From Shakespeare for Dogs
Here’s a thing I made. It’s a zine about anarchism and spirituality. Also emotional growth. Also living a harmonious life. Also building Utopia. Y’know, all that fun stuff.
White Flag, Black Flag: A Spiritual Anarchism Workbook
Right now there’s only an online version, printable version coming soon.
Enjoy!
*** [from the Introduction via pdf copy/paste by ANEWS ed.]
Introduction
1) What is this book about?
It’s a guide to moving towards enlightenment, from an anarchist perspective. It’s also a guide to moving towards anarchist utopia, from a spiritual perspective.
Through a spiritual lens, everything begins with consciousness. Through a political lens, everything begins with power. Power and consciousness aren’t different.
Power and consciousness begin with the self, and shape everything outside of it. This is a guide to navigating that space, through stepping into the feeling of being able to choose when to resist and accept.
This is about growth, discovery, deconstruction, empowerment, acceptance, love, and self-actualization. Each term is a different window into the same room. In the center of the room is a single duality: two energies, two options, which are themselves one. I’ve chosen to portray them as flags.
In everything from arguments to war, surrender is viewed as disempowering, weak and fearful. However, as anyone who has ever meditated can tell you, surrender can be entirely empowering, strong and brave. It is openness. Under the white flag are feelings of allowance, receptivity, permission, consent, release, trust, obedience, inaction, tolerance, compliance, and acceptance.
When you wave the white flag, you go with the flow. You embrace. On the river of life, it is the act of floating.
The black flag is our symbol of resistance.
Often in spiritual practice, resistance is viewed as immature, hostile or backward. However, as anyone who has ever been in a protest can tell you, resistance can be entirely wise, loving and progressive. It is movement. Under the black flag are feelings of effort, will, struggle, challenge, rebellion, insubordination, dissent, defiance, and change.
When you wave the black flag, you go against the grain. You push. On the river of life, it is the act of swimming.
There is no grey flag, because that would imply a middle ground that doesn’t exist. You cannot both resist and surrender to the same force in the same way. You can resist in some capacities and surrender in others, but in each case you are choosing either the white or black flag in turn.
Which brings us to our third flag: the yin-yang flag.
This is our symbol of balance.
It is not an energy unto itself. It is the quality that emerges from the balance of the white flag’s surrender and black flag’s resistance. It is union. Under it are feelings of harmony, collaboration, wholeness, solidarity, mutual aid, communion, and freedom.
You can’t wave the yin-yang flag; it simply emerges as a balance of its two halves. Under the yin-yang flag, you do not go in any particular way; you just go. You are and you act. On the river of life, it is simply the way you go.
2) Is this about spirituality or politics?
Both, sometimes at once and sometimes in turn. If we agree that the personal is political, and the spiritual is personal, then it follows that the spiritual is political and the political is spiritual.
From a spiritual perspective, this should be obvious, because everything is spiritual. From a radical political perspective, this should also be obvious, because everything is political.
I believe there are crucial lessons to be learned from both “sides,” and those lessons can apply to spirituality, politics, and personal and interpersonal life.
While I certainly cannot speak for all spiritual perspectives, I have seen many of them value the “white flag” far too highly while criticizing or demeaning the “black flag.” Likewise, I cannot speak for all political perspectives, but I have often seen the same phenomenon in reverse. Struggling against the current of the world is so often an ineffective and wasteful thing to do. Learning to surrender to reality is a profound remedy to the suffering caused by delusion, craving, and attachment. However, surrender is a profoundly stupid remedy to the suffering caused by rape, or mass incarceration, or genocide.
The point, to me, is to balance the two: to effectively navigate life using each energy in turn and in harmony. It is striking a balance between,
“I am accepting the things I cannot change,” and, “I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
3) How is this book to be used?
First of all, this book is now in your hands, and is yours to do with as you see fit. If the greatest use you can get out of it is taking a paper copy and burning it, go ahead.
Use it as best serves you.
My advice: Take this slow. Treat this as practice. Don’t rush through the book, and please reuse it again and again, as many times as you like.
Each chapter has a description of the topic and a question designed to help you apply it to your life. Try answering each question as honestly as you can (if you need more space to write, keep a notebook alongside this!) Try answering each question several times over the course of a month. See if anything changes.
The point is not to help you intellectually understand the feeling, but to offer a framework through which to look at your own life so that the feeling can arise.
If you get all the way through this and none of it emotionally resonated, I may not be the one to help you feel this right now. You may never have the feeling I describe. Or, you might finish this book, put it down feeling absolutely nothing, and have an experience five minutes later that causes it all to click.
I do believe that this is a feeling that every person can feel. I have no real proof for that statement, except that I keep seeing it happen.
4) Why should I listen to you?
There is no should. You can listen to me if you want to. If you find what I say serves you, I invite you to receive it. If you find what I say doesn’t, I invite you to ignore me.
I will ask two things of you only:
Take me at my word. I have chosen my words carefully. I am not seeking to imply anything beyond what I say.
Read this in goodfaith. You do not have to agree with what I say, but please understand that I genuinely believe in what I’m saying, and as much as anyone can, I know what I’m talking about. I ask you not to discount my words until you have considered them.
5) What was the point of this again?
The word I use to describe what’s at the heart of this book was a feeling. It is simply an awareness of a sensation.
I did not call it an idea. There are certainly ideas in this book, but the ideas are not the point. When did you truly understand love: when someone described it to you as a concept, or when you felt it?
I also did not call it a theory or hypothesis. I’m not making a claim to test and prove true, though there are theories and hypotheses within this book. They come at the end, in the form of advice. I also did not call it a truth. To be true, something must be falsifiable. How do you falsify a feeling? To call a feeling false or true is a category mistake. Feelings simply are or are not felt.
To reiterate, this is a description of the feeling:
Balancing resistance and acceptance through the choice of either/or, the awareness of choice, and the choice to choose.
Now, let us begin our study of the flags.