Miami Dispatch: 11/20

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We get led back to the cluster and move to a position in the shade near the intersection, where we will not be trapped if the police sweep through. We try to decide what to do, and share some food. I am a bit shaken but am really okay, and after a few minutes the burning does diminish.

The street calms down. The AFL rally is beginning to assemble, and I am enjoying watching the contingents come in carrying their flags and banners. We are told that if we go into the rally we won't be able to get out, so we decide instead to go to lunch. I go sit in a café with Lisa, so tired that I can't even eat, although I think I should. I drink some hot tea, and relax for a moment. In walks Oscar Olivera, one of the leaders of the uprising in Bolivia when they kicked out the water privatizers and took back control of their own water system. I greet him, remind him that he has been in my house in San Francisco, and we talk. I ask him how he likes the new Bolivian president, and he shrugs, making that universal hand gesture for 'some good, some bad.'

Then we go out and join some of our friends who are sitting at sidewalk tables. Our friends from the Sweetwater affinity group have joined us, bringing the Living River which we will carry in the march. Nix and some of the others are drumming and dancing in the street, and I eat someone's leftover quesadilla and feel some more energy. Suddenly I want to dance, too, and I jump up and begin whirling around, invoking Oya and praising the wind. I get my drum, and soon we have a street party, with passersby joining in the dance. In spite of the huge, fearmongering campaign waged by the cops, who have told people we will shoot them with squirt guns full of urine and feces and invented other charming lies, we've had almost nothing but positive support from the actual people of Miami who are always smiling and waving and giving us a thumbs-up.

The march, it turns out, is coming by us. We unfurl our Living River, panels of blue gauze that billow in the wind and look beautiful unfurling behind us. We have banners and flags, so we watch the contingents go by, steelworkers with their own river of blue flags, the Root Cause folks, the puppets. When the giant, inflatable Earth comes by, we join in. The march is beautiful and spirited, moving out into the neighborhoods and circling back again. We're chanting, "F..T..A..A..we say no! Don't privatize the water, let the river flow!"

Starhawk is an activist, organizer, and author of Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising and eight other books on feminism, politics and earth-based spirituality. She teaches Earth Activist Trainings that combine permaculture design and activist skills, and works with the RANT trainer's collective, www.rantcollective.org that offers training and support for mobilizations around global justice and peace issues. To get her periodic posts of her writings, email Starhawk-subscribe@lists.riseup.net and put 'subscribe' in the subject heading. If you're on that list and don't want any more of these writings, email Starhawk-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net and put 'unsubscribe' in the subject heading. These updates are posted daily on: www.utne.com and www.starhawk.org

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