We did it!! In fact, we sent it through the roof! Thanks to you all, we not only met, but we have exceeded the goal of our IndieGoGo crowd funding camapaign! As my beautiful team mate Ian MacKenzie wrote yesterday, “still basking in the glow of human generosity. Over 700 people donated towards our film (6 hours still to go!) and it was not in their “rational self-interest.” Or perhaps, it is… because they understand their Self actually includes the Other. So as you support others, you are enriching and supporting all humanity and all life. A humble bow of gratitude to you all.”
Hear hear! Deep bows, and deep love to you all!
Between our two fundraising campaigns, over 900 people have participated in creating Occupy Love. That’s a lot of love!
481 people took the time to post comments section of the IndigieGoGo site, see great evidence of all the support for the project, and the Occupy Love movement itself. That so many people are committed and excited and passionate about compassion, about creating a world that works for everyone, a world that works for all life.
From the three of us producers of Occupy Love – Gregg Hill, Ian MacKenzie, and myself, Velcrow Ripper, please accept our deepest gratitude, and love. We are a community of change agents, and there is nowhere better to be, than right here, right now, a time of the greatest crisis that humanity has ever faced, and at the time of the greatest love story on earth.
“The economy of love is – the more you have the more I have. If I can make you feel happy or hopeful or beautiful I might feel more that way myself…. If I want a society that works, then I need you to be powerful, I need you to be responsible, I need you to be fully engaged, and maybe I need you to be joyous. The more I can give you the better my society is, because we are actually in this together” – Rebecca Solnit
Our film is entirely funded through the community, via our Indiegogo.com campaign (only 4 days left to go!). This is an example of the “economy of love.” As creators, we use our gifts of storytelling and documentation to share the heart of the movement. Through the gifts of others, it supports us, and we can support the movement and everyone making transformative change.
Please help us finish the film! Donate towards the campaign, share/tweet/facebook the link, and let others know how you “occupy love.” http://www.indiegogo.com/Occupy-Love
I AM CURRENTLY Time magazine’s Person of the Year. I am a Protestor (aka an Occupier) I helped organize the NY event and spent the previous years prior to September 17th involved in many activities with similar sensibilities.
Only a few people know this and most that do could care less. Not many of my friends have asked me about my experience, which is fine and pretty much the way things roll here in Larchmont, NY. There are a lot of big celebrities and very accomplished people here. Plus, this is a land of finance people. Tim Geithner, to name but one.
But some have asked what Occupy is all about. Usually not in a nice way. The most common questions I get are: Why no demands? What do they want? This thing you call a movement is a leaderless mess that’s never going to matter. What’s the point? Why Wall Street, why not Washington?
I’ve answered in various ways but never concisely or in a cogent manner. But this past week I stumbled across a talk that I think can answer the questions in a way that folks around the here might understand a little better. It’s given by the wonderful philosopher and economist Charles Eisenstein speaking to a group in Vancouver. A mutual friend posted it on Facebook. Listen to the entire talk “Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition” if you like.
Charles is talking about a financial model that is not based on debt and hoarding, but a new model based (in part) on gift. A model that does not reward collecting assets, but rather giving away assets. He outlines a sustainable system based on balance, rather than the existing unsustainable system based on growth. In the last three minutes of this talk there is a wonderful and enlightening story. I’ll paraphrase…
Let’s say there is a company and they own an island covered in old growth forest. The company has a decision to make, they could log the island sustainably and make $1mm per year, or clear cut it, destroy the forest and make $100mm this year. Well, for a competent company that’s not much of a decision at all. Any rational CEO would clear cut the forest, invest the $100mm, even at 3% interest that is $3mm per year, rather than just the $1mm per year. Easy decision.
Ok. Say there is an awakened CEO and she decides to be sustainable and take the $1mm per year. Fine. But now a corporate raider comes. He marshals investors by showing the company is completely mismanaged and undervalued–the stock price does not represent the real value the company is sitting on. They buy out the company, cut down the forest and get rich. The only way the CEO can stop the take-over is to raise the stock price, and the only way to raise the stock price is to cut down the forest. That’s market discipline for you. It’s harsh.
Now let’s suppose you are CEO and absolute dictator of Earth. One day some ETs show up from another planet and say they’d like to buy Earth. “We’re going to make it worth your while. We have run the numbers and gross world profit this year is about $60 trillion dollars. How would you like $10 quadrillion dollars right now? It’s a good deal. The interest on that alone is way more than $60 trillion, you’re gonna be rich! We’re going to buy the planet from you, we’re going to pollute the atmosphere, were going to poison the oceans and level mountains. We are going to completely destroy the planet because we need the materials to build an amusement park on the other side of the galaxy.”
Would anyone say yes to this deal? No. That would be crazy.
Yet we are saying yes to this deal every day. With our current financial and corporate system we are slowly, and with intention and resolve, destroying the planet. This system of debt-based money will forever commodify and destroy the life systems we depend upon. We are watching it play out in real time. Almost imperceptibly, but ceaselessly and with quiet force and determination. …one oil leak, one felled tree, one chemical filled well, one new Big Pharm drug, one car, one cellphone at a time.
