Let’s start of the post with some fun clips of the Day-long Arts Retreat on August 23rd, 2008:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_BB3R3Gv_M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rp0egauGwk

You can also read about it here in Emily Herzlin’s post.

Following all that fun, we met for the Integral Activism meeting on Sunday Aug. 24, 2008. It started with a new memo from Sen. Eric Schneiderman further exploring our integral activism work:

“Wikipedia defines politics as ‘the process by which groups of people make decisions.’ So mindful political engagement involves our active participation in the collective decision making process of a group. It requires us to shift our awareness so that, in addition to being an “I”, we experience ourselves as part of a “we.” Passive membership in a group doesn’t do it. Politics requires us to own our “we-ness”, to exercise the muscles of our collective nature.

By contrast, contemplative practices such as mindfulness meditation primarily focus our attention on the nature of the “I”.

Accordingly, then, mindful political work opens the door to a deep understanding of our interdependence, and the permeability of the shell we usually imagine between what is “inside” of our individual selves and the other people “out there.” Mindful political work – integral activism – involves practicing an investigation of the “I” and the “We” simultaneously. As we develop practices associated with Integral Activism, we should keep this simultaneity in mind…”

How do we explore and define the different levels we can approach our thoughts and actions? Are we aware of the differences between the “I” or the personal level, the “you and I” or the interpersonal level, and the “we” or the collective level of action? How do we keep all of these levels in mind when we practice integral activism?

Schneiderman’s memo goes on to say that when we engage in voluntary service or charity work, we are only engaging in an interpersonal interaction:

“…The reason our practice as integral activists focuses on political work – rather than charity or ‘service’ – now should be clear. Good works through which ‘I’ help someone else as an individual lack the collective spirit of engagement of politics.”

This last statement is a bit controversial. Let’s make it a little more grounded through an example that came up during our discussion: Is volunteering in a soup kitchen an act of activism? By the definition that we have here, we would say that it is not – instead it is an act of serving one’s community. It is not engaging in politics. Do you think that is true? If one is volunteering in a soup kitchen, is it the same as engaging in politics? Is it important to make a distinction between the interpersonal level of interaction that is for the benefit of another person vs. working on a collective level that is for the benefit of the “we”? What does it mean to move from volunteering in a soup kitchen to working on a political level? Why is working on the interpersonal level more or less appealing than working on the political level? What does the practice of one bring to the practice of the other?