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Permalink Reply by Mushin on July 2, 2012 at 12:47pm

Good Morning!

I appreciated the voice of the women who articulated the possibility of "submissive or marginalized" voices having the community space, platform, structure and attention of listen deeply to other's "divergent views" especially disruptors, rebels, wounded people confronting authority in the cultural power in patriarchy.  What I see arising in this forum is the basic agreement between one another committing to learn and praxis appreciative inquiry and dialog.  Authentic vulnerable meaningful breakthrough conversations happen in a network in a dignified presencing of new courageous "authors" of a way of seeing and being in living realization.  I invite us to consider that we need to come from a state of compassion, openness not for what we know rather what in this moment needs to breakdown the swept along mental structure. Every narrative is 'a' "autopoietic inner author" offering an explanation, experience of reality or truth.  Every human being is seeing 'a story' and the real deep possible possibility is revealing to one another a new partnership arising, in a victorious solidarity of inner authority operating in natural law in love = my definition of love is in the presence of 'another' having legitimacy~in~coexistence as an ethical living act in designing a co-creative trans~formational community together. My vision is a very old one at the root of all our ancestral wisdom continuum "May all being be happy.  May all beings be loved and well fed.  May all beings awaken to find there way in community."

Latter Mushin

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Permalink Reply by Mushin on July 2, 2012 at 7:22pm

Mushin's Notes Sunday July 1^st 2012 National Gathering Café Conversation:

First Round: BREAKDOWN ~ Collapsing Domain Of Appreciative Conversations

a Great Learning Experience in Appreciative Inquiry and Dialog in the Cafe

Started with 1^st an elder very enthusiastic about the global café conversation as a world citizen.

Gary Davis (Vermont), a 90 year old WWII Veteran, who endorsed the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1953 as the 1st World Citizen (1948 UN Declaration was Inspired by the voice of Eleanor Roosevelt).  Gary shared that we are one biological world, birthed from the same womb, and upon birth children today "Occupy the Globe Earth and are Members of Humanity as World Citizens."  Beautiful voice of an elder who also offered that we (humanity) are on the verge of WWIII within seconds and without solidarity in human commitment we are in deep trouble.  I missed the opportunity of getting to know more about him and learn from him.  I request contact info if available and want to join his cadre of “World Citizens.”

Breakdown Occurred  

Rachel launched into a feminist epistle like a volcanic explosion and literally no one could interrupt or break her demand for immediate action and a change of venue regarding the leadership of "Occupy Cafe Call" in progress. A woman needs to be appointed to co-anchor "Occupy Cafe" starting right now!  

I offer the following as an invitational analysis for learning together and designing rules for the road in appreciate conversations in the Café.  Let me start by saying “Breakdowns break the transparent taken for granted ways of seeing, being and listening in our concernful activities in living, and thereby offers us an opportunity to design future standard practices that addresses the breakdown in future agreed to consensual agreements.”   Bottom line “Breakdowns are Opportunities to Breakthrough and Design a Future World Together.”

1st Rachel dismissed the agreed to manner of introductions and the question offered regarding building relationships. I see that her breakdown has a valid point, yet it was collapsed in the wrong venue causing a breakdown in agreed to conditions of participating in the appreciative conversation. 

2nd, the content of her demand not only insulted Ben and Jitendra past attention, time and financial efforts in contributing and building the cafe relationships happening on the call, she was threatening in her tone and demeanor based in the power that her voice was central to the entire Occupy Movement. 

3^rd The pushing of her personal agenda as the primary issue to be addressed right now disregarded intentional meaningful appreciative process in listening occurring.  Everyone in the entire global conversation was collapsed into the demand and negated in the process.  Even if it is a crucial paramount issue (?) the methodology of screaming and demanding attention is not a structural praxis that will move the café forward in the future.  Because the pattern will be established that it is OK and appropriate to act in this manner by others who will adopt this manner and pattern with crucial important demands.

4th, Rachel actually characterized Mushin (me) as someone who needs to wake up and was living back in 1936. Wrong I am actually regressing much farther in reality, try 7,000 years into an indigenous understanding where dignity within interactive social relationships in the web of life happened in natural law as a standard praxis, feeling what is happening.  In modernity screaming, blaming, shaming and then slapping, hitting, biting and killing happens all starting with the “Teeth and Claws” in language between one another both male and female in a cultural dysfunctional tango dance of emoting.  I love women and men and they are as different as night and day in my honest assessment. 

