April in Myth

April is old like water, prehistoric, recycled. Womb and bladder.
To my Third World parched skin, she’s America, running the tap.
And now, in a foreign hottub, she mothers me, as if she
has it to spare. Water and muscles, air and my salty grief.

April has bloomed before, on schedule, sometimes an early surprise.
She has chased and she’s been cupped to the lips, been drunk in,
and done someone’s share of drinking. Me, too, always in August.

On April’s flesh, tears and kisses evaporate, leaving shine.
On mine, brine, crusty, leaving in cakes like the ice shelf.
I watch it go, with foreboding that natural disasters will result.

But water and her children won’t be possessed. In time,
she does the possessing, pooling foolish souls like shrimp,
pulling us through hurricanes and extinction and silence from space.

Mammoths, raccoons, wrens and Americans.

Like water, April is old, knows how to crest and trough, be a beating
organ of the beast, a good germ on the living planet.
Some herons are like pterodactyls pulled by hunger too far from shore.
There are fools and there are fish. Drink, says April.
Extinction breeds myth. And oh, what a magnetic myth we make.

—Wren Tuatha

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I'm behind the bars of the window screen. All work and no wander.

We’re on our second day of visiting my hometown Occupy, Louisville! We’ll combine it with visits to the Occupy in Lexington, the city of my birth. But our mornings of back office work are rural, at my family’s farm near Bloomfield, Kentucky. As I work away on emails and follow up phone calls, trying to finalize workshop times and set up fundraiser house parties, I’m stuck in the front parlor of this old farmhouse. I wouldn’t choose any other activity in this moment, but those rolling hills do call through the window screen.

Our dog Tuatha is bored silly, with my nephew in school and no one interested in frequent ball games. My sister-in-law tried to take him for a walk on the farm, but he’s back in the house, so it didn’t take. Not without Mama!

C.T. is also busy following up with potential funders and a publisher who is considering distributing C.T.’s consensus books to a national base. We have sold more books in the last month and a half than in the last three years.

"Why are you taking my picture?" "Don't worry. The light is all wrong. This one won't get used."

If you pick up on the main stream media’s message that Occupy is history, think again. Demand for our work says otherwise.

In fact, the bias of corporate-owned media continues with today’s coverage of the Occupy shut down of ports, depicting the action as harming the port workers, who are part of the 99%. No real attempt to counterweigh that with Occupy’s motivations was made in the CNN article I read.

Our work continues. We ran out of Consensus for Cities, C.T.’s book on how to do consensus in groups of 100,000 or more. So we had more printed and shipped to us on the road. Now we’re restocked and debuted the new copies on the square in Louisville last night.

Louisville’s General Assembly was quite civil, compared to many where we’ve seen novice facilitators struggle with how to manage disruptors shouting. This group seems to have moved unruly people out of their encampment. Even so, they’ve had to deal with theft, drugs and other issues that happen when you arrive in a public space and set up free food, blankets and tents! Occupy groups are learning to clarify their concepts of membership. The experiment continues!

C.T. addresses a crowd in Liberty Plaza, OWS, that eventually swelled to 300.

Now well into our second month of our official tour, C.T. and I are starting to revisit some Occupy sites and deepen our relationships with protesters as they try new meeting skills.

One of the paradigm shifts we are teaching is to avoid being outcome oriented. Consensus really blossoms when we’re not attached to a particular solution, but instead curious what ideas the discussion will bring.

So I have to laugh at myself when I look at our teaching in terms of outcomes—Are we making a difference? Are facilitators and other activists learning real tools they can and do use? Are these tools helping all voices to be heard?

In short, yes. We can see differences in working group meetings, GA’s, and even online discussions. Folks in Chico were able to structure their GA better and handle disruptors. They went from one person planning the agenda five minutes in advance to a team having a real agenda planning meeting. Some Occupy Chico members who hadn’t attended our Consensus: Body & Soul workshop accused us of being some kind of cult, but workshop participants were articulate about how consensus really is about all voices being heard.

C.T. snaps me at the student march in Berkeley.

