Photo: Stacy Lanyon
What drew me to Occupy was a feeling of longing with a
social movement of people who were thinking about something beyond the
immediate process of work and earning money,and the self-centered cycle that we’re
stuck in. It was almost a sense of responsibility. I came here as a student to
learn from everyone and all aspects of the culture. Really, I’m just curious about the world. I think that it was just the
interesting thing that was happening at the time. I come from Australia, so I
was not necessarily invested in all of the political questions on a personal
level, but instead on a social level and on a human level. I saw that these were the
people who were working together, working on a more sustainable and just and
fulfilling way of doing things.
It took me a while to get down there. I missed the first few weeks. I was uptown in Harlem at my university, Columbia, and it was hard to leave the walls sometimes. Finally, I did. It was the such an experience hearing the drum circle and dancing in Zuccotti Park. As I was dancing, I thought, “This is it. This is freedom, and we don’t need a political message." What I was feeling in my body and in all of my joints, I felt more relaxed and more happy than I have ever felt in New York City. I thought that this was something worth pursuing, and sharing. If we can keep ourselves happy, we can make the big changes and start the healing process that we need to see all through the developed world, and all through the urban centers. This is what I saw at Occupy, which was so inspiring to me. It would be so transformative if we could actually support each other in this way. People were caring for each other and sharing their resources. You could arrive with nothing and be okay. You could make friends and have people to talk to and food to eat.
I was lucky because I arrived with not many expectations, so it was easy for me to accept the different way of life. The urban life in America is something different for me, so I don’t come with a pre-conceived notion of how to live. It was easy for me to get into a different way of living. You sit on the floor, and it doesn’t matter. You sleep outside, and it doesn’t matter. I had an open mind to this. It felt at home for me. My biggest involvement was with the drumming. I’m a musician myself, so I could do drumming. I participated in the phenomenon of taking sticks and hitting them on any surface possible just to make noise. Beyond this, I didn’t actually spend much time at the park because, at this time, I was taking very many classes at university. They had privileged access to my mind at this time. In this way of experiencing a bit of Occupy, I was able to bring that spirit as well to the work I was doing and sow these seeds up at this big sandstone university.
I was an undergraduate at Columbia University, an international student. I moved around a few different academic programs, and one year after Occupy, the very close friends I’d made who were involved with Occupy as well graduated and disappeared, so I began to feel quite lost on my own with this new influx of ivy league students who had not much interest in these things, so I took so time away. I came back because I wanted to graduate as soon as possible, so I ended up taking the bare minimum, which is a concentration in Anthropology. This is my work on paper, but increasingly in the last few years, I’ve realized that my work involves other things as well and that I do not get so much satisfaction working for myself in this way, working for my own grades, working for my own career prospects. I prefer to consider my work as being a positive influence in the world. Just wherever I am, if I can be a good person in this way and spread positive energy, whether it be by sharing my music or sharing my stories or sharing my actual possessions just to show that you can live in this way, that if we support each other, we don’t need all of this extraneous material that we consume. So as the saying goes, "Another world is possible."
It took me a while to get down there. I missed the first few weeks. I was uptown in Harlem at my university, Columbia, and it was hard to leave the walls sometimes. Finally, I did. It was the such an experience hearing the drum circle and dancing in Zuccotti Park. As I was dancing, I thought, “This is it. This is freedom, and we don’t need a political message." What I was feeling in my body and in all of my joints, I felt more relaxed and more happy than I have ever felt in New York City. I thought that this was something worth pursuing, and sharing. If we can keep ourselves happy, we can make the big changes and start the healing process that we need to see all through the developed world, and all through the urban centers. This is what I saw at Occupy, which was so inspiring to me. It would be so transformative if we could actually support each other in this way. People were caring for each other and sharing their resources. You could arrive with nothing and be okay. You could make friends and have people to talk to and food to eat.
I was lucky because I arrived with not many expectations, so it was easy for me to accept the different way of life. The urban life in America is something different for me, so I don’t come with a pre-conceived notion of how to live. It was easy for me to get into a different way of living. You sit on the floor, and it doesn’t matter. You sleep outside, and it doesn’t matter. I had an open mind to this. It felt at home for me. My biggest involvement was with the drumming. I’m a musician myself, so I could do drumming. I participated in the phenomenon of taking sticks and hitting them on any surface possible just to make noise. Beyond this, I didn’t actually spend much time at the park because, at this time, I was taking very many classes at university. They had privileged access to my mind at this time. In this way of experiencing a bit of Occupy, I was able to bring that spirit as well to the work I was doing and sow these seeds up at this big sandstone university.
