the centre cannot hold

Last Night I Dreamt of Iraq

2007-02-12T20:57:00.000-08:00

The world exploding in a shower of light disappearing into a chaotic swirling hell of noise and fear. Ila was with me, tied with a strong rope to my waist, like a lifeline. Somehow we became seperated. I roamed frantically through the rubble and debris, the oppressive clouds of dust and smoke, searching every disconnected limb, each mangled parody of a body searching for some sign of recognition. A final resolution to my seeking. Calling, calling, calling out her name. If she was gone I could dissemble, all ties to earth dissolved in loss, but the painful relentless hope that we may find eachother kept me sifting through the wreckage.
I woke in bed, in my home, surrounded by wilderness and the stars twinkling over the bed through the skylight, secure in this place, this country no matter how far to the ends of the continent I go. Still accountable for all the priveledges I could choose to have access to. It tightens my skin. I can wake from a dream of hell, make choices, love my family, watch Ila's light grow and shine, so many will never have such opportunity for joy. Tell me friends how can we stand such times and live? Yet how can we do anything but? What future do our children have in a world that increasingly has so little regard for the sancticity of life if we do not begin showing them and modelling it in our every day lives. The following is taken from Harper's January 9th Weekly Review:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced that he would not be seeking a second term. “I didn't want to take this position,” said al-Maliki. “I wish it could be done with even before the end of this term.” [InTheNews] Grandmothers gathered in Times Square to hold a vigil for the 3,000 U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq,[AP via International Herald Tribune] and the Army apologized for sending letters to officers killed in action urging them to reenlist.[CNN] Iraqi security guards were arrested for taking illegal cell phone footage of Shiite officials taunting Saddam Hussein before he was hanged. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt called images of the execution “revolting and barbaric,” and Libya announced its intention to erect a statue of Hussein on the gallows. Master Sgt. Robert Ellis, a senior medical adviser responsible for Hussein's care in Baghdad, praised the stoicism displayed by Hussein. “Saddam,” he said, “was gangsta.” A Texas 10-year-old who had seen video footage of the execution died after hanging himself from his bunk bed.

Dr. Suess knew, so did Cat Stevens so I leave you with this ingenious taste of exactly the right medicine. I believe that Thoreau was right when he wrote, "In wilderness is the preservation of the world, " All I can hope is that I can teach Ila and as many other children as I can to "speak for the trees, for the trees [and their hearts!] have no tounges".

Venting

2007-02-08T13:18:00.000-08:00

I think I am lost out here in blogland, well off the beaten track at least, in cyberspace as well as physical space. It is fine by me though, hopefully it means I am on to something! Those who do stop by I do hope you will start commenting! Please? I am a firm believer in the teaching power of other's views just as Socrates was was back when in antiquity. How am I to strengthen flaws in myself without honest discussion?
I am not meaning just here on this screen but in general, both public and private.
I lovelovelovelove my partner for just who he is but lengthy discussion is not his interest, which is fine, he complements and balances out my tendency to exist totally in words and abstractions and I provide the catalyst to change our situation. It works, but it does mean that I need to look outside just the two of us to fufill my need to think and be thought to outloud, to learn. To ramble into the wee hours over music and food, my idea of the true university. Chris becomes suceptible to fits of narcolepsy starting anywhere between 8-11 pm and there is no inducing him back to the waking world. On my more truly insomniatic nights I observe his precious snoringness and envy him utterly. Unfortunatley although there are many wonderful people here everyone is fully engaged in their home and routine and is almost exclusively either 20 years older than us or who like to discuss over booze which is NOT my idea of a good time, while I love and admire them, it seems opportunity for real visits/discourse are rare. Visiting with a two year old during the day time is a fun exhausting business but leaves little room for more then giggling helplessly over her antics. She is VERY much the centre of all activity by being so absurdly happy 99% of the time, you can't help but give her your undivided attention which is what she deserves anyway. It doesnt help that I tend to be more interested in whatever children happen to be around and they in me, so that visiting with other parents is great but not what I am talking about. When we lived further south we had a great deal more visitors which I find so much more appealing then being the one to do the travelling then coming home to a cold house. Ila also refuses to sleep anywhere other than in her crib, no discussion, our lovely daughter who tells US when it is bedtime and happily snuggles in at night and nap becomes a raging fiendish hell beast, ALL NIGHT LONG. Factor in a dog and the assorted baggage and stuff, not to mention no $ takes all the spontenaeity out of leaving the Island. Secondly I just don't see why they would not want to see the incredible experience we are living here, I have never been anywhere like it and I have trekked back and forth across this country from Pacific to Atlantic six times (for a grand total of 18,000 kilometers by air, train, car and thumb) and spent time in every major Canadian city. I decided that I had no interest in being anywhere but the wetcoast at 16 when I came back for the last time. Since then I have travelled up and down this coast though no further north than Port Hardy (1hr from here). In a region known for it's epic beauty I have found no place more lovely or welcoming than this. The fact that this soil has been fertilized for over 100 years in dreams of freedom from modernity is no small selling point for me.
We moved to Sointula in May of 2005 and since that time only my father has made the trek here (6 hours driving the most beautiful stretch of pavement I have ever seen and a quick picturesque ferry ride) 4 or 5 times. I have been tempted a few times to get away not because I have any desire to leave but because like Ani said, "Strangers are exciting their mystery never ends, but there's nothing like seeing your own history in the faces of your friends." I can't help but feel that for 24 years of living I have left very little impression on those who I have loved since they have so little interest in what has such deep and profound value for me, dreams and the fufillment of them. I have always been so happy to support them and try to do whatever I could to help them achieve anything, whatever moved them towards happiness.
I have been reading both Sicicily Sue and supergirlest's blogs and both have written about loss of friends and community for simply being true to who they want to be. For just evolving. I know that has been true for my own experience, every time I have made decisions that brought me closer to being fully true to what in Herman Hesse wrote in Demian, "the promptings which came from my true self." I too demand as his character did, why is that so very difficult?
Not for myself but for all those who would rather deny those urgings because they are, as I can attest, so very inconvenient for living a comfortable or predicatable life. I have no wish for either. I know that safety is an illusionary carrot we dangle in our noses as distraction to keep us from recognizing the danger we present to ourselves and the immense reality of our situation. In short, all the work we should be doing. To speak out about the chains that bind us is to threaten the comforting illusion of the herd and of course they don't want to realize they have the keys to all the locks, they just want to go on milling. I refuse to settle for anything less then freedom, I believe that Martin Luther King was right when he said that it is no more possible to be half-alive then it is to be half-free. Whenever I have stood up without compromise for what I knew to be right I have lost friends regardless of the reason. So many other blogs are full of such honest stories of life and loss on a personal level and I have mainly written of where I am theoretically and physically at now. I have recreated myself so many times in self-preservation that my own past seems vaguely disconnected and surreal though if I choose I can go at will into the dark places of my heart without becoming lost or fatalistic. Why? Maybe because in the words of Dr. Suess himself, I know that, some people are much more, so much much much much more, so muchly much more, unlucky then [I] (from Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?).
I would be more inclined to let my past languish somewhere undisturbed while I am busy remaking myself (hey could you pass me the duct tape?) but I also know that it doesnt work that way. My every action is filtered through the accumulation of all my experiences, who I am is directly related to who I have been and continue to become. Everything I have been reading has made me rewind and consider my choices and the choices that were made for me, for keeping with the thread of lost friends, I have also lost many for experiencing grief or pain or anger as a result of the situations I found myself in, which I believe was also being true to myself in a different, but no less important, way. . . .
I was refusing to stop feeling.
I am feeling desperate and hopeful, torn in both directions all the posts I have been reading have been churning in my mind. I want to get it all out but it backs up, sticks in my throat, gums up my hands, falling out all garbled and incoherent. While I am still trying to pull my thoughts into some kind of tangible order so I will share some old bits and bobs on the subjects that are rattling around in my head.
I think I summed it up best when I was 14 and I type out my thoughts here for myself and whoever stumbles along because they perfectly convey my utter bewilderement that has only increased at what passes as normative for so many when they hit me right in the stomach. Like little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin, "these things just sink into my heart".

Maybe I'm just stupid.
Or maybe there is some inherent part of my psyche that got left in the womb when I was brought into this world. There is so much that I can not even begin to comprehend. I am reminded of how "a wise man is one who knows he knows nothing" or something like that. I am not sure if my realization of the fact that there are multitudes of things I'll never understand makes me wise or not but it certainly makes me frustrated.
There is no room in me to understand racism, rape, violence, murder, child abuse, the denigration and denial of women as valid and valuable human beings, religious fanaticism, the list just goes on and on into infinity. I know that these things exist. I have been a victim of a fair number and yet I still just can't wrap my mind around them.
How can anyone look into the beautiful face of a child and steal the bright light within? Hurt their precious tiny limbs?
How can anyone force another to the ground, violate, strip of human-rights, self-esteem, life?
How can we starve and demean entire nations of people?
Once again, maybe I'm stupid.
I have heard it said countless times that Canada is a glorious, free democracy. This makes me furious! A democracy means by the people not this "mob rule" as Plato rightly called it. The mob being the business men in their penthouse suites and their $70 000 cars, whispering their demands into the ears of their elected criminals, and since spineless marionettes are the only one's financially capable of running for office the last thing we have is a democracy.
In a true democracy 11 year old girls would not sell their bodies for the cash to feed their parent's heroin addictions because social services could care less and our government is too busy building billion dollar businesses and trying to get people to stop smoking.
In a democracy each person's concerns are valid but would any member of parliment stop long enought to listen to the opinions of some lysol drenched wino?
Who draws the line between a valid and non-valid member of society? Could someone please tell me how to pinpoint that distinction. Silly me, I thought we were all essential and deserving of an equal quality of life. How naive. You are only worthwhile if you play the game, smile pretty, smell nice, pay taxes and expect no less than a knife in the back for showing compassion.
In my hometown I have seen people step over the blue body of another person because of the needle in his arms, nevermind that blood is running from his ears and nose. Even disgust or anger would have been better then the blind unseeing eyes of the people who stepped over his prone body. This scares me. This sickens me. This moves me to tears.
I want to change the world, to make a difference, shake the foundations of people's ideologies, make them taker a closer look at the consequences of not only their actions but their thoughts. Where do I even start?
Charlottetown, PEI, 1996

Maybe that's it, I'm just stupid. After all instead of going to class like the normal kids I wrote stuff like that instead and got high, and abused. Go figure. I am still trying, to not allow the rest of the world who is so hell bent on conformity to let me stop thinking that I can make a difference, that I matter, whether or not anyone else believes that to be the case. I KNOW it to be true. I am reminded of my favorite Zap Mama song where they sing, for no one will I go to hell. I will not dull my painful heart to all the things I know are not okay. All the things that I am not closer to understanding now then I was then.
So instead of writing on the achingnesses that I am turning over in my brain I will end with a song that I wrote about solutions, it makes me feel good maybe you will too. Just for clarification THIS:

is Hastings and Main....

WORTH

Fill Main and Hastings with flowers
pull the stars from the sky and place them in the hair of women on corners
offer them a seat, time to rest their aching feet
Wash the faces of dirty children with love
Feed them dishes of treats they have never heard of
Give them places and spaces in your hearts and your homes
Give them room to grow

Everybody deserves someone to see their worth
To be held and cherished, honoured and nourished
To be simply seen, we all want to be simply seen
as human beings

Hold the hands of old men lying in doorways,
stop to talk and hear what they have to say
Offer something sweeter to drink then listerine
Give them time and a safe place to think over all they've seen
Offer up a smile to a man in a three piece suit
Clutching his briefcase as though he may have something to lose
For you know he is equally as confused as me and you

(chorus) Everybody....to be simply seen as a living thing

Give praise to the mothers and daughters of our generation
who are raising the next dreamers and lovers and believers
of our brand new nation and try to just simply see
each of us as deserving human beings
2000

On that note I am taking my tired out self to bed. Hopefully to dream of sugar plums and visions of other nice things instead of what I just spent the last two hours reading.

yoUNIte logo and objectives

2007-02-07T21:59:00.000-08:00

This is what I have been working on for the last few days. Today I had a meeting with the local Resource Centre whose board I just happen to sit on, they agreed to serve as an interim board of directors while I start meeting with Island youth to find and elect a youth board. It feels good to get the ball rolling and begin to put into practive the ideas and knowledge I have been accumulating. For those with o clue what youth empowerment is I will include a definition here: Youth empowerment is an attitudinal, structural, and cultural process whereby young people gain the ability, authority, and agency to make decisions and implement change in their own lives and the lives of other people, including youth and adults. -Adam Fletcher, Freechild Project. If you have not heard of the freechild project I suggest you haul yourself over there for a much needed crash course in youth liberation while I haul myself off to bed.

The futures we inherit are not of our own making, but the futures we create for generations of young people who follow us arise out of our ability to imagine a better world, recognize our responsibility to others, and define the success of a society to the degree that it can address the needs of coming generations to live in a world in which the obligations of a global democracy and individual responsibility mutually inform each other.
-Henry Giroux, Translating the Future and the Promise of Democracy

Objectives

Empower Upper North Island youth as leaders and peacemakers through creativity, education, peer support and hands on community involvement.
Supply youth with the skills needed to navigate a rapidly changing world and the confidence to achieve their dreams.
Create opportunities for conservation and cooperation in the North Island region.
Provide rural youth with access to fine and performing arts, learning, mentorship, and skill building opportunities with the creation of an annual full summer leadership program and year round workshops and events.
Participate in building inclusive youth friendly communities that celebrate diversity.
Engage youth in preserving and valuing local and traditional knowledge.
Invest in youth as leaders and problem solvers.
Organize, support and encourage youth driven initiatives and events.
Unite youth across boundaries to find solutions to common problems.

yoUNIte!

2007-02-05T23:32:00.000-08:00

I am working overtime now that howl is over and out of the way to develop the funding proposals for yoUNIte Empowerment Society, I am so bored with non-profit acronyms that I thought long and hard about this one. Yo as in "Yo! Get up off your ass", you for You as individual and youth, UNI=upper north island (the region of the province we live in) and also a play on unity, you'n'i=u-n-i-t-y, and YES as the short form because we need to unite to say yes to a better way of life for all youth, those now and those yet to come. The purpose of YES will be to empower youth as peacemakers and global citizens in a youth governed and driven organization akin to A.S. Neill's Summerhill (the original freeschool) eventually I hope this to develop into a full time year round learning institute for children and youth and hopefully our home. What better place to teach peacemaking then in a place of harmony? So I will be sharing some of what I am turning up in my research. It feels so GOOD to put away the constant reading and researching all the ways youth are dying and being failed for writing howl and now turning to all the incredible powerful youth there are out there now. The following is taken from http://www.universityofthepoor.org

A Proposed Young Peoples' Liberation Policy

Introduction

Hello, welcome to the young people's liberation policy. We hope you enjoy every word of it. Relax, make yourself comfortable. Try reading it with someone else and talking about it with them afterwards. Take your time, you don't have to read it all at once.

What's a Liberation Policy?

It is our best understanding of young people, our oppression, and what we are doing to end it. This policy also contains information and ideas we have found important and useful. We will improve it as we learn more about ourselves and the world.

Purposes of Our Policy

The purposes of our policy are to:
" Remind us of the great things about being young.
" Give information on the situation of young people.
" Show how we can act effectively on our own thinking.
" Tell people how we want to be treated now.
" Help us in ending our oppression.
" Help us set goals for the future. And make us smile.

Who We Are

Young people are human beings under age 21. We are almost half the world's population. There are over 3 billion of us. We live in every part of the world. As young people we share common experiences that are unique to us. We have common bond that cuts across all differences of race, ethnic background, class, sex, nationality, religion, sexual preference, physical and mental differences. Because of the laws that limit some of us until age 21, this age has been chosen as the dividing line between being a young person and being an adult.

Our Roles in the World

As young people we are a key part of the world. We are active and powerful people. What we do and think has a great impact on our societies.
The economy depends on young people as consumers. Without our support the alcohol, food, clothing, toy, military, drug, education, candy, record, entertainment, fashion, car, and book industries would be forced to change quickly to avoid collapsing.
We do things to change society that many older people are still too afraid to do. We lead protests and revolutions all over the world. Young people are political leaders in many "third world" countries. We make up the majority of the military forces of the world. Without our support it is very hard for our countries to go to war.
Many of our families depend on us for their economic survival. We work on our families' farms, businesses etc.. Our families often depend on us to care for them.
Young people are important not only because of the things we do. By just being ourselves and enjoying our lives we improve life for everyone.

Young People's True Nature

Young people are powerful, bursting with life and energy, intelligent, good, lovely, and cooperative. We respect and enjoy each other, our world, and all other living creatures. Anytime we do not feel or act like this way, it is because of our oppression.

What is Oppression?

Oppression is when all members of one group of people are mistreated either by society as a whole, or by a particular group. This mistreatment is one-way and systematic. As a group young people are oppressed by adults. This oppression is part of the structure of our economy, schools, mental health systems, religions, political structures, families, media, etc..

The Oppression of Young People

Our oppression appears in many forms. The base of all these forms is lack of respect. Every human being deserves complete respect at every age. Young people are not given all the respect we deserve for our goodness, power, intelligence, thinking, and creativity because of our age. Often we are not recognized as real, complete human beings, with a will of our own. Because of this lack of respect, we are not allowed or expected to have complete power over our lives. We are not trusted to be able to think, make decisions, take action on our own, or correct our mistakes.

The Effects of the Oppression

The fundamental effect of our oppression is that the majority of young people live in extreme poverty and economic oppression. Thousands of young people starve to death every year. Many young people die because of unhealthy living conditions. For most young people surviving; trying to have a place to live, food to eat, and good health takes all of our time and attention. Most young people never get the opportunity to think about, experience, or work to change many of the situations that are talked about in this statement. In order for us to be completely liberated all forms of our oppression must be stopped.

A Few Examples of the Oppression

" We are expected to shut up and to be out of the way.
" Adults have the "right" to beat us and threaten us.
" Our ideas, governments and revolutions are attacked by more economically powerful countries.
" We are continually told that we will be good enough only when we have learned more.
" We are not expected to be powerful.
" We are looked upon as unintelligent.
" Our judgment is considered worse than adults. We are not thought of as valuable and important.
" We are not allowed to vote.
" Thousands of young people starve every year.
" Our relationships are not recognized as important.
All of this affects us in our homes, our schools, our jobs and on the street. In every corner of our lives we are hit by the oppression and inhuman expectations that come with it.

