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The Pagan Cluster in Calgary: A Short Report on the G8 Protests
July 3, 2002
We arrived from multiple different
directions, at different times. We came from Seattle, California, Texas, Vermont,
Ottawa, Colorado, Kansas, British Columbia, Alberta, and other parts of Canada.
Our first challenge was crossing the threshold, the border. All of us were challenged,
questioned, searched. Some of us had to try twice or even three times. But all
of us got in.
We brought with us a variety of practical and magical skills: from the knowledge
of how to design an ecological garden to the skills of organizing a street action,
from knowing how to convert a diesel engine to run on veggie oil to knowing how
to facilitate a meeting. We were welcomed, supported and taken in by the wonderful
Witches of Calgary, the organizers of the action, and by Kelly and Marie, the
practicing permaculturists who opened their home to hordes of us staying and making
magic.
We arrived into a city drenched in fear and hostility, with everyone from the
media to the school board portraying the protestors as dangerous, malevolent,
and violent. Teachers and students were ordered not to talk to us. An 'expert'
lectured the judges and magistrates of the city, telling them we were coming to
kill cops, among other warped fantasies. People who might have rented spaces to
us were warned we would bomb them or burn down their homes.
The organizers of the action were working nonstop, trying to combat the propaganda
and arrange for spaces and infrastructure in an extremely hostile environment.
They welcomed us and we tried to see what we could do to support them. And as
the cluster gathered, we wove our magic, trancing together, reading tarot cards
asking for guidance and information. We clarified our intention: "Our intention
is to consciously use the energy and actions of this week to shift the ground
beneath the fortress of power-over and undermine its foundations so that it crumbles,
opening space to seed loving cultures of beauty, balance and delight.."
We were told to go on the Summer solstice to the statues of the Famous Five in
Olympic Plaza. The Five were the women who brought a court case that established
that women in Canada were legally 'persons'. They stand around an inscribed circle
which was just big enough for the group that gathered. We created a magical drain,
a vortex to suck away the fear that clouded the city, and a positive pole, a tree
of life to draw in positive forces.
Over the next two nights, we tranced to the Reclaiming Clanhouse to build our
magical group mind, and decided to use the proximity of the G8 summit as an opportunity
to enter the Fortress itself. We could enter the Fortress, we found, through the
Fortress within, because each of us has a Fortress inside of us. The path we took
started as a passage through the clanhouse. Many of our friends around the world
joined us in this working, as did a number of the action organizers and legal
team. We found the Fortress full of prisoners that needed to be released before
we could bring it down. A green haze, green twining vines, tunneling rabbits and
prairie dogs were some of our allies in bringing it down, but mostly we understood
that it will fall when the ground beneath it shifts and the spell of compliance
that knits its stones and concrete together is broken.
Throughout all the following, various members of us were offering Permaculture
workshops, direct action trainings, trainings for the unions, making art and props,
attending spokescouncil meetings, doing uncountable interviews with the media,
and generally carrying out all the usual organizing activities associated with
an action.
The next day, the actions began with a permitted, family march sponsored by the
Unions. The Cluster participated, but we felt somewhat scattered. Some of us were
part of the Bread and Puppets pageant, others were simply walking and marching.
On the Full Moon, the Witches of Edmonton led us in a ritual, with support from
the Calgary Witches who found a beautiful, safe space with a full Chartres labyrinth.
Many, many people from the action attended. Out of the labyrinth, a chant emerged:
We are the rising
of the moon,
We are the shifting of the ground.
We are the seed that takes root,
When we bring the fortress down.
We released our fears and grief,
charged moonstones and seedballs made in permaculture workshops, and danced the
spiral under the Full Moon.
The following day, we were part of the action at the GAP, and marched off and
had an impromptu spiral dance back at the Famous Five when it was over. By the
evening, during the Showdown at the Hoedown-the unpermitted march to protest the
huge party the city of Calgary was throwing for press and delegates to the G8,
we had better cluster banners and were able to march together and start a spontaneous
and very powerful spiral dance outside the stadium grounds at the end. After the
circle was opened, a young man was heard to exclaim, "What was that?"
We rose very early the next morning to participate in the snake march, the most
confrontational action of the day, which moved through the streets of downtown
Calgary during rush hour with the goal of creating economic disruption. As people
gathered, the cluster led a spiral dance. The march was peaceful: the police simply
stood back, blocked traffic ahead of us, and let us take the space. People on
the march made an effort to apologize to drivers, to leaflet and open discussion
with passersby. The Unions supported the march, and came out with their flags
and banners. The cluster planted the seed balls and led another spiral at City
Hall. At 10 AM, after hours of marching, we all stopped and at that point the
march split into 'green' and 'red' groups-green to do leafletting or go on to
the planned die-in, 'red' to continue with confrontational actions. We were asked
by the Anti-Capitalist Convergence if we would come on the 'red' march as support
for their plan to block intersections with anarchist soccer. Those of us who still
had some energy had short careers either as players, rooters, or Anarchist Soccer
Moms, but we were eventually all exhausted after hours of marching in the hot
sun and went on to the Carlos Giuliani memorial performed by Bread and Puppets,
and the die-in. Then we went to the picnic organized by the Labour Council and
Council of Canadians, where the Calgary Witches had created a beautiful healing
space, with massage (definitely needed by then!) and Reiki and food and water.
