... LEADERSHIP (Part 1)

 Long long ago, in the misty dawn of humankind the ancient ancestors of you and me woke in the morning and came together to eat and organize the tribal day.  The tribes had been developing the process of organizing in different ways for many generations, each generation teaching the next and adding new ways to contribute to their mutual needs.  Those needs included safety and protection for everyone, shelter, clothing and food, the making of tools and weapons and the caring for children, the aged, sick and infirm that could not care for themselves. 

Painting of Plains Indian council by George Caitlin (1796-1872)

 
To facilitate the organization for all their mutual needs they devised councils and chiefs.  A chief would probably have a sub-chief to assist, and a council of advisors.  There might be a council of warriors, a hunter’ council, a council of elders, and if the tribe were large there might be smaller groups, clans, each with a clan chief, and a clan mother who helped the women organize and also advised the men to help them become a useful and valued member of the tribe.  A tribe could be likened to a sports team of today; with coaches guiding players to develop their skills and pull together for the common goals of the team.

"The Historian" 1902 by E. Irving Couse

 In each generation young people learned and stepped into the various leadership roles according to their skills, talents, and interests.  An older family or clan member would take on the guidance of the team.  Every task in the community could be seen as a leadership role, and the primary requisite to be good in that role was to be a good listener. 

In a time of national elections there are debates where the electorate may ponder the records and leadership skills of those who seek election.  There are attacks and counter attacks and appeals for support and unity, but much argument, much emotion, acrimony, anger and the stirring of fear and resentment.  There is much opposition, even bitterness, and little harmony.   Any listening that is done is for negating, not for understanding

Most of that is caused by the inequality of power and wealth in society as a whole.  The wealthy and powerful want to maintain their wealth and power; controlling not only the government, but also the information that is dispensed to the public through education and the media.

Our problems are also caused by sheer bigness.  The scale of the institutions of government and all human activities in medicine and health, education, welfare, justice and so on is so great that we are not dealing with each other as human beings, and we are not met with understanding and compassion.  We have created an inhuman society of isolated and alienated individuals.  All of whom nevertheless need the closeness, support, understanding and acceptance of others, and all of whom who strive for, wish for, but only rarely find that.

We are dependent on governments and businesses that are too big to consider and cherish us.  We struggle with the oppression and isolation yet are often also able to feel the inherent kindness, compassion and helpfulness of individuals.  Those traits we all inherit from our tribal pasts when we actually lived close to and dependent on every one in our community.  We reach out to help those who are hurting.

But also we feel that lack of community in the soulless indifference of our growing cities. Our marriages begun in joy and hope begin to erode under contemporary stress.   Over half are dissolved in divorce with many of the rest only maintaining a civil distance, adjusting to a loss of deep connection and appreciation for each other.  Children, feeling the lack of affection and support, often rebel and leave home without ever knowing the saving grace of unconditional love.
 
Love, our very center, that we value above all else, is difficult to find and maintain in our individualistic, competitive, materialist, stressful and alienating society.  So for a truly satisfying, meaningful life filled with love, creativity and joy, filled with the support and encouragement of the people we live work and play with, we need to exit the strife, the struggle, the competition and dependence on the institutions of society, and go back to our source.  Back to helping one another, back to opening our hearts and living our authentic selves with each other, back to thinking and creating together, to listening to each other’s needs and helping them all be met.

That means having communities small enough that we can listen to one another and work together.  Those smaller human communities or clans may also band together with other clans into somewhat larger communities or tribes with common interests and needs in the environment, and those tribes can network with other tribes into larger nations with mutual interests in the environment of the whole region.

Living in a close relationship with the natural environment, with our plant relatives, our gardens, our farmlands, our orchards, our forests, our animal relatives, both domestic and wild, with the meadows and plains and deserts, the hills and mountains, the streams, rivers, lakes and oceans, we can agree on sustainable ways of living.  Ways that we can pass on to our children and grandchildren instead of the world we now leave them, a world of violence, war, fear, anger, pollution, ugliness, degradation of soil, water and air, and dire climate changes.

All this is possible when we connect, think and work together.  And that becomes more possible the more we organize.  Which means the more we encourage leadership.  Every community, every movement every positive change of the past was begun by and realized through the energy and inspiration of people exercising leadership in a positive way.

(Photo by Jordi.Stals via Wikimedia Commons)

Poetry: excerpt from "36 Views of Mount Monadnock"

(photo by Hubert Berberich (HubiB) via Wikimedia Commons)

Coming soon: 
Manitonquat's new book of poetry
 Birch Cottage

Excerpt from the poem
"36 Views of Mount Monadnock"

. . . 24.  Around naked boulders April buds
begin to green the skeletal limbs
thirsty arms of winter trees
        stretching to breathe spring

25.  Last night’s snow embroiders the peak
 and treetops with glittering ice
flashing and winking to find
the sleepy blink of dawn . . .

(Follow this blog, for publication date T.B.A.
    and more writings from Manitonquat.)

