Year of activism #34

On the cusp of spring, the winds and rains are starting to shift and the native trees and plants begin their dances to mark the new season’s arrival. The deciduous trees are beginning to wake up. It is a time of co-existence in the landscape, a mixture of howling banshees and musical notes from the nesting magpies as a constant reminder of our inheritance of the land and settler arrivals. Holding all space for all this diversity there are edges forming in the garden and in my heart. I am calling this the politics of grief.

Others have written and talked about the politics of grief in the phenomena of talking about war, September 11 and other acts of terrorism, the way trauma is used to weaponize public policy to justify budget spends on national security measures or more creatively and kindly with gun buy-backs (think Port Arthur). In the case of our common destiny in this land, there is so much unfinished business, I really don’t think we can move forward without some reckoning at the grief doorstop. To hold ourselves in sadness and notice, accept and recognise the losses. Nations who have lost their language, rituals, food sources, habitat; other species who are now extinct, or under the threat of extinction. There is mourning to be done.

I have deep personal experience of grief and there are so many layers. The layers of loss that come with the understanding and new learning of what you have actually lost takes you deeper and deeper into meaning of what makes you, what holds you and what carries you forward. There is an accounting to be done, a balance sheet to be examined, some kind of delving deeply into the price and values of the loss. There is a settling up.

In Australia this settling up is our unfinished business. We need to examine what is actually on that balance sheet and given those who have gone before us in the settlement business how might we be held to account? This week I had a handyman come and do some odd jobs for me. He is involved in a local biodiversity project and he couldn’t help but notice the art in my place and sign of respect for Kaurna on the entrance to my house. He told me that everytime their volunteer team start work in restoration on a new part of the bush, local Aboriginal leader offers a smoking ceremony for them. He told me he doesn’t understand why they are so angry, it was so long ago. I was taken back by his inability to see all of the connections and to join the dots of justice being seared into the experience of the volunteers. I offered up a few gentle thoughts and a couple of questions. These are the conversations of the politics of grief. To bring honour to the pain of the past and the continual stripping away of lacquered over pain in the now. It is a truth that I live on stolen land, there has never been a treaty, a settlement and there is reckoning to be had. There is payment to be made, my slight discomfort in having a tricky conversation is not even a downpayment. I get rewarded by my peers for doing these little acts …. really? This is my privilege. It is my responsibility.

Taking instruction from the landscape and tuning in to the elements is what I am feeling apprenticed to at the moment. The land and the people of this land have suffered, are suffering and ways forward perhaps will open once we, as settlers, feel the grief, wallow in it and discover all that there is in the layers being peeled back. There is a kind of root cause analysis that comes with the politics of grief that takes us to colonialism and racism, sexism and a lack of centrality for creation. In the reckoning just settlement might be possible but I can’t see us getting there without entering a time for the politics of grief to be leverage to create new ways ahead. Standing with the grief stricken, sitting in the pain, shifting and rewiring the tears to witness the birth of a new way forward feels like a precondition to justice to me.

Year of activism #33

Governance and ways of making decisions has been in lots of conversations lately and any activist comes across the relationship between decision-making and power on a regular basis. How decisions are made, the process of deliberation, the mechanisms and tools to enable clarification to lead to action are usually imperfect and iterative. So often we look for the definitive – the one way – of coming to a decision – when in fact there are many ways. An activist helps to show other ways, and the minority view is a gift to the whole to foster possibilities, although often not valued by the system and considered, sometimes even named as being other, and in clumsy democratic processes, where one person equals one vote, it is possible that being voted down is a form of silencing and control. Power and privilege come with processes that support those who know how to mobilise and persuade … that doesn’t necessarily mean arriving at a wise decision.

