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Empathy Circles | My thoughts about grassroots organizing | Vallejo Farmers Market - #3 (photos) [1]
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Date: 2022-08-15
Protesting GMOs at the March Against Monsanto
The Farmers Market was host to many protests. We had a large protest on Genetically modified organisms (GMOs). SEE: March Against Monsanto.
The large group dispersed into the market with signs and enthusiasm talking about the dangers of GMOs to any one that would listen.
This a way to raise awareness on an important environmental issue. Specifically, they protested the Monsanto modifying crops to resist being poisoned by their insecticides.
My eVallejo The Participatory Budgeting project
All of the above activities gave me a sense of connection with people and community topics. I joined the The Participatory Budgeting process and proposed a project I called eVallejo.
From the sign:
eVallejo will promote internet access, internet basics, and internet commerce for benefit of the Vallejo community.
I spent a few months promoting this project, but unfortunately this project did not get enough votes to be funded. However, I led to me being involved in a much larger and more important project.
Last Saturday I attended my second training session to become a Empathy Circle Facilitator. The lesson was for me to conduct an half hour session as the Facilitator. And this morning I attended a Empathy Circle Cafe where I was able to practice being the Facilitator for about an hour and a half.
It was a group of about 7 people and we all talked about the environment. My job as Facilitator was to explain the process and make everyone feel it was a safe place to express themselves.
I must confess I got similar feeling about this online event that I felt at the farmers market. The group was from around the world. As the session progressed most all the participants volunteered a recent experience they had with environmental loss or destruction. This was a very powerful sharing that each of us was sensitive to loss. I felt I was not alone.
I shared a word with everyone in the group: Solastalgia. It was the book by Glenn A. Albrecht called Earth Emotions that brought this new word to me. I did a full diary on the the word for Daily Kos. See: Solastalgia: The Feeling When The Waveform Of The Destruction Of Your Home Collapses On You.
Solastalgia (/ˌsɒləˈstældʒə/) is a neologism, formed by the combination of the Latin words sōlācium (comfort) and the Greek root -algia (pain, suffering, grief), that describes a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change. It is best described as the lived experience of negatively perceived environmental change. From Wikipedia: Solastalgia
In closing I would like to share a link to the 2 training session that I attended on Saturday.
Thank You,
Jonathan Gordon
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