Respect and feeling safe: means no sexual harassment

Courtesy of www.scoopwhoop.com

The Circle Way is based on respect  
Respect means recognizing that you matter, as a person.  It means that your feelings matter. What kind of living creature's feelings don't matter?  The fact that you have feelings which matter, is what defines you as a human being. 

That doesn't mean everyone agrees with your feeling.  It doesn't mean we can always do just as we feel.  Yet even when we can't follow our feelings with perfect freedom, still our feelings matter.  This means we need to listen to them.  Just listen: to ourselves and to each other, not only to words, but to feelings as well.

Respect means that when we've listened to others' feelings, we try to be sensitive to them. My flatmate might hate my musical taste.  But s/he can still respect my feelings, by not verbally belittling my favorite bands to me.  If my flatmate is a light sleeper, I don't choose his/her sleep time for blasting my favourite records at top volume.  Simple, common sense things like that. 

In an aptmosphere of respect, we feel safe.  Feeling safe is the necessary foundation for everything.  When we are respected, and feel safe, we can trust.  We can open up to each other. 

Without opening up to each other, how are real relationships possible?  Without respect, trust, and openness, whom are we relating to?  How can we even reach each other's real self?

Definition courtesy of Google Search

Sexual harassment is the opposite of respect
If we listen to each other's feelings and treat them with respect,  sexual harassment would not happen.  Certainly not sexual violence.  Sexual harassment or violence means disregarding someone's feelings.  It means not caring how they feel, about the most intimate contact possible. 

Sexual harassment and sexual violence can do grave damage to people, including physical disorders and crippling depression.  In young people, it can be related to teen suicide. 

Connection between sexual harassment and sexual violence
Sexual harassment and violence are among negative patterns from the past, which we are struggling to heal.  They're based on a paradigm in which people's sexual choices were not respected.  In which, as some might put it, the only sex which was prohibited was consensual!

Studies have found that where people in charge turn a blind eye to sexual harassment, there is a higher incidence of sexual violence.  So sexual harassment is not "harmless".  When people in charge foster a climate of mutual respect, sexual harassment and violence are less likely to happen, and more likely to be handled with common sense if they do occur.

If you've experienced sexual harassment or violence:
Here's some info that might be helpful:
http://www.feminist.org/911/harasswhatdo.html
https://sapac.umich.edu/article/49


Consent matters
Many people feel concerned about how to approach normal sexual relations, without fear of being taken the wrong way.  How do you know when you have consent?
If you feel concerned about how to be sure you have consent in sexual contact:
http://au.reachout.com/what-is-sexual-consent

"Tea Consent" video  https://youtu.be/oQbei5JGiT8  (Copyright ©2015 Emmeline May and Blue Seat Studios)
(Sexual consent made simple in under 3 minutes: think of it as a cup of tea...)

If you've inflicted sexual harassment or violence on others
Hopefully what you've read so far might persuade you to re-think what you've done.  Presumably, once you decide it's the wrong thing to do, you can stop.

However, many, if not most perpetrators start out as survivors of sexual abuse themselves.  This is how they got the idea it was OK: because it was done to them.  It is often the case with abusers that it happened to them as children. 

If sexually abusing others is a covert way of dealing with the trauma of having been abused as a child, it can become an addiction.  **

A child who is abused feels terror, anger, powerlessness.  The person abusing them seems to have all the power, while they have none.  Later on, this can become a motive for becoming an abuser themselves: it's a way to quiet the terror of powerlessness, and to feel like the "winner", the powerful one, the one whose feelings matter.

If that damage is not healed, it can define and inhibit your sexual life.  If you connect feelings of pain and anger with sexuality, if you can express your sexuality only toward someone who is not willing, who is not listening, then you probably could use some help to sort out what happened to you when your sexual life was beginning. 

You can break the pattern
These patterns rest on a foundation of silence, disrespect, and dishonesty.  That's why it's possible to break them. 

It can begin with a simple mental process.  The moment an abuse survivor recognizes that what happened to them was wrong, they can begin to break free.  When you understand that you deserved respect, and that no one had the right to abuse you, past abuse can begin to lose its hold on your life. 
For adults who were abused as children:
http://www.asca.org.au/WHAT-WE-DO/Resources/General-Information/Abuse-related-conditions

http://www.havoca.org/

I hope this is helpful in clarifying these sensitive issues for some of my readers.

Whatever we wear, wherever we go
courtesy of livesrunning.wordpress.com

** (Some studies have indicated that, while most perpetrators were abused themselves, only about 20% of those abused do go on to commit abuse.)  

There is an alternative: let's build it together

Community Centre at Findhorn (Soulscribe - Wikimedia Commons)

The object of my work here is to inspire, and to help plan an alternative to the world we have been born into.  Not in opposition to this world or any of the people in it; without blame or judgement.  Obeying its laws, being kind, interested, understanding and compassionate to all - making no enemies. 