Occupy folks who attend our talks or meet with us at length get these very intense looks on their faces as the gravity of the paradigm shifts lands on them. They take in the bombshells that C.T. volleys at them:

• A group is by definition not everybody. Inclusion is not about letting everybody in, no matter what drugs they’re on or how they behave. Rather inclusion is creating a safe container by enforcing expectations of behavior and making space for everyone willing to participate in making that safe container. No rulers, not no rules.
• It’s actually easier to change the behavior of the entire group toward a disruptor than change the behavior of the disruptor. Recircle your wagons! If a person won’t stop shouting, have everyone turn away. Even if the facilitators have to end the meeting, you’ve done a better job of creating safe space for the future than if you let someone disrupt.
• “If war is the violent resolution of conflict, then peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the ability to resolve conflict without violence.” —C.T. Lawrence Butler, On Conflict and Consensus
• When you have competitive and cooperative people in the same group, the competitive people always win. There are two reasons: 1) The competitive people are trying to win, and 2) The cooperative people are trying to help them! Duh!

Nov. 8, 2011, while tents were still in Liberty Plaza.

The list goes on, lesson after lesson, laid down at encampment after encampment. It’s not exactly a look of shock that repeats across the faces. It’s more the weight, the opening of the mind, the realization that the original OWS template created many of these problems. And turning it around seems impossible. But it’s not.

Recircle Your Wagons!

Organic change can happen in the Occupy movement without trying to sell a GA  hijacked by angry disruptors on the idea of a better structured direct democracy.

If you’d like to see a movement with a clarified, mature understanding of inclusion, a movement based on true consensus (not voting in disguise), a movement that is making the paradigm shifts that go along with cooperation, then start with an affinity group.

Form an affinity group around these ideas. The membership is not open to whoever finds out about the meeting place and shows up, the membership is defined by common values and interests. Your group could be the food working group or a group just established to study consensus together. It doesn’t matter. You’re not working outside of the Occupy structure. You’re not splitting off. You’re an affinity group. You don’t need permission to exist. If this group succeeds in getting work done without the drama people see in GA’s, word will spread. Best practices will spread. Let it go viral.

Suddenly, consensus is on the world stage. The worldwide Occupy movement is committed to the process of consensus decisionmaking. The use of consensus at the regular General Assembly (GA) is widespread. While the degree of consistency varies from Occupy to Occupy, generally, there is a deep and lasting commitment to the democratic ideal that “all voices may be heard”.

Wren's consensus-based Open Classroom at Heathcote Community

Wren Tuatha and I have 45 years experience between us in consensus process. I’ve has written two books on the topic and taught over 100 workshops on a philosophy of consensus I developed. Wren has practiced consensus 24/7 living in an Intentional Community and she organized & facilitated an educational environment for children for 8 years operated by consensus.

Since the beginning of the Occupy movement, I have been inundated with calls from the press inquiring about consensus. At the same time, I was inundated by email requests from Occupys all over North America asking for assistance with their consensus process. In response to these requests, on October 30th, we hit the road, traveling to several Occupys on both the East & West coasts. The experience so far has been exhilarating.

CT & Starhawk recall activist ol' days in San Francisco

We have a dream. We would like to acquire a bio-diesel bus that could take three to four trainers across the land stopping at each Occupy as we go. We would spend two to four days at each teaching consensus & facilitation and sharing best practices we learn from each Occupy we visit along the way. Our vision is long-distance. We would revisit each Occupy repeatedly, every couple of months, to support and deepen the consensus process over the next year.

This is what direct democracy looks like! It is not easy. It starts out messy. With training and practice, people can learn to use consensus in a way that significantly reduces the use of power to dominate, stops privileged behavior that tends to oppress others and truly allows for all voices to be heard in a safe, meaningful environment. It is worth struggling for in these early stages of development. We would like to have the opportunity to support this effort.

—C.T. Lawrence Butler

In Wren’s Words…

We’re home at Heathcote for a few days, doing back office work after another thrilling trip to Occupy Wall Street. OWS is struggling to find its legs with its new affinity group/spokescouncil model, alternating spokescouncils with GA’s. First thing to get about spokescouncils—You can set them up to be open to the public if you want, but ONLY THE SPOKES SPEAK!!! If you’re not a spokesperson, don’t get on stack or shout out!!!

Ah, direct democracy in its infancy is cute, but it shits a lot.

