Sometimes in the synchronicity of the Internet, something comes our way that speaks to what we area already pondering. The bulk of this entry comes from an acquaintance, Elias Amidon, a man I have read and heard about for many years and finally met this past March when he and his wife/life partner, Rabia, came to Whidbey, where I live. They are the authors of Earth Prayers, and Prayers for a Thousand Years, and beyond these wonderful anthologies, they are also profound witnesses for peace and story. A few years ago they guided walking peace pilgrimages in Southeast Asia, and this fall they are planning one through Iran. Of course with current conditions erupting, they are watching closely, and looking for the story under the story.

Meanwhile, as I emerge from the focus of our book writing, I look around in the work we are doing and the news we are reading and am asking the question: “How do I best pay attention to what is happening now?” This question leads me to seek the story in ordinary reality, and in mythic reality. I appreciated how Elias combined the news with the muse and invite you to read his “LETTER FROM THE ROAD, #36.” The boldfacing is my emphasis.

IRAN AND THE FEATHER OF THE SIMORGH

I would like to step back for a moment from the compelling drama occurring now in Iran to look at this drama with a long-view question in mind: What does it tell us about the evolution of human societies? What does the conflict in present-day Iran reveal about what is seeking to be born on a global scale in the way we humans relate to each other?

To aid us in this long-view, let us turn to a story that is told in Iran’s great national epic, the Shahnameh, written 1,000 years ago by Ferdowsi, the most beloved of all Persian poets.

The story goes like this: a baby was abandoned on a mountainside. His cries were heard by the Simorgh, the benevolent winged deity of vast powers, who raised the baby as her own. When the time came for the young man, now called Prince Zal, to rejoin the human world the Simorgh gifted the prince with three feathers which he was to use if he ever needed her help.

And so it happened upon returning to his kingdom that Prince Zal fell in love and married the beautiful Rudaba. When the time arrived for their first child to be born, Rudaba’s labor was prolonged and terrible. She was near death when Prince Zal summoned the Simorgh for help. The Simorgh appeared and instructed Zal to trace one of the feathers across Rudaba’s belly. He did so and thus saved Rudaba and the child, and the child grew up to become the greatest of all Persian heroes, Rostam—“the world brightening one.”

Rudaba’s Labor
I trust Ferdowsi will forgive me for suggesting that the story of the birth of Rostam may serve as a parable for what is occurring in Iran—and indeed throughout the world—in this period of human history.

Rudaba’s—and Iran’s—long labor will not come to an end until the cycle of human violence comes to an end—the cycle that reacts to violence and injustice with more violence and injustice. For thousands of years this cycle has recurred, preventing the birth of that which we long for: the possibility of living together in kindness, tolerance, and peace. This possibility is “the world brightening one.” It is humanity’s Rostam: no longer a singular male hero battling injustice, our Rostam is no less than the birth of the capacity to relate to one another with open minds and open hearts rather than from rigid positions.

The seas of people now marching in Iran are seeking to end the long agony of Rudaba’s labor. They are responding to the regime’s oppression not with violence but with nonviolent civil disobedience, and, in many cases, in silence. This kind of profound nonviolent action is the Simorgh’s feather being traced on Rudaba’s tormented belly. Its inherent gentleness is the only response that can release her from her long labor.

It takes enormous courage to face oppression with kindness, to put a flower in the muzzle of a gun. If Iranians can maintain this courage they will change the course of history, joining the recent nonviolent movements that have toppled dictatorships in places like the Philippines, Serbia, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Nepal, and elsewhere. A recent study has shown that of the 67 transitions from authoritarian regimes to more democratic governments over the past few decades, these changes “were catalyzed not through foreign invasion, and only rarely through armed revolt or voluntary elite-driven reforms, but overwhelmingly by democratic civil society organizations utilizing nonviolent action and other forms of civil resistance, such as strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and mass protests.”  (Stephen Zunes)

The Simorgh’s feather: resilient and tender, its magical touch is the heart of the Golden Rule, the heart of the activism of Gandhi, King, and Mandela, and the heart of the teachings of all the great prophets of humanity. It is the refusal to react to violence with violence.

What Can We Do?
Two months ago during our journey through Iran we met a man named Ali working in a bazaar in the city of Shiraz. Ali was a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, intensely proud of Iran and its central place in human history.

“We have been an important part of the growth of civilization,” he said, “but now we are stranded. Our minds are stranded. We cannot communicate with or travel freely in the world. People think we are terrorists—look around you, do you see terrorists? We are stranded, and no one knows who we are.”

I think of Ali and wonder if he feels less stranded at the moment, with so much of the world’s attention turned toward the events in Iran. TV, radio, newspapers, the Internet, Twitter, Facebook—in countless thousands of ways people around the world are taking part in the touch of the Simorgh’s feather as we bear witness to the nonviolent actions in Iran.

Just as it is for every nonviolent movement, the role of the witness is crucial. “The whole world is watching!” we cry, calling forth the power of shame that is heaped upon the perpetrator when an injustice is witnessed. This shaming is a curious thing, since it gets its power from an innate ethic within us—the British were shamed by having the world witness them beating Gandhi’s salt marchers, just as America was shamed by the publication of the photos from Abu Ghraib. The ruling clerics in Iran know that when they are seen butchering protesters any claim the Islamic Revolution has of benevolence becomes a lie.

