The Hipstory of New World Rising

Our roots stretch back to the early 1980’s, when we connected

with the dynamic punk, reggae, and hip hop scenes in Providence, Rhode Island.

We organized many events, including May Day, Peace and Freedom festivals, and demonstrations.

We circulated countless copies of the NWR paper magazines, on Dead Tour, all across the nation.

In 1986, we printed the first issue of the New World Rising magazine, as part of our

“disrupt the war party” campaign in NYC. During the campaign, we developed strong connections with the anarchists and squatters in NYC. 

In 1987, we connected with the Rainbow Family of Living Light at the National Gathering in North Carolina, seeing people living alternative lifestyles in the here and now. 

In 1988, we connected with the Grateful Dead tour and did three tours a year until the death of Jerry Garcia. We distributed from 10-30,000 copies of the magazine per tour.

New World Rising magazine continued into the late 1990’s, with 30 issues and about 1 million copies being created and distributed. 

Going on tour with the Dead was our primary means to reach the cultural creatives, with NWR spreading our network nationally and internationally. This brought in waves of messages of peace and love, especially from young womyn.

NWR transformed into a communicator and connector for the peace and love and music

world transformation movement. Our distribution peaked in the summer of 1989 at 50,000 copies. We continued touring and distributing and connecting until Jerry died in ‘95.

In 1992, Grateful Fred, the founder of New World Rising, bought an abandoned house in the oppressed neighborhood of South Providence, Rhode Island, to start our Build the New World Now project, by fixing it up into our Sassafras House cooperative living project, with a desired focus on activists, musicians, and artists. Hundreds of people lived there over the 12 years that it continued.

Over the years, we rehabbed Sassafras house and developed an inner city cooperative living experiment. Living together, we had activists, artists, musicians, construction workers, mainly young people and also many otherwise homeless people struggling to survive. We had good times and we had plenty of bad times. We all learned a lot from the experience.

We went into a dilapidated drug and violence prone neighborhood and planted the Rainbow flag of peace, love, caring, sharing and networking together to make the world a better place. We helped many of our neighbors fix up their homes and shared many a spliff with neighborhood youth. We made many friends from our “hippie house” base. But throughout the project, financial responsibility by most of the residents was lacking, and this led to the end of that experiment in 2004.

After that, our core scattered to NY, CO, FL, RI, and other places, 

each doing their thing in the transformation process. 

Now in 2012, the movement intensifies as the imperial system disintegrates.

And New World Rising ‘zine is born again.

2012: the year to SHINE!!!

We Are The New Civilization

We dance to the rhythm of creation.
We face the unknown with wonder and excitement.

We are messengers from the future, 
living in the present.

We come from silence, 
and we speak our truth.

We cannot be quieted, 
because our voice is within everyone.

We have no enemies, no boundaries, 
we are the New Civilization. We are here.

We are waking up now, 
out of the past, to dream a bigger dream.

We are friends and equals, 
we are diverse and unique,

and we're united for something bigger 
than our differences.

We believe in freedom and cooperation, 
abundance and harmony.

We are a culture emerging, 
a renaissance of the essence of humanity.

We find our own guidance, 
and we discern our own truth.

We go in many directions, 
and yet we refuse to disperse.

We have many names, 
we speak many languages.

We are local, we are global.

We are in all regions of the world,

we're everywhere in the air.

We are universe being aware of itself,

we are the wave of evolution.

We are in every child's eyes, old us.

We respect the cycles and 
expressions of nature,
 for we are nature.

We don't play to win, 
we play to live and learn.

We act out of inspiration, 
love and integrity.

We explore, we discover, 
we feel, and we laugh.

We are building a world 
that works for everyone.

We endeavor to live our lives 
to their fullest potential.

We are independent, 
self-sufficient and responsible.

We relate to each other in peace, 
with compassion and respect,

We unite in community.

We celebrate the wholeness 
within and around us all.

We weave the threads of the new times.

We are the new civilization.