Thanks so much to our friends Jerry and Jenny who opened their Long Island home to us, and to Melanie, Shana, Nikki, Rabbi David and many other friends who helped us hold two heavily attended teach ins.

We will soon be announcing the dates and location of our three day Consensus: Body and Soul workshop for OWS. In the meantime, we have two Consensus: Body and Soul workshops coming up:

• York, Pennsylvania, January 6th through 8th,
• Baltimore, Maryland on January 13th through 15th.

Locations to be announced. These will be free to Occupy participants, so we need those donations to make it all possible!

How to Support Us in Teaching Consensus and Process Skills

within the Occupy Movement

We are a project of Fusion Partnerships, our fiscal sponsor. You can mail a tax-deductible contribution to:

Fusion Partnerships
1601 Guilford Ave, 2 South
Baltimore, MD 21202

( Be sure to make check out to Fusion Partnerships and write “for Fiopa Consensus Collective” on the memo line)

To donate with PayPal or credit card, click the donate button on our project page of the Fusion site. This is the link!

If you don’t desire a tax deduction, send your contribution to:

C.T. Lawrence Butler
7304 Carroll Ave, #136
Takoma Park, MD 20912

Creative Ideas for Contributing
Switch to CREDO mobile before 12/31/11 and say C.T. Lawrence Butler sent you! Ask click on this link for details.

Host a fundraising house party while we’re in your area! Call Wren for more information: 410-458-2310

Introduce us to major donors in your area. Call Wren at the above number!

Everyone we meet wants to support our work, bringing consensus training to the Occupys, but times are hard. So we’re always on the look out for creative ways that people can donate.

House parties are a great way to multiply your donation times the number of friends who gather together on short notice. This usually involves me getting chocolate desserts, so little bad can be said for that! Contact us at fiopa@consensus.net to schedule a house party.

And here’s a crazy idea: CREDO, the progressive phone company C.T. has been using for twenty years, is making a special offer until December 31. If you switch from your 1% type company such as AT&T or Verizon and tell CREDO that C.T. Lawrence Butler sent you, then CREDO will give Fiopa Consensus Collective a $100 donation in your name to support our work with Occupy!

Order by phone: 866-689-0099

Mention special offer code: 800061

Mention C.T. Lawrence Butler by name and phone number: 301-586-2560

Here’s a link to this promotion online!

I switched from Verizon a few months ago by joining C.T. on a family plan. I was fed up with hearing about the right-wing causes Verizon was using my money to fund. Please take the time to do the research you need to for your best decision. And if you decide it’s time to switch, please make this donation to Fiopa through CREDO’s special offer! Let CREDO know you support consensus training in the Occupys!

—Wren Tuatha

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I wish I had the time and energy for a proper post. There is so much to share of our tour of Boston, Philadelphia and Wall Street Occupys. But I have a raging sinus infection and we’re on a plane at 6 a.m. for Chico, California!

So let a few random pictures stand in for now. And watch snippets of C.T.’s Occupy Wall Street workshop on youtube!

Philly tent city

Cheers to the unions for stepping up in strong support of Occupy Baltimore in the face of the city’s plans to clear our encampment! Note that the Fraternal Order of Police are among the signatories:

“Dear Mayor Rawlings-Blake:

We have been made aware of the city of Baltimore’s intention to close down the Occupy Baltimore site sometime in the next 24 hours. We write to express our firm opinion that nothing be done to close down the site and that instead, an agreement be arrived at which allows for the confrontation of a peaceful, non-violent demonstration.

The Occupy Baltimore protests have given expression to a widely shared belief that our economy and our politics are controlled by corporate interests to the detriment of the overwhelming majority of working people, including our members, their families and communities. We share this opinion and applaud the courage and sacrifice of the Occupy protesters. We believe these protesters should be commended for standing up for the 99% of us, not threatened with removal.

Cities across the country – from San Diego to Little Rock, Philadelphia and Washington DC – have worked with their local Occupy movements to find reasonable accommodations that everyone can live with. Surely, the city of Baltimore can find a solution that meets the concerns of city officials and departments while allowing the protestors to continue their democratic right to peaceful, non-violent protest.