I lost it and had enough and in my standard praxis I do not accept nor allow this behavior in human communications.  Period! What I mean to share, as an insight is this reflection, is being kind isn't being stupid, and allowing any power to disturb and choke you to death. I do not call people names nor do I run away if you have a divergent counter point of view in an appreciative conversation.  I listen and normally listen very deeply suspending all my thinking to feel into the revelation being shared.  I have listened and danced with enough bullshit in 61 years to choke a human being to death and I am done trying to swallow all of it in human communications.  I understand that is a stance as a human person not a new age conceptual ideology that necessarily requires explanations.  What I will never agree to again nor participate in, is a conversation where using some ideology, ism, myth, god or any other theoretical nonsense that justifies condemnation, injustice or disrespect to any person on earth.  

Since we are sharing quotes "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." MLK.  Injustice in my assessment starts with a declarative voice by someone and ends with innocent people getting silenced in marginalization, fear, shame and resentments that eventually end in homelessness, slavery, robotic activities, mental institutions, prisons, murdered or suicide. I promise that I will simply stop conversing, withdraw my attention, and leave the conversation behind like so many others who have already in this current occupy movement.

To have an appreciative conversation the fundamental foundational principle is appreciation for one another's authenticity and vulnerability.  Caring for that mood of acceptance is not Ben or Jitendra’s responsibility rather everyone entering the café.  Violating this manner of human dignity is a breach of trust and a breakdown in designing a future world together in a loving compassionate manner.   

I am not here to prove, protect or defend anything with anybody, and my mute button has been torn out of my throat.  Period!  I consider it a great honor to be in conversation with everyone in the café and do not consider myself above anyone else, and I expect the same manner of dignity in return in appreciative dialog.  

Furthermore, I am not interested in being hijacked into a private room to psychological processes with any individual who in my assessment has lost their attentiveness in a conversation causing a disruption.  Part of our commitment is the courage in building the capacity to be in authentic conversations and open to learn in a public space of discourse.  I am willing to be authentic and rigorous in conversational learning.  I also invite you to consider that I am also very fragile and wounded also; tired of bullshit and feel very deeply the pain of others throughout our world, especially marginalized voices; homeless, poor, unemployed, prisoners, sick and 4 billion indigenous people living on No Thing!

Rachel offered to be the voice of genderless equality by leading the "occupy cafe" starting right now. That is not just a possibility, comment or suggestion, rather a story she carried intentionally with herself, about her own passionate desire, that completely dismissed the "introductory domain of building relationship in an agreed upon dignified manner of conversation." Also, just to note I like being a man and like women being women, its juicy, complicated and miraculous all in experience and provides sacred beings that dislodge any notion of self importance or self absorption.  

Finally, I don't think fierceness in this occupy movement has even gotten started much less let's needs to be curbed by anyone or mute the collective indignation happening in our lives.  I own that I literally do not like people speaking over me, down at me, or blaming and shaming one another (whether male or female).  I do not watch Tv or listen to the radio any longer.  I suggest that comment sounds like a female and if wearing a dress and wig will bring world peace I am all in, yet, in my honest assessment its window dressing.  The real battle is ending these inner conflicts in the mental states of our mind and country we embody in the flesh of our bodies where we negate power, accountability and responsibility to what we are experiencing.  We settle for fear, terror and dualistic thinking that divides us on to many fine beautiful days. 

It was an emotional exchange and I own the firmness in my reaction as a learning experience, my indignation was specific to a broken agreed upon standard operating in the café for months, and the possibility I see now is breakthrough in an agreed upon standard for continual appreciative conversations increasing our capacity to embody and enact deep listening skills and attentiveness to specific domains of inquiry. In other words grow up and stop the food fight on the immature playground.

Ross Hansen who was overhearing the exchange here in Boulder, 21 years old, was inspired to get involved offering a wise response to the group and did so. "You want women in the cafe conversation go get them and bring them in. Stop blaming and shaming the process happening here."  My assessment in the harvesting round when the wheels really came off in the main room with my declaration that I am not going to participate in any conversation where a person has the right to monopolize or demand obedience in negating anyone.  My assessment as a human being is this is the major cause of "communication breakdowns" in any domain of human activity or conversation, and especially in appreciative inquiry is the "collapsing of the domain’s of conversation” that we are agreeing to speak and listen to together.  Getting emotional or speaking into domains of conversations with a mission in mind of getting something from others or everybody, rather, than being present in listening with others as allies not enemies is the work."  (((I witnessed that happen in today's conversation.))) 

I assess we missed an opportunity to have a spontaneous young person like Ross to be heard in real time and pure play within the "breakdown."  Who knows what the ripple effect on Ross for tomorrow’s conversation of authority, patriarchy and feminist epistemology could have been here in Boulder with 20 of his friends (male and female) joining the fray. He was ready to engage and organize a platform for change.   Yet, he experienced the same old pattern of marginalization due to age, never having the right of the mike, floor, or right to contribute and left discouraged.   And that is the "unintended consequences of communication breakdowns" in appreciative conversations.  People have more important things to do then to be in psychological processing within ontological arguments going nowhere other than death.  Ross may have been the one leader the movement is looking for?  Instead he has a characterization of the “occupy café’ process is a failure.  Instead of the intentional commitment we set out, to "co create as a transformation community" we showed up in a manner of behaviors unavailable, trying to put out a fire in the storms that are just beginning.