A Call to Love and Revolution

A Call to Revolution and Love by Michael W. Petit

"This a personal Love letter, to all my favorite revolutionaries out there... 
May our numbers, and our love for one another and the Earth, never cease to grow. ♥

When I think of Revolution, I think of the word in its alternate meaning, to Revolve, or to turn; 

to stop in our tracks on the mindless mainstream path so many are on, and turn and change our axis of motion in our lives; to stop and turn and consciously change where we place our personal energy, attention and resources. 

Revolution means to use revolutionary thinking and approaches to how we meet our needs, 

and to think and choose very consciously what our actions support, and what supports us. 

Revolution is to engage in RE-evolution of our system of self-support. 

It is to use our power to think and to choose where our money goes, where our food, goods, 

energy and transportation come from, and begin to turn. 

Turn to the task of building a life that needs nothing produced by mega-corporations to support it.  

This is Revolution.

Turn your heart away from the desire to have the glittering prizes of false wealth and money and seek a deeper connection and relationship to the earth and those around you. 

This is Revolution.

Look deeply at your life and begin to find ways to disconnect your personal relationships to the mass-market industrial complex and replace these, one by one with new and fulfilling relationships that are sustainable for the planet and those around you. 

This is Revolution.

Revolution begins when you decide to stop and to turn, and to move on a revolutionary new path in your life, that leads in a different direction than the one you are being mentally herded in by the illusion of social consensus and peer pressure, generated by commercial mass-media.

Revolution begins when you decide to revolutionize your thinking about how you live your life and how your needs and the needs of your family are met every day. And when you realize that all the wealth and affluence of our society gives you the power to choose a different path than the one our commercial mass-media has designed for you, and when you begin to act on that knowledge; when you start to turn and consciously revolve and 

re-evolve the way you move through this world and relate to it, a Revolution has begun. 

A Revolution of humility, of conscience, of awareness, of thoughtfulness and simplicity has begun, and is going on all around you. It is one that like a river, though it begins with the sound of raindrops on a mountain, little by little grows to be a strong and quiet force unstoppable, 

that shapes the land around it.

I am calling you to Revolution. 

I am calling you to turn and to revolve upon the axis of your conscious choices, and seek a new direction. 

I am calling you to Re-evolve and revolutionize your vision of the future, and more deeply own your role in its creation. 

I call you not as leaders call for a revolt. 

I call you as a child calls for your compassion. 

I call you like the rain, like the river, like the mountain, like the ocean is already calling.

I call you with a heart that echoes with their voices.

I call you not as a leader, for you will lead the way.

The New World Rising Book Nook

Finishing reading a collection of ML King speeches “A Call to Conscience”. Enlightening and Inspirational. Getting a better understanding of the importance of a nonviolent movement. Also getting a better idea of why he was assassinated. He was moving beyond civil rights and exposing and condemning the Vietnam war, explaining that the money wasted on bombs was not available to meet social needs here, and he was mobilizing workers to demand a more equitable distribution of wealth, and developing cooperative housing and businesses as a process of building a new world now. This is a winning strategy. Then and Now.

Also recently read "The Lost Memoirs of Edgar Cayce" reinforcing my understanding that we are spiritual beings with spiritual powers and connections. My development of this understanding was part of my harmonic convergence in the late 80s. My convergence included connecting with Grateful Dead tour, connecting with the Rainbow Family, discovering the mind opening powers of LSD, and tuning into the liberationary powers of dance.
During these times I also focused more deeply on meditation and psychic studies leading to my 1st experience of my spirit leaving my body proving to me that we are definitely spiritual beings. These understandings are a great help in maintaining inner peace in these times of turmoil.

Also recently read "The Sixties, Years of Hope, Days of Rage" by Todd Gitlin who was a leader in SDS. Continuing to deepen my understanding of the development process of a revolutionary movement. The 60s were the warm up and practice for this now phase of the New American Revolution. The empire is far weaker now and our consciousness, communications, and connections are far more advanced. In the 60s the vast majority of the American people truly believed in the American Dream of life getting better for everybody. Those days are over. Now the vast majority know that the system is rigged and only the rich are getting richer while the rest of us are stressed and strained more and more.

Again it will be college students who will 1st mobilize to build the movement. But this time they will have the support of the masses of people. The silent majority is fed up and looking for real change.

The key will be showing that 

a better world is possible.