Rivera Sun's Blog: From the Desk of Rivera Sun, page 15

Going Horizontal: Written for Workplaces, Perfect for Activists

Samantha Slade’s book is useful for anyone working for change … and interested in embodying change, too.

A Review by Rivera Sun

The Occupy Movement ignited popular awareness of “horizontal” concepts, yet many years have passed and few movements – and even fewer organizations – have really figured out how to embody those ideas. Samantha Slade’s new book, Going Horizontal, offers practical tools and tangible practices for all of us seeking to walk our talk . . . and go horizontal.

Going Horizontal: Creating a Non-Hierarchical Organization, One Practice at a Time may have been written with the workplace in mind, but its concepts and practices are perfectly applicable to our movements and social justice organizations. It’s no secret that our non-profits (workplaces for many of us) can sometimes be as domineering, hierarchical, and oppressive as the injustices we’re fighting to change. As Slade points out in her thought-provoking book, when we’re all steeped in a hierarchical culture, we replicate its worldview and behaviors unless we actively shift them.

I read the book as an activist, a small business owner, and a novelist who writes about nonviolent movements for change. The Dandelion Insurrection featured a self-organizing movement based on leaderful principles. I turned to Slade’s non-fiction book in preparation for diving deeper into those ideas for the third part of the Dandelion Trilogy and I was not disappointed. Going Horizontal is meant to be a practical, applicable manual, and it succeeds. My personal copy is filled notes and sticky tabs with reminders of practices to try and concepts to revisit for my work, activism, and writing. It has earned both a place on my bookshelf and a spot on my recommended books list. Its concepts and ideas will show up in my speculative fiction and imagineering writings. Its practices are already infiltrating my workplace(s) in exciting ways.

Taking notes as I read “Going Horizontal”. So many good practices in here for the work I do!

I’ve been waiting for this book without knowing it. I’ve been searching for it through stacks of other (excellent) reads on horizontal organizing, emergent systems, and grassroots democracy and movements. The tangible, down-to-earth immediacy of Slade’s book turns conceptual ideas into useful tools that you can wrap your hands, heart, and mind around. She’s designed the book to be used, including practice suggestions and check-in questions, and the result is a truly useful book. The ideas come out of her direct experiences with Percolab, a laboratory for self-organization that works internationally with businesses and civic/public engagement projects. Her writing style is approachable, humorous, and relatable.

Going Horizontal covers fields such as autonomy and self-accountability, how horizontal practice is exactly that: a practice; the role of purpose in replacing hierarchical leadership, the nuts-and-bolts of meetings, the effectiveness and efficiency of transparency, decision making and sharing power, the role of learning (particularly self-directed learning), and the sticky problems of relationships and conflict.

For activists, Going Horizontal is a must-read. We are all replicating oppressive systems of hierarchy . . . and we often know it. What we don’t know is how to change those behaviors. That’s where Going Horizontal can support us. One of the endearingly pragmatic parts of the book is Slade’s reminder that even if the organization we’re working with is not ready to incorporate horizontal practices, there is still a lot we can do individually in how we’re interacting with others. Its a stealth campaign for horizontal practices, a way of infiltrating and subverting the dominant paradigm of hierarchy. (The rebellious streak in me delights in such opportunities. How about you?)

Aside from working individually and stealthily, Slade’s book embraces the full spectrum of opportunities that might unfold if an organizations decides to go horizontal. Her practices can be applied to small and large groups, tiny non-profits and huge corporations. If all of our movements and social organizations read Slade’s book and tried out even one of its practices, we will have made great strides in dismantling hierarchy within our own systems, structures, and selves.

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Rivera Sun , syndicated by  PeaceVoice , is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, The Roots of Resistance, and other books, including a  study guide  to making change with nonviolent action.

 

Alaren & the Feast Day Ceasefire

(Note:This tale is part of the fictional Stories of the Third Brother, an ancient book of folktales about Alaren in Ari Ara’s world. Each folktale teaches a lesson in waging peace using true stories as a spark of inspiration for the tales of courageous nonviolent action. They have been serialized into a 30-week online series that comes with a free print or ebook when we publish the full collection. Read another story and learn more here.)

Winter Solstice. The longest night of the year hung over the armies like a tomb shroud. The last glimmer of the pale sun had set behind the snow-capped peaks hours ago. The warriors huddled behind the crests and shoulders of snowy hills, trying to stay warm, despairing of seeing sunrise. No one dared light a fire for fear that the enemy would rain a cloud of arrows upon them.

“What I wouldn’t give for a pint of hot cider,” one grizzled warrior muttered on the east side of the hill, his blue tunic of Marin black with blood and grime.

“What I wouldn’t give to hold my wife, warm and close,” shivered a battle-scarred man in the red jacket of Shirar on the west side of the hill.

Their breaths turned white and rose on the air like incense ribbons burning in a temple. Alaren stood on the edge of the hill’s crest, suspecting what the murmurs of voices were saying.

They could have everything their cold, weary, aching, embittered hearts longed for, thought Alaren, if only they were willing to give up this war.

He settled his peaked and crooked hat firmly on his head, looked up to the breathless sparkle of stars above, and stepped out onto the crest of the hill that rose like a dragon’s spine between the two freezing armies. The crunch of his footsteps over the hard snow fired like drumbeats into the still night.

“Who’s that?” a sentry whispered, peering at the figure slowly walking up the ridgeline, dark against the blacker ink of the moonless night.

“Alaren,” his companion breathed, pointing at the crooked hat that caught the faint glimmer of starlight.

“What’s he doing, for ancestors’ sake?”

“Getting himself killed, like as not,” the other sentry swore. “I’m going to pass word to the men to stand down before some dim-witted, near-sighted, bare-chinned boy shoots an arrow through the fool’s heart.”

He shook his head at folly of their king’s youngest brother. The tall fellow had been trailing the armies for weeks, trying to talk sense into his warring brothers and their warriors. An order had gone out to leave Alaren alone; no one was to harm him, no one was to help him.

Across the hill, Shirar’s warriors blinked the frost out of their eyelashes. Gloved hands rose to stop their companions from taking action, heads shook as some reached for bows. The name of Alaren leapt from one to the next and the tired warriors sat back.

The lean figure on the crest of the hill pulled something out of the folds of his long cloak. He lifted it to his chin and in the clear, frigid air, the first strokes of an old fiddle’s lament sang out.

In the hills on the either side of Alaren, faces grew stony with sorrow. The bodies of their friends lay strewn throughout these hills, buried in hasty graves, their funeral songs unsung.

“He’s playing for their souls tonight, laying them to rest proper,” said a warrior in a blue tunic.

“He’s playing for our hearts tonight, knowing our losses,” said a warrior in a red jacket.

Alaren’s lament walked the hills. The sound crouched down beside each man and rested a hand upon his shoulder. Eyes grew tight with unshed tears. The youngest boys wept openly, the tears freezing on scarves and collars.

The sound ended. The last, lingering note faded away. Silence fell and the eternity of night deepened.

“Don’t stop.”

The voice rang out across the snow. The warriors on the opposite side jolted at the sound of their enemy’s voice.

“I must, friends,” Alaren said, casting his words left and right to include them all, holding up his bow and fiddle. “My fingers will freeze without a fire.”

A disappointed silence fell. Then the sound of footsteps running across snow crunched loudly. The shape of a boy crested the ridge. The clunk of firewood and rustle of kindling sounded.

“Here. Please.”

The grizzled old men among his enemies hung their heads, recognizing the cracking voices of their young sons in the youth’s pleading words. They could hear his nightmares and his fears crowding up against his throat. They could sense his longing for the end of fighting spilling into those two simple words.

“Does anyone have a flint stone?” Alaren called quietly down to the warriors.

“Aye,” a gruff voice replied.

The sound of his slow, weighted steps climbed the side of the hill. A spark flared against the night. Another. A crackle erupted. A blaze grew.

Light.

