03.14.05
movement building..
If someone dreams alone, then it remains only a dream. If many dream, then this is the beginning, the beginning of a new reality. Dream our dream.” A story from the German women’s movement.
“It seems clear that in the emerging post-modern world, the new paradigms will be built from the grass-roots up, rather than from some overall plan of action conceived at the top. I see signs of hope in the new shapes of spiritual community that are emerging, but I am left with the question as to how we assist the process.. how we empower this grass roots process.
“Last year there was news of a new island being formed in the Tongan group, as an active volcano emerged above the surface of the water. That image has come back to me as I have thought about these emerging groups and the role of networking. My feeling is that most of these groups are self-sustaining and self-motivating, few employ people, fewer own buildings, and their infrastructure is small and light. They are not asking for much (if anything) – sometimes a place to meet in, access to ideas and resources, a sense of being connected to a larger picture. They are like that island, they have emerged from the sea, and have their own life, and may even disappear into the sea again. So the question for me is not so much how we support the “emerging islands,” but how can we maintain the life of the sea out of which they come, and to which they will return. For me the network is the sea, the linking element, the place in which new islands may emerge as people and energy gather together. The sea is also what continues and sustains life when a group decides its life cycle is over.”
Rosemary Neave, p.7-8
