We are at the beginning of something very, very big! Jon, Ruel, and Tracy opened with a reminder that we are guided. The exponential growth of the Symposium appears at a transitional moment in history when it is vitally relevant. They introduced the community of facilitators in various ways.
Van Jones’ passion was contagious with a presentation that introduced us to a newly embodied aspect of the Symposium…Social Justice. WOW! There were now words… when he finished the imperative the silence was poignant…hearts throbbing…tears moving…out of breath. We needed to break into circles for further processing, just to handle our emotions.
Here’s the essence of it! It is time for a test…one of stretching the heart enormously as we confront the issues of social justice, not only externally, but inside of us. We don’t really get how strong we are until we are tested. And it is time to meet this edge! As we meet the challenge of engaging this community in the direction of social justice, we will be stretched with a hard look at: Who am I? Where do I fit? Where do I belong?”
Why have we not done this by now? Because we are scared. We need to realize that it is our problem of deficiency. We currently live in an Apartheid society with assumptions that we do not even know we have, living in bubbles that touch in various communities which we call diversity. The only way through is as a community, helping each other see our blind spots. There is no time left except to be unstoppable in addressing the issues of our time!
Some people are struggling. Is our heart big enough for them? Did you know you have been hoodwinked by Lynne, Tracy and the staff? There is an opportunity to turn the economy around to serve the masses with a new industry of enterprise. Your activity requires that you expand the coalition with the politics of inclusion, of solidarity. So this is about YOUR transformation. It is about fighting the war mongers and polluters within.
Learning how to engage with social justice will take some unrelenting discomfort and learning how to listen. The challenge is how does our community grow in the direction of social justice to join other current social initiatives. We can only do this by being real and authentic which means looking within and spiritual practice. Your passions for solving the world’s problems will inevitably bring you up against yourself.
My powerful insight of the morning is that the spiritually fulfilling part of the Symposium IS the social justice part. We only have to engage it dynamically through the heart.
Friday, June 15
An evening of ritual and song
For all of you Facilitators out there we want you to know you are all "present" here at the Gathering!!! Today saw a slide show of all of your beautiful faces, mirroring our tribe, and we hollered out your names calling your spirits here to join us (in case your ears were ringing this afternoon, that's why!).
After a fantastic and full day we enjoyed an evening of ritual and song. Vinit brought a group who led us in a beautiful Wiccan/pagan ritual welcoming in the spirits of the directions, connecting us to the elements and presencing us to our embeddedness in Pachamama. We were guided to tune into our own hearts to connect to what brought us to partner with The Pachamama Alliance and The Awakening the Dreamer Initiative. A beautiful song followed honoring our deeply loved Pachamama herself.
A guest of Ruel's, Doug Von Koss, lead us in an amazing journey to discover our voices and innate rhythms. We launched into a variety of chants and songs which brought our voices out aligning them together in a beautiful choir. Doug invited us to join him in his ecstatic praise of the sacred, of one another, of our world. Each song brought me deeper into my core, each breath striving to share my voice more fully, every word opening my heart and body more. This process brought me into a resonance with our community at a cellular level that further weaved us together.
At one point I reflected on how important these experiences are in bringing us closer to our ancestors who sang and danced together in community for tens of thousands of years. This is part of our remembering of our roots, the discovery of new levels of our connectivity and the joyful expression of our affection for one another. I also noted that these activities are growing in our culture and we are participating in the evolution of our culture globally. These activities are also an alternative to our consumer culture, a practice in furthering our sustainability as each of us could have been somewhere else in the world engaging in the typical mainstream activities on a Friday night. For a few hours we stepped out of our hurried world and stepped into ourselves, our connection to one another as a community and our deep connection to spirit.
Today was a powerful context to build from for the rest of the Gathering together this weekend.
Dreams and blessed rest await, love to you all,
Eve
After a fantastic and full day we enjoyed an evening of ritual and song. Vinit brought a group who led us in a beautiful Wiccan/pagan ritual welcoming in the spirits of the directions, connecting us to the elements and presencing us to our embeddedness in Pachamama. We were guided to tune into our own hearts to connect to what brought us to partner with The Pachamama Alliance and The Awakening the Dreamer Initiative. A beautiful song followed honoring our deeply loved Pachamama herself.
A guest of Ruel's, Doug Von Koss, lead us in an amazing journey to discover our voices and innate rhythms. We launched into a variety of chants and songs which brought our voices out aligning them together in a beautiful choir. Doug invited us to join him in his ecstatic praise of the sacred, of one another, of our world. Each song brought me deeper into my core, each breath striving to share my voice more fully, every word opening my heart and body more. This process brought me into a resonance with our community at a cellular level that further weaved us together.
At one point I reflected on how important these experiences are in bringing us closer to our ancestors who sang and danced together in community for tens of thousands of years. This is part of our remembering of our roots, the discovery of new levels of our connectivity and the joyful expression of our affection for one another. I also noted that these activities are growing in our culture and we are participating in the evolution of our culture globally. These activities are also an alternative to our consumer culture, a practice in furthering our sustainability as each of us could have been somewhere else in the world engaging in the typical mainstream activities on a Friday night. For a few hours we stepped out of our hurried world and stepped into ourselves, our connection to one another as a community and our deep connection to spirit.