Ross wanted to offer this following statement: "As a 21 year old raised by very progressive women throughout my life, the women I know really bring it forward by self organizing and taking action in solidarity to their concerns and are respected. Living in a very progressive community of women and men in Boulder, I have seen women do amazing things, enlisting everyone’s participation, and do not blame and shame people in conversations to get things accomplished."

Round Two ~ Distinctions of "Reformers" and "Revolutionaries" 

The group asked for definitions of reformers and revolutions 
Mushin offered that "Reformers" are people who offer that the cultural structure, patterns and systems of western civilization can be reorganized and survive successfully in bringing forth a sustainable world together.  "Revolutionaries" are people who offer that the entire structural, patterns and systems needs to be destroyed and rebuilt on ‘a’ ideological point of view normally an ism of some sort.  Mushin offered a 3rd way naming it a "Generative Leadership Renaissance” that legitimizes both viewpoints in a 3^rd emergent possible possibility that uses the praxis of appreciate inquiry and dialog in formulating “foundational solutions” assuming a new role called ethical history makers committed to act in virtuous solidarity as global world citizens to permanent domains of human concerns we share.   WE have much more in the “Arising Commons” then any previous ideological view that has previously separated us.

(? Sorry missing Name of person) discussed the notion of Constitutional Convention taking place at the convention. 

Tashi “It’s useful to leave our ideologies at the door to open conversations for something to be accomplished as reformers and revolutions.’

Daniel ATUNE (?)  “Making assumptions in the first place is getting off in the wrong directions. Amen”

Anita Chicago “Everything that has happened today is the real struggle happening everywhere.  It’s one thing to leave ideologies at the door.  Rachel’s breakdown is she needs listened to and there needs to be a way for the needs of listening to get addressed privately.  Harvey Jackson offered the way is close personal friendship.  Part of the labor movement.  Old grey beard was asked how did you do it?  Individual friendships.”

Richard SF “Tackling Tenderloin Neighborhood of homeless, low income, unemployment, and demonstrating a renaissance on the ground in SF.”

Harvest Note:

“Eternal love for our children making us heroic fearless adventurers in designing a new world.”

Round Three ~  “Encampment Experiences in Occupy Movement”

Mushin~Richard~Rob~Havier~John and Magick latter on in Main Room 

Mushin shared that he was not a part of the Occupy Movement Encampments.  Offering he was ahead of the curve by learning to occupy the concerns and restorative justice issues of the Lakota people at Pine Ridge Reservation.  Offering the assessment that since 1492 and the “Discovery Doctrine of Papal Bulls” that created this economic disaster of human poverty.  In addition, claiming western civilization’s mental model is over and he’s committed to America’s Prison camp #334 to have the independent right to invent the world they want in the 7,000 year old social wisdom continuum as a people.

Richard in SF stepped up with the most passionate declarative enactive embodiment of a virtuous servant leader that was inspiring and grounded.  I let go of my pen at this point and feel in love with soulful presence serving the Tenderloin in San Francisco.  A place I know very well as well as Castro and Mission. 

Richard offered to “Structure ~ Organization ~ Plan” as the KEY to Occupy Movement and something occupiers resist and deny.  Listen to the pod cast to get inspired and contact him to get his entire ready at hand plan to generate the notion in every neighborhood.  Cell 415-871-7372 Email Richard(at)mtranslation.com 

 

Magick from SF showed up at the end of the call sharing she presented a speech to 10,000 people last October and there was an interesting exchange in the appreciation of indigenous peoples as well as a clarification in mutual agreement that every language and culture is like a snowflake with intrinsic value and beauty.  Beautiful exchange.

Check pod cast to get into real flowing inspiration and laughter! 

To contact Magick Email magick(at)magicktarot.com

This is more work than I expected.  Yet, The Occupy Movement is in it’s infancy and like my friend Wendell Fitzgerald shared a couple weeks ago in the Vital Conversation let’s “Occupy Earth.”  Well that sounds like fun not WWIII.  I submit appreciative conversations are beautiful always and gather the trust in each of us to be fully engaged and blessed in the narrative we are.  The ontological questions of who came first the egg, hen or rooster actually disappear in a new emergent unity in the heart of living in realization.  