Two hundred longing eyes leapt to the hope of that fire, shining like a candle under the unbearable black cold of the longest night of the year. Alaren stood alone. The boy and man had backed warily away as the light illuminated their faces. Alaren played a second song, an old tune, known to all of them. At the third refrain, a second fiddle joined his from the encampment to his left. By the fifth verse, a voice on his right rose upon the night air, cracked and strong at the same time.

Alaren bowed the tune into another, gliding seamlessly from one song to the next. A dozen voices picked up the verses. It was as if the hills on one side of Alaren sang out to the other.

Midway through, the first singer stepped out of hiding and walked up the hill toward the fire. He came without weapons and held his hands out as he sang to show he would do no harm that night. His comrades watched him breathlessly, certain he would be struck down in the next heartbeat.

A face popped over the ridge, a lad, singing, carrying nothing more than another log of firewood, which he fed to the blaze.

Alaren’s eyes stung with emotion as the two singers’ eyes met and the fear of the enemy gave way to the recognition of their shared humanity. As he licked the salt off his lips, another warrior joined them, holding out his weaponless hands to the warmth of the fire. The next man brought a loaf of bread and broke it with the next youth who crept out of the darkness.

Alaren played until his bowstrings frayed and his fiddle shuddered out of tune in the cold. He played until his arms ached and his eyes dropped with weariness. He played every song he knew twice over, and when he faltered, another man stepped up. This bearded man took the fiddle from Alaren’s cold fingers and tuned it true, lifting the body under his beard and playing the songs of his homeland.

The truce lasted three days and three nights, and we now call these the Feast Days of the Three Brothers . . . one for Marin, one for Shirar, and the third night for the peace of Alaren. No fighting. No warring. No attacks happen during this time.

And though, on the fourth day, the commanders rode through the ranks of their mutinying men and threatened to hang any traitor who refused to fight, the war ended a month later. And while the history books give other reasons to explain the ending of the war, the truth is that Alaren won peace on the longest night of the year by inviting them all to join him. For people who sing and break bread around the fire together can no longer fight as enemies, instead, they strive for peace together as friends. 

The End

———–  

 

A Note from Rivera Sun

This story is inspired by the true story of the Christmas Day Ceasefire during World War I where nearly 100,000 French, British, and German soldiers participated in an unofficial ceasefire around the Christmas holidays of 1914. Wikipedia reports, “In the week leading up to the 25th, French, German, and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal greetings and talk. In some areas, men from both sides ventured into

By Robson Harold B – This is photograph Q 50719 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

no man’s land on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs. There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps, while several meetings ended in carol-singing. Men played games of football with one another, giving one of the most memorable images of the truce.” The following year, the commanders issued strongly worded orders to keep the soldiers from joining into an unofficial ceasefire, fearing that it would undermine the willingness to keep fighting. Alaren’s fictional story also draws from the folktale, Stone Soup, in which bitterly divided townspeople realize that they have enough to take care of each other, if only they will share their resources as a whole.

This tale is part of the fictional Stories of the Third Brother, an ancient book of folktales about Alaren in Ari Ara’s world. Each folktale teaches a lesson in waging peace using true stories as a spark of inspiration for the tales of courageous nonviolent action. They have been serialized into a 30-week online series that comes with a free print or ebook when we publish the full collection. Read another story and learn more here.

If you enjoyed this, you will also appreciate Wim Laven’s piece on The Lasting Lessons from the Christmas Day Ceasefire.

I Want To Love This Broken-Hearted Country

An Essay of the Man From the North

by Rivera Sun

I want to love this broken-hearted country, this land of shattered dreams and dashed hopes. I want to place my ear to the drumming cadence of our cities and hear the insistent pulse of life. I want to wander the forgotten highways of stories that run like wrinkles through our body politic.

 

Our nation is more than just our headlines. We are the collective sum of all our people, past and present, and as far into our uncertain future as we dare to imagine. We are our stories, sordid and sublime, humble and extraordinary. We are our conversations as we sit on our porches, or crouch on concrete stoops. We are our tragedies and horrors. We are every newborn hope.

 

We are 320 million inhalations in every moment and 320 million exhales in the next. For every breath that stops, another newborn gasps their first breath. We are all these moments of all our lives, a country of interwoven destinies, breathing in and out together. We are our cruelties and our violence. We are our kindnesses and healings. We are the joyful hitch in a happy step. We are sorrow weighing down our limbs.

 

I want to fall in love with my country, to remember our saving graces while decrying our failings and injustices. I have reeled in horror at the face of our ugliness; now I long to remember the beautiful again. We are lost without the depth of our souls, the vision of our dreams, the illumination of our hope. We become hollow shells of armor, brittle and empty, fueled by the fumes of rage. The struggle for justice becomes a long, pointless march in which we trudge in darkness through the mud. This is no way to live, no way to fight, no way to strive for change.

 

Instead, we must sink the roots of our heart and souls into the deep earth of human existence. We must seek out the nourishing ground of love. For every cruelty tossed in our faces, we must grasp the balm of kindness, connection, courage, and caring. These are the truths we stand up for. These are the “country” that we defend, a nation without borders, a place defined by the human heart. These values are the bedrock of what we call justice: the inalienable rights of all humans to live in peace, in hope, in compassion, in a community that dares to respect and even love itself.

 

Our country has learned to despise itself. Some clutch their race, class, gender and shove everyone else out of their “halluci-nation” of this country. Some include everyone in the shape of their imagined nation, but sneer and degrade the ones they despise. We are a nation divided by our fears and hatred, a nation that cannot bear its truth: we are broken-hearted, battered, terrified by what we are, unable to face the mirror and look our truth in the eye.

 

Dare to look. Your human soul is strong enough to hold the sorrow, the pain, the shock, the fear that stark and honest truths evoke. Hold your gaze until the “monster” you first perceive shifts, and a deeper layer is revealed. Like the old folktale of Tamlin shape-shifting through bear and beast, snake and lion, be like brave Janet, holding him in her love. Such love will weather the monstrous rages until the truth of our humanness emerges.

 

We are a nation that needs to love our true selves – not the hubris of our illusions of imperialistic might. We need to discard our arrogant posturing and bullying, and see the wounds and insecurities underneath. We need to let go of our bloated and false pride. We need to love the humbler truths, the hidden stories, the wounded places needing healing. We need to love our children and our elders, our people in all their colors, our artists and our workers, our frail and strong alike. This is the foundation of meaningful change, the commitment to a love strong enough to heal the brokenness, to address our wounds, to speak to our simple human beauties, to remember our kindness and commonalities, to nurture the basic human values that make us truly great. We need to believe in one another, to have faith that we – all 320 million of us – are worth the effort that healing and transformation require.

 

I want to love this broken-hearted country, this land of shattered dreams and dashed hopes. I want to help us rise, together, and embody our visions of equality and respect, caring and connection, justice and transformation. I want to fall in love again . . . so that we all might heal and live and change.

 

Author/Activist Rivera Sun syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection and the sequel, The Roots of Resistance.

 

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrection and the sequel, The Roots of Resistance. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. In spite of severe surveillance and repression, the Man From the North’s banned articles circulate through the American populace, reporting on resistance and fomenting nonviolent revolution. This article is one of a series written by The Man From the North, which are not included in the novel, but can be read here. This essay was originally published on Dandelion Salad and can be reposted with attribution. Thank you.

 

The End of the NRA: Biz Mags Tell Activists “The Strategy Is Working”

Good news for humanity: the NRA is weakening. The gun-lobbying group is in “deep financial trouble,” Fortune Magazine reported, and warns that the NRA may not be able to keep going. “The group says it is under such financial distress because New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has convinced a number of financial service providers, banks, and insurance providers against doing business with the gun-advocacy group. As a result, the NRA claims that it will be forced to end its magazine publishing and television services, and will be forced to curtail rallies and potentially shutter some of its offices.”

 

Governor Cuomo got a lot of credit for what, in reality, took an entire movement comprising hundreds of organizations. (For many reasons, business magazines tend to downplay the powerful role of social movements in economic shifts.) The reality is clear to those who have been following the Parkland students and movement groups like #NotOneMore and Everytown for Gun Safety: their strategies are working and the governor is a welcome ally.