The Occupy Baltimore activists have made a broad call for followers to converge on McKeldin Square in order to defend the occupation tonight. Rather than create a confrontation, we believe it would be wise for the city of Baltimore to act with restraint and responsibility. Rather than remove the protesters, we call upon the city to work with representatives of Occupy Baltimore to find a solution that can maintain the protest location and respect the rights of our citizens.

We look forward to your quick response.

Sincerely,

Ernie Grecco, President, Metro Baltimore Council AFL-CIO
Glen Middleton, Executive Director, AFSCME 67
Anthony Coates, AFSCME Local 647-67
Peggy Peacock, AFSCME Local 2202-67
Ms. Johnnie Phipps, AFSCME Local 558-67
Lorretta Johnson, Secretary-Treasurer, AFT
Mariette English, President, Baltimore Teachers Local 340
Brenda Clayburn, President, City Union of Balto Local 800
Steve Fugate, President, Fire Officers Local 964
Rick Hoffman, President, Fire Fighters Local 734
Jimmy Gittings, President, Public School Administrations and Supervisors Association Local 25
Rod Easter, President, Balto Building Trades Council
Bob Cherry, President, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #3

C.T.'s cookie jar, donning a Food Not Bombs chef's hat

I’m on quite a magic carpet ride, I have to say. Three weeks ago, my partner C.T. Butler and I were quietly working from home. We were assembling a book proposal for C.T.’s memoir of the early years of Food Not Bombs. We had hopes that such a book could help us promote the historic work of the international Food Not Bombs movement, and consensus decisionmaking, one of FNB’s cornerstone principles.

In this work, I’d put my own writing for Hippie Chick Diaries on hold to listen to C.T. spin tales of that first FNB house, a collective of young activists from the anti-nuclear movement. Stories full of color, the three-legged dog and the punk rock scene. Late night stencil graffiti and early morning van runs to pick up cases and cases of food. The sign on the wall of the collective: No Rulers, Not No Rules.

And Meetings. C.T. claimed to have been to many thousands of meetings. I couldn’t imagine this until, doing research, I thumbed through his datebooks, which go back to the early eighties. And then I saw for myself—Some days only had one or two meetings. But C.T. was some kind of boy scout activist, attending often four or more meetings in a single day. Meetings for environmental groups, neighborhood associations, anti-war, anti-nuclear, feminist, animal rights, GLBT, war tax resistance, Food Not Bombs and the non-profit version, Food For Free…

When C.T. set out to write On Conflict and Consensus, he had a unique foundational understanding of how groups go wrong in their process and what to do about it. He had indeed attended many thousands of meetings.

“I would kill myself,” our friend and community mate Matt remarked when I told him this. I think it’s a rare person who is so interested in and attuned to process that she or he can attend even one or two meetings, several days running, without going a little wiggy.

But C.T.’s stories and his consensus model had become my world as he and I scheduled workshops, fielded phone calls for consensus help and shaped up the book proposal.

Then came Occupy Wall Street and with the coverage came C.T.’s running political analysis. He became like those guys yelling coaching strategies at their tv’s. He would make comparisons to Food Not Bombs and other actions.  But whenever I suggested we should be there, instead of our hut in the woods, he would change the subject.

For the past decade or so, C.T. had focused on teaching and writing about consensus. He stayed in the activist game from afar, taking phone calls from Food Not Bombs chapters needing advice, doing the occasional radio show. But after being arrested more than fifty times in non-violent direct actions, C.T. had had his fill of the brutality of some police. Indeed, he now as PTSD.

“Some police are just blue collar folks,” C.T. would say, “And they wouldn’t enjoy having to arrest us for giving out free food. But some are actually sadists, and those are the ones they sent for us,” referring to beatings he received in San Francisco, New York and other places.

Another community mate, Paul, noted the growing Occupy movement and said to C.T., “Sounds like your kind of thing. Are you going to join in soon?”

The next day, C.T. was in a dark place. None of our plans would work. None of our efforts would ever make a difference. To make matters worse, it was his birthday. The best I could do was to just hold space and softly facilitate the facilitator as he moved through his dark places. Every now and then I would push, “We’re going to Occupy Baltimore tomorrow!”

I was driven by instinct and my own desire to show up. And I believed that it was important for him to be there. After a couple of days of telling me it was the last thing he needed, he agreed to check out our local Occupy with me.

