This morning, I awoke, in Boston, in a contemplative state. I chuckled internally when I realized that.....I was thinking (echo)....in short (echo)...small (echo).... bursts of (echo)....syllables (echo).
The People's Mic is a powerful thing. So powerful that, perhaps, the most important way the police actually supported the #occupywallstreet movement was to take away bullhorns and megaphones. What is embodied in the People's Mic is a symbolic and visceral manifestation of exactly what the people who have generated the #occupy movement are trying to teach us.
Having experienced the People's Mic, I'd like to share what I physically and spiritually (as in how it impacted my spirit or sense of well-being) encountered.
When I sat down for my first General Assembly, I had a general idea of this communication process called 'The People's Microphone'. I understood that the mechanism of call and response, wherein a speaker would pause after every few syllables to allow the attendees to echo their words, in hopes that everyone might hear, had been the creative solution to the police insistence that they could not use voice amplification tools. I was curious about how well it worked. I wasn't prepared for what it would feel like.
There is no comfortable seating at Liberty Square. All of the benches are marble. They have harsh, squared off edges. It is as though they are intentionally designed to say, "we are pretending that you are invited to relax here, but really we want you to move along." If you're not even lucky enough to get a space on a bench, you'll be sitting on the concrete ground. Either way, it is not long before your rear end is sore and your back is aching. Your body really wants to get up and move. This is a recipe for inattentiveness.
As a new arrival, I had that personal discomfort of wondering where I fit in. I sought the comfort of sitting near someone I had a connection to. I had met AoT and did that "I'm new and feeling unsure of myself and don't want to feel alone here" thing of making sure I sat next to him at the meeting.
I'm looking around me, sussing things out and wondering how long before the meeting actually starts when someone hollers, "Mic check!" and the crowd hollers back, "MIC CHECK!" A second time, "Mic check!"..... "MIC CHECK" The sound rolled through my body like a forceful wave. Immediately, a person starts speaking, "The General Assembly" .... "THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY!" ..... "will now"..... "WILL NOW"....."begin"...."BEGIN". (these may not be the exact words, but you get the idea.) And, everyone's is in full attention.
This attention isn't because an announcement was made that the meeting had begun. How many meetings have you been at where someone states a session has begun and people continue muttering amongst themselves? In a large crowd, that's usually a large portion of the attendees. But here, the people are immediately engaged. They are the meeting. They are the sound. In service to each other, they amplify the voice of whomever is speaking. To do that, they must pay attention.
As a new and circumspect attendee, I was not being a mic at first. I was listening and observing and taking it all in. There are hand signals to learn. There a lot of people around me. I tend to suss people out and tune into both a general energy and the different vibes from individuals before I engage. So, I was taking it all in.
It wasn't until I started echoing along with everyone else for a while, though, that I "got it".
Once I became a microphone, it was very different.. I was taking in the energy of the words, allowing the sound waves to penetrate deeply enough into my brain that I could repeat them back. I was then transforming that incoming energy into outgoing energy in the form of sound that I then generated. It really is like plugging a light into a socket. The light takes in the energy from the socket. That energy moves through the electronic channels of the light and is transformed into light which is expelled. By joining the People's Mic, I plugged myself in. I wasn't just taking in, I was also giving out. The energy of the sound wasn't just impacting me and sitting there. It was flowing in, through and out. That feels so much more alive.
It is explained every once in a while, during the assemblies, that the People's Mic must repeat every word being said, even if it makes us uncomfortable or we don't agree. We are an amplifier. This is a neutral job, in that when you amplify you are neither endorsing or objecting to the words being said. We are simply allowing each member of society to have a voice.
In theory, this is a beautiful ideal. In practice, it can be a challenge. I was very uncomfortable, for instance, when someone stood up and started speaking about how the World Trade Center buildings were actually demolished by pre-installed explosives. We all know this conspiracy theory. It felt like my body was being contaminated by these words and I found myself getting quiet. Did I really want to amplify that voice?
Here's the thing, though: if I choose who to amplify and who not to amplify, then I must expect that others will do the same. I also must expect then, that it is possible that no one will amplify my voice when I want to speak. I really had to come to terms with the reality that amplification was not endorsement. I had to wrestle with it.
What I came to understand was that by amplifying, in unison, it was not me personally amplifying as a statement of endorsement. It was me embodying a principle of allowing all voices to be heard. Whatever toxicity I felt from this voice could be cleansed by a beautiful voice. Just as one sugary dessert does not my body destroy if I drink enough water. By allowing this unappealing voice to be heard in full, I was also signaling to the person who spoke, that he would have to amplify the voices of those with whom he did not agree. He would have to let those voices into his body. We would all embody all of it together and have faith that the full experience would be beneficial.
