, we got a text from Bash Back, inviting everyone out to a dance party later in the evening. A dance party!  Lovely.  Let’s go.

Unfortunately, the “dance party” had very little dancing in it.  We parked the car on 5th and started heading over, pausing to stop at Caribou Coffee for a pit stop.  As I came out and pushed the doors open, I saw my little crew waiting outside for me looking up the street, where a march had started.  “Oh lovely,” I thought.  “They’re coming to us.”

Then my face fell, and my heart.  The kids were pushing six dumpsters down the street, yelling obscenities instead of chants.  Jason, Delylah, Stan and I quickly moved back along the street, only to be joined by a crowd of college kids who live in the area — the street we were on, apparently, goes right through a major campus.  They led the dumpsters down into the intersection, right in front of a cop van, and proceeded to turn them over to block the street.  And then the smashing began.  A moment later, further down the street, I saw smoke — not tear gas, but the smoke of a fire, of something burning. 

I looked up at Jason.  What I was thinking was mirrored perfectly on his face: The Cops Are Going to Be Pissed. 

Best to get the hell out.

And yet, we did not immediately take off.  There were hoards of college kids everywhere, angry about the windows of their community being broken, and curious about what was happening.  Within moments, the streets were full of cops in riot gear, curious college kids, shop owners, and the smell of burning trash.  We circled around the small plaza where the cops had corralled a large group of protestors — not the ones who had done the window smashing or dumpster turning, but a different group that had earlier in the evening been talking to G20 delegates.   Eventually we stopped at a little wall and hopped on top, along with all of the aforementioned college students and shop owners and restaurant employees and whatnot.  The cops had seemed to control the situation, but somehow, it didn’t seem over.

Probably because it wasn’t.  They brought in the sound cannons, again, and started lobbing tear gas into the courtyards of the university, sending whole packs of college kids screaming and running from the scene.  Then they surrounded the entire campus with riot cops in gas masks, lobbing the tear gas canisters further and further into the courtyards of the university.  Although it was far too late for any classes to be in session, there were still many people around, drunk and partying or studying late or drawn by all the commotion from their frat houses and dorms. 

The only way out was right past the cops, and so we put on our best “these are not the people you’re looking for” auras and, breathing slowly and carefully and grounding down, I followed Lisa and Scarecrow and the rest out through the perimeter of police and back out onto the street.  There was broken glass everywhere, and cars backed up, and “peace” officers of every description moving through the area in lines and packs and tribes, with horses or dogs (I’m definitely noticing that the cops in Pittsburgh love their police dogs) or neither, or bikes.   As we moved away from the scene, I would glance back towards the protestors who’d been trapped in the plaza, and feel a horrifying sinking in my stomach.  I knew, even without being there, that the police were going to be very ungentle with those they’d caught — all 200 some of them, many of them young.  I found myself imaging violent scenes of the whole thing, and tears (natural ones) sprung into my eyes.  I hate the idea of the police beating on, tazering, gassing, attacking all of these kids for breaking windows.  I mean, clearly I don’t resonate or condone the breaking of windows, or of anything, really.  But the truth of the matter is that breaking a window doesn’t warrant a chemical or electric assault on your person.  And often, those they catch aren’t he ones who broke the window anyway.

* * * * *
So now I’m back at Anne’s and we’ve just finished talking about our plans for tomorrow, and I find myself again wondering why I’m here.  It’s rather glamorous, I suppose, to be a traveling climate change activist.  It’s neat to see a new place, and sometimes there’s even a sense of adrenaline and excitement about it.  But tonight, like Tuesday night, I wonder if it really does any good and if there isn’t some more direct route to saving the world, one that doesn’t involve so many cops and so much violence.  That part just ain’t me.  It ain’t me you’re looking for, babe.

I’m so tired that my eyes are closing as I write this, but I don’t want to sleep just yet, because every time I close my eyes, a flash of vision — a line of riot cops — appears behind my lids, almost as if written there.  It isn’t every the same line of cops, and I don’t think about it before it happens too much.  They just appear, trapped in my head somehow.  It’s been happening all day and part of the day yesterday, as well — I close my eyes and there they are, unbidden, demanding something of me.  I’m not sure what — I’m simply sure that’s I’d rather NOT pay the devils too much attention or give up too much of my energy to them, and still here they are with every blink or longer, They live behind my eyelids now, constantly a force in my life.

Think I may need a auric brush down where I get home. 