Internalized Oppression

Everyone is (or has been) a young person. We all are (or have been) mistreated because we are (or were) young. Everyone tries to deal with this oppression in their own way. Because of its unrecognized, inhuman and extreme nature few people have been able to deal with the oppression well. Practically everyone has started to believe the lies we are (or were) told about ourselves as young people (for example: we are not powerful, we are a bother etc.). We start to feel these lies are true for all young people, and often begin to treat young people as if they are stupid, and not really human etc.. This process of how we come to believe the lies we are told about ourselves and about other young people is called "internalizing the oppression".

Examples of How Internalized Oppression Works

We often feel bad about ourselves and feel that older people are more important. By treating other young people as less important and acting more "cool" or "mature", we try to prove we are "better" and deserve more respect than they do.
Often we feel we are not good enough the way we are; and that we have to "become something." By competing with each other about who drinks the most, has the best toys, says their times tables faster, uses the most difficult words, who has the "best" sex life, is prettier, or acts tougher etc., we try to show people we are "something" and feel better about ourselves.
Internalized oppression is the main force in continuing the oppression of young people. It divides us, and keeps us from working together to end our oppression. It keeps us from enjoying ourselves and each other.
For interesting ways to stop internalized oppression read the section on, "Steps Towards Our Liberation".

How the Oppression Continues

This internalized oppression is the main reason that adults treat young people badly. The hurts that they suffered as young people left them with a confused memory and understanding of being a young person. The mistreatment they endured came to seem "normal" or "just the way things are." This makes it possible for adults to be forced into taking oppressive roles and continuing the social system that oppresses young people.
A hopeful sign is that each generation of adults passes on less of the lies and mistreatment they received when they were young. Another great thing is that now that we understand how this mechanism of internalized oppression works we can interrupt it with great success.

Age Does Not Affect the Basic Content of Oppression

The specific ways that our oppression affects us is different depending on our age, but the basic content of the oppression is always lack of respect.

Feeling Powerful and Being in Control of Our Lives

When we are very young we expect that we will have control of our lives. We assume that we will decide when we eat, who we want to be with, what we are going to do, etc..
Throughout our lives we have our power taken away from us. Sometimes wars and poverty disrupt ours and our parents lives. Often there are not enough people to take care of us and help us grow. When we do have people to take care of us, these people usually assume that we do not know what we want or need. They put us to bed when they want us to sleep. They move us around at their convenience. They treat our talking and communication as if it is unimportant. This type of treatment continues as we grow up. It often makes us feel as if we are not powerful and in charge of our lives.
Although we are discouraged often, the truth remains that we are powerful. We fight bravely to stand up for ourselves with our voices, bodies, and minds. As young people we have consistently worked to take complete charge of our lives. We have found it is possible to be with people in ways that are powerful while going to school, protecting our countries, keeping our families together, working, worshipping, surviving, socializing, sleeping, etc..
Factors that Affect Our Lives and Liberation
" We often do not have as much information about the world and ourselves as older people do.
" We are usually smaller and weaker physically than adults, and can be threatened by physical force and violence.
" We have few legal rights in most situations.
" We have little or no money of our own. When we do have money we often are not free to spend it the way we want.
" We expect the world to be a rational, human place and it is not explained to us why it is not.
" We are not told that the mistreatment we receive from people is the result of the way those people have been mistreated and hurt. Instead we are told that there is something wrong with us, or that these people are evil and have a mean, vicious way of thinking.
" We are dependent on adults for our money, food, shelter, information, transportation, and communication. We often risk losing access to these things if we stand up against the oppression.

How Other Oppressions Effect Us

In addition to being oppressed as young people, all of us belong to other oppressed groups, Jews, Japanese, Asians, Aborigines, women, artists, working class, disabled, blacks, etc..
This adds to the internalized oppression. It gives other socially accepted excuses for young people to mistreat each other. Young gentiles oppress Jews. Young white people oppress blacks, etc..
The other oppressed groups we are identified with are often socially recognized as oppressed and more attention is given to them, because of this we often forget that being young is a basic issue in our lives.

Ending All Oppression

" We will not be completely liberated until all oppressed groups are liberated.
" Part of our liberation is having fun in becoming experts on the liberation of all people.
Our Liberation is Key for All Liberation Movements
To end the oppression of young people is important to all people. If people were not oppressed when they were young they would never accept and would never help continue any other oppression. Without the hurt, confusion, and feelings of powerlessness that comes from being oppressed as young people, sexism, racism, classism and other forms of oppression would never be accepted. Young people as a group would become a model of people from all different groups treating each other well. Young people would quickly become leaders for all groups and liberation movements.

Steps Towards Our Liberation

There are many things that must happen for us to be liberated. This is a general outline of what we need to do for our liberation. Each young person and group of young people need to have a plan of how they are going to be liberated that includes specific long and short range goals. There are four basic steps for our liberation. (1) Ending the ways we have internalized our oppression. (2) Talking with as many young people as possible about our oppression. (3) Building groups of young people to working together to liberate ourselves. (4) Talking with adults about young peoples' liberation, and having them help us in our work.

1) Feeling Good About Ourselves - Not Believing Internalized Oppression

There are many things that we wouldn't change about ourselves or our lives. Young people accomplish amazing things and have a lot of fun doing it. We are good people. Despite this we have internalized some of the oppressive lies we are told. Many of us feel terrible about ourselves. We blame ourselves for things we know aren't our fault, etc..
By deciding not to believe these feelings about ourselves and other young, people we begin to reclaim our true human nature. Part of deciding not to believe internalized oppression is taking delight and pride in everything we do. Reminding each other that we are good, important people, helps us to feel good about ourselves and to remember that what we do is important. Because internalized oppression makes us forget our goodness and power, we need to decide to like ourselves and other young people over and over.
A commitment has developed to help us in ending our internalized oppression. Working to keep this commitment is a powerful tool in ending our oppression. This is it, "I cheerfully promise, from this moment on, to never again treat any young person, first and foremost myself, with anything less than complete respect."

2) Being Friends - Stopping the Effects of Internalized Oppression

Each friendship we have is important in our liberation. By deciding to reach out and be friends with all young people we are making a bold and powerful step in our liberation. We naturally like all young people. Only the effects of being oppressed make us feel like we don't like each other.
The oppression does this in three ways:
A. We find it hard to be with people who are the same as we are, because we don't want be reminded about the parts of our lives that bother us.
B. We feel separated from young people who are older or younger than us because they are either "too old" to be our friends, or "too young."
C. We find it difficult to get close to people who are different than we are because of the oppressive lies we have been told about these people. Despite the oppression we often burst with love for each other even though we can't always show it. We enjoy our friendships very much. We make new friends whenever we can. This is a key part of our liberation.

3) Changing the World

While enjoying our friendships, we can use them to change situations where we are not treated well. The closeness we have as we overcome the ways that our oppression divides us allows us to work together instead of fighting and arguing. As groups of young people we can change all kinds of situations: a child being beaten, boring classes, no food, fights, no parents, bad laws, the possibility of nuclear war, no toys, angry parents, not enough money, no jobs, etc..

4) Having Adults Help Us Work for Our Liberation

Having adults understand our oppression is an important part of our liberation. Being close friends with adults is a great way to do this. It gives us opportunities to explain ourselves clearly and insist that they treat young people well. As we get them to question and stop the ways they oppress young people adults often need to talk about the ways they were mistreated when they were young. Besides helping in our liberation, our friendships with adults are very important to us and bring us great joy. Many adults are already eager to help us work for our liberation, so if there is something we can't do: A) Look for the best adult to do the job. B) Say hello to them. C) Ask if they would like to help you. D) If they says yes, tell them exactly what you want them to do. E) Appreciate them thoroughly if they do well. Being friends with adults is not always the best or quickest way to get adults to treat us right. We need to be strong and clear as we speak for ourselves. Sometimes we need to be able to threaten, tease, fight, speak loudly, etc. with adults in order to get them to treat us properly. Being friends does not mean putting up with being mistreated.

Young People and the World

This section is a collection of thoughts and ideas about issues and people which affect many of our lives.

School

Young people have a right to time for learning free from other pressures. We have a right to information and assistance from adults to help us in our learning. Schools should be a place where this information and assistance is available; where young people are free to choose what, when, how, and at what speed, to learn.
Many young people do not have schools to go to. We do not have the opportunity to learn to; read, write, do math etc.. Our countries and parents can not afford to provide schools. We need to work so all young people have schools to go to.
Today, schools mainly play the role of oppressing us. They try to control young people by forcing us to act and think in certain ways. They help establish and encourage competition between young people. Schools make it harder for us to learn by not appreciating our intelligence and by testing us in ways that do not measure our true abilities. They try to make us fit into oppressive roles rather then expanding what we know and the things we can do. They train us to fit into jobs that are economically profitable, and that keep our oppressive social structure in place. They try to teach us that there are only a few "smart" people, who "deserve" important jobs that pay well, but that the rest of us are "stupid" and less able to do things, so we don't deserve to get paid very much for the work we do.
We can use schools for our liberation; as places to discuss, share and support one another. We can use them to get teachers to work for our liberation. As we become liberated schools will become fun, exciting, and caring places for all people.

Money

The heart of the oppression of young people is economic. Our position and treatment in society comes from our economic system and is kept in place by it. Young people are often kept out of the recognized work force by required school attendance (if we have schools to go to). Young people do many unrecognized, but important jobs, particularly work in the home, taking care of younger people, as well as the important work of learning. Because these jobs are unrecognized as work, they are usually unpaid. This makes us feel that what we do has no "real" value, as if we are only preparing to be a useful person in society. When we do have an income of our own it is generally far less than what older people get. All this affects every area of our lives.
Because we are in this dependent economic position, two threats are effective in keeping us in school. First, if we do not go to school our financial support (from schools, parents, the government etc.) usually stops. Second, we are told that the "only" way we can get a "good" job and income is by going to school. This is not true. There are many ways to get a great, fun, job.
When we work, we are often forced into working in bad situations that no person should have to put up with. We can be replaced easily because the jobs we do often don't need much special training. This forces many of us into being a quiet work force that doesn't dare to stand up for itself. Instead of expecting to be treated with respect and given decent jobs, we often feel pleased to have any job at all.
We are almost always financially dependent on our parents. This increases the power parents have to control our lives. Our financial dependence should not be used by our parents to force us to do what they want. We should be included as active people with full voices in making decisions abut how our families spend their money.
Because young people are not respected as intelligent human beings, we are kept ignorant about money, jobs, and finances. We are not told how taxes work, how much money our parents get, how much money other people get, how our families spend money, how our schools spend money, etc.. This makes it hard for us to control our lives and keeps us in our oppressed position. Learning about and changing our economic system is a big challenge. We can do it.

Physical Abuse

Many of us are beaten, burned, slapped, molested, killed, raped, spanked, spit on, tied up, hit or otherwise abused. It is important to remember that many boys and young men are sexually abused. Girls and young women are not the only young people who get sexually mistreated. Often the abuse we receive comes from people we love and are close to. This is confusing and terrifying. It makes it hard for us to trust people. Often we feel we are somehow responsible for the abuse we receive, or that we somehow deserve it. We are not responsible for being abused. We do not deserve it. Often older people claim they are punishing us for our own good, that it will help us "grow up". This is not good for us. It does not help us grow up. It hurts us physically and emotionally. We need to get out of situations where we are abused as soon as possible, by running away, going to the police, threatening to tell, whatever works well in your situation. We then need to find a place where we can relax and talk about what it was like to be abused. It is important for us to be encouraged to do this.

Being Parents

Everyone deserves support in thinking about whether they want to be parents, and whether they are ready to be parents. No one should be forced into having a child they don't want, and no child should have parents that don't want them. Becoming parents is a very important choice; we deserve complete respect for our choices and decisions about having, or not having children. As young people we need to exercise birth control if we do not want be parents. Becoming parents "by accident" does not mean we are "stupid young people". Being a parent is a wonderful and important job. Yea! for parents!

Our Parents

We naturally love our parents and want to be close to them. They also love us and want to be close to us. Parents try their hardest to make thing right for us. Because of the way they were mistreated when they were young and the ways they are mistreated by society, our parents don't always do a good job of taking care of us.
Our being alive makes our parents lives better. Because of how hard parents have to work, it often seems that we are a burden to them. In reality parents benefit from us being alive as much as we benefit from their love and care. They take care of us because they love us. We don't have to "pay them back" for taking care of us.
There are many things we are told about how children and parents should act and feel. Most of them don't make much sense. They come from the ways parents and children are mistreated by society. Our parents want us to be happy. They want us to live our own lives and be what we want to be. The things that are good for us are also good for our parents; even when they make them feel uncomfortable.
Parents are forced by society to take the major role in oppressing young people. They are expected to control, educate, discipline, and socialize "their" children; otherwise they are considered "bad" parents. Parents are oppressed, but not by young people. Society does not recognize the massive job parents do and so their work is undervalued and usually unpaid.
Parents are natural supporters for ending our oppression. Most parents care for us deeply and are committed to seeing our lives go well. We never have to give up on our parents being our friends and allies.

Our Feelings

We feel a lot of feelings. This is particularly true when we get together in groups or think about ending our oppression. Because of these feelings: people pick on each other, groups break up, quarrels about little things end up in people being resentful etc.. (See sections on "Internalized Oppression" and "Examples of Internalized Oppression" for a clear explanation of what causes us to have many of these feelings.)
When we have feelings we do not have to let them control us, but we do need some assistance to deal with them. Someone needs to help us see that our feelings are not "reality" but are feelings that we have because of ways we have been hurt. This is done by someone asking us to talk about why we feel the ways we do and allowing us to "discharge" our feelings. We "discharge" our feelings by talking, laughing, crying, shaking, sweating, yawning, about the things that bother us. This discharging of our feelings heals the hurts we have and lets us think better about our lives. Talking, crying, yawning, shaking, laughing, are the signs that this process is going on. Discharging our feelings allows us to see that these feelings come from times when we were hurt. There is a huge relief whenever groups of young people are organized in ways that let us treat each other well, but we still feel the old feelings of past mistreatment and they need to be dealt with (discharged). In most cases not recognizing these feelings and not allowing people to discharge results in the group not working as well as it might.
There are groups of young people in the Reevaluation Co-counseling communities who have worked together while encouraging "discharge" to take place. By doing this they have been able to have fun and work together instead of allowing bad feelings and quarrels to break up their groups. The Reevaluation Counseling communities are a group of people both young and old who have a profound and accurate theory of how to end oppression and heal the results of past mistreatment. By using this theory and allowing discharge to take place, they have found that under the scars of past mistreatment human beings are powerful and smart, but people behave unintelligently over and over because of these past mistreatment. Any time such patterns are thoughtfully dealt with people discharge profusely and reconsider (reevaluate) that part of their lives and intelligence. This re-revaluation allows human beings to stop acting in unintelligent ways and function fully and powerfully.

The Mental Health System

The mental health system provides ideas of what a "normal" human being is meant to be like. It assumes that the typical adults behavior is "less crazy" and more "mentally healthy" than young people's. We are measured against these ideas of how people are supposed to be. Young people are considered less "mentally healthy" and more "irrational" because we show our emotions more freely than adults. The mental health system demands that young people lose this openness in order to be "rational," truly "mature," and "adult." The ability to show and feel our feelings fully is natural and good for all human beings. It keeps us healthy, and thinking well.
By assuming young people are born irrational and have to overcome this by growing into "maturity," the mental health system continues the myth that young people are unable to have control of their lives. It creates excuses for how our oppression affects us. It teaches people that our feeling terrible about ourselves, being worried about our looks, etc., is a "normal" part of growing up that can't be changed. Instead of addressing the cause of our problems, it often covers them up and blames us for not putting up with an impossible situation.
Becoming a patient of the mental health system does not mean we are "mentally ill" or less human than other people. Because of our size and lack of legal rights we can easily be forced into becoming patients of the mental health system. This happens to us if we refuse to follow society's rules of "normal" behavior (like sitting quietly through boring classes, not crying "too much", not running away from home). We are called "weird" or "crazy" if we do not choose to follow these ideas. If the rules of the school system are not enough to make us "behave" we are considered "psychological problem cases". For example, if you question and argue with a teacher too much you will be sent to see a psychologist, taken to a school for "problem students" etc.. If we continue to refuse to cooperate we are put in mental "hospitals", halfway homes, etc.. In this way the mental health system enforces oppressive roles our societies have.
Some of us turn to the mental health system for help, sometimes we get some help with our problems, but often we get abused. We are put in isolation rooms, given harmful drugs, given electroshock therapy, and lobotomies. We are treated as if we are "ill" and not human. When we do get "help" from "therapy," the way we are often seen as the "problem", and our "therapist" is seen as the "expert" is oppressive. Being seen as the "problem" often makes us feel bad because we are made to believe that there is something "wrong" with us, that we are to blame for our problems, or that we should be able to control our lives and cannot because we are "sick". This does not reflect the true nature of young people or adults.

Growing Older

" As we grow older we get to keep a fresh, joyful view of the world. What we can't stand about adults or getting older is the effects of oppression that lead people to give up their dreams, hopes and power.
" We can always stay connected with younger people. We do not have to let becoming growing older separate us from young people.
" We already are something, we don't have to become something.
" We get to define what it means to be an "adult". Being an adult does not mean being lonely, tired and miserable.
" It's fun to be an adult.

