The PowerShift 09
Awakening The Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium
Synthesized by Kathryn MacDuffee
from Mark’s collection of thoughts & notes
The miracle embedded in the Symposium –
‘We’re just awakening what they already know.’
IMPRESSIONS & OBSERVATIONS
The Symposium Experience Page 1
The Team Page 1 & 2
The PowerShift Experience Page 2
LINKS Page 3
COMMENTS & SUGGESTIONS Page 4
BLOGS Page 5 & 6
Impressions and Observations page 1
The Symposium Experience
Power, beauty and magic best describe the dynamics of the symposium experience at this history-making event with the visionary name, ‘PowerShift’.
12,000 young adults from every state across America joined by others from twenty other countries gathered “to remind DC decision makers of the urgency of dealing with Climate Change.” Ten percent of them experienced one of the two ATD Symposia offered at this four day event (despite the many dozens of workshops, trainings, powerful speakers and other opportunities available to participants) and found their activism grounded by it.
Word of mouth from participants, and flyers distributed by the Pachamama team brought an even greater crowd to the second symposium on Sunday. These young people were touched profoundly by the ‘alchemy’ of the experience, and expressed deep gratitude for this gift – a gift which was a “framing for all they’d be swirling with during PowerShift, truly helping them convert their pain into impassioned action”.
Many expressed that it was “the most powerful experience of their life”. Many more filled out Pathways to Participation forms understanding the powerful tool of the symposium to motivate and empower their home communities.
Specifically:
During the ‘Where Are We’ section – tears streaming – tears of sadness or joy at a full hall experiencing Awakening – the tears not linear, rather in a circle.
During Van Jones’s ‘The Power of One’ section – everyone of the over 500 audience stood up and cheered.
Each symposium had more than three times the number who had signed up, attend.
The Team
A stunning team of 30 from every corner of North America beautifully and holistically supported every element of co-creating this powerful set of symposia with full awakened beingness. The overlying energy of the group was a knowing of trust and oneness, making it a ‘wonderful, dynamic extended family’.
Zo and Praween inspired the Power Shift’s steering committee of the importance of including the Symposium. Energy Action Coalition, with 50 leading organizations and 700 local groups working on Climate Change, spearheaded Power Shift.
Zo, Greg & Mark S edited the Symposium to fit into a two and a half hour Friday and three hour
Sunday time slot. The team was stunned, given the brevity of the presentation and high
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turnout, how deeply moved, inspired and empowered participants seemed. The words ‘powerful’ and ‘magical’ were used repeatedly.
Marguerite said it “was the most extraordinary experience of her life”, telling some participants: You are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
A volunteer suggested that “it felt like we had 40 volunteers who had worked many times together as they were so smooth” – couldn’t believe there were only 20, working together for the first time.
Satya describes the team experience as “very humbling and honouring to be with so many free spirited, unconditional, present beings, committed to the greater good.”
The PowerShift Experience
Jon and Mark were brought to tears on opening night as the vast hall filled. Head of EPA and Interior expressed their vision and invited these young adults to keep the pressure on to insure that the vision comes to fruition.
Mark: I’ve been going to Washington since the 70s and never heard people in government come close to expressing (especially to so many empowered youth) how important our voices are.
Majora Carter and Van Jones rocked the house, and Ken Salazar was really great.
And on Monday – The image of four thousand protesters with green hard hats in front of the Capitol was stunning. They were unstopped by eight inches of new snow that fell overnight, buzzing through the corridors of Congress educating their Senators, Representatives and their aids about climate change and clean energy – NOW.
Young experts from across the country spoke at a congressional hearing with one Native American woman bringing the gathering to tears, after conveying how native people had suffered in so many ways from Washington’s national energy policies presently and through he past.
Thousands again, for hours, protested the coal plant that electrifies Capital Hill. The threat of their coming precipitated Pelosi and Reid setting in motion a plan for converting the plant to natural gas.
It was so powerful to experience these thousands of young adults awakening Capitol Hill and hard to imagine things being the same, with such dedicated passion speaking for a future of green jobs, sustainability, and justice.
It reinforces the weekend’s deep reminder that the Great Turning is NOW! It is well
underway! And . . . it is soooooo beautiful.
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Links
* Symposium participant’s enthusiasm- Chuck Putnam’s 5 min of video interviews:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ELJONcc_Sk or at:
http://www.vimeo.com/3550626>http://www.vimeo.com/3550626
* Parts of Sunday Symposium- 11 min. from Joshua G (founder of http://generationwakingup.org/):
http://sharing.theflip.com/session/55c18e37b24bba9519da5625e9de1e83/video/3350990
* Isa doing the Imaginal cells: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmd_UgX_x-U
* Van Jones’s powerful Power Shift09 presentation along with other powerful talks:
http://video.liveearth.org/video/Van-Jones-Powershift-09>
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Comments and Suggestions
And finally, from Jon:
There are (now) close to 1 000, and maybe more young activists who are fired up about this message. There is an incredible momentum with these young people, and they are starving for this message of grounded hope, committed in action, with a context that includes every aspect of life as we know it.