 

Symbolic protests work best when they are used to galvanize acts of economic noncooperation like boycotts, divestments, and severing business ties. The strength of such protests lies in their ability to raise the stakes of inaction for power holders. By compelling power holders to rise out of complacency, silence, and avoidance of the issues, movements can pressure power holders to use their leverage for tangible social justice changes. When people like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo throw their clout into getting businesses and organizations to withdraw economic and social support from the NRA, the impact is immediate. By highlighting that the choice is between kids (and others) lives and the greed of the NRA and gun industry, the youth-led protests, marches, speeches, and rallies have led to increasing numbers of people and businesses cutting ties with the NRA.

 

Many companies have dumped the NRA over the years: the National Teachers Union dumped Wells Fargo over NRA ties. Enterprise, Avis, Budget car rentals, Delta and United airlines, and Wyndham and Best Western hotels have all stopped offering NRA discounts. The NRA claims that losing “perks” will not deter their members from pushing for their constitutional rights and civil liberties. Many people involved in the movement to end gun violence, however, feel it is important that NRA members aren’t being rewarded by corporations. In their minds, those who actively block legislation for gun control of automatic assault weapons shouldn’t enjoy special privileges while our children are being massacred.

 

You can find a full list of companies that dumped the NRA in 2018 at Cheatsheet.com.

 

Gov. Cuomo’s efforts go beyond the small perks of NRA membership and target the bigger deals, financial backing, and even the top donor circles of the NRA. This has the gun-lobby behemoth running scared. The take-home for ordinary citizens is to amplify, escalate, and leverage our actions into larger, richer, and more powerful action. The Parkland students have done excellent work in that department—and their efforts have been backed up by hundreds of growing groups that work to end gun violence, virtually all of which have identified the NRA as a barrier to this goal.

 

Business is responsive – and vulnerable – to the actions of ordinary citizens on the issue of the NRA. Your feedback, emails, phone calls, and boycotts of banks and businesses make a difference. In many cases it’s far more effective than calling your senator (hint: do both!). The effects of movement pressures are often felt more swiftly in the business world. Politicians can only be changed every 2-4 years; businesses have to deal with quarterly reports every three months.

 

Pressuring leaders who want to do the right thing—elected, corporate, or government agency—gives those leaders cover. Pressuring the ones who are indifferent helps them realize they need to take a stand. Pressuring the hardline opponents can drive them to make costly errors leading to their replacement.

 

Indeed, business magazine articles on the anti-NRA actions reveal that companies listen when we take action. First National Bank in Nebraska – one of the 15 largest credit card issuers in the nation – ended its NRA benefits because of customer feedback. As Time.com reported: “The First National Bank of Omaha tweeted last Thursday that ‘customer feedback has caused us to review our relationship with the NRA,’ and that it would not be renewing its contract to produce NRA-branded Visa cards.”

 

All of this information gives us a strategic memo: the strategy is working. The question of whether to support human life, particularly kids, or a powerful lobby group is shifting in favor of the kids. And the NRA is weakening. There’s no need to wait for the next mass shooting or for an organization to tell you to take action: find a company, write an email, and ask your friends to join you in pressuring them to drop the NRA. You can find a full list of companies that give NRA benefits and discounts on ThinkProgress.

 

The Fortune Magazine report on the NRA’s financial crisis also tells us another important message: keep going. Instead of waiting for the next tragedy to galvanize a fresh burst of action, use this moment to continue to drive support away from the NRA. They’ll be rallying to rebuild; our task is to continue to call companies to walk their talk, stand up for our kids, and dump the NRA.

 

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Rivera Sun , syndicated by  PeaceVoice , is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, The Roots of Resistance, and other books, including a  study guide  to making change with nonviolent action. She is  a trainer in strategy for nonviolent movements.

 

 

 

Urchins’ Feast – An Excerpt from The Lost Heir

Urchins’ Feast

Note: This chapter is excerpted from The Lost Heir:  An Unruly Royal, An Urchin Queen, and A Quest For Justice by Rivera Sun. It can be found for a limited time only through our Community Publishing Campaign.

“No, absolutely not,” the Great Lady Brinelle spoke as she continued reading a draft bill, not bothering to look up at the Ari Ara’s preposterous request. A breeze carried the cool edge of autumn into the study through the open window and ruffled the papers on the desk. Brinelle slammed a paperweight on top of them.

That morning, the young street urchin, Rill, had jogged across the training sands and grabbed Ari Ara’s elbow, her fingers cold with the bite of frost in the air, her cheeks burning bright red with the exertion of the practice. The urchins came in packs to trainings, colorful as autumn leaves as they leapt into the exercises. Rill pulled Ari Ara away from their prying ears as she tugged her jacket back on over her goose bumps. The two girls had been huddled in whispered conversations over the desert silks for weeks; Rill liked the idea, but needed time to work on the other urchins one by one . . . the concept of being allies to the water workers was a thick pill to swallow, even if it was good for them.

“I’ve got most of ’em seeing sense and the rest’ll come around. Now, I hear you’re havin’ a birthday soon,” she remarked with a casualness that didn’t quite cover her excitement, “and I was thinking you could present the silks at the Urchins’ Feast.”

“The what?” Ari Ara asked.

Rill’s mouth dropped open.

“Surely you know?”

Every year on the birthday of the Lost Heir, while the nobles prayed to find the child and mourned the death of Queen Alinore, the urchins threw an enormous festival in the streets.

“Drives the nobles batty, it does,” Rill commented cheerfully, “but we figured the best way to draw the Lost Heir out of hiding was to throw a giant party. Any child with half a brain would come, right?”

The second year, the orphans had joined in, some sneaking out of the orphanages, others let out by sympathetic monks and sisters. The third year, some of the working parents had put out cookies and small cakes on their doorsteps, along with warm winter clothes. From that, a tradition had erupted.

“It’s a grand festival, everyone in the city joins in now,” Rill told her. “Clothes and treats on every doorstep. This year, it’ll be wild with you actually here in the city, found and all!”

Rill stopped and looked slyly at Ari Ara.

“Me and some of the others, we’ve got a bet, though. They says you won’t be allowed to join in, and I told them to stuff their ignorance under a sewer grate . . . of course you’d be dancing in the street with us – how could you not? We’ve been throwing you a party for longer’n some of us has been alive.”

Plus, Rill added, they were friends, weren’t they?

“I told Rill I would go,” Ari Ara spluttered to Brinelle.

“Well, let that be a lesson to you in not making promises that you’re not sure you can keep,” Brinelle replied coolly, lifting up the addendum to the bill and frowning at it.

Ari Ara argued that the orphans and urchins had a special love for the Lost Heir. It would reflect poorly on the House of Marin if she didn’t appear.

“You’ll be spending the day receiving orphans from all over Mariana who have studied diligently and worked hard all year for the honor of meeting you,” Brinelle pointed out, striking a line off the bill and jotting a note on the side.

Ari Ara bit back a sharp retort about being used as a prize to reward favorites and pets. If she could visit all the orphans in Mariana, she would. She knew from personal experience that the most scolded and punished orphans were also the most devout believers in the beneficent powers of the Lost Heir. All orphans of unknown parentage daydreamed about being the Lost Heir and everyone else prayed to the semi-mythical figure. She certainly had, given how often she’d wound up in trouble.

“An orphan,” she told Brinelle in the most respectful tone she could muster, “does not look at the Lost Heir as a reward for good behavior. She cries out to the Lost Heir to help her when life gets tough. She dreams of the Lost Heir appearing and telling her everything is going to be all right. The Lost Heir comes to an orphan as he’s crying with loneliness and tells him his parents loved him!”

She went on, explaining to this rich and powerful woman who had never scrubbed a cold floor on knees that poked through ragged clothes that the Lost Heir’s legend was a special guardian to the children. She had a responsibility to appear in the streets on the night of the Urchins’ Feast. Brinelle straightened her spine and took off the spectacles she’d just begun to use while reading the dense and detailed paperwork from the Assembly of Nobles. This morning, she’d plucked a gray hair from her temple. She looked at the nearly twelve-year old girl standing in front of her desk, blue-gray eyes flashing with temper, pointed little chin stuck stubbornly up in the air, and suddenly, the Great Lady felt old.