Drugs and Alcohol *
Many of us use drugs and alcohol. Our social gatherings often focus on using these substances. Any use of alcohol and drugs hurts our minds and bodies. They keep us oppressed by numbing us and making it hard for us to think through the situations we want to handle. Drugs and alcohol make us feel good temporarily, but long range they cloud our minds and add to our despair.
There are many reasons why we use drugs and alcohol. We sometimes use them when we feel too scared to face a situation "straight". Often we feel so bad that we just want to block out our feelings by getting high or drunk. We use drugs and alcohol in an attempt to feel more "adult" and "grown up". We try to take the edge off of our embarrassments about sex, talking to other people, how we look etc. by drinking and taking drugs. The sensations we feel when using these strong chemicals are exciting compared to the boredom, misery and loneliness we often experience.
We are encouraged by many parts of society to use these substances. Often people we respect tell us that these substances are not harmful, or that they are good for us. At parties we are often pressured to use drugs and alcohol. Because of the huge profits are made from our use of addictive substances, a great deal of pressure put on us to use them from advertisements, drug dealers, the mental health system, etc..
Strong chemicals are both physically and emotionally addicting. When we stop using them we often have painful physical reactions (headaches, shakes, vomiting, etc.), and we also feel a flood of strong emotions (Fear, anger, sadness, nervousness, depression, loneliness, etc.). This makes it hard to stop using these drugs. It makes us want to go back to using them, or switch to abusing ourselves with other chemicals.
We need to get people to help us deal with these feelings when we stop using these substances. (See section on "Our Feelings" for information on how to deal with these feelings). We deserve warm encouragement and appreciation for each step we take towards stopping our use of drugs or alcohol. We need to be listened to as we deal with the emotions we feel as our bodies rid themselves of these substances.

Marijuana, speed, caffeine, cocaine, crack, black tar, heroin, cigarettes, cigars, lithium, haldol, LSD, PCP, angel dust, amphetamines, mushrooms, ritalin, beer, wine, whisky, gin vodka, chewing tobacco, syrup, thorazine, morphine, mellaril, acid, barbiturates, valium, hash, sniffing glue, rum, opium, ecstacy, pain killers, quaaludes, etc..

Nuclear Weapons

We call upon all people to make eliminating nuclear weapons weapon of mass distruction a major focus of liberation movements and community activities.
The fact that that large parts of our world could be easily destroyed before we are 30 is terrifying. This fear often makes it hard for us to think about our lives. It often makes us give up being able to control our future.
Despite this young people have always been a powerful force in the work to end nuclear weapons. We challenge all other groups to join with us in ending the possibility of nuclear war. It is essential for young peoples' liberation and the liberation of the human race.

Sexual Orientation

Our society tries to make us to fit into the oppressive roles it has for women and men. We are taught many rules about what boys and girls are supposed to be like. None of these rules or roles make sense.
When we break one the rules, (for example a girl climbs trees), strange things happen. People get upset. They try to make us stop what we are doing. They call us names like fag, tomboy, gay, butch, lezzie.
As we get older we learn that these are names for people who do not follow the rules about how young men and women are supposed to behave. We find out that people think that it is "wrong" for girls to like other girls "too much" or boys to like other boys "too much".
Boys enjoy being close to each other; and girls also enjoy being close to each other. Sometimes it is scary to be close because we have been terrified into feeling that it is wrong.
In almost all parts of western culture we are taught that to be close to someone is to be sexual. In reality being close and being sexual are completely different. We can be close to both young women and men without being sexual. Our fears about sexual thoughts and feelings do not have to stop us from being close to other young men and women. Sometimes when we get close to people we do have sexual thoughts or feelings. They do not mean we have to be sexual, or that we are "straight," "gay" or "lesbian."
We are good and wonderful young women and men. We choose who we want to be close to and how we do it. We choose whether we want to be sexual or not. We decide how we are sexual, and who knows about it. We may decide to have sex with men or women or both or not at all. We may choose to call ourselves "lesbians", "heterosexual", "gay", or "bisexual". All of these choices deserve respect.

Young Jews

Jews are people who share a special culture. This culture has its own special music, books, closeness, and ideas about life. Part of this culture is a religion. Some of us are very religious, and some of us aren't religious at all. Some Jews don't even think of themselves as Jews. We come from all races and look many different ways. Most Jews don't have much money, a few have a lot of money.
In the past, Jews were mistreated just for being Jews. We were forced to live in certain parts of cities, and were often not allowed to practice our religion. As Jews we have been blamed for the economic problems of the countries we live in, and killed, abused, or thrown out of our countries because of this. This mistreatment continues today.
Because of the mistreatment and oppression it is often hard for us to trust people and depend on them to help us. As young Jews, we often feel that we don't belong to our schools, communities, etc.. Even though it happened many years ago, many of us are terrified by the holocaust. We still are afraid that we will be taken away and killed. Our families often teach us to fear and expect mistreatment from others. They do this because of the ways we have been mistreated, often believing that this will help us survive in the future. By building close, dependable, trusting friendships with all people we are able to notice that we belong and that the world is a safe, good place for us to live in as Jews.
The world we live in is full of lies and myths about Jews. Many young people who are not Jews are taught myths about Jews. Young people are often told: that it isn't okay to play with Jewish young people, that all Jews have big noses, that all Jews are rich, or that young Jews are spoiled. These lies and myths often leave those of us who are not Jews feeling confused and terrified about young Jews (See sections on "Our Feelings" and "Racism" for helpful information about how to get rid of these feelings.) In reality we are all wonderful human beings. The lies, myths and oppression do not have to separate other young people from Jews especially young Jews.

Young and Female

It is great to be a young woman. Young women are strong, beautiful, playful, and tough thinking. As young women, we are totally in control of our own lives. We are excellent, loving people; brilliant thinkers; tough, persistent fighters; and brave, enduring athletes.
Young men and young women are treated differently. Young women and young men are separated from each other from the beginning of our lives. Girls and young women are not allowed to do everything that boys and young men are. Often girls and young women are not included in rough play. We are not encouraged or expected to be good at subjects like woodworking, math or science. After being put down and restricted, many young women and girls gradually stop doing things like playing sports, wrestling, getting dirty, making speeches, acting strong. We begin to feel there are many things that we are not able to do.
We are separated and treated differently so that we will fit into societies where the power of women is not recognized. In these societies women earn less money than men. Women work in very important positions such as mothers and housewives without pay. Although some women have jobs which give them some recognition, generally we do not have roles which point out how powerful we are.
Young women and girls are born leaders but have often been taught to fear excellence in ourselves. When we act powerfully we often feel like we have to give up some of our young womenness, or our closeness with other women. In many cases we have not let these feeling keep us from being the leaders we are born to be. We have found that it is possible to be powerful, women leaders and still be well supported and close with other people.
Because of the ways we are treated differently, we are often lead to believe that our bodies are "public property" and can be touched or commented on at anyone's liking. Because of this many of us feel insecure about our looks and generally uncomfortable with our bodies. We don't have to use our bodies to get people to notice, like, or love us. Our bodies are ours, for us to enjoy in the ways we choose.
Being proud and having fun in everything we do helps us to notice that it's great to be female. Trusting our thinking and abilities is key to our liberation. As young women we never have to settle for having anything less than absolutely EVERYTHING we want in our lives.

Young Men

Young men and boys are special to each other; we like each other so much. As a group we know what it's like to be male. We know male integrity, honor, pride and caring. We know what it's like to grow up as a young man. We know that we are good. Deep inside ourselves we love our fathers and brothers. We like our bodies, our voices, our hair, the way we walk, our sex organs, our muscles etc..
We are completely and fully men from the time we are conceived. Each cell in our body is distinctly male. As we grow up we are constantly told that we are not really "a man." This is humiliating. Instead of people recognizing that we are completely male and everything we do is masculine, we are told that we have to become "a man." We often end up trying to prove we are male instead of enjoying our natural maleness. Often we are told we must oppress women to prove we are men. Oppressing women does not make us "a man". Each of us is 100% male and always has been.
As we get older we are mistreated by people because they are afraid that we will become "those monstrous men that do all those terrible things". We get the idea that there is something basically wrong with us because we are men. This makes it hard for us to remember our pride, caring, love and leadership. Instead of doing what we want and enjoying our lives, we end up working to prove we are good. We all are good men. We never have to apologize for being a man. Being proud of ourselves as men is just right for us. It shows the true nature of both young men and our older brothers.
Our societies have many expectations and ideas about boys and young men that don't make sense. These expectations are different in different cultures. We need to question all of them.
One of the most basic and fundamental ways we are mistreated is being kept from feeling and "discharging" the ways we are hurt (see section on, "Our Feelings"). This keeps us separate from ourselves and other people. It makes us feel lonely, die sooner than women, long for sex, have a harder time learning, kill ourselves, etc..
By stopping people whenever they feel powerless or act terrified about men, we can keep ourselves from being separated from people. Regarding ourselves and every man as 100% male, (especially those of us who are generally not regarded as fully male such as; boys, infants, Jewish men, black men, Asian men, gay men, etc.) will keep us from being hard on each other and relieves us from working to "prove" we are men. Not acting oppressively towards women lets us feel good about ourselves, and keeps us from trying to prove ourselves through "sexual conquests." As men, deciding to relax and enjoy ourselves is the perfect thing for us. Who we are and what we want is important.

Racism

Racism is the systematic, one-way mistreatment of people because of their race or color. It is usually used to describe the oppression of people of color (blacks, Asians, native Americans, Aborigines, etc.) by white people.
Young people's liberation will not go very far without addressing racism as a day to day issue for all people. Racism hurts all people, not only people of color. It keeps young white people separated from people of color. It makes it hard for young white people to take full pride in the great things about their cultures and their white sisters and brothers.

Young People of Color

It is great to be a person of color. We are the majority of the world's population. Our many rich cultures help shape the world politically, socially, economically, etc.. As a group people of color are a powerful force in the world, despite the oppressive economic and political systems. The effects of racism often covers this over, but we will shine through in the end.
Racism is internalized in the same way the oppression of young people is. It makes us hate ourselves. It makes us fight, and kill each other. We need to take complete pride in ourselves, and our brothers and sisters. By doing this we will be able to build the unity we need to work well together. Our recovering our power and our taking over as acknowledged leaders of the world is important for our liberation and the liberation of the world.

Young White People

Young white people have played important roles as fighters in the battle against racism. We have fought hard to keep from accepting racist ideas or attitudes. Despite this we have been affected by racism.
Racism is internalized in a way that is similar to how we internalize our oppression as young people (See section on "Internalized Oppression"). We depend on older people to give us accurate information about people of color and the world in general. Unfortunately our societies are full of lies, confusion, and terror about people of color. These feelings get communicated to us and leave us with a confused understanding of people of color. Because of these feelings we act in racist ways without meaning to. Often we are racist and don't even know it. This is not our fault. We did not choose to have these feelings. We do need to continue listening to each other as we "discharge" the terror, confusion, grief, etc., racism has left us with (See section on "Our Feelings"). This allows us to enjoy ourselves more and more, and think better about our brothers and sisters who are people of color.

Young People's Rights

All people have a right to the following things, but we are often denied them because of our age.

" The right to control (politically etc.) our lives.
" The right to accurate information about the world.
" The right to use to all information systems.
" The right to good food, transportation, clothing, home and money.
" The right to be welcomed by our parents and society, and have our presence welcomed at all times.
" The freedom to not be sexual or be sexual.
" The right to freedom from physical threats or "punishment".
" The freedom to choose and follow our own ideas, thinking and interests.
" The right to determine our own values and definitions of what is beautiful, good, music etc..
Included in these general rights are the following and much more.
" Freedom from being involuntarily drafted into military forces.
" Freedom to choose to go to school or not.
" Freedom to wear the clothes we choose.
" Freedom to keep our rooms the way we want to.
" Freedom from being circumcised.
" The right to buildings and furniture that fits our size.
" The right to live or not live with our parents.
" The right to vote.
" Freedom to be close to our parents during the first days of our lives.
" Freedom from physical and sexual abuse.
" Freedom from criticism.
" Freedom from having to learn things faster then we are ready to.
" Freedom to develop our own judgment.
" Freedom to decide when we want to go to sleep.
" Freedom to be religious or not.
" Freedom from being forced to compete with each other.

how to wake the slumbering god

2007-02-04T21:03:00.000-08:00

And so while God slept, less than four percent of the population of the world gained control of everything. They control the thirty multinational corporations that control all the companies, and through them the jobs, schools, universities, health services, governments, United Nations, World Health Organizations and nuclear industry. Less than four percent of the world's population control more than ninety percent of the world's resources.
It's been out of control and unnatural for so long it's hard to believe it's probably just a portion of the whatever it is only a day (or a night) in the eyes of God. She is still sleeping. Still snoring perfectly, and the cherubim, and seraphim, angels and archangels are afraid to wake her up because as soon as she rubs the sleep out of her eyes and has a cup of coffee she's going to see a mess and know they were playing Trivial Pursuit instead of doing what they said they'de do, which was watch over stuff. They aren't apt to be in any kind of a hurry to waken her.
Not knowing how long a whatever is, it makes no sense for us to just sit here waiting for it to pass and the celestial alarm clock to go off and wake her up to tidy up the mess. Obviously, we have to do something.
Remember Peter Pan? Remember how, when Tinkerbell was dying, they said if we would all just vow, "I believe," she'd pull through and live? Remember sitting in the darkened theater on a Saturday afterneen snobbing, sniveling, and snuffling, and then suddenly daring to whisper it, and never mind f the kid next to you snickered at you, whisper it, and, emboldened by the little whispers of others in the anonymity of the pop-corn scented dark, whisper it again, louder. Then, hesitantly but louder still, you said it. And soon every kid in the Saturday show was on her feet yelling, "I believe!" and the music swelled, and the glow flickered, and there she was, Tinkerbell herself, stronger and stronger and stronger all the time, and we did it, we all helped save Tinkerbell!
Maybe it'll work again. Maybe we can wake up God if we all just keep on believing and keep on making an increasingly loud noise with our belief, so that the roar of our protest reaches even Heaven itself and God yawns, stirs and begins to come out of her deep, perfect sleep.

-Anne Cameron, Stubby Amberchuck and The Holy Grail, Harbour Books 1987

I believe in magic. Perhaps Anne Cameron herself played a part in that she authored a number of children's books about pacific northwest native legends which I adored. I have read her work consistently throughout my life and am always unnerved at how well she articulates my own imaginings. I just turned the last page of the book quoted above bought for 50 cents at a friend's garage sale a few days ago. No matter how many times it happens I am always struck by how the right words find me at EXACTLY the right times. It seems fitting that I should read the above days after completing Howl which is all about making that roar of protest.
I have been feeling overwhelmed and isolated, my values are so radically different then the mass of those who fill the cities and suburbs that even my joyous optimistic nature gets bogged down. When, when, when will the balance shift? For how much longer? Can I accomplish all that I believe is neccesary alone? Because I cant go along with business as usual, can't even attempt to put on pretense for I know that I am unequipped to deal with what's coming. All my knowledge is cerebral I have no survival skills or ability to exist without reliance on all the trappings that got us into this reeking pile of dogshit. Sure I have pared us down to the absolute minimum our ecological footprint is 2.9 compared to an average 8.8 (check out your footprint here) by learning to live with less and am trying to grow our own food and create a places and opportunities for youth in paradise but I feel unbearably lonely sometimes. I know I am following my muse and am living an incredible experience but I am so saddened by the fact that how we choose to live is not valuable to others or seen as viable. That this community is struggling so hard despite over a hundred years of dreaming of freedom simply because there is so few to BELIEVE and that all it lacks is the people so busy being miserable in aforesaid cities.
But I digress, back to Anne, she gets it. At least I know I am not alone though my peers seem more often to be either double or triple my age or half it! Anne knows that the people want freedom and the west is the last bit of wildness untamed on our continent, it holds the last connection to our past and what must become our present if we are to have a future, are we just going to let them have it?
Not I, said the wolf.

The People heard the sound of their own hearts breaking. They remembered the litany of horros told by their grandparents and they decided to put miles between themselves and the Rulers. They headed off toward the west, for one thing was agreed upon by all the many people who formed the People and that was that freedom lay westward, in the direction of Avalon, the misty isle where apples grow year round and where Rulers have never been admitted.
-ibid

I am going to try to restrain my normally exuberant wordiness as it seems as though my enormous posts are undigestable. I can't say how likely I am to succeed in the long run but instead of writing on about anything else....

There's nothing I have left to say, but that in a day, that is to say in a God's day, that is to say, who knows how long in human time, there exists the promise of resurrection.
-emilie smith, vancouver pastor in Oaxaca

Will you believe with me?

Attention Poets!

2007-02-02T15:01:00.000-08:00

I think this complements the last post perfectly

A Call to Poets
by A.D. Winans

Poets unite
Forget about a career
In poetry
And concentrate on the
Poem
Quit turning out
Factory assembly
Line poems
Quit trying to imitate
Bukowski.

Poets unite
Listen to your brothers
And sisters
Quit being the first poet
To read and the first to leave
Quit using words
As preaching tools
When all over the world
People are starving
Dying and committing genocide
As we stand on stage well fed
Begging for applause
Playing to the audience
Telling our most intimate secrets
Pretending to be knowledgeable
When we know so little

Rams out fucking sheep
Poets playing trick-or-treat
Politicians beating their meat
Whores making it under the sheets
Predators lined-up with elbow grease
Landlords waiting to cancel your lease
It's gotten so bad
You can't tell the real
From the elite
Everyone has become a carbon copy
Of themselves

Take a number
Step up on stage
Rattle the cage
Let loose your rage
Be sure to wear your page
(The call you miss may be from God).
As we rival Ringling Brothers
Standing tall standing proud
Working the crowd
Like a carnie hustler

I call for all poets
To put down their poems
For 72 hours
Give up "my space" for a week
Take a Kaufman vow of silence
Help an old woman across the street
Serve a holiday meal at Saint Anthony's
Quit sending out manuscripts for a month
And spend the saved postage
Helping the homeless
Sell your signed copies of Bukowski
And Ginsberg and give the proceeds
To war victims in Iraq
Pay homage at Malcolm
X's grave
Hoist one for Robert Kennedy
Ride a boxcar for
Woody Guthrie
Say twelve Hail Mary's for Ali
Sing a song for Selena
Say a prayer for Allen
Take the Eskimo out
Of Eskimo pie
Scalp Ted Turner with the
Atlanta Brave's own tomahawk
Rename "Hooters" Bar
"Testicles"
And hire Male waiters
To serve in jockey shorts
Legalize prostitution
Campaign to have cops arrested
For disturbing the peace
Tell the Pope that
You're giving up drugs and the church
To worship at the
Altar of Walt Whitman
Make Kenneth Patchen required reading
Visit an animal shelter
Save a pet from its owner
Volunteer for meals on wheels
Deliver food to the disabled
Give up center stage ego driven mania
For a trip to the park at dusk
Invest in yourself instead
Of interest bearing bank accounts
Meditate instead of masturbate
Make love instead of fuck
Set fire to Naropa
To prove you're more than
A poet junkie
Sign a petition to replace Bush
With Bob Dylan
And give America a real high
Take a bookstore owner to dinner
Talk child talk
Translate gibberish
Put ego aside
Quit ingratiating yourself with one poet
At the expense of another poet
Do a soul dance for James Brown
Remember that life is but
A warm-up for the dance to come
Quit visiting the graves
Of Kerouac and Bukowski
Return to the world
Of the living
Put the poet back
Into poetry
Make me want to believe
In you again

"A Call to Poets" was published as a chapbook by Green Bean Press in 2002, republished by 24th Street Irregular Press as a free poetry pamphlet, and later by the same press in a thumb sized poetry booklet release. It has appeared in a number of literary journals both here and abroad. It has been recently slightly revised by the poet to bring it up to date.

