Beautiful Process

Cold cold cold cold cold. I really hate to be cold. I really, really admire all those who hung around the freezing concrete in the river fog last night for the Occupy GA. I watched it in the relative comfort of my home, riveted.

As I said in my last couple of blogs, I had a lot of emotions about the protesting, and decided for that reason (avoiding the adrenaline patterns) that I couldn't participate in person. I feel lame about it, but self-preservation is what it is.

But I'm so grateful that this revolution is being (partially) televised. The GA meeting on Wed. night Oct. 26 was a really compelling example of patient, innovative and creative process. Meetings are hard for many, but I like them. I usually take minutes if possible to keep me in the moment and not feeling bored or impatient. I like the role of recorder and can channel my desire for justice into painting the most accurate picture possible of what happened.

The minutes can't possibly fully illustrate the beautiful moments of a well-run meeting. Last night there were good minutes being posted on the Occupy Eugene Facebook page, as well as a play-by-play thread which included over 1300 comments that helped fill in the gaps from people not speaking clearly and stupid violent ads that would interrupt the livestream. The video was of marginal quality due to the conditions, but it showed enough to get the sense of the crowd's appearance (bundled up) and size. When the vote was taken to see if there was 90% consensus, after there were a couple of immovable blocks, there were over 75 people still there, and it was midnight.

There were two facilitators, and I didn't catch the name of the second (Silver-something), but the young man named Samuel Rutledge was fantastic at responding, hearing subtleties, and coming up with creative ideas to move things along the way the body wanted them to be moved. I know he didn't do it alone, but he was the linchpin or center around which things revolved, and he was amazing. Apparently he has been part of Community Village and I'm sure he has done plenty of other available training, but however he gained his skills, it was impressive how well he used them.

And he didn't make it all about himself, at all. He always kept himself in the position of facilitator (except when we got a glimpse of how this wonderful skill set can affect his wife and children, which must be wonderful and terrible at times.) It was the best TV I've seen in forever.

It makes me want even more to broaden my understanding of consensus and bring it to the decision-making bodies I sit in on. I've always been committed to it but most of my groups have devolved to consensus-seeking, for efficiency I suppose. Possibly it is partly because we didn't keep up with the available tools. The hand signals are new to me, and darned useful. And consensus-seeking is still better than fighting things out in the sad delusion that there are only two sides of a question. Mostly people don't fall into that trap any more, except maybe in bodies that are politically charged and secretly funded by the Koch Bros. (like the County Commissioners?)

Listening! What a thrilling thing to see how simple it can be to allow everyone a voice. Grounding worked well last night too. There was a woman with a singing bowl who would walk around vibing when things got tense, and it really did serve to calm and bring people back to the present moment. It was just lovely.

So they decided where to move, and another chapter opens today for the movement. Even though I am mostly watching, I really appreciate all the very hard work of so many people. There is a lot of passion and energy being channeled into this communication to the world and I am proud of our local groups and their efforts. I hope everyone can continue to take the high road.

It isn't over. There will still be ways to participate and some of them might be easier now. There was a definite feeling of not being safe in that big dark park and there was no way I could go down there. It will be much more approachable now. More power to the people!