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Published: February 8th 2006
Susan Partnow, founder and director of Global Citizen Journey
Susan at our Send-Off Reception in Seattle on November 10th, 2005“We are about people-to-people, our twenty Americans paired up with twenty Nigerians.” Susan Partnow, founder and director of Seattle-based Global Citizen Journey (GCJ), stood at the head of the room. She overlooked an audience; they overlooked her. “This is
our grassroots connection.”
What endured in bold letters were her last words,
grassroots connection. The phrase was powerful, deep, strumming a chord within my system, a system slapped, pressed, and molded into the thought-processes of Western culture. But now, with a community of individuals devoted to the workings of peace and international teamwork, I began to grow from the old imprints and immerge from an isolated locale within the mind. I began to form my own contemporary consciousness, one joined with interconnection, birthing from within a presence of unified devotion. And now I had this;
grassroots connection.
Two people, one-on-one, their eyes connecting like nods on a branch, undisturbed by fall winds. Bodies close, the breath warming a personal atmosphere. Scents, palates, thoughts and energies an amalgamation of two persons, two presences. This is grassroots connection.
November 10th, 2005 was our Send-off Reception held in a large room accompanying 80 family and friends including Global Citizen Journey’s twenty American
Family and Friends
The delegates and their supporters joined us at the reception. Here, I attempt to define what grassroots connection meant to me. delegates. Susan and executive director, Mary Ella Keblusek, presented GCJ’s project with managerial perfection. They touched all aspects of their dream now turned reality. It was a journey to Nigeria, Africa founded with the emphasis of grassroots connection—the conglomeration of muddling in which my young mind now wrapped around. We were going to Nigeria to develop awareness, a connection one-on-one with the people. I emphasize
grassroots connection, a true partnership with life, with culture, with the present-day facing a world in need of individuals coming together with a deep respect toward life. Susan and Mary Ella placed precedence on the effect Nigeria’s issues have, not only on the West African region, but on the entire global community.
November 10th, 2005 was also a unique day coalescing with our reception. It was the tenth anniversary of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s execution, a Nigerian of the Ogoni people who stood up against the might of corporation in the oil industry and met his end amidst its corruption. This was a day we celebrated our departure to Nigeria with the inaugural journey under the auspices of GCJ. And likewise on this same day across the world many celebrated a man turned-symbol for the non-violent
The Ice-breaker
GCJ delegate Dennis during a Nigerian dance where men and women switched off their roles and characteristics. proliferation found within the heart of every soul.
I returned home that evening with words and thoughts echoing round my head. Their labels and meanings pounced one another, dancing mad like the social and ecological injustices of the West African region. The Niger Delta of Nigeria. Its people, its customs, their issues rampant across the laying of oil piping, and our purpose as a delegation. I turned them over inside my head, flipping it, the flapjack of grassroots connection—
roots connection grass—
connection roots grass—
connection grassroots.
I picked up the phone and dialed.
My friend answered.
I posed the term:
Grassroots connection.
A relationship, connection, and there, my friend had her answer. With it she created the visual I was in need of and my perspective broadened as her speech flowered with the fruits of Mother Earth. Grass, plants—life—the sustenance found in a location such as Bainbridge Island, Washington. Grass, plants—life—more sustenance found in a location such as the Niger Delta in Nigeria, Africa. And all these roots reaching deep beneath the surface, spreading far into the soils of source. There, they intermingle in this deep subterranean jungle despite their superficial disparity, despite their different words and
Smiles and Passion
A few of the delegates receiving their recognition as participants. thoughts of separation and distinction, despite the reality of being located on the opposite ends of the planet. There was a deeper connection, a grassroots connection coming to the surface of awareness when two people joined in common union.
Through the relationship, my friend created the visualization for this phrase
grassroots connection, wherein I was given a mapping of interdependence among all beings, among all life, one disseminating to each organism whether ground here on earth or heard infinitely vast within the universe. Microcosm, macrocosm. Black, white. Happy, sad. The imagery pierced the surfaces and penetrated the human conscience, its soul-consciousness, stretching far within a unification of origin, meaning and feeling, even one of purpose. I found my answer, influenced by friendship, by relationship, by connection—these grassroots.
Within the images the roots of life reached beneath superficiality and connected one way or the other. My mind cleared, returning to an ancient teaching I follow: Interconnection; the interdependency of all species, relative to one another. Buddha spoke of this, the
Is of all things, and now with its own relativity universal, I could cognize this new phrase coined
grassroots connection. But I needed others, not just mine. I wanted
Leaders with their Dreams
Susan and Mary Ella Keblusek. my roots to distend further. I needed grassroots connection.
Dennis, a local of Bellingham, Washington, had his musings among this new philosophy in which the delegates of Global Citizen Journey were explicitly guided under. “A grassroots connection is a direct connection,” he said, “one being to another. But in addition it has a certain quality of intention. It is what happens when there is shared purpose in which each sees the other’s interest as the same as their own. When this happens, something amazing enters the relationship giving it the ability to accomplish what nothing else can.” In other words, as Dennis put it, “It becomes a relationship that can move mountains, if that’s its purpose.”
