Posts I Like
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Blossom’s hat
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Paris
© Zach Abubeker 2012
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Paris
© Zach Abubeker 2012
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Wheat pasted out studio’s wall today with a west coast Big Sur image. - With Brian Guido.
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Woman Selling Flowers, Sofia 2011
© Petya Shalamanova
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Tess Haskins Klemchuk, January 2012
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Cooking Lamb for St. George Day, Village of Graffa, Bulgaria
© Petya Shalamanova www.petyaphoto.com
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Forest Edge, Michael Kenna
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Paris
© Zach Abubeker 2012
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Purple Dino. 2010
Photos (counter-clockwise): Tents in Zucotti Park, Michael Meyer from Being Beings passes out Harmonicas, Protester breathes through harmonica while marching.
Occupy: Wall Street
It has been a few months since I’ve return from New York to visit the occupation at Wall Street. I went down there for two reasons; the first, to experience the sound of 1500+ people breathing together through harmonicas (a proposal by the collaborative group Being Beings), and second, to see it for myself; outside the newspaper articles, outside the news reporters on a TV, outside the opinion of my family and friends and strangers comments. To me, it was important to have my own feelings based on going there and seeing the physical space for myself, listen to the people who had been occupying, organizing, supporting and not supporting the movement.
One of my most insightful experiences was when I was walking the perimeter of the park. An occupier (a male in his 20’s) and a passerby (a women in her late 30’s, early 40’s) were discussing their opposing feelings. He was propped up on a wall holding a sign; she was standing below looking up, her upper body leaning in every time she talked. They were in obvious disagreement about the movement. She felt that he was privileged and lucky to be able to protest and speak his mind, while another countries government would persecute their people for such an act. He told her that he respected her opinion and was appreciative that they were able to discuss these feelings; that he was there to defend just that.
Here they were, two strangers in a park, talking out loud and face to face, and they listened to each other. She ran off over to her friends near by, and said how good it felt to do that.
1 month later the occupation in Zucotti Park was evicted.
New and revisited thoughts since:
- What does an “occupation” on home soil begin to look like, and feel like?
- The movement as a platform for conversation and deeper involvement in our personal affairs. People began to talk more openly and passionately about issues we face at home in the U.S. in a way I have not experienced before.
- To think about others and the planet through the actions of ourselves.
- The power of sound and unified action
On Dec. 3rd our little town of Waterbury was lit up by a parade of hundreds of handmade paper lanterns! It was quite a spectacle, and wonderful to see the town come alive in the wake of tremendous devastation from tropical storm Irene.
“To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.”
Wendell Berry