“Did I just hear you say the word, responsibility?” she asked the girl, appearing both severe and surprised.

Ari Ara nodded, hoping Brinelle had heard more than that. The Great Lady pinched the bridge of her nose, thinking.

“What did Shulen say?” Brinelle asked her knowingly.

Ari Ara’s body slumped. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“He said it was risky and dangerous,” she muttered.

She’d argued with Shulen for an hour. He told her she’d have to be escorted by guards. She refused; you couldn’t bring the Royal Guard or the Capital Watch to an urchins’ gathering – they’d take off running. Shulen shook his head, his answer was no. Ari Ara told him huffily that she’d take it up with Brinelle.

“Fish will fly before she lets you go,” Shulen predicted.

“I’m sorry,” Brinelle replied, sounding genuinely regretful, “but my answer must be the same as Shulen’s. Someone might try to kidnap or kill you.”

“As if you’d care,” Ari Ara muttered under her breath, a shine of hot tears hitting her eyes.

Brinelle put down her work.

“You may find this hard to believe, but I would be very upset if you were harmed,” she told the girl, secretly appalled that Ari Ara thought her heart was made of such callous stone.

“Why? You and Korin could rule, just as you’ve always planned,” Ari Ara spat out, staring at the floor, kicking the leg of the desk.

A sword blade of anger swung through Brinelle. She took a deep breath and wrestled it down.

“Ari Ara,” she said carefully, trying to not lash the girl with her irritation, “my plan was to advise my sensitive and skilled cousin Alinore as she ruled. My plan was to grow old with my husband. My plan was to find Alinore’s child and put him or her on the throne so that my child could be free of the burden that I have been forced to bear for the past decade.”

Ari Ara started to protest. Brinelle slammed her palm on the desk. Ari Ara flinched.

“Don’t interrupt,” Brinelle snapped. “I have carried this nation on my back, largely alone and often unsupported, for twelve long and difficult years. I swore I would find you and put you where you belong, and that includes keeping you alive!”

Her voice dropped into an icy edge of warning.

“So, no, you may not go to the Urchins’ Feast. You may not realize this yet, but with power comes danger, and you may have enemies lurking among the populace. Ancestors forbid they should knife you, shoot you with an arrow from the rooftops, hire an urchin to poison you, kidnap you and drop you in the Mari River tied to a stone, or any other number of other ghastly murders – ”

“They’d have to catch me first,” Ari Ara muttered, spinning on her heel and stalking out the door.

Brinelle watched her storm away. A faint smile crossed her lips at the girl’s last defiant comment. In a quiet voice, she finished her thought.

” – because, believe it or not, Ari Ara of the High Mountains, I’ve grown rather fond of you for all your temper and rule-breaking.”

~

On the evening of Queen Alinore’s death and the birthday of the Lost Heir, Ari Ara sat quietly by her window, watching the moonlight turn the East Channel silver. The ceremonies of the day had been long and largely tedious. Tradition held that the Young Queen gave gifts to others on her birthday, so she handed out a staggering amount of objects all day. She sat through a dawn vigil at the temple, honoring her mother’s spirit. She received a long line of nervously smug orphans – the kind of perfectly behaved snots she had scoffed at (and secretly envied) during her short and tumultuous stint at the monastery in Monk’s Hand. At the dinner party with all the nobles, Varina had skimmed within a knife’s edge of accusing her of killing Queen Alinore either by being born or by being part of a plot to steal the throne. The only good part of the evening was when Korin dumped his cake down the front of Varina’s dress and apologized for mistaking it for a wastebasket.

As the House of Marin slowly quieted, a great clamor of celebration rose in the streets of Mariana Capital. When the glow of light from the window in Brinelle’s study dimmed, Ari Ara pulled her oldest training clothes out of her bundle of Monk’s Hand belongings and slipped them on. She’d grown, she realized in surprise. Her wrists stuck out of the cuffs. The worn knees of her pants puckered several inches above her kneecaps. A sense of time and change hit her suddenly. She shook out the folds of her black Fanten wool cloak with its treasured single line of silver hair of elder ewe yarn, smelling the last traces of the scent of the forests and the clear, cold waters of the High Mountains. They’d be gone by morning, the danker air of the river threading into the wool. She inhaled the clear scents one last time, then flung her cloak over her shoulders. The hood hid her bright hair and would make her black against the night. She plumped the pillows under the covers in case a maid peeked in and left a note explaining where she was going. Just in case they did discover her gone, she didn’t want anyone to panic and accuse the urchins of kidnapping her.

Ari Ara threw a stuffed, but light satchel over her shoulder and leaned out the window. The east wall of the House of Marin gleamed in the moonlight. Across the river, the silver-green fields swayed. Below, the stone walls stretched straight down into the murky depths of the East Channel. Pressing her belly flat to the wall, she slid her fingers into the cracks and inched toward the end of the house. After a breathless moment where a chunk of granite broke free under her grip and her other hand slickened with sweat, she reached the corner of the building and descended swiftly. She leapt the last few feet and landed in the alley as lightly as a cat.

Emir stepped out of the shadows. Ari Ara sighed. She should have known.

“The Great Lady and Shulen send their regards,” Emir remarked dryly. “They’re not stupid, you know. They figured you’d do something like this.”

“You can’t stop me,” Ari Ara bristled, trying to skirt around him.

“I’m not here to stop you, silly,” Emir shot back. “I’m here to go with you.”

“What?!” she exclaimed.

Emir told her he’d called in an old debt.

“The Champion’s Boon?” Ari Ara gasped.

Emir nodded. He’d been thinking about it for weeks and finally requested that the Great Lady allow the Lost Heir to join the Urchins’ Feast. It was a gift beyond measure to the poorest inhabitants of the Capital: the urchins and orphans who had sacrificed parents to the War of Retribution and spent long hours of their short lives praying to the legend of the Lost Heir. He understood – even if Brinelle and Shulen did not – how important this was to Everill Riverdon and the other children.

“But – but – to use the Boon,” Ari Ara stammered, honored and amazed, awed by the generosity of her friend.

Emir shrugged.

“It was the least I could do . . . and really, it’s better this way. Thanks to your notorious bad temper, the entire Capital is talking about how you’re not going. It cuts the chances of an assassination attempt in half.”

“Just in half?”

Emir nodded, then grinned cheerfully.

“Don’t worry. I’m sworn to throw myself in front of knives aimed at you. If anything happens, you’ll have the rest of your life to regret causing my death.”

“Thanks,” Ari Ara groaned. “You don’t really think we’ll be attacked, do you?”

“No, and neither does Shulen or you’d be back in the House of Marin already.”

“Things were simpler when I was a nobody,” she complained.

“That’s what Shulen says, too,” Emir informed her. “He said he wished he could just chuck your hot head in the river like he used to when you were just his apprentice.”

Ari Ara laughed. Emir pulled the hood of his cloak over his long hair. Then he pointed to her satchel and asked what was inside.

“A gift for the urchins,” Ari Ara answered simply.

She strode swiftly down the alley before they could be stopped. The streets of Mariana Capital made her gasp in wonder. Emir grinned as she gaped like a wide-mouthed riverfish. Candles had been stuck into carved stone boxes. The doorsteps glowed in every direction. White banners painted with the circle of the Mark of Peace hung from the windows, balconies, and bridges. The black brushstrokes of desert sand and river-water waves rippled in the night breeze. Throngs of children ran through the streets. Every stoop in the Capital was laden with trays of cookies and small cakes. She spotted a door cracking open as a hand extended, replacing an empty platter with a full one. Strips of vintage cloths – gifts for the urchins – adorned the railings. Tied bundles had been placed on windowsills. On the top step of a flight of stone stairs, an urchin bowed his fiddle in a wild jig. Children laid down gifts on the steps at his feet to keep him playing through the night.

