John Eustor

Occupy Union Square, March 23, 2012
Photo: Stacy Lanyon

I found out about the OWS protest\movement from a good friend. She emailed me the event and I was immediately taken in by what I was reading. It seemed to encompass all of my previous activism and my belief that we together as a people could create a shift in reality towards a compassionate and loving society that cared for it's people, not profited from them. It was not just a protest rally, but a living creation that placed like minded people in one central, and very important location, and kept them there indefinitely. The worst thing about any protest rally is that eventually it ends. We are then forced to go right back into what we were protesting against.

I was very excited about it, so much so that I felt an inner desire to help the movement by what I knew best at that point to bring people together: Drumming, and more specifically, drum circles. I had a strong desire to bring that energy to this movement, so I created an event on Facebook and told everyone I could that I would start a circle at Zuccotti Park to help bring people in and support the movement. That was to be my contribution, as well as just being there, going on marches and speaking. I felt it would become a very important tool to unite people. Unlike performance, drum circles allow an audience to actually participate and feel like they are part of that performance and creative endeavor which then makes everyone feel good. It's an energy that forms within the center of the circle, which radiates out to all the drummers and participants, then out to the Universe and back in a spiral. That is what I see when I look around within a circle, a Universal Flow of energy that is being formed and funneled through everyone there. Done correctly, it could be used as a tool to get people feeling as they were part of the movement itself, even after the first time. It's also a means to get any aggression one may have out on the drums, instead of something or someone else. 

We are reactive instead of proactive as a species. We can unify to help people that are suffering because of a disaster, yet we cannot unify to help all of humanity evolve to a place where disasters would not have so many causalities. Our illusionary differences keep us from truly experiencing the kind of reality that the rest of existence is working in perfect harmony with. Competition, money, greed and profiting from human misery just doesn't work, and has never worked for the majority of humanity, only the minority it serves and that uses it to control and manipulate the masses. Yet we (the masses) still allow it to be so...not for long. 

If the cells of our own bodies thought of themselves as individuals above the whole, competitive and selfishly outdoing other cells at the sake of the unity to create and maintain the body as a whole, then the human body would most likely not even exist. True evolutionary progress is in allowing this unity to create a higher form of existence for all creation, and with that higher form of existence comes the freedom to enjoy it with grace and beauty, without the burden of keeping that oppressive system in tact just so that the few can prosper as the many suffer. It's common sense. If our own bodies are working in such a unified perfection to keep us all alive, with no competition, money, greed or profits involved, then all a soceity has to do to exist in that same framework of perfection is to mimic how it operates. Our bodies work in a complete unified system. They are blueprints for an advanced form of existence.

The movement to me represents a growing awareness that we need a free and sustainable future, built of peace, love, unity and respect for each and every living creature and the planet. I believe that the success of the movement is now reliant on our ability to expand all over the globe and connect to create a parallel system that has nothing to do with their monetary or corporate structures and that can share everything created within the system with everyone equally and freely. The lack of any defined leadership in the movement is a proactive approach to counter any ability to dissolve and corrupt the movement from within.

Ultimately, what I would like to see this turn into is a worldwide shift to a system where each child born is given a free existence from birth to death, with no profits, greed, competition nor money to corrupt it or them. My vision is that we build a system where we all work together with no competition, to create the best product we can all share equally. We work 2-4 hour shifts, round the clock, to create, manage and do what we do now, without having the burden of paying, protecting, managing and keeping track of the flow of money. All jobs would be considered humanitarian because they provide a service or product to humanity, for free. Really what our only goals should be in life is taking care of the planet and every living creature. If we eliminate money, profit and competition, then what we would have left is the ability to have compassion, caring and understanding for all of humanity. 

Interview by Stacy Lanyon

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