Alright, I’m done now.  Good night, blessings, lotsa love.
Riyana

Theater of the Possible

Ah, turkey bacon.  It's a lovely way to start your day.  Especially when it's accompanied by eggs, pancakes, grits, fresh fruit, and orange juice. 

Lest you believe we out here in Pittsburgh are shivering in the cold, hungry and calling with shrill voices to uncaring ears, let me tell you a bit about my day.

We overslept our 8 AM breakfast call, and those of us sleeping at the house on Monroe ended up tumbling out of our tents sometime after that and into the cars, arriving at the other house (we Cluster folks are divided into two houses here in Pitts, which has not been easy.  So much better when you're all clumped together in one place, but alas, that is not to be).  Once we got there, late as we were, it was a beautiful sight.  A whole spread, put together by four early-rising pagan folks, was laid out before us.  An embarrassment of riches, a wealth of food.  It was nice to stuff my little belly and have a slow, chatty morning. 

Our first order of business was in-house work: to process our group communication agreements and power dynamics.  Oy, vey.  We must.  We simply must, but its hard -- hard to look at those shadow parts of ourselves, and hard to look at those of the people that we love.  About half way through the meeting, the person who was facilitating asked to step back and allow someone else to step up, and after an awkward pause, two fellas in the cluster slowly came forth to volunteer.  Each of them had already taken a turn facilitating a meting this week, and some of those present asked that we have a woman facilitate instead.  I knew I should step forward, but my own shadow was beginning to act up, telling me that there were many experienced facilitators in the room who were better equipped to tackle it. 

A couple more awkward moments passed, with some Cluster folks begging off, saying they were too emotionally close to the subject at hand.  Finally, the woman who had been turned to me and, under her breath, said, "Riyana... Please."  It was enough to get me past my shadow's sulky whispers and step up.  And, actually, facilitating had a really positive effect for me -- it allowed me to be present and contribute in a way that was much more satisfying then simply listening and witnessing.  So I was happy to have been pushed that way.  In fact, later, when we were going around each taking a turn saying what our needs from the group was, I realized that one of my biggest needs from a group is to be pushed past my comfort zone into my growing edge, which being with the Pagan Cluster in the streets does in ways that being in those places that I usually contribute energy (at home, or in the bay area ritual planning cell, or at witchcamp) simply does not.  It's powerful, every day, even simply being in meetings.

But luckily, it wasn't all just meetings, anyway -- although I did have a conference call about a completely unrelated topic with completely unrelated people later in the afternoon, in the pouring rain at the CMU campus, which was probably the most difficult thing I did all day, including those times we were surrounded by riot cops.  It wasn't a difficult call, but one of the amazing things that has at these actions is that (like witchcamp) the world outside seems to recede, or, more accurately, my senses, physical and intuitive, sharpen so much that the diffuse world of little tasks and conference calls and e-mail is harder to find or maintain interest in for very long. 

That afternoon we headed back out into the streets again.  Apparently someone had publicized a rally at Steel Park -- a place steeped in the rich labor movement history of Pittsburgh -- but hadn't planned anything to do there.  Fabulous!  We of the Pagan Cluster were happy to bring it on, then.  As yesterday there had been a strong police presence at Steel Park, we made our plans flexible... After all, most of us are invested in not getting arrested, and furthermore, it was raining and we didn't know if we'd get the Pagan Cluster + 4 or 100 people. 

It turned out to be somewhere in between: perhaps 40 or 50 people, a couple carrying banners of their own and many more picking up the extras we'd brought, with images of earth wind sea and fire and words like "change," "power," and "sustainability" on them.  We gathered at the park and Deborah, a wonderful woman from North Carolina, began hawking at the motley crowd gathered, preparing them for the greatest show on earth -- not, as you might expect, the G20 (wink) but the Pagan Cluster's awesome climate change skit.  For my part, I was excited about the hat I'd created from an idea that Esse gave me before we left California -- a birdcage with a dead canary inside.  It was awesome (pics when we get home, I promise), and was attracting a lot of media attention.  Last year, in St. Paul, Jason's bright pink shirt stole the show, so it was nice to be able to catch up this year (and without the pain and trauma, too... Which if you don't know about, I'm not going into now... You'll just have to reread Starhawk's posts from last year on her webpage). 

