George – Occupy Maui

This week, during my “time off”, I couldn’t resist joining the crew of Occupy Maui as they launched a week of direct-action against Monsanto. I love visiting various occupations around the world – it’s like discovering extended family you never knew you had.

Friday’s event culminated in a musical performance by the folk musician Human and his merry band, singing “Monsanto Go Away.” Emjoy the vid!

Illustration: GAUCHE

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung

APOCALYPTICISM is an actual word. According to Wikipedia, it is “the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God’s will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end time very soon, even within one’s own lifetime.”

The idea that “the world will end” is not limited to fire and brimstone. Various New Agers believe that 2012 will result in an alignment of the galactic something or other, fulfilling the Hopi prophecy of the Blue Kachina and the reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles…and stuff…then we will enter a golden age. Sound familiar?

Darin Drda, author of The Four Global Truths, writes:

Although they speak different languages, both tell the same story: the fate of life on Earth will be determined by forces beyond humanity’s control. This idea strikes me as a very dangerous one, certain to accelerate our collective journey down the road to ruin. What’s more, it doesn’t jive with the powerful and paradigm-shifting insight of 20th century physics that reality is participatory.

In 2011, TIME magazine dubbed “The Protestor” Person of the Year, their cover emblazoned with a shrouded figure peering out from behind a kerchief. I believe the more accurate label would have been “The Participant” – to reflect the global awakening that is gaining steam around the globe. From the streets of Cairo, to the towers of Wall St, as Charles Eisenstein intoned “We the people are awakening and we will not go back to sleep.”

The true definition of ‘apocalypse’ is more akin to ‘the lifting of the veil.’ What has long been hidden shall be revealed. Is it possible to understand this potential, and how to apply it, without falling victim to the aforementioned ‘isms of divine destruction, collapse, or extraterrestrial saviours?

Daniel Pinchbeck points the way in his book 2012: The Return of Queztalcoatl. He suggests we are being called to participate in a shift in human consciousness, catalyzed by the crises that appear to be culminating in this age.

“Right now, we are being forced to witness the shadow of the psyche projected into material form through systemic misuse of technology, biospheric destruction, and corrupt geopolitics based on entrenched egotism and greed. [...]

Like the coiled arms of the galaxy, the development of consciousness appears to follow a spiral, sidereal motion, represented by the archetypal symbol of the mandala, which is universal in sacred art.

Whether found in dreams or wheat fields, mandalas symbolize stages in a psychic process – the helical approach of the psyche toward integration of the ego and the self or higher self, through the difficult work of illuminating the dark matter within the unconscious.”

The dark matter of our unconscious has created the human world we inhabit, including the crises that we appear unable to solve. Our old story of the Self, that we are “isolated beings in an indifferent universe” (and all it’s variations), is breaking down, because in fact, it was never objectively real in the first place. It was constructed by our level of consciousness.

The new consciousness struggles to be born.

The Occupy Movement seemingly embodied this desire to participate one again, erupting onto the collective stage late last year. And yet, even as creative direct-actions continue, many camps are struggling with the old patterns of Separation – the idea that to change the world we must apply Force. If only we could exert enough pressure on the “bad” elements of our society, we can keep humanity’s innate greed and destruction at bay.

But that’s not enough.

Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl, in a fascinating interview from early on in the Occupations, said “Most of the people want to change fully, but they don’t want to engage fully, because it confronts your life and the depths of who you are,” says . “When people are confronted to make a shift in their consciousness, they stay with the [old patterns].”

This is why the current Occupations are embroiled in conflict. The repressed trauma and old wounds of Separation have now found an outlet, and any attempts to stifle them, even in the name of achieving organizational unity, will meet more resistance.

Thomas continues:

It cannot be a movement that is against something. Most movements that are against something are stuck being against. And they are not for something better. And you need to have more people that are for something better. For the light, not against the structure.

Around awake people, more awakening will happen. Awakening is spiral. If you spend time with someone who is more awake than you, then chances are your consciousness will be elevated. And if through your practice, you manage to stabilize your consciousness at this level it will become your reality as well.

What is needed at this time is those who can hold a global awareness. People who are grounded, that are literally coming from the future. They look the same, but they are motivated from a different place. If you are coming from the future, and you embody this, then the future will manifest around you.

This future ‘global awareness’ unfolds from the consciousness of the Connected Self.

