Events
- Free Cascadia Witchcamp
- 8 Jul 2012, northwest US
- Dandelion Gathering
- 1 Aug 2012, Molalla, Oregon
- evening talk
- 6 Aug 2012, Tacoma
- Earth Activist Training
- 11 Aug 2012, Vancouver Island, British Columbia
- The Empowerment Manual
- 11 Sep 2012, Los Gatos, California
- West Coast Women's Permaculture Gathering
- 20 Sep 2012, near Ashland, Oregon
- Unitarian Universalist "Association Sunday"
- 17 Nov 2012, Central Pennsylvania
- Winter Dreams
- 9 Dec 2012, Los Angeles
- Free Cascadia Witchcamp
See Also
Categories
- Bayview Hunters Point
- books and writing
- climate change
- collaborative groups
- death
- earth-based spirituality
- ecovillages
- Fifth Sacred thing movie
- Food and recipes
- gardens
- Gaza
- Goddess
- kids
- life on the ranch
- life passages
- magical activism
- Occupy movement
- Paganism/earth-based spirituality
- permaculture
- political activism
- Prison
- social justice
- solar technology
- sustainability
- Uncategorized
- US Social Forum
Category Archives: social justice
Emerald City–Some Milestones
Our Emerald City Green Entrepreneurs Training is going strong—here’s some highlights of our first three weeks.
Emerald City–Starting a Green Entrepreneurs Program in Bayview Hunters Point
We are finally starting our new Emerald City Green Entrepreneurs Program—a collaboration between Earth Activist Training, our program that combines permaculture, spirit and activism, and Hunters Point Family, which runs programs for youth and young adults in Bayview Hunters Point, the San Francisco neighborhood with the highest rates of poverty, crime and violence...In the afternoon, we have our first real hands-on project, starting seeds and making soil mix. And they all dive into the work—once we hand out gloves! Actually putting your hands into the dirt will be another long-term learning process. I find it enormously sweet to watch these big, burly guys so seriously and delicately planting the tiny seeds of collards.
An Open Letter to the Occupy Movement: Why We Need Agreements
The framework that might best serve the Occupy movement is one of strategic nonviolent direct action. Within that framework, Occupy groups would make clear agreements about which tactics to use for a given action. This frame is strategic—it makes no moral judgments about whether or not violence is ever appropriate, it does not demand we commit ourselves to a lifetime of Gandhian pacifism, but it says, ‘This is how we agree to act together at this time.’ It is active, not passive. It seeks to create a dilemma for the opposition, and to dramatize the difference between our values and theirs.
Also posted in Occupy movement, political activism Tagged #Occupy San Francisco, diversity of tactics, nonviolence, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Wall Street 28 Comments
Occupy Oakland
Yesterday Paradox and I went down to #Occupy Oakland—really inspiring! It’s like a small village in front of City Hall, with tents crammed together, a big kitchen, a media tent, a library and Free School, a long list of meetings for each day, a calendar for the week—really a model of how these things might go.
The Truth About Lisa Fithian
What do you do when a friend is slimed by Fox News? If you respond, do you simply feed the venom? But if you don’t respond, do their lies stand, unchallenged? Or is it a badge of honor to be called out by Fox, however nasty it feels?
Also posted in Uncategorized, political activism 10 Comments
Short Consensus Summary
All over the country, people are flocking to the streets to join occupations demanding a just system for the 99%. It’s an inspiring vision: thousands of people participating in direct democracy, making decisions, having their voices heard. And it’s a potential nightmare—thousands of ordinary Americans being subjected to really bad, ponderous consensus meetings, fleeing in frustration and anguish and ready to accept any tyranny over the prospect of more long meetings!
Consensus process can be wonderful—or terrible. At it’s best, it can be empowering, creative and efficient. But for that to happen, people need to understand and agree upon the process.
Also posted in political activism 13 Comments
My Day–The Short List
Something is happening. Occupations are springing up all over the place. One of the young women organizers told me she’d passed on my consensus download to someone about to start Occupy Mississippi! There are union folks here from Wisconsin, displaced stockbrokers from New York, laid off policy wonks from here in DC, affable former corporate managers from Texas, ex-cons from the ‘hood here in DC, a lot of homeless people, and students who’ve woken up to the fact that they are debt-slaves. What will happen if ordinary folks all over the country get addicted to having a say in the decisions that affect their lives?
Also posted in Uncategorized, climate change, political activism Tagged OccupyDC, October2011 7 Comments
Freedom Plaza–The First Day
With so many people new to consensus process, the meetings are sometimes ponderous—and yet there's an archetypal quality to it all, people sitting under a tree debating and discussing and coming to decisions together in a process designed to assure that everyone has a voice. I think we crave that experience, somewhere deep in the soul. It is exactly what democracy looks like, and right now it seems that all over the world people are hearing the call.
Also posted in Paganism/earth-based spirituality, political activism 4 Comments
On the Murders in Norway: The Need for a Multicultural Vision
“Western culture” itself is multicultural. Breivik blew up his buildings with explosives invented in China. He counted his dead in Arabic numerals.
The media is full of strident voices telling us greed and prejudice and self-righteous, self-justifying bile are not only okay, they’re patriotic! Breivik’s horrific murders were a clear message about where that thinking leads—to the death of innocents.
We need strong voices now to raise up a powerful countercry, to say that all of us have value, that we’re here on earth to take care of one another, to proclaim that every difference of background and culture and perspective is a gift. We need a vision of how we might live in such a world—for if we can’t imagine it, how can we create it?
Also posted in Fifth Sacred thing movie Tagged Breivik, multiculturalism, Norway killings, terrorism 7 Comments
Venus Transit and Recall Elections