In the Style section of last Sunday’s New York Times there was a cover story about the emerging Mad Pride movement:
“Just as gay-rights activists reclaimed the word queer as a badge of honor rather than a slur, these advocates proudly call themselves mad; they say their conditions do not preclude them from productive lives.”
In the article the Icarus Project was mentioned and I had a few quotes in there including this mad gem:
“Some Icarus Project members argue that their conditions are not illnesses, but rather, “dangerous gifts" that require attention, care and vigilance to contain. “I take drugs to control my superpowers,” Mr. DuBrul said.”

Ah, to be a lunatic publicly swimming in the waters of the mainstream. In some ways I think this mention of Icarus in a front page New York Times article signals the end of an era, so before things start getting too weird, there are a couple of specifics I would like to publicly clear up.

For years the tension of being a bunch of radical anarchists trying to influence the dominant culture while staying out of it ourselves has been one of the most interesting aspects of working on the Icarus Project. Early on we developed a metaphor to talk about our role in the movement, that of the dandelion pulling the good stuff up from the underground with its deep taproots, influencing the mainstream culture to evolve the way soil structure builds and changes, slowly over time.

Our discussion forums, which are the heart of the Icarus Project community, have been online for 5 1/2 years and literally thousands of people from the around the world have passed through or stuck around our freaky scene, contributing their voices and energy to the group vision and dialog. We have grown together in uncharted and exciting ways and we’ve watched the cultural landscape slowly begin to change because of our bravery and brilliance.

But in this day and age of blogs and press releases, our non-google searchable discussion boards really are the equivalent of being “underground.” We’ve been building a world down there, a world of new language and culture and community, a world bringing together elements of so many disparate subcultures and movements, painful experiences and radical visions for the future, but we’re the only ones who know about it.

This is the Story of a Movement
I often personally feel like I’m channeling the energy and voices of the greater Icarus Project community in my words, but now seems like a really good time to loudly acknowledge that my voice is just one of many in our world and that my opinions and visions definitely do not define the Icarus Project.

A good example would be that many people in our community do not consider themselves to have “dangerous gifts.” In fact for some, especially those who’s work is grounded in gaining cultural acceptance and political gains from our people in the larger mainstream community, the term “dangerous” is actually offensive because it tends to conjure up images of violence. It is really important that we temper our sexy sound bites like “dangerous gifts” with the understanding that people like us who are diagnosed with “mental illness” are statistically no more violent than anyone else in the population. The world of global capital and monoculture is dangerous and violent, not us. The belief that all or even many “mentally ill” people are violent is a product of media sensationalism more than anything else and is not productive to our movement. If some people, like me, choose to express what may be considered “violent” thoughts about the larger political system and the people running it, that’s our personal choice. For the record, in the current Icarus Project Mission Statement we make clear:

“Nonviolence. We believe that we will bring about lasting change in the world through dialogue, compassionate listening, mutual aid, and grassroots networks of support, which may in time form a viable alternative to the current system of government, bureaucracy, domination, and corporate culture.”

Another example of my own opinions not reflecting on the entire community is that I choose to take Western psych drugs to control my intensity of energy and emotions. There are many people in Icarus Project who do not. In fact, one of the foundations of our community is that we respect people’s decisions to do whatever they want to their body, and that as a community our culture must be grounded in self-determination and harm reduction.
This is from the Icarus Project PreRamble in Friends Make the Best Medicine which some local groups read at the beginning of their meetings:

“This is a space for people to come together and learn from each others’ different views of madness. People who take psychiatric drugs are welcome here, as are people who don’t take psychiatric drugs. People who use diagnosis categories to describe themselves are welcome, as are people who define themselves differently. The Icarus Project values self-determination and mutual support.”

Right now the Icarus Project is in a period of really powerful transition and transformation. Three of the original founders, including me, are stepping back from decision making roles and a new wave of energy and people are stepping up and in to create a structure that will allow a lot more people to be able to get involved in the decision-making process. My co-founder, Ashley McNamara, just married her outlandishly amazing girlfriend and they moved to England a couple of weeks ago. Later this year a (long awaited) visionary documentary is going to be coming out featuring Ashley’s work and voice. Madigan Shive, the woman whose mad vision and stubborn idealism has helped to push Icarus out of the non-profit paradigm and into a worker’s collective model based on owl vision and leaderfulness, has stepped back from the project to follow her passion and shining star. We’re all still around, but incredibly grateful for the folks who are allowing us to move on after years of pouring our lives into this project.

Behind the scenes there is an incredibly gifted and talented group of organizers and mad people who are developing a hub and spokes work-group model to spread out the joys and chores of administration, development, outreach, distribution of materials, website coordination, and the growing support network. We still have our office at Fountain House. We are still, slowly and carefully, developing our national network of Icarus groups on college campuses and other institutions. There is a vision of creating a hybrid radical grassroots organization with the parts of a non-profit that serve us well. The dialog that is happening is definitely inspired by the INCITE anthology The Revolution Will Not Be Funded:Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.
 
Meanwhile, some really paradigm shifting discussions around power, especially relating to gender dynamics, have been happening in our community since the new year. Though it is still in process and very little has been publicly written about it, this is probably the most important work we are doing and has the most hope for the future of our people and movement. There are a number of serious issues on the table, but one of the clearest organizational criticisms of the Icarus Project has been the acknowledgment that for years my personal voice and story have overshadowed the voices and stories of so many others in the community – especially that of the women with whom I work side by side.

There are a number of intensely interpersonal dynamics within our organization that reflect larger issues in our culture: issues at the intersection of race and class and gender, which we as mad people come up against just as much as everyone else in our society. But it is part of our belief at the Icarus Project that it is us, the Mad Ones, who because of our greater sensitivity and need for better communication, have the responsibility of carving space for these dialogs to happen. It is our responsibility to inspire cultural evolution. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

To do this is going to take a lot of brave people stepping up and telling their stories together. It is going to take a lot of listening to one another. It is going to take prioritizing our individual and collective health, and coming up with new ways of talking to each other about what health means. It is going to take having collective language to talk about power and privilege. There are very deeply ingrained destructive patterns in our culture and we are collectively attempting to dismantle them and rewrite the story together.
 
I am so grateful for the Icarus Project community. Thank you for listening so closely to me all this time, even when I'm manic and crazy and talking way too loud. Thank you for all the hard earned humbling lessons. Thank you for holding me up when I fall. Thank you for your billiance and inspiration. Let’s take this thing to a whole new level together.

Mad Love and Windborne Seeds,
Sascha