"We are clearly in a lot of emergencies right now. They demand action. But action demands thought and thoughtfulness: who are we, what are our values, our goals, our allies, our possibilities, and our powers?"
- Rebecca Solnit
In my origami practice, the action begins the moment I stop deliberating and start making thoughtful decisions.
This little heart, folded from a dictionary page, started as a way to use up a scrap of paper. But when I finished and saw the word pulse on it's surface I felt like it was also a message to my Self: action is the heartbeat of nonviolence.
I started to think about all the ways nonviolent action is like a pulse:
- It animates values, making them circulatory rather than theoretical.
- It's rhythmic, moving in waves of pressure and pause.
- It is a repetition of persistent gestures, not one big event, keeping a body, a community, a system alive.
- It carries life to the edges, moving blood where it's needed just as action mobilizes care, attention, resources and pressure to areas that have been starved of them.
- It responds to stress, it adapts to crisis by intensifying.
- It is a sign that the body — or a society — is active, alive and evolving.
- And if it stops, something is wrong.
Today I'm practicing action by letting the answers to these questions guide my choices and evolution: Who am I, what are my values, goals, allies, possibilities, and powers?