My Personal Harvest Thus Far in the Gathering:

To Gary Davis WWII Pilot and First World Citizen, 90 years old “The Bull” also

Thank you for being you and I really look forward to the next appreciative conversation real soon!  I felt uplifted hearing your voice and confidence you uttered in wisdom. Ikce wichahe means just plan old Indians enjoying the common man’s experience sharing and being dependent upon the same humanity, as a gift in thanksgiving and gratefulness. Your sharing today is a beautiful expression for what I have learned in the Lakota wisdom continuum intersecting the biology of love in the distinction of being a "Homo sapiens amans."  It is an emergent work of art between a few of us.  I invite you to join our appreciative conversation.  I promise you that your presence will be appreciated and  honored by all of us!

I started a monograph on 3-7-2012 entitled "Homo sapiens amans ~ Autonomous Self Referential Observers"  Enclosed is a few paragraphs from a response to an invitation that inspired the writing.  

The question I am always left with is who are the egg, hen and rooster? 

Enjoy!

An invitation from a crew of cognitive explorers without map or compass already always residing in the emergent future; an implicit universal beauty explicitly sculpting itself into a nervous system in humanity and an enactive embodied realization in living together.

 

“We invite you to a reflection that may open a space to distinguish different domains of our own existence, in a ground of impeccable serious scientific reflections and observations about it, without losing our autonomy of reflection and action. In other words, we do not want to operate while becoming trapped by the seductive notions of a transcendental reality nor in the mire of absolute truth that arises when in our living, we treat what we distinguish as if it existed with independence of what we did when we distinguish it.” 

I imagine our humanness in our humanity belongs to one unified hoop in this cultural manner, one common deep dark heart felt sense of belonging to the earth as mud people, and one emergent loving experience as a humanity in the future, not two, nor separated in this modern ego~ology called western psychological archetypal fantasies that we have imagined as interpretations and explanations of a transcendental sacred self called “god.”  Now we have 7 billion pontificating popes in subjective relativism eating each other like cannibals.  I understand the metaphor breaks the appreciative intellectual conversational boundaries and it was an intentional break!

I get the cognitive science perspective as Francisco Verela said “You enter the brain through the eye, march up the optic nerve, round & round the cortex, looking behind every neuron & then before you know it, you emerge into daylight on the spike of a motor nerve impulse, scratching your head & wondering where the self is.”  What I find beautiful is the Emerge N SEE notion of being “virtual identities” capable of instantaneous change bringing forth maturity, wholeness and transcending the swept along historic cultural drift in objectivity; discourses, institutions and patterns demanding obedience and negating our independent freedom, self organization in positive/negative accountable feedback, and the art sculpting our autonomy in natural law. 

Like Humberto's experience when he first perceived his insight/paradigm shift as a biological scientist and thought maybe he was losing his mind exploring new landscapes as an observer and horizons in scientific explanations.  The same has occurred in my discovery and process of learning!  Only I can honestly report to have lost my mind, (not looking for it either), and I am beginning to live in this new EMERGE~N~SEE experience understanding that social relations has the capability of gathering human trust and harnessing a manner of appreciative conversations in cultural interactive breakdowns that literally disclose a new simplified trusted sustainable manner of dignity with one another that is radically different, than the drunken party happening in addictive consumptive suicidal behaviors based in power of epistemological discourses.  I see we as humanity are on the move and leaving past indoctrinated belief systems behind in ‘a’ liberation of self-knowledge in experience with one another.  

The shocking experience is disclosing a living Milky Way. We are icke wichache in Lakota, just plain old Indians with no power enjoying the presencing of interactions in Wolakota, a manner of human dignity embracing peace and friendship valuing social relations over the notion of power and self importance in living together.  

Please take a moment to view Jhon Goes In Center presentation  “The Lakota Paradigm” to get an insight of where we are coming from as a community of learning since 2008.  

I live on Pine Ridge Reservation and I am participating in  Maka Si Tomni Men's Oyate currently being designed by “Dallas Chief Eagle."  To give you an initial insight into our current work unfolding and concerns intersecting your notions, I offer an introduction into  Matrix~Cultural~Biology. This is going to be fun learning experience and history making activity not suffering in guilt and remorse ever again.  

The most amazing experience in this Lakota village (and maybe a key discovery to explore in the anxiety occurring in modernity’s cultural insanity) is death, is not feared, rather, celebrated in marvelous adornment in a community give~a~way and memorializing experience of humanness always providing a loving legacy.  The Lakota have no oral utterance for “good bye” or distinction for “animal” in conversations, rather always “latter.”  Life is a continuous never-ending story.  Another wonder is they have no profanity.  Recently I lost another very dear elder Lakota kola in my life and it brought to my attention how precious and priceless wise elder's are in the midst of us.  Taking any of them for granted is a mistake and death is a facticity in living we all come to sooner or latter.  What comes from the womb dies and what doesn’t come from the womb lives forever.  