We must do everything we can to continue to feed energy into this dynamic force that is drawing around it such an energetic group of young people with wise souls. Now is the time for the youth expression to be unleashed, and we need to follow the flow, embrace the flow, and move it along with power.
With Isa being there as a key member of the team, I feel the energies of your work and the PowerShift 09 work are beginning to merge, or at least synergize. That’s what I am feeling we want to enhance, that merging emerging.
Several contacts were made with Canadian youth groups. A national youth conference is scheduled in Canada for August 2010 and the Sierra Youth Coalition has recommended the ATD Symposium for this conference.
Satya has videotaped the symposia, downloaded it and is providing DVD’s. She has also collected all production documents, video, and debriefing notes to provide to the Eastern Canada team as a framework for 2010. She is looking for any other information from the group that might be helpful.
Providing two screens simultaneously for viewing the symposium was suggested, because “even though the wall was more visible, it was hard to read the writing.”
Ravi: On lobbying day I worked closely with more than a dozen different youth. We were not youth and adult; we were just passionate people who shared a common cause. It’s about older and younger people being willing to listen to each, and being open-minded enough to accept ‘radically-different-ideas’ in a fun and friendly manner.
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Blogs, mentioning the Symposiums at Power Shift
Melanie Chopko <> found the following blog posts:
<http://www.jacobhanson.info/blog/?p=41>http://www.jacobhanson.info/blog/?p=41
The importance cannot be overstated. One of my favorite parts of the conference was also the most sobering and disheartening experiences I have ever experienced. It was the 3 hour <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoXJZ_3-J9w>Awakening the Dreamer Symposium. In this relatively short time, I came to a profound realization of the perils that we face. In the midst of this experience, I updated my Facebook status to:
Jake is ashamed of humanity. sad but true
That is how I genuinely felt… all of the selfishness, ignorance, and plain small-mindedness that has plagued our species was truely sinking into my heart. I felt sick. But I am so grateful for that experience… because by opening up and embracing that profound pain, I was at the same time inspired in a enduring way. I found within myself a conviction to dedicate my life to something greater than myself. I woke up.
Also this blog on the ATD symposium in Mass.
<http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/02/16/the-strategy-of-touchy-feeliness/>http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/02/16/the-strategy-of-touchy-feeliness/
To further explore the concepts of conflict and solution, action and inaction (in the context of global issues) , attendees partook in the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium. A four hour long interactive symposium designed to assist in the opening of people’s minds to the seemingly insurmountable problems the planet faces using the big picture to generate a sense of shared purpose and collective action. ” It was the first time that our group had explored the emotional implications of living in a world on the verge of collapse” (said Harvard Law Student and MAPS Co-Coordinator Craig Altemose when asked to reflect on the exercise). The Symposium required participants to analyze a number of real world issues including the spiritual sickness of modern cultures, pollution and habitat destruction, and climate change. Gregory Reinauer, a longtime MAPS leader and the administrator of the symposium commented on the importance of this exercise; ” By allowing ourselves to feel the pain for our world, we can finally tap into the power and strength needed to save ourselves and the planet.”
According to an article in the New York Times titled; Climate Change and Mental Health, acknowledging our fears and sharing our stories about climate change can be surprisingly therapeutic. “we may …derive some psychological benefit from banding together with other citizens to mitigate the effects of global warming. Taking action might not only give us back a sense of our own sense of efficacy against a powerful outside force, but also help us build community and social ties that offset stress” says author Emily Anthes. This certainly proved true for MAPS as MAPS leaders emerged from the weekend refreshed and ready to hit the ground running. ” The retreat reminded me why I do all the work that I do” reflected David Emmerman a sophomore at Amherst College, ” by identifying the problems we face, and recognizing how we can solve them, we all become empowered, and when it comes down to creating real change, that’s what makes the difference”
<http://stanford.edu/class/humbio86q/cgi-bin/blogs/noticinglove/2009/03/09/power-shift-from-the-white-house-to-the-love-house/>http://stanford.edu/class/humbio86q/cgi-bin/blogs/noticinglove/2009/03/09/power-shift-from-the-white-house-to-the-love-house/
I also went to this symposium called Awakening the Dreamer in which at least (450) of us were instructed to walk around pretending we’re in a rush somewhere, treating other people like objects, obstacles in our path. Surprisingly, this wasn’t that hard. Everything changed, though, when we were instructed to stop and gaze at the person in front of us, stand face-to-face with them and see them as thinking, feeling, loving being, to be thankful that they took the time to slow down and be here with us, since they could have been doing a thousand other things that day. After that moment, we went back to walking around, but looked each other in the eye, greeted each other, loved each other. I truly felt it then—we are all interconnected and interdependent, and it is beautiful. I could feel the compassion and love bubbling inside me. I’d love to try this exercise with you guys sometime.