So what can we do, far from Iran? We can pay attention. We can be at the other end of the tweets and the YouTube videos. We can be the watching world as the Iranians marching in the streets silently confront the guns of the military. In this way we can act in solidarity with all Iranians—the protesters and the ruling clerics and the Ahmadinejad supporters and the military—helping all of us come to the aid of “the world brightening one” that is being born.

If you want to read more thoughts like this, you may register at Elias’ website: www.pathofthefriend.org and become more informed about their work.

At the end of the memoir class I was teaching last week, we had a conversation about placing stories into all the cracks in the world.  Certainly storycatching and “world brightening” have much in common. They are ways we pay attention: ways we bear witness. To be willing to know something, to hold the story as it is unfolding, even if it appears we cannot directly interact with the experience or the outcome, does contribute something in the world. I have to believe that my willingness to be somehow is sustaining to the people of Iran, of Iraq, of Zimbabwe, of Ohio and our own neighborhoods–all those places where pain is on the surface and the story is raw.

So, what in the world are you paying attention to? And how do you think that helps? Let’s tell each other those stories.

Dear Storycatchers, I have missed you–missed writing to you and hearing back from you as we make our ways through busy days. The new book, which pulled me off this blogging schedule, co-authored with Ann Linnea, is at Berrett-Koehler Publishers in San Francisco–in fact, on this Saturday morning I am writing from the lobby of Hotel Rex, a few blocks from the B-K offices.

Yesterday Ann and I went through a process they call “Authors’ Day.” We met the folks who will be working with us in final editing, production, marketing, and publicity. At noon, all the staff in the building that day, including Steve Piersanti, President of the company, came to lunch where we talked about The Circle Way, A Leader in Every Chair, and then invited the group of just over 20 staff and guests to push back from the board table and form an oval of chairs. We used the Basic Circle Guidelines from our PeerSpirit website to set up a round of circle process and folks responded to an interesting question passing a beautiful glass disk hand to hand. We talked about the impact of hearing every voice in the room, and then had 20 minutes of dialogue about the book.

The question we used was offered by Fran Korten, editor of Yes! Magazine, when she presented at a conference on women and leadership May 1. As a great fan and avid reader of Yes! I was glad to meet Fran, give her a copy of Storycatcher, and carry on the profound work of her questions–so here they are for you to raise in your lives as well:

• What did you notice on the fringe of society 15 years ago that is now in the center?
• What do you notice on the fringe now that you hope will move to the center in the next 15 years?
• What are you willing to do to contribute to that happening?

I jumped up and said: circle, and the power of circles, especially as an empowerment process for women. And here is a brief rendition of that story.

In 1994 Ann and I had just moved to Whidbey and started PeerSpirit, Inc. I was writing a book called Calling the Circle, the First and Future Culture. It was under contract to Bantam and when I submitted the manuscript there was deafening silence from my editor. Finally I phoned and asked what was going on… She told me they had no idea how to support this title. I bought back the rights and found a tiny press in Oregon, Swan Raven & Company, to bring out the first edition of the book. It sold 15,000 copies and connected us with a circle of colleagues with whom we are still in touch.

In 1997, I got a call from an agent who wanted to represent the book to larger presses. He sold it back to my Bantam editor and I rewrote Calling the Circle in the edition that has been available since 1998. Unfortunately, the circle concept was still so edgy that the book was categorized as “ritual/psychology” and most often shelved in the witchcraft/occult section of the bookstore–not exactly mainstream! Meanwhile, we kept doing our work, expanding our outreach, and through training other facilitators, consultants, and leaders in many fields, kept working to normalize and bring circle to center as a alternative group process. When Amazon and the Internet, and our e-store capacity came along the book could be more easily found.

In 2000, through our association with business visionary, Margaret Wheatley, PeerSpirit Circle started going global in the From the Four Directions and Art of Hosting networks, and now, Berrett-Koehler, a business book company, recognizes circle practice as mainstream enough to bring The Circle Way into the heart of their business group process offerings. So, yesterday was quite a day–as we were carrying this subtext through all the meetings. We were carrying the story under the project; carrying fifteen years of work to help a far-out, woo-woo, women howling at the moon, men drumming in the woods, touchy-feely, get it out of here(!) concept into the board rooms and staff meetings and committee meetings and nursing staff debriefs, and conflict resolution meetings where we and many others have benefited from another way to speak and listen.

In our Berrett-Koehler circle, we addressed the second question: What do you notice on the fringe today that you want to see move to the center in the next 15 years? It’s a very interesting form of strategic planning: for a company involved in both setting and responding to business trends, and also for any person wanting to redesign their lives in the current conditions of the world around us. Try these questions on yourself as a journal writing exercise, with your family and friends after dinner, in the next circle where you need of a conversation starter–and here on this blog.

When I look back, the first question creates a sense of acomplishment and perspective regarding what I’ve been up to all these years in journal writing, circle, and storycatching. When I look around, the second question gives me a way to map current societal trends (what’s moving toward deeper integration, such as sustainability; what’s moving out of the way, such as excessive consumption). When I assess how to focus my own passion, willingness, and skills, the third question helps me set trajectory.

So many of us are in a process of reassessment, may these questions lead us into an ability to tell ourselves the story of how we have navigated the social conditions that surround our lives. As we tell the story of how we got here, we notice the synchronicities and choices that shape our lives. As we create the story of where we’re going, we shine a light on the path forward.

Let’s share responses and stories and see the range of what we notice–and what we are committed to bringing from the edge to the middle!