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Oc·cu·py: 1. To fill up;  2. To dwell or reside in.   |    Heart:  1. Emotional constitution, basic disposition  2. Capacity for sympathy or generosity; compassion  3. Courage; resolution; fortitude  4. The most important or essential part

This Occupy Heart Cafe call dives into the heart and soul of this movement to explore the potential of aligning our inner experience with the principles and ideals we aspire to manifest in our outer world.  The intention of this call is to build a bridge between your inner process and effective actions and activity that serves the change you wish to see. 

This is a remarkable and historic time.  Humanity is on the cusp of a positive transformation so sweeping and profound, it will surpass even our dreams.  It may not feel that way as we look on the current triple bottom line; social justice, economic justice and environmental sustainability.  All are currently in severe compromise.

Now, imagine if you will, how compromised a caterpillar must feel as it dissolves in a pool of its own spit.  But then, we know how that story ends!  Transformation, it seems, always requires profound faith in an unpredictable, largely unseen and chaotic process.  If the process were predictable, we'd simply call it change.  Most agree, we are definitely in the midst of transformation.

We humans, unlike caterpillars, are not quite so instinctive or automatic in our metamorphosis.  As much as we require a great deal of faith in the overall process, we also require conscious engagement.  We have free will and the capacity to assess and make choices.  We can say, "No" or "Yes", resist or persist, choose love...or not.

HOW we do seems to matter at least as much as WHAT we do.

I've ignited conversation in Transforming Systems from the Inside Out on the principle that any system, no matter how brilliantly and virtuously conceived, will revert to the level of consciousness driving it.  Our own democratic system has been twisted into an almost unrecognizable form. Whereas fear, greed and hostility can drive any system, via self-interest, to the depths of depravity; likewise compassion and generosity can evolve a system, through conscious and deliberate action, to work for all by supporting human dignity, justice and sustainability with our planet.

Let's begin our exploration by considering the following:

What do you imagine might be the single most important inner transformation you could undergo, that could cause the greatest impact in the world?

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Jitendra,

Can't join the call but look forward to the harvest.

Tom (Atlee) in one of his early essay on Occupy ( at his postreous blog) added to the definition of Occupy :

 

"to take up stewardship for" (or something like that

 

and also "Commitment"

 

This is the transformational shift Occupy itself is challenged to undertake in planning its events, actions and strategies.

 

How we as "Occupiers" , many of us constructively and purposefully trying to transform anger,. grief and fear in our own communities to energized collective vision, hope and action would especially appreciate some guidance, specific practical guidance, on how to do that.  Occupy so far has sent a pulse out that has released an inner awareness of our rage, grief, fear; released  outward expression of those things. Now the work is transforming that anger, grief and rage into collective action.

More than half on my island have no food access other than their meager food stamps and our local food pantry; more than half on my island have no clothes other than what is donated through the "community clothes closet"; many have never had a mattress to sleep on.  And even these ( who don't consider themselves poor ( we don't use that word, that's just how people on the island live) are worse off because of rising fuel and oil prices and higher prices for all goods and services.

I just posted a blog this morning that 50% of America is now officially deemed at or below the poverty line.

This 50% of America is also 50% of the 99%.  How do we empower them energize them to action.  What can we frame for these fully disenfranchised 50% of us that we will occupy with them and for them? How can we earn their trust that we will stay there with them for the long haul, fully occupying what we seek to achieve together?

Yes...to everything, Lindsay.  How do we harvest and transmute our collective grief, anger, rage, shame and hopelessness into compassion, empowerment and dignity so that our actions can be effective and tranformative? 

What might this movement become as people, en mass, begin to understand how to digest and redirect, rather than project, all of these unruly emotions?  I think most agree it's not via Prozac and Ritalin-though it's fascinating to note how a huge segment of our society have had their emotional bodies neutered via these and other drugs, not discounting tobacco and alcohol)

How do we empower ourselves in the midst of what appear to be unassailable driving forces?

We might wait a long time before the people currently controlling economic policies decide to value human life more than the dollars and control they crave.  The good news in this scenario, is that we can choose to identify, acknowledge and embody our own intrinsic value and self worth right now.  We don't need to wait.