My wife and I were talking about this story the other night. And she said that when this unsustainable system comes to an end, some finance guy will just say, “Yes. You know what? You were right. It was a bad idea. I thought it would work, but I guess it didn’t.” Because that’s the way things go in the corporate world. Ride an idea to the end while it’s working and leave harmful consequences for some other, hopefully external, entity to handle down the line. Privatize the gain and socialize the loss. The most obvious and glaring example of this to me is Alan Greenspan saying he was wrong about all that low interest and deregulation. Years of economic policy that led so many to suffer (and a very few to prosper) and all he has to say is something akin to, “My bad. That’s on me.” No repercussion for Alan, hardly anyone even reported on it.
That’s what Occupy Wall Street is about. It’s about recognizing that our most powerful leaders are in the finance industry and most act in unskilled ways. They are disconnected to the heart and to ageless human wisdoms. There’s an absence of understanding and compassion that is endemic, and even celebrated in this culture. It’s a world that desires all of the bounty and frivolity of great privilege, without any of the weight and responsibility of great leadership. It’s sociopathic.
Many are waking up though–they no longer buy into this financial model with its complex jargon and math designed to obfuscate simple greed. They have looked deeply and understand a debt-based system–that will forever take assets from the periphery and bring them to the center–will fail and nobody will outmaneuver the karma. They see the human species needs to change this system of money or perish. So how can one change a system that is so entrenched?
Here’s how: Start asking those around you, “How can we do this?” Ask questions and listen deeply to answers. Organize around truths that are universal and benefit balance and harmony. Give credibility to change. And most importantly, within the halls of your company or on the sidewalks of our neighborhood, be courageous. Be willing to take real risks and change your relationship to your world. People are finding like-minded people and occupying the commons. We are supporting each other. It’s fun!
To occupy we just make the decision to begin walking a new path and work on building sustainable models to replace the out-dated infinite growth models. We just begin, that’s all. One breath. One little decision. And then give yourself a good pat on the back.
People say that I’m a dreamer. These changes can’t happen. But I say advocates of the current economic system are the true dreamers. I’m practical. I’m a realist. I’m not dreaming, I’m wide awake!
This transformation is happening whether we like it or not. We can be ahead of it and in control of it, or it can control us. And while I appreciate Time magazine’s recognition, they don’t quite get that we are not protesters, we are participants.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung
APOCALYPTICISM is an actual word. According to Wikipedia, it is “the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God’s will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end time very soon, even within one’s own lifetime.”
The idea that “the world will end” is not limited to fire and brimstone. Various New Agers believe that 2012 will result in an alignment of the galactic something or other, fulfilling the Hopi prophecy of the Blue Kachina and the reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles…and stuff…then we will enter a golden age. Sound familiar?
Darin Drda, author of The Four Global Truths, writes:
Although they speak different languages, both tell the same story: the fate of life on Earth will be determined by forces beyond humanity’s control. This idea strikes me as a very dangerous one, certain to accelerate our collective journey down the road to ruin. What’s more, it doesn’t jive with the powerful and paradigm-shifting insight of 20th century physics that reality is participatory.
In 2011, TIME magazine dubbed “The Protestor” Person of the Year, their cover emblazoned with a shrouded figure peering out from behind a kerchief. I believe the more accurate label would have been “The Participant” – to reflect the global awakening that is gaining steam around the globe. From the streets of Cairo, to the towers of Wall St, as Charles Eisenstein intoned “We the people are awakening and we will not go back to sleep.”
The true definition of ‘apocalypse’ is more akin to ‘the lifting of the veil.’ What has long been hidden shall be revealed. Is it possible to understand this potential, and how to apply it, without falling victim to the aforementioned ‘isms of divine destruction, collapse, or extraterrestrial saviours?
Daniel Pinchbeck points the way in his book 2012: The Return of Queztalcoatl. He suggests we are being called to participate in a shift in human consciousness, catalyzed by the crises that appear to be culminating in this age.
“Right now, we are being forced to witness the shadow of the psyche projected into material form through systemic misuse of technology, biospheric destruction, and corrupt geopolitics based on entrenched egotism and greed. [...]
Like the coiled arms of the galaxy, the development of consciousness appears to follow a spiral, sidereal motion, represented by the archetypal symbol of the mandala, which is universal in sacred art.
Whether found in dreams or wheat fields, mandalas symbolize stages in a psychic process – the helical approach of the psyche toward integration of the ego and the self or higher self, through the difficult work of illuminating the dark matter within the unconscious.”
The dark matter of our unconscious has created the human world we inhabit, including the crises that we appear unable to solve. Our old story of the Self, that we are “isolated beings in an indifferent universe” (and all it’s variations), is breaking down, because in fact, it was never objectively real in the first place. It was constructed by our level of consciousness.
The new consciousness struggles to be born.
The Occupy Movement seemingly embodied this desire to participate one again, erupting onto the collective stage late last year. And yet, even as creative direct-actions continue, many camps are struggling with the old patterns of Separation – the idea that to change the world we must apply Force. If only we could exert enough pressure on the “bad” elements of our society, we can keep humanity’s innate greed and destruction at bay.
But that’s not enough.
Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl, in a fascinating interview from early on in the Occupations, said “Most of the people want to change fully, but they don’t want to engage fully, because it confronts your life and the depths of who you are,” says . “When people are confronted to make a shift in their consciousness, they stay with the [old patterns].”
This is why the current Occupations are embroiled in conflict. The repressed trauma and old wounds of Separation have now found an outlet, and any attempts to stifle them, even in the name of achieving organizational unity, will meet more resistance.
Thomas continues:
It cannot be a movement that is against something. Most movements that are against something are stuck being against. And they are not for something better. And you need to have more people that are for something better. For the light, not against the structure.
Around awake people, more awakening will happen. Awakening is spiral. If you spend time with someone who is more awake than you, then chances are your consciousness will be elevated. And if through your practice, you manage to stabilize your consciousness at this level it will become your reality as well.
What is needed at this time is those who can hold a global awareness. People who are grounded, that are literally coming from the future. They look the same, but they are motivated from a different place. If you are coming from the future, and you embody this, then the future will manifest around you.
This future ‘global awareness’ unfolds from the consciousness of the Connected Self.
Darin Drda explains:
We are not, as the old guard preaches, feeble and passive observers of a fixed, objective order or cogs in a giant, lifeless machine. Nor are we, as the new guard intones, the all-powerful masters of our own destiny, capable of instantly conjuring anything we want out of pixie dust and wishful thinking. We are co-creative participants in a great cosmic adventure, the outcome of which must always remain unknown.
In summary: consciousness creates our world. Our current story is now breaking down, an inevitable conclusion to the unconscious shadows we have collectively repressed. The Apocalypse is about uncovering/reintegrating our projections, essentially forcing us: not to evolve, but to make a CHOICE to evolve.
This choice is crucial. Without choice, we are merely pawns of fate, adrift in an indifferent cosmos.
Instead, we are called to embody this new consciousness, not as an opinion, but as a lived relationship with ourselves and the Other. While we can only do this on an individual level, we need other “awakened beings” to hold us at this higher note until we can stabilize – and then help others do the same.
This is the true meaning of the apt quoted maxim “Be the change you want to see in the world.” We must literally BE from the future – retrieving a higher order of self that does not recreate the past. We must resist the death throes of our old institutions, even while we flow towards our new ones. We must bow humbly to our ancestors and their echoes of pain, include the injustice of the present, and embrace the uncertainty of our Great Transition.
If this sounds ambitious, consider the words of Arundhati Roy:
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
As part of Occupy Wall St. West, on January 20th 2012, to mark the anniversary of Citizens United supreme court case, hundreds of activists and social artists called for economic justice and people power in the name of the 99%.
This video reflects how art and activism are key in growing a movement and building a better world. Join this movement by taking action in your community.
Check out official One People flash mob. Video Produced by Magalie Bonneau-Marcil of DancingwithoutBorders.org, Directed & Edited by Ben Flanigan (BenFlanigan.com), Thanks to our team of choreographers: Giuliana Blasi, Samantha Sweetwater. Music: Now is the Time composed by Troy Lush, quote from MLK Jr. Co-sponsors: CODEPINK.org & SFNOW.org.
“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
Today the Occupy Movement will be engaging in global actions centered around the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The heart of Dr. King’s vision offers wonderful inspiration for the movement – one that is deeply rooted in love. King’s approach to activism was all about “love in action.”
The activists of the civil rights era faced incredible repression and brutality, yet remained firm in their conviction to love, their conviction to non-violence. This gave them tremendous “moral capital.” Violence, as an activist tactic, very rarely is successful. It is speaking the language of the opressor, and they respond with even greater violence. But the images of loving activists in contrast to brutality, is poignant, moving and transformative. It opens the hearts of the undecided, and calls them to join in the quest for justice. Those who seek to undermine the Occupy Movement, or any activist movement, invariably point to acts of violence.
King taught that while legislative changes were important, such as desegregation (a focal point for the movement at that time), unless we also change our hearts and minds, we would end up with, ”a society where men are physically desegregated and spiritually segregated, where elbows are together and hearts apart. It gives us social togetherness and spiritual apartness. It leaves us with a stagnant equality of sameness rather than a constructive equality of oneness.” He beautifully said that, “we are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.”
Dr. King’s greatest vision was that the world would come together in a “Beloved Community.” The civil rights movement represented an attempt to created that Beloved Community in microcosm. Today, within the Occupy Movement, we can also create this kind of community, founded on compassion, non-violence and mutuality. This is turn can help lead to the tipping point, towards that day when we are able to live in a world that works for everyone. King’s profound dream was to enlarge “the concept of brotherhood to a vision of total interrelatedness.”
If he were alive today, I believe Dr. King would have recognized the incredible potential of this remarkable time in history.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
By remaining firmly grounded in love, we are practicing “prefigurative politics.” Instead of waiting for some far off dream of a peaceful, loving world, we are living it, right now, in real time. The principles of participatory democracy, central to the Occupy Movement, allow us to practice a world where everyone is important. Having a leaderless movement is also a radical step – we all are leaders today.
Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has said that in this era, “the Buddha is the Sangha.” This means, the community is the new Buddha. It’s time for us all to wake up, and tap into our collective wisdom. We are moving beyond the top down hierarchal structures that have dominated all areas of life in the past – from politics to spirituality, from culture to economics. It’s time for a new era, an era of shared power, of horizontality. This is the way ecosystems work – complex webs of systems within systems, supporting, nurturing each other in webs of checks and balances. It’s time that we integrate fully into the planetary body, recognize our profound inter-connection, striving always towards mutually enhancing relationships.
The field of possibility expands exponentially each time any one of us truly steps up to the plate, and opens our hearts. How joyous, to live the realization that the greater the brilliance of any one of us, the greater is the radiance of the whole. We can go beyond that outdated dog eat dog eat dog isolating, disconnecting model of the corporatocracy, into a new world, where we care for each other in networks of compassion. Let us truly, deeply, authentically occupy the dream, the dream of a world that works for all life, where each and everyone of us is a shining star in a constellation of love.
“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
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MLK Occupy Events
OCCUPY THE DREAM TELECOUNCIL WITH VELCROW RIPPER
This is an exciting time in history! Let’s make the most of it. Please join me on Martin Luther King Day, January 16 2o12 at 4 pm PST for a a special tele council in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Occupy Movement. I’ll be discussing King’s legacy of the “Beloved Community” emerging all over the world today, sharing my journey from Occupy Wall St, to Occupy Oakland, Occupy London, the M15 movement of Spain, the revolution in Tahrir Square, the meaning of “Occupy Love” and more. Learn more and sign up here – it’s free!
WORLD WIDE CANDLELIGHT VIGIL FOR UNITY
This January 15th all over the world, Occupy is holding a #J15 Worldwide Candlelight Vigil For Unity on the birthday, and in the spirit of Dr. King’s vision for racial and economic equality, peace, and non-violence. Candlelight vigils will take place at 7pm in each time zone to unite our world in a global movement for systemic change.
Wherever you are, let’s join together and light our flames for this beautiful vision. Be creative – you can create your own vigil if you can’t find one near you. Learn more at http://www.j15global.com/
Members of the African-American faith community have joined forces with Occupy Wall Street to launch a new campaign for economic justice inspired by the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Faithful to its philosophical origin, the “Occupy the Dream” coalition has called for a National Day of Action on Martin Luther King Day – Monday, January 16, 2012 – to focus attention on the gross injustice visited upon the 99% by the financial elite. More info at : www.occupythedream.org
STUDIO OCCUPY
Studio Occupy has a wonderful project related to this: “To honor Rev. Martin Luther King’s birthday, Occupy Wall Street is privileged to welcome African-American clergy as they join the movement to address economic inequality and social injustice. Dr. King’s dream made history. Now OWS needs yours! What’s your dream for your community? For the future? Grab your phone or webcam, make a video of your dream, and upload it by January 16th – Dr. King’s birthday. We can create history together. Let’s Occupy the Dream!” Learn more at: Studio Occupy
REBUILD THE DREAM
Van Jones, one of my all time visionary activist heroes, who is featured in Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action , has launched an initiative called “Rebuild the Dream.” This weekend, for MLK day, they are calling for meet-ups acrsos the country to celebrate Dr. King and link the Civil Rights Movement with today’s struggle for an economy that works for all. Neighbors and friends will gather to watch the great video they have created, plus engage in a special discussion about how we strengthen our movements in 2012. Find an MLK Meet-up near you, or host one of your own.
PS. We need your love! Please give to the Occupy Love crowd funding campaign so we can complete Occupy Love, our feature doc that captures the global (r)evolution of compassion inaction. Sharing the link and telling your friends helps a lot too. We believe this movie is going to be of tremendous service to the planet. In Theatres 2012 – with your help!
What it will take
Is a resistance to the system that we’ve come to embrace
For no other reason than just because it is
For resistance is to question what we’ve been led to believe
Not necessarily lies, but stories
Stories that have become truths in the synapses of our minds
Bonds so tight that even though we recognize them we still
Can’t break free.
But recognition is where it all begins
When questions and childlike innocence form the stem that grows up and out
Piercing through convention and unimagination
Like the roots of a tree busting through concrete sidewalks and building foundations
The story has an end, like all stories do
But this story ain’t a fairytale
The princess doesn’t get the prince
The frog stays a frog
The witch eats the kids
And this is OK because coming right behind it is something new
Truth, love, honesty, connection, vulnerability
Words that have lost meaning amidst
The six o’clock news, Facebook, and pornography.
These words are on the lips of a new generation
As well as an old generation
Because wisdom has no age limitations
The awakened spirit is not exclusive to an esoteric crowd jockeying for position
They’re on the lips of teachers, doctors, and bus drivers
Construction workers, soldiers, and the unemployed
Those who get scowled at to, “Get a job, hippie!”
And, even if they don’t know it yet, they’re on the lips of
Those who do the scowling.
Because there is no “us” and “them”
Imagine:
Lakes vs. clouds
Flowers vs. mountains
The moon vs. the earth
The separation is causing annihilation
We must reconvene on the scene
Where community is the top priority
And where we stare in each others’ eyes
With understanding and compassion
And fashion for ourselves
A new reality.
There are no manuals to read, no rules to follow, other than the open book, of the heart.