I have found a number of discernment practices used by religious communities powerful and useful, where the goal is to arrive at consensus and a shared vision of going forward. I understand there are practices in First Nation cultures that are similar, although I have not experienced these as a peer and participant, I have been alongside and welcomed into processes as observer and friend. I think we have a lot to learn, those of us, who are more familiar with the processes that are used to keep the power and privilege with the elite, even when, like me, we know how to use it for just and equitable results. There is however no peace without justice, and righting wrongs, hearing the pain into speech, art and craft are all part of our common journey to liberation from being oppressor or oppressed.

I can’t get past in my homeland of Australia, the work we have to do around a just settlement, decolonisation and a full-some recognition of the truth this land was stolen. It hits me every now and again, I have the privilege of not being reminded of it every day, I can turn on my selective amnesia or fall asleep at the wheel of freedom, because typically my hands are on that wheel. I have so much power and so much privilege. I am surrounded by systems that recognise and even take me for granted as having status in so many ways – educated, English speaking, housed, economically secure, healthy, digitally savvy …. the list goes on … I do not have to tick boxes that often that put me in “other” categories to be turned into invisible blancmange. I get to pick and flick boxes that have a postcode, an address, a job description, an age group, a language group. I am a first world contributor to an algorithm that like me, delivers a finite sequence of instructions to solve problems or set the conditions for specifications that will deliver results to suit me, my world view, and other people just like me.

The data developed and automated because of my contributions and the boxes I tick, also exclude. And just as on earth, as it is in computer cloud heaven, the dominant paradigm colonises and closes down those that don’t fit – they get to the “other” boxes. I am a long way from understanding, knowing and therefore have no wisdom around how digital exclusion works and the way forward for data sovereignty. I instinctively know this form of colonisation is just as treacherous as boats in full sail arriving into harbours without being invited.

I like to keep Facebook algorithms on their toes and post odd things from time to time that push me into a niche for marketing that seems a long way from what I might really be like. I am currently enjoying being the target of dating, dieting and high heel shoe purchases. For the record I am not interested in dating, and haven’t worn high heel shoes for many a long day. I am trying to eat more healthy foods and taking long walks, but I wouldn’t call it dieting! Being a keyboard warrior in these times, is often termed “slacktivism”, it is a form of activism and I encourage you to think about how you might help those algorithms along by supporting vigorously the things that matter to you from a wide range of sources and throw in the odd surprise too, so the machine learning and systems underpinning your online presence learn in ways that will help the echo chamber be a little less echoey.

As I said a number of years ago I am a tweeter for good and if we aren’t in these places, we are abandoning the online streets to the online hoodlums and thugs. Understanding the value and place of online communications, purchases and consumer behaviour on the web means we can claim and reclaim these spaces too in the same way we can reclaim the streets from rapists and gangs.

I am sure there is an activism algorithm out there, let’s disrupt that too and make the pathways for justice together.

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Year of activism #32

The theme of silence and speaking up continues its orbit this week. It turned up again and again – and I am paying attention to where it is calling to me from and what it is calling me to. It has showed up across the week – in my paid work, in my community setting, in a learning space, a book group, in words I have read, in the landscape and in conversations.

And Audre Lorde seems to keep showing up with the theme. The place of silence as a form of protest, a way to build inner strength and for me what has been importantly a mechanism to make space to hear a deeper wisdom, has been and will continue to be an important practice for me. I have been drawn to Paul Goodman‘s explainer on this kind of silence:

There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy… the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul… the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos.

It is from this place of silence that the action emerges to be taken and once action, returning to this silence to reflect before another step might be taken. The silence though is part of the practice and not separate from the action. While I have acted on my own, I find my contribution so tiny, that is only acting with others that I feel my actions can aggregate and amplify to enable shifts towards justice to be possible. So building coalitions, collaborations, partnerships and adding myself to movements for change is my preferred way of being in the world. Sometimes this is formal like joining a political party, or organisation with a specific agenda, but mostly it is informal, connecting to pre-existing efforts or connecting the dots between initiatives, people and actions. It is Audre Lorde’s voice I go to when I am lost, suffering from the amnesia of privilege or need some instruction to take another step. And there she was again this week, more than once, teaching me and calling out courage.