Darin Drda explains:

We are not, as the old guard preaches, feeble and passive observers of a fixed, objective order or cogs in a giant, lifeless machine. Nor are we, as the new guard intones, the all-powerful masters of our own destiny, capable of instantly conjuring anything we want out of pixie dust and wishful thinking. We are co-creative participants in a great cosmic adventure, the outcome of which must always remain unknown.

In summary: consciousness creates our world. Our current story is now breaking down, an inevitable conclusion to the unconscious shadows we have collectively repressed. The Apocalypse is about uncovering/reintegrating our projections, essentially forcing us: not to evolve, but to make a CHOICE to evolve.

This choice is crucial. Without choice, we are merely pawns of fate, adrift in an indifferent cosmos.

Instead, we are called to embody this new consciousness, not as an opinion, but as a lived relationship with ourselves and the Other. While we can only do this on an individual level, we need other “awakened beings” to hold us at this higher note until we can stabilize – and then help others do the same.

This is the true meaning of the apt quoted maxim “Be the change you want to see in the world.” We must literally BE from the future – retrieving a higher order of self that does not recreate the past. We must resist the death throes of our old institutions, even while we flow towards our new ones. We must bow humbly to our ancestors and their echoes of pain, include the injustice of the present, and embrace the uncertainty of our Great Transition.

If this sounds ambitious, consider the words of Arundhati Roy:

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

“THE DEED creates the doer almost as an afterthought.”

I’ve been pondering this Nietzsche quote the last few days, as the clock ticked over to the year of the Apocalypse. It makes me think of how I will choose to represent the year of 2011, crystalized from thousands of photos, millions of moments, and in fact, what is time when you have a growing archive of everything you’ve ever done?

On the eve of the age, it’s fitting that Facebook just released their Timeline feature – essentially allowing access to a memory once reserved for omniscient beings alone. My past years are now only a click away (2008, 2009, 2010) and now 2011.

January – Sean and I had our first major screening of the One Week Job film, to a sold out crowd. I remember saying to Sean, with nerves slightly buzzed: “You know… it’s always easier not to do things.”

February – Before getting to the cross-country One Week Job Canadian tour, I wanted to include a picture of my dog Tobi.

And now back to the tour. The funniest part about the journey was how little prepared we were for the Canadian winter. Having grown up in Vancouver, where the temperature rarely goes below zero, it was almost bizarre to have to plug your car in to keep it warm during the night. And to have more than fingerless gloves.

In late Feb, I flew to Washington, DC, (my first time), and am not embarrassed to say I felt a tinge of romantic nationalism for the ideals embodied in the Lincoln Memorial and the various other monuments.

I was actually there to shoot insightful interviews with the staff of National Geographic Traveler.

March – Breaking Free, a web-series about expats living abroad, was picked up and I hit the road with a motley crew to film in Central America.

In Nicaragua, I experienced my first “gallop on a beach,” which I might add, is extremely enjoyable. I ended up writing one of my favourite essays “Travel and the Art of Flow.”

April – Upon returning from the beach, I assisted the Vancouver crew for Playatime, part of the regional art projects to appear at Burning Man that year. My help came in the form of a video, which helped them raise funds through Kickstarter.

A few weeks later, I left for Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Shanghai, as the final leg of the Breaking Free shoot.

May – The eventual teaser turned out pretty sexy (thanks to the crew at The Werehaus).

June – I joined a solidarity fast for the two remaining hikers that were detained in Iran. I’m happy to report that they were eventually released in late Sept, proving that good things to actually happen.

Unfortunately, late June saw a repeat of the 94 Canuck riots, this time amped up on social media and hollow consumerism. I commented on the scene with Empty’s Theme Park: Reflections on the Vancouver Riot.

July – I shared the joyous wedding of my friends Robin & Ana, who are more than a little gonzo for each other.

August – Sean turned 30. So we decided to party like it was 1981.

September – Back to the playa of Burning Man, my third year and most transformative (if that’s even possible). I believe I found a costume for my alter-ego: Vision Weaver:

As well, as a gift back to the Burner community for the mind-blowing, heart-exploding Temple of Transition, I crafted a video love letter.

Sept 15 also marked the eruption of the Occupy Movement…but more on that later.

October – Karen and I headed underground for Notes from a Modern Cave Man, on Vancouver Island.

Upon our return, a fortuitous opportunity arose to film Robert Redford for the New York Times.

In late October, after having read ‘Sacred Economics’ by Charles Eisenstein, I decided to fly out to New England to stay with him for a week. The plan was to shoot a short film to share his crucial ideas at this critical juncture of humanity’s evolution. The result was “The Revolution Is Love” – currently seen by almost 200K people.

