Friday I spent most of my day at the OccupyMN protest in downtown Minneapolis.  My main goal was to get a feel for the movement so many Pagans are taking part in or at least sympathetic towards.  The movement tells us they are different than any previous protest and they are unhappy with how the media “just doesn’t get it.”  They can’t be classified, they explain.  They don’t have leaders and spokespersons, they have no firm goals as of yet, just a firm conviction that our country’s process is so broken it can no longer function.  They speak of suffering, feeling divorced from power, marginalized.  They are an experiential movement.  The magic is in being there and adding your essence to the mix.  As I’m  part of an experiential religion family, Paganism, I thought I’d look at what was happening through the lens of my religious background.

I can see why the mainstream media doesn’t “get it.”  From my observations, the Occupy movement isn’t about demands or slogans or political parties, it’s about manifesting the society they wish existed.  Similar to Pagan festivals, OccupyMN is creating a (temporary) healthy, functioning, caring community in Government Plaza.  The media has been asking them “What are your demands?  What are your solutions?”   The solutions they propose are being worked out in real time, right before our very eyes.  They aren’t writing them down on a website, or articulating it to the media in neat soundbites, they are demonstrating solutions by living them.  They aren’t protestors, they are demonstrators – those who present by experiments, examples, or practical application.  Also similar to Pagan festivals, the real question is, can such a community, and the solutions they demonstrate that  work so beautifully during a short period of time on a small scale, apply to large scale groups like an entire nation?

This demonstrator says real power is in the hands of a few.

Some of the attendees are protestors in the traditional sense of the word.  They are unhappy with specific policy areas and want to change them using established methods.  They want lower college tuition prices, or a reversal of a Supreme court decision, or for candidates to only use public financing.  These are small tweeks to the present system.   What the core of the Occupy movement, the ones who camp out and devote themselves wholeheartedly, seem to want is wholesale changes to the system itself.  Not the policies, but the process.  I’m not saying the movement wants to overthrow the government and turn us into Cuba or Canada.  But they want a revolution to take place.  A more open system, a less crushing process, for us all to live and resolve conflicts in.

When they speak about the 99% and the 1% it is tempting, for them and those of us trying to understand, to frame it in terms of  money.  Money often does equate to power, which generates more money, which helps concentrate power further.  I think it’s more accurate to think of the 1% as representing those who control our present system.  Which is exactly opposite of how this country was set up to operate, at least on paper.  I’m not sure if there was ever a golden age of the United States where the citizens held the reigns of power instead of  just the illusion of power, but it is a myth worth fighting for.

Now that we have that long intro out of the way, let me walk you through my day so you can get a feel for what I experienced during my time in Government Plaza.

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