Peace and Justice Old Religion Traditions Protests in New York World Economic Forum Voices of Peace The WTO demonstrations in Seattle helped launch a new revitalizing focus for the peace and social justice movement for international justice and real global democracy. Brigid, a seasonal celebration, is traditionally held in early February in honor of Brigid, the ancient Irish goddess of agriculture, poetry, smiting and healing She was so popular that the once new Church appropriated her and transformed her into St. Brigid. New York, of course, is the capital of world commerce, great theater and art, warm neighborhoods, strong spirit and our hearts. We sing a new "New York Tenderberry." --Editor Brigid in New York by Starhawk Activists from the group 'Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap Campaign' roll the stump of a Redwood tree to their protest outside a Gap store on New York's Fifth Avenue as New York City police officers look on, during the meeting of the World Economic Forum, February 1, 2002. The group claims the Fisher family, which owns the Gap, also logs Redwood forests. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) It's 8 a.m. on Saturday. The march starts at noon: already we can hear helicopters circling. For days, every McDonalds and Starbucks in the city has had an honor guard of three cops. The streets around the Waldorf are blocked and guarded. Last night we had our ritual in the park. I missed the setup because I was speaking at the students' CounterSummit, and by the time I got down there were already hundreds of people gathered and more cops than I could believe, long city blocks full of vans crammed with police, a helicopter circling overhead, police on the street and forming their own sort of welcoming committee at every entrance to the park. We also had more media than I had ever seen at a ritual. ABC, Fox, the BBC, every IndyMedia reporter in New York, every graduate student doing a video project, they were all there and all wanting to talk and interview and photograph and record. Traffic is jammed moving south on Second Avenue near the site of the World Economic Forum in New York on January 31, 2002. As a security precaution police closed streets around the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the site of the forum, causing havoc for ordinary New Yorkers still trying to get their lives back to normal four months after the attacks on the World Trade Center. Top business, political, and religious leaders are attending the five-day forum which started today. (Peter Morgan/Reuters) Ruby had done a tremendous job actually organizing the ritual and the complex art making, and people were setting up the shrines of grief, healing, rage, vision, and the forge, which included a huge cardboard cauldron filled with flames and a cardboard anvil and hammer. I hope someone else will describe them all more fully, because I only got, at best, a quick glimpse between the crowds and the reporters. Rosemary had done a spectacular, simple, elegant stature of liberty out of wheat. We had a wonderful Brigid's well with waters of the world, and the GAPatistas brought a triptych of the vision of the future. A friend of Harvest contributed a voudoun altar. Considering we couldn't have tables, wood, posts, poles, or living flames on any of them, we created some very powerful and beautiful images. Lisa and Charles were negotiating with the police, who originally were saying we couldn't have any drums because we had no sound permit. They got permission for one drum: we gathered a circle, and explained the ritual-as much to the media as to the participants. We called in the elements very simply: "Repeat after me: Air." "AIR!" "Fire!" "FIRE!" Then we sent people off to visit the shrines. That was the signal for every media person in the world to come up and ask me how I spell my name, and what the Pagan Cluster was. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Communist Party set up below us and started screaming and haranguing the crowd, people wandered among the shrines, and the Rhythm Workers' Union, our drummer friends, just set up and began drumming. In spite of, or because of, the chaos and the sheer absurdity of police overkill, I was having a good time. At one point, Ruby and I just looked at each other and laughed. The level of noise, distraction, interruption, and physical threat was so over the top it just became meaningless. As Juniper said afterwards, your usual standards for ritual just disappeared. Microphones in your face during an invocation--no problem. Flashbulbs going off during the cone of power--why not? Poor Lisa was still stuck negotiating with the police--we were trying to figure out how to move the crowd down from our permitted space to a larger area for the dance, and between the cops and the RCP it was a challenge. There were probably a couple of thousand people there. We finally decided to just do the spiral where we were. We got the drummers to quiet, opened a space in the center of the crowd, and Indigo stepped in, lit her fire chains, and began a dance of invocation with living fire swinging in beautiful circles and spirals around her. Lisa valiantly kept the cops from barging in: she finished the dance, let the fire sit for a moment in the center of the circle, and then Ruby taught the chant, call and response style: "We will never "WE WILL NEVER" "Never lose our ways" "NEVER LOSE OUR WAYS" "To the wells" "TO THE WELLS".. "Of Liberty!" "OF LIBERTY!" "And the powers" "AND THE POWER!" "Of her living flames" "OF HER LIVING FLAME!" "It will rises" "IT WILL RISE!" "It will rise against" "IT WILL RISE AGAIN!" With the help of the entire cluster, we managed to get everyone into the spiral relatively seamlessly, and navigate it around trees, cops, cameras and passersby. We wound it up, and raised power-first a roar of energy and then a sweet, sustained tone to feed the forces of liberation, in spite of nonstop flashing cameras. When we ended, everyone looked happy. We sang "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine." And then we opened the circle, just as our permit was running out. In its own odd way, it was a wonderful event and, I think, great magic-weaving the coherence and connection we were able to weave in the midst of all of it bodes well for today's actions, which essentially have no plan except to do the legal march and then trust to creative chaos. May Brigid spread her cloak over this city, so that all the actions work toward transformation. Love, Starhawk -- Also Visit the call to Come to New York & Activists Protest Trade At World Economic Forum In NYC © Spencer Creek Press, West By Northwest 2000-2002 All Rights Reserved unless otherwise noted. The opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily the opinions of the publisher and/or sponsors. publisher@westbynorthwest.org webmaster@westbynorthwest.org West by Northwest Spencer Creek Press PO Box 51251 Eugene OR 97405 West By Northwest Voices of Peace, Volume VI ¡Volveremos! Africa: Peace with Justice Northwest Tour Starhawk's Heresies in Pursuit of Peace: Thoughts on Israel/Palestine. Sarah Shields asks Please Dad, Tell Me: How Do I Stop Being Complicit? Peg Morton sharesMy School of the Americas (SOA) Saga. Web links Erbin Crowell considers Coffee and Fair Trade. Illegal Logging Threatens Ecological and Economic Stability. Ecstasy of Ecology - Penny Livingston and the Permaculture Institute. Norman Solomon considers India and Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons and Media Fog and the USA's "War On Terrorism": Winking At Nuclear Terror. M.G. Hudson asks us to Consider the Case of Patricia Sweets: The Failing Safety Net of Publicly Financed Health Insurance. Patrick Morris, writes on the role of the Royal Pains. High Plains Films releases This Is Nowhere Meet Skip Schiel, an remarkable photographer Delight in Guy Weese's Summer in the City Photos Doug Tanour's Exodus Poems Jane Farmer uses the medieval villanelle Explore a few small presses with big ideas. We look at The Magic Fish, When Spirits Come Calling, Saving Wilderness in the Oregon Cascades and Cradle to Cradle. Barbara S. Thompson's My Life, Chapter 4, Moving Out West to Los Angeles. Cogentrix to Aquila, Going from Bad to Worse? by Mary Zemke. Lois Barton's Sunnyside of Spencer Butte, The Cat That Flew and Sauerkraut and All That. Jonnie Lauch's electronic debut in Nighttime Intruder. Archive Late Spring 2002 Early Spring 2002 Winter 2001-2002 Fall 2001 Late Summer 2001 Summer 2001 Late Spring 2001 Early Spring 2001 Winter 2000-01 Fall 2000 Late Summer 2000 Summer 2000 Spring 2000