I was an undergraduate at Columbia University, an international student. I moved around a few different academic programs, and one year after Occupy, the very close friends I’d made who were involved with Occupy as well graduated and disappeared, so I began to feel quite lost on my own with this new influx of ivy league students who had not much interest in these things, so I took so time away. I came back because I wanted to graduate as soon as possible, so I ended up taking the bare minimum, which is a concentration in Anthropology. This is my work on paper, but increasingly in the last few years, I’ve realized that my work involves other things as well and that I do not get so much satisfaction working for myself in this way, working for my own grades, working for my own career prospects. I prefer to consider my work as being a positive influence in the world. Just wherever I am, if I can be a good person in this way and spread positive energy, whether it be by sharing my music or sharing my stories or sharing my actual possessions just to show that you can live in this way, that if we support each other, we don’t need all of this extraneous material that we consume. So as the saying goes, "Another world is possible."
This was a change in my work, in what I was looking for and doing with my time. Following Occupy, I got quite involved with activism on campus, and it took me a while to realize that this was not the most effective way for me to operate because I found myself always in conflict, and it was an eternal conflict on how the great big untouchable establishment would do something. I would set myself up and put myself in an opposing position, but of course I could never win this fight because they are huge, and we are a few people. What we have that they do not have is that we can be very strategic about this. I soon realized that the most effective way for me to operate at a place like Columbia University was to be all loving and just friends with everyone. I felt that once I could speak with these people and spend time with them and gain their respect, then we could start to really work together, and I could start to influence them in positive ways. This was a big transformation that I’ve gone through since the Occupy Movement.
Occupy was a fantastic release of energy, and there was an awakening, a sparking of a flame, and it was a necessary ritual of ceremony as it were in New York City for people to say, "Actually, you know, we’re not happy with the direction of things." What happened of course that’s been on everyone’s mind since then is, "How does it evolve?” “Where is it going from here?”And this has been my personal evolution, which was just to express gratitude and humility for the opportunity that I’m currently in the middle of, which is to dance with the devil, and I’m dancing at the moment. I’m really dancing up there, and sometimes I’m leading, so this is interesting, that I notice these changes happening. A class in the Fall, for example, was with a professor who is the leading climate scientist and environmental adviser for the White House at the moment, and he’s designing the big technological solution for climate change. I was hearing this thing, and I was like, "Errrr, what you’re planning is to build drones that will fly around in the air, probably made by the same companies who build the military. They would fly around in the air, capture carbon and then take it to these space age machinery things in the ground and turn it into algae."
He’s the man who’s about to plan it. This is going to happen. It’s going to be billions and billions of dollars. I was sitting in this class, and then we were kind of getting on, and I’d introduce ideas like community gardens. I’d introduce ideas like reducing consumption rather than increasing, reduce the energy cost rather than use up more energy to make up for the energy that we’re already using. This doesn’t make sense to me, but I see that he thinks in a different way, so I need to respect that. With him, I started to see these changes happening even in the words that he was using while making lectures. We’re talking more about cooperation instead of the old model of competition. We’re talking more about inclusivity rather than the old model of exclusivity. I think these are the kind of changes that I’m working on at the moment. It's about changing these social ideas and changing the social values, primarily through my personal evolution, of just being the fullest, most wonderful version of myself that I can possibly be.
I would love to talk about Occupy Sydney because this is very exciting. Occupy Sydney is the only occupation to still be present in the main square of Sydney. When I was back in Sydney most recently, it was my first port of call. I had fallen out of touch with many of my high school friends who are on different paths than me, and I went down to Occupy Sydney. This was a fascinating evolution of an occupation because what they now have there is a sheltered space for homeless people, a free kitchen, a free shop where people can give donations and pick stuff up, and hot coffee and tea twenty four hours a day. To me, this is amazing because what it means is essentially that if you’re in Sydney, you know however bad anything is, whatever is going on, you always have food, shelter, warm clothing and a group of nice people to hang out with. It’s in the center of the city, so I think this is wonderful.
However, like everywhere, the city council is having problems with it because they’re not yet understanding the idea of public space properly. Actually, I attended the session of council were they passed the motion to remove it, and this was interesting to learn a bit about the legal process. It was a farce in that only about six of the forty or so members even voted on this bill, and most of them were not listening. Half of them were on their phones while it was going on. Basically, the motion was that the council would order the police to get rid of Occupy Sydney. There was an amendment first, which was a clever amendment, to make it so they weren’t allowed to evict the occupiers until they had sorted out alternative accommodation for the people, which is a very clever amendment because it’s almost impossible to do that. Legally speaking, the police going in is not proper. This being said, the way the law works is not always exactly how it’s written, and the council did make a call to the police, and the police were ordered to remove the occupation.
