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22 September 2019 11:40![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaonBUT just as important as any of this is being a joiner; investing your energy and time in communities that already exist, instead of setting up new ones. That's the real dull work that every community needs to survive more than the lifespan of its initiator. And so, I am committed to supporting both the local community where I live and the community by the sea I seem to have been drawn into, and prioritising that over setting up a new thing (however sure I am that my thing would be Objectively Better)
(Still. The goal of XR is to empower citizens to take direct action, and so every party of the organisation is designed to encourage people into taking on jobs and roles and discovering their own power. And it's kinda overwhelmingly wonderful ehen you realise that two days after turning up at a protest, you could be trusted by everyone to do literally everything - it's not a model you encounter in the real qorld all that often, but so powerful to experience.
And yeah, what I don't get from either of the groups I'm in is a way to *participate* rather than just *attend*; a way to feel like a co-creator and member, rather than a hangaround or audience member. It's that sense of having a stake in community and being an important part of the plan is, I think, what gives a group longevity, rather than it being a mailing list. Like, I really want to start designing and leading ecstatic ritual, and have no idea how to find participants, or seek permission, or join the ritual team, or even if such a thing would be wanted or allowed. No one is going to ask me, obviously, what I know or might want to learn or contribute. Or what my name is.
It's at times like this I think...It have the skills and the desire to get through the veil myself - why atm I spending the equinox propping up someone else's ritual instead of dazzling through my own, alone, in the woods. This is the very same tendency I criticise in others, though: people prioritising "my path" over "our community" is how we get communities which atmtr so fragile. I want to know how to balance these needs, both in my own life, and also if communities could be redesigned in ways which minimise this experience.
(Still. The goal of XR is to empower citizens to take direct action, and so every party of the organisation is designed to encourage people into taking on jobs and roles and discovering their own power. And it's kinda overwhelmingly wonderful ehen you realise that two days after turning up at a protest, you could be trusted by everyone to do literally everything - it's not a model you encounter in the real qorld all that often, but so powerful to experience.
And yeah, what I don't get from either of the groups I'm in is a way to *participate* rather than just *attend*; a way to feel like a co-creator and member, rather than a hangaround or audience member. It's that sense of having a stake in community and being an important part of the plan is, I think, what gives a group longevity, rather than it being a mailing list. Like, I really want to start designing and leading ecstatic ritual, and have no idea how to find participants, or seek permission, or join the ritual team, or even if such a thing would be wanted or allowed. No one is going to ask me, obviously, what I know or might want to learn or contribute. Or what my name is.
It's at times like this I think...It have the skills and the desire to get through the veil myself - why atm I spending the equinox propping up someone else's ritual instead of dazzling through my own, alone, in the woods. This is the very same tendency I criticise in others, though: people prioritising "my path" over "our community" is how we get communities which atmtr so fragile. I want to know how to balance these needs, both in my own life, and also if communities could be redesigned in ways which minimise this experience.