HOWL for the 21st Century

2007-02-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

I did it!
Three years of pecking away at countless drafts and revisions plus the last manic 48 hours but I think I am finally done my epic revisioning of Ginsberg's Howl. Which funnily enough I didn't really think too highly of until a few months ago, I respected the work for it's place in the evolution of the counter-culture, but felt it to be really self-involved and irrelevant. I have always favoured Lawrence Ferlinghetti of all the beat poets and he was never really part of the inner sanctum of hip cats like Kerouac and Cassidy. I started writing this piece not because of a great love of it's style and rhythm, that came later, but because I felt a urgent need to communicate the images that fill my thoughts. To try to make others feel the same tightening of the skin at their own priveledge and recognition of our mutual validity and insignificance, and to maybe ignite an answering response. I have been very hesitant about publishing or submitting any of my writing and one of my promises to myself has been to work through my fear of succeeding in anything I do for myself (I have no self-conciousness about dedicating myself to the projects or needs of others) so I decided last year to complete this piece in order to submit it to the Malahat Reviews bi-annual long poem prize. They may or may not be the right publisher but I just wanted to pick an achievable goal. Then I totally forgot about it, what with moving to utopia and all, after all the painting was done and the majority of my chicken scratchings unpacked it was already December. I have been trying to grab enough time every day to work on it but yesterday I was sure that I would never be done and decided to just foret about it. Some little stubborn part of me kicked me in the ass and said not this time dammit! I did have to send Chris to the postoffice at 4:30 to get them to weigh and postmark the envelope but I printed the final copy at 5:30. I share it with you here although it is a bit overwhelming inside this little box I prefer it in hard copy. It's too late to make any suggested revisions to this particular submission but I want to hear them all the same.

HOWL
For The Twenty-First Century

Oh for a falconer’s voice that I could tear the cave where echo lies and make hoarse her voice with repetition of a single word:
ARISE!
I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by disinterest,
senseless arrogant naked,
stumbling blindly through the angry spasms of a decaying culture hiding amidst the debris,
homogenous cartoons being all-they-can be in crew cuts and blue jeans an army of one united against creation man-made an island unto himself
vacant eyes boring holes in the great television screen of Time,
who die and fuck and laugh and bleed under the same mutable sky denying any connection to the vast conspiracy of life,
who angry in their solitude grow sick and twisted and bonsai-souled fruit of life withering sere on the vine before even being tasted or savored leaving empty husks whose only purpose is consumption,
who prowling back alleys, narrow eyed brass knuckle sharksters, sniffing after fear and sex and power by any means ,
who eyes closed to mystery still the rushing pulse of joy before it quickens subsuming vitality into data and binary code prostrate beneath the idol of technology subservient to the whirring clicking machines,
who moth-like race towards the suttee fires of industry to be consumed by the incendiary force no lazarus reborn phoenix in the ashes of transgression youth’s bright possibility only fuel for the corporate crematory pyre,
who tarred and feathered and bereft of dignity stand hogtied before the firing squad of progress and do not struggle,
who swallow the wild untamable barbaric yawp straining for release to echo over rooftops of the world in jubilant noise, a sursum corda, great cry of hope moving us all to our knees,
with indifference, without reverence, with AK47’s and dogma and false communion,
insensibly right; streets cower naked under regimental footsteps pounding merciless drummings of war setting earths bones a-vibrating from Canada to Iraq, threatening all the precious humanity between,
savage parodies of lives, oblivious to the setting of the day, mad reeling through ghost towns of the soul, wrapping dreams in star-striped finery auctioned to eBay’s highest bidder, sky and sea and earth reviled by the snake-blood rulers of our century of discontent,
who soulless deprived of solace mental landscapes bare and bleeding fall headlong into darkness with nothing to break their fall,
who tumble like Alice through curiouser confusion into psychedelic fractals of amanita gut-rot and peyote dreaming, melting puddles of de-boned youth ecstatic, tongues sweet with serotonin and methamphetamine buzz, careening down k-holes after the white rabbit of dissolution,
who cowering with tails of purpose between legs of self-hate lunge at the pinching grabbing hands that taunt them wounding all in the path of retribution,
lost regiment of fear-soaked petty tyrants conspiring in pentagon and penthouse to become Masters of War rolling loaded dice in the ultimate game of LIFE,
chitchatting doublespeak bullshit speechifying euphemism and misdirection and terror and patriotism and shock and awe and division and war
whole existences destroyed in complete indifference for human individuality or grace with atomic weapons aimed at the pearly gates of Heaven truth spurting oily blood in sacred Babylon,
who reaching for solace in needle or cock meet the unsmiling mortician beneath malignant orange skies from East Hastings to South Africa no mortal enemy to face with courage and steel this silent microscopic battle occurs beneath the skin,
suffering cold sweats and lipoatrophy and tumorous Kaposi sarcoma cultural pariahs exiled lepers from the bigoted homelands that made them,
who disappear in tenement districts into dirty predawn twilight
without trace or inquiry found years later in pig farm refuse
women’s bodies just supermarket meat and front page sensationalism covering backtracks of incompetent police lost in the jackal feeding of media vultures life stories dropped on the cutting room floor slipping through the cracked pavement of the dumping ground,
who stagger reeking of piss and sorrow bathed in neon and regret
lucidity a tide that never reaches shore wishes stuffed into paper-bag
bottle hearts tossed into the violent sea,
who at night after clocking from cant-see to cant-see transform to bits and bytes tiptappiting their hopes into a blankness of screen words colliding in silence alone but for the pulsating light,
who swallowing the white-coat’s placebo smooth over truth with pharmaceutical veneer lugging children like reluctant baggage from swim meet to practice while a while beast paces and gnaws at rib bones
desperate for egress,
who soul-bound lie weeping defeated in Oppression’s basement morality strung up on a plastic crucifix of shame,
who toil in vacuous futility for a faceless master who has no name and so cannot be defeated,
who couple in back alleys and seedy hotels and backseats on broken dreams and creaky mattresses love a greasy stain between the thighs of innocence,
who denied access to the Almighty Institution dull bright passions to rusty muttering acne faced flipping burgers dreaming of guns,
who malice ridden creep through virulent streets of barrio and ghetto hearts yearning for relief just one kind word or soft shoulder,
who perched on their plastic lifeboat thrones of stolen lives peer down at the teeming mass of limbs and outstretched hands and solemnly toast progress,
who pass through grades and tests and ratings without absorbing one iota of illumination paper thoughts cluttering mind-rooms with dusty academia and jargon,
who shiver beneath newspaper blankets in soggy refrigerator boxes watching a stream of indifferent boot-soles flash by unseen by whole cities of averted eyes,
who nine inch heeled parade in violent hues on city streets misery painted loud on faces made beautiful with wear bathed red in Moloch’s light,
who cram their internal rolodex with dogma and rhetoric leaving no room for questioning of self locking conscience away in Pandora’s box of denial,
who cannot hear the voice of creation calling their names for the ever-present tinny muttering ipods and cell phones and babbling prime time tv surfing inanities while community rots at the seams,
who view every particle as a tool to be used as a means to an end to avoid their own insignificance screaming ‘look at me! look at me!’ while they cut and splice life into a nightmarish freak show of spoat giders and pigoons ,
who cry out alone in the night over glossy magazines spilling lust into aching palms falling unsatisfied into dreams of sadness and humiliation,
who black and blue and battered manufacture excuses swallow the bitten-tongue penny taste praising the very hands that beat them down,
who corrode their unstable existence with ignorance turning a blind eye to redemption of spirit or pursuit of any but the basest pleasures,
who gather in maquiladoran finery to bemoan the state of the world over slave trade café au laits tossing recycled paper cups in the overflowing gutter of mediocre intentions,
who riddled with toxins line up in droves to swallow whatever cocktail purported to cure them lapping up the very poisons that make them ill,
who leap from the twin towers of fierce irony armed with the conviction of avenging seraphim kneeling in the War President’s temple of Mammon,
who top filled to overflowing with discontent savage dark cities in white hoods and righteousness herding the other towards the lynching tree,
whose sordid lives push them beyond recall tomorrow and tomorrow ceasing to creep spilling vitality into bathtubs, splattered against walls, strung up in trees, tossed from overpasses, gassed in vehicles, drowned in water, bottle, syringe, hope gone and lost forever down the drain,
who deafen themselves to the singing of their own souls drowning out the pure voices within beneath the dull thudding of techno grinding in sweat drenched frenzy to a litany of “I’m a slave for you hit me baby one more time” intoned by saccharine-coated barelegged schoolgirl coquettes with insipid doe-eyes, victims of old men’s lust,
who righteous with justified indignation purge their hate in a world war intifada, pitting brother against sister, sister against brother, streets awash with crimson and shame,
who engage in a ruthless jihad against all that is holy plundering our sacred hopes and fouling the connection linking our whole human community enshrouding us in nuclear clouds,
who wasteful squander tender kisses damp spring mornings joyful redemptive frolicking in the grass love a communion bringing two closer to god in furtive slip-slappings against flesh testament polluted with the sin of unconcern,
who trench-coat and tattered seek truth in darkness sighting fate through the barrel of their fathers transgressions hatred a bullet speeding down through the years to rob each other in schools and streets and homes of that which is not theirs to own,
who live in pawn to bits of coloured paper stuffing wallets with dead tree matter hoarding pulp and illusory digits while the debit accounts of the heart are writ in red as they charge it, buy, and expire,
who impoverished of spirit heart-worn and weary crawl inside to bury their dreams in the sand of regret secure in privilege bought at the cost of the earth’s diversity,
who sacrifice youth’s vibrant heart to the altar of War pulling it still beating from empty chests crusading not for freedom or liberty, truth or harmony, racing instead towards the final apathy of the grave,
who close their ears to the grieving cry of the mother her anguish the raw wound of a clear-cut rotting fish spawning in dirty streams the forest a grave where the bodies of children lay,
who cut and nip and tuck each unruly hair or thought masking the pungency of the moon’s tugging with ammoniac douche sucking up Eve’s bloody libation with plastic tubes and vacuums birthing new life in sterile cots through scheduled incision breasts denied mammal function suckling babes on latex and corn sugar refusing any honest touch,
who eyes downcast refuse to raise their face to the sun’s redemptive gaze scrabbling coakroachesque through the sordid underbelly of the beast,
who wretched in their isolation cannot see the grace in simply breathing and loving and fucking and dying just living on this imperfect hallowed land
who strip and rape and mine nature’s curves trading sacred flesh in the name of progress bankrupting future legacies to boost the GDP,
who in defiance toss flaming cocktails through the windows of sanctuary craving solace in violence burning heart homes to foundation leaving ruins and desecration running from the wreckage as discordance swells,
who capture the barefoot gamine of imagination binding their weeping muses to the grinding numbness of the assembly line originality lost to the gears of industry,
who cannot see that nothing is left here but useless sentiment as proof of the passing of time pathetic monuments to glory crumble before eternity, only creation remains,
who live out their days in purgatory oblivious to the daily rebirth of dawn only to find when breath ends that heaven was left with skin and bone now endless night awaits,
who rising in Montreal, Rome, Paris, Washington D.C with indignation flaring in their aching chests were sent home gassed and tearful to vent frustration with joysticks and vandalism the clamor for justice silenced bought like New York for a handful of beads and shiny things,
who airbrushed glossy flash pearly white incisors broadcasting live from the wreckage stacking up headlines like corpses to a soundtrack of buzzing flies and the mournful keening of carrion birds,
who speaking in tongues prophesize unheard to padded rooms calmed with straitjacket and electroshock for the better good and public safety of the status quo picket fence elite who do not know that “the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die alone in an armed madhouse ”,
and who sick with a sense of wrongness a drowning panic that life is slipping by unnoticed an impending feeling of falling sky are quickly diagnosed chemically lobotomized then returned to the milling herd,
who in final protest explode transformed into fiery dynamos made one with the enemy in anarchic mortal embrace graffitiing macabre collages of fabric and limbs on ancient walls eulogized by a droning murmur of the holy from tomb to unmarked grave all a-sighing for peace,
Operation Iraqi Liberation and Washington’s blood soaked centre, the Homeland is not secure, the people hide beneath terror’s red flag, dreams like halls of doors to which they have no key and cannot enter, chomping patriot toast while freedom fries,
with Madre Tierra firmly pissed off, and shit hitting the metaphorical fan, and National Guard killing citizens in the city that care forgot and the entire world stripped down to its patched underwear, a hollow shell that once cradled fullness, only a tiny crumb left and that little bit tenuous, nothing remaining but factories and parking lots,
oh Children! while life is not safe you are not safe, and now we are running holus bolus to the precipice of chaos,
and who reading these leaves by the light of flickering hearts scream eureka awakening from generations of cursed slumber coughing up the last chunk of poisoned apple,
who recognizing their sacred destiny shrug off the dusty mantle of complicity to stand stripped clean of pretense made humble and sacred before the vastness of creation to reclaim the pure joy of being humane,
cleansing history’s bloody legacy, planting seeds together in the fertile ground,
the lowly whore and the cultured saint seeing one altar and a pantheon of deities, only now understood and equal, both reflections of divinity, grace manifest in each vibrating cell,
with a word of boundless understanding torn from depths of shared experience, loud voices rusty with misuse ring out in a relentless howling for peace,

what paradox of chaos and destiny conspired to abandon us here in darkness our bright human potential burning in the fires of modernity?
America! Brutal! Vicious! Intolerant! America! Oil and nuclear bombs! Children dying for profit! Boys trading flesh for shoes! A world lost to America!
America! America! God bless America! America the worthy!
Global America! America the eternally free!
America the Eden of Righteousness!
America whose towering skyscraper of freedom
raises her beacon of light to lift man from darkness!
America fortress of fear and paranoia in which I wander under golden arches
losing time and losing night!
America whose parking lots extend in all directions!
America whose manicured lawns mark the grave of a pristine wilderness!
America whose eyes see all! America the righteous New World Order!
America who spreads her fertile thighs to the johns of capitalism and trades her bounty for garbage!
America you killer of innocence! Desert of prosperity!
America victorious conqueror of nations whose emptiness is a
plague of locusts!
America whose voice is the desperate wailing of mothers holding the mangled bodies of their children to condemning skies in reproach!
America whose colossal arrogance dictates even to God, the Son and the Holy Ghost!
America who is not confined by the dictates of good taste and flaunts her professionally sculpted liposuctioned ass for all to see!
America who abandons her own children to the vagaries of destruction succoring only those whose skin abhors the sun!
America whose fields are stained with centuries of lives wasted
blood and poison fertilizing crops leaving them bitter with regret!
America whose citizens starve on Wonder and plastic cheese
bellies crying out for a taste of reality, one quick sip from the well of freedom!
America whose land trembles like a soft skinned virgin with her face towards the wall while her father commits unspeakable atrocities beneath the covers of democracy!
America whose bombs laying waste to the fertile delta from which we all came razing the birthplace of Saviors to rubble and bones!
America your rivers run grey with offal and unnatural fish hide deformities in shame and terror where silent river and deep water sentinels once reigned for thousands of years!
America whose bountiful sunlight goes unused, only nuclear fission for our monolith of power, just because we can!
America whose right to tools of hate supercedes a planet’s right to life!
America whose hope for redemption lies dying in the streets of Iraq while smoke billows in toxic clouds of uranium dust torn from the sacred lands of America’s first people!
America where beneath the surface even the worms shake in fear!
America you purveyor of death and delusion! Betrayer of hopes! Eater of dreams!
Integrity! Justice! Truth! Beauty! Freedom! Love! Happiness! Lost in America! Sold in America! Dead in America! Slaves to America!
America whose profits pile up like bodies into a reeking empire of paper!
Cancerous America whose malignancy cannot be excised!
America whose jails overflow with sadness and whose streets overflow with refuse! America whose cities sag beneath a blanket of plastic and despair! America whose endless death rattle will not shut up! Victims of America resist! Rebel! Unite!

III

America! I’m with you in the new millennium facing a world gone mad in your image,
I’m with you in Palestine where you spit in the faces of prophets Jesus, Muhammad and Abraham weeping for the forsaken,
I’m with you in the devastated motherland where earth begs for freedom from terror,
I’m with you in the depths of your sorrow when skeletons of feeling dance through moldy basement windows rebounding off of walls that were never silent, only unheard.
I’m with you in your computers following the scent of your aliveness through tangled webs of dreams and wire,
I’m with you in the eyes of the abused seeing each transgression or compromise of soul, weakened with every loss from son to seed,
I’m with you in children of all diversity’s hues restless flames of life’s longing, whosoever debases you condemns us all,
I’m with you in dignity from Guatanamo Bay to the lower eastside, we have struggled so long we must be free,
I’m with you in the brothers and sons of Year King’s sacrifice hands linked with sisters taking back the night shame at last defeated with honest laughter,
I’m with you in all reflections of the mother wombs tying blood to moon and tide, rebirth was granted into your keeping, guardians of life,
I’m with you in the stories of the Elders keepers of context and experience grandchildren take your rightful place at their feet,
I’m with you in the words of the fearless Sojourner’s for truth, progeny of 3,000 years of downpression, spirits unchained hands raised in liberty,
I’m with you in the moment of your awakening the hour that the ship comes in knuckling the wool from now open eyes,
I’m with you in Middle America, tossing possessions aside, walking fearless and unencumbered back to Eden’s wild sanctuary, the promise of the New World.
I’m with you in the rebirth of the sacred following ancient roots back to the first amoebic divide,
I’m with you in youth of Aquarius wolves disguised as black sheep among the flock release your voice joy is yours for the taking! go rushing pell-mell into the eye of the storm, manifest the very truth they seek to deny,
I’m with you in the Brownian chaos of ages revolving pin tip angels dancing all existence yours and mine, into dust, into stars
I’m with you in nomads land out beyond the edge of the world here there be dragons and mystery where Hope’s butterfly wings let loose a mighty tempest,
I’m with you in this place of harmony where the howling of all my relations beats a path to my open door, I have been waiting for you. Come inside.