November – Let’s say… I became Occupied. I continued filming the movement here in Vancouver, sharing various perspectives via short films (as part of the upcoming Occupy Love).

And I wrote my manifesto: If We Get Occupy Right, We Get Everything Right.

December – While the physical Occupy Vancouver camp had been disbanded, the movement continues to evolve and grow behind the scenes.

As the year closes behind me, and the new, auspicious 2012 begins to unfold, I now ponder what it means to “occupy.” I believe it’s about reclaiming our presence once again. Reclaiming our lives. Reclaiming this moment.

If the deed creates the doer, than the r(e)volution will be the afterthought.

I’VE BEEN following author Charles Eisenstein since last year, when I came across his epic work “The Ascent of Humanity.”

The book was an incredible synthesis of many thoughts I’d had on the state of the world, and ultimately, the crises of consciousness. So it was with excitement that I looked forward to his new book (published last July) on ‘Sacred Economics.”

And he delivered. I was so inspired by the book, and his illumination of a gift society, that I felt compelled to fly out and interview Charles to help spread his key insights into the emerging paradigm shift rippling around the globe.

That week I spent with Charles became the short teaser above, “The Revolution Is Love” now seen by almost 200K people on Youtube.

I’m now equally excited to announce that Charles is coming to Vancouver in January for a series of talks and workshops. This is a DO NOT MISS event. Charles’ logic of the heart, and his proclamation to create “the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible” has a way of not leaving you.

Charles Eisenstein / Photo: Ian MacKenzie

Event Description

Money today is the very antithesis of the sacred. The modern money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth.

Today, these trends have reached their extreme – but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.

Charles Eisenstein will explain the forces driving the collapse of our current system, and lay out a vision of a new kind of money system that will replace it.

A mind-opening glimpse of solutions and new ideas for the future of money and economics – and how we can contribute and be part of the positive change.

Jan 12 – Evening Talk – Port Moody

Location: Kushala Yoga, #303-130 Brew Street, Port Moody, BC, 130 Brew Street
MORE DETAILS | Admission: By donation | RSVP on Facebook

Jan 13 – Evening Talk – Vancouver

Location: Eternal Abundance Cafe, 1025 Commercial Dr
MORE DETAILS | Admission: $10 | RSVP on Facebook

Jan 14 – Full day Workshop -Vancouver

Location: Liu Institute UBC, 6476 North West Marine Drive
MORE DETAILS | Admission: $35 | RSVP on Facebook

Also don’t miss Charles’ key essays:

• No Demand Is Big Enough
• Where Next for Occupy?

Jonathan Dy is a Vancouver based artist and photographer, inexorably pulled to document the Occupy movement, much like myself. In this piece, I ask Jon about his process behind the lens and why the Occupy movement needs the space to define itself.

The style of this piece was inspired by Jonathan Harris’ project “Today.” And finally, I found the perfect music of Chris Zabriskie, offered to the creative commons, to set the tone.

THIS YEAR was my third visit to Black Rock City, the temporary city that manifests every summer in Nevada. I rarely take out my camera at the event, having learned from previous experience that it’s almost impossible to capture anything close to the energy and magic that is Burning Man.

After meeting author Darrin Drda, I made an exception.

I encountered Darrin through his free workshop, a metta meditation designed to connect Burners with ourselves and the work we are called to do in the world. At this time of great change and crises, it has become our duty to rise to the challenge, rather than retreat into dullness and the illusion of security.

Coincidentally, 17 days after my interview with Darrin, the Occupy movement erupted onto the world stage. While many are still asking “what do they want?’ and “where did they come from?” – those of us who have been immersed in the consciousness shift immediately recognized: this is what Burning Man looks like when it attempts to manifest in the “default” world.

As Eva Ensler, author of ‘The Vagina Monologues,’ said recently when speaking about the Occupy movement:

“What is happening cannot be defined. It is happening. It is a spontaneous uprising that has been building for years in our collective unconscious. It is a gorgeous, mischievous moment that has arrived and is spreading. It is a speaking out, coming out, dancing out. It is an experiment and a disruption.”

To be clear: this is NOT to say that Burning Man directly “led” to the occupation of Wall St, but it has clearly been a creative source of incubation for the paradigm shift that is rippling around the globe. From the Arab Spring, to the environment activists, to the legions of yogis, all these energies now have the opportunity to emerge from their silos, and truly see each other and their common cause.

