Meditating

How do you measure the success of a public meditation? Maybe you measure it in years, like the growth of a tree. Maybe you count the people not harmed, not arrested.  

About 38 people attended our public meditation in the hour before an Antifa solidarity rally that drew a few hundred. Soon after the Antifa rally was publicized, the local Alt Right group that calls itself “Patriot Prayer” decided to hold a “Going Away Party” for a man who announced months ago that he planned to leave town. Their “party” was staged on the same day as the Antifa rally, adjacent to the Antifa rally location. But they claim it had nothing to do with Antifa. Just an innocent get-together. With police protection, megaphones, knives, truncheons, and canisters of pepper spray. In a Federal park.

The meditation was silent; the rally was a blend of urgent voices, most of them stressing the importance of organizing and forming relationships with all who stand for justice and compassion, even if their strategies differ from yours. 

If you read Sue’s blip, you know about an eloquent young man named Eli Deschera who commanded our attention at the Antifa rally. Here you see him at our meditation, seated on the ground at the end of a row of benches.

Violence erupted when the local Alt Right showed up and both Homeland Security and riot police came out to protect them. (Warning: next link includes street fighting.) Here’s a rather skewed news report that says nothing about the meditation nor the rally but focuses, as commercial news often does, on the violence. Eli appears in that report too, having been assaulted with bear spray (pepper spray used to deter wild bears) wielded by the Alt Right. Why did they spray Eli? 

My extra has a clue. It’s Sue, standing next to a very tall person in black with a mask. They’re listening to Eli, and she has just taken the photo she used for her blip. Next to Tall Man is a man with a bicycle, wearing a maroon shirt and glaring in my direction. Maroon Shirt was listening to Eli’s speech also, and in cell phone videos made about an hour later, he is with the Alt Right, attacking those who spoke at the rally. 

Edit: Ceridwen sent me a link to a Guardian story about the event, much more balanced and accurate than anything that appeared in the USA. Like all our articles, it focuses on the violence and not on the earlier (peaceful, well-organized) rally, and it suggests protesters on both sides had pepper spray, but I did not see or hear about any antifascists with pepper spray, while I saw Patriot Prayer people with cans of pepper spray jutting out of their backpacks and cans of mace in their back pockets.