My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.

Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

The other women in the chorus calling me this week have pivoted around Lilla Watson‘s voice who said and does not like this being attributed to her, but prefers the attribution to the entire group of Aboriginal women she was with said:

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together.

I have written about her words before here and here and on both occasions it has been about liberation, which is the product of justice. In my twenties when I first started learning about our colonial history in Australia and the impact of the Bicentennial activities in 1988 on me were transformational. I am so grateful for my time on the Justice and Peace Commission and all I learnt from incredible leaders who inducted me and apprenticed me into deeper listening, understanding and action that continues to help me know my own privilege and more importantly seek out ways towards justice. Pay the rent guided me for many decades and yet it seemed to slipped off my radar for a long time, and I found my way back to that concept last year, and then spurred on by the dreadful bushfires last summer, taking steps to do what I could to buy products, services and paying for educational opportunities to make modest purchases and donations to support sovereignty. I am aching to find out more particularly about ways forward for data sovereignty and was inspired by the extraordinary Dr Lou Bennett about this a couple of years ago at a national social work research conference I was facilitating. Her work on sovereign language reparation really shook me up and has called me and continues to call me to consider what might I do in my life around reparation as one of the central steps towards liberation. We will all have our own ways along this path.

This week I was also introduced to an extraordinary social worker and educator Wakumi Douglas from S.O.U.L Sisters leadership collective. She is generously, skillfully and creatively leading a process for SheEO to bring a Racial Justice Working Group to life and action. And wouldn’t you know …. there was Audre again at the end of session one calling me once again out of silence, breaking open my heart and blowing my mind again.

In the transformation of silence into language and action, it is vitally necessary for each one of us to establish or examine her function in that transformation and to recognize her role as vital within that transformation.

For those of us who write, it is necessary to scrutinize not only the truth of what we speak, but the truth of that language by which we speak it. For others, it is to share and spread also those words that are meaningful to us. But primarily for us all, it is necessary to teach by living and speaking those truths which we believe and know beyond understanding. Because in this way alone we can survive, by taking part in a process of life that is creative and continuing, that is growth. – Audre Lorde -Sister Outsider

I am so grateful for these spaces and the teachers and leaders I have to guide me to actions with impact and hold me safe so I can find my way with integrity and self-compassion. I truly bow down deeply to you all, and I know I am on another edge in the liberation pilgrimage.

Audre Lorde

Year of activism #31

Was gifted several opportunities this week to share with others about what it means to me to be an activist. I turned up to deliver my messages via zoom and in real life – what a treat to be able to get the exchange of energy and feel the connections between people around me – the digital divide means lack of connectivity to me on so many levels now in these pandemic times.  The real life example was at an inner city all girls school where all the staff were spending the day in retreat away from timetables, students and yet not to retreat from one another. The theme of the overall day was We will not be silent and I did get to eavesdrop on a few conversations when I asked them to greet the activist in each other.  They told stories to one another about speaking up about casual racism in their families while preparing dinner together, how sometimes they have to speak up for their students to their parents where the girls are being unfairly treated, and stories about shame and compassion.  There were over 100 conversations going on so I didn’t hear them all –  but it was clear no one had any trouble at all at being able to share a story about a time when they spoke up and could not be silent. This is the thing: we all know how to do this, we all how know to recognise injustice, how to find words to describe what we are noticing, how to tell someone else what it looks like, why it moves us, what it calls out in us. What we often don’t recognise is our own power, how to tap into it and step into our leadership and take an action – however small – to the situation. 