Glossary

Intifada: in·ti·fa·da n, the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that started in 1987 in protest against the continued Israeli occupation

Jihad : ji·had or je·had n, 1. a campaign waged by Muslims in defense of the Islamic faith against individuals, organizations, or countries regarded as hostile to Islam
2. any hostile campaign, for example, a series of political advertisements attacking an adversary

Kaposi sarcoma: red, brown or purple cancerous legions. A sign of advanced AID’s.

Lipoatrophy: devastating symptom of advanced AIDs where loss of fat from beneath the skin results in sunken cheeks and skeletal appearance.

Mammon: wealth and riches considered as an evil and corrupt influence

Moloch: Mo·loch or Mo·lech n 1. in the Bible, a Semitic deity to whom children were sacrificed 2. somebody or something that requires a costly and painful sacrifice, major aspect of Ginsberg’s original Howl

Operation Iraqi Liberation: originally proposed code name for America’s Operation Iraqi Freedom (note acronym spells OIL)

Sursum corda: a cry or exhortation, especially of hope

REconnected

2007-01-30T22:23:00.000-08:00

Well I haven't just given up on bloglandia but I have been having some serious technical difficulties. Two weeks of insane wind and storms brought down a few trees on the property and caused power surge after power surge. The day before (of course) the weather cleared one final blackout must have fried my wireless modem because it stopped getting a signal. I got a new one this evening and will be back at it tomorrow afternoon or Thursday. I have a whole pile of reading to do on other blogs too, oh internet connect! I miss it when it's gone and then feel overwhelmed by how much I have to do and have access to when it's on. Cest la vie. I used the time to plan our garden and exhume a few beds in preparation for spring, I feel that while not completley over, the back of winter has been broken and the days are growing longer. I will share this poem from an old chapbook of winteresque poetry called December Tide written by a female lighthouse keeper out here in the wilderness as it perfectly describes the cozy wet grey days we have been having, waking every morning to the sound of the rain battering the skylight above my bed.

RAINTOUCH

I am washed
over and over,long days of wind and rain
pouring into winter;
storm rites begin,
tea brews
through grey afternoons,
I am touched
with stark rain
sounding on my skylight

old rainy day thoughts on change

2007-01-07T15:51:00.000-08:00

I am coping out today, if you want something new scroll down and read yesterdays post, for the sake of my pseudo-promise to myself to post at least something every day though, I am putting this up. I had posted it in November on my myspace page but it may as well go up here as well. Enjoy!

The rain has come after a summer the locals will be calling the "Summer of No Rain" for decades...perhaps. Certainly the driest year on record, that's right, ever. You wouldn't know it to look out the window now, the rain came fully on November 1st and has no intentions of leaving. It's been pelting down nonstop as if to make up for lost time. I love it. I always feel vaguely guilty for reading, or thinking, or sitting in making things while the sun is beckoning from outside but in the winter I give myself permission to just be. So finally I have started doing some typing and I thought I would post this entry from one of my journals at the tail end of last year as it still seems relevant now in some ways but was also one of the catalystic conversations with myself that led us to this amazing place.

While typing the following entry I started doing some research on the author of a powerful book I am reading called ..Seven Arrows.. by Hyemeyohsts Storm of the Cheyenne/Crow nation. Such affirmation!

It's wonderful when a young person realizes that yes, our world is in trouble; yes, our earth is being polluted; yes, there are people who do not care. But if you just crush yourself with all of this information and not realize that there are things that you can do about it on a second-by-second, day-by-day basis, and that your prayers do count, and your planting a seed in the ground and just planting one tree, whether it's next to a freeway or some by road or in your backyard, or going to the river and praying for the river to clean up, all of this works, because what happens is, people feel the energy of these things. They sense that your purpose is much brighter and clearer. Mother Earth will answer those prayers in ways that are very beautiful, and people feel good when they go to the river now. They're cleansed spiritually because they're caring for the river. They're cleansed spiritually because they begin to care about the mountains and don't want the guts ripped out of a mountain.

By the same token, I would like to bring up the fact that we as human beings do like to wear shoes, pants, clothes, hats. We like our television sets, we like our radios, we like our computers, we like our recording equipment. There's nothing the matter with this. What there is something the matter with is we build cups to disintegrate. We build recorders to destroy themselves. In other words, we could do better, couldn't we. We can do better with everything on earth. If we can really begin to understand, especially the young person reading this article, that one day they will have their say. There will be that moment. Maybe they will become an exec. Maybe they will become a mother, a father. That mother or that father might be the one person who shows a child how to respect life and to respect the mountain and the grass and the grasshoppers and the birds and everything equally. That person might be the next great woman or man on earth who will make all the difference. In other words, if everybody begins to hold precious their opportunity in life, then things begin to change.

People will go to a soothsayer or to a woman that will read their "fortunes," but you know, you can't read fortunes, because there's no such thing as reading a future; a future isn't written in words. But these people are sensitive. Sensitive to what? I'll tell you what most of them are sensitive to: life. L-I-F-E. Life, mother life, father life, is real, and anytime you don't believe that, just put a plastic bag over your head and you'll fight for air. You'll begin to see that life is important. Understand what I mean? Life, then, is something you have to learn to appreciate.
Hyemeyohsts Storm

DECEMBER 26TH 2005

I typically begin a new journal every year on or before my birthday. I am starting belatedly this year as I have made or rather refurbished my own. Hopefully this page marks the beginning of a more prolific year then the one past. The last year has been one of great activity resulting in very little of tangible consequence. Except of course the time spent with Ila of which every moment is precious and worthwhile. I mean that we have not furthered our situation noticeably from last year at this time. Our growth in relation to the time we have expended seems disproportionate. I feel it has been a year of stasis, treading water, in my more optimistic moments I think perhaps we have been gathering energy. Hibernating. I feel 23, two thousand and six, will be one of action and decision. I can sense the momentum building, a growing tension awaiting only my moment of choice, my pounce. At which point all this pent up energy will spring forward like an arrow. I will focus directly on my target and put all my intent behind reaching my mark.
I am well aware of the power of intention. How a want or need puts out it's own call for fulfillment and the universe responds accordingly placing steps to guide us forward, if we are aware. I know this cognitively and yet I still loose my ability to visualize. Maintaining, or flat lining entraps me; I become immersed in just getting by. I begin to question my purpose, find flaws in my reasoning and propose arguments against my dreams. Luckily I am an intrinsically (and sometimes absurdly) optimistic spirit. I can only dampen my enthusiasm and joy in life for short periods of time. Eventually I become impatient to MOVE and I am overwhelmed by a desperate need to DO something, anything, now. This impatience and recklessness has caused me to betray myself into some incredibly self-destructive actions at times but I am learning the dual virtues of balance and temperance. Though patience is as elusive a fish to catch as ever. I am reminded of the Ashoka Foundations definition of a social entrepreneur that includes having a "healthy impatience" as a virtue. Of that I possess a more then adequate supply. For I am not content although I have a wonderful family and can possess all the amenities afforded a first world citizen. How can I be when those privileges are bought at the price of entire cultures and ecosystems and belittle all that I hold to be sacred and self-evident? Every shirt, every bill, every penny fuels unspeakable acts in my name for I also know that complicity is agreement. I know this if nothing else.

Even the most ethically produced oragnicfairtradeshadegrown pound of coffee was transported by the vast network of air, earth and sky transport to make it to me on this foggy coast. My local store however wonderful still pays taxes and contributes to the very things I do not support. Only by living and working cooperatively and striving constantly to replace the products of society with the products of our own hands can we begin to reduce our dependence upon the life/death support systems of the state.
It is funny to think of reflecting upon my life or rather on my coherent memories of the past, for I have barely begun my acceleration out of the womb. I am so young! Yet still my memories seem so vast because they are of course all I have known. I can trace the history of my growth upward through the years and draw strength from the fact that though I am stumbling blindly I am changing as I fall. I am willing to accept that I know nothing and will take my last breath still knowing only metaphorical droplets of wisdom in the absurdly immense ocean of all that is. Remember your Plato (or Plato paraphrasing Socrates or whatever): Wisest is s/he who knows s/he does not know. This does not still my love of learning, rather it inspires in me a deep and passionate desire to know as much as I can before I reach my expiry date. To feel every cell of my being awake and alive in this moment, this now in every instant, aware of my immutable connection with every microscopic particle of creation. By the very definition of symbiosis I am hopelessly interconnected with all the infinite matter surrounding me. That is my divinity. There is no distinction between god and science, philosophy or faith. Nothing is mutually exclusive all polarities are united by their connection with the grey. Although considering myself an intrinsic part of George Bush or an atom bomb does make my heart do back flips in my chest.
I do not concern myself with esoteric or metaphysical questions, the self-masturbation/flagellation of academia. Questioning whether or not there is a heaven with pearly gates or life on other planets does not keep me up nights. I am occupied on a much more visceral level. How can a believer in integrity and compassion stand such times and live? How are we to survive and raise our children as whole people not just the parody of life we are granted as a placebo to keep us complacent and inert. I want to ensure the survival of the great variety of things that I love, the naming of which would fill this book and many others.
I believe that the fabric of the universe is likely indestructible or at least that the damage human beings may manage to inflict in their willful ignorance will not exceed the universe's capacity to regenerate itself. In all likelihood life will, inevitably, continue. Whether or not there will even be an earth in that future let alone life forms that even vaguely resemble those present today defies my prediction. Indeed in an infinite universe it stands to reason that an equally infinite number of possibilities exist at any given point in time. The answer to the question of Schrödinger's cat is redundant to me and is a fabulous metaphor for the 21st century. Whether or not the cat is alive or not after being put in the box is dependant on infinite variables; health, mental state (it is in a box after all with it's very existence in question-a situation bound to make anything nervous), is the box ventilated? have they fed it? how long has it been in there and on and on ad nauseum. The real question is whether or not the act of looking defines the reality of the situation and forces one reality to take precedence over the multiple possible outcomes. For the experimenters there is the reality of belief. My experiences have forced me to conclude that we live in a responsive universe and that our collective thoughts dictate our collective perceptions or mental reality. You know the whole clapifyoubelieveinfairiestinkerbell shtick. We believe it is and so for us, it is. Our personal power over the realities of others is very powerful; one need only look to history for a multitude of examples of a single person or group of people's ability to direct the actions of millions. Any tyrant or dictator (or corporation for that matter) knows in their heart of hearts that they are but one and the people many and it is only their ability to manipulate or dominate mass consciousness that they maintain control. Of course people can also be moved to compassion and wholeness by great truths spoken from the mouths of humans as well. Dionne Fortune defined magic as ..the art of changing consciousness at will... We utilize this power in mundane and often awful ways all the time in our lives. By believing with narrow focus in only one possible truth we close many doors without ever turning the handle.
However beneath the surface of every thing we may believe no matter how strongly there is an immutable reality that governs us on a primal level. The most poignant and pitiful example is the global crisis mankind has created in the pursuit of de-evolution for the sake of progress. We are convinced that everything is going just fine thank you very much and even if it isn't we wont have to deal with it in this lifetime so will you please just shut up we're watching TV. Nothing could possibly affect our comfort any time soon and so it isn't worth wasting too much time thinking about it. We believe this with a vehemence so absolute that it is a wonder that reality doesn't just conform itself to this belief. The truth is however that the current dominating philosophy globally now is holding our heads in the great toilet bowl of bad decisions and flushing. We are racing towards a future in which there will be no life, as we know it at all. The vast and diverse ecology of our earth including the incredible cultures born of thousands of years of evolving in rhythm with life all mutated beyond recognition. The other possible outcome which looks more and more likely is that we will either succeed in killing ourselves off by violence, disease or a myriad of other unpleasant options, the earth will decide to say fuck you with finality before she reaches the point of no return by employing any number of her vast arsenal of geological weapons or insert your catastrophic event here..................And all because we can not admit we are wrong, that we are not more important then mice or fleas or a small backwoods pond. We have yet to learn the lesson that man taught dog so well, biting the hand that feeds you generally results in pain and is an all around bad plan. This is true for human too. Many indigenous people were aware of this fact, that the land demands respect and compassion, this has not changed, sacrifice is still required. Who appreciates rudeness and contempt? I wonder if the great mama's collection agency charges interest.
There always exists at any time the faint possibility that we will evolve or awaken enough to realign our collective reality with the overreaching physical reality of creation and steer ourselves towards a more appealing tomorrow. This would entail a mass paradigm shift and a collective envisioning of a radically different way of relating to the earth and each other that encompassed an understanding of all life as intrinsically valuable. I must admit when I have the misfortune of glimpsing the television and seeing what inanities people will allow into their very living rooms without question my hopes of this coming to pass are slim to negligible. I want only to act on my presentiment and on the urgings of my heart, which push me unmercifully to act in opposition to what I feel in my bones to be unjust or profane.

My need to create a place where I can live in accordance with the teachings of my soul (and a great many thinkers/dreamers) is put on hold by the simultaneous need to exist in this place at this time. I cannot separate myself from my context; that of private land ownership, bureaucracy, global politics, nuclear war, and the opposing beliefs of those who perpetuate the above and much more. Until I find an alternative I am required to pay rent, bills, taxes, debts, pay for food and clothing and put the earth's blood in the fuel tank of a car I won't even drive so that Chris can continue to travel to work for someone else to pay for all the above. That isn't even listing all the other accessory costs that eat away at what little money I don't want to have anyway. The vast majority of the people I know are in the same boat and have similar moral objections to the press of modernity but none are willing to engage in a discussion that actually leads to ACTION. They are too busy playing out the same inane patently anti-life drama enacted wholesale by the average NA citizen. Each of us is struggling towards some elusive personal future instead of unifying our efforts so that we can all begin to make headway. Like geese flying in formation-over used cliché though that it is-unity and cohesion make life easier. How nice it would be to share my life with others who wish to share theirs. How joyful our children would be! Instead everyone works to live and lives to work scrimping and saving every last cent in order to what? Rent a bigger house or actually buy one? Say we do that, buy a house in the woods, what then? We will spend every moment on basic sustenance. I would rather that then our current reliance on popular modes of production but I want to BE the change I wish to see in the world not absent myself from the issues affecting it. I also want to be surrounded by art, culture, community and the vibrant living energy that comes from sharing commonalities instead of differences. Ila is such a catalyst for me, every book, movie, glimpse of the news, reaffirms that she deserves better. I want her to grow in a place where she is cherished and valued as an individual and where no one attempts to dampen her spark and creativity. Where she is offered opportunities to achieve her dreams and explore the world around her. Yet I do not want to isolate her or prevent her from falling and fumbling as we all do with life. I want a place for her where she is free to set the boundaries that define her as a person and to put herself into context with the world without being battered into submission. I survived their attempted conditioning but not fully intact, who does? I carry all the petty ignorance and cruelty somewhere beneath this skin, what Emily Dickinson called the heavenly hurts, the unseen wounds that never heal and hurt so much more then those on the surface. I also want the place I wish for Ila for myself, and for so many many others. Every time someone closes a door or treats me as less than I feel that little girl inside me flinch. That grass stained barefoot gamine who knows that somewhere over the rainbow is a better world. Why we do not choose to make that neverneverland a right now land is a perpetual source of sadness and bafflement that I cannot put aside. I carry it inside my chest, one more heavenly hurt. I want Ila's scars and scrapes to be garnered by truly living not forced upon her by people who misguidedly feel they have power over her. I can only hope that the force of my love affords us some measure of safety and so I wrap my huge strong love around my family and as many others who allow me to love them too.
The world/community I can envision so clearly in my minds eye, down to the multi-coloured mosaic of children laughing freely on grassy streets, does not exist here where it most needs to be. I have thought over and over again about leaving the continent and taking our small family somewhere poor and honest where we can try to become a part of someone elses culture, as ours are dead or fragmented. The problem there is that the change needs to happen here in the country of the exploiters. Simple living is more radical then protest as it denies the state any power over the people, over me. To run is to admit that they are powerful and I am weak when I believe the opposite to be true. I am, as Nelson Mandela said, powerful beyond measure, where are those who feel the same and are motivated to create change?

Silly self-indulgent girl who are you to cast stones at your peers! You ought to know better with all your talk of accountability.

Oh I know that it is my responsibility to act on what I feel needs to be done. I have never known how to be any other way. So my purpose must be to attempt to make my vision a reality and say yes to making dreams manifest. Thanks Yoda..don't try, DO. The Bhagavad-Gita says "religion without philosophy is sentiment or sometimes fanaticism" both philosophy and action are required in any complete worldview.
Tomorrow is a new day, the first of the rest of my life, as each morning is. When I swing my legs out of bed I can choose to replay old patterns or to create new ones. If my current choices are unsustainable either a change will be made voluntarily or by force. Both have their pro's and con's but in the latter the decision is made for you and the consequences of inaction can be the most serious of all. There is no such thing as public vs. private or individual vs. collective, there is no place where you end and I begin.
My fate is that of the world and vice versa. I can perhaps not ever affect the great suffering that presses all around me but I can keep my own house clean metaphorically at least, a place of love and refuge, health, hearth and sanctuary.
I believe that I am insignificant inasmuch as any other living and non-living thing is insignificant. I AM. I have meaning if only to provide food for the bugs and nutrients for the soil when I go. As Nikki Giovanni wrote "I was meaningless and I wondered if life would give me the chance to mean" I am pretty sure that I only get this one go at life, at least I am determined to act as if that is so and be pleasantly (let's assume) suprised if it works out differently. An old friend wrote in one of my journals, "life is like AID's, sexually transmitted and invariably fatal". Death dosen't scare me it is natural and unavoidable. What is unnatural and avoidable scares me far more.
Regardless of whether I leave this earth as compost or seraphim I can tell you one thing for certain,
I am going to make noise when I go down.