There is another benefit to this call and response methodology. Preachers have long known this: if you have to repeat the words, then you've actually heard them. Have you ever been in couples therapy or a company bond-building workshop? If so, you've likely encountered an exercise in communication. Often it goes like this: person #1 speaks. The communication is not considered complete until person #2 can repeat person #1's communication in a way in which person #1 affirms feeling heard. With the People's Microphone, each person who speaks feels heard. You feel that you've listened. Regardless of whether you agree with each other, you at least feel connected. You don't feel rejected. There is an embracing of each other as members of humanity due equal respect. There is a sense that, though you may need more process or time, you are not severed from one another. No one is left to feel isolated and alone.
This feeling of connection is key to what the #occupy movement is about. This sense that many voices make a complex whole, that you may need time and more process, but that you are still together, this is the key to the transformation they want to see in our world.
If you watch this movement from the outside, if you don't take the time to plug in - really plug in, as in participate in the systems they are generating - and feel what it is they are doing, if you critique the movement without joining it, if you look at it from on high with your own sense of "wisdom" and what "needs to be done", if you touch the edges of it, even thinking that you agree with why they are "protesting" and "what they they want", but you start operating outside of it because you "know better" or "it takes too long" or "they don't have a clear message" or whatever it is that you tell yourself, you are actually perpetuating that which they are recoiling from.
As long as there is a "they" and an "I", you don't get it and you can't represent it. At the core of this movement is the profound notion that humanity is a "we". That you and I must break down our old ways of "getting things done" and figure out how we all work together.
To serve this movement, one needs to take the time to try something completely new and different. One must let go of one's own ways, at least for a bit, and give something else a try. Then determine whether and how your ways and perspectives fit in.
On my 3rd day there, I was sitting in the General Assembly next to Carne Ross. I have a great deal of admiration for this man, who quit his job as a member of the British UN team over what was going on in Iraq. Carne had joined the assembly and was concerned about the proposed process for getting to a list of demands. (The entire debate about a list of demands deserves it's own diary.) He expressed dismay about the way in which the options for getting to the list of demands were presented.
He and I both had profound moments that evening. I was trying to help him understand that the current debate was to accept or reject a specific proposal on the table. That's the way the General Assembly works. Anyone can make a proposal. At the moment, a specific proposal was being considered. During that process, is not the time to suggest a different proposal. Other proposals could be made at another time. I described it as "their" process.
The Assembly was really struggling with the proposal on the table. It's such a big issue and every one has strong feelings. With emotions flowing, it was difficult to adhere to process and things felt chaotic. Carne had his head down, listening. He seemed very frustrated. But, at some point, I turned to him and realized that he had begun amplifying. His head was no longer down, it was up. He was plugged in. Though he still had the same ideas he had earlier, he didn't look as distressed.
The General Assembly ended with an inspirational speech and a call out to the people to give Carne's ideas some serious consideration. I'm not sure any of us who were sitting there could tell you how that happened. The current proposal was tabled and Carne's proposal would be considered the next day, as it was 11pm and this meeting had to end.
Carne looked as surprised as anybody at the turn of events. This man who is helping the South Sudanese build a direct democracy and is working with the Tamils, too, said to me, "This has been the most fascinating political experience I have ever had." He was swarmed at that point and I didn't get to flesh that out, so I don't know what he meant by that, but I do know that his energy was very different than it had been earlier. It was definitely more up.
The profound moment for me had been a bit earlier. When I was trying explain to Carne about "their" process, he said, "it's your process, too." Two days later, sitting here typing this, that brings tears to my eyes. Such a simple concept. I had been there 3 days. I had plugged in. I had helped spark a mental health service. I had made new friends. I had fallen in love with the village at Liberty Square. Still, I was calling it "theirs". I was calling it theirs because I believe that my generation (I'm 48) and those who came before us had our chance. What we're living with today - a society where bullies reign and we worship at the altar of the self-accumulating - is what we built, even if we built it by being silent or complacent. Young people are now coming out and saying, "Enough! We must have something better!" They want to tear down the false temple we built. I feel the need for us to stop and listen, to let them craft something more sustainable. It makes me unbearably uncomfortable to hear people condescendingly plying their "wisdom" at the movement or "in service to" it, though disconnected from it.
After three days, I was still in that place, calling it "their" way, "their" General Assembly", "their" movement. I was "just there to support it". And, yet, they aren't asking for "support", they are asking for transformation. Transformation requires that we plug in, experience it, get it, and then own it. Each one of us must become a part of the "we". And so, I must correct a paragraph from above:
This feeling of connection is key to what the #occupy movement is about. This sense that many voices make a complex whole, that you may need time and more process, but that you are still together, this is the key to the transformation theywe want to see in our world.
We the people, we the 99%, we reject the abuses that have been perpetrated against us. We realize that the US is no longer a democracy. We reject the notion that "free market capitalism" is democracy. We know the people of the world are suffering. We know that when a few people control the resources and the political process, it is not democracy. We know there is a better way to live as a society. We know that direct, participatory, transparent democracy is a better way. We know that taking time, taking care, including everyone, being participatory, in service to all, in full sunlight, and accountable for how we impact one another is the only way we will find peace and sustainability.
We are the People's Microphone. Join us. Plug yourself in.