Stay tuned for Part Two

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*****FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*****
UPDATE: CITY DEFERS OCCUPY BALTIMORE PERMIT REQUEST, SUGGESTS
COMPROMISE; OCCUPATION CALLS FOR PUBLIC SUPPORT

Occupy Baltimore has been peacefully gathering in McKeldin Square on
the corner of Pratt & Light Streets since October 4th, 2011. Today
marks the start of the fourth week of the encampment. Early last week,
after pressure from the Baltimore City police department and the
department of parks and recreation, Occupy Baltimore filed an
application for a permit to continue the encampment indefinitely.

On Monday, Occupy Baltimore received word that the Department of Parks
& Recreation Department has not approved their permit application, and
instead suggested a compromise that would allow Occupy Baltimore to
continue to occupy McKeldin Square indefinitely without a permit
during the daytime hours, but limit overnight presence to a maximum of
2 people, and restrict the encampment as a whole to a smaller corner
of the Square. The city has asked for an answer to the proposed deal
by Wednesday Oct 26th and stated that if Occupy Baltimore agrees, they
will not be removed from the park for failing to obtain a permit.
Should Occupy Baltimore refuse to comply with the requests to limit
the overnight presence, then the city “has the right to terminate
these special accommodations,” though no specific date for termination
has been announced. In preparation for any possible intervention by
the city, Occupy Baltimore participants are issuing a general call for
all allies to join the encampment starting tonight to support and
protect the group sustaining the occupation at McKeldin Square.

Over the course of the past three weeks, Occupy Baltimore has begun a
directly democratic dialogue, and considering their peaceful and
respectful assembly, the group requests that the city allow them to
maintain this peaceful democratic space, as city government
counterparts have in Philadelphia and Washington DC. Representatives
of Occupy Baltimore, assisted by the Maryland chapter of the ACLU, are
currently in discussion with the Department of Parks and Recreation
about possible negotiations on the proposed deadline and the overnight
stay limitations. These limitations present a clear concern for the
Occupation, which has a complex and pre-existing infrastructure,
including dedicated teams for media, food, direct action, outreach,
security, and other working groups that require consultation and
consideration, as well as physical space onsite.

Occupy Baltimore is committed to maintaining a vibrant, safe space in
McKeldin Square as the movement continues to grow an organic
infrastructure of democratic representation, arts, culture, and
Political debate while still allowing the public to pass through
McKeldin Square, and inviting them to join in the occupation and
associated activities.

Occupy Baltimore recognizes that their requests are outside of the box
for the city’s existing permit system, but encourages the city to work
alongside peaceful and respectful demonstrators to create a legal
space where all voices can be heard.

The Occupation remains hopeful that the City of Baltimore will
continue to work with the movement in the coming days and weeks to
ensure the continued existence of this peaceful gathering.
Participants state, however, that they are closely monitoring police
presence in the area as the city’s deadline approaches. They encourage
supporters to maximize presence in the Square starting today, and
continuing throughout the week, should the authorities decide to clear
the area on or after the Wednesday, October 26 deadline.

******

For more information, or to schedule a time to visit the occupation
movement in Baltimore, please email occupybaltimoreme…@gmail.com or
visit www.occupybmore.org

From Wren:

Occupy Baltimore has received an ironically named “permission document” from the city. It seeks to end our occupy presence by essentially prohibiting tents and overnight camping, and by squeezing all our functions into a little seen corner of the park.

To show our true numbers, Occupy Baltimore urgently calls on all of our supporters to join us on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 in McKeldin Square at Pratt and Light Streets! Wednesday is the deadline  the city gives us for complying with requirements that would essentially end our movement! Join us to send a message that clearing McKeldin will not make us go away!

Rather than recognizing that the protesters of Occupy Baltimore are “we, the people,” and joining us in support of our action to create a Baltimore where all voices are heard, the city has opted to remove us from view.

To quote the city’s document, “No overnight tents and no overnight camping will be allowed except for one tent with up to two individuals…who may remain overnight to watch over the site and any property…All others must leave McKeldin square area by midnight, the time that the area is closed to visitors”

In reference to a reduced area, it states, “Occupy Baltimore has been given a map detailing the footprint perimeter of their occupied area, the area where any tents or signs or any set ups may be placed.”