Ari Ara and Emir ran through the alleys, passing through games of Catch the King and foot races and whirl-in-the-wind. It seemed every turn revealed another musician: pipers whistling out crazy reels, drummers pounding cans and bottles in a cacophony of improvised rhythms, bands of singers bellowing out popular melodies. A pickle organ had even been wheeled out from a tavern to blast its plink-plunkety tunes into the night.

“How will we ever find Rill?” she hollered to Emir over the noise.

“Try the plaza,” an urchin girl yelled back, spinning around when she heard the question.

They shouted thanks and made their way through the street party. The plaza blazed from the bright lanterns hung from the upper stories of the shops. Long ropes stretched into a web across the open space of the square. Buttons on thin thread had been tied to the ropes. Urchins leapt, snatching the round shapes and snapping the threads. Every yank set the rest of the rope lines bobbing, making the other urchins miss their mark. Older urchins put younger ones on their shoulders and jumped so that even the smallest could win a button. Rill perched on the ancestor statue of Marin, cheering on the button-leapers and blowing on a loud horn whenever someone succeeded, setting off whoops and hollers throughout the plaza.

Rill spotted them under their cloaks and teased Emir as they neared.

“You’re a well-built urchin,” she joked. “Ever think of trying for the Royal Guard?”

“We’ve brought a gift,” Ari Ara said, holding out the sack.

“Put that away. Your doorstep’s already the talk of the Capital – or didn’t you see?” Rill answered. “Orphans and urchins are coming back with the history of Marin in antique bands of cloth – the Great Lady must have emptied the museum for us!”

Ari Ara scanned the impromptu armbands wound around Rill’s upper arm. One of the patterns looked familiar and finally she placed it – she’d seen it in a portrait of Brinelle’s mother.

“That was nice of her,” Ari Ara exclaimed, delighted and impressed by the Great Lady’s thoughtfulness.

“So keep your scraps, urchin,” Rill told her grandly. “Tithe’s been made by the House of Marin.”

“Oh, you’ll want this,” Ari Ara answered. “It’s from the other side of the family.”

She held out the satchel and flipped open the top flap. Inside were scraps and pieces of the beautiful pattered silks and colorful weaves of the bolts the Desert King had sent. Each had been rolled or folded carefully and bound with a second bit of cloth to make beautiful gifts for the urchins.

“Urchins’ Ancestors!” yelped a girl sitting on the statue of Alaren next to Rill, looking down in shock. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Desert silk, the finest, straight from Tahkan Shirar,” Ari Ara announced in a loud voice that froze the urchins in their tracks.

“What’s he want?” one lad asked, suspicious.

“Same as us,” Rill called out. “The end of the Water Exchange, and the return of his people and water. This sack is a gift in the spirit of solidarity. He wants his people to come home. We want our honest work back.”

Rill took a scrap from the bag and had Ari Ara tie it around her upper arm next to the fabric from the House of Marin.

“Tell the Desert King that the Urchin Queen thanks him,” she stated grandly, lifting her arm in the air.

A cheer rose up and suddenly, the urchins dove for the silks and began tying them onto their arms. A fiddle struck up a familiar jig. A joyful burst of recognition surged through the urchins and orphans. Rill’s toothy grin bloomed. She slung the precious satchel of cloth over Marin’s sword and ordered another urchin to hand them out fairly. Then she pulled Ari Ara into the fray as Emir dove after them.

“Bet you’ve never seen the Urchin’s Reel,” Rill hollered in her ear. “Try to keep up and don’t worry about the steps – there aren’t any!”

Ari Ara let out a whoop of delight. There wasn’t a dance invented that a Fanten-raised girl didn’t love. At the Academy, she’d had to learn the stiffly somber court dances of the nobles, partnering with Korin to practice the stately steps, but in her opinion, a dance designed to keep extravagant head ornaments in place didn’t stir the blood and spirit like a real dance should.

As a second fiddle picked up the counter melody, the plaza began to writhe with motion. Orphans clapped and joined in with the lyrics – a shocking and humorous account of urchins’ evasions of the Watch. Urchins leapt and hopped, spun and spiraled in a staggeringly chaotic eruption of sheer revelry. Emir kicked out a tap-step from his hills in the north, laughing at Ari Ara’s startled look – he hadn’t always been a warrior, he told her – but his eyes remained watchful.

Rill danced with abandon, throwing her arms high in the air and clapping along with the tune. Ari Ara joined her, setting off a cheerful match of such wild gyrations and astonishing leaps that a space cleared around them. As the second tune snuck in on the heels of the first, the pair didn’t miss a beat. The fiddlers charged onwards, and the two girls strove to out-whirl each other. Emir stepped back into the ring of clapping children and heard the astonished gasp leap out of the throat of a newly arrived young orphan.

“It’s her! The Lost Heir!”

Cheers, whistles, and trills broke out. Smaller children were hoisted up on shoulders to watch. Urchins stood precariously on the stone heads and arms of the ancestor statues. The two dancers laughed. There wasn’t a move either could try that the other wouldn’t attempt. The older children’s eyes shone with emotion. The younger ones hopped in place with uncontainable mirth at the magic of the night.

Emir swallowed down the lump in his throat as he watched the glow rising on the children’s faces. He had seen many things in his sixteen years of life. He had seen the fiercest dedication of discipline under Shulen’s training. He had witnessed a massacre of women and children. He had stopped assassins from killing his best friend. He had beaten warriors decades older than him. He had observed the schemes of the nobles and the extravagances of the wealthy. He had seen dire poverty, famine, and plagues. As a child, he had cried over the battlefields of war.

On the night of the Urchins’ Feast, he saw the best of humanity shining like candlelight in the faces of children. The gleam of joy brimmed in their eyes. Trust and faith returned to the hearts of small children who had known much hardship in their young lives. A glow of wonder gleamed in the faces of youths who had almost stopped believing in miracles.

Yet, a miracle had happened tonight. The Lost Heir had appeared. She was here, dancing, laughing, a child as they were; the lost one, found; returned to those who had held a celebration in her honor year after year, even while the grown-ups warred, mourned, and despaired.

Emir Miresh had risen to fame as the youngest Mariana Champion in a hundred years. He had been awarded honors and medals for his defense of Korin. He had been told many times that his life’s achievements would outstrip even Shulen’s.

Standing in a circle of clapping, cheering children, Emir Miresh knew that no matter what else he did in his life, his choice to use the Champion’s Boon to bring the Lost Heir to the Urchins’ Feast would be the greatest victory of all.

___________

This chapter is excerpted from The Lost Heir:  An Unruly Royal, An Urchin Queen, and A Quest For Justice by Rivera Sun. It can be found for a limited time only through our Community Publishing Campaign.

Overthrow the Corporate Overlords

If you like being a peon, a serf, or a slave, by all means, continue on with business-as-usual. Your corporate overlords are delighted to exploit you. They’re thrilled at the prospect of profiting off your descendants for all eternity. But their hourglass is running out of sand. The planet’s ecosystems are collapsing. We will not last long as underlings. This is a paltry comfort as we slide toward mass extinction.

If your heart rebels against this fate, you must stir yourself to action. You must weigh the peril of our looming future against the dangers of resistance. Your fear of repression from our known tyrants must be measured against the threats coming from forest fires, floods, hurricanes, droughts, famines, and mass poverty. As bad as it is, it can get worse. And it will. To resist is to live. To believe in life and to cherish humanity is survival.

The problem is that many of us have become comfortable with the status quo. The brutalities of the present are as familiar as an abusive partner. Leaving them takes more than courage. It takes vision for a better future.

We must dare to ask – and answer – the question: who and what will replace the corporate overlords?

