TASK#1:

Preface: I wanted to start this blog entry by giving a context for the kind of language I use when I write, as I care about how comprehensible it is, and hope that anyone who reads this blog can get an idea of what I’m up to.

I’ve found two valuable ways of framing, through my Dad, how we can speak or write about what Is. We can use “Day Language”: Factual, measurable, and aiming to be objectively true, or “Night Language”: interpretive, metaphorical, seeking to inspire through subjective Truth. As I write on the intimate subjects required for this first task, I simply can’t leave out either method of sharing myself (and also want anyone reading to know why my posts tend to be so darn long!).

Who am I now?

• How do you feel?
I feel like a tender, curious sapling whose intentions are pure. You could interpret this to mean that I’m a committed, growing, and passionate young woman who sometimes bumbles along in a kind of rational optimism. I feel very excited to play the WWW game; to challenge myself to catalyze positive changes in the communities I’m in, and aim to embody a non-violent, faith and service-based “Warrior”.

• Do you have professional questions? What are they?

Over the past year, I have been thinking more deeply about where my passions intersect with the (what I see as) world’s greatest needs: My life purpose. Right now that looks like growing and building my skills in: Non-Violent Communication and Restorative Justice, grassroots organizing, co-creative community building, and facilitation of any of kind of “participatory regenerative art” (including, but not limited to: dance, yoga, experiential theater, music, storytelling, and clowning.) Sometime in the not-too-distant future I’d love to have the skills and experience to give back to the world as a healer, community builder, facilitator, trickster creative “Restor(y)er Warrior” (to tell a different story of what’s possible for ourselves and our lives right now, and to spread the message of sustainability, justice, and peace for all.”)

• What are your dreams?

My dreams are of communities coming to unity, honoring their diversity, and living and learning together with compassion and inclusivity. Much of my inspiration and framework for social change at the intimate, community-building level comes from Tom Atlee’s book Reflections on Evolutionary Activism: Essays, Poems and Prayers From an Emerging Field of Sacred Social Change: http://evolutionaryactivism.com/

I would like to see educational institutions, communities, and families make a shift to more experiential, nature-based, service-oriented, and empathy-building learning models. I believe that communication, the ability to make a heart-felt connection, and to be with the unknown of a “conflict” are powerful ways to allow innovative solutions to emerge when “two or more gather…” Historically, I have not been involved in social change at the economic-political level, as my passion lies in action at the intimate level: creatively telling a new story of humanity and our basic nature as well as learning communication that honors our inherent differences, interconnectedness, and capacity for compassion.

My greatest dream, however, would have to be global transformation through “goofination!” If we bring our lightheartedness together in community to the tough stuff, I’d gladly be a part of the front lines facing any 21st century crisis.
These two great youtube clips really demonstrate what I’m talking about with empathy, interconnectedness, and silly creativity:

Building an “Empathic Civilization”
The “Symphony of Science”

My dreams for myself can be simplified to finding some method to support my generation to be fully awake, alive, and dreaming: to become fully human. A favorite quote of mine is this:
“Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” –Howard Thurman

This is where my hope in seeing people come alive meets my need for change in the world. I want to see young and old be lit up with love, passion, and a heart of service to the whole. I want to see all (including myself) come to feel that they were made for these times, that they have a unique gift to offer the world, and that they are held by a whole Earth community in a bond of love and inclusivity greater than they know.

I love
This love,
That we Dreamers
Dream of.

I dream of beautiful youth (re)evolution
a metamorphosis of the kind in which
there will be time for you
to fall
(or leap)
into a love affair
with this precious moment
the preciousness of (y)our sacred soul
and of this time…

…To listen and witness,
Cosmos gracing us
with an unfathomable,
incomprehensive,
yummy,
participatory,
life time-long gift.

I love
This love
That we Dreamers
Dream of.

There is nothing more
For us to do
than to bring our dreams
and bountiful joy to
all the pain and suffering
and put it in
our collective stew

Give it the right amount
of cooking time
and let the steam soften your heart
as the pain and the joy combine
and emerge as a tonic
that will bring you fully alive

I love
This love
That we Dreamers
Dream of.

I want to add my love
And invite you to add yours,
To this stew of beautiful,
beautiful
Youth (re)evolution.

Well loved and fed
Dreamers
Cannot help but create
Bright realities
Out of their dreams.

• What are your challenges?