Humberto Maturana in my assessment is a great person in our cultural history breaking through the prejudicial ignorance of cultural systemic power in discourses, institutions and standard practices focusing on our common experience of humanness; caring, feeding and nurturing our hearts. I have offered to others that a thousand years from now Einstein will be a footnote in the history of man in this emerging Noosphere, while Humberto's insights will still be generating meaningful insights, innovations and learning in new dimensions of reality expanding the creative generative intelligence in our autonomous reflections and effective actions as a household of humanity.   

I am a small insignificant part of an emergent new warrior society of learning called “Maka Si Tomni.”  We value Francisco's notion "a man of the highest virtue does not keep to virtue and that is why he has virtue. A man of the lowest virtue never strays from virtue and that is why he is without virtue." So this caravan of Lakota dreamers is a seed showing a fragile green shoot breaking through the soil, and accepts the fact that we have all broken our promises to love from time to time in ignorance, and yet we have never quit getting up to continue to listen for the sounds of when the saints come marching in singing the heart song “Biology of Love.”  (2 minute You Tube) 

I pray these utterances bring smiles, warmth, happiness to your hearth and blanket, inspiring laughter in our future endeavors; not frowns checking the many hoops we refuse to jump through to converse honestly. Introducing this troop of nameless wondering virtual troubadours is an enjoyable articulation in the dance among us as the path unfolds.  We have a repository of artistic scribbling and not too much interest in books because what we are seeing today is transformed almost in the next moment.  

As an emergent community of learning there is an interesting happening that Heinz von Forrester pointed to regarding the triadic relationships between the chicken, rooster and egg. They are functionally one unit needing one another to experience a shared reality of value.  

We wonder if there is a story here explaining the 2nd order creative collapsing opportunities to causation in the reductive objective explanations currently arising in cultural breakdowns and the experiencing of unsustainable emotional contradictory conditions and situations globally? 

That is a question we are caring, feeding and nourishing in appreciative conversations not necessarily answering.  We have no power, positions, titles or publications, and actually understand our position as “icke wichache.” As common ordinary men and women we submit there is need for self-importance while entering wondering in imagination is enough.  We assess self importance is the fundamental denial operating as the cognitive "observer error" in this swept along historic constellation of conversations of unsustainable chaos. Simultaneously we are happy to be authentic fools in the condition and situation as well in the asylum of insanity surrounding us.  Maybe the best metaphor is the old "King of Hearts"; we take no pleasure in war and human suffering, and appreciate being crazy enough to explore what we know we don't know as comical history makers of a new future.  

Note from Heinz von Forrester: 

"Humberto Maturana, the Chilean neurophysiologist, who a few years ago, fascinated us with his presentation on “Autopoiese”, the organization of living things. 

Here is Maturana’s proposition, which I shall now baptize “Humberto Maturana’s Theorem Number One”:  “Anything said is said by an observer.”

 

Should you at first glance be unable to sense the profundity that hides behind the simplicity of this proposition let me remind you of West Churchman’s admonition this afternoon: “You will be surprised how much can be said by a tautology”. This, of course, he said in utter defiance of the logician’s claim that a tautology says nothing. 

I would like to add to Maturana’s Theorem a corollary, which in all modesty, I shall call

“Heinz von Forrester’s Corollary Number One”: “Anything said is said to an observer.”

With these two propositions a nontrivial connection between three concepts has been established. 

First, that of an observer who is characterized by being able to make descriptions. This is because of Theorem 1. Of course what an observer says is a description. 

The second concept is that of language. Theorem 1 and Corollary 1 connect two observers through language. 

But, in turn, by this connection we have established the third concept I wish to consider this evening, namely that of society: the two observers constitute the elementary nucleus for a society. 

Let me repeat the three concepts that are in a triadic fashion connected to each other. They are: first, the observers; second, the language they use; and third, the society they form by the use of their language. This interrelationship can be compared, perhaps, with the interrelationship between the chicken, and the egg, and the rooster. You cannot say who was first and you cannot say who was last. You need all three in order to have all three. In order to appreciate what I am going to say it might be advantageous to keep this closed triadic relation in mind.

I have no doubts that you share with me the conviction that the central problems of today are societal. On the other hand, the gigantic problem-solving conceptual apparatus that evolved in our Western culture is counterproductive not only for solving but also essentially for perceiving social problems. One root for our cognitive blind spot that disables us to perceive social problems is the traditional explanatory paradigm which rests on two operations: One is causation, the other one deduction. It is interesting to note that something that cannot be explained—that is, for which we cannot show a cause or for which we do not have a reason—we do not wish to see. In other words, something that cannot be explained cannot be seen. This is driven home again and again by Don Juan, a Yaqui Indian, Carlos Castaneda’s mentor. 