Today was a powerful context to build from for the rest of the Gathering together this weekend.
Dreams and blessed rest await, love to you all,
Eve
Reflection, then refreshment
After breaking into small groups of three or four outdoors to share our responses to Van's visit, we reconvened for sharing among the whole Gathering as a way to begin to deal with the profound impact of what was seen and felt as a whole community.
Then a nice long 90 minute break for lunch (Tracy poked fun at herself, graciously allowing more than her preferred 11 minutes), during which people reunited with old friends and made new ones. After that, a brief appearance by David Tucker, Executive Director of the Pachamama Alliance, in which he gave a history and overview of the work in Ecuador that led to the creation of the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium.
Do you remember having your picture taken at your facilitator training weekend? Lindsay Dyson is the curator of all those photos, and she presented a slide show of faces, while we called out their names one by one. For 20 minutes, we were all here together in those images. (You can view the photos from the slide show here.)
Following that, Chuck Putnam and Hetty Einzig are leading us through an exercise in small groups, sharing best practices, getting present to the amazing community of leaders we are (those here together with those not here in body), and inventorying the powerful resources and connections each of us brings to the enterprise of bringing forth and environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on Earth as a guiding principle of our time.
The mood here is definitely one of enormous possibility — discovering where our "muscles" are strong, where they are weak, and where we weren't aware we had muscles at all — and expectation, knowing that all this is leading to not only a renewal and regeneration of who we have been until now, but to the birth of a whole new level of commitment and leadership throughout our community.
I'm struck by what a privilege it is to live in this work, with these people! And Lynne hasn't even arrived yet!
Then a nice long 90 minute break for lunch (Tracy poked fun at herself, graciously allowing more than her preferred 11 minutes), during which people reunited with old friends and made new ones. After that, a brief appearance by David Tucker, Executive Director of the Pachamama Alliance, in which he gave a history and overview of the work in Ecuador that led to the creation of the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium.
Do you remember having your picture taken at your facilitator training weekend? Lindsay Dyson is the curator of all those photos, and she presented a slide show of faces, while we called out their names one by one. For 20 minutes, we were all here together in those images. (You can view the photos from the slide show here.)
Following that, Chuck Putnam and Hetty Einzig are leading us through an exercise in small groups, sharing best practices, getting present to the amazing community of leaders we are (those here together with those not here in body), and inventorying the powerful resources and connections each of us brings to the enterprise of bringing forth and environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on Earth as a guiding principle of our time.
The mood here is definitely one of enormous possibility — discovering where our "muscles" are strong, where they are weak, and where we weren't aware we had muscles at all — and expectation, knowing that all this is leading to not only a renewal and regeneration of who we have been until now, but to the birth of a whole new level of commitment and leadership throughout our community.
I'm struck by what a privilege it is to live in this work, with these people! And Lynne hasn't even arrived yet!
Van moves us all to the core!
A heartfelt Good Afternoon (1:40 p.m. here in California, USA) to all you incredible Facilitators and Community Leaders out there!
This morning has been quite a journey for those of us here at the Gathering. We launched right into an extraordinary presentation from Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center, a treasured ally in our work and famous to us all through his words in the Symposium. Van brought his heart and soul, shared his truth and brought us face to face with parts of our world and ourselves that are hard to confront. He spoke of the reality of the social and racial injustice of which we only touch the tip of the iceberg of, in the Symposium.
He acknowledged our courage in taking on issues of social justice in the first place and being willing to go deeper. He also shared his early warnings to Lynne, Tracy and others that this would be a difficult task, that we might not be ready for such a deeply painful undertaking. Throughout Van's emotional sharing it became increasing evident that he was going to throw it all out on the table, no holding back. We wept with Van as he reminded us of the history of abandonment and betrayal experienced by black people during the 1960's and since in the fight for civil rights.
We were implored to listen and truly hear the voices of those in the category of "other", those who share our world and suffer directly everyday due to the injustices of our current culture and economic system. It is our responsibility to understand the history of imperialism, colonialism, slavery, oppression, white supremacy and the impacts of centuries of racism and the other "isms" which plague our society today. We can, and must now step up to the plate, understand and face our history for our collective survival. It is time to come back to the table with people of color from a place of humility, respect, service, openness and willingness to learn.
Van brought it home that the racist lives inside of each of us, the oppressor is not "out there" but "in here". It is up to each one of us to transform ourselves through our spiritual work which will be the bridge to the possibility of truly effective progress in the realm of social justice.
This morning has been quite a journey for those of us here at the Gathering. We launched right into an extraordinary presentation from Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center, a treasured ally in our work and famous to us all through his words in the Symposium. Van brought his heart and soul, shared his truth and brought us face to face with parts of our world and ourselves that are hard to confront. He spoke of the reality of the social and racial injustice of which we only touch the tip of the iceberg of, in the Symposium.