Deborah, in a spiffy purple hat of her own, began a beautiful monologue about opening up the discussion about climate change beyond the false solutions of green jobs and cap-and-trade carbon credits.  "We can't just change the lightbulbs; we need to change our lives."  From there, a song bubbled up and out, "We are rising up, like a phoenix from the fire, brothers and sisters, spread your wings and fly higher."  Indeed, it was true.  After all of the stalled, frazzled energy of the last couple of days, it felt good to be doing our thing unencumbered and free.  We marched down the Boulevard of the Allies and down to the headquarters of PNC Bank, a major investor in "Clean Coal" here in Pennsylvania, and then to Point State Park where Al Gore's big concert was. 

It was so amazing.  The media that we had attracted at Steel Park followed us down (okay, some cops did too, but they were relatively chill) and much more gathered as we began our full skit.  Deborah shone, as did my hat, talking about learning to be in right relation with coal and the other resources of the earth (that is, Deborah did.  My hat is mostly non-verbal).  After a while, some other pagan cluster folks came "on-stage" dressed up all corporate and suit-y, espousing the benefits of clean coal and safe nuclear power and corporate solutions to climate change, and were quickly "sequestered" by other members of the cluster and "composted" by throwing a tarp over them.  They were reborn as all of the good solutions we dream of for the world: alternative energies, community gardens, bike lanes, etc.  We finished up by creating a coal altar, complete with canary hat, and the crowd called out the visions they have for the world and we sang the coal song all together: "Take me down to the coal, take me down, where the earth is whole.  Take me down in your embrace, where I can see your ancient face."

It felt good to priestess the altar, to talk about having a different relationship with coal, who could be a great teacher to us all -- almost all of the coal on this planet was created during another period of mass extinction in our history, and it was in fact the sequestering of all of that carbon underground that made it possible for life on earth to continue.  It has seen the entire evolution of the human species.  It is literally the bones of our ancestors.  When we are in wrong relation to it, terrible atrocities occur that end up causing long term damage to our own bodies and the earth mother.  But in right relationship we could learn so much -- perhaps, if we listened, we would hear the answers we so desperately need right now.  So, the altar was about that listening, and about changing our relationship to time and the earth and abundance.  Preceded by a funny skit and followed by a snazzy skit, and with no cop interference at all.  Fabulous!

As I write this back at Anne's house, happy that the last two members (Aaron and Mary) of the Pagan Cluster have finally arrived, Delylah has just come home from the Spokescouncil meeting.  She is apparently not too impressed with the G20 Resistance organizers, who many of us have had some ambivalence about organizing with for quite some time.  They're the ones planning the big direct action events Thursday and Friday, and have for some reason decided that the "diversity of tactics" model of the RNC Welcoming Committee is a good way to go.  The messaging for these actions, likewise, has leans more towards images of war and destroying than the life-affirming visions that we are drawn to. 

A "Diversity of Tactics," in its essence, is a way of saying that you can break things as long as you don't do it close enough to those of us who aren't breaking things to endanger our non-violent, non-property-destruction, actions.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to really work that way.  The police don't actually watch a bunch of people break windows and rush off after those folks with tear gas and pepper spray, leaving the rest of us quietly sitting with our candles and prayers in peace in the street.  They simply attack, not distinguishing between those who chose to avail themselves of stones and bricks and those who sit in silent vigil, and who may not only be uninterested in any sort of violence (giving or receiving) may also be unprepared physically to run from or be in confrontation with the police. 

Earlier today the Pittsburgh police clearly outlined their methods of dealing with protestors: an "escalation of methods," they have stated through the media, beginning with pushing with batons, then whacking with batons, then pepper spray, then tazers.  So, good news, no tear gas.  Bad news, tazers.  I hate tazers, hate their very existence and especially their use on unarmed, peaceful people.  And I don't trust that the cops are going to methodically go through various "gentler" methods of controlling crowds before getting jiggy with the electricity and chemical warfare.  Our group is committed to staying "green," meaning, getting out of any area that seems to be getting hot long before any of these kinds of tactics are used.  But, then again, Jason and I were simply standing in a cross-walk last year when all the madness went down, so you simply never know.  As Rain said, "What about going for an escalation of intelligence, instead?"

