Chris,
Thank you for a piece that invited me to reconsider dependency in an
appreciative light. I can almost imagine oil pastel drawings going
with each paragraph! Whoosh!
Like you and many, many other people on and off this list, I too was
probably born to be a space-holder by birth through initiation. And like
potting, drumming, story-telling we
all have our lifecraft. And maybe for some of us it's professional
space-holding (psh).
I am not sure psh is necessarily a pejorative term, as I suggest and
as you seem to think. It just might be where we are at. I'll give this
more thought.
The meaning of professional that I have been holding most recently is
"a person who takes care of herself."
I am giving much thought, Chris to how you and Zelle recently are
inviting this man who has lived in some of the world's largest cities
(Tehran, Moscow, Washington, DC) to be more of a villager. And
curiously, one of Moscow's pejorative nicknames is "Bolshaya
Derevnya", "a big village."
Might your message be an invitation for Moscow to reclaim her village
spirit? Like with your reinhabited notion of dependency, for us who call her
home to be proud to
call her a "big village"?
As I write this, I recall a village experience that I blogged about
recently. The story invites retelling.
I was walking in Sokolniki Park, one of my favorite parts in Moscow
and a five minute walk from my apartment building. The park is also 5
minutes by metro from the edge of downtown. This makes Sokolniki Park
a special location for Moscow- there is no other big park so close to
the center.
The park used to be the tsar's falcon hunting grounds. It is a park that is
slowly dying, yet
I experience much beauty here. Can I find total solace here? Not yet.
Even in the middle of the park you can hear the cars and in the summer
they insist on playing very loud rock music in other parts of the
park. There is lots of trash in many parts of the park. And that said,
I hear the sticks, the leaves, the pebbles, the birch bark. Sometimes
they invite me to take them home.
I guess you could say I go here regularly for my experience of the
shamanic when I am not visiting a shaman.
So, I was about to go home after my walk when my friend Natasha called
me on my cell. In a very urgent voice she said, "Raffi, Raffi, run,
don't walk to the Africans! The Africans have organized a subbotnik,
they are raking leaves in the park. Please, go see them and say
Natasha said thank you." I decided to go see the Africans raking
leaves even though I had seen many more unusual things in my short
life. I consciously chose to step out of what was routine for me.
Subbotniks ("Saturdays") were days when citizens in the Soviet period
came outside and because the law of two feet had not been passed yet
by the Soviet government citizens showed up in the worst way they knew
how, allowing non-passion, non-responsibility to non-self-organize
into a non-voluntary public space cleaning day- raking leaves, picking
up trash, etc. outside.
This was a different subbotnik and on a different day. May 9th is the
day Russia celebrates its victory in World War II. A very important
day as the USSR lost more than 20 million citizens in this war alone.
African refugees who have lived in Moscow many years wanted to say
thank you to Moscow for letting Moscow be home for them. Moscow's main
daily, the Moscow Times covered it. One of Russia's national channel
covered the event (http://news.ntv.ru/86692/).
For me, the subbotnik was also an invitation to all of us to engage
differently.
The shared intention and invitation that Moscow has extended to those
not originally from here is not always understood. Beating and killing
Africans, people from the Caucasus is increasingly becoming a common,
everyday phenomenon here. Makes me wonder at which point does such a
disturbing and troubling thing become accepted? Just this week an Armenian was
killed on the
metro by skinheads.
Of course, such honesty from a co-convenor of an international
conference invites confusion. Might I say the obvious? That perhaps we
want the OSonOS XIV for us to begin reclaiming Moscow's original
village spirit? I also want to say that my experience of Moscow is
that it is safer than any other major city of similar size I have been
to on any continent.
I lived about 8 years in Berkeley. Many more juicy things happened in
Berkeley to me and people I know than here in Moscow.
I am having my second meeting with some of the Africans in a few
hours. I think you might guess why we are meeting.
raffi
p.s. chris, when you do know about FIV, let me know, ok? ; ) <toothy grin>
p.p.s. i want to thank the story for inviting retelling. Thank you,
dear subbotnik story.
*
*
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