It is quite clear that in his teaching efforts Don Juan wants to make a cognitive blind spot in Castaneda’s vision to be filled with new perceptions; he wants to make him “see”. This is doubly difficult, because of Castaneda’s dismissal of experiences as “illusions” for which he has no explanations on, the one hand, and because of a peculiar property of the logical structure of the phenomenon “blind spot” on the other hand; and this is that we do not perceive our blind spot by, for instance, seeing a black spot close to the center of our visual field: we do not see that we have a blind spot. In other words, we do not see that we do not see. This I will call a second order deficiency, and the only way to overcome such deficiencies is with therapies of second order. 

The popularity of Carlos Castaneda’s books suggests to me that his points are being understood: new paradigms emerge. I’m using the term “paradigm” in the sense of Thomas Kuhn who wants to indicate with this term a culture specific, or language specific, stereotype or model for linking descriptions semantically. As you may remember, Thomas Kuhn argues that there is a major change in paradigms when the one in vogue begins to fail, shows in-consistencies or contradictions.   

Let us design a new future together in the household of humanity, the earth, and care for the all the sacred beings of tomorrow!

Latter,

Mushin

 

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Permalink Reply by Mark E. Smith on July 3, 2012 at 4:11am

I warned about this sort of thing in my topic on the misuse of nonviolent communications:

http://www.occupycafe.org/forum/topics/how-to-respond-to-misuse-of-nvc

Suzanne said that the proper NVC procedure was to stop everything, ignore the planned schedule and agenda, deny everyone present the right to have the discussion they were promised, and just listen to anyone who disrupts for as long as they wish to be disruptive.

I wasn't part of the conversation and haven't listened to the podcast, but if Rachel's disruptiveness was as Mushin describes, then I think Kelly may have been mistaken in telling me that matriarchy wasn't a mirror image of patriarchy. Seeking power and making demands are exactly what patriarchy is about.

I disagree with Mushin about men being men and women being women. The words male and female refer to biological sex. People are born male, female, or intersex. Sex is a continuum, not a dichotomy. All fetuses start out identical and only begin to differentiate sexually later on in their development,. In other words, we are all basically the same. But even the sexual differentiation is not carved in stone. Give male hormones to a fetus that is developing as a female, and it will develop as a male. Give female hormones to a fetus that is developing as a male and it will develop as a female.

Once born and their genital status (sex) observed through observation or guessed at in the case of intersex infants, babies are assigned the patriarchal gender roles of a boy or a girl and trained to act out the patriarchal social gender roles of a man or a woman. Some feel comfortable with their gender role assignment and some do not. It is not natural or biological, it is learned. It is a role, such as actors perform in theatrical plays. Roles require appropriate names, costumes, mannerisms, ways of speaking, etc. Neither deities nor nature assign names, create costumes, or ordain mannerisms and language.

Some people are ambitious and power-hungry and some are not. This occurs in both sexes. Some people are thoughtful and some are not. This occurs in both sexes. Some people are appreciative and compassionate and some are not. This occurs in both sexes. Although the system, in this case patriarchy, may determine the norm for the gender roles, the exceptions prove that norms are not necessarily normal to any individual.

I have a dear friend who runs a website devoted to sewing machine repair. My friend, Donna, is an attorney, but found that repairing old sewing machines and giving them to people who could use them to improve their lives, was a stress-relieving and satisfying hobby. In order to keep the website useful for other people who want to learn how to repair old sewing machines, Donna bans anyone who is disruptive. Donna happens to be a free speech advocate, but will not allow people to create stress on a website dedicated to relieving stress. Donna created that website and put a lot of effort into it, so nobody has the right to disrupt it. I think that as much as it might go against their nonviolent, compassionate, and appreciative convictions, Ben and Jitendra should consider doing the same.

People who wish to discuss topics other than the one scheduled at a particular time and place, are free to designate other times and places for their discussions.

I have pointed out many times that being female and conforming to the gender role of a woman does not necessarily make a person nonviolent, empathic, compassionate, or appreciative. Margaret Thatcher, Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, and many more are examples of women who outdid most men in being war criminals. I firmly believe that all humans should be judged on the basis of their actions, not on the basis of their private parts.

I am vehemently opposed to somebody being appointed to co-anchor Occupy Cafe on the basis of sex rather than on the basis of their nonviolent, empathic, compassionate and appreciative leadership skills. I've never seen or heard of Ben or Jitendra raising their voice or exerting authority over anyone--not even with those who are most disruptive and insulting. They don't make demands and they try to accommodate everyone. I am not as enlightened as they are, and I will not tolerate anyone abusing them or their hospitality. Nobody is forced to be here and nobody is forced to stay here. I don't care if a person is male or female, if they are demanding, intolerant, disruptive, and unappreciative, they are incapable of constructively contributing to the Occupy Cafe community and need to get over themselves.