The answer is a long-cherished dream of humanity, a once robust vision of self-governance and real democracy. History is written by the conquerors, and the dominators’ history books obscure our understanding that we used to govern ourselves. From kings to nobles to plutocrats to corporate overlords, those who pillage, plunder, oppress, and enslave have rewritten the story of humanity. They claim we must be ruled by a wise (and hopefully benevolent) overlord. This is a lie. Once upon a time, in a history forgotten to contemporary humans, we made our decisions together. Archeology points to a time before conquest and violence. It shows graves of egalitarian wealth, no man or woman richer or more noble than the rest. It tells of a time before patriarchy and war. The history books rarely mention this . . . or any other real democratic and shared decision-making systems throughout the centuries. The dominators’ history will wax poetic about kings and emperors, warlords and nobles. It will leave out the history of the Norse “Things“, the randomly-selected government positions of Greece, the Commons of Europe, the consensus-based organizing of movement groups, the longevity of numerous anarchist collectives, and the tribal democracies of the Iroquois, Wabanaki, and others.

We need to know these stories. They are the complex and varied answers to our question of what comes after the revolution. We know if will not be – cannot be – more of the same. The current systems of elitist power have squandered their legitimacy to rule. From the first charters of companies like the East India, they have enslaved, massacred, destroyed, exploited, extracted, starved, impoverished, overthrown, oppressed, poisoned, robbed, humiliated, and murdered anything that stood between them and their greed.

Continuing to tolerate them is a death sentence. Resisting them with organized nonviolent struggle is the most courageous and sensible response. The full arsenal of nonviolence must be deployed: we must build robust alternatives to corporatism and capitalist-consumer culture, organize widespread participation in alternative economies like gifting, sharing, commoning, trade and barter, time banks, local currencies, and more. We must wrest the state apparatus out of the hands of oligarchs and corporatists using electoral, legislative, and direct action to pick away at the structural and systemic injustices that keep elites in power. Problems like voter disenfranchisement, money as speech, the two-party duopoly, gerrymandering, and more must be challenged and transformed.

We must use coordinated strikes and boycotts in the economic sector to limit the power of corporations over people and planet. We must support and join cooperatives, democratizing the means of production. We must make corporations accountable to citizens and citizen legislative bodies. Local communities must be able to halt the poisoning of the land, water, air, and people.

We cannot sustain this predicament of corporate overlords and serfs. It is rebel or die. I know what I choose. Do you?

 

________________

 

Author/Activist Rivera Sun syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection and the sequel, The Roots of Resistance. Website: http://www.riverasun.com

 

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrection and the sequel, The Roots of Resistance. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. In spite of severe surveillance and repression, the Man From the North’s banned articles circulate through the American populace, reporting on resistance and fomenting nonviolent revolution. This article is one of a series written by The Man From the North, which are not included in the novel, but can be read here. This essay was originally published on Dandelion Salad and can be reposted with permission.

8 Awesome Lessons from the Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum

I recently left the country (for a weekend) and joined an international group of feminists of all genders at the Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum (EFF) in Toronto. I had been invited to offer a workshop on the tools and strategies activists use to make change. When I first heard about this group (not knowing anything about them), my skeptical radar when off, projecting pantsuits and pink-washing of corporate injustice and business-as-usual. It turns out, I was wrong. The Entrepreneurial Feminists walk the talk, do the work, and embody the intersectional change we seek in the world. To say I was impressed is an understatement. I was blown away, reinvigorated, and tingling with the sensation of finding 150 like-minded souls. By definition, Entrepreneurial Feminists are activists even if they don’t use the word. They seek to implement feminist values in their businesses, and use business to change the world in alignment with feminist values. When I asked my workshop participants how many of them were working for social change, every hand in the room went up.

 

Here are 8 awesome take-aways from my experience at the Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum.

 

Really Cool Things Are Happening

From innovation hubs to federal grants aimed at supporting women entrepreneurs (in Canada) to collectives and coops to queer-and-women owned enterprise to B-Corps, really amazing things are happening. The participants in the forum were all engaged in actively changing the world through the vehicle of ethical, sustainable, just and fair businesses. I was blown away by the creativity, hopefulness, expertise, and knowledge that joined together at the forum.

 

Canada Is Awesome (Especially Compared to US)

Canada has a self-proclaimed “feminist” prime minister, which is the polar opposite of the US “grab-em-by-the-pussy” president. The Canadians are concerned about who is getting the federal government’s entrepreneurial and women-in-business grants, rather than whether or not such things should exist. They’re working on extending their 1-year paid maternity/paternity leave program to small and mid-sized business owners. (When I explained that the US has no mandated paid maternity leave programs, they looked at me in shock. Americans can’t get fired for being pregnant, and we’re given a “short-and-temporary” unpaid leave to give birth, but that’s it.) Canada is making great strides in the direction of progressive values while remaining conscious of its shortcomings and dedicated to visions that I feel few Americans are even daring to dream right now. It was refreshing, sobering, and invigorating to get out of our country for a weekend and listen to the ideas and brilliance happening across the border.

 

Entrepreneurial Feminists are a thing.

Confession: At the forum, I asked the obvious question, “what, exactly, is an entrepreneurial feminist?” The LiisBeth: Field Notes for Feminists in Business defines it as: entrepreneurial feminist (verb): 1.0 A person (s) who transforms lives by working to advance social justice and transmute the economy. Now, I myself would have said that an Entrepreneurial Feminist is a noun, but Buckminster Fuller clarified long ago that the human being is actually a verb, as “being” suggests. At the forum, speaker CV Harquist offered a foundational talk and explained that an entrepreneurial feminist is someone who is applying the values of feminism to enterprise. This person (of any gender) is pre-figuratively changing the world and supporting social change through the vehicle of their business. They advance collective flourishing, and operate in socially, economically, and politically generative (not extractive) ways.

 

Feminist Values: The Lightbulb Goes On

For years, I’ve had a reluctance around business. And no wonder: business as usual is built on values and principles I tend to find abhorrent. I’m not in the work I do for the fortune. I’d like to pay my bills, like everyone else, but beyond that, I want my work to support equality, justice, respect, healing, transformation, accessibility, sustainability, and world peace. (A tall order, I know.) Business-as-usual often doesn’t move in that direction. So, I’ve been haphazardly searching for the alternatives. The Entrepreneurial Feminists are certainly that. It was thrilling to see my worldview articulated at the forum and put on a power-point projection about doing business from a feminist lens. In her Foundational Talk, CV Harquail defined core feminist business values, including whole human-ness and inter-independence. She spoke about how feminist business challenges hierarchical leadership and extractive industries. She explained how feminism was not trying to replace male dominance with female dominance, but rather to unravel the structures of domination all together. When asked if entrepreneurial feminists were seeking to be a counterculture in the business world, she replied that the vision is to overturn the patriarchal, dominating, exploitative, oppressive, and extractive economic systems that are destructive to humanity and the Earth. (I’ve always loved a good revolutionary idea.) As I listened, the imagined gap between my values and my view of being in business evaporated. I looked around the room and realized that there were 150+ persons who were, like me, striving to integrate feminist values into their work. CV Harquail said, “the meaning of our collective purpose is the well-being of everyone.” This simple, but deeply profound statement represents a revolutionary upheaval for the current systems and structures built on individual wealth accumulation at the expense of people and planet. If I can do business like a feminist, I’m all for it.

 

Ecosystems & Murmurations

I taught my murmuration exercise on embodying shared leadership, and I wasn’t the only presenter tapping into the beautiful potential of natural systems theory. The theme of ecosystems ran through many sessions and served as a foundational understanding for all of the ideas that were shared. Feminism embraces our deep connection to the rest of the natural world. It calls out destructive and dominative structures, proposing models based on cooperatives, collectives, shared leadership, emergent systems, self-organizing structures, horizontal organizing, and so on. I attended a session by Petra Kassun-Mutch and Barbara Orser that used ecosystem mapping to help entrepreneurial feminists identify areas of mutually-beneficial collaboration between one’s supply-chain, sales channels, media/promoters, and funders. Much like symbiotic relationships in nature or healthy, balanced ecosystems, the strategies suggested in the workshop demonstrated how collective flourishing supported one’s business, rather than the false model of competition. It was invigorating to see so many people working with these concepts.