Now, this has prompted the next iteration of Occupy Sydney, which I find very funny. What happens is that now they’re on a cycle. Every few days, the police come in and take all of the stuff and put it in a big truck, and the truck is a big council truck that goes down to the depot, and they drop all of this stuff off there. They get all of the people to go away, and an occupier named Lance gets on the phone and says, “Police are evicting right now. Quick, come down, and we need everything back. We need another barbeque. We need more crates. We need more blankets and clothes." Within a few hours, people arrive in cars and trucks and donate all the stuff back, and they’re straight back there. Every time they get evicted, Lance says, “They will never evict us. Every time they evict us, I promise you we will be back within the hour.” They must have been evicted thirty times by now, and every time, they just go back. I find it really funny that they just do this every time. Then, our other friend just goes down to the council depot every few weeks and picks up all of the stuff in his pick-up truck. Then, we’re back to square one again. It’s just this silly dance. They don’t really know what to do about it, and it’s still there.
There is no longer an Occupy Melbourne. However, this culture of conscious resistance is more established in Melbourne. There’s far more of this culture of house sharing and community gardens, soup kitchens where people just come for free food. Occupy as a Movement doesn’t have much of a presence there. They are working on other things. They are working on a lot of indigenous activism there, and they are on the forefront of urban permaculture. It’s fascinating. They have some very amazing programs to turn suburban gardens into permaculture gardens. They’ll take volunteers, and the volunteers will get to learn about the principles of permaculture. Sometimes you pay thousands of dollars to go to the school to learn these skills, and you can learn it for free here as a volunteer. With the current permaculture principles, the efficiency is much, much , much greater than this big industrial agriculture we currently use. You could actually feed your family with a relatively small amount of land. They are working on this to transform the suburbs.
It’s important for me and my conscience. There have been moments when I
was so low here in New York. I had no idea what my purpose was of being here. I
was hopeless. I thought, “This is done. Do I go back to Australia?” Then, I thought,
“Shit, what’s the purpose of me being in Australia?” I thought I was just going
to find a nice place in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and just hang out there
for a while. For me, what we’re doing is bringing hope and purpose into our
lives. For me, the grand illusion of working for money is no longer satisfying
because I recognize that there’s much more to life, that there’s an aspect of
community and the human family, which is so wonderful and makes me so happy, and once I’ve seen, I cannot unsee. I cannot go back now.
There was a time when not many years ago, I would go out to a club on Sunday night, and this would be what was fun and stimulating to me, but now I can’t do this. This is my way of staying sane, saying, “Okay, I’m going to continue with these changes, and what I see is that people are really interested. People like it. People like the idea of, “Let’s eat healthier.” “Let’s talk about trees and birds and the sun and the seasons and the four directions, which are in our lives. Let’s talk about these things instead of what’s on the television.” I know it’s so important simply because this is the rising movement. This is the rising power. This is the exciting thing happening in this moment. I can tell this because I make more friends. I have more interesting conversations. When I’m happy in my own life, more prosperity arrives to me. I have to struggle much less in order to get by, and as long as people are interested and happy, I just remain flexible, and I always remain respectful of other people’s places and where they are.
Why is it so important what we are doing? It’s a funny question because I say, “What are we doing exactly?” I think what we’re doing is changing the world, and if I were to say it in one sentence, it’s gotta be, “I return to the earth,” and acknowledge that we are also part of the earth, so it’s a return to the human beings as well. Not everyone loves nature and digging in the soil. I like that, but it’s not for everyone. That's no problem at all. It’s about returning to the human beings and just the consciousness of us being animal things walking on the surface of this great planet. That’s what we’re doing. And it’s so important because this place is about to fall apart. I was going to fall apart. I’m flabbergasted in New York at how apathetic people are about these things, and this inspires me to keep going.
They released a movie last year called Chasing Ice with cameras on Greenland ice sheets, and this is an amazing movie because you see that this is not only accelerating, but it’s accelerating beyond the point of no return. I certainly don’t want to make any predictions here about natural disasters, sea level rises, anything like this because I don’t know, and I don’t want to affect this thing by sending that intention out. I don’t want people to lose their cities or anything like this. All I say is that we know these changes are happening, and what we’re learning more and more every single day is that we’re on tracks, like a railway, and they’re going towards something, which is not good, and to me it’s suicidal. The large-scale societal direction, which is separation from the earth, that is disrespecting the earth by polluting it and digging it, actually represents the internal condition of all of us that are in society. There’s equally a separation in our own lives.