Afterwards, a contingent of the cluster joined a caravan of over a hundred cars
that drove out to Kananaskis, and after some tense negotiations (and some lengthy
meeting process that was, depending on your take, either an empowering impromptu
blockade or a disempowering, painfully long meeting) we had yet another spiral
dance, third cone of the day.
On Thursday, we had organized our own ritual action, Earth People, which began
with a circle near our favorite Famous Five. After casting a circle and calling
directions, about sixty people covered themselves with mud, losing their powers
of speech and normal locomotion. The following prophecy was read:
When eight kings
in a fortress meet
Trading greed and lies
Out of asphalt and concrete
Beings of earth arise
Grunting, dancing through the street
Ancient powers awake
In everyone they touch or meet
Hidden chains now break
The kings trade lies and costly gifts
Protected by their walls
But when the ground beneath them shifts
The mighty fortress falls
Fertile compost out of blight
Living seeds take root
Of beauty, balance and delight
Trees bear living fruit
No army can keep back a thought
No fence can chain the sea
The earth cannot be sold or bought
All life shall be free!
The army of Earth People stalked,
danced and slithered through downtown Calgary, followed by winged Beings of Liberation
and beautiful banners proclaiming "Resist!" and "Insurrection!" Alarming and delighting
the public, they stopped at the GAP and at major oil companies to perform a dance
ritual of awakening, rising, uprooting the anchors of corporate power, and planting
seeds. Drumming and chanting built the energy to a peak again and again, and the
Earth People succeeded in completely taking the streets. Mesmerized members of
the public followed and the action became an impromptu snake march, with amazing
energy. It ended at Eau Claire market with a spiral dance, and then a procession
down to the river and a ritual bathing. At the moment the circle was opened, raindrops
fell and thunder and lightning filled the sky.
After returning to what passes for our normal state of consciousness, eating and
showering, we went back to the convergence center for the debrief and led a closing
circle and spiral dance.
The following night, after a last permaculture workshop for around twenty people
and a last set of media interviews, we went back to the Fortress in trance with
much of the cluster and many of the organizers. The trance was long and complex
and maybe we'll try to write up the notes later-but the essence was that the Fortress
is huge, with many chambers and aspects, but that we have begun shifting some
of its energies. One yearling bear was killed up at Kananaskis by the military
this week, and the bear's spirit came with us as an ally. We tried to go up the
stairs into the higher levels of the Fortress, but found ourselves drifting in
confusion and decided the time was not yet right. We found a crack in the walls
that let us enter the structure of the fortress itself. We entered a tunnel that
was very old, that existed in multiple times, especially the Roman Empire. In
one chamber, we were stirring a cauldron of black stuff, like oil or like the
dark lava flowing under the earth, until the vortex became a spindle revolving.
The Ancestors from the Burning Times were with us. And then many of us took hands,
jumped into the cauldron, and fell through into another world in which we were
birds circling around the towers of the fortress, weaving a cocoon of binding
and transformation.
We're thinking that in the next action we might need to work with air. We've held
the energy of water, of the living river, since Quebec. In January, at the World
Economic Forum, we brought in Brigid's flame and the energy of fire. In this action,
we held earth. So air seems to be next.
The actions were small this time, never more than 5000 people, but for Calgary,
everyone says they were big. And this one was never called as a major international
mobilization-in fact, there was a conscious call put out for people to focus on
their home communities instead of using huge resources to converge on Calgary.
Some very positive things came out of the actions. Ties and connections with the
labour movement (at least in Canada) were strengthened, and the unions gained
valuable experience in direct action they may put to use in their own struggles.
The global justice movement in Calgary was strengthened and organizers here will
have a stronger base to build on. The actions were extremely peaceful, in fact,
some of us would have liked more of an edge of confrontation (which is not at
all the same thing as violence.) However, the utter politeness and calm of the
protests may have done more than anything else could have to delegitimize the
G8 and point out the obscenity of their militarization and the $300 million dollars
they spent on security.
And for the Pagan Cluster, we were able to deepen our magic, our ability to create
a magical group mind, to openly share our work with the whole action in a transparent
way, and to create an action of our own that turned out to be one of the most
exciting moments of the week.
Many thanks to all who participated and who gave us such great support, especially
to Tarra who found housing for many of us, found the space for the Full Moon ritual,
and did countless other acts of organizing and kindness, to the Edmonton Witches
who created the Full Moon ritual, to Kelly and Marie who let their home be taken
over for weeks, helped organize, plan and teach the permaculture workshops, and
supported us in our border trials and everything else: to the organizers and legal
collective who helped us with everything from Immigration to traffic tickets,
and to all who gave us magical, practical, financial and moral support!
-- Starhawk
Copyright (c) 2002 by Starhawk.
All rights reserved. This copyright protects Starhawk's right to future publication
of her work. Nonprofit, activist, and educational groups may circulate this
essay (forward it, reprint it, translate it, post it, or reproduce it) for nonprofit
uses. Please do not change any part of it without permission. Readers are invited
to visit the web site: www.starhawk.org.
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