Conference turris::womannotes-v1

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                             -< Psychic Phenomena >-
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Note 689.1           Healing the Mother, healing the race...              1 of 1
NEXUS::MORGAN "Human Reality Engineering, Inc."      84 lines  31-MAR-1988 02:34
                      -< The Salisbury Protests, part i >-
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This is a true story about working for the Mother. A testimony to
women's spirit and an indicator of things to come.
 
                                                        5/3/85
 
Dear Everybody,
 
  Greetings from Salisbury Plain Women's Peace Camp, established on the
edge of the artillery field. As I write this this morning, I hear the
rumbling of the artillery in the distance like a slow bass drum.
 
  Yesterday was a thoroughly satisfying day. We got up in the morning and
had a meeting, and it was quite beautiful to see how consensus could
work, with no formal process, just everyone talking until the sense of
the group came clear. I had expected we would divide into two groups--
one to cross the artillery range and one to walk legally around the edge
of the field, but as we were discussing that--wait. Let me describe how
it was put out. Mary, who is organizing this action and more or less
leading it (of course no one would admit that), would put forth a plan
and then say, "That's only a suggestion--let's hear other suggestions."
 
  So someone said she thought the whole idea was to reclaim Salisbury
Plain by walking over the Military Land, and why didn't we all go and do
that?  All that was stopping us was their red flag (and about 50
policeman). (The red flag is put up to warn the public to stay off the
road that crosses the base because they will be firing across the road
that day.) And we talked on for a bit and the general feeling was that
we wanted to go in a large group straight through the barrier and down
the central road (which had the advantage of being the only route
through the field that is clear of unexploded shells). And that
decision felt very strong and centered--so of course I decided to go.
(We thought it unlikely that they would actually shell us with
artillery, in spite of the red flag.
 
  Then we broke up, took some time to pack up and prepare. Some women
gathered at the gate to the artillery field and began chanting, and the
police began gathering and little knots of us stood around talking
saying, "This is impossible--we'll never get through" and trying to
figure out other tactics.
 
  Then we had another meeting, which got bogged down in a discussion of
tactics, and we finally sort of agreed on doing what we'd originally
planned, even if we did all get arrested.--and I said, "maybe we need to
do something here and now to center" so I lead a short grounding and the
suggested we make sounds. The chant started off very low and I almost
thought it'd wouldn't happen--and then I did something I hadn't ever
quite done before--I built an energy shell for the power to fill--and
the power started to rise--and then it took off, and I felt the spirits
of the plain rise and they were angry at the military and the
desecration of the plain, and they were with us. Then we grounded the
power and everyone spontaneously headed up for the gate and began
making rhythm and dancing in snake lines and then the lines ducked
through the barbed wire at the side, went around the clumps of police,
and we were out onto the field.
 
  The police ran out to stop us and we stayed in snakes, holding hands,
and our lines were pushing against theirs. The police linked arms and
tried to contain us but of course we could always get around the ends of
their lines. At one point a circle of police surrounded a circle of
us--with a baby in the center. I thought we were trapped and then
someone broke through and I heard a policeman say "It's impossible!" and
I knew we had won.
 
  We headed down the road and some women had been arrested so we all sat
down, and then a policeman came to talk to us, and everyone was singing
and shouting to drown him out and he was saying that in five minutes
they'd have a clearance for us to walk down the road. So they escorted
the rest of us--about eighty women, five to ten babies and small
children, and two dogs--all the way down the road across Salisbury
Plain.
 
  We had a lovely six-mile walk, and the Plain was beautiful--broad and
open, unfenced grassland sweeping the low swells, marred only by a few
tanks and gun emplacements and bomb craters. The sun was hot and the
sky blue and gorgeous, and I had wonderful conversations with women.
 
  Then we arrived on the other side of the field and camped in the woods
owned by the Ministry of Defense. Camp was set up, the firepits dug,
wood gathered, suppers cooked around campfires, and then women sang and
played guitars into the night.
 
  Now today's meetings begins.

    From Starhawk's _Truth_Or_Dare_, pages 248,249.

	Sorry, I don't understand what's the point to .1, and what
	you'd like to discuss about it.  ...Karen

    You are not the only one, .2!!!
    Please explain whatever this is in more detail.  
    
    Thanks,
    Sue

    Reply to the last-.2,
    
    I would have thought that the opening note was sufficiently
    explanitory. It is for any activity of resistence, protest, civil
    disobedience that promotes healing of the earth and the race.
    Discussion and "cussinon" are invited, providing it's civil of course.
    
    I have 3 more articles, specifically of women's activities, to enter.
    So if you want to wait and see how it shapes please do. Otherwise jump
    right in. B^) 
    
    Anyone know what the women's part of the Anti-Contra activities
    were in the last few week? A girlfriend of mine who was in San Fran
    last week inadvernantly walked into one. 285 people were arrested.
    She said she could feel the energy in the air. It was electric.

	What does "healing of the earth and the race" mean?  Is that
	necessarily a feminist issue?  Am I healing the earth when
	I fertilize my lawn?  Is healing the race imply pure bred races
	(we don't want no mixed marriages here)?  Was .1 anti-arms,
	anti-army, anti-army_bases, anti-fences, anti-men, anti-bombs?
	Was the group all women?  Did they use to own the land, or
	were they just on a pilgrimage to get to the other side?

