I got a message this afternoon from Ani Ahavah -- coordinator of the Ayni Circle -- meeting tonight at Ayni Gallery, 216 State, on the beach side of the freeway.

Ani was looking at a new book by Parker Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy, and sent us her notes -- which I include here.

This is a great summation, and right on target for what I think we should be doing.

My instinct is -- create a framework that can support significant organizing along these lines. Contact all these Occupy groups and get them signed into an integral alliance, get them in resonance, and start bringing this movement into effective focus. Do it more or less like this.

Start with common ground -- the human heart and our fundamental humanity, and the fundamental goodness that is motivating us.

And get a feel for this simple statement from Bill Moyers.

The only answer to the power of organized money is the power of organized people.

He is so right. Traditional political organizing simply does not overcome the challenges of balkanization. We need powerful new approaches to alliance development -- and there are tons of resources out there to show us how to do this.

The theme mentioned here -- on "the Ability to Hold Tension in Life-Giving Ways" -- is totally brilliant. That is where the power is -- and if we can organize a movement that can hold this tension in resonance and maintain effective activist focus, we can unleash the most powerful political movement in history....

Here's a link to Ani's FocalPoint site for the Ayni Gallery:

http://sharedpurpose.net/focalpoint/page.cfm?fps=100319&pg=100770