My challenge with anything I do often lies in two things. The first is seeing the complexity, violence, and harsh nature of a capitalist culture, or industrial growth society and being young person striving to forge a different path that what’s common in my culture: going to school, getting a job that pays, and settling in a home. I often come up against my own unexamined beliefs about that I need to know, and be able to do to be a leader, change agent, alive citizen.
The second, is with my own lake of experience, skills, and readiness for action…I would much rather be a strategic planner, designer, and spend time on making heart-felt connections than be on the front lines of community building and social activism. I’m inspired, informed, and taking small steps from a place of “blessed unrest”, and what I see as my greatest challenge is the action and experience that would empower me as a change agent and solidify my commitment to social change and community building.

My purpose

• Why do you want to take part in the Warriors Without Weapons 2011?

My deepest purpose is to learn in a collaborative environment how to embody sustainable, and transformational community development: to learn and advocate the pedagogy of WWW. As much as I know that that goal is a lifelong endeavor, I want to bring the essence of that back to the project I’m filtering much of my passions into: “Bus the Change”.

The other aspect of my desire to take part is to challenge myself in a community of like-minded young people to learn the energetic and relational aspects of being a “Warrior without Weapons”. What does that mean? How does it show up in social entrepreneurship? I have my own ideas, inspirations, and models of that and I’m really curious to see how young people from around the world live this archetype. For me it is to live as a peace-giver, wounded healer, and fierce advocate for justice…sourcing our abundance from what’s already in our lives and risking together, to help make someone’s life more wonderful.

My action
• Have you ever done something which demonstrates that you are a “Warrior Without Weapons”? Tell us!

I’ve demonstrated a string of related actions as a ‘warrior without weapons’, all encompassed by my involvement with the Pachamama Alliance and the Awakening the Dreamer symposium (ADT). In the spring of 2009 I helped bring a facilitator of the ADT symposium to my college (Earlham) in Indiana. That summer I was trained as a facilitator and co-facilitated a symposium at Indiana Powershift: a youth leadership summit aimed at bringing a unified voice of demand for change from elected officials, and building the youth clean energy and climate change movement through informative and inspiring workshops on the converging crises in our ecological and economic world. I then co-organized another symposium that winter (’10) at my school, going to the campus for a week despite no longer being a student of the school. This past May I co-led a short symposium in Boulder, Colorado as well.

Following this trail, came my current involvement with creating ‘Bus the Change’ (BTC): a mobile band of youth in action, planting seeds of inspiration and waking people up to the reality of our times. Through this symposium, and possibly transformational service to communities in a similar way to how the WWW program engages with community building.

I played a small part in helping the team I was working with this past winter, create youth-leadership training at Hummingbird Community in Mora, New Mexico. The purpose of this 11-week (summer-long) training was to bond as a “resilient co-creative community” and to become “ambassadors for the co-creation of an “environmentally sustainable, socially just, and spiritually fulfilling human presence on the planet.” Bus the Change started as a two-part initiative, a training and a service-bus tour, with the intention of embodying the symposium’s message and what we wanted to offer on the road.

My commitment
My commitment is that when I move to Oakland (first week in October) I give myself fully to the following things:
Action and learning in the realms of: Equity, Essence, Empathy, and Embodiment (all about healthy and life-serving connection to self and others)

1. Pour my interest, passion, and emerging gifts into a participatory theatrical presentation of the Awakening the Dreamer symposium, or the youth version from Generation Waking Up, the “Wake Up”.
2. Volunteering for an organization where I can confront my edge around being in action and heart-felt service on a consistent basis. (Possible Clowning at hospitals and retirement homes?) Doing this to be involved in my immediate community, compassionately confront my privilege, as well as build skills for WWW and BTC.
3. Work on the Bus the Change 2011 summer tour with a group of inspired, and skillful social change agents.
4. Continuing to learn non-violent communication
5. Further my ability for self-connection and inner-peace, with embodiment and mindfulness practices such as 5 rhythms dance, yoga, and meditation.
What are your future plans? What do you want to do when you return from the program?
Further learning and experimenting with the balance of collaborative service work, inner transformation, and experiential education about how to “be a blessing to the world”: how to make a lasting difference in our world.

That’s really going to look like working on the BTC initiative: organizing, collaborating, and learning as much as I can about what I don’t know by starting with a dream, and going from there.