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I was recently interviewing Occupy Cafe member and social transformation artist, Jeff Vander Clute, for our Connect 2012 initiative when he started talking about our wholeness—wholeness as a descriptor for our deep and inextricable connection with all of life, the earth and the cosmos in which we find ourselves.
This recognition of being a vital member of a greater whole can be viewed through many lenses and belief systems, from spiritual Oneness to biological models of complex living systems, many of which overlap and intertwine.
As an intrinsic part of a greater flow of life, there arises the ever-present and oft paradoxical question regarding the balance between what actions to take and with what intensity.
I've been present for many occupy deliberations over whether direct action is necessary and to what degree does that action need to confront or pressure the status quo? We debate over where is that line that gets enough attention without it being negative or destructive. For example, there has been a lot of wrestling lately, within occupy movements, around the use of strict non-violence vs. seizing unoccupied properties in response to illegal foreclosures by big banks.
What, indeed, is enough to create the change we wish to see? Simply "being" is certainly not an option at this time, though it is a necessary and integral part of our transformation.
Beyond our actions, are there other, deeper underlying forces at work?
Might there be an intrinsic power to wholeness? If so, what might this mean for the strategies and tactics we employ in our direct actions and initiatives?
1. How might our belief and/or experience of wholeness—or lack thereof—inform our belief, faith and trust in regard to the outcomes sought by the Occupy impetus?
2. How might our sense of wholeness inform our strategies, tactics and actions and the urgency with which we engage them?
3. In what ways might our experience of internal wholeness specifically inform the degree to which our tactics are more or less confrontational in nature?