Now here we go! Through connection with connection itself I was moving mountains.
Okay, sorry. I’m taking too much credit and entirely missing the meaning: We were moving mountains, these connections, people to people! I sought for the Himalayas.
“An action tapping into collective consciousness.” Barbara of Bellingham shared a similar phenomenon in her own words. Grassroots connection is a “desire felt by many, something in the nature of the 100th monkey. Ordinary people with perhaps extraordinary passion, heart and desire to level the playing field for justice and equality who exhibit the characteristics of togetherness.”
Boom! The resounding similarities of each feeling sung in an inner cavity. We were attached, these relationships, to the same source, wherein we allowed one another to share and trust the comfort of our exposed content. And Tara from Seattle brought into this the same idea of “gathering people with a shared passion for social change.”
I thought back now to the reception of November 10th: Susan and Mary Ella at the front of the room, the PowerPoint hazy behind them.
Grassroots connection. I thought further back to the first meeting together where this idea of traveling across the globe to Nigeria to cultivate the intention of grassroots connection. And I thought back at how I really had no idea what it meant, but oddly there was a hoe in my hand and I was ready to cultivate the deepest, sweetest, most succulent fruits of this grass, stirring these roots and the connections to be had. People-to-people, just as Susan said.
“This is
our grassroots connection.” It was a phrase with a deeper, underlying meaning, a phrase with power behind not just words, but more importantly, behind a passion of unified purpose among the participants. Twenty American delegates journeying to Africa to pair with twenty Nigerian delegates; a grassroots connection, not only between the group of forty, but between each connection created and sustained among the collective consciousness.
Susan Partnow expanded. “Grassroots means we can take the initiative and create this program without anyone to give us permission or funds. We can also choose the shape and content of our experience.”
As fortunate individuals, raised in a society with the foundation of freedom and democracy, we have that ambition; each American delegate a founder and director of their own world. The more I listened, the more I developed a connection, person to person, and each time the more I understood. Susan continued:
“So grassroots is the ultimate expression of democracy: We the people taking charge of our own lives and sense of community. GCJ brings this to a global level where we begin to understand our community encompasses this whole beautiful earth and all her inhabitants—people and non-people, plants and animals.”
I reached out to another participant, and spoke with Christi who lit a spark into this growing flame. She wrapped it up with the unwrapping of mind, returning back to the earlier teachings of Buddha, to the birth of life with the unconditional processes of thought. “All these words that we give to the act of people connecting with other people… They don’t mean anything to me; they’re just labels.”
What originally constricted me in this grassroots connection now unwound with a return to originality. Words, thoughts, pictures… (A pause for my own thought-reflection), the illusions of our world’s conditionality:
Illusions! And now we have
grassroots connection, a source of interconnection with the interdependency of all life—a phrase and its philosophy. And underneath the surface, there is a deeper, more profound pensive amalgamation of unity where we are all connected, sharing a similar purpose of people-to-people understanding, acceptance and love.
The cultivation subsequently begins, not necessarily with a hoe or shovel in hand, but with the power of our own unification. Dennis brings his quality of deep willingness to just
be. Barbara carries listening ears and an open heart of love, patience, curiosity and faith. Tara takes hold her humility to be with the connections, along with the universal strengths of openness, joy, and love (did I already say love?). Christi holds her arms wide to show the unconditional art of being, of heart, of love. And Susan emits her hope and vision that all of us can influence the lives of others, our relationships, and the global communities “to move towards the healthy, joyful, loving ways we all yearn for.”
What of this grassroots connection? We are all connected and I come to see it as simply love. But to become aware of this is to act within this interconnection involving all species found within the universe. The delegates, including the attendees of our reception, were all connected, acting together to create “the healthy, joyful, loving way we all yearn for.” Susan and Mary Ella, affront a room, sharing their dream. And two people, one-on-one, eyes locked, the energies of their presence fusing. A Nigerian and an American. Ken Saro-Wiwa and our send-off party. My friend and our relationship. Global Citizen Journey and the passion of its delegates. And alas! This grassroots connection and its underlying, deep-rooted penetration of purpose—the love filling our intentions. This is
our grassroots connection.
As the send-off reception neared its close, Dokobu Goodhead, a Nigerian living in Seattle, shook with emotion. People-to-people, his breath filling the room, his energy intermingling with each attendee as roots of grass. He read from his poem, stuttering with muster to overcome the pain through words. He stood as a pinnacle and smoothed the last phrase with what we American delegates as visitors to a foreign culture will never taste:
Please, let me never be born a minority again.
Our grassroots connection began as Dokobu took his seat.
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Mom
non-member comment
Beautiful Cam.....