Then, on Monday, I made a second attempt to salvage some of what was seized by the police in the raid. Having already wasted an entire afternoon trekking uptown to the NYC Department of Sanitation garage only to be turned away at the door, and having received plenty of warning about the difficulties of of the process from those who had actually made it inside, I set out early in the morning armed with an mp3 player and prepared to get my zen on.

Five police officers were gathered at the entrance. One searched my bag, confiscating a plastic take-out knife and a fistful of markers (lest I try to claim someone else’s property by writing my name on it, he explained) while another examined my identification. Watching him record my personal information, I couldn’t help but think of the chant I had recited so jubilantly with my fellow “day-oners” – people who had been with OWS since Sept 17^th –on our one-month anniversary: “Show me what a no-fly list looks like! This is what a no-fly list looks like!” So much for not getting arrested – I was now officially on record as part of the 99%.

As I finally entered the space my attempted detachment gave way to sinking, sickening despair. I stood paralyzed, not wanting to believe that I was in the right place. Over thousands of square feet stretched a dismal landscape of rolling tarp hills, sleeping bag valleys, and jagged, broken-tent crevices. A lone figure waded through the rubble in the distance as police stood, arms crossed, lining the perimeter. Seemingly sensing my shock, an officer barked at me from behind a long table covered in paperwork, checked my ID again and told me I could start looking for my stuff. “Start looking,” I repeated, dazed.

I hesitated for a while longer on the periphery before cautiously approaching the wasteland of our former home. I was surrounded by flies and unpleasant smells. Personal items popped up among the ruins; an open suitcase with meticulously packed contents still intact – hard cover novel, toiletry bag, neatly rolled t-shirts; pairs of underwear; someone’s bra; a wheelchair; a demolished bike; devastatingly empty bins from the People’s library with labels like “History and Revolution” and “Class War.”

I caught my breath as I reached dozens of shoes laid out in rows, thinking immediately of CODEPINK’s “walk in their shoes” project. Where we had used the ghostly shoes to draw attention to the human cost of war, labeling each with the name and age of someone killed in Iraq, here they testified to a war on the American people. I started to wonder how much of the rubble littering my own neighborhood in Brooklyn was a result of evictions and home foreclosures. Recognizing stray pieces of my friends’ lives – a sweater I had seen someone wearing, a teddy bear blanket that once saw me through a cold night – I started to think about how, in war-torn countries, every piece of debris represents a wound inflicted on someone’s friend or family.

The more I searched, the less hope I had of ever finding what I was looking for. As I bent over to sort through a pile of deflated air mattresses, a police officer warned me “there’s vomit in there.” Just as I was about to give up, the stranger that had been silently pursuing her separate mission from afar appeared before me. We stood looking at each other for a second and then, to my surprise, she outstretched her arms. Knowing I was about to lose any shred of composure I might have had left, I hugged her. Surrounded by the dismal remains of our community, we stood embracing, bodies shaking to the unmistakable rhythm of sobbing.

When we finally collected ourselves, I started to explain: “I feel like we’re experiencing… a glimpse of what it might be like…living in…” “A war zone” – she said, finishing my sentence. “I don’t know what’s worse, how dehumanizing this whole experience is, or knowing that this kind of thing happens all the time” she added, shaking her head. “People are going to need a lot of help dealing with trauma experienced over the past week.”

Another woman arrived shortly after, looking about as stunned as I felt when I first walked in, and said to no-one in particular “I feel like I’m in a massacred graveyard.” Then my friend Embi arrived, in significantly higher spirits. She had clearly been here before and wasted no time in getting down to business – making sure everyone had gloves, explaining what went where. It was then I realized that it was only because of people like her that anyone was able to find what few things they could – she had been up there every day, bravely, patiently, sifting and sorting through the vast mess. “Oh good, someone got their beanbag” she said approvingly, referring to what looked like a random heap but was apparently a designated spot for “soft things like pillows – but not sleeping bags.”

When I eventually left, the other women were still hard at work sorting. I asked if there was anything they needed so I could tell other people who were heading up there. “Band-aids… and snacks!” Embi replied, with a huge smile.