There's a level of ownership, we the people, are awakening to finally embrace.  We are choosing to recover our collective dignity and realize we can do what we need to do with each other.We can occupy our lives, our heart, our minds, our will and our astonishing infinite resource of creativity that can never by co-opted without our consent.

We humans seem to have a habit of hitting bottom and bouncing a few times before we get it. The beautiful thing about this narrative is that we then usually decide to do what it takes to change.   And when we decide, we're amazing—even miraculous.  I assert we're brewing a big pot of miraculous right now.

Good Morning Jitendra,

In your beautiful heart and a few other beautiful hearts there is a big pot of miraculous brewing.  Courage is acting in full awareness of the risks, acting when there are no guarantees.  The kind of courageous action we all need to undertake collectively as a miraculous swarm does involve risks..it requires a lot of work a lot of risk and no guarantees.  For people of faith and people of long spiritual practice..no biggie..spirit in action is courage in action in every moment, courage and compassion. Raw faith is the stuff of spirit in action. 

A crisis is often a shortcut to spirit in action  and we are definitely in a crisis.

If it is Occupy's mission to create an action of mass dignity that will reclaim dignity for all,  it has to stop feeding anger, fear, rage with its adbuster anarchist tactics that reveal its own brokeness..its own disconnection from the suffering this crisis has trapped so many in. Those tactics have reduced support for Occupy to 26% in the latest poll.

There is a moving on, an awakening but that work is being done by tried and true grass  roots, peaceful protest folk..for example the big voters rights deminstration of 26,000 in NYC this week. Credo and Move On are also doing excellent work..constructive work . 

The adbusters anarchic tactics may have been the spark that sent a pulse of awakening through the system but it has not shown itself to be  a force of rebuilding, recreating, regenerating a post corporaticrcy free wolrd.  This is not the face of a movement that is about restoring dignity for all.. This is not the face of a movement that is about compassion.

Most of those who are responding in local communities and taking on the Occupy name, like our local Occupy Blue Hill and Occupy Bangor are expressions of local culture speaking the language of the local people addressing what is right in front of them  in positive creative dignified and compassionate ways.  They know nothing about, and have no interest in, the adbusters anarchists strategy/ They don't see flash mobs and street theater as meaningful vehicles for change.  They are standing in solidarity with the disenfranchised, working with dignity to reclaim the dignity of all. 

Occupy could learn a lot about standing for dignity in dignity and compassion from these local movements who are using the name "Occupy" but are not at all connected with ad busters anarchists thinking and strategies.

I would also suggest the adbusters anarchists stop enouraging these kinds of tactics..They are possibly putting poeple using theOccupy name at risk not from their own dignified and compassionate actions but their association with a name that arises from anarchists values and tactics.  I am sure you noticed London Police have declared Occupy a terrorist organization.  Connect the dots with the crowd control stratgeies that have been used against Occupy..the swarm of police that turned up at Occupy Brookfield.  The passgage of unlimited detention of American in lawful residency without charges or trial.

Occupy itself in every action will awaken constructive postive acts of raw faith, when it starts to make dignified compassionate witness the core of the movement and the face of the movement . If the movement is really about compassion and dignity, where is Occupy on anti poverty?.

"I've ignited conversation in Transforming Systems from the Inside Out "

Sadly, invited is closer to the truth.  I look forward to the fire to come.

Ultimately, all I, or anyone, can offer is invitation.  With whom is the source of the fire? 

Rubbing sticks, striking flint... I guess any two providing the requisite differences.

We've had some of that, so I retract, without deleting, what I wrote this morning.

"What do you imagine might be the single most important inner transformation you could undergo, that could cause the greatest impact in the world?"

The whole person paradigm enables me to simply reply with a better balance and integration of my spirit, mind and heart with the body observed and deemed healthy, vital and inspiring by those around me.

Please imagine that solid surrounding circle is not so much a barrier as the artist made it appear.

"For the perfect accomplishment of any art, you must get this feeling of the eternal present into your bones--for it is the secret of proper timing."  ~Alan Watts in Does It Matter?

To live by one's inner truth, and not just pay lip service to it, it will impact absolutely every area of your life, you will feel like a baby starting from scratch all over again. be true to inner self and you can't be false to any other man. 

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