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Permalink Reply by Mushin on July 3, 2012 at 10:07am

Mark,

First of all I offered my notes and reflections as an authentic vulnerable appreciative process in the conversation, sharing personal experience, taking responsibility for my trigger, and committing in the appreciative discourse to shift the right and wrong, blame and shame game that goes on in political discourse and all human domains of permanent human concerns.  

What I offered is "a" observer's report of the emotional experience navigating with "ontological communication tools in communicative competency" as a learner not a teacher and never a politician.  My main concern as a participant in the Cafe is to have mutual agreement long term among participants based on a strategy of yesterday, today and tomorrow where we commit to what "WE" are bringing forth in appreciate conversations and the foundational agreement of the cafe being a social relationship not educational, political, ideological, spiritual, or commercial.  

I imagine a place where every "Homo sapiens amans" forever is welcomed to enter, heard and invited to join "APPRECIATIVE CONVERSATIONS."  Appreciation is love enacting reflection in the momentariness with another in a shared humanness.  We are all learning to transform wounds of the heart.

Let be specific about what i am uttering in that declarative envisioning notion.  Homo sapiens amans are biological wise~sing up social loving animals not gods based in either arrogance or aggression.  I am speaking about realization~in~living transcending situational conditioning in maturity, wholeness and an awakened grounded praxis where the experience of social relations trumps completely and forever the passionate desires for power (competition, exclusion or appropriation) of another.  I imagine a cafe that has self organized boundaries, definition and natural covenants of behaviors capable of taking effective actions in solidarity with the arrested adolescent immature playground behaviors in human communications.  Arrogant and aggressive people need to hear "STOP IT" and if you can't "Stop It" go to another Cafe because in OUR CAFE human dignity, social justice and economic generosity in the spirit of give-a-way to something much larger is what we stand for.  And that literally means people like Russ Limbaugh, George Bush and Glen Beck can get there coffee and donuts at Fox News. We are inventing a new communication channel in the world of real authentic human live speech acts not dead worn out bullshit!  

We can not solve the problem in American political conversations on the level of power arrayed against authentic appreciative discourse.  We are living in a western mental structure o power that has hit a brick wall and is ending as we speak.  Homo sapiens amans like Eleanor Roosevelt's "UN Declaration of Human Rights" offered a solution that incorporated the highest ethical principles in our humanness regardless of are gender, race, ethnicity, politics, religion, education, or monetary position.  She declared a "right to belong to humanity on earth as a proprietor" and the agreed declaration is to love = in the presence of another human being to exercise an ethical foundation in presence treating the other as a legitimate in coexistence, regardless of ideological indoctrinated cultural historic belief systems in the swept along drift of human behaviors.  

Amazing notion and praxis that is still in its infancy and worthy of our attention that draws us into what we share in the "arising commons in this emerge~n~see cafe experience" not the historic nightmare in man's inhumanity to man that stimulates "division, distrust, confusion and makes us all suffer on too many fine beautiful days."  

Second I have tremendous appreciation for Rachel's presence and the gifts received thus far in the cafe appreciative inquiry and dialog through this breakdown.  It was really right on and needed. We do not need laws, rules or protocols in our cafe experience to co-create a trans~formative community.  What we do want is "liberation in appreciation for our own marginalization, self hatred, deceptive self importance, and fixated self absorptions" as "identities" wearing permanent "labels" that are wrongheaded.  Appreciative conversations feel good emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually because heart felt appreciation (love) breaks down/open the "fixated cultural matrix" into an instantaneous deeper experience of "U" as a presence liberated in a new spectacular "UNITY" beyond thoughts, words or deeds.  

I imagine a whole new play ground emerging in our central nervous systems where we are gently walking  around in an inner mood/state of joyful concern, trust, confidence, ambition, and surprising "divergent creative generous thinking."  Einstein is no longer a historic dead figure, rather, all sacred beings ever being born on this planet experience a far greater experience than his creative generative intelligence by experiencing a robust rigorous planetary Noosphere in human solidarity enacting embodied wisdom continually.  Why not?  

The only "thing" I see stopping us is fighting over what came first the chicken rooster or egg.  Who gives a shit, we want unity not descriptions of reality or truth, and arrogant aggressive people use ideological nonsensical bullshit as a weapon of control, power, and slavery in global discourses.  Instead of being confused about the description of the "elephant in the room" let's have fun and get the unity happening in the chicken, rooster and eggs. We were not created to suffer that is what we have chosen to do in what we say and do to one another.