We have much to learn from each other, and it all starts with the profoundly simple invitation: “Welcome home.”

–

Check out Occupy Burners to get involved.

Original Occupy Wall St flyer

WHEN I FIRST heard the call to Occupy Wall St for a few months, I knew this was big. I knew it would be more than just a “protest.” This felt different than the usual march to voice specific grievances. It was a call for something more profound, and much deeper, than even the original participants realized as they gathered their signs and tents.

I knew because I’d be following the various manifestations of this movement for over a year, working with Velcrow Ripper as he traversed the globe working on his new film: Evolve Love. The premise is complex to capture, but simple to state: humanity is waking up.

On Sept 17, 2011, 2000 people showed up at Zucotti Park. On Nov 26, 2011, they are still there.

The mainstream media, if they aren’t busy denigrating the movement and highlighting its flaws, are still grappling with how to cover it. Who are the leaders? What are your demands? No answer has been given. Instead, they Occupy.

Early on, journalist Naomi Klein recognized the significance as well. She called it “The Most Important Thing In The World Now“:

Yesterday, one of the speakers at the labor rally said: “We found each other.” That sentiment captures the beauty of what is being created here. A wide-open space (as well as an idea so big it can’t be contained by any space) for all the people who want a better world to find each other. We are so grateful.

“Why are they protesting?” ask the baffled pundits on TV. Meanwhile, the rest of the world asks: “What took you so long?” “We’ve been wondering when you were going to show up.” And most of all: “Welcome.”

At its heart, Occupy is not a protest. It’s about creating space. It’s about modeling a new way of being, that requires a fair amount of “unlearning” the way society and human nature has been taught. It’s asking the question: why? Why are things they way they are? Is it, in fact, human nature to be greedy, violent, and cruel? Or is it possible that these are symptoms of a systemic order?

Watch: Right Here All Over a snapshot of the micro-community formed at Zucotti Park (renamed Liberty Plaza).

Occupy Wall St is also about rejecting a system that has, at its core, drifted violently out of balance. It has become life destroying – and no amount of material wealth will stave off the underlying sadness of that realization. Author Charles Eisenstein wrote a brilliant op-ed “No Demand Is Big Enough” that captured this sentiment:

We protest not only at our exclusion from the American Dream; we protest at its bleakness. If it cannot include everyone on earth, every ecosystem and bioregion, every people and culture in its richness; if the wealth of one must be the debt of another; if it entails sweatshops and underclasses and fracking and all the rest of the ugliness our system has created, then we want none of it.

No one deserves to live in a world built upon the degradation of human beings, forests, waters, and the rest of our living planet. Speaking to our brethren on Wall Street, no one deserves to spend their lives playing with numbers while the world burns. Ultimately, we are protesting not only on behalf of the 99% left behind, but on behalf of the 1% as well. We have no enemies. We want everyone to wake up to the beauty of what we can create.

On Oct 15, almost one month after Occupy Wall St. began, global chapters erupted around the world in solidarity.

From London, to San Francisco, to my hometown, Vancouver, thousands took the streets in support. It was a beautiful celebration of a community desiring to create change. And when the day was over, many people packed up their signs, and did what you do after a typical march. You go home and continue with your life.

Except for a core group that stayed to…you know… occupy. And that’s when the trouble started.

Turns out that tenting in a public space, on public land, becomes a problem for the authorities. They’d rather you shuffle on and keep moving. While I was less surprised by the response of the city staff, I was disheartened by fellow progressives that were quick to dismiss Occupy Vancouver for its lack of cohesion and characterization has nothing more than “drugged out hippies.” They joined the ranks of the opposed and demanded the occupation shut down.

Yet not many recognized the true value of holding space. The Art Gallery had become a modern day ‘agora’ – a place where citizens were able to gather, discuss, and debate the challenges of our day. Everyone was fed, sheltered, and respected. And when you commit to include all others, you also invite in the shadow. The encampment becomes a microcosm of the larger shadow of the city.

As the Occupy movement refused to dissolve, they began exposing the systems of power that have long operated in the darkness. In Oakland, riot police tear gassed the crowds and severely injured Iraq war vet Scott Olsen. All Occupations faced ongoing and direct intervention by police. All the while, the media and onlookers continued to ask: what are your demands?

Most humans desire to resolve dilemmas as quickly as possible. We are uncomfortable with uncertainty. And yet it is the uncertainty that gives the Occupy movement its unique resilience.