 

Indigenomics & Decolonizing Design

Carol Anne Hilton presented on an emergent field called “Indigenomics” which looked at the economic powerhouse of First Nations. She spoke about how Indigenous values are integrated into economic business models that operate sustainably and respect Indigenous traditions. She also mentioned that this knowledge was vital to changing false narratives around dependency and economic burdens or drains. On related note, Dr. Dori Tunstall, the first Black and female Dean of Design at Ontario College of Arts and Design University, spoke powerfully about the tangible ways in which she is working with others to decolonize education and create a decolonized design program.

 

Means Are Ends In the Making

The Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum integrated knowledge-sharing styles, drawing from both traditional lecture formats and generative, participatory models of learning. Movement, art, and music all played roles in the conference. A member of the hosting committee attended each session as a scribe, taking notes (and drawings) of the session’s teachings. In the evenings, the scribes offered the whole group report-backs so that we all had a sense of what had transpired during the day. Opportunities for mingling and sharing our experiences and ideas were built into the program. Tabling and flyering spaces were available. SheEO founder Vicki Saunders facilitated a radical generosity session among the participants that taught skills of giving and receiving support in many forms (examples included art/book reviews, business plan development, newsletter signups, and more). Movement sessions began each morning. Snacks, water, and childcare were provided. If entrepreneurial feminists seek to implement feminist values into businesses, the EFF did its best to walk that talk during the weekend.

 

Practical Action Steps for Yours Truly (and perhaps you?)

I started telling everyone I know about the forum. This is a rare phenomenon for me. Next year, I want to bring you all with me, including those who identify as male and feminist. EFF is for feminists of all genders, including trans, male, non-binary, and label defying. I also set aside three days later this month to do a deep dive strategy and business planning session with my partner, to see how we can incorporate what I learned at the EFF into my work as a writer, publisher, and distributor of my indie books. I also signed up for a couple of newsletters, so I can stay in touch with this movement. You may also be interested: check out Liisbeth Magazine and Feminists At Work. Follow #feministbiz on social media.

 

Rivera Sun’s Murmuration Exercise for Leaderful Organizing

Starlings in Murmuration over Rome. Image from Creative Commons (CCO). Support the Commons!

Murmuration Exercise

Adapted for movements and organizations by Rivera Sun

Please use and share, but please let participants know where it comes from so a sense of lineage and longevity is built through our movements. Thank you.

History: I first learned this exercise as a group improvisational dance structure at Bennington College with Dance Professor Susan Sgorbati, 2000-2004. I wrote it into The Dandelion Insurrection as a movement structure in 2013. Since then, I have used this adaptation to teach shared leadership, collaboration and allyship skills in numerous workshops. You can use it in your groups (including workplaces).

Objectives: To teach shared leadership skills in an embodied and experiential manner using this participatory, movement-based group exercise.

Set up: You will need an open space for movement. This exercise works best with 10+ people, but if you have a smaller group, you can rotate 1-2 people standing outside observing while a 5-10 person group does the exercise.

Show this video on 60,000 Starlings In Flight (a murmuration): https://youtu.be/ctMty7av0jc Note: There are many online videos of murmurations. This one includes footage of the hawks being chased away from the nests by the group action; a very clear collective nonviolent response to an immediate threat of violence. It is theorized that murmurations with no hawks present are trainings.

 

Introductory Speech: Explain that a murmuration is a biology term for a flocking structure that shares leadership. Such structures are used by animals for a variety of purposes: hunting, protection, or perhaps reasons of beauty and culture beyond human knowledge. We can use the murmuration to practice sharing leadership and working in collaborative and supportive roles. The murmuration’s flexibility and solidarity-based strength happens because every individual bird is following four shared principles.

Explain that the four principles are:

Keep moving forward
Whoever is in front is the leader
Leadership changes when the flock turns
Don’t leave your wing mate out on a limb (Wingmate Solidarity)

Ask the group to stand up in a circle. You may wish to do a quick “lightning round” of motions to get people more comfortable in their bodies. In this, go around the circle as each person does a gesture or motion and the rest of the group mimics it back.

Ask part (5+ people) to stand in the middle of the room facing one direction. Let people know that you will all be switching roles of participant/observer.

Note: As facilitator, you may choose to join the group to demonstrate the initial instructions, but step out as soon as they start to understand the basic idea. You can offer further reminders or clarification as the participants experiment with the exercise.

Ask the group to point out who is in the front. Ask: who is the leader? Let that person know he/she/they can begin to move. (If hesitant, suggest they lift their arm up and down.) The rest of the flock will mimic the motion together. Explain how the first three principles operate. As soon as the leader turns to the left or the right, call out the question: “who is in the front now?” Remind the group that this person is the leader. The flock will now mimic the new leader’s gestures. As this leader turns, the leadership passes. If the flock does not shift to follow the person in the front of the group, ask them again: who is the leader now?

Wingmate Solidarity: Pause the group to explain Principle 4. If someone splinters away from the group, another person needs to go with them and support them. If no one joins them, the person who winged off on their own needs to rejoin the main flock. In large groups, it is possible to have 1-2 person off-shoots, and also 2 or 3 groups of murmurations that separate from the main flock. Both eventually re-merge with the main flock. Ask the group what the starlings gain from this principle? (The hawk can’t pick them off one-by-one; this is also how they splinter and surround the hawk.)

Restart the group to explore the murmuration. Ask them not to talk. Laughter happens and it’s okay. If the group gets confused, you can help to refocus them, but let them work out their confusion if possible. You might remind them of the principles if it seems like they’re forgetting some.

After 3-7 mins, call the murmuration to a close. The group usually reaches a natural break or pause where you can conclude the exercise. Give them a round of applause.

Open up a discussion by asking the flock how that felt. (See suggestion questions below). After a few comments ask the observers what they observed.

Switch roles, swapping out the groups of observers and participants. The second group will likely be quicker to action than the first. An occasional reminder about one of the principle might be helpful. It is common in this second flock to run into leaders who leap out and are not followed. Take note of this and bring it up in the discussion afterward. In the moment, you might need to remind them about wingmates.

After 3-7 minutes, find a closing point. Applaud Flock 2. Open a discussion by asking the flock to share their experiences. Then invite the observers to offer comments. Ask both sides about how they felt in their switched roles.

If you have time, encourage a third flock to form. You will likely have many participants. Let this flock experiment together with little to no interruption.

Find a closing point. Applaud Flock 3. Open up one last discussion and sharing of observations.

Questions:

How did it feel to step into leadership? (Scary? Natural?)
How did it feel to support – not follow – the shared and shifting leadership? (Comfortable? Confusing?)
How did it feel to support the flock in general? (Boring? Safe? Uncomfortable?)

 

If there is a moment of confusion about who is the leader and someone clearly steps forward to lead, you can ask the group:

How did that feel when so-and-so stepped forward?

So-and-so, how did it feel to take on the leadership position right then?
Did it make a difference to know you could pass the leadership mantle off to someone else?
Did it make a difference as a supporter to know that you could support many people and have a chance to lead?

 

If the group has tried splintering (successfully or not), ask them about it.

What happened when so-and-so splintered off?
How did it feel when (someone) joined you? Or: How did it feel when no one joined you?
How did it feel to rejoin the flock?
How did it feel to break away from the flock?

 

Relating murmuration experiences to real life:

If there is a dominating individual, a very confident leader who steps forward and assumes command, ask the individual and the group about that. Ask them if they’ve ever seen this in their real life.
If there is confusion in the flock about who is leading, ask them if they’ve ever experienced that in real life? What happened?
Ask the whole group if they’ve experienced shared leadership in the real life. How was it? What worked? What didn’t?
Have they experienced non-shared leadership? (Traditional singular, hierarchical leaders) What did they like/dislike about that kind of leadership?

 

A Revolution of Democracy

Image from Creative Commons CCO. Support the Commons!

An Essay of the Man from the North

by Rivera Sun

What do we do when we finally understand that the elections really are stolen? Or rigged? Or thrust out of our reach by the manipulations of rich and powerful people? Corrupted by corporations? How long does it take before we call the bluff? Another disappointing election cycle? Two? Three? How much more gerrymandering, corporate buying of elections, voter disenfranchisement, and outright fraud can we stand? When will we take seriously the necessity of change?