Reporting back from a small discussion group at Tuesday night’s General Assembly, Occupy member Michael Hanes quipped, “We consensed that they have given us a map…”

The city’s document offers Occupy Baltimore ” 10 (ten) pop-up tent shelter facilities (at no cost)” presumably to replace the very colorful array of tents that are now visible from downtown streets. I heard one small group discussion member retort, “I’m all for the city giving us stuff for free, but I’m not for taking down tents!”

My partner, Food Not Bombs co-founder and consensus trainer C.T. Butler did a call and response with the Monday night General Assembly, “Do we have a permit to be here?” (“No.”) “Are we here?” (“Yes!”) “Do we need a permit to be here?” (“No!”)

So Join us all day Wednesday, October 26, 2011 in McKeldin Square. Stay as long as you can; We have food! BRING MORE TO SHARE! Stay overnight if you can. But JOIN US JOIN US JOIN US!

Baltimore does not have to push back against Occupy. In Albany, New York, city and state police defied their mayor and governor and refused to arrest 700 Occupy protesters.

In my hometown, Louisville, Kentucky, the city has given that Occupy encampment a permit through the end of the year.

JOIN US IN SHOWING THAT OCCUPY IS GROWING. JOIN US TO SAY WE WON’T GO AWAY!

Why does Wednesday matter? Last night after the General Assembly, a woman came through the square with her family—children, and grandchildren in strollers. She was not obstructed in her ability to move through the space in any way. “I love you all!!!” she shouted. She immediately got love back and an invitation to join us. She turned to me and said, “I can’t. I work three jobs. I just got turned down for disability again. I’m hanging in but I just can’t get down here!”

I was reminded then that these early stages of Occupy are about the people with privilege who can come down, representing and making the safe space for all.

C.T. and I have been managing to attend about every other day. We don’t stay overnight, but we plug in and we represent.

Who can you represent on Wednesday?

Below is, I believe, Occupy Baltimore’s official press release that went out this morning:

For Immediate Release

CITY SETS DEADLINE FOR OCCUPY BALTIMORE DISPERSAL

Occupy Baltimore has been peacefully gathering in McKeldin Square on
the corner of Pratt & Light Streets since October 4th, 2011.

The City of Baltimore Parks & Recreation Dept has refused their
request for a permit to legally occupy this space, and has responded
to their permit request with a set of unreasonable demands – including
a limit of 2 people overnight, and limiting the group to a small area
in the corner of the park. Furthermore, they have given the group an
eviction deadline of Wednesday Oct 26th to be in compliance with these
demands, which would essentially end their movement.

In the past three weeks, Occupy Baltimore has begun a directly
democratic dialogue, and considering their peaceful and respectful
assembly, the group requests that the city allow them to maintain this
peaceful democratic space, as city government counterparts in
Philadelphia and Washington DC have.

The city suggests that the demonstrators agree in good faith to
maintain only one overnight tent with just two people. Occupy
Baltimore counters that anyone who wants to stay in their space is
allowed a safe place to stay, out of the elements and with enough food
to eat. Furthermore, Occupy Baltimore has a complex infrastructure
already, with media, food, direct action, outreach, security, and
other working groups, which couldn’t possibly be contained within two
people.

The city also suggests that the demonstrators agree in good faith to
limit their presence to within a small amount of space within McKeldin
Square, reducing the demonstration to a fraction of its original size,
and placing it in an obscure corner of the park. Demonstrators counter
that they would like to create a vibrant safe space that takes up as
much of the square as possible so that they can continue to grow an
organic infrastructure of democratic representation, arts, culture,
and safe space while still allowing passerby to pass through McKeldin
Square.

Occupy Baltimore recognizes that their requests are out of the box for
the city’s existing permit system, but encourages the city to work
alongside peaceful and respectful demonstrators to create a legal
space where citizens’ voices can be heard. Organizers add that
accepting the city’s demands would essentially end their occupation
movement.

The city has given demonstrators an ultimatum to accede to their
request by Wednesday the 26th.

******

For more information, or to schedule a time to visit the occupation
movement in Baltimore, please email occupybaltimoreme…@gmail.com or
visit www.occupybmore.org“