Harambee: Pulling Together in the Digital World

Borrowing a word from Swahili, the most prominent African language of East Africa, seems appropriate to initiate this collective, website, and publishing imprint. Swahili became popular in the late Sixties among black Americans as a celebration of African-ness. Harambee means pulling and working together for justice and freedom, that summarizes the vision of The Firebird Rising. We seek to transform digitized isolation, anonymity, and cynicism by building a community of courageous creative collaborating souls, who mine their personal depths and experiences in writing, paintings, photos, and other creative media. Our work emerges from the deep mine of years of life experiences tempered with heart and soul. Paradoxically, we also tap the sometimes naive dreams of youth to inform hope in our work.

One quality of the hippie days I sorely miss is the sense of purpose and community we had. We 'thumbed' rides, we demonstrated en mass, we passed doobies to strangers, and we flashed the peace sign to fellow-travelers. Our togetherness had a idealistic purpose: Make the world a better, more fun and fair place. Of course, young people are by nature idealistic. Whereas now we older/ senior citizens may see futility in the political process, as youth we dared to hope, make that expected the Establishment to change its evil ways. That is until we became the Establishment.

Riding the crest of an economic boom in the 60s and 70s, the Baby Boomers weren't concerned about income equality. Our retort to the conservative slogan---‘love it or leave it’---of ‘change it or lose it’ activated a backlash to our dreams of a cooperative, peaceful, and humane society, which in the 21st century reached fruition in the 2016 presidential election. The core capitalistic tension between exploitation and 'free-enterprise' has been exacerbated with the election of a “B” movie actor as president in 1980, minimum wage stagnation, and income inequality exceeding that of the Gilded Age of 1900. Due in varying degrees to globalization, technology, union busting, unbridled illegal immigration, and corporate greed, we now live in an economy that assigns almost all responsibility on the individual.

Our current extreme interpretation of self-reliance represents some sort of apotheosis of American greed. Originated by  progressive positive-thinking writers, the early 20th century self-help slogan “If it is to be, it is up to me’ was appropriated by the newagers and their ilk in the 'me decade' of the 80s. Ballyhooed as self-esteem, the go-it-alone mentality became a siren call in the 80s/ 90s for success. Conservatives said the market works wonders, so let's drop pensions in favor of 401 Ks, trade job security for independent contractor status, and exchange right-to-work for unions and ethical news media for social media.

What do people band together for anymore? The SuperBowl? The Oscars? The demise of the commons has led to an atomized society where survival is like Bob Marley’s concrete jungle, survival of the slickest. Find your own way. But back in the day we had a different version: John Lennon promoted ‘Come Together.’ But come together for what? At the time Boomers were young and inexperienced, now the opposite is true.

Like the web we all use, rather than the current fantasy that everyone can win (and 99% lose), perhaps by pulling together/ harambee we can invoke the Revolutionary War slogan by Ben Franklin, “Either we all hang together, or we;ll hang separately.” With knowledge gleaned from many years of service/ work in the world and a heartfelt desire to offer a legacy, Boomers are perfectly poised to offer wisdom for building more caring and cooperative society. My personal mission builds on those roots and my experiences to foster creativity in community by reviving the original hippie ideals, before they devolved into crystals, psychics, and hugging gurus. The Firebird Rising offers a space for individual and collaborative original expressions from our creative collective.

RW Klarin, founder/ publisher of The Firebird Rising

WF Pray, Reno, NV

WF Pray tends toward the private and resists bio’s as he says, “It can encourage reducing an artist’s message to biography.”  Consequently, he insists on a brief summary---for more info consult his personal webpage [www.williampray.com]. He was born in California, spent most of his youth in foster homes, which he believes, in his case, was not a negative experience. However, although never abused, Pray received no encouragement in school. Growing up in such an environment led to him dropping out of high school. In those days, the early sixties, a high school education was not required for the military, and with the Selective Service breathing down his neck, he did the right thing. After living life in the raw for a few years, working manual labor and driving trucks, Pray completed junior college, then earned a BA and MA in Political Science, from Cal State, Northridge (CSUN.); a second MA, in Philosophy, was a personal goal and was earned some twenty years later. After a couple of jobs with the state and the county, he taught mathematics for several years. As a last capstone to his career in education, he worked a few years as a dean of students.  WF has written most of his life and had a few things published over the years. Now in retirement he writes nearly full time. Enough said about the phoenix, WF Pray, let’s let his work speak for him.

RW Klarin, Santa Monica, CA

RW worked as a teacher, dean of discipline, assistant principal, principal, and headquarters administrator in a nearly thirty year career in public education.  Concurrent with his career with the LA Unified School District, he has pursued spiritual/ personal growth paths (with variable success and satisfaction) from Advaita to Zen for over forty years.

Born in Los Angeles and raised in the suburban San Fernando Valley, he has been a resident of the formerly bohemian (now high tech) Ocean Park district of Santa Monica, CA since 1974.  Although he identifies experience and creativity as his greatest teachers, he has acquired a BA and two graduate degrees with a total of ten years of seat time in higher education.  He is in other words, an educated fool.

Klarin has traveled to over 60 countries and over 100 hot springs, exhibited a solo painting show, published poetry, and performed at numerous open-mikes.  Among his greatest pleasures is racing his Porsche sports car through Topanga Canyon.

He and Adwin Brown hatched the vision of a creative collective that inspires creative expression for all.  Encouraged to birth the vision on-line by WF Pray, a lifelong writer and also a former teacher, now RW edits, publishes, and manages The Firebird Rising imprint between golfing and meditating.

James R. Merrill, Keizer, OR

Wow, getting across the finish line always takes a lot longer than expected.  But after a couple editing episodes and long discussions, the blues poet James R Merrill has published his first ever collection of poetry.  Merrill has been writing for over forty years and taught creative writing at the college and high school level for over twenty years.  Merrill earned a MFA from the renowned 'beat' school Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO.  Currently, he writes, gives workshops, and reads at poetry open mikes in and around his hometown Keizer, Oregon.

Now, in the autumn of his life, time and courage have been summoned and he has consented to publish his collection on The Firebird Rising.  He exemplifies the Firebird vision:  idealist, un-heralded, truth-telling, non-literary establishment, Boomer, and perhaps most importantly a visionary.

James R. Merrill has published two books of poetry and a manual for creative writing, since retiring from a varied career in public education.  Jim worked in ESL for adults, special ed, graduate writing classes, mainstream high school, and ultimately at a boarding school for American Indians in Salem, OR.

Yes, Jim Merrill is an original and I'm proud to have him on The Firebird Rising.  Welcome aboard Jim.  Thanks for waving your zen flag with us.