As for myself, I'm not interested in putting on a helmet and football pads and throwing myself at a bunch of cops.  In fact, one of the thing that bugs me about all these protests is how much focus there is on cops.  I don't care about cops.  I don't need to educate them, to help them see the errors of their ways, to push against them as agents of the machine, or anything like that.  I'm interested in the people -- in the parking garage attendant I spoke with today, the nice manager at McDonalds that let us use her "customers only" bathroom even though we refused to buy anything there, the driver of the French ambassadors who told me about taking his clients to the local strip clubs and being paid per customer by the club itself for doing so, and the local labor union organizer who told me a story about doing an anti-war action in the sixties that started like this: "So, there were four or five of us all dressed up like the Viet Cong, with masks over our faces, and we went into a local government office and were running all over the place with these toy assault rifles... Well, obviously the cops eventually caught us, so they threw us in the back of this van and took us down to jail..."

Toy assault rifles.  In a government building.  Running all over the place.  Can you imagine what would happen if we tried something like that today?  We can't even find a place to park a bus. 

Anyway, it was a good day that ended with chocolate torte out on the balcony, people chatting idly about gender and power dynamics yet again and recounting tales of protests long past and what they'd heard on the news about the security zones tomorrow and the Greenpeace Banner Drop that ended in 14 arrests.  Now Aaron (from Teen Earth Magic fame) is here, talking about how different progressive groups are treated by the public and government -- the street protesters, the student co-eds flash-mobs, the Al Gore concert-goers, the Labor Unions.  All of us a motley crew, but in a hierarchy of respectability and marginalization... Seems like an interesting topic to pursue before cuddling up on the thermarest with Scarecrow, who's already turned away from all of the blah-blah-blah and turned in.  On second thought, maybe I'll skip the marginalization of protestors chat.  After all, there's always tomorrow, and getting my cuddle on seems a little more appealing at the moment.

Until then!

PS - I reread yesterday's post and was horrified at the amount of typos in it.  Please forgive my sleepy, stressed out little brain and its inability to conform to proper English standards at times like these.  I'm usually quite put together and capable in that regard.

Tuesday in Pittsburgh

I'm here in Anne’s house in Pittsburgh, a packed and messy little place just outside of a nice café-kinda neighborhood.  It’s been an up-and-down kind of day.  Ever since we’ve gotten here to Pittsburgh, and for several weeks leading up to this week, the City has been involved in an amazingly effective campaign of denying permits, changing their minds on decisions and permits given, and routine police harassment that has hindered and hacked away at the infrastructure of our organizing.  It feels disorganized here, disjointed, even among the pagan cluster that I love so much there are fine lines of fracture in our communicating and planning.  The Three Rivers Climate Change Group, who created the beautiful messaging and posters that inspired me to come out here, seems to have surrendered after their belongings were taken by the police in the middle of the night from the park they’d been granted by the City.

And Seeds of Peace... Wow... Seeds of Peace.  It’s a saga.  Since they arrived in town last week, there bus was impounded for a minor parking violation, released, moved to a location on private property where it was later swarmed by police who eventually bullied the elderly man who owned the land to ask them to leave.  One woman, who FAWCers know as Thea, was jailed for giving her nickname instead of her legal name when asked by an officer, and held in jail for five days for her egregious crime.  On their way to their next location (also on private property), they were pulled over by the police and surrounded by twenty-some police vehicles, held for hours, and then told that could not move their bus without a special license and yet had to move it from where it was.  Miraculously, the Seeds people managed to find a local Pittsburghian with the special license to move their bus, only to soon be thrown out of that location by the owner who had been bullied by the police who claimed that neighbors were complaining about being scared because of all the commotion — meaning, the police activity of the day before.   Finally, the ACLU decided to take action and file an injunction against the police to attempt to keep them from being able to use these kinds of harassment scare-tactics on us.  

We decided to head out that morning to go to court to hear about the injunction and support Seeds, but before that, it was time to get out and mix it up a little bit.  We woke up and went out into the streets for the first time, carrying banners and making altars to coal out in front of the places that the participants of the International Coal Conference were meeting at, singing songs, chanting.  Much of the time it was fairly mellow, almost like a family get together of activists in the streets, because the ICC participants really didn’t care much that we were there and the cops didn’t, either.   And maybe it wasn’t about the ICC participants, or the cops, anyway.  Maybe it was really to be working the kind of magic that happens in the streets... The magic of community/tribe working for earth healing.   You can see a little video of it here.

Anyway, all was fine until we entered the fortress.  Now, I hadn’t gone on any of the scouting missions, so when I heard about this idea of a fortress in the middle of the City of Pittsburgh, I’ll admit it, I kind of thought people were exaggerating.  Until I went there.