	..Karen

        "Today's plan is much less clear--we are three miles from
    Stonehenge and some women want to walk there, take down the barbed wire
    around it, and free the stones. We also want to do a ritual at
    Stonehenge for the full moon which will be a total lunar eclipse. Some
    of the women feel the stones have bad energy and/or patriarchal energy
    and/or male energy and/or all of the above, and don't want to go there.
    There's another place we're supposed to camp but it's nine miles away
    and we'd have to be driven back to the stones for the ritual which
    seems chancy. Women don't want to split but they want to do different
    things. In the no-process meetings, the strong, anarchist, energy of
    the women from Greenham overrides the women who voice doubts and fears
    or even strategic concerns. No real plan has evolved except to walk on
    to Stonehenge and then do what we feel.
        
        Then we started to talk about the ritual, and feelings came out
    about the Beltane ritual (which I had informally led on Salisbury
    Hill when the march began on May Eve). Several women said they hated it
    because they felt too controlled and that they couldn't scream or yell
    or do what they felt (which frankly I felt was not fair--nothing was
    stopping them and I left lots of space with no direction--but it's
    definitely a different culture--what seems like a total lack of control
    to me probably seems like complete bureaucracy to them) and other women
    said they liked the ritual and there were times when the ritual fell
    apart and it was good to have someone bring it back together--some
    women said they didn't like the grounding this morning and left because
    they didn't want to do it--a lot of others said it felt really good and
    they needed it and didn't feel like we'd have gotten through the police
    lines without it--other women said they felt it was the spontaneity of
    the snake dance that got us through the line--others said they felt the
    snake dance built on the grounding--and so forth and so on.
        
        I said I felt what we needed maybe wasn't a plan but more discussion
    about what different women's expectations about the ritual were, wnd
    what we wanted--and everyone agreed that would be good."
    _Truth_or_Dare_, pages 250.

    Reply to .5, Karen,
    
    We live in very twisted times. Perhaps we are forgetting our humanity
    or maybe the pressures of our times are driving us crazy. The book
    is about liberation psychology. Liberating the individual to resist
    the dehumanizing aspects of our nuclear culture.
    
    Although this is an issue feminists confront, all peoples of world
    powers are involved. Liberations psychology is not just a feminist
    item. Men are liberated as well. It entails the revaluation of woman
    and man.
    
    Healing the race implies healing ourselves, understanding the horrific
    function of the cultural King, which demotes other peoples innate
    values by its presence, the Judge, who makes us judge ourselves in
    contexts that devalue ourselves, and the Defender, who frames us in an
    "expendable" light. Only by knowing our value can we resist the
    impositions of the King, ie, out of control government.
    
    Salisbury Plain is a very beautiul plain which has Stonehenge on one
    side of it. It is used by the British military for artillery target
    practice. Perhaps our British participants would like to comment on
    it's use presently. 
    
    My impression is the the women wanted to say that the plain has a life
    of its own; one that shouldn't be destroyed with artillery shells.
    Perhaps they wanted to say that no one owns the land and that no one has
    the right to destroy the land. In essence, no one owns the Mother.
    
    The group was composed of eighty or so women, about 10 children, two
    dogs, guitars, flutes, and drums. They were saying "Hell No! We won't
    submit" to authortarian rule. They were saying that they refused to be
    obedient machines for the political system. On several occasions they
    were confronted with police forces. On a couple occasions eighty women
    overcame one hundred policeman, peacefully. A trully magical act of
    resistence. 
    
    This is a story about empowered women. And yes, they were crossing
    to get to the other side, a self-transformative act of disobedience. 

	Sorry, sounds like a bunch of confused people to me.  They'll
	never get anyone to understand what they're talking about if
	they don't speak in terms others can relate to.  

>    Healing the race implies healing ourselves, understanding the horrific
>    function of the cultural King, which demotes other peoples innate
>    values by its presence, the Judge, who makes us judge ourselves in
>    contexts that devalue ourselves, and the Defender, who frames us in an
>    "expendable" light. Only by knowing our value can we resist the
>    impositions of the King, ie, out of control government.

	What are you talking about?!!  Is this some religious jargon
	that I'm unfamiliar with?  Sounds to me like we come from
	two different cultural groups, we might as well be speaking
	different languages.  I guess I'll just stay out of this
	topic and let anyone who understands what this is about discuss it.

	...Karen

    Reply to .8, Karen,
    
    I guess you have to read the book. B^)

    When I was at Stonehenge last fall, I was told that the barbed wire
    was put up to *protect* the stones.  It seems that some people felt
    that the best way to 'honor' them was to spray paint them with peace
    signs and other symbols.
    
    I like peace signs well enough, and certainly support their meaning.
    At the same time, it seems wrong to have people defacing a monument
    like Stonehenge, and spoiling it for everyone for years to come.
    
    Maybe that was just a 'party line' about protecting the stones,
    but it's evident where they have been vandalized.  Can anyone on
    that side of the pond say more?     
    
    Holly

    Holly, 
    
    I am not on the 'other side of the pond' but I have also
    read the same things that you have reported. The fences around
    stonehenge are to protect the stones against vandalism, and
    to prevent people from enacting their own and various 20th
    century versions of the ancient rites on the stones.
    
    Bonnie

    
    The main reason that the stones have been fenced off is not so much
    to stop deliberate vandalism, but to stop erosion of the soil due
    to people walking around them as far as I understand it. Certainly
    last time I was at Stonehenge the stones were fenced off with rope/wire
    which you could easily get through, but it was obvious that the
    idea was to keep people at a distance where they can admire the
    stones without doing them damage. Every year at midsummer there
    always seems to be problem in that area as Hippies wish to congregate
    at the stones, the police try to keep them away, so they end up
    circling around the countryside for the week before midsummer's
    eve, trying to get a bit closer. A small number of people are allowed
    to go right up to the stones, as the Druids hold some sort of service
    there as the dawn breaks. I think it's a shame that you can't go
    right up to the stones, but I'd rather that than them be permanently
    damaged.
    
    	From the other side of the pond...