One of the things I talked about was the relationship between rights and responsibility, power and privilege.  In my own case, I am white, very well educated, live in Australia, widely travelled, housed, employed, healthy, heterosexual – I have a significant amount of privilege and I joked with the staff that really only the white men in the room (there were very few) were more privileged than me.  My privilege brings with it responsibilities, and one of those is to use my voice. I extended this to the idea of vocation and its relationship to the Christian sacrament of baptism (it was a Catholic High School).  In the blessing of the waters in this sacrament, the baptised is authorised by the community to take up their power, to use their gifts, to bring love and act with humility in the service of the greater good with one another and in concert with the all the riches of the earth.  This is our inheritance and we are promised, if we are children to follow that way, and if as an adult sign up for ourselves to this mission.  I do not see this as a burden, although there are days when it isn’t easy and days where I am unable to make sense of what I might be called to do. Because that is what vocation is, it is listening into the call, noticing what it might mean and then responding.  The call and the response in equal measure, and the response if we are all listening well, will mean acting together to bring about the change being called for. This is why it is so critical tp have space to reflect – it is not an optional extra – it is where the activism begins and where it flows in and out of.

How are you making the spaces to reflect, to retreat, to listen; and that includes hearing yourself as well.  The song the school community has chosen to bind themselves together this year is the Wailing Jenny’s – This is the sound of one voice. It is a great choice (pardon the pun), to model the adaptive leadership challenge building waves of a movement. The first verse is sung by one voice and then as the call and response grows more and more voices join in – just like a movement starts with the ‘lone nut’, then has first followers and then everyone seems to join in; or even in my start up world – a crazy idea, followed by early adopters and then a majority coming along after.

In our everyday activism we are building movements or as Paul Hawken calls it blessed unrest, we are disrupting the systems holding inequity and exclusion in place, and it calls us to action, reflection, action and so the movements towards justice flow, like a river, as the ancient prophets foretold. Stepping into your own power, your leadership is not always easy, so I often turn to John O’Donohue’s voice to bless so I remind myself of my own leadership as vocation and the privileges I have, that remind me that I hold power, and therefore, a responsibility to use it wisely.

Blessing for the one who holds power

By John O’Dohonue

May the gift of leadership awaken in you as a vocation,
Keep you mindful of the providence that calls you to serve.
As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings,
May your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills.

When the way is flat and dull in times of grey endurance,
May your imagination continue to evoke horizons.
When thirst burns in times of drought,
May you be blessed to find the wells.
May you have the wisdom to read time clearly
And know when the seed of change will flourish.

In your heart may there be a sanctuary
For the stillness where clarity is born.
May your work be infused with passion and creativity
And have the wisdom to balance compassion and challenge.

May your soul find the graciousness
To rise above the fester of small mediocrities.
May your power never become a shell
Wherein your heart would silently atrophy.
May you welcome your own vulnerability
As the ground where healing and truth join.

May integrity of soul be your first ideal.
The source that will guide and bless your work.

from To Bless the Space between Us.

Year of activism #30

Saturday’s are days to reconnect to the world around me, and I usually go back to the village that was home for about 15 years. I miss the rhythms of the place and am still learning about the rhythms of where I am now making my home and relying on the tides to help me with the pace and seasons. One of the reasons that my old village still has a hold on me are the rituals of a farmers market, a high street of cafes and conversations, voices of fellow choristers on the wind and high chances of bumping into familar faces across the stalls and walking across the streets. There are nods and waves from people and old trees that carry the stories and a sacred gathering spring fed stream that has been a solid listener to family groups and meetings for thousands and thousands of years.

This Saturday all the ordinary activists were in abundance. First there was a woman who had spent some of her week with companions marking paths for pilgrims conserving habitat and health to create the Willunga Basin Walking Trail. In a few more steps there were the many growers whose techniques and commitment to organic produce were in abundance and respecting health and safety social distancing to get the highest quality of delicious fruits and vegetables into the hands and cupboards of happy consumers. It wasn’t long before a barista and his team were exchanging glances and connecting up with the week that was, taking note they hadn’t seen me for a while and treating my unexceptional purchase as a gift to keep the whole cycle of exchange in motion. The place I gathered with some family members for breakfast, makes a point of being a meat free zone and green is on every plate, reflecting its name. A few more nods, waves and hellos included one to an educator and maker who only works with materials like old enamel saucepan lids, an expression of a used future being repurposed for beauty. When I cross the road again, several trees proclaim the amount of carbon dioxide they express that keeps us breathing and amount of share equivalent to beach umbrellas that shields us in the heat.