He acknowledged our courage in taking on issues of social justice in the first place and being willing to go deeper. He also shared his early warnings to Lynne, Tracy and others that this would be a difficult task, that we might not be ready for such a deeply painful undertaking. Throughout Van's emotional sharing it became increasing evident that he was going to throw it all out on the table, no holding back. We wept with Van as he reminded us of the history of abandonment and betrayal experienced by black people during the 1960's and since in the fight for civil rights.
We were implored to listen and truly hear the voices of those in the category of "other", those who share our world and suffer directly everyday due to the injustices of our current culture and economic system. It is our responsibility to understand the history of imperialism, colonialism, slavery, oppression, white supremacy and the impacts of centuries of racism and the other "isms" which plague our society today. We can, and must now step up to the plate, understand and face our history for our collective survival. It is time to come back to the table with people of color from a place of humility, respect, service, openness and willingness to learn.
Van brought it home that the racist lives inside of each of us, the oppressor is not "out there" but "in here". It is up to each one of us to transform ourselves through our spiritual work which will be the bridge to the possibility of truly effective progress in the realm of social justice.
Van Jones
One of the key themes of this Gathering is the effort throughout the Awakening the Dreamer program to expand our awareness of the social justice aspect of the global crisis the Symposium addresses. Van’s message blew the doors open on that effort. It was a powerful message — passionate, confrontational, tender, illuminating, full of compassion and rage. We are left stirred and shaken, but with a pathway revealed before us.
The good news, as Van made so clear, is that the problem (and the solution) isn’t “them”, it’s right here, inside us all. The spiritual work we do in our lives, and the environmental awareness we have all worked hard to achieve, didn’t come to us in a day or in a single workshop. The work of social justice is within each of us, and it’s the daily work of a lifetime.
Van said that when people of color can give up the right to be mad at white people, and white people can give up the right to be ignorant, then we have a chance to find a way out of this together.
Van also graciously acknowledged the work of everyone involved in the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream initiative. He is our partner because he trusts that we are as serious about healing the social justice crisis as we are about spiritual fulfillment and environmental sustainability.
I realize these brief comments are missing the context of Van’s full message, which was full of humor, rich detail and powerful stories. At this writing, people are sharing about their experience of listening to Van. As the day goes on, we’ll encourage people here to share their “moments” from this deeply moving address, and we’ll post video clips as soon as they’re available.
The good news, as Van made so clear, is that the problem (and the solution) isn’t “them”, it’s right here, inside us all. The spiritual work we do in our lives, and the environmental awareness we have all worked hard to achieve, didn’t come to us in a day or in a single workshop. The work of social justice is within each of us, and it’s the daily work of a lifetime.
Van said that when people of color can give up the right to be mad at white people, and white people can give up the right to be ignorant, then we have a chance to find a way out of this together.
Van also graciously acknowledged the work of everyone involved in the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream initiative. He is our partner because he trusts that we are as serious about healing the social justice crisis as we are about spiritual fulfillment and environmental sustainability.
I realize these brief comments are missing the context of Van’s full message, which was full of humor, rich detail and powerful stories. At this writing, people are sharing about their experience of listening to Van. As the day goes on, we’ll encourage people here to share their “moments” from this deeply moving address, and we’ll post video clips as soon as they’re available.
Webmaster Introduction
Greetings
As an experienced nonprofit activist, I have always enjoyed helping the causes I care about utilize the resources available and growing on the internet. My role this weekend is to be the bridge between those who have come together at the Gathering, and those who couldn't be here. I'm proud to be allowed to do so, and I know that we'll all be strengthened by the results.
Gregory Fearon
As an experienced nonprofit activist, I have always enjoyed helping the causes I care about utilize the resources available and growing on the internet. My role this weekend is to be the bridge between those who have come together at the Gathering, and those who couldn't be here. I'm proud to be allowed to do so, and I know that we'll all be strengthened by the results.
Gregory Fearon
Friday Morning Opening
The 2007 Gathering got underway a short while ago, about 9:00 am PDT, with a warm welcome from room supervisor Lindsay Dyson. Lindsay introduced Jon Love, Tracy Apple and Ruel Walker, who introduced the people who have come to the conference, first by geography and then by "tribe", or training group. Jon introduced the purpose of the Gathering, to re-energize the entire body of facilitators worldwide, and to renew our commitment to the work we're doing.
The mood here started off raucous, loud and energetic. Everyone is excited to see everyone else. It feels like a college reunion, but without the nerves.
Ruel led the opening of sacred space, assisted by Rocio Yanez, originally from Ecuador and now living in New York, and Josie McLean from Australia.
Tracy delivered a heartfelt and deeply moving introduction of the weekend's first guest speaker, Van Jones - "our teacher and our friend". The video team is taping Van's comments, and we'll post clips from that as soon as we can.
The mood here started off raucous, loud and energetic. Everyone is excited to see everyone else. It feels like a college reunion, but without the nerves.
Ruel led the opening of sacred space, assisted by Rocio Yanez, originally from Ecuador and now living in New York, and Josie McLean from Australia.
Tracy delivered a heartfelt and deeply moving introduction of the weekend's first guest speaker, Van Jones - "our teacher and our friend". The video team is taping Van's comments, and we'll post clips from that as soon as we can.
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