Third I invite us to consider that virtuous authentic leaders of yesterday, (Krishna, Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, Mohamed, Confucious, Gandhi, John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and my favorite in post modern culture Crazy Horse were all born from the water of life in a mother's womb that taught them the meaning of caring, feeding and nurturing the human desire to love in appreciative reflection.  Richard's experience in the SF Tenderloin is a remarkable adventure and I am going to go visit him.  Recently, I have experienced in the Lakota Paradigm a praxis in an old ancestral wisdom continuum in a unit of our humanity that honors the elder blessing first so the activity in appreciative conversations serves everyone including the little ones bouncing around wearing feathers of adornment in beauty and dancing to drums. The distinction between in men and women is embedded in the oral language operating in a dignified social partnership not the greed for power over one another. Grandmother's will kill you if you violate the community standards. Like in a bee hive, when the bee hive is threatened they send out the old grandmothers to settle the confused aggression.     

The grand gift I heard on Sunday was Gary (maybe he is a grandmother as well as a grandfather?) a 90 year old WWII Veteran who declared since 1953 being the First World Citizen and honestly reporting the experience of being a pilot dropping bombs in a tragic confrontation with a "Hitler" who was arrogant and aggressive seeking world domination.  The real wounded warriors in this world are the men who have experienced the arrogant aggressive violence in war itself and discovered within themselves the heart wrenching utter failure of western civilization's notions of power to exclude and appropriate as a viable solution to the human conditional situation. It's easy today to kick America and see all the faults in the observer error of exceptionalism in the cultural fabric of a young nation and abusive coercive deceptive leadership of commercial powers.  We are communicating in virtual world because of our innovative entrepreneurial spirit.  Steven Jobs wasn't a corporate titan rathe a hippie who had different notion of how the computer could be a social rennaisance in human experience.  Today we listen to music instead of politicians. (As Daniel says Amen) 

Yet, there are men and women today that are creatively inspired and transformed by the authentic reflections of WWII men that are not sitting on the toilet bragging about patriotism and are just as concerned about the future as everyone else in this cafe.  The beauty of an elder is they know how precious and priceless every sunrise is and walking on the edge of the moment.  The wagon is coming to carry them to the next camp, and they have no thing to protect, defend or prove anymore, and want to give whatever they have away freely.  Sometimes and always they have a kernel of wisdom capable of inspiring a trans~formative community like ours based on living through depressions, world wars and economic predatory chaos today.  And in our march to innovate innovative innovations based in the observer error of consumption, entertainment and immediacy of egoic self importance, we have silenced wisdom in chaotic distrusted noise that is driving us crazy and killing the entire planet.

My prayer and invitation to the cafe as a standard praxis is at the beginning of an appreciative gathering is to ask the elder in the room to speak first and offer the blessing for the intentional appreciative inquiry and dialog about to take place.  Ben already has his mother Helen on board and she seems like a real rock star. Then let the food fight begin in arguing over the chicken, rooster and eggs OR the self absorbed fixations of interpreting and explaning the "elephant in the room."  We may be surprised at what begins to emerge in authentic vulnerable wisdom in the heart of "matter, things, objects, and material interpretations" we are stuck in at the moment.

Lastly, the reason I am so in love with Gary is he reminds me of my father "The Bull" who is also 90 years old and flew out of North Africa in Operation Torch in the beginning of WWII.  My father is my best friend and wisest person I know in the world.  He married a "Cadillac of a Women" who had five male pups and she ruled the rooster in the hen house for 61 years.  Now, at 61 years old, I am no bull and been married so many times I should be a chief. I am learning to release my self hatred of falling short in gender relations.  I have suffered in my attempt to find wholeness in another.  The deceptive notion was I needed a woman to be whole, when in fact, wholeness arrives in the communion and marriage of the anima and animus within the altar of the heart felt experience in my own humanness.  I asked The Bull recently what is the secret with woman and he said "You haven't figured that out yet, there the boss."  And when it comes to being a man, our mother's mean the world to us, and yes we give our lives to gather the food, care for the children and even die to protect the family of man.  

Mark I feel for you my brother.  The women give birth to all of us and they also teach us how to care, feed and love one another.  And gender is not some~thing to avoid it's a gift of being Homo sapiens amans and generating a new day in partnership, peace, wholeness and wonder of a future tomorrow.

Thanks

Mushin

 

Love (in the presence of another 

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Permalink Reply by Mark E. Smith on July 3, 2012 at 12:42pm

Mushin, when status and privilege are granted on the basis of skin color, it is called racism.

When status and privilege are granted on the basis of genitalia, it is called sexism.

There should be no status or privilege, there should be equality, dignity, and respect for all.

When you see people as a group, such as whites, Blacks, females, males, the young, the elderly, etc., you are prejudging people on the basis of stereotypes. There are many senior citizens who are selfish, childish, and ignorant. There are Black males who oppress females, and white females who oppress people of color. Knowing a person's age, sex, or skin color, tells you NOTHING about that person.

To think that it does is ignorance and bigotry.

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