My next stop in the village, later in the day, is the opening of an art exhibition. I have been kindly invited to do the honours, to declare the space a gallery, for this season of SALA (South Australian Living Artists). It is a modest affair given the restrictions and everyone gathered respects the rules, cementing our common desire for public health and care for one another inside and outside the venue, yet another reminder to me of living civilly, with purpose. This artist welcomes the viewer to paintings in pastels and oils with bold colours and images she wants to preserve for future generations. One of her first paintings was of a large cave at Maslins Beach  – that cave has now collapsed. She has a creation that shows the remains of the iconic Port  Willunga jetty and the signs above it now warn of the probably of collapsing cliffs, which currently bow to the sea and are so fragile it is almost inevitable they will continue to fragment and fall succumbing to erosion and changes in the climate. Not far from this location is an avenue of old pines where many creatures, winged and multiple legged, have as their home and food bowl; they will soon be blocked out by the mega school under construction, and Mother Willunga’s curves will find themselves, to the artists eye, in a corset. Her art was prescient last year with scenes of bushfires leaving beloved locations on Kangaroo Island bleached in black with sooty soil and foliage instead of beacons of flowers from rarely blossoming grasses. All the gathered respected and bowed to the artist’s eye and the reminder of the how we each have a responsibility to how we see, walk and leave our legacy to future generations.

The last stop in the day was not in the village, but in the comfort of my own home, mediated by software and technology, enabling 55 quiz teams to raise funds for childhood cancer. There were four generations in the room, gathered to support a friend of a friend. It was a simple occasion and done with enthusiasm, the usual negotiations to come to shared (or not shared) answer, with nibbles and sips of a range of substances from strawberry milk to gin and tonic. The young woman behind the scenes had been organising this event for months, transferred what was originally to be in a central city location to the lounge rooms of homes across the state and even a few interstate. The quiz master donned a moustache that could have been accompanied by a mullet, and the MC had all the energy and positivity of a morning ride-to-work radio announcer. The invisible hand gluing the event together, appeared briefly on the screen, being an introvert, and demonstrating how it is her super power. Nothing was out of place and all the people who want to be in front of the camera were. The team of volunteers she was leading raised enough money towards their target, which would ensure children and their families impacted by childhood cancer would be getting counselling support for the coming year. This kind of activism often goes unnoticed or under the guise of organising a social event. It takes time, commitment to detail, juggling egos and scheduling, and this year, multitasking across online tools and platforms previously used only for work now being deployed and transitioning their utility away from making money for shareholders and building careers, to the needs of the smallest ones suffering, surviving and struggling.

This was my Saturday, noticing activating all around me and once again, all I have had to do is turn up, making modest contributions to an overall mission for our planet, family, friends, embracing beauty in the simplest connections. Embracing our seeing, sensing into our actions, holding the precious moments that aggregate into what Paul Hawken calls “blessed unrest” brings its own kind of peace and justice. All the initiatives that made my Saturday – the Farmers Market, The Green Room, The Gospel Groove Choir, the SALA exhibition, the Telstra Enterprise Team’s Quiz night were beautifully executed by leadership often completely invisible, they are all contributing to building a future where more belong because of the connective tissue, relationships, that holds it all together. Each piece is adding to a goodness ecosystem and the quality of how each piece is managed is done with care and kindness. As Hawken says: Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them. This is how the synapse of movement building gets transmitted, across the relationships managed well in ways that are so inviting that curiosity gets the better of people and they join in.

The Pinnacles by Lynn Chamberlain – her SALA exhibition details are here