In between

Since all phenomena (or phenomenally appearing things) which arise, present no reality in themselves, they are said to be of noumena (in other words, they are of the Voidness, regarded as the noumenal background or Source of the physical universe of the phenomena). Though not formed into anything, yet they give shape to everything. Thus it is that phenomena and noumena are in unison, and said to be of one nature. They are, like ice and water, reflection and mirror, two aspects of a single thing.

Peaceful warriors

The battle has already started,

human rights have been thwarted,

many people are born into slavery,

others lulled in by epic hypocrisy.

It takes two parties for a fight,

both insisting they are right,

sticking in their favorite roles

pushing opposing magnetic poles.

Once we become aware,

we can start to care,

yet it needs strength to dare

noticing what's really there.

By gently tuning into the cosmic flow,

we can stop the fight and start to grow.

Occupations of the occupy movement

It's long after the 'get a job' phase of the occupation of public space. For more than three months now, the local occupation had its ups and downs, yet is still swinging. 'Job' is quite a terrible word, and 'work' is mostly simiarly ill reputed. Gen Y and Z just love to chill and watch the world go by.



Of course, generalisations are generally wrong, and before I get accused of ageism I want to point out that I met revolutionary work horses of all ages, as well as incapable people. The level of engagement reflects personal attitudes, motivations and skills, and the proficiency of any task done depends on the right mix of those.

Before I get philosophical, I want to describe the 'roles' within occupy that seem special. To avoid people how do nothing else but decision making (also nown as leaders) this process is outsourced to the entire community effected. To allow this transition, the dominance of leadership is replaced by facilitation by the moderator team.



Facilitation is nothing new, the process of non-violent conflict resolution as described, implemented and exemplified by Marshall Rosenberg existed most likely in many society that considered themselves civilised. Humans need social contact to better organise the daily survival requirements, and if we were like wolves to each other, we would have extinguished our species long ago.

Facilitation describes the process of helping people to communicate better. It has the power to connect parties that used to kill and hate each other, and I think it even has the power to end the political economical domination that endangers the health of Mother Earth and of mankind. It's a simple process, yet requires individual skill and/or talent.



I've seen many different people in their 'role' as facilitator, with highly differing qualities. It takes only little for a 'weak' moderation team to be derailed, and many blame 'the process' for this outcome. Unless the facilitators embody the process, we cannot really decide whether the process works or not. In a way, it's their personal responsibility to be a shining example of respect and compassion for everyone, combined with good listening and communication skills.



Luckily, people get mostly inspired by example. As long as a team of five facilitators gets their act together, the magic of group flow to find consent in a GA happens easily. Dissenters can get heard, without having the impression of being forced to conform. I have experienced some fabulous examples of facilitation, and many dreadful ones. Those exposed to less inspiring examples often call for the process to be improved.

In this emerging movement many roles exist only for a short time, depending on the requirements for specific projects. Many tasks don't require special skills, or some that can be learned quite fast. We have to accept the obsolescence of most 'jobs' that exist today. Crafts and their related skills will never come out of fashion, but talking a hapless victim on the phone into a new energy supplier contract, or defending the same person against the energy corporation's 'ownership fee' when transferring a contract might not be needed in the long run.

Humans who are alive during the 21st century, 13.7 billion years of evolution after the ‘big bang’, are extraordinarily fortunate. The shift to intentional evolution is one of the most significant evolutionary transitions that can occur on any planet on which life emerges. We have the unique opportunity to contribute to its successful completion on this planet. And if we choose to make this contribution, we will do so consciously—we will be aware that we are contributing intentionally to the successful completion of a pivotal evolutionary event on this planet.

The message is the response you get. That's why face-to-face communication still beats any asynchronous interaction like books, articles, recorded music, artworks or blogs. The time-binding qualities of art can create the illusion of efficient message transmission - if we still enjoy Beethoven's 'Ode to joy' it seems to have some specific meaning which extends over the contemporary context of its creation. Actually, Beethoven musical interpretation of Schiller's words must have shocked authorities so much that they decided to censor the lyrics. Celebrating 'joy' is much less anarchistic than celebrating 'freedom', so that Beethoven's inspired musical masterpiece could survive for centuries.

Although it's straight forward to communicate with most bloggers (the only hurdle on this blog is some easy verification to prevent most spamming), it's a rarely used opportunity. Some bloggers don't even like feedback, or do their best to destroy random communication attempts. A lot of media recipients have been thoroughly infected by the mind virus 'political correctness', which often creates a 'can't touch this' attitude. Another brick in the wall that prevents people from interacting more with each other in the interwebs is the perceived opposition of 'real life' and 'online'.

I enjoy deliberately playing with different online personae, yet without entertaining the schizophrenic delusion that my online selfs are separate entities. This attitude prevents me from acting like a bot, and even helps me identifying humanoid bots appearing in traditional media. Check out any TV interview with Australia's Goebbels Stephen Conroy (or about 90% of all political parasites in demo-crazys) if you want to study 'real life' spam bots.

Anonymity hardly exists anymore in electronic media, most people are simply oblivious to the amount of transparency that has been implemented with networking technology. Anonymity does not really exist for all the 'illegal' street art I recycle here, fame and admiration that street artists crave for just requires a certain level of been unknown by authorities. Unless you change your spraying/art style a lot, it's easy to pick up who did what (tag names makes that easy and straight forward, writing messages as well, pieces without deliberate incorporation of a 'name' pose a bit more difficulty in identification).

Of course, I have no idea whether the message in the photo refers to this blog. In a universe where everything is connected, I like to entertain the idea that anything my attention is drawn to might contain a personalised message. People just cannot prevent being the center of their own universe, although they can deny or stay ignorant about this fact. Once you identified yourself as the creator of your own universe in the multiverse of consciousness, it comes quite natural to make it more enjoyable.