I hugged her goodbye and felt the level tip once more — back to hope.

Statement from WOW*

At last Friday’s Spokes Council, the Women Occupying Wall Street (WOW) Spoke stepped up to the mic to present our application to the Spokes Council inclusion. Almost immediately, our Spoke was interrupted by a male member of the community who physically seized the microphone. Derailing process, he argued that the facilitation team’s decision to go forward with the meeting violated the principle of “transparent participatory democracy” enshrined in our Principles of Solidarity.

Regardless of the contested validity of Friday’s Spokes Council, WOW’s right to speak was egregiously disrespected, violating an equally important Principle of solidarity: “mutual respect.”

Without mutual respect, our movement will be held hostage by those who violate process. Yielding to those that push the hardest and shout the loudest is the culture of the Wall Street trading floors we are purportedly united in fighting. It is the culture that justifies the use of violence, fear and coercion to wield power over the 99%.

The silencing of WOW reflects a broader failure in our movement to recognize and meaningfully address privilege. Thus far, Spokes Council has failed utterly in “empowering one another against oppression.” It is imperative that we take “individual and collective responsibility” to devise concrete actions that address this failure. The Spokes Council was not a safe space on Friday night, and without safe space, we cannot fully and fairly participate in direct democratic process.

To ensure that marginalized voices can be heard, we must uphold the principles of solidarity that this community has agreed upon.

WOW calls on the OWS community to commit to one foundational practice: listening with mutual respect and without interruption to those who have been empowered by the community to speak.

Through active listening and respect for each other and our mutually agreed upon process of communication, we must work together to create a community in which all voices are truly equal.

*This is a living document that is currently being reviewed and collaboratively edited by the members of WOW.

Then out of nowhere, about five minutes before noon, people poured in. Our crowd quadrupled. Energy abounded. NYC-celeb and Green Party mayorial candidate Rev. Billy arrived with a small choir, as did some from War Resisters League and more from CODEPINK DC, Long Island and NYC.

And so we were off, dancing and marching with our signs and banners, fueled by an amazing four-person band Himalaya that decided to march right among us. With thousands of others, we snaked our way through the narrow streets (made more narrow by the relatively-friendly NYC police) on down to Battery Park, where several dozen organizations from CODEPINK to the Green Party hawked buttons, stickers and more, distributed literature and schmoozed with the crowd. We heard about 10,000 people marched, quite a feat considering the weather and overall political mood these past few months. Not bad, not bad at all!

That mood — of confusion, of hope, of despair, of misdirection, of disagreement, of inspiration — has made organizing rather tough. Our country’s economic collapse, thanks to mismanaged corporations rewarded over and over by billions of our taxes, has enraged us and given us momentum to call out against its numerous injustices and connect them to the war economy. But our pockets, too, have emptied. It’s not easy to fund-raise, fly cross country to join a march, print banners or invest in outreach, let alone convince mainstream America to join the cause and do the same. We all have different priorities, too, now that the Iraq War no longer unites us. Gaza, Afghanistan and Pakistan — how much has escalated there in the past few months alone, not to mention violent escalations the anti-war movement have largely ignored, like those in Sri Lanka, Congo and Mexico. Then there’s Obama and “Obamanation.” Many of us in the movement rode the nation’s wave of ecstasy that pushed him to his presidency, but now for many of us, that wave has crashed into a wall of reality. How to push Obama when the American public largely supports his every move (it’d be easier in Europe, where G20 protesters seemed to have some answers).

None in the movement here have offered solid answers. But we’re working hard on them. Today Brave New Foundation is hosting a Get Afghanistan Right blogging day, encouraging all with a blog to write about ending the military occupation of Afghanistan, and UFPJ has some days of action planned. We’ve put together this page on our Web site, with resources, and we plan for quite a bit of discussion and outreach at our Mother’s Day 24-hour vigil across the street from the White House this May 9 and 10. The mood Saturday warmed considerably as the day wore on, as we were reminded of our incredible potential to join together to demonstrate our desire for change, fiercer than any wind we faced that day.