Currently reading :
Seven Arrows
By Hyemeyohsts Storm
Release date: By 12 May, 1985

thinking out loud

2007-01-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

We human being are all fundamentally the same. We all belong to a common, broken humanity. We all have wounded, vulnerable hearts. Each one of us needs to feel appreciated and understood; we all need help.
Jean Vanier,
Founder of L'Arche

I've been thinking lately (an occupational hazard) about all sorts of things and thought here was as good a place as any to put them down. I have posted alot about why I am here and who I am but not enough about my vision as to how we intend to stay here and lead fufilling and productive lives while creating meaningful social change within the greater context of the world. I believe the two are indivisible while we live in a culture where the two have been made mutually exclusive (our lives are more then our work and our work is more then our jobs). Every path I have taken in my life has led me back to children. I find that creating relationships with children and youth has been the most wholly rewarding of any of my work/life experiences and is at it's core a revolutionary act. To empower the powerless to be strong and understand the boot grinding them into the dirt is NOT the function of the educational institution but it IS what is neccesary for change to occur. Children are the root, the seed and the soil of life, there is no meaning or purpose without them and their needs are remarkably simple. The amazing thing is that by meeting the needs of children and youth as the bottom line we also meet and exceed our fundamental requirements! The ultimate precious circle.
Ever since I began working with children and allowed my innate nature to lead my decisions in life I have been told that I could not feel the same for the children in my care as I would for my own child. Now after I have carried, birth and rejoiced in the growing of my own child can I truly say what a load of shit that was without being totally dismissed as not having a clue. I am not sure when I first heard of L'Arche communities or when the concept of a child centred community first came to mind but it has been playing in the periphery of my mind for years now. It came to the forefront of my thoughts with an explosion in the randomest spot...waiting in the car for Chris with Ila playing with some loud toy in her carseat in 2005 when all of a sudden comes this radio broadcast that could have been my heart speaking out loud to me, fully coherent and recognizable. You can listen to parts of the broadcast I heard here...in it Jean Vanier founder of the L'Arche compassionate communities talks about "about the danger of craving a spirituality without religion, and the importance of commitment rather than comfort in the life of the spirit." Everything I have ever read by this man reaches me on a deep fundamental soul level. He comes as close as any I have ever found to describing the force that moves me and whose path in life relates fully to what I am driven to create.

Life is not memories and longing for the past, nor is it dreams and fantasies about the future. It is here and now, flowing with and from reality, in communion with the earth, the universe, other people and ourselves, and it flows from reality.
Jean Vanier

L'Arche is best described in their own words, I just found this online and find the similarity between Sointula-A Place of Harmony and their heading A Place of Welcome incredible...additionally I am very focused on the symbol of the ark/flood and how it is represented across cultures and eras and have been researching it for the last few years, I have no working knowledge of French and never clued into the fact that L'Arche meant the ark...I never said I was a Sherlock. I am actually writing my first fiction story about an ark. Syncronicity again. I digress. Here's the intro:

A Place of Welcome

The aim of L'Arche is to create welcoming environments where mutually enriching relationships between people who have intellectual disabilities and others can develop.

Because L'Arche offers a home for life, it tends to attract more people with complex needs for lifelong support and relatively fewer people with mild disabilities.

In L'Arche, people with developmental disabilities and those who come to help them share life together in homes or in meaningful work or day activity settings.

L'Arche puts a great deal of energy into facilitating social inclusion and it has a vision and practices that have proven effective for people with developmental disabilities to contribute to the wider society.

Much of what L'Arche does to foster social inclusion is transferable to other settings.

L'Arche does not aspire to be very large, but it is a sign of what is possible, when barriers fall away and people of very different abilities come to appreciate one another deeply as friends who have important gifts to contribute to each other and to the wider society.

This idea that life/work are indistinguishable was one of the greatest gifts given me by my mother and in many ways my grandmother as well. I never saw them do anything they did not feel passionately about and so have never given a second thought to following my heart instead of my pocket. My most formative memories that shaped my perception of work were accompanying my mother to her various jobs...before we moved to Vancouver we lived in Victoria and my mother worked for the Garth Homer Society a large institutional care home for people with 'disabilities' or 'special abilities' or insert any other stupid pc name here....where I come from we call them people.
I loved 'work' ! All my friends were there and I had many, no names have stuck with me from that time but I do recall a blind woman who made these beautiful hooked rugs and always gave me cinnamon candies. My mother was always direct, compassionate and outspoken and in those times (I have no idea what the place is like now though I have heard good things) coupled with being a young, black single mother in a bourgeouis white small town was a recipe for disaster I remember a number of job loss crises. For a time we lived in a house one of my all time favorite artists/writers Emily Carr

lived in and a young woman with down syndrome named Deanna lived with us for almost a year because she needed a place to be and my mother felt called to provide it. I only have a few memories of her too, one is of when my cat had a litter of kittens and I kept hiding them because I wanted to keep them and she kept taking them out again which really frustrated me at the time. That was the closest I ever came to having a sister.

We left Victoria for Vancouver when I was 7 or 8, I think my mother worked for a number of small group homes but I remember one in particular where there were two men, one who masturbated chronically and another who could be violent and caused my mother to have a wrist cast for a few months. I recall never being afraid or repelled by anyone ever. These things were normative for me and it is no suprise that I had/have an affinity for outcasts, underdogs and rebels of all shapes and kinds. When I was in school at one point I doggedly practiced sign language to use with a friend in my class who was deaf and I still have basic usage of the language and Ila's first word was a sign ('more' a girl after my own heart!).

Eventually my mother shifted to working at a place called the Kettle Friendship Society:

The Kettle Friendship Society began nearly 30 years ago providing support and services to mental health consumers in Vancouver. The Kettle has since grown into a registered charity with an operating budget of close to $4 million today.
Many of the individuals The Kettle serves have dual diagnosis and long histories of abuse and neglect. Kettle members suffer from schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, and depression - often in combination with alcohol and substance issues. These are individuals who generally "fall through the cracks" of the mental health system.

and also at the Portland Hotel a hotel in the heart of the downtown eastside that essentially houses the unhouseable and provides some modicum of safety for street involved people. This is where my city took on real context and I think where the giant disconnect between me and others developed. I understood about alchoholism, drug use, prostitution, abuse, poverty, and oppression at a very young age from a perspective outside of being actively involved within the lifestyle. We lived in the same area my mother worked and I went to school with the children of some of the people she worked with. we spent alot of time talking on corners or in the aisles of the grocery store, helping people, hugging people, taking the time to love those who are most often overlooked. In a city where a young boys body was walked over for hours before anyone even stopped to see if he was alive this was a pretty revolutionary way of being. Well as sir Che himself stated and I fully agree: A true revolutionary is motivated by great feelings of love. I am a love revolutionary, a heart warrior.
All of these experiences and more led me to a life dedicated to social justice and small people. It really all came together when I put on Camp Experience Your Dreams with another woman in the summer of 2002 although I did the majority of the fundraising and organization. I wanted to prove a point that communities needed to begin taking the initiative to teach children/youth the tools needed to grow into healthy, self assured people starting with the most vulnerable and oppressed without relying on government funding or someone outside to take initiative. I fundraised over $10 000 in cash and donations ans took over 100 children out of the city for 5 days of music, workshops, organic food and love. It was a profound lifechanging experience for me and judging by the reactions of the kids for them as well. I will probably do a number of posts on Camp EYD but there is just SO much that happened there it will need more time and space then here. That was when activism and children truly merged for me. I had always said I wanted a dozen multicoloured heart warrior children (although I dont say it too much in front of Chris because he gets this pale almostgoingintocardiacarrest face that worries me-he cant imagine how we would feed them all) and now I see that that is still the path that I am on. It is not enough for me to live in paradise I want to give people the tools to CREATE that paradise wherever they are. There are retreat centres for 'adults' up the wazoo I want a retreat/learning/home for children and youth from all ages and backgrounds where we produce our own food, create our own curriculum and build a foundation for direct social action on a grassroots youth driven level. I am starting with a summer initiative that I hope will grow into a full time life long work. If I cant find people from MY generation willing to build sustainable models to see us through the coming storm then I will help create those people by giving them choices and a powerfully beautiful place to call home and as much of this surplus of loving I have been gifted with as I can. Ah, the bebe Ark! When I first started working with kids I had a strong bond with a 5 year old girl named Winter who had been mistreated by her mentally ill mother and taken custody of by the government. One day she crawled into my lap and stroked my face and asked if I could be her mother. I would have taken her right home then fuck being 17 and poor at least I could give her LOVE not some sanitized, impersonal shunting from one group home to another. This post has gone on for far longer then I intended and it is almost 2am so I will have to write more on this another day lets leave with the fact that I want to give as many Winter's as I can a safe place to grow. Want to help?

lest I forget

2007-01-05T00:28:00.000-08:00

There are some events that mark you, sometimes it is a deep wound that never heals, other times a superficial scar that 'adds character', all are part of what defines us as individuals. There have been many personal losses and triumphs in my life so far but some of the most profoundly life changing events have not involved me at all. I am not sure where this affinity for other peoples loss comes from, I have always had it. I was an absurdly empathetic young child, I even grieved for food that I couldnt finish and refused to eat apricots because I loved them so. I glued myself to the footage of Desert Storm on our little black and white tv when I was 9 despite my mother's misgivings and from 9-13 I learned all I could about the holocaust among other atrocities. It isnt a taste for the macabre, quite the opposite, it was some deepseated need to understand the world I was living in, not the sanitized version I was doled out in school. My mother was very liberal in allowing me to explore these things and I think I came out the better for it though I think she always thought it was something I would outgrow but never did. It was also one of the reasons I had to leave the city in the end. While I can draw firm boundaries with those who want to exploit me or others when I am asked to give I can't with hold it is one of the reasons I work with children. They never ask for more then they give in return. While huge traumatic world/local events can affect me to the point of my becoming involuntarily physically ill there are two major losses that I carry with me. Their names appear in my head unbidded at random times, when I am trying to fall asleep, in the middle of reading, I hold their stories inside me and have been either unwilling or unable to let them go...

Reena Virk and I were the same age when she was killed in 1997 after being beaten to
death by a group of youth, mostly girls, all white. I had grown up partially in the same area and knew by sight both her and her murderers. When she was killed I was living on Prince Edward Island, 3000 kms from BC, distance didn't lessen the effect which I totally internalized. At the time I was very angry and violent and I saw myself in her face.There was a great deal made of 'bad girls' after her death and if anyone fit the bad girl description it was me. Like most 'bad girls' I was busier hurting myself then anyone else. This article does a good job of illuminating how it was the 'differentness' of Reena Virk that killed her not a minority of angry youth.

I think of Reena whenever I think of Rachel Davis. The two are linked not by the nature of how they died but because I see in them such beauty and vitality, these are heroes in the truest sense of the word, and we are less for their being taken from us.

Before I left Vancouver I was perilously close to my breaking point, I had no reserves left for myself and I basically ran away for Cortes in 2003. I would never live in an urban centre again. January 4th 2004 Chris and I were a brand new couple and we drove down to Vancouver for my mother's birthday. We debated between going downtown to a bar that I knew in Yaletown or staying home and ordering in chinese food, we stayed in and had a grand time. The next day a friend called to tell me that a mutual aquaintance (I worked with her niece and nephew occasionally) Rachel Davis had been shot and killed trying to protect someone who was being attacked outside a bar a few blocks from where we would have been on the route we would have taken home.

I have thought long and hard on why these two deaths have had such an impact on my life. It isnt just that they died tragically, I am a repository for sad and horrific stories accumulated through years of reading and learning. Nor is it that we were connected by circumstance, I have lost other people far closer to me in awful ways who don't haunt me in the same way. I think it is an intangible connection of the heart, I used to wake of from dreams of BEING Reena Virk, experiencing her death. The same for Rachel.

It does not seem so odd to me when I read the following article. If ONE innocuous (inasmuch as a weapon of destruction can be) gun can create a trail of death and sorrow why wouldn't my heart have an affinity with just a few of the countless lost?

I leave these thoughts with a song from one of my favorite artists of all time. She has been part of my internal soundtrack since I first heard her at thirteen. I think it is all too fitting that this eerie video was filmed in East Vancouver I was shocked to find this on Youtube as the song has been on repeat all winter here. The words are a reminder:

If you do nothing it means nothing
and all those wild, wild feelings
go to waste.

Matthew Ramsey, The Province

Published: Sunday, December 03, 2006

hey call Smyrna, in Georgia's Cobb County, the "jonquil" city.

Tens of thousands of the little white daffodils bloom in the Atlanta suburb every spring.

Smyrna is a bedroom community just 15 minutes' drive from downtown Atlanta. The Smyrna website boasts of the city's convenience, its Village Green town centre, affordable homes, parks, and family atmosphere.

Julia Roberts hails from Smyrna. So does Austria-based handgun giant Glock's U.S. manufacturing plant.

In late 1998, or early 1999, a subcompact Glock 26 semi-automatic 9mm handgun rolled off the Glock, Inc. USA production line in Smyrna.

The Glock 26 from the jonquil city would kill Vancouver's Rachel Davis and Richard Hui five years later on a cold night in Gastown.

Small, designed that way for easy concealment, the gun can carry a dozen 9mm bullets in the magazine and one in the chamber. Fully-loaded, it weighs 1.2 lbs.

Gun aficionados refer to it as the "Baby Glock" -- part of a family of 37 handguns made and sold by Glock, Inc. USA.

All told, the Glock company sells about 2.5 million handguns in more than 100 countries every year. Sales average $100 million US annually, approximately two-thirds of that in the U.S. alone. Not bad for a company that made curtain rods before diversifying into guns.

Police forces like Glocks because they are simple and easy to maintain (34 parts compared to approximately 60 in a Smith and Wesson or Beretta handgun). The guns are light and sturdy, the recoil softer.

Criminals like the Glock for all the same reasons.

Founder Gaston Glock, a reclusive and extremely wealthy Austrian, notes on the company website that he is "humbled by the overwhelming response that we have received in the marketplace," but he shies away from responsibility for the human toll of his products.

"The safe handling of firearms, like morality, can not be legislated into existence," Glock writes. "Only firearms users can make the safe use and storage of firearms a reality. Please make certain that you do your part."

The company's motto: "The best product for the best value."

In January, 1999, the little Glock 26 from Smyrna was shipped northwest, destined for a Washington state gun dealership.

For two months, the best product for the best value sat unsold until one day in March of 1999, when a legitimate buyer held the gun, weighed the cost and purchased the weapon. (A Glock 26 sells today for about $535-575 US, depending on accessories.)

From that point, the gun's trail goes cold until the early morning of Saturday, Jan. 3, 2004 outside the Purple Onion nightclub on Water Street in Vancouver.

Its journey here is typical of thousands of handguns that make their way to our streets.

In Washington, the seller can, if they choose, ask to see a licence indicating residency in the state and a concealed weapons permit. They can, but they don't have to. The seller is not required to notify any official body when the gun changes hands.

It's possible, says Det. Const. Martin Bruce of Canada's National Weapons Enforcement Team, that the Glock 26 was sold dozens of times.

At some point, the gun crossed the Canadian border illegally.

Vancouver police Det. Const. Rowan Pitt-Payne says he's heard of small high-calibre weapons like the Glock 26 being smuggled across the border submerged in large cups of soda pop.

Richard Hui searched for direction in his life as the gun that would eventually end it slipped further and further out of sight and closer to him.

The years between 1999 and 2004 were ones of frustrated self-discovery, says his sister Gloria Hui.

"I think, for the longest time, he was stuck in a bit of a rut," Gloria recalls.

Richard wanted to develop his own business but he wasn't convinced what that venture should be. He worked odd jobs and travelled a bit, mostly to weddings with friends -- of whom he had many. He was never too far from family. In 2001, he moved out of his mother's house and into a three-level Vancouver townhouse with his sister.

He was looking for independence, Gloria says, but there was more to the choice.

The move cast Richard in the role of protector, helping Gloria to pick up the pieces of her life after a divorce. Richard got Gloria up and out of bed when she would have preferred to shut out the day. He got her living again.

"I think he moved in to watch over me," Gloria says. "What really stood out for me was how much he had grown up. He very, very quickly brought reality back to my life."

Rachel Davis was on a similar path to a future she would never realize. A few months after the Glock 26 was sold in Washington, Rachel graduated from Stratford Central Secondary -- "Home of the Rams" -- in Stratford, Ont.

Her immediate mission, says father Bruce Davis, was an epic road trip from Stratford to Arizona. Spiritual enlightenment was the goal. What she got instead was a broken-down van in Chicago.

Rachel kept going west, closer and closer to the gun. She worked at the ski resort in Lake Louise, Alta., during the 1999-2000 season, quitting to go to Vancouver and the aid of her half-sister Celine, who needed help with her two children in the wake of a failed relationship. Like Richard Hui, Rachel Davis helped her family when they needed it.

She stayed in B.C., travelling around the province, giving up another job in 2003 to help out with nannying again.

She liked to go out on the town and she was bold enough to break up fights. She always spoke her mind.

By the spring of 2003, says Bruce Davis, Rachel had started to figure out what her life might hold.

"Her horizon had finally settled down to the point where she knew where she would possibly be," her father says.

Defence lawyer or family therapist. Both possibilities fit with Rachel's way. She planned to start studying at Langara in the spring of 2004.

While the two victims helped their families, Imran Saff Sharif and another man ran a dial-a-dope business, selling cocaine and heroin. Sharif handed over a packet of cocaine to an undercover New Westminster police officer in the summer of 2001. The dealing duo were charged in B.C. Supreme Court in July, 2001.

On Nov. 5, 2003, each pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking. It's not known if Sharif had the Glock 26 by then. Regardless, he had it two months later.

Sharif was free to roam the streets until his sentencing date Jan. 23.