I found the following passage by author Michael Mead, in his book “The World Behind the World”:

“Choose one side of a dilemma and the other side resurfaces with a vengeance. For picking one side or being “one-sided” about a true dilemma only delays and even intensifies the issue. Choose one side and the conflict will return at a deeper level at some future time. That’s the nature of the genuine dilemmas of life in this left and right, dark and light, abundant and empty world. Only when the tension of opposing forces can be held long enough does a genuine solution appear that can dissolve the tension and renew the flow of life at another level.”

It took almost 55 days before Rolling Stone contributor Matt Taibbi became the first mainstream publication to finally get it. He confessed to having totally mischaracterized the movement in its infancy. In How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests he wrote:

Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It’s about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become.

If there is such a thing as going on strike from one’s own culture, this is it. And by being so broad in scope and so elemental in its motivation, it’s flown over the heads of many on both the right and the left.

You don’t have to dig deep to realize the global banking system is out of control (watch the divisive but very entertaining ‘The American Dream‘ to give you an idea). A system built on debt begets a Machine that demands infinite growth on a finite planet. What is the answer? Perspectives like those shared by Zeitgeist and Thrive blame a shadowy elite pulling the strings at the top.

Yet again, looking deeper, we realize the elite are simply better at playing the game. To demonize them as the 1% is to enforce the old habits of Separation. As Charles Eisenstein puts it in his book Sacred Economics: “We are all puppets, but there is no puppet master.”

Certainly, we can condemn the decisions and structures that wreak untold havoc on our communities and the natural world. And we must also recognize how we are complicit in perpetuating this very same system, those parts of ourselves that are both the 99% and the 1%.

The Occupy movement has the opportunity to offer a third perspective.

This week, many of the global occupations have been attacked, bullied, harassed, and in some cases destroyed. Some mainstream outlets are tentatively claiming that Occupy Wall St. is finished. And yet, to believe the Occupy Movement is just a few tents in a park is missing the point entirely.

Don Hazen writes in To Change the Country, We Just Might Have to Change Ourselves:

As Eve Ensler, global activist and author of The Vagina Monologues says, “What is happening cannot be defined. It is happening. It is a spontaneous uprising that has been building for years in our collective unconscious. It is a gorgeous, mischievous moment that has arrived and is spreading. It is a speaking out, coming out, dancing out. It is an experiment and a disruption.”

Of course, nothing concrete has changed, yet. But the possibility of change — really, the necessity of change — is now in the middle of our nation’s politics and public discourse. This alone is an incredible achievement because a few short months ago, many millions of us essentially had no hope.

I believe it is now time for the Occupy Movement to come out of beta. We have realized that we suffer from a severe lack of imagination, and are crying out for a potent new vision of the future. I believe I have experienced a taste of this new vision, what Charles Eisenstein calls “the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible.” And it is because of this that I can demand nothing less.

Allow me to share a potential vision:

What if the Occupy Movement truly is the latest manifestation of the paradigm shift that is rippling around the planet, what Paul Hawken calls “the blessed unrest”? What if this shift is characterized by a new recognition of the self, one that no longer betrays ourselves as separate beings in an indifferent universe, but realizes we are conditional upon all the relationships we share?

I am because you are.

What if we experimented and perfected this alternative model of being, and deployed it along the vast global information network already encircling the globe? What if this model allowed us to grasp the array of crises plaguing our lives and the planet as actually interconnected – and to truly understand one was to understand and change them all?

What if we called this shift of inter-being by its true name?

Tell me a part of you doesn’t want to feel this alive.

Do we blame the occupiers? Tristan Markle writes:

It is not the organizers of Occupy Vancouver who decided what “the issues” are, or who drew up a set of pre-determined “demands.” The issues were already there, and the protest simply opened a fissure through which the nightmare of reality bubbled through. The “tension” created by Occupy Vancouver is the tension of a city forced to deal with its problems.

What we are witnessing is the shadow of Vancouver, one of the world’s “most livable cities.” It is the same shadow that revealed itself after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup, and the streets burned with inexplicable rage. This is the shadow that we have repressed, and is now returning with a vengeance.

To all those who have condemned the movement for losing its way, please consider: no one likes to look their shadow in the face. And yet if we can learn to accept it, to integrate it, learn from it, our shadow can heal our city in ways we have never known.

Love is the movement people. Check out Occupy Love.org