We have these two hemispheres of the brain. This is a simplification, but they say that one is the rational side, and one is the creative side, and it’s most effective when these two are in contact. What is happening at the moment is that we have an educational system that greatly, greatly favors one side, which is the rational side, and we don’t necessarily get opportunities in our day to day lives to exercise this truly spiritual, creative side of life, which happens in that moment I was talking about before, when you’re dancing, dancing in the drums, and suddenly it’s like words almost don’t even work at that point because it’s something beyond that. It’s a different part of human existence, which we’re missing out on at the moment, and this is the separation, which also exists at the societal level, from the earth. This is sad because I see people being unhappy all the time, especially in a big place like New York City where it’s hard to live because it’s physically difficult. We need to go on these big, rattley pieces of metal underground. We’re under fluorescent lights all day, and there are loud noises twenty-four-seven, so it’s physically a very demanding place, and I see that people are unhappy.
That being said, we say this place is falling apart, but these are just natural cycles, and there have been the rise and fall of populations and civilizations for hundreds of thousands of years. The original people where I’m from in Australia have stories that document a number of great earth changes, and I’ve heard these stories. They talk about a great earth shaking where many people died, and the entire island was repopulated from one place. There are similar stories from South America where people had to retreat to the mountaintops, and an entire civilization was repopulated from this place. There are also similar stories from India were you go off just the coastline, and there would be a whole city under water. I’ve seen these videos where they say to the fisherman, “How do you know there’s a city under there? We in the west, this is a strange idea to us." The fisherman laughs and he says, “How do I know? Because I go out every day, and I fish, and half the time when I send my net down, it gets caught on the top of this building.” So they take the cameras down there, and there are palaces under the water.
This is the kind of thing that happens all the time, and we’re not conscious of that because we’re on a different program at the moment. At the moment, we’re on the program of get born and be a good citizen and work and all of this stuff, and it’s not all bad. There’s beauty in this life as well. I’m not trying to suggest that people are wasting their lives and it’s so pointless because it’s not. What I do think is that right now we’re just at a time where we’re just shifting gears a little bit. So we start to realize these things a little bit more. I’m not trying to push an agenda, really. I’m not trying to change anybody. For me personally, it’s kind of like, “Well, if we want to survive, we’re going to have to change.” That’s just the way it is.
I know people in Australia who are moving to the hills and living in nature, and they are very healthy with wonderful food, wonderful water, wonderful air. They’re learning about the land and a lot about themselves. They're becoming very spiritually powerful, but I know that my work is also in the city, to share this knowledge and to assist the human family through the transition. There are several intriguing prophesies from indigenous cultures. This idea of prophesy, I don’t like to push on it too much, but it caught my attention when I heard this same idea coming out of different cultures. The famous one in America is the Hopi, and then I heard the same idea come from the Mayans and the same idea come from an elder on the coast of Australia, and I said, “Wow, this is very interesting, they’re all talking about this "Warriors of the Rainbow" who are going to come at the time when we have nothing else. They’re going to come and bring us all together.
There was a time when not many years ago, I would go out to a club on Sunday night, and this would be what was fun and stimulating to me, but now I can’t do this. This is my way of staying sane, saying, “Okay, I’m going to continue with these changes, and what I see is that people are really interested. People like it. People like the idea of, “Let’s eat healthier.” “Let’s talk about trees and birds and the sun and the seasons and the four directions, which are in our lives. Let’s talk about these things instead of what’s on the television.” I know it’s so important simply because this is the rising movement. This is the rising power. This is the exciting thing happening in this moment. I can tell this because I make more friends. I have more interesting conversations. When I’m happy in my own life, more prosperity arrives to me. I have to struggle much less in order to get by, and as long as people are interested and happy, I just remain flexible, and I always remain respectful of other people’s places and where they are.
Why is it so important what we are doing? It’s a funny question because I say, “What are we doing exactly?” I think what we’re doing is changing the world, and if I were to say it in one sentence, it’s gotta be, “I return to the earth,” and acknowledge that we are also part of the earth, so it’s a return to the human beings as well. Not everyone loves nature and digging in the soil. I like that, but it’s not for everyone. That's no problem at all. It’s about returning to the human beings and just the consciousness of us being animal things walking on the surface of this great planet. That’s what we’re doing. And it’s so important because this place is about to fall apart. I was going to fall apart. I’m flabbergasted in New York at how apathetic people are about these things, and this inspires me to keep going.