Love’s evolution is my resolution, my revolution, my solution. The time is now. 2012 is upon us. The beginning is here!
I’d like to offer you an invitation, an invocation, a wake up call. Wake up! (Zen hand clap) It’s time to come to our senses, and wake up! Listen – can you hear the alarm bells ringing? Can you hear the cries of Mother Earth? Can you hear the cries of Her children? Can you smell the stench of an industrial growth addicted civilization rotting from the inside out?
Look – have you noticed the species going extinct minute by minute, the disappearing bees, the melting glaciers, the rising seas, the expanding deserts, the suffering skyrocketing out of control, the politicians that act like childish lunatics, the greed crazed gamblers of Wall Street throwing dice while the whole world careens on their roller coaster of illusion, bubbles of hungry ghost money ballooning, ballooning, soon to burst yet again, banks expecting bail outs while millions lose their homes amidst the deafening roar of collapsing economies drowned by the noise of the dream factories of mainstream media encouraging us all to be selfish children seduced into a cycle of endless consumption by heartless corporations hellbent on using up everything this sacred earth can offer as fast as possible?
We’re filling our hearts and minds and bellies with junk food, junk television, junk video games, junk movies, junk music, junk toys, junk fears, junk violence, junk dreams, junk junk, junk and more junk for a society of junkies.
Wake up! (Zen hand clap) It’s not too late, it’s never too late to seize the day. Wake up! (Zen hand clap) It’s time we realized that this planet is having a near death experience. And therein lies the hope.
Occupy Christmas! With what? How about by giving that which never costs, that which can never have a price tag: Love. The more we give love, the more we receive love. Love is the economic growth we need, not the planet destroying growth of Gross Domestic Product. Love grows best when given freely. Love is at the heart of global evolution. Love is the expression of our profound interdependence.
For the love of the planet, and each other, we need to awaken from the trance of corporate culture, from the dog-eat-dog-eat-dog world of separation, fear, and mindless consumption, and learn how to create a world of mutually enhancing relationships, of collaboration, creativity, and possibility. A world of love.
I’ve been asking Santa, the earth, the sky, you and me, for a global r~evolution for years now. Guess what? We’re starting to deliver.
There have been some deep tastes of it along the way – my personal highlights include the Zapatista revolution in Chiapas; the profound creativity and resistance of the anti-globalization movement that began with the WTO protests in 1999; the enormous global day of anti-war marches, organized on the internet, when millions of us marched around the world in the name of peace, simultaneously. 350.org‘s global days of action for climate justice are always spectacular.
South America has seen an explosion of transformation – almost every country is trying some inspirational social experiment. Paul Hawken has tracked what he calls “humanity’s immune response to a planet in crisis”, a kind of Blessed Unrest that is the largest mass movement in history, working for change, that doesn’t even know it exists. We have been part of many beautiful expressions of evolution and compassion in action. (Watch interview)
And then came 2011. From the Arab Spring, to the European Summer, to the Occupy Movement, to the great strides taken by the Climate Justice movement, and all the other arisings bursting forth, the electric charge of transformation is in the air. As we gestate through this winter into 2012, my prayers are that as the frost melts, we will burst forth with creativity, enthusiasm, and love into a global spring that keeps right on blooming into a global summer of transformation.
We need it now, more than ever. We certainly need it more than another tree full of stuff.
The Eruption of Occupy
Sept 17, 2011 began as a quiet Saturday morning in Brooklyn with my love. Adbusters, media activists from my home terrain of Vancouver, Canada, had put a call out a few months back: “Occupy Wall Street. Bring Tent.” Someone had posted on Facebook at the time, “are you going?” I said, “I’ll be there, camera’s blazing.”
But that morning, a part of me wanted to sleep in. I asked Nova, “Do you think I should go?” She didn’t hesitate: “Go! Just check it out. It could be something great.” I packed my camera gear, got on my bicycle and peddled over the Brooklyn Bridge, into the financial district of Manhattan, towards a little park within sight of Ground Zero, a park that would soon be re-named “Liberty Square.”
And so began one of the most extraordinary seasons of transformation I have witnessed in my life. It’s as if we’ve taken the famed “red pill” of the Matrix – nothing has been the same ever since. A pandora’s box of possibilities has been flung wide open, and it can never be shut in quite the same way. We are awake.
We have been sold a hollow story, of endless consumption, an economic fairy tale that we can have limitless growth on a finite planet, that the extreme wealth of the few would in some way benefit the many, a world where there are no relationships, only transactions. A world where love itself is a commodity. We are awake, and we aren’t buying it any more.
On October 15th the Occupy Movement went global. I was in Times Square at that moment. 5,000 of us took the square, that electric altar to the gods of consumption. The energy was joyous, hopeful, inspired. And then something happened that sent chills down my spine: on the electronic ticker tape that gives the news bites of the day, came the words “Occupy Wall Street Movement Goes WorldWide.” Each time it appeared we let out a cheer. We were occupying the world.
Occupy Goes Global
In the course of making Occupy Love, our feature documentary that charts the global revolution of compassion in action, we have gone deep into the movement here in NYC at Occupy Wall Street, to the epic General Strike in Occupy Oakland, to Occupy DC, Occupy Canada, and Occupy London.