This is not a democracy of, for, and by the people. And, at the rate we’re going, it never will be.

We cannot, as many claim, vote our way into power when no aspect of the two party duopoly represents anything other than elite interests. The system is designed to empower rich people and their massive corporations, no one else. Over the years, it has been modified to allow different faces to represent it, but the agenda has stayed much the same.

We must see the system in all its cruelty and injustice. We must be brave enough to surrender our false hopes and wistful ideals about it. From 1787 onward, this government has been designed to serve the privileged, to reinforce such privilege, and to protect the “property” of the wealthy class, including at one point, women and African-Americans.

It’s high time for that to change.

We, the people, were never asked, back in 1787, what sort of government we’d like. Only a scant handful of people from a mere 6% of the populace (white, propertied males) were invited to actively participate in crafting the Constitution. The rest of us have struggled for freedom and power ever since.

Perhaps it’s time to have that much-belated conversation about the kind of government we’d prefer to participate within. (Undoubtedly, a pay-to-play elections process requiring millions and billions of dollars is not high on the average, broke, Americans’ list of ideas.) We, the people, are long overdue for a deep, revolutionary discussion about what sort of decision-making structures we want to see in our world. And, it’s time for a serious nationwide movement for democracy, with all the breadth and depth of possibility the phrase entails.

Democracy is not merely a form of government. It must be a way of life, a set of ethics and an ethos of a culture. For functional democracy to arise, it must be a widespread practice in our work, schools, homes, businesses, markets, religious institutions, and social clubs. We must strive to understand the spirit of the word, not merely the form of the word as embodied by the process of voting every few years for a representative.

We must dare to dream in the complex intricacies of what we don’t know about democracy. We must study democracy like a foreign language, learning processes like sentence structures, practicing our articulation, searching for the words to describe what me mean when we cry for democracy. We must examine the immense richness of humanity’s many experiments in shared decision-making and become familiar with the successes, failures, and potential pitfalls.

We must also break free of the conditioning of disempowerment and dare to imagine what decision we might make – for good or for ill – if we, together, designed our society, politics, economics, and culture. Democracy in any format requires a revolutionary re-envisioning of our way of life. A nation of brow-beaten workers, automatons, consumers, or bosses will never succeed in functional democracy. A real democracy requires a broad spectrum of humanity to show up with all our varied talents, skills, and perspectives: dreamers, artists, engineers, mothers and fathers, scientists, doctors, lovers, students, and more. In short, it takes us all to discover what will work for us all.

It will take love; and the foundation of love, respect. Democracy, as is so-often said, is more than two cats and a mouse deciding what’s for dinner. Indeed, it is. We must explore that “more” and illuminate what is required. We need to make vast changes in how we create media, entertainment, education, and public discourse to find the practices that better serve to foster understanding and conflict resolution. We need to increase the types of cultural experiences that move us toward loving and caring for our fellow citizens, rather than hating and fearing them. Real democracy requires levels of knowledge, compassion, and respect that we, as a nation, have never practiced before. Here, then lies the groundwork of our democratic revolution: we must build the respect among ourselves by which a real democracy can hear and meet its peoples’ needs.

For we are talking about a revolution. It might be nonviolent in nature, but its scope is a massive upheaval, not just in politics, but in society and culture as well. Make no mistake: our culture is far from democratic. Even the overhaul of the injustices that burden the current political apparatus would require revolutionary changes. An effort that seeks not just minor adjustments, but a profound re-envisioning in the ways we make every decision in our lives is nothing short of a revolution. It should be treated and understood as such. We should prepare ourselves for the reality of demanding such change. We must gird ourselves for the struggle if we ever wish to see government of, by, and for the people, all of us, together.

 

________

 

Author/Activist Rivera Sun syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection and the sequel, The Roots of Resistance. Website: http://www.riverasun.com

 

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrection and the sequel, The Roots of Resistance. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. In spite of severe surveillance and repression, the Man From the North’s banned articles circulate through the American populace, reporting on resistance and fomenting nonviolent revolution. This article is one of a series written by The Man From the North, which are not included in the novel, but can be read here. This essay was originally published on Dandelion Salad, and can be reposted with a citation link.

 

The Time Is Up; The Time Is Now

Image from Creative Commons, CCO. Support the Commons!

An Essay of the Man From the North

by Rivera Sun

The time is up. The time is now. Gather the people to do the work: the healing, transformative, deepening work of building community, solutions, understanding, skills, knowledge, and hope. You must be the one to make a change, to step out of the rutted tracks of the looming train wreck that is our culture. You must have the courage to walk into the wilderness of what you don’t know and embrace the solutions that will save our lives.

All quests and hero’s journeys begin with this: the yearning for change; the hope of saving graces; the long shot of wished-for miracles. In each of us, our willingness to make a change begins with equal measures of fear, courage, and purpose rolled into an electric jolt to the soul . . . a spark that launches you toward danger and potential.

Our world will be saved by billions of ordinary heroes and sheroes who decide to do hundreds of humble and extraordinary actions. Hour by hour, minute by minute, we change our world by withdrawing our support, cooperation, and participation from old destructive systems. By making these shifts, we starve the monster we have become. We share with neighbors to dismantle consumer-capitalism. We gather to tell stories and unplug the corporate media. We build solar panels and shut off the switches of fossil fuels. One small action multiplied by millions of people adds up quickly to massive change. One small action done strategically by a small group of people can catalyze a hundred million more.

Change requires that we live differently. All of us must make changes: from the most committed activist who knows she must reconnect to her heart; to the average citizen who suspects he could be doing more; to the terrified investors in fossil fuels who must choose between their industry and their planet; and everyone in between. Real change is never handed to us on a silver platter, nor served by powerful people. When suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted to vote, she strode into the polling place and cast her ballot. When Rosa Parks wanted to desegregate the Montgomery buses, she sat down and refused to give up her seat. When tribes among the Anishinaabe wanted to use their promised treaty rights, they walked on to the land to hunt, fish, and gather traditional foods and medicines.

All of them faced violence, danger, arrest, and even death threats. All of them organized, mobilized, struggled, and ultimately prevailed. None of them sat on the couch waiting for the right people to be put into the right offices to do the right thing. Deep, meaningful change is not handed to us. We wrest it out of the unknown and bring it into existence in our lives.

As Thomas Paine wrote, “we have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Our actions, day in and day out, shape this ever-evolving world. We are the potter’s hands forming the wet clay vessels of our existence. We are the weavers at the loom, casting the threads of our lives through the wool of the world. We are the stone cutter with chisel and hammer, chipping away at the hard realities that block our forward progress. With such power to shape our world comes the responsibility to wield our lives with intention and skill.

If you want change, live differently. But remember, you alone are not enough. One of our changes is that we must work together. We must reach out from our isolated lives. We must join hands with millions and take collective steps toward the future. You cannot go on a hero’s journey alone. Not this time. You must ask others – many others, millions of others – to change their lives, too. Ask your family, friends, and colleagues. Use outreach and organizing tools to ask your neighbors, faith communities, and co-workers. Put nonviolent action to work to compel our society to adopt a change for justice. Mobilize to demand that institutions and industries shift their massive resources into systems that are just, fair, sustainably, and non-harming. In this way, our ordinary actions – multiplied by millions – add up to extraordinary change.

Do not wait another minute to change your life. The time is up. The time is now.

 

 

________________

 

Author/Activist Rivera Sun syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection and the sequel, The Roots of Resistance. This essay was originally published on Dandelion Salad, and is reposted with permission. Website: http://www.riverasun.com

 

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrection and the sequel, The Roots of Resistance. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. In spite of severe surveillance and repression, the Man From the North’s banned articles circulate through the American populace, reporting on resistance and fomenting nonviolent revolution. This article is one of a series written by The Man From the North, which are not included in the novel, but can be read here. This essay was originally published on Dandelion Salad, and is reposted with permission.