“I like thinking of anger as a fever. Your body gets a fever when it needs to burn something out of you when it’s not good for you. Similarly, when we get angry, there is something happening that we need to clear from within ourselves.”
~Melissa Dickman, an activist, teacher, a yogini, an urban farmer, a writer, a scholar, a philosopher, a theorist

The dessert of southwest Arizona is not typically a place that comes to mind when you think of social activism and community building. What might come up instead are angry images of hardened officials, forcing undocumented human beings back across the border. But in the midst of everything you do expect, there are a few unexpected heroes that are working to bring change in a very nontraditional way.

On our Global Forest Call, as Melissa Dickman shared her journey as an activist, the well known quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” kept coming up in the back of my mind. Gandhiji’s famous charka was an ingeniously simple tool that enabled anyone to be the change by acting locally and thinking globally. In our conversation with Melissa, Birju Pandya explored her journey in using 21st century tools to enable nontraditional activism grounded in spirituality and love.

Birju: Where did your interest in activism come from?

Melissa: I like to think that my activism was time released. In college I was a theater student but I was always around my friends that were hard core activists, sleeping out on the streets with homeless people, protesting the Iraq war, etc. I always agreed with them but I was like, “I have to go stage manage a play right now.”

But being passive stopped being an option when I started graduate school in Arizona. My very first class was held in a worker’s center for undocumented day laborers, which was set up to try and protect them from exploitation.

I remember meeting one individual who said he was 18 years old but we all knew he was underage. His father had died and he was supporting 7 or 8 siblings back home.

“I can’t imagine if I were 16 or 17 years old, going thousands of miles away to a place where I don’t speak the language or know anyone in order to try and support my family. I don’t know many people who can’t be moved by that, especially when you’re sitting across the table from that person at eye level. I knew I had to do something.”

Birju: You work on immigration issues at a very local level, but to what extent is your work connected to global issues?

Melissa: A law that was passed in Arizona in 2010 attempted to criminalize who you shared your community with. If I knowingly allowed an undocumented person into my home, I could be charged with committing a misdemeanor.

As we fought this law, I was reminded of the time when I lived in Italy. The same issues of racism, xenophobia, and “othering” that are taking place in the American southwest were coming up there. The only difference is that the people that were being pushed out in Italy were from Asia and Africa.

These local and global issues around immigrants bring to light the same fundamental question: How are we defining and creating “community”? There is a sutra from Kundalini yoga that says, “Recognize the other person as you.”

When I hear folks say “that person across the border”, I think, “That person is you so now how do you want to treat yourself?”

Birju: What you’re alluding to is a way of looking at the world that is a real shift from traditional activism.

Melissa: One the one hand, I’m an academic. I study non-violent direction action tactics and analyzed the science behind public protests, marches in the street, sit-ins, and staged arrests. But I’ve realized something.

“There is an energy behind traditional types of activism, such as protests and sit-ins, that I sometimes think is really lacking. It’s like yoga. You can move into the posture but are you connecting your mind, your body, and your spirit at the same time, or are you just in downward facing dog?”

In the same way are you holding a sign and shouting angrily, deepening the lines between US vs THEM? Or are you are trying to the best of your ability to love everyone that is around you whether they are on your side or not? It’s easy to participate in a march and then go home and not even talk to your next-door neighbor or make eye contact with the homeless person.

Birju: How did you make that shift? Tell me about the bat cave.

Melissa: Brene Brown calls it “spiritual breakdown/breakthrough”. I dealt with a lot of anxiety and fear that came out of a lot of my activism. You start to see the other side of human nature and you feel this frustration that it’s not going anywhere. It’s so easy to say I’m not worthy and I’m not a good enough person. That inner dialogue, the search for your own worthiness, the right to be able to love and be loved….I like to say it’s the bat cave because it feels like you’re watching all your darkness close in over yourself.

A six-month intensive yoga and meditation training helped me find a path out of my cave. I developed tools to be able to sit with these emotions and feelings and get through them into something bigger that exists within myself.

Birju: Some folks can hear that comment and think it sounds very deep and very philosophical. But I get a feeling you don’t mean it that way. You mean it as something very actionable. How have you brought this into your day-to-day life?

Melissa: I started to see that big actions have a place and a role, but it’s the little, everyday actions that change me and eventually lead to a larger impact in changing the world. 

Maybe I’m having a disagreement with someone and I’m angry. Being angry is ok because it’s a perfectly human emotion, but my inner reflection is, “I can get angry and I can scream right now and escalate the situation further or I can take a deep breath and say, “Listen friend, I’m feeling angry. I need a day to go sit with myself and get beyond the angry part.”

“I like thinking of anger as a fever. Your body gets a fever when it needs to burn something out of you when it’s not good for you. Similarly, when we get angry, there is something happening that we need to clear from within ourselves.”

So it’s little things like that, learning how to manage myself, be more responsible for my own energy and what I’m putting out into the world versus following old habit patterns and reactions to steer my direction.

Birju: I feel like a lot of activists burn out. How do you feel that a more spiritually based approach to activism prevents burn out and enables more sustainable change in the world?

Melissa: I was one of those activists that burned out. We put so much energy out there and we stop taking care of ourselves. During the six month intensive, I stepped back from really heavy involvement in a lot of movements because I felt so overwhelmed. Now that I have my energy back, I’m asking, “Where do I direct this energy and where is it best spent?”

I’m seeing that it’s easier to see the negative and what isn’t working versus creating a space for positivity. So now my question is, “How can I help people connect into the positive space, which helps us get through the negative that’s in our lives, the oppression in our lives?” This will help us be more centered and clear to face issues as we change them.

Birju: A phrase that comes to mind is enabling positive deviance. What are the different ways that you’ve been exploring that?

Melissa: Permaculture. I love gardens and say, “Instead of talking to a therapist, grow a tomato plant!” I got into gardening in graduate school because I was completely stressed out and hadn’t discovered yoga or meditation yet.

You really see people change in a gardening space and you build community. The community garden accidentally bloomed after I started inviting people over to the house to help garden and enjoy the fruits. The next thing you know, on any given Sunday morning, there are between 3 and 10 people that come over. For some of them, it may be the only time they are in a community or outside in fresh air all week, not looking at a computer screen. We started cooking and grilling together and sharing healthy food.

Some parents come over with their kids and drop them off so that they can enjoy a yoga class and take care of themselves. So we started having treasure hunts in the garden for the kids! We ordered coins from around the world and planted them in different spots in the garden. “Take three steps past a tomato plant and turn left at the eggplant and oh look, there is a treasure!”

Birju: Can you talk more about what Awakin is and this nexus of community and a compassion driven approach?

Melissa: Awakin is a beautiful thing. It’s a space for folks to come together and sit in silence for an hour, then read a reflection reading and share a vegetarian meal together. 

I started holding a space in my house in October and sometimes it’s just the two of us (my roommate and myself) and other times 10 people might show up. I just know that if we held a space, the space will do what it needs to do to serve the community and serve people.

“So often we’re pressed for time and energy so it’s a big thing to say in our world, “I’m going to sit with you for an hour and not say anything and allow my presence to work with you.”

“How much of our world would change if we just slowed down and said, “I’m going to be present with you. When we’re present, it opens up empathy and compassion. It makes it harder to make the choices that hurt ourselves and hurt one another.”

Thank you for being present with us Melissa and for sharing your hard earned wisdom and insights. Let us all shift towards a space of presence, empathy, and compassion.