This picture, as cool as it is, does not do it justice, because it doesn’t show you that the spire of black plate glass stretching tall and foreboding into the sky is simply one of five or six buildings made of black plate glass surrounding a small plaza, just like a castle of some evil king in a post-apocalyptic fantasy movie of some sort.  The whole thing reeks of dark concentrated power, of death.  It’s one of the most frightening places I’ve ever been, in terms of its appearance and architecture. 

So of course, we had to go there to do a ritual — right into the belly of the beast.  We walked over to the plaza, circled up, and lay our altar on the ground.  And that’s about all we had time to do, for in seconds, there were fifty cops in riot gear there, their energy bristled and hot, ready for battle.  It was intense.  Clearly, the PPG fortress is one place they will not allow us to protest at, which is ironic, because although it felt personally meaningful to be there it really wasn’t a place where we’d get much participation or witness from folks on the street.  We flowed away through a sliver of sidewalk winding its way through the far end of the fortress walls, the cops’ shouts ringing in our ears.  I didn’t want to feel like I was running away with my tail between my legs, and I also really didn’t want to encounter some sort of violent episode, and was especially keen not to get arrested — especially so early in the week.  So I let myself be pulled away by the flow of people leaving the strange castle of glass into the dirty downtown streets, moved out and away. 

Besides, it was time to go to court.  Court is a hard place to be.  The whole time we were there, the bailiff, who literally looked like an English Bulldog with an upside-down u for a mouth, stared at us with hostility clear in his eyes.  The judge looked bored enough to be asleep, which he probably was, having already made his decision to ignore our request for help before we’d ever stepped foot into the room.  Next to me sat a red-haired Seeds woman and her partner, both young, perhaps young enough to be at Teen Earth Magic.  I kept peeking over at her as the witnesses recounted their stories about the cops coming in the middle of the night with weapons and no warrants, moving the bus again and again, being stopped and searched without probable cause, the whole thing.  I wanted to take her into my arms, to protect her, which I can’t do.  I can’t do it because I’m not able to protect her or anybody else, and also because she has made this choice just as I have, and I have to respect her and everyone else who here’s decisions to do what is best for them.  But I can’t help wanting to, just the same.

The judge ruled against us, as we knew he would, saying that although there may have been violations of constitutional rights in the past couple of days, it wasn’t up to him to worry about that.  His worry was about whether or not the police’s actions were causing “irreparable harm,” which apparently the City’s harassment and willful attack on our organizing is not (this isn’t, however, quite as impressive as his last ruling, which was that the advance of modern technology gives activists other ways to speak publicly and, therefore, restricting their proximity to the summit won't violate the First Amendment right to protest...meaning, we can email and blog-o-sphere our hearts out about the g-20, so who cares whether or not we can get within three miles of the place where the actual representatives — those who make decisions -- are?).   As we walked out of the court room, literally as we walked out of the room and had not yet even gotten to the hallway, we received a phone call from the folks at the Seeds of Peace busses.  The cops were now at their third location (a church), demanding to speak to the property owner and asking about dog tags and some such things.  They had obviously been waiting for a call from their own people telling them that the judge had denied the injunction.

Luckily, the Seeds people and church pastor managed to get the police of off their backs for a bit, which was lucky not only for them but for me... I was getting quite hungry, and after all, these are our food people.  In spite of all of the madness, they had lunch waiting for us at Point State Park when we got there.  Feeling a bit tired of court and cops and all of that, we sat down on the rainy-moist grass and ate lunch with the Code Pink folks, and then went our separate ways for a little while before meeting up again for dinner. 

I hate to say that they are winning, and of course there are many ways in which they are not — the magic, the community building, the experiences I’m having that can’t be taken away.  But there is a way in which they are.  The people who want to come here to protest have had their food threatened, their sleeping spaces revoked and denied, their physical and emotional health attacked.  Even during some of my fun moments I find myself wondering what I’m doing out here.  I want to do good work.  I want to help bring in the Great Turning.  I’m not sure if anything we do here actually matters — but I also don’t know what else to do, so I’m here.   All I can do in this moment, so late in the East-Coast time zone, which I am NOT used to, is give it up to prayer and faith and see what happens in the coming days.  I can feel, in spite of all of this, a glimmer of hope for the days ahead.  I don’t even know what exactly to hope for — I just sense the turning of the tide.  Guess that’ll have to be enough for now.