We have filmed with the sister movement, and precursor to Occupy, the Indignado’s of Spain, part of the famed “European Summer,” and with the courageous revolutionaries of Tahrir Square, in Egypt, who helped launch the Arab Spring.
When we first descended on Liberty Square we had the lofty goal of creating our own “Tahrir Square,” a claim that at first seemed outlandish, even presumptous, but today we have taken – and lost – and taken squares all over the planet, creating a global network of occupiers, and we are only just beginning. What this movement of movements is attempting to do is nothing short of re-inventing the world.
It is both a return to our shared roots – we are all indigenous to somewhere – and a new global cross pollination, which has been helped with the interconnectivity of the internet. We are falling in love, again, and again, with each other, and the planet. It is the profoundly public love that is justice. It is the power of empathy and interdependence, of knowing in one’s heart that if your belly is empty, or your home has been foreclosed, then I too am hungry, I too have no shelter.
It is the compassionate desire, that everyone on this planet, and all life, be offered the opportunity to “live well” as they say in Bolivia. The Aymara indigenous concept of “Living Well” contrasts with the western paradigm of “living better.” We have been taught to want more and more – to consume, to amass material goods at the expense of the environment, rather than to live well, in a world in which everyone’s needs are met while staying in deep harmony with the natural world.
We in the west are living in a deep cultural pathology, addicted to consumption, distraction and destruction. As a result, we are not a happy people. Buckminister Fuller has done the math – we can feed, clothe, educate, and keep well everyone on this planet. No problem – scarcity is a construction of a dysfunctional system.
The crisis we are facing is propelling us into a great love story, the greatest love story on earth. The time is now. 2012 promises to be extraordinary. I can’t wait to be surprised! We are waking up, and love is in the air. Thank-you for all you have given. Keep on giving, keep on unwrapping your gifts and sharing them with the world. My winter wish is for a global evolution of the heart, so that humanity may become a blessing to each other and this earth. Occupy Love!
~ Velcrow Ripper, Dec 24th 2011
Vancouver, BC
PS. We need your love! Please give to our crowd funding campaign so we can continue to make Occupy Love. Sharing the link and telling your friends helps a lot too. We believe this movie is going to be of tremendous service to the planet. In Theatres 2012 – with your help!
Occupy Love. There are so many ways to look at these words, a command, an invitation, a declaration, a new-age proclamation, a powerless platitude, a volition or a guiding mission statement….on and on…
In one obvious interpretation, and one I’ve heard mentioned more than once, it’s dualistic. If one occupies love then one must have a relationship to love identifying it as separate from them. By definition, one can’t occupy something unless it is another. Unless it’s a distinct and individual object. In an occupation of love one must objectify love in order to possess it.
But this global arising is broad, and a deeper meaning calls…
A gentle invitation is heard in the words Occupy Love. It is an invitation to come home to something that already exists within and without. Something that becomes available and knowable through skillful means; through deep looking and quiet contemplation we touch the universal love which is in and of all things. Indeed the very essence of all that can be known and unknown in the phenomenological and noumenal universe. In stopping, calming, accepting, in “being” more that “doing”, the heart begins to open. One touches the ultimate. One may find the love they set out to occupy was already right where they were. Always and eternally present occupying them. There was never two, just one.
Occupy love implies a journey. Not so much a traditional love story of seeking and finding, but a different kind of journey. One of coming into balance. Awakening to the truth that all one needs is available in the present. This awakening is happening all over the world, separately to individual people, and yet together. Individually and collectively.
Occupy Love is not a story of conquest and victory, but a story of attaining wisdom–of our collective humanity transforming from childhood to wise elder. When I touch this great love I see there is nowhere to go. There’s nothing to win. To live in equanimity one does not go out and achieve or win it. One breathes in awareness.
I used to think that enlightenment was something that happened to someone. The ancient mythology of the troubled man going up the mountain and coming back down with deep wisdom, grey hair, big grey eyebrows and wild eyes. A bright beam of light had parted the heavens, shone upon him and now he was God-like and lived in truth, kindness and wisdom. Something external became internal, and now he was enlightened. But now I see this word enlightenment not speaking so much to rays of light, but weight. Not darkness to light, but heaviness to light.
For example, I carry the weight of misunderstanding, ignorance, resentment, fear, anger, injustice and so on. These psychological states are a burden and I suffer under the tremendous weight of them. But when I become enlightened, there is a letting go. I put down these things. They still exist, there are still real energies that exist, I just come to understand they are not me and I no longer own them or occupy them. When this happens there is great space. It takes tremendous courage to live with this space. It’s scary.
However, in being okay with the apprehension, excitement and anxiety that initially come with this space, the heart of love becomes known – there within all along. One finds that love was always occupying them.
In occupying and being occupied by love, or becoming awakened to loving power, one can see all the material and spiritual world are infused with loving kindness, goodness and joy. One can deeply know the universality and harmony of all that is.
With this understanding one feels safe, confident, solid, fresh and reflects all that is wonderful and good in our nature.
On 19 November 2011 over 100 dancers converged at Occupy SF & Oakland to dance the world awake.