They released a movie last year called Chasing Ice with cameras on Greenland ice sheets, and this is an amazing movie because you see that this is not only accelerating, but it’s accelerating beyond the point of no return. I certainly don’t want to make any predictions here about natural disasters, sea level rises, anything like this because I don’t know, and I don’t want to affect this thing by sending that intention out. I don’t want people to lose their cities or anything like this. All I say is that we know these changes are happening, and what we’re learning more and more every single day is that we’re on tracks, like a railway, and they’re going towards something, which is not good, and to me it’s suicidal. The large-scale societal direction, which is separation from the earth, that is disrespecting the earth by polluting it and digging it, actually represents the internal condition of all of us that are in society. There’s equally a separation in our own lives.
We have these two hemispheres of the brain. This is a simplification, but they say that one is the rational side, and one is the creative side, and it’s most effective when these two are in contact. What is happening at the moment is that we have an educational system that greatly, greatly favors one side, which is the rational side, and we don’t necessarily get opportunities in our day to day lives to exercise this truly spiritual, creative side of life, which happens in that moment I was talking about before, when you’re dancing, dancing in the drums, and suddenly it’s like words almost don’t even work at that point because it’s something beyond that. It’s a different part of human existence, which we’re missing out on at the moment, and this is the separation, which also exists at the societal level, from the earth. This is sad because I see people being unhappy all the time, especially in a big place like New York City where it’s hard to live because it’s physically difficult. We need to go on these big, rattley pieces of metal underground. We’re under fluorescent lights all day, and there are loud noises twenty-four-seven, so it’s physically a very demanding place, and I see that people are unhappy.
That being said, we say this place is falling apart, but these are just natural cycles, and there have been the rise and fall of populations and civilizations for hundreds of thousands of years. The original people where I’m from in Australia have stories that document a number of great earth changes, and I’ve heard these stories. They talk about a great earth shaking where many people died, and the entire island was repopulated from one place. There are similar stories from South America where people had to retreat to the mountaintops, and an entire civilization was repopulated from this place. There are also similar stories from India were you go off just the coastline, and there would be a whole city under water. I’ve seen these videos where they say to the fisherman, “How do you know there’s a city under there? We in the west, this is a strange idea to us." The fisherman laughs and he says, “How do I know? Because I go out every day, and I fish, and half the time when I send my net down, it gets caught on the top of this building.” So they take the cameras down there, and there are palaces under the water.
This is the kind of thing that happens all the time, and we’re not conscious of that because we’re on a different program at the moment. At the moment, we’re on the program of get born and be a good citizen and work and all of this stuff, and it’s not all bad. There’s beauty in this life as well. I’m not trying to suggest that people are wasting their lives and it’s so pointless because it’s not. What I do think is that right now we’re just at a time where we’re just shifting gears a little bit. So we start to realize these things a little bit more. I’m not trying to push an agenda, really. I’m not trying to change anybody. For me personally, it’s kind of like, “Well, if we want to survive, we’re going to have to change.” That’s just the way it is.
I know people in Australia who are moving to the hills and living in nature, and they are very healthy with wonderful food, wonderful water, wonderful air. They’re learning about the land and a lot about themselves. They're becoming very spiritually powerful, but I know that my work is also in the city, to share this knowledge and to assist the human family through the transition. There are several intriguing prophesies from indigenous cultures. This idea of prophesy, I don’t like to push on it too much, but it caught my attention when I heard this same idea coming out of different cultures. The famous one in America is the Hopi, and then I heard the same idea come from the Mayans and the same idea come from an elder on the coast of Australia, and I said, “Wow, this is very interesting, they’re all talking about this "Warriors of the Rainbow" who are going to come at the time when we have nothing else. They’re going to come and bring us all together.
The world I'd like to see is a world where everybody has their place around the
circle. In the center is a fire, and the fire is all of our intentions and all
of our dreams, and in the circle, we are all different. We are all equal, but
there’s no hierarchy here. We manage to live in a way which is environmentally
sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling, and the most import thing
for all of this is happiness. For me, this is what it’s really about, to live
in a world where we can be truly happy and understand that we are
amazing and wonderful and lucky, that it’s awesome to be alive. We are
living at a very special time. All of us here today are very lucky in the
history of the world to experience two eras of time, and to awaken this
consciousness has the potential to unlock joy and peace and harmony the likes
of which none of us ever have experienced, and this is it. It is the return to
the human family living with the earth—Pachamama. This is the South American
notion of mother earth. It’s all about involvement. There’s
no more fear. No one is left out. No one is hungry. No one is
cold. We don’t need to compete anymore, and if the population is too big, then
we have fewer babies next year. What is here is and what we’re doing, the best is yet to
come.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/