empower > power
Moments of 2020. Available as a claimable digital journal:
0.057Ξ | ERC 721: Manifold.xyz/c/powerfailures
Had we known what was to come, would we have prepared different?
If we knew how long it was to be, would we have started different?
From boarded up stores and empty tourist streets, to boarded up stores with the California National Guard on the streets.
Was it obvious, did we play a part in becoming “powerless”? Did the powerful fail, were our voices heard, did we build with new friends, did we discover new solutions?
Assembly in action, masks and unpredictable possibilities brewing only shortly as there was energy within a community together in the face of the unknowns, replacing any fears with all joys. Blind to the puppet strings, we can become immersed in the joy of that sensation. Thousands chanting in one direction, in unison with a mission. Even if the steps to reach that solution are vague, (sometimes even invisible as the journey to no war, equality and no death penalty in the streets seems so far away) people show up. Empowering inspiration to see that we’re not alone in believing there can be a better future as we stay for hours seeing LA from a different angle.
Hannah Arendt, I quote her assembly and petition quote often, she placed in our laps the history of revolutions. Often overlooked during her, her place in the World was limited and even today almost invisible. “…assemble, in order to petition…” The age of change dot org and grassroots politicians, signatures of solidarity backing a campaign for change. How to mobilize the passions behind those names that stand in solidarity? Not to press on politicians, but to build the solutions for the causes or the platforms which we build campaigns for.
Time, money, creativity…all capital that we all hold in our collective human capital wallet. None of those are extracted from nature to provide us a way to think. Yes, we need rare minerals to communicate on these digital pages, but our time and creativity are gifts in life. Beyond our critical thinking and studying the history cycles, we are built with an ability to survive, within each body, organically working in coalition the organs and vessels of our form protecting us and changing us to meet the new environments.
Can we as the human body work in solidarity with one another, seeing our time as rare and our possibilities as endless. No restrictions from political endings or top down winnings…a grassroots, ground game in action?
Brown Berets, AIM, Black Panthers…they built solutions needed for their communities. Schools providing free lunches…the same program that became the American free lunch program. Today, in America there are many school districts that have switched to 100% free lunch for the student bodies…it’s not the community coming together and providing locally grown home made meals as we know.
”Come together….right now…” Generations have begged their generation to come together and change the paradigm. Praised decades after they’re gone and their generation is then too set in their ways to remember the days of seeing hope for peace and justice. We can chant, scream, buy sharpies and poster board from 3M and listen to political organizations that shake hands with politicians, but if that isn’t your movement or even if it is your movement…we need to organize our own communities. Not top down in one centralized system, but a collective of pieces looking at the reflection in the middle that shows us our reflection of humanity and improving the actions causing those reflections. We all know there are many ugly pieces of the form of a system looking back at us, but it’s only a reflection of our actions and reactions. We have the ability to change that picture of all of us that stares back at us with ugly inequality and greedy extractions…we’re more than “raising capital” we’re more than executives, teachers, artists, and designers…we’re all human, simply doing our best at survival. Can we see that the reflection of those characters we give ourselves our only costumes in the play? We may add soot and crack to the mirror, but only our actions will improve the image that we stare at in fear.
Will we see the tools and possibilities we have before it’s too late? Will we build a new foundation stable enough for the next generation to not have to chant in the streets? Or will they also face the greed that has embedded itself as a bug in the program of human’s kind?
All images were included in my first digital Vol. 0001 “Power Failures”.
The first of Four Volumes, counting back to 2016.
Available to claim via Manifold: 0.027 Ξ
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