Flashmob Produced & Directed by Magalie Bonneau-Marcil of DancingwithoutBorders.org, Video Directed & Edited by Ben Flanigan (BenFlanigan.com), Co-sponsors: CODEPINK.org & SFNOW.org Want to bring the flash mob to your community? Go to http://tiny.cc/h3t3w Music: Thanks to the Black Eyed Peas
My films are intended to be both a reflection of the heart of the times, and a catalyst, fanning the flames of love. ~ Velcrow Ripper
ALIVE MIND: Occupy Love is the third film of the “Fierce Love Project.” It comes after Sacred Scared (Special Jury Prize of the Toronto Film Festival), an uplifting pilgrimage through war-torn places around the world, followed by Fierce Light, a film about bringing together spirituality, and activism. Is there a logical progression to these films? How would you relate Fierce Light to Sacred Scared and Occupy Love?
VELCROW RIPPER: Indeed there is - the films are about about the “Heart of the Times” of this unique period in human history, from the millennium to 2012. It is a time of enormous crisis, and enormous possibility. The overall theme is, how can the global crises that we are facing lead to the evolution of humanity?
Scared Sacred takes us on a journey to ground zero’s of the world – places like New York City during 9.11, Afghanistan, Hiroshima, Bosnia, Cambodia, Israel and Palestine. In each of those places, I discovered some of the most remarkable individuals I have ever met. I found that there were two things that the survivors all had in common, that helped them get through the crises they faced with their spirits transformed, not crushed: having a source of meaning, which was different for each of them, and taking action.
This lead to the second film, Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action, which explores the relationship between spirituality, and activism. There has long been an artificial divide between these two important aspects of human society, and this film explores the power that is released when the two come together.
In Occupy Love I ask the question: how is the economic and ecological crises we are facing a great love story? I have gone beyond the word “spiritual” to the deeper, and more universal word, “Love.” The last lines of “Fierce Light” are, “another world is here, right now: listen.” On the sound track you can hear the rumblings of a volcano, the sleeping woman – who is now wide awake. Occupy Love explores this awakening, this revelation of our shared heart, and our shared oppression, and the process of working together to transform the bankrupt system of today into a world that works for all life. The Occupy movement, and the related movements that are erupting around the world, from the Arab Spring, to the European Summer, are all a part of this awakening. I recently showed Fierce Light at Occupy London and people were really struck by how the movie predicted the arising of Occupy. The films truly have their finger on the pulse of the times. In fact, Fierce Light was a little ahead of it’s time.
ALIVE MIND: From Desmond Tutu to Gandhi’s granddaughter, from Darryl Hannah to Congressman John Lewis and thousands of anonymous activists around the world, you show that the potential for ‘soul force’ exists. Fierce Light conveys the idea that another world is possible. Do you hope that it will actually contribute to unleash this potential for change?
VELCROW: I have seen Fierce Light transform people again and again. Real world change begins in our hearts, and a powerful documentary, done with art and the voices of those imbued with true soul force, has the ability to ignite and inspire us to become the change we want to see in the world. My films are intended to be both a reflection of the heart of the times, and a catalyst, fanning the flames of love.
ALIVE MIND: Besides being profoundly meaningful and inspired, Fierce Light is an extremely beautiful documentary, in which graceful glimpses of natural light are recurrent patterns. What part does the image play in your filmmaking in general and in Fierce Light in particular?
VELCROW RIPPER: Image, and sound – the language of cinema – has the ability to move us as true art can, at a level beyond only cognition, to the soul level, the heart level, to our deepest core. There are many great films out there that move us intellectually, there are great films out there that inspire our outrage, but what keeps me going is the excitement and inspiration I get from capturing the depths of the times with my camera, editing and sound design. I aim to create an immersive, heart opening, transformative experience. And when you watch my films, if you aren’t in a theatre, please use headphones or good speakers! The sound is very important – sound has a special way of going beyond the intellect. Don’t get me wrong – the intellectual aspect is also very important. What excites me is an integral experience that reaches the full spectrum of the human- heart, mind, body, and shadow. It’s all part of us, and when any part is left out you feel a lack. Non-literal images have a way of reaching a broader range than the same old same old “say apple see apple” approach of conventional documentary production. I actually come out of an experimental film background, so the imagery of my docs reflect my early, utterly liberated approach to filmmaking. Documentary imposes it’s own constraints, but I am always pushing at the edge of those limits.
ALIVE MIND Commenting on the protest that spurred in Quebec City in 2004 against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, you are asking “What would I do if I did not have a camera in my hands? Would I want to pick up a rock and throw it right back at these dehumanized Plexiglass faces?” What stance do you adopt when you shoot in the midst of demonstrations? Does being an engaged filmmaker mean taking a step back from neutrality in those situations?
VELCROW RIPPER I don’t believe in neutrality. That comment, which was a rhetorical question, was answered by the film: I would do what Carly Stasko does at that moment – she dances. My response to repression, violence and corporate dominance is to be as contrasting to that as possible – liberated, non-violent, and creative. That is the way to transform violence, not by speaking it’s language back at it. Neutral? Not in the slightest. I am part of the movements I document, I come from the inside. The most biased of coverage is to be found in the mainstream media – they have such a narrow frame of reference, and have had a profoundly negative influence on global society, with their news bites, the fact that they are profit motivated and corporate dominated, and always focus in on the violence of any given situation without greater context. How many times have I seen reports of “violent protestors,” when in fact the protestors are peaceful, and it is the police that are violent. Or, as is sadly often the case, there are a few agitators (often police infiltrators) or angry young men, who create the violence, and a whole movement gets tarred with an ugly brush.
ALIVE MIND On Sept 17, 2011, at Zuccotti Park, the epicenter of Occupy Wall Street, you’ve asked a giant FDR dime, “How could the global crisis we are facing become a love story?’ You made a short-film out of it, entitled Summer of Change: Occupy Wall Street.
Have you been personally involved in the movement since then? What are your future plans?
VELCROW RIPPER I have fallen in love with the Occupy Movement. I was at Occupy Wall Street since day one, travelled to Occupy Oakland for their epic general strike and just returned from Spain, where I was filming with the Indignados, Egypt, where I was covering Tahrir Square and the Egyptian Revolution, and Occupy London. I was looking at the roots of the movement, tracing it back from the European summer, to the Arab Spring, and looking at where the movement has evolved. The film is now called “Occupy Love.” The original project, Evolve Love, may come out after, or will be integrated into this movie. Two years ago I asked writer Naomi Klein, “how could the crisis we are facing on the planet become a love story?” And she laughed, and said that her and I do the opposite – she points out how bad things are and I look for the love. Last week I saw her at an action and she gave me a big hug and said, “history has re-arranged itself to prove your thesis.”
The Occupy Movement, and the much bigger, and deeper global spirit of transformation from which it arises, is the love story I have been looking for, all my life. In Fierce Light I reference Paul Hawken, who in his book “Blessed Unrest”, talks about a global movement of movements that is emerging all over the world, what he calls “humanities immune response to a planet in crisis”, the largest movement in history. And the remarkable thing about that movement is that it is self organizing, and it didn’t even know that it existed. The Arab Spring, The European Summer, and now the Occupy Movement, is that movement standing up, looking around, and discovering itself. And right now, this is the greatest love story on earth. This movement is rooted in interdependence, and is the opposite of the selfish, lifeless, dog eat dog eat dog world promoted through the vast capital of the corporations. We need to do everything we can to nurture this evolving movement, our ever evolving global society, and keep it moving always in the direction of love, in the direction of life. Love is the movement. We are the 100%
Occupy Love has just launched an IndieGoGo campaign to help fund the completion of the film. This is a commmunity funded film – if we are to get it made, we need your help. Please support us if you can, or help out by sharing the link. Thanks!
Velcrow Ripper is an award-winning filmmaker with dozens of films and videos under his belt, including Scared Sacred, winner of the 2005 Genie (Canadian Academy Award) for best feature documentary, and Special Jury Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival. Bones of the Forest, his 1995 environmental medittion, won nine major film awards, including a Genie and best of the festival at Hot Docs. Ripper’s latest film is Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action. This award winning feature doc’s message of hope and change is delivered via magnificent visuals. He is currently shooting “Occupy Love” a feature documentary which chronicles the heart of the Occupy movement, and beyond.
This interview with Occupy Love director, Velcrow Ripper, was done by the folks at Alive Mind Cinema, the U.S. distributor of Ripper’s award winning feature doc, FIERCE LIGHT: When Spirit Meets Action. The original interview can be found here.
After seeing our short film, The Revolution Is Love, we were contacted by Jacob Seligmann, who has his own amazing project. It’s called The Big Bank:
The Big Bank is about a bank that loves to foreclose on people, a banker who falls in love with a flower shop owner who he is supposed to foreclose on, a radical environmentalist who tweets a revolution against the bank, his precocious eleven year old daughter who ends up working at the bank, and the boss who has a spiritual revelation and realizes that love is all that matters, not what you own, because life is a loan.
The Big Bank is a musical for the movement and for the people and only with the people’s help can it happen. I know there are millions of people who support the movement and who believe in the arts as a positive force in society. The Big Bank team has been actively engaged in the movement since it began. We’ve spent many days and nights at Zuccotti Park and joined in on actions and marches. Last weekend we helped to organize and performed in the first Occupy Broadway in the Theater District of Manhattan.
This earth is abundant. There is enough for all of us. Scarcity is the construct of a system built on greed. We need to re-recreate this world, from the bottom up, with the only secure foundation: love. With that as a starting place, with compassion as our bedrock, we will naturally evolve a sacred economics, committed to a world that works for all life. (I took this photo last night at Occupy London)
My goal with this piece was to move us beyond our ideas of left and right, black and white. We are moving toward a world beyond “isms.” These are relics from our previous consciousness and it’s time to let them go. We cannot tackle the crises facing our world alone. We need each other. We need the 100%.
Chronicling the heart of Occupy Wall St. and beyond. OCCUPY LOVE is the third film in the decade long trilogy from award-winning filmmaker Velcrow Ripper. Read more
Our film is entirely funded through the community, 
This video reflects how art and activism are key in growing a movement and building a better world. Join this movement by taking action in your community. 
