We are located all over the world.
A cluster of us are currently living in Norman, Oklahoma.
We wanted to provide ourselves with the opportunity to say something.
Some have, some haven't.
John
As a member of the Greenbriar Collective, I am building a group dedicated to environmental and cultural sustainability, social justice, mutual aid and cooperation, the building of a vibrant community, and the celebration of life. I hope to work against the disempowerment and isolation that pervades much of
society through skill building, the providing of rare and hard to find information, and the creation of supportive community; and to foster the development of a sustainable and just society through modeling and experimentation with small-scale, easily
reproducible, sustainable lifestyles
and techniques appropriate to our local community. I am really aiming for a space that combines the best of the infoshops, radical living experiments and other activist projects I have witnessed around the world. One of my greatest inspirations has been the work of the Rhizome Collective down in Austin, Tx.
Theirs is a model that really should be reproduced all over the US.
I am committed to our home community of Norman, Oklahoma. There are significant challenges, and unique opportunities here, in the heart of Oklahoma, and I relish the opportunity to tackle them, rather than leave for one of the cultural hot-spots such as Portland that so many good people from this part of the country leave for at their first opportunity. I have seen those places, and I love them. However, I have always regretted the fact that I had to travel to find radical social spaces, infoshops, and other spaces like this one, that I have attempted to foster here. I believe that change can, and must, occur everywhere, and not just in the well-known activist enclaves, and until we build the spaces here that foster change, they will be unavailable to many people who crave and need them.
I am really working for a space that many people can come to for resources, inspiration and connection with other people of like-mind. A space where anyone of good heart feels welcome, a crucible that projects can emerge from spontaneously without being controlled by a hierarchy, and without anyone feeling compelled to participate in any way they aren't inspired. We have a lot of work to do towards that end, but already, I'm pleased to say, we are visibly on that path.
It is my belief that a wide-scale crisis is approaching. The time to start planning for the future, when the ways of living that we are familiar with are no longer possible, is now. I intend for the Greenbriar Collective to be a resource for that time, both now and in the future.
Kevin
I am involved with GBC.....
Because changing myself by changing the world, and because changing the world by changing myself, surrounded by an amazing and supportive community, is simply a better way to live.
Because if I want a world in which to live, I have to make it. This is not idealism; this is common sense.
Because our way of life as a larger culture is unsustainable, and, if we are honest and examine our options, undesirable; because living in harmony with our environment, rather than in opposition, is simply more rewarding.
Because I believe in people's ability to work together to solve their own problems. Until the slow-motion trainwreck of civilization, that is how we had to solve all of them. We succeeded, or you and I would not be here.
Because I believe that communism and socialism make the same mistake that capitalism does; they all believe that it is resources, material goods, and the distribution of those resources that will solve our problems. Scarcity is a lie, and recognizing that we need other people and real, genuine community will end the artificial scarcity of resources, as well as the imposed scarcity of human connection upon which the whole rotten system is built.
Because I believe we are all different, and all equal.
Because I believe that, while all people are different, we all have the same basic drives, and perhaps chief among those drives is a need for community--we evolved as a pack or tribal animal, and to meet any of our material needs, we always have and always will need other people. In a world designed to alienate us from ourselves and each other through advertising and messages of false morality and nonsensical guilt, it is important to consciously apply effort to build real, substantial community. Because any genuine community in this world will be, by nature, a community of resistance, and because if we each do what we can, we can help each other to do more.
Because I believe that systems of dehumanization have no place in a world of humans, and that to submit ourselves and lose our individuality, our passion, and the validity of our experiences is perhaps the only real sin, a sin against ourselves and against our community.
And because I want to help other people to pursue ways of life that are healthier for ourselves, other people, and the world at large.
Oh, and because I share John's gleeful apocalypticism. The fire has been lit; Rome is burning, and I brought the vegan marshmallows. We shall sing our songs and dance our dances, and in the warm summer night lovers will meet, and when morning comes, it will be a day like every other day because the world will never be the same again.
Maka
The first time I walked in the door at the Third
Space Infoshop, I thought, "This feels like home." I didn't really know any of
the folks there very well - most were just acquaintances, and some I'd never met
at all. I was thrilled to find that my family was accepted and welcomed into the
space and into the group wholeheartedly, even though we were undeniably
different from any of the other members, and some of us can be quite
challenging. :) We kept coming back, joining in the potluck meals, reading books
and zines, talking with folks about ideas that most people in our culture don't
give a second thought to.
When the Infoshop moved to its current location, much nearer to my home, I became an even more frequent visitor. I began to develop some deeper friendships with members and really finally felt like I could call myself a member of the Greenbriar Collective.
I am a part of the Greenbriar Collective...
Because it feels like home to me, like family.
Because I've been seeking conscious community for over a decade now, and the previous communities I've been part of have always left me feeling not quite engaged, not as involved as I'd like to be, and often ended up being just a bunch of friends that hang out together. That's not what I'm looking for. I need to be part of a community that is acting directly to effect social change.
Because I need to be part of a group of people who share my values and my desires to directly work toward solving the social problems that feel most pressing to me. I want to create social change in the context of a community of like-minded people, and I want to create community in the context of creating social change.
Because I believe in the free sharing of resources - information, food, healing, technology, time - in a gift economy.
Because I want to help people, and because sometimes I need help from others, too.
Because I believe that a community can only be free and healthy if it is made up of liberated, free individuals with full rights, and because in the Greenbriar Collective, I've found a group of people who believe and are working toward that goal as well.
Because I believe our current social structure is crumbling around us, and I know this way of living, in small communities where all are equal and everyone is supported, is what must follow. Small, decentralized communities are the answer to the problems created by our behemoth societies - which are naturally doomed to fail because they are too large to support themselves. The more we work toward building small communities now, the better off we will be when the behemoth falls.
Melissa
The Greenbriar Collective
has shown me that it is possible to live your dreams. My personal life is
my political life and I owe it all to a wood-framed house, a stack of zines,
radical books, unwavering inspiration, and a true community of friends and
comrades.
Mike
I am
with the collective because it is simply a better way to live.
Instead of sitting around complaining about what (insert here) did, we go out
and start organizing to do something about it. When I don't allow
hierarchies of power in my interactions, I'm not constantly fighting my friends
and neighbors - I'm working with them. When I utilize the gift economy
instead of the exchange economy, I become richer in stability and happiness
instead of becoming more greedy & isolated.
I organize on a local community basis because it is what is closest to my heart. I spent some time in Thailand and what I witnessed there was actual community - the networks of social connections that bring stability, happiness, and harmony into people's lives. When I'm using those words, I'm talking about concrete situations where your able to trust that your community of friends and families will take care of you if you can't cover rent, are having emotional difficulty, just want to play, or whatever. Support, stability, and growth, all in one safe space. For me, community is the basis of healthy change in a society that is bleeding itself and everything it touches to death.
Consented (4/29/06): What qualifies a GBC project?
There is no concrete
list of things a project or person has to be in order to fall within the GBC, but there is a general direction we like to take:
self-sufficiency, mutual aid, all-inclusivity, solidarity, anticapitalist & antistatist, interdependence, sustainability,
group effort, positivity, & including a radical analysis.