The lesson is that we are all hurt, and out of that we are all making enemies.  'Love your enemy' Jesus said, and no one really understands that.  It doesn't need a commandment from a supernatural source - we are making our own enemies, and that is isolating us from each other and making us victims of fear and greed. 

We are only really human in small groups where we know and respond to each other's thinking and feeling, where we know the joys of working and playing together, helping each other, growing to old age as we watch our babies grow and take over and care for all life and the Earth.

We have proved we can make communities that are nearly autonomous and self-sufficient, sustainable with the natural systems of life on Earth - there are thousands of them now, and some have been in existence for generations.  The more we create local economies, deriving their sustenance from their local regions and networking with others, creating interaction for mutual support, the more a truly human society will emerge. 

Some may call this aim 'Utopia' as a disparagement - but the word means 'no place' in Greek, and our dream has many places - I have lived in some and am still close to several.  They are no more perfect than we are, but they give us the opportunity to think and build together, to keep making corrections to our errors, and making life more fun and beautiful and loving. 

When we come together we bring old hurts and fears and distrust with us, but by opening our hearts to each other honestly and with compassion we begin to heal from the wounds of the 'old' world and learn how to help each other, to connect with the natural world, to joy in it and celebrate.

Community garden (Klest - Wikimedia Commons)

Elegant Solutions – The Wisdom of the Heart

I have been thinking about conflicts among us and how sometimes we get stuck and get discouraged.  Maybe it is good to keep in mind Harvey’s observation that there is always at least one elegant solution to every problem.  And the Dalai Lama’s urging us to "Never give up."  The problem is always in our distresses.  Which are the result of early material that hangs out in us unresolved.  And we know how to deal with that.

Why do we keep forgetting that?  Why do we give up and give in to our distress?  Because the distress has blocked our thinking, clouds and confuses it and makes us forget we always have at least one elegant solution that will show up when we discharge.  We think we are thinking because our brain is functioning, and we are creating arguments and critiques and justifications and denials and judgments.  But they are all tainted with distress, and we cannot realize that at the moment.

We need a circle to sort it all out ("None of us is as smart as all of us").  But sometimes the re-stimulation has hit everyone, discourages the whole circle, and it dissolves without that elegant solution.  Nothing left but confusion and (sigh) disappointment.  I am thinking it could be very useful for our circles to utilize the suggestion of Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea in their book The Circle Way (!) to have one person in the role of what they call the Guardian.  Someone who keeps an ear and eye on the process and when things get sticky and confusing this person rings a little bell and interrupts the process.

Then there is a minute of silence while everyone gets a chance to step back from the mounting entanglement.  The Guardian will then tell why she rang the bell.  For us it is probably a good point to call for mini sessions to clear the feelings, think of a better way to go for that elegant solution.  And anyone in the circle can ask the Guardian to ring the bell at any time to give everyone a chance to quiet the internal ruckus and maybe ask for a mini and discharge.  We used to do this in our Mettanokit Community business meetings, and oh, what a difference it always made!

I can understand how we can all get lost in our old stuff sometimes.  There are times when even now I lose it, not quite so often as I grow older thankfully, but sometimes I get suddenly conflicted, say exactly the wrong thing out of my re-stimulation and make it all worse.  Luckily I usually have an aware observer near – my own Guardian: my partner and best friend Ellika, who without my distress can see through what’s happening and support me to remember what my heart knows but my brain forgot.

Ellika always warns me that perhaps I give too rosy a picture of conflicts, so I hasten to add that they require the best of us, they require our time and energy and attention.  It’s work.  But when we are listening to the wisdom of our hearts it is not painful it is uplifting.  Or as my old friend Wavy Gravy says in one of his songs: “Thank goodness for something to do!”

Harvey’s elegant solution appears to rely on clarity of thought, a matter of brain function, reason logic.  I’m not sure that way of characterizing it is helpful.  Even when our thinking is tainted with emotional distress we think we are thinking well.  What is more helpful for me is to just by-pass the mess in my head, my tangled and tortured reasoning, and go deeper, go straight to the wisdom of the heart.  That is the reminder that my guardian Ellika is usually able to give me.

That wisdom is what we all have in common.  That is the deepest place in all of us, in every human being.  I see it in myself most of the time, I see it in Ellika almost all the time, I feel it in every observation I hear or read from Tim Jackins –whose voice in my head often serves as a Guardian for me, and I see that in every one of us when we are in true counselor mode, the mode of a Supportive Listener.  We are all there when we are being ourselves, our caring, concerned, loving selves, listening with our hearts to the confusions and hurts, the fears and angers and re-stimulations, the awakening of old wounds in our beloved fellow human beings.

Wisdom and compassion taught the Buddha.  The wisdom of the mind, of study and research, of reason and logic, can show us how the problems arose and prescribe solutions, but it is the deeper wisdom of the heart that heals.

When a child does something that triggers a distress in us, we can make the mistake of yelling or lecturing, being sharp and demanding, even punishing, but none of those achieve what we want.  Only by listening, by kindness and understanding can we connect with gentleness and firmness and love to guide the child back on the path of the heart where we all want to be.  If it is true for how we treat children, it must be true for how we treat each other, how we treat adults who have stumbled in the re-stimulation of unresolved childhood hurts.

The land mines of old distress can get stepped on inadvertently in all relationships – in our Circle Way circles, in RC communities, in the sanghas and congregations of any group no matter from what font of wisdom or spirituality they drink.

When a bomb explodes please do not panic.  Take refuge in our goodness, in our love, the wisdom of the heart.  When conflict arises in your circle, rejoice, embrace it – it is an AFGO – "Another F….g Growth Opportunity."  Relax.  Discharge. Listen.  Laugh.

The wisdom of our hearts, our love, comes naturally.  It’s our essence.  We need to ask ourselves "what is the most loving thing I can do or say at this moment?"  The elegant solution is there.

What happens when we get past that stuff that confused us?  We hug.  We cry, we laugh.  We celebrate.  What a relief!

Notes from and Elder

One thing about getting old, your perspective broadens. You don’t get so waylaid by all the small daily intrusions as you used to be. You are offered a larger view.

It’s an interesting mix. A lot of the time you are confused, don’t remember what you did or intended a moment ago. Then memories from the distant past burst into your consciousness, which is mostly pleasant but disorienting.

That’s why the conversation of us old geezers can be so exasperating to everyone else. We complain about our aches and new pains, we are always asking, “Where is my…?” “Has anybody seen my…?” or we are nattering on about old times pointlessly.

I see all that in myself, but also I experience periods of great clarity and deeper, broader understanding of the human predicament that includes us all at this moment of history.

I am writing to you and the world from that clarity and understanding as much as I can these days for as long as my energy lasts. It seems a shame how that energy wanes more and more, but I must accept that.


The wisdom mined by others can make great contributions to our understanding and our actions. We would do well to refresh the wisdom handed down from Lao Tse, from the Buddha, or from Jesus to inform our steps at all times. But not all of what is retain from former times is germane and helpful to our present conditions. New thinking is always necessary.

Recent and contemporary figures have given us great examples to guide us – Gandhi’s non-violent resistance to oppression, Tutu’s truth and reconciliation events, the ongoing movements for peace, environmental healing, restorative justice, to eradicate poverty and provide basic needs of health and freedom to all human beings – all these are alive and growing, and we all benefit from our attendance on them.


Compassion, a basic human attribute, languishes in us because of our isolation and anxiety. Children raised with closeness and affection are naturally caring. We need a society where the highest goals offered are not material wealth, notoriety, or power over others, but the rich pleasures of the human heart and mind. An economy based not on getting but on giving, the gifts of Earth’s resources not appropriated for possession but for the pleasures of mutual benefit, of sharing, of helping, of healing.

Emphasizing the traditional wisdom of the Buddha, the Dalai Lama advises our intentions always towards compassion and tells us, “Never give up!” Also from the Buddhist tradition of mindfulness, the teacher Thich Nhat Hanh tell us to listen, listen deeply, listen to each other, listen to ourselves, listen to life.

And in developing the techniques for non -violent communication Marshal Rosenberg offers a marvelous question I urge myself and everyone to ask each other: How can I help you make your life more wonderful?”


Now if everyone who reads these words would only say “Yes!” and put them all to work every moment, the human situation would get better the more people are able to read them, and our job is only to spread the words further.

But reading is not enough. The activities around us that produce anxiety and fear, increase isolation and loneliness, and reduce compassion and closeness must be prevented. These activities, you have perhaps noticed, are enforced by our economic and political systems and the anxiety and fear generated by them.

We have enough history now to affirm clearly that the overthrow of these systems does not create the human society we seek. The fears and greed and lust for power over others continue and corrupt whatever we may try to replace that system with. We need protected breeding grounds for a truly human society. That can happen without threatening or confronting others with hostility.

It is in fact happening, peaceably, more and more. People are gathering to live together in a better relationship to the Earth, to all life, to each other and to themselves. I have been working with such communities, now generally calling themselves ecovillages, for over 40 years. Are they perfect? Of course not. But life there is certainly far better, far happier, freer, more creative and satisfying than any place, any place outside them. More satisfying also than that of the poor, the struggling, the isolated, and also than that of the rich, the one percent in their gated communities.

These ecoovillages are laboratories, experiments in creating a new world, where they are trying to work out all the kinks and make life more wonderful for everyone. I invite you all to look into them more – check out Tamera, ZEGG, Damanhur, Findhorn, The Farm, to name only a few – there are thousands of others.

We have been experimenting on our own, working out techniques for getting the kinks out, the stuff we keep dragging with us from the old systems, stuff that is getting in our way, in the way of our compassion and our joy.

The original basis for our social thinking is that of the successful communities of all our past human history. We have named it The Circle Way and have been exploring it in workshops and camps for 30 years, learning more every time we come together. The major tool we are honing we call Supportive Listening, adapted from co-counseling for use in our circles and in the wider world.

The Circle Way is centered on all of us, not on any teacher or writing, or even on any policy. Centered on us, it can change as we change – and no one knows for sure how we will change and what the effects of that change will be. Writing like this will go into the archives and be noted as part of our history an growth, as we check out the thoughts and times of the Buddha and Jesus, of Gandhi and thousands of others like me experiencing and writing about these changes today, people like Joanna Macy and Starhawk and Jean Houston, like Steven Gaskin and Thich Nhat Hanh and…really thousands, it’s true. But all that writing is just smoke unless people are actively living it, as they are trying to do in the ecovillages.

The Circle Way understands that – as my late friend Pete Seeger put it, “None of us will get there unless we all get there.” And that means we have to be listening to each one. We can’t listen to each one in groups of thousands or even hundreds. We have to be in circles where EACH ONE can be heard by all.

If a circle is too big for everyone to listen to each other in a reasonable period that they can all sit still for, the circle must be broken down into smaller circles. Those are our basic communities, but those circles can connect to cooperate with larger circles to work on mutual interests together. Always we must keep in mind human scale. We can make our circles more efficient by continually taking time out for smaller circles of two people or three, where we can get clear our best communications to the larger circle.


Two signs we can print or just remember:

NONE OF US IS AS SMART AS ALL OF US.
And
IN US WE TRUST.


That last one comes from our certainty we were, like every baby, born good and innocent, eager, curious - loving closeness, play, laughter, creativity, and liking to help, enjoying cooperation and to be welcome, to be accepted, understood and appreciated. Together we can help each other to be who we were born to be.


So you see, I really do know how to change the world. I know how to help you, everyone, make life more wonderful for yourself and for all life. But it’s not something I can do by myself. Not even by writing it all down. Because it can only happen when we actually do it.  That means do it together. None of us can do it alone. We need each other.

That is why I am urging you to get together, make circles, listen to each other. And then bring it to the Earth. Settle, as people always have, together on a piece of land, listen to one another and support one another, trust in your goodness and intelligence and thoughtfulness and use Supportive Listening to help each other clear out all that gets in the way of your love and compassion, your clarity and creativity and joy.

I am urging this for NOW. Because really, you may think you can wait, but I don’t have as much time as you. I want to live with you now and be close and play with our children and grandchildren, and work and sing and dance together, and show the world how it is done.

My late friend Mort Goulder liked the model in my book Changing the World, but asked, “How do we get there from here?”  Fate has placed an immediate possibility in our hands, to buy our neighbor’s property and right away start a seminar/healing/retreat center where a supporting ecovillage can grow.  But we have to act quickly.  We could do it if we got some large loans that would earn a good income for the donors, and/or it could work if we got tens of thousands, maybe a hundred thousand small donations.  I assume you, like me, do not have a large amount to invest, but you do have friends who, like you, could pass on this information to others and ask them to pass it on through the Internet and all the social networks. 

We need a mass movement – It can start here.  Never give up.

TOGETHER THERE IS NOTHING WE CANNOT DO. To all who make a donation we can send a certificate that they are founding members of our Circle Way Retreat Center and will be welcome to visit any time.

The Land I Dream Of

The land that I dream of “over the Rainbow” is one that takes us all back to our true nature, that preserves our goodness and innocence.  We get to the kingdom of heaven by becoming again  “like unto one of these” - our little children.  Because it is in our nature to want to be helpful, we come to the circle to help each other, and also to help and preserve the harmony of life and honor the profound depth of our need for the beauty of this Earth,  our beloved mother.  We keep our circles small enough to be able to speak to one another from our hearts and listen to one another from our souls.  We want to live in love without fear and so trust one another and cast out all fear with that perfect love which is our birthright.

We do not have institutions and systems to care for us, we care for us.  Our circles joined in community provide the closeness we as human beings need: we teach each other and heal each other.  Together we teach how to help make life more wonderful for every one in our circles.  How to go deeper in relationships and solve together the issues of our bodies, minds, hearts and souls; how to prepare for the role of parenting; how to care for our children in ways that enhance our love and their freedom to explore the world and become the most and best of who they can be; how to work together with joy and fun; to study and learn more and more of our world and the universe; to play and create beautiful things and enrich our lives together with song and story and dance.

We want to learn from our children as they learn from us.  We want to learn how to be better teachers of each other and our children.  We want to reach out to others beyond our circles, to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for orphans and those with reduced capacities to care for themselves, to provide comfort and assistance and an honoring to those nearing the end of their journeys and enjoy the links with our history that our elders carry.  We want to celebrate together the passages of life and the seasons of our lives.

Article about The Circle Way and Manitonquat published in Alternatives magazine

The article The Circle-Way Society - Powerful Medicine for Dark Times - A Social Prescription from Manitonquat (“Medicine Story”) by William Hofford can be read on the magazine's website.

Changing Society

“I have therefore come to the opinion that the most reasonable recourse for the humanization of society and its institutions is to abandon them and begin again to build a society with a just, equitable and compassionate economy with justice, equality, and reverence for all life insured by the goals and forms of all its institutions.”   -Manitonquat

In order to have a truly happy life we probably need to address three areas, at least, that affect our well-being. We need to feel good about ourselves, about our relationships, and about our society.

We need to feel good about ourselves first, to believe we are living our lives to the fullest, using all our potential talents and creativity toward some worth-while purpose balanced with fun, learning, and growth – a sense of always becoming more than we were.

We also need closeness with other human beings, relationships that are supportive and caring, in which we continue to learn and grow and expand our horizons. For myself, I discovered twenty-five years ago that the tool of co-counseling contained all I needed to work both on myself and on my relationships. It has also been easy to teach others and perfectly fits my world view of a being Creation in which all of us can learn to live in a good way.

We also need to have a pride in our organized society, which exerts powerful influence over our lives and fortunes. The majority of people believe they have very little control over the organization of that society, and they just try to get along in it without calling attention or injury to themselves.

I want to tell you about my way to change the society.

What’s wrong with society, in my view, is that it is organized as a pyramid, with power coming from the top down and the fuel that makes it function is fear. We who were raised in this society do not find that remarkable. Like goldfish raised in a bowl, we cannot imagine another possibility. The bowl gives them order, definition, safety. Anything beyond is unknowable, hazardous and threatening.

A society without a hierarchical power structure conjures chaos to our minds. Without an executive authority and a military or police to enforce that authority, we would live in continual fear of encroachment by others, of the loss of possessions and even of life or limb. But throughout history and before it, and down to this present moment, there have been innumerable cultures and societies that lived and live now in freedom, equality, and safety. Our problem has been a 10,000 year history of violence and greed that informs all our culture, our public and private institutions, our education, and tells us our only options are conformity or ostracism and isolation. So we escape into the culture’s diversions, into reading, viewing films and television, playing electronic games, drugs, shopping, isolating ourselves further.  We even go on vacations alone, or with only our nuclear family, never really getting close to other people.

But human beings are tribal by nature. People need closeness to other people. The greatest crime of our culture is to make us suspicious and fearful of each other. The importance of human beings in our lives is reduced to what goods or services we can buy or sell each other.

I saw that the society of my ancestors was fundamentally different from that of the dominant culture of today. It was a more human society. Its basis was in respect. Respect for life, for the earth, for all the earth’s dependents including the family of humankind. Native American society was rooted in the family and in our relationship to all beings. The extended family was the heart of the tribe and its attitude of respect and caring for all.

Most importantly, I saw that this tribal society based on respect which supported the family and all its members was a society that worked. It was a system that worked well for over a million years, whereas the civilization of today, only a few thousand years old, was clearly not working. It was coming down around our ears in violence and alienation.

The reasons for this became quite clear to me.  They were centered in the concepts of fear and domination that characterize the motivating forces of this society. Societies that worked well for all people were societies based on trust and mutual respect. The dominant culture of the world, whether capitalist or socialist, is dominant because it dominates. I don’t know which came first, the fear or the domination, but they feed each other. The institutions of society protect the domination of the earth and its resources by a few people. Every social ill we suffer is a result of that fundamental fact.

If we are going to fulfill our potential for love we must at the very least put an end to every form of human beings harming human beings. We must agree and be omitted to a simple, obvious moral necessity – that every child born to woman is entitled to a fair and equal access to the resources of the planet we all share.

These goals are what I have derived from the teaching of my elders about the Original Instructions for human beings, to live respectfully in a circle of equals and devote ourselves to the care of our children, our elders, and all people of earth, including our plant and animal relatives, our Mother Earth, and all the coming generations.

By grouping together in cooperative, sharing communities people can satisfy all their basic human needs with a fraction of the income it takes to survive individually,  and these communities can be further strengthened by bio-regional networking and trading. The more self-sufficient we become the less we contribute to the military and prison industrial complexes and to the oppressive economic injustice of obscene wealth and wretched poverty and the destruction of the environment by our consumerism.

The notion of living together in more communal closeness has been growing in the past decades, after a temporary revulsion from the chaotic confusions and dissolution of many of the communes of the 60s.  New, consciously designed communities are flourishing. Ecovillages are appearing everywhere.  Networks of communication among all these are broadening.

This is the area I feel has the most promise for changing the world. Unless society changes utterly from its foundation in power over, in punishment, violence, in the amassing of hegemony through the wealth of the few in the oppression of the many, unless we can breathe freedom, equality and fellowship in every breath we take, we will not be all that we long to be in human creativity, love, and joy.

I have therefore come to the opinion that the most reasonable recourse for the humanization of society and its institutions is to abandon them and begin again to build a society with a just, equitable and compassionate economy with justice, equality, and reverence for all life insured by the goals and forms of all its institutions.

Human beings stay human in their relationships to the extent they are close and know one another, which possible only in groups small enough for each individual to be heard and known to all members. Such groups, agreeing to respect and equality for each member, will be sure to look out for the welfare and happiness of all.

The way for large groups in society to provide for the welfare and happiness of all individuals is for those groups to consist of active small groups which have the power to safeguard their own interests. For a city that would mean many small neighborhoods consisting of even smaller circles, like the circles we call clans in this village vision, which would meet often and actively address the concerns of its members. A circle of representatives of these clans would oversee the governance of the neighborhood, and a circle of representatives from the neighborhoods would oversee the governance of the city. 

Many, probably most of the responsibilities of municipal government could also be handled within the neighborhoods, which would be like small villages. Education, recreation,  sanitation, health, law enforcement, and all the other functions that villages manage could be largely managed within those neighborhoods, with municipal departments facilitating cooperation among the neighborhoods and handling matters beyond their scope.

The important thing is to keep as much of the ordering and decision-making as possible in the smallest units where power is vested directly in the people. But more important even than the functional organization is the coming together of the people to open and follow their hearts together. In this way I believe even cities may become human and friendly, free from fear, corruption and injustice – really still villages that are concentrated together sharing resources and culture.

My book Changing the World is a vision of a village of the future, functioning tribally,  where each person of any age is a member of a smaller circle, or clan, which guides the whole and in which every voice is equal. Basic human needs of food and shelter and fuel and health care, as well  education and creativity, are supplied self-sufficiently within the community. 

For many years we have been making summer camps which  explore and function under this “Circle Way” system, and the response has been uniformly positive. The common comment at the end of camp is, “this is how human beings are meant to live together, how can we live this way for the rest of our lives?” 

We need to get closer. You and I – all of us. We need to take back control of our lives, our society, our earth. We need to communicate and open our hearts and minds to each other.  We need places on the earth where we can get closer to each other, to our families, our children, to be safe, to relax and slow down and get away from stress, to live simply without harm to others or to the earth, to play, have fun, create, get close to the natural world.  Without having to join any religious or political movement, follow any particular tradition or creed, but allow and respect and appreciate all the diverse ways that others engage in. It is such a beautiful world we have been given, we are endowed with such fantastic capabilities, and every baby born is a miracle, a delight, a shining star of hope for the future.

We have begun to approach the next step. We are having conferences in Europe now to begin to build our first Circle Way Village. (Contact us at circleway.org).

So I daydream now of this first Circle Way Village, and then of another and another and another, proliferating throughout Europe and spreading to other continents, around the world.  I dream of a network of Circle Way Villages that will communicate and learn from each other, help and trade with each other. There are already networks of various kinds of communities, spiritual communities, egalitarian communities, ecovillages, for instance, and I would like to see our Circle Way Villages join with them and bring all networks together to broaden and strengthen the tribal movement.

What is special about the Circle Way is how it helps us get closer to each other, to deal with emotions of all kinds, to encourage and appreciate the best in all of us, to listen to each one and work together to solve our problems, and to keep our children free from more of the patterns that oppressed us when we were young. I would like, as we have in the past, for people from our villages to be available to teach the Circle Way, to any group or community that requests it.

Here is an excerpt from my book Changing the World:

“This is certainly nice,” another of the group says, “But part of your vision here is to be a model for the world of peaceful cooperative living. You are only a thousand here, and there are, what – another thousand villages like it around the world?”
“Some are larger now, but none larger than 3,000.”

So maybe they could amount to three million or so in a while.”

“We have more visitors all the time, and more villages keep sprouting up.”
Say more villages might grow the number to six million eventually. But there are ten billion people in the world today - and growing.”

“Our idea is that when people notice how happy, how relaxed and safe we are here, and how much fun we have, creating instead of consuming, they will want to give up all the stress of the rat race and join us. With all the villages in every part of the world having more and more visitors, we figure the growth will be exponential at some point in the future and transform all of society’s notions. But we need to be growing slowly in order to learn and make it right. A lot of society’s problems have come from moving too fast and not seeing where we were going.”

“So the Circle Way grew quite slowly?”

“Naturally it didn’t happen overnight. We started from nothing but a dream and figured it out as we went along. Building homes, planting and harvesting, creating businesses for everything we need little by little. Slow growth – but that’s the easy part. Human beings are builders. It was the excitement of creating our own world as we want it that carried us over the lean hears. By sharing everything and inviting people to come and help we got by and it just kept getting better and better. Because we kept too the circle, stayed close to each other, kept on listening and caring and helping each other.

“And to the children. You know, when ever your energy gets a bit frayed, whenever you may feel a bit low, discouraged, wondering if it’s worth it, all you need to do is go hang out at the playground. Watch the little ones and restore your faith in the human race. Then join them, let them teach you to let go of your seriousness and just play. You will get your hope refill. And then you’ll be able to lose yourself in creativity and find your purpose again. We need the children to remind us who we are.”

Climbing onto the wagon we could hear the shouts and laughter from the playgrounds and the sport fields. We are all quiet. Thinking perhaps about when we might come back or visit another Circle Way Village, perhaps even join one and change our lives. Change the world. A whole society of fun and play and creativity, of closeness, friendliness and love”

As we pass under the gate and look back one more time we notice another sign with a quote from Manitonquat who long ago had a vision of a Circle Way Village:

TOGETHER THERE IS NOTHING WE CANNOT DO

New Book: Have You Lost Your Tribe?

Manitonquat's latest book Have You Lost You Tribe? is now available to order.

Description (from the back of the book):
Paradise on earth - your own idea of the very best life for you and your family. Is it possible or only a dream? This book shows it is not only possible but actually happening now all over the world in communities where thousands are now actively engaged in creating the life of their dreams. Manitonquat, a Wampanoag elder, storyteller, philosopher, poet and communitarian, shares his perspective as a tribal person that we are all tribal people. Human beings became human when they came together for mutual support and protection. For a hundred thousand years we evolved the best social system - the circle of equals, where all were respected, honored and supported. Most people today have little hope to affect a culture where a few own and control the resources of the world and its governments and are now destroying the environment through a global economy that makes the rich richer, the poor poorer, and all of us mere consumers and spectators. Quietly a few people have begun to leave that system and create free societies of people supporting each other and living sustainably close to the Earth, taking responsibility for making the best life for their children. As you read this book you may long for that too, and you will learn how you can do it. We can do it. Together there is nothing we cannot do. It is time.

It is time for us to settle and find our place on this Earth.

It is time to make a safe, free and loving home for our children.

It is time for a new world of compassion, peace and beauty.

It is time for a new vision of humankind.

It is time for the Age of Flowers.


Other books by Manitonquat are available here.

Unstuck

I have a problem I wrestle with everyday. My vision is complete and clear. I know how every one of us might be able to live the lives we all long for instead of making the best of a badly formed society. And I can see the steps we could be taking right now to get started quickly in that direction. All I have been doing for the past forty years has led the way. But now I am stuck. I can’t take the next needed steps alone.

What we need is the kind of organization that the gurus were able to build in the last century. Remember? The organizing power of Meher Baba, Sai Baba, Yogi Bhajan, Maharishi, even Sri Aurobindo, and especially Osho. The trouble is, I am an anti-guru! The only one who spoke to my heart and mind was that other anti-guru, Krishna Murti, who refused the role of spiritual leader that was offered him. No one has offered that to me, well, a few do try now and then, but I refuse anyway.

Krishnamurti was a teacher, of course, as was Gurdjieff?, as is Thich Nhat Hanh, and they all managed to inspire organizations to continue teaching. I guess we have achieved that in a small way, due to the many of you have been organizing workshops and camps for Ellika and me every summer for 25 years. I am so appreciative of all that each one of you have done. I love you and I love our life of learning circles with you. But, I want more. I want to change the way we live. I want to live together and show the world, to lead the world to a better life for our children and enhance human evolution in the direction of all our hearts.

There are a few who are ready right now, have been for a long time, ready to go anywhere as long as we are together to build community the way we build our camps. There are communities that have invited Ellika and me to join, and I love them, but I want to start from scratch, as we do at camp, and have us in clans, listening and dreaming and planning and working and playing together in the Circle Way.

I have been thinking I need more time, need to write a few more books to explain how and why it works, and to promote them widely. Everywhere I am asked to speak now, all the people are excited and enthused to hear what we are thinking and doing. If we had a place we would start gathering people.

But it’s hard for me to write and to take care of all the business here. I don’t have a secretary or assistant anymore. We need an organization. People to organize the travels, the publicity, the promotion, the office work: accounting, paying bills, filing. We have a lot of potential here: a beautiful big old house that has ten living spaces, a large great hall for events, and an attic space that was a dormitory or could be small rooms, a big kitchen and another large room – all in need of work. We have ten acres of woods, a big backfield, camping area, garden, and a sweat lodge.

I have dreams for the land. In the past, we had many conferences, workshops, and camps here. We could again. I want to build an old Indian village for the Nature School and as an attraction to tourists. I want a gift shop, bookshop, art gallery. A restaurant. I want to make a nature trail with plaques describing the flora and fauna of the area. A small community could live here again. Down the road the Nature School has nine plots of land for building ecological homes and places for the homeowners families to come together and be a circle way ecovillage.

How could we get unstuck? Hmmmm. Well, in Europe if we had land somewhere suitable for camps where a small group could begin to live and work together and there was room for others to come and build, a few could start living and working on this together organizing camps and expanding with people who decide to stay and help build. ZEGG was fortunate to find a place ready to accommodate many people at once, when East Germany opened to the West. Tamera was fortunate to find a large piece of land in Portugal where they have been energetically building for over a decade. The stories go on for all the grand ecovillages, The Farm, Auroville Damanhur, Sieben Linden and so on – but all of those had a committed group of people ready.

Another start could be if one person came here to live with us and take some of the burden that Ellika, Donna and I now struggle with alone, we could make room for more people to come and build organization and community from here.