[Sunset, "idealized" with filters]
This is a long post. If you have ever been involved in the Wolf Creek Sanctuary or care about its future, I strongly urge you to read it, pass it on, and think about contributing an hour or two a month to call into meetings and help save the historical culture of this community. Please join the nomenus-coco list. [
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nomenus-coco] Please consider attending Great Circle. (Exact dates and location TBA.)
This piece is written in "blog style", the story of my thought process interwoven with the real content. Please don't mistake it for inflated ego.
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Today is my first day back on the land and a big day in the story of my relationship with the organization that runs this place. People often attribute intelligence to me, and then expect that I am exceptionally observant and quick thinking.
These assumptions are not true. What I do have is a diverse life experience. I've done lots of very different things, most of them incorrectly at first, and sometimes learned from my mistakes. My years of experience with this organization gives me a good basis for understanding what works here to simultaneously empower individuals and the community as a whole.
The slow speed of my observational skill is catching up with me today.
Before I explain what triggered today's epiphany, I need to give a little context. The Wolf Creek Sanctuary was structured in part on the philosophy of a man named Harry Hay. A large number of our processes are derived from a concept called subject-SUBJECT consciousness. In this framework, we understand that people come into every situation with the accumulated experiences of a lifetime. These experiences shape their perceptions of the situation and, therefore, their reactions to it. No matter how well people know one another, it is impossible to truly understand the others' realities, so we work to give people a voice in decisions that affect them.
This concept is at the root of our primary decision-making tool: consensus. In this process, the original proposal is modified in response to everybody's opinions until the proposal is agreeable to everyone. The point of consensus is to empower every person to have his needs met by the common experience. It is the only part of our organization that is so deep-rooted that it approaches dogma.
Or so it had been. (This is where my weak observational skills are disclosed.) I had assumed that these foundations were still respected and upheld, crediting repeated clues to the contrary to individuals' foibles.
I am catching up on email today and received an email to a group list that shook me deeply. One person was asking to change the date for the organization's highest meeting, the Great Circle, which is open to all members. The meeting is in two weeks, the date having been set by consensus during the last Great Circle in August and publicized widely since then. There are other, lower committee meetings where a proposal with such far-reaching consequences might have been discussed, but it was never brought up.
And then a light bulb came on... This message had been sent two days ago with no apology, not even a nod toward the process. And there was not much of a response. Nobody seems to care, either about the date of the meeting or about how the change is being handled. The people who met in August and decided on the date are having their voices completely disregarded. Those who pencilled in the date but don't happen to be among the very few members of the group list are being completely ignored along with everyone else who may have planned on attending. If people have made plans to travel from other cities, they'll be disappointed, wasting their money and perhaps leaving the organization in disgust at our inept handling of even the most basic functions.
And nobody else seems to be noticing what this kind of loose decision-making could mean. It's as if this level of disregard has become commonplace...
Then I started looking back at various interactions over the last six months. A dire picture is coming into view: people have in fact been driven from the organization in droves. "Spin" is often given more weight than consensus, which has almost no effect on people's day-to-day actions. The feeling of community, of people working together toward common goals, is almost completely absent.
I've been assuming that the most fundamental foundations of this organization were still respected because all of the committees exist and have the same names. I've assumed that we were still running this place according to the principles that we've used since the beginning, and that appeals to respect the wishes of individuals would be heard and acted upon. I've assumed that certain people who have attacked and insulted me for insisting that the process should inform our actions were the outliers.
Now I see another picture. Even the officers of the organization do not appear to respect our most basic principles. The consensus process has become largely farcical, a vestige trotted out when it's needed to placate the few of us who recall its purpose. Otherwise, it's catch-as-catch-can. People seem to do what they want personally and strong-arm those who might disagree. Blatant disregard of consensus has, indeed, become commonplace. Simultaneously, we've lost almost all of our vibrant members, left to start over again without a respect for our history or even a conscious plan to abandon our heritage. (I could support these changes if they had been made consciously.)
The people are already gone who had enough historical perspective to realize that this change would lead to losing the gentle, open dialog in which all people have an equal voice. No longer are the sensitive folk nurtured and respected, knowing that they can find their power here. And so they've left, taking the soul of our organization with them. The "spin" would tell you that they left during the previous era of tyrannical rule under the thumb of an insane president. This story is doubtful to me now, or they would have returned at his ouster. Perhaps they tested the waters and fled again in disgust at the culture that had arisen.
I cannot let our history be lost without a fight!
I can't believe that bullying and disrespect serve us better than the gentle, empowering discourse that we used for the first 20 years of this organization. Yes, consensus is painful and difficult, fraught with personal growth. So are most things that are worthwhile. I refuse to believe that it's too late to keep this organization from turning into another place where the "weak" among us are oppressed and ignored in favor of "progress".
Our processes were set up with much care and thought by our founders. Many people have poured years of their lives into this place within the context of these processes. We need the processes back. Without them, the work of our hands is unguided flagellation, often leading the community further and further from anything that might be called "radical".
I will be doing everything in my power to rejuvenate our membership. We need people to join the committees. We need people to care about HOW we do things as much as WHAT we do. We need to refresh the institutional memory of the policies and procedures that lead to individual empowerment, bolstering up the people who are called "weak" in the rest of the world. It's the sensitive people who have often provided the deepest insight. We need to make this place safe for them again, something like a sanctuary.
If you are a past or current member of this organization, won't you join me? We really need your help. Call into meetings and lend your energy to our decision-making process. If you value subject-SUBJECT reality and the consensus process, please help me in the struggle to bring them back to life in the culture of the sanctuary. Consensus requires diverse opinions in order to be powerful. Please get involved and provide them.