On the night of Jan. 2, 2004, Sharif and Altaf Hussain drove a white Ford Explorer downtown and parked it near the Purple Onion Cabaret on Water Street. Before the violence, Hussain worked for Sharif in the dial-a-dope business.

Sharif left the loaded Glock 26 in the console.

Also downtown that night was Francis Brandon "Frankie" Mathews. (Mathews would go on to be convicted of manslaughter in the August 2005 death of Jason Herrera.)

According to B.C. Supreme Court testimony, Sharif and Hussain were outside the Purple Onion at 4 a.m. -- closing time -- on Jan. 3. Sharif flirted with a woman.

Two men, one of them the girl's boyfriend, took exception to Sharif's advances. He was punched. Hussain got into the brawl. Among the tangle of fighters was Richard Hui. Asleep in the Ford, Mathews got a phone call from Sharif -- get the gun.

It was time for the Glock 26.

Rachel Davis was between the two groups of men apparently trying to shield Sharif from further blows when Mathews handed the Glock over.

Five years after a Glock employee in Smyrna, Ga., put the finishing touches on the weapon, Sharif grabbed the gun and opened fire.

Richard Hui didn't want to go out that Friday night.

Weather forecasters predicted temperatures to fall to -3 C. Hui and his girlfriend spent the evening relaxing and watching TV.

"I remember taking calls and saying, 'No, I don't want to go out. It looks like it's going to snow anyway,'" says Richard's sister Gloria.

That didn't stop Richard. A friend called, offering to pick him up. Richard put down his glass of orange juice. He asked Gloria, "Would you put this in the fridge?" and stepped outside into the night.

Five hours later a bullet moving at 350 metres per second slammed into Richard's skull. Four bullet fragments would later be taken from his body.

Near Richard, on the cold concrete sidewalk, lay Rachel Davis, also the victim of a head shot fired by the Glock 26.

It's likely neither suffered.

Around their bodies was chaos as Imran Saff Sharif fired over and over again.

"People were dropping," Altaf Hussain testified. Hussain himself was struck in the shoulder.

Four others were also hit, mostly in the neck and upper body areas. Prosecutor Elliot Poll would later argue in court that the wound distribution indicated that Sharif intended to kill everyone he fired at that night. Sharif, Poll noted, was a blessedly bad shot.

At some point, Sharif stopped firing. He and Hussain ran back to the Ford and took off. Sharif was arrested nine months later and convicted of two counts of first-degree murder last July. He is not due for parole until 2029. His lawyer has filed an appeal.

The Glock 26 was found dumped in a Surrey park 10 months after the shooting. It still held two rounds.

As of early-November, the Glock 26 was lodged in evidence storage at B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.

The five-year life of the gun appears to be over, but its legacy continues.

Rachel Davis's family established a foundation in the young woman's name, both to remember her life and award others who embody the compassion and bravery she showed the night she died. The hope is that the Rachel Davis Award will eventually become a national initiative.

Gloria Hui still dreams about her brother. She hears his voice sometimes so close and familiar she swears it's real.

Richard's message to his sister remains the same as it was when he moved in with her all those years ago -- get up and live. Do.

mramsey@png.canwest.com

THE PATH OF THE KILLER GLOCK

1.In late 1998 or early 1999, a subcompact Glock 26 semi-automatic 9mm handgun, designed for easy concealment, rolls off the production line in Smyrna, Georgia.

2.In March, 1999, a legitimate customer buys the gun from a dealer-ship in Washington State. The weapon may have changed hands dozens of times before leaving the U.S.

3.After being brought into B.C. illegally, the gun is used to kill two innocent Canadians who had been enjoying a night out in Gastown. The Glock was found 10 months later.

A witchy kind of day

2007-01-04T16:09:00.000-08:00

Full Moon... by *MichiLauke on deviant ART

BY moon dark and moon bright
In lightest heart and inner night
We weave the Web
to set things right

-Patricia Worth

The full moon has made everything go all wild. First, it is my mother's birthday, happy birthday to you! Go check out this in praise of mothers. It has been a seriously weird day.I barely slept last night for the huge moon overhead and what little rest I did get was filled with odd brother grimm like fairy tale dreams. I woke to sun followed by snow, sun, snow, sun, hail, sun, snow, sun, snow, and rain in that order. We watched geese do a full avian show above Ila's bedroom skylights then watched eagles soaring off our bedroom balcony;
Five minutes later:

Ten minutes later:

1/2 an hour...

It was uncanny, coupled with a rangy allovertheplaceallbyselfnonapIla plus my monthly moon time makes for all over spinetingly oddness. Ive been thinking about cycles and changes and death/rebirth, the sacrifice of winter and the promise of spring, I always get a little heavy and cerebral this time of year. Today has felt more like the new year then NYE did the moon is rising all heavy yet waning and it is 4 minutes til the witching hour. It's feeling like a sleepless night. Now, where did I leave that darn broomstick?

oh love!

2007-01-02T14:55:00.000-08:00

I had decided last night to write a post about something a little closer to home, my love Chris. He must have read my mind because I woke up to this...

My love,
Here I sit, while you sleep, thinking of you and how lucky I am to have you in my life. With your love and Ila I truly am a rich man. Before I met you I never imagagined I would be where I am now-living in paradise with the most amazing young woman I've ever known (you!) and the most incredible baby in the world.
I honestly can't say where I envisioned myself at this time three years back. I think my years in high school instead of encouraging me actually drained my passion for learning and my passion in general. Now you are helping to awaken what I once thought lost and I cherish you for that. You help me remember what it is to feel passionatley about life precisely because you ARE so passionate. I cherish you for that too, even though sometimes that passion causes me to freeze and close up. I think that is because the strength of your feeling sometimes overwhelms me and I don't know how to respond because I havent known how to share your passion. But I am learning. You are helping me to learn.
You are helping me to grow and to become something more then a working stiff, for this also, I love you. You are helping me to rediscover the beauty inherent in our day to day lives and to use that beauty, which brings joy, to balance that impulse inside me that focuses on the trivialities of this 'civilized' existence. With you as my guide I am rediscovering myself and for that I love you. Without you I would probably be spending my days at some school without knowing why, without recognizing what I was missing: love, beauty and happiness. Even though it may not always seem like it I truly am happy here in our life together. I think in order to calm the side of my brain that tends to overemphasize the importance of the demands society makes on us (the part of my brain that frustrates you so!) I simply need to shift my focus to what really matters, you, Ila, Balou, Shiva [our dog and cat], love, beauty and happiness.
So this little letter is a song of praise for YOU. You who love me despite my faults and failings. You who love life so passionatley without question, you who really will make a difference in this world and already have through all the children you have reached. You who have borne our child and instill in her the same passion that you feel. You who make me realize just how silly I can be. You who see injustice in this world and seek to right it. You who make me want to be a better person, father, partner. By now I think you get the picture- I think you are incredible (even when you are grumpy and frustrated with me) and I celebrate you.
So I ask myself, how am I lucky enough to have found you and to share this life with you? Especially when so many have so little, why is my life filled with so many blessings? The answer: I must have done something right and have some purpose in this world that includes you. In short, you are my blessing, my salvation, and light in the darkness. You will help me to grow and become the person I need to be so that we can change this world together and with the patience you learn from me and the impulsive passion I learn from you I really think that before our time is done here we will have done just that.
I love you and thank god for you.
Love-me.

Good morning to me!!!! I just got all weepish typing it even though I have read it a number of times.
So I have had my praises sung today and all the reasons for our love is evident in his words. For once he left me speechless!
I will leave it in the hands of Rumi to express both my awe and joy. When dreaming of Chris long before we met this was the poem that gave me hope that the one who my heart would be sheltered by was out there, waiting for me, learning the lessons needed to bring us together to begin our journey. He was!

Music Master

You that love lovers,
this is your home. Welcome!

In the midst of making form, love
made this form that melts form,
with love fot the door,
soul the vestibule.

Watch the dust grains moving
in the light near the window.

Their dance is our dance.

We rarely hear the inward music,
but we're dancing to it nevertheless,

directed by the one who teaches us,
the pure joy of the sun,
our music master.

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain, both. We are
the cold sweet water and the jar that pours.

I want to hold you close like a lute,
so we can cry out with loving.

You would rather throw stones at a mirror?
I am your mirror, and here are your stones.

-Rumi, Sufi poet/mystic born 1207 in Balkh, Afghanistan

Proceeding down the path of RESISTANCE

2007-01-01T15:13:00.000-08:00

The first day of a new year is a good time to take stock and reflect. Yesterday I felt called to send my rallying call out into the vastness of internet space in the hope that it might spark a similar fire in the hearts of whoever stumbles upon it. Today let's take a trip around the world to take soul-sustenance from just a drop from the endless well of visions from other truth seekers and revolutionaries. This is just a smattering of the great wealth of people out there creating change but my fingers are getting sore and dinner must be cooked so I am going to have to call it quits here...Do I sense a serial blog topic in the making?

*note: click on the images or logos for links to websites/additional info*

In the land down under is a sanctuary called...

The Valley is several thousand acres of beautiful rainforest next to the sea, in the 1.5 hours from Auckland, New Zealand .

The sanctuary is volunteer run and the website has a huge variety of job postings and opportunities to get involved, sanctuary members believe that our Earth is not a commodity, but our community.

To the Hawaiian community of Malu'Aina (Land of Peace) where the Center for Non-Violent Education and Action is located.

To the misty gardens of Findhorn in Scotland...

In the ghettos of LA from the ashes of race riots comes a powerful redemptive movement as youth find a release for their pain and come closer to god through dance...

catch the whole story in one of the most transformative movies I have ever been priveledged enough to watch...RIZE

In Britain founder Camila Batmanghelidjh organization Kids Co. is "a real example of a community-based, needs-led, 'joined-up' project, with a rare ability to reach out to a large number of profoundly disadvantaged young people”

To the brothels of India where one woman's connection to the unwanted children of street workers brings hope to the once hopeless...

Learn about the transformative power of art and get involved with Zana Briski's project here
Other great projects involving art/music as vehicles for social change:

In Washington/Canada:

The Power of Hope unleashes the positive potential of youth through arts-centered intergenerational and multicultural learning programs that value self-awareness, leadership, community and social change.

Random acts of kindness and compassion worldwide:

What started as a book is becoming a global movement:

Bestselling authors, corporate trainers and internationally acclaimed advocates for social change, the Kindness Crew is sparking a global revolution in kindness. From audiences at Fortune 500 Companies to entire metropolitan centers, the Crew has inspired and mobilized thousands to commit acts of community service.
http://www.extremekindness.com/

Leaders, visionaries and truth seekers from sea to shining sea:

The Ashoka Foundation:
http://www.ashoka.org/

Ashoka envisions a world where Everyone is a Changemaker: a world that responds quickly and effectively to social challenges, and where each individual has the freedom, confidence and societal support to address any social problem and drive change.

Ashoka strives to shape a global, entrepreneurial, competitive citizen sector: one that allows social entrepreneurs to thrive and enables the world’s citizens to think and act as changemakers.

WE WILL NOT OBEY:

Americans refuse to participate in war

BREAKING THE BANK:

Solari and Catherine Austin Fitts:

The Solari Opportunity is to transform our world by withdrawing our deposits, purchases, investments and attention from banks, media, companies, and other institutions who are not acting in our best interests, and to shift them to institutions led and financed by people who manage in alignment with our values in an effective, transparent and accountable manner. The Solari Opportunity is to to shift wealth and power back into balance with the interests of families and communities in a manner that will permit the creation of new wealth. We do this by each taking responsibility for our economy, by forming Solari Circles, Solari Investor Circles, and -- where there is significant local business and citizen support -- a Solari databank and investment advisor in our neighborhoods. As we 'vote' with our consumer power, our bank deposits, our currency and our investments, we direct the power of the investment community to supporting a rising Solari Index and invigorating our local living economies worldwide.

LETSystem/Local Exchange Trading System

A little closer to home, this is a comprehensive trading/electronic money system first developen in Comox, BC and subsequently used successfully world wide...Who doesnt want to print their own money?

Our final stop is what must have been my heart home in another life... Gaviotas in the llanos of Columbia...

With the world's population set to double within half a century, people will soon have to live on land previously considered unlivable. This knowledge guided visionary Paolo Lugari to his decision to build a sustainable tropical civilization in Colombia. He explained to a team of scientists, agronomists, engineers, and doctors that he believed they had three choices for where to develop a new community: burn down the Colombian Amazon, do the same to El Choco, the large rainforest on Colombia's western coast, or preseve the forests and follow him to los llanos, the barren plains east of the Andes. In 1971, Lugari staked a claim to 25,000 acres of the llanos, where the group began to transform the worst soils in Colombia into the miraculous community of Gaviotas.

Gaviotas is a compound of neat white cottages with laminated roofs, shaded by mango trees and bougainvillea. The fresh air is gardenia-scented; yellow warblers and dazzling scarlet tanagers sing in the trees. There are guest houses, a refectory, commissary, and school. Across a field horses graze in front of a meeting hall with a radically vaulted roof. Its aerodynamic appearance is echoed by clusters of brightly painted family dwellings, whose pitched roofs are studded with solar panels. Solar water heating systems developed at Gaviotas now heat water in the president's palace in Bogota, as well as in the three largest public housing developments - one with 7,500 units - in Bogota and Medellin. At Clinica San Pedro Claver, one of the nation's biggest hospitals, Gaviotas is installing not just solar water heaters, but boilers, coaxing from Bogota's cloudy climate temperatures sufficiently hot to sterilize instruments around the clock.

Although Gaviotas families have their own kitchens, they mostly eat in the open-air dining room. A hundred-plus people gather at long tables for lentil soup, salad, rice, meat-and-potato stew, cassava, and papaya juice. Vegetables, beef, pork, and fish are produced here.

Custom Windmill Power

Bright aluminum sunflowers signal the approach to Gaviotas. Although this tropical plain floats atop a vast subterranean lake, Indians and early settlers had to haul water from muddy streams. Jorge Zapp, head of the mechanical engineering department of Bogota's Universidad de Los Andes, studied 58 different types of windmills before creating a custom model to pump the llanos. The result was a compact unit weighing barely 100 pounds, its blade tips contoured like airplane wings to trap soft equatorial breezes.

Gaviotas provided a chance to plan a tropical civilization from the ground up, instead of depending on technologies developed for northern climates. "When we import solutions from the US or Europe," said Lugari, founder of Gaviotas, "we also import their problems."

Over the years Gaviotas technicians have installed thousands of the windmills across Colombia - in some places gaviotas is the local word for windmill. Since Gaviotas refuses to patent inventions, preferring to share them freely, the design has been copied from Central America to Chile.

Electricity comes from a low-head turbine powered by a stream, except in the short dry season, when it is backed up by a diesel generator. "In 24 years we've learned to cover 70 percent of our food and energy needs," says Gonalo Bernal, administrator of Gaviotas. "The trees we plant more than compensate for any greenhouse gases we emit. Imagine if the rest of the world lived like us."

Gaviotas began as a collection of researchers, students, and laborers sharing vehicles, bedding, dishes, clothes - and decisions. In time several of their families joined them and a permanent colony with individual houses emerged. Government was by consensus and unwritten rules. To limit public disorder, alcohol is confined to homes. To preserve wildlife, dogs and guns are banished. A need for police, jail, or door locks has never arisen. Anyone who violates protocol, like a storekeeper who recently admitted to overcharging, is ostracized by the community until his debt is paid. Loafers aren't tolerated, but with wages above the Colombian minimum wage, plus free meals, medical care, schools, and housing, loafing isn't a problem.

Revolutionary Inventions

A techno-tour of the llanos shows how Gaviotas has revolutionized life here. The most significant invention is a simple hand pump capable of tapping aquifers six times deeper than conventional models, but requiring so little effort that children can operate it. In normal pumps a heavy piston must be raised and lowered inside a pipe. Gaviotas engineers realized they could do the reverse; leave the piston stationary and lift an outer sleeve of lightweight, inexpensive PVC tubing instead.

At a windmill-fed cattle trough, surrounded by a sloping cement floor, cowboys have just brought several thirsty calves. As they drink, their dung slides down the slope into a gutter, which sluices it to an enclosed anaerobic fermentation tank, where the cow-pie slurry turns into compost and methane.

The methane flows through pipes to the 16-bed Gaviotas hospital, which a Japanese architectural journal has named one of the 40 most important buildings in the world. It is at once both futuristic and ancient, a maze of angles formed by white walls, glass awnings, skylights, brushed steel columns, and exposed supports trimmed in blue and yellow enamel. The interior is cooled with underground ducts whose hillside intakes face the prevailing breeze. Opposing layers of corrugated roofing create a series of air channels that further bleed away the heat. The combined effect is cost-free, maintenance-free air conditioning. Solar collectors on the roof alternately heat, boil, and distill water. Electricity is from solar photovoltaic cells.

The only hospital within a 12-hour radius, it serves all comers, including both guerrilla and army forces battling in the area. "The rule here is never to ask," says Bernal. "Like the Red Cross, everybody respects us."

A short, vine-covered walkway connects the Gaviotas hospital to the maloks, a separate wing built by the local Guahivo Indians. Instead of beds, patients and their families lie in hammocks hung from wooden beams under a great thatch roof. Relatives of the sick tend crops of tomatoes, lettuce, and onions in an adjacent hydroponic greenhouse.

If the National University's pharmacology department and the Guahivo shamans have their way, this greenhouse will one day become the finest medical plant laboratory in the tropics. But money is a critical factor, and Colombia's expanding, government-owned oil and gas industry has dampened Gaviotas' solar collector sales by blocking tax benefits for investing in alternative energy. At the same time revenue from windmills and pumps dropped as Colombian agriculture was battered by an unexpected onslaught of cheap imported foods, the fallout of new free trade policies.

So Gaviotas has decided to scale down its manufacturing. But no one is getting laid off. "Gaviotas isn't a company," Lugari says, "we're a community. In fact the solution means that both employment and Gaviotas will grow."

The solution is the nearly 20,000 forested acres. In the past 12 years, Gaviotas has planted 1.6 million Caribbean pines (after finding that no indigenous tree would grow on the prairie). To the surprise of foresters, Gaviotans chose not to cut their standing timber. Instead they are converting their windmill factory to process pine resin. Colombia spends $4 million annually to import such resins for the manufacture of paint, turpentine, and paper. Armed with that fact, Lugari persuaded the Japanese government to provide the seed money, via a grant through the Interamerican Development Bank, to begin tapping and processing resin for the domestic market.

Environmentalists initially questioned the wisdom of introducing a monoculture of an exotic tree into the llanos. Lugari countered that since nothing else grew there, Gaviotas was displacing no native species. In fact, quite the contrary.

Primeval Forest Reborn

In the moist understory of the Gaviotas pine forest, dormant seeds of native trees probably not seen here for millennia have sprouted. So far, biologists have counted nearly 40 species. Sheltered by pine trees, a diverse, indigenous forest is regenerating here with surprising speed, and Gaviotas intends, over decades, to let it choke out the pine and return the llanos to what many ecologists believe was their primeval state: an extension of the Amazon. Already the populations of deer, anteater, and capybaras are growing. As the process continues, Gaviotas will keep planting more treees. They've given away thousands of seedlings to neighbors, and groves of young pines are thriving all over the llanos.

"Elsewhere they're tearing down the rain forest," Lugari says. "In los llanos, we're putting it back."

"This place is utopia," someone once told him.

"No," he answered, "not utopia. Topia. Utopia literally means 'no place.' Fantasy land. But Gaviotas is real."

This was adapted from an article by Alan Weisman in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, Sept. 25, 1994. Alan Weisman is an international journalist based in Sonoita, Arizona.

Building A New World From The Shell of The Old

2006-12-31T21:43:00.000-08:00

I was going to write some reflection on the past year(s) but instead I am posting my own calling to arms, the words that have been pulled out of me in defiance and ones in which I have found a similar joyous rebellion. Let this new year be one of reclamation, of ourselves, of our humanity, of our earth. Do not be content any longer with the mediocrity meagerly doled out to you by a culture that no longer serves to protect your best interests if it ever did. Our first imperative is survival, not by the skin of our teeth at the last brutal minute when next to all life and diversity has been obliterated but NOW before it is too late for any but the basest redemption. Before we go too far. For what purpose does our survival have without the context of diversity. This is my definition of diversity, the closest I come to any "religion" or "faith":

"A salient feature-probably the most salient feature-of our culture is a near absolute intolerance for and hatred of diversity. Oh, I'm not talking about a phony diversity where we put up with people with different colour skin or different sexual orientations (so long as the people are still White) though often we do not even put up with these variations. I'm not talking about putting up with little brown boys, so long as they wear expensive shoes made by little brown girls hired on the cheap by female managers wearing men's clothing and bumping their heads on glass ceilings of corporations overseen by white males for the purpose of making profits for themselves and their shareholders...All of this is tolerated. None of it is diversity.
...Real diversity is a flock of passenger pigeons so large it darkened the sky for days at a time, and it is polar bears in Maine. Diversity is wood bison in Pennsylvania, and an ancient forest in New York City. Diversity is the capacity for a community of humans to confront trees, or fish, or human beings with no thought of how to best use them, how to turn them to profit. Diversity is a life lived with no concern for production, but, instead, lived with attention paid to the particular moments that pass, one by one, each bringing new beauties and carrying us at the same time that much closer to death." -Derrick Jensen, The Culture of Make Believe

My suggestion is this:

Refuse to participate in a culture that owes it's way of life to the abasement of our vast earthly kingdom and all it's inhabitants.
Pack up your families, loved ones, and any who will join you and remove yourselves from the death grip of this faltering society. Remember: when empires crumble they fall right on the people.
Find a community, any community, devoid of skyscrapers and neon lights, somewhere primal and close to the heartbeat of the earth. Love the PLACE instead of the things that once defined you.
Learn to live your life with no regard for things, objects with no meaning or the externalized trappings of a society predicated on consumption. Instead cultivate a love of small pleasures and honest labour. "A refuge never grows from a head in a hand in a thoughful pose you have to tend the earth if you want a rose" -Indigo Girls
Give freely to yourself and others gifts of the heart without strings or attachment, water the seeds of peace within and without, make this your life's work and your higher calling, teach this to your children and your children's children. Begin to make once again a garden of this place.
Read this:

revolution: to make again a garden of this place

on the hands of the complict, culpability is bright scarlet
and my conviction is only fortified.

the days of the prison industrial complex are marked.
the world trade organization and the world bank
and the monsantos and the disneys and the duponts
are going the way of the dinosaurs

we, justice loving feminists, anarchists, anti-imperialists,
we, Sojourner Truth's children, the children of Emma Goldman,
Rosa Luxemburg, Ida B. Wells and Ella Baker
we, the green, the freedom claiming and self-determining
are undoing your murderous mania.

we are taking back the power to see another way.
we are throwing light on your horrorshow,
exposing you in back rooms, boardrooms and conventions
to air your secrets, lies and unaccountable violence.

we're sitting down in the streets, waltzing into your offices,
smashing your missiles and blood soaked coffee empires
disrupting your dirty business as usual
in traffic, on bridges, in the courts, on your bases
building unity and new models,
arming ourselves with economic theory and compassion
we're bent on being human, and don't have another minute
for your hate, for your greed, for your repression
we are taking the world
of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy
carefully and absolutely apart.
-Elizabeth Roberts-

7. Find solace in loving others, especially children, self-love will bubble up in response. The relationships will flourish bringing you closer to the source, God, the Creator, madre tierra, home. Plant gardens together, nuture yourselves with the fruits of communion and togetherness, tend.watch.grow.

8. resist. rebel. unite.

I wrote this originally in some book that has been lost in 98/99 it survives in others, the earliest from 2000-it is a constant work in progress, want to help? What do you not wish/do wish? What dreams or hopes do you send out on the first star or a fallen eyelash? What are you waiting for?

I do not wish to wipe the dusty haze from the plexiglass of morning
or the lusty nine hour old sex stench from my passion soiled skin
I do not wish to remember repression in the guise of redemption
or gain eternal peace that costs the sacrifice of an earthly paradise
I do not wish to let go of either my lovers hands or refuse any loving touch
I do not want to deny the love jolted full tilt boogie of imaginative ressurection
or live in a fashion chic clique or swim in a sea of self-righteous rhetoric that translates into zero action
I do not wish to fly a fast plane, drive a fast car, or die a fast death from drugs, bullets or bombs or die a slow death from the apathy that transforms compassionate people into machines
I do not wish to eat the lard, swallow the fat or suck up the death drenched diet served up with special sauce on a sesame seed bun created by automatons caught in the thought hold of a time clock
I will not sacrifice myself to the rat race or be coerced into giving up my morals or beliefs
by conforming myself to fit social norms and regulations
I DO wish to remember the whistling wind, bending tree and setting sun
I DO wish to lay claim to my birthright of joy and walk boldly down the path's of the heart I choose
I DO wish to live out my days and all of my lives to their fullest extent ever reaching for the highest vision of myself
I DO wish for a peaceful world where a stranger is a friend
I DO wish for peace of mind, a blissful righteous blend
I DO wish to forge new roads, to push on past the edges of the earth, beyond the signs saying "here there be dragons", away from the all-seeing eye of progress in the company of my brothers and sisters
To create together a new world from the shell of the old.

And finally...despite power outages and internet tower failures, holidays and a few minor illnesses and calamities (like Chris almost breaking his hand carrying firewood!) I could have found time to post a bit more frequently then I have been and I have been really awful about responding to comments but I have been busy writing a few pieces that have been telling me to complete them. I think it is fitting to put up this original poem as it sparked the thought to write an epic piece stylistically based on Allen Ginsberg's Howl and my previous calling to arms thoughts... I am almost done over 2,000 words and counting and am hoping to put it up here and get some critique and maybe some editing???? Anyway, here goes the zygote...

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by the politics of disinterest
enlisted into armies of the indulgent and complicit
oh! for the rebellion of rock and roll
now replaced by the dull pounding of techno
or the inane babble of talk show radio
hey there DJ play me some soul!
for the anthem so willingly sung by my brothers and sisters
in the early first quarter of the 21st century is a resounding
“land of the free and home of the brave”
set to the back beat of Brittany intoning
I’m a slave for you

hit me baby one more time

yes,
hit me
with a message more profound then swarms of commuter trains or the
repetitious white picket fence homogeneity of the suburban inane

with a sound more eloquent then the detonation of handguns
the explosion of weapons
the sullen impact of metal on flesh
the sound of women screaming
hit us
with a movement more relevant then the opening and closing of checkbooks
and the whirring and circling of computer screens

we are hungry,
we are ready,
we are tired of waiting.

turn off the ever-present daytime TV and repeat after me
“I AM NOT IN YOUR TARGET MARKET”
stop asking yourself what makes you human
ask yourself what makes you humane

how much of your imagination will you sacrifice to the humdrum and mundane
how far can you bend in compromise to a world you did not create
how much must you swallow before you fill up the ache
in your belly called empty

empty
soulless
empty of solace
this barren landscape sky scraped bare and bleeding

sshh...your mother is weeping

her grief the raw wound of a clear cut
rotting fish spawning in dirty streams
the forest a grave where the bodies of her children lay

this is the work of our industry
our hard won economy
the monument we have built to reward our continued existence
this survival of the vicious
don’t you realize that we leave here nothing but a vague imprint in the sediment
a lost useless sentiment
gone with one breath of the shifting wind

it is better to have planted one seed in a hundred lifetimes
then to have erected a thousand buildings in one

what legacy is this jungle of concrete
but a testament to millions of lonely feet
pounding out a rhythm of sadness and longing

is this the message you choose to leave on the words of the wind
and the whispering leaves?

tell me, what is your offering
to the flame in your chest,
that bright fragile spark
the restless beating of your reckless heart?

the culmination of your days results in this
exists in this one moment, instant, eternity, breath from your moment of conception you have raced towards
the moment of your death.
when you stand stripped clean and naked before the entirety of your existence
will your life amount to nothing more then piles of receipts and
the remnants of a life half lived?

wake up,
open your eyes
now is the first moment of the rest of your life
ask yourself;
“Do I want to be a sheep or a revolutionary?”
Proceed.

retrospect

2006-12-20T15:11:00.000-08:00

This was supposed to go up awhile ago but various outages of one service or another have prevented any computer time. I had one of those justhavetodosomething days today but ona more mundane level. I haven't left the North Island since May or seen anyone I knew from before moving here except my father I just wanted to get OUT. So we are doing a spontaneous road trip down island tomorrow while we do need to pick up a few supplies I am going to imagine we have a more noble mission...onto the entries....

Oh for a falconer's voice that I would tear the cave where echo lies
and make hoarse her voice with the repetition of a single word:
ARISE

March 19, 2006

Some days are harder then others. Where is my army? My band of avenging angels or Round Table crusaders without the weapons of destruction. I was born at the wrong time in the wrong place, once upon a time I could have rallied people to the banner of truth and justice-united by our common disatisfaction and need for change. Our beautiful promised land decays around us while we push shopping carts through endless walmarts searching for a good deal. When is oppression ever a bargain? I marvel at how we can be so absurdly complacent, so totally devoid of passion and vision, not even the vastness of creation can stir us from our apathy.

Tell me,
"what makes you so lavish that you can afford to spend every waking moment feeling angry, feeling bored"-ani d.

Television has sapped us of our imagination-we have lost the ability as a society to dream ourselves out of our tedious lives and are thus incapable of striving towards anything of value. Days like this I could explode with frustration and yell myself hoarse with impatience. Come on people! At the very least we must TRY, to strain for something no matter how elusive. Is it not better to burn then to freeze? As Ginsberg wrote "we are all so LONLEY." because we choose to be. Of all the possible realities, the potential choices the universe has laid before us in a banquet of infinite size we have opted for this. A
farce of a human community, divided into first world vs. the whole world, consumed by our grabbing and snatching, hoarding away gaudy madeinchina treasures and surpassing even the greediest of crows.

"Community-what does that word really mean?
To me it means when one does well, so do two or three,
see I dream bigger past you and me." -Kinnie Starr

April 2, 2006

I fucking hate waiting.

Sometimes a pressure starts building inside me. I am not sure what triggers it, more likely that everything does rather then one specific part of the whole. It is like gas slowly leaking into a big balloon. I fill up bit by bit the pressure inside exceeding it's capacity until I must either be released to sputter, squeak, cough and fart finally coming to rest flattened and flapping-or burst from an excess of emotion. I want to screamlaughcrydancefuckfightlove to know I am wholly alive an adventure of any kind to halt tomorrow and tomorrow from creeping in. To escape the monotony however briefly of obligation and debt. To let the storm work it's way out of me. Sometimes this is enough...

to just sit and allow a torrent of words to pour from me onto this unresisting page.

Chris has a hard time understanding this sense of obligation to all life, to a purpose outside myself, his mission in life seems to be US. Which allows me to continue living in the eye of the storm his support makes it possible, this is enough for him though and that is where we differ. I know that my deep love for our family is not enough to keep us safe from the steady encroachment of a world gone mad. From these times that we are uniquely suited for yet totally unprepared for as well.

An example:
The other day I was overwhelmed by a horrible, roiling, knowing inside my belly of the enormous wrongness surrounding us. The idea of my perfect daughter, any ones perfect child being gifted with these unholy holy wars as a legacy filled me with rage, pity, loss, and an urgent desperate need to DO something now to change our situation. Unable to conceal my intense personal conflict I tried to explain in words how I was feeling. Trying to make me feel better Chris said,

"well there isnt anything we can do about it right now"

That was just about the exact wrong thing to say to me which he found out pretty quick!!!

I needed to hear something positive like "what can we do about it?" (lots) or "got any ideas" (plenty).

My sadness was quickly replaced with pissedoffedness.

1. Why the hell not?
2. Isnt that the bullshit cop out every one uses to avoid confronting the reality that there is ONLY now.

I am 23 and while I know some about navigating in the dark waters of the 21st century I am incapable of providing for my family on a subsistence level with goods produced in accordance with my ethics. Every purchase entails a compromise that is unacceptable for me. I must find an alternative. I feel the time escaping me with a sickening rapidity I am youthful and energetic now.

I feel restrained, contained, tied down. I want to get out of here and move towards where I need to be. To just begin. My exterior is at complete odds with my interior who is frantic with anticipation. My muse does not sit idle willingly. I escape into books most melancholy, bittersweet tales of love and toil on the coast. I fill my brain with images and wordscapes of the place my body yearns for. The raincoast. While I love the world of words I am frustrated by their inadequecy. No more of this voyeurism, attempting to live vicariously through another's literary eyes. I want to BE that pirate, that adventurer, a voyager into the all too familiar unknown. Why settle for less when the world awaits?
Eternity holds its breath awaiting that one.first.step
towards truth.
I want to be raw and untamed, stripped bare beneath the eye of my maker, just one more minute part of the absolute seeking to return, so much dust in the palm of her hand.
Out beyond this tower of bills, the whole monolithic culture of paper and plastic, our consensual false reality, is a world still primal, vibrant.
I sit on this porch connected to a house connected to an expanse of concrete that will lead to a shopping mall in either direction. I bankrupt myself trying to feed my friends and family food that was produced locally when I could more cheaply by food from China. At least I am priveledged enough to consider the choice.

Days like this everything repels me.

Perhaps I ought to try some of the patience the world is always trying to foist on me on for size. While I am working on it...

I still fucking hate waiting.

The Lost Days of Columbus-Lee Maracle with a ps from moi

2006-12-20T14:49:00.000-08:00

The Lost Days of Columbus

by Lee Maracle

I wonder sometimes if Christopher imagined the impact his voyage to Turtle Island would have on the geography, culture, demography, economy and sociology of the entire world. I imagine him sitting in some parlour in Italy, a vigorous and youthful male with a huge sense of adventure, studying the Greek classical scientists, some of whom imagined the world to be round, while he considered his contemporaries, some of whom believed it was flat. Which way was the tide moving at the time? I suspect it was in the direction of round. Someone, after all, financed his trip—a woman in fact. No ordinary woman, but a Queen, Queen Isabella, put up the cash to realize his dream. But this is not His/story or Her/story, it's mine.

I would like to say that what was going on in Europe in 1492 had nothing to do with me. I would like to avoid the ostentatious pomp and ceremony around Columbus' quincentennial celebrations. I would prefer not to have to write this piece. Unfortunately, Christopher's voyage did change the world and I inherited the results. I need to write this down and I am grateful to TRIVIA for publishing it.

The ashes of our ancient fires burn low these days. Indigenous people everywhere in the world of late have been hustling to “catch up,” to somehow find a place in the New World. At the same time we have been struggling to identify and articulate in English the thin lines of cultural connection to our past. Culture is an elusive butterfly. She is wide open to interpretation and she depends on the consciousness of the community, the nation and the individual, to exist. The human variable is an unreliable one. Consciousness is a state of being enjoyed by reasonably healthy people. The colonial legacy I inherited was neither reasonable nor healthy.

In my living memory, my mother, recently deceased, worked 14-16 hours a day at very hard physical labour to feed and clothe seven children. We were waifs then. Abandoned, the State would now say, and would remove us from this state of abandonment and neglect and “place” us all in foster homes, likely never to see each other again. Thank goodness we weren't considered “Indians” then. My mom, you see, was Métis.

But that just posed an additional heartache for me. You see, her people were among the first “throwaways” in our community. When I get up on the podium, neither Indigenous people nor my white audience can identify me as Métis. This title has meaning only when I consider my homeland. It is a vaporous thing for me--this notion of homeland. My ancestors came from the east, where the first women to marry white men were cast out. They settled Montréal.

It didn't take long for more white settlers to arrive from Europe. Preference was given to them, and my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers packed up their children, their meagre belongings, and left. The men they married, if they had done well, stayed behind. Many of them returned to Europe and brought “real” wives home to Canada. Not far down the road we began a new settlement and initiated what became a vigorous trade between whites and Indians, with ourselves in the middle. It wasn't long before more settlers came, and we had to move again.

Our children travelled inland to secure the trade routes and the trade items Europe wanted. Often they returned with partners—Indigenous partners. By 1885, in Manitoba the term Métis reflected not just Indian and white bloodlines, but also Indigenous genetic diversity. We are Huron, Mohawk, Micmac, Anishwabe (Ojibway), Cree, Salish, Chilcