How to Unleash the Mystic-Activist in You!
What are you going to do with your one incredibly precious, beautiful, life?
Or, how to unleash the activist in you -- in 25 heroic steps!
1. Find or start a group in your area (preferably between 6 -12 people); begin some form of free, selfless service to the poor and marginalized. Be creative. Make free art. Seek new wisdom in Sacred Circles. Advocate for social justice.
2. Volunteer for a special project creating beauty in your area; include children in both the planning and the implementation.
3. Consider ways to celebrate diversity in your area. Invite a representative of an immigrant's rights, or LGBT, organization to your home for dinner. Ask that she bring a person she represents with her.
4. If you have a life of some leisure, find a means to engage in manual labor such as volunteering in a local food bank or soup kitchen.
5. Start a garden -- it doesn't matter how small. Grow something you will eat. Grow flowers to give away. Plant a tree every year in honor of someone you love. Organize a "Trees For Heroes" campaign in local parks: plant trees in honor of local, national, and international peace, justice, and human rights heroes.
6. Turn off your TV; question everything someone wants to put in your mind. Boycott radio stations that broadcast talk shows of propagandists for the "principalities and powers" -- the Dominator Paradigm. Contact the advertisers for these divisive programs and vow to never buy their products until they no longer support them.
7. Learn all you can about the connections between the military-industrial-technological complex and its influence over the economy and public policy. Read Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, and John Perkins.
8. Support the efforts of unions and their members! Inquire about joining the United Farm Workers, the United Steel Workers, or another union -- as a means of donating to the cause of workers. Unions are the first line of defense for workers and the middle-class. Would there be an eight hour day without the unions? Would there be sick time? Would there be a minimum wage? Would you like your ten-year-old daughter forced to work? Do you dream of a living wage? Study Gandhi. Study the writings of David C. Korten and John Perkins. Read The Real Wealth of Nations by Riane Eisler.
9. Build peace around you. Don't laugh at sexist, racist, homophobic jokes. Insist that bigotry is an ugly relic of the past. Defend those marginalized in your area. In every meeting you attend, encourage opportunities to include everyone's voice. Challenge the "gossip train" every time it comes chugging into your earshot.
10. Make a commitment to volunteer for a local peace organization. Join international peace and justice organizations and activist networks. Advocate for an American cabinet-level Department of Peace and Justice. Support the United Nations. Organize demonstrations at a local federal building.
11. Use the Internet to study international issues. Contact organizations such as the Gandhi Site, Earth Charter USA, 350.org, Global Exchange, Resurgence, and the New Internationalist.
12. Cultivate a spirit of nonviolence. Consider the food you eat and the clothing you wear; are you actively simplifying? Is every aspect of your life increasingly focused on nonviolence? Begin to cultivate nonviolence as the new cultural key for defining an adult male...
13. Study the writings of Bill McKibben and other environmental thinkers and activists. Examine your life from the perspective of ecological sustainability, regeneration, and consistency; make decisions based upon their effect on the seventh generation in the future. Join an environmental activist group; cultivate a passion for our precious blue Planet and a powerful commitment to rescuing, preserving, and protecting Earth.
14. Study the history of nonviolent civil disobedience. Advocate for an international vision for achieving peace and justice for all peoples. Study the lives of nonviolent leaders and activists, then go from example to personal action.
15. Get to know your government representatives. Give attention to how they vote. Write letters to your representatives. Let them know that you are attentive and that you expect progress towards peace and justice for all.
16. Question the purpose, meaning, and value of a consumer culture and multinational, monopolistic, and predatory capitalism. Study democratic socialism. Read Confessions of an Economic Hitman, Hoodwinked, and The Secret History of the American Empire by John Perkins. Cultivate attitudes of resistance to what someone is trying to sell you.
17. Organize an on-going study group to explore alternatives to violence, consumption, exploitation, and oppression. Especially study from the perspective of feminism and class -- from the perspectives of women of color and working-class and/or poor women.
18. Discover how many times and in which ways the United States has intervened in the internal affairs of other countries. How many democratically elected governments have we overthrown? What are the connections between big business and foreign policy? What role does profit and the need for endless economic expansion -- beyond sustainability and sufficiency -- play in policy decisions? Does profit always trump justice?
19. Challenge yourself to be mentally, spiritually, and physically vibrant. Cultivate all of your possibilities.
20. Discover the ways in which you can help educate youth on the values and importance of service, peace, and justice for all.
21. Read books on / by Gandhi, King, Day, Mandela, Chavez, Vandana Shiva, Andrew Harvey, bell hooks, Arundhati Roy, Amy Goodman, Naomi Klein, Alice Walker, Matthew Fox, David C. Korten, etc. Read everything from The New Internationalist. Encourage serious deep thought and conversation.
22. Meditate everyday. Refer everything to "Only One". Cultivate mindfulness in your everyday moments. Practice greatness!
23. Consider radical lifestyle changes now that you've built up your capacities: quit your job, join or begin an intentional community, and dedicate the rest of your life to service, social change, and personal and cultural transformation. Live naked! Unite in your daily life spirituality and sensuality. Orgasm and laugh often. Become a vegetarian for nonviolence, ending world hunger, and minimizing your impact upon the earth and your contribution to global climate change. Free your children. Join an organization working to eliminate malnutrition and world hunger. Click on The Hunger Site.
24. Re-orient your life from acquiring to giving and sharing. Ask yourself how you can practice hospitality.
25. Discover how to network with other persons and organizations. Expand your horizons or eliminate them altogether. Read The Hope / A Guide to Sacred Activism by Andrew Harvey; Awakening by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan; Rumi,The Big Red Book, by Coleman Barks; Occupy Spirituality, by Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, and Living the Eternal Way by Rev. Ellen Grace O'Brian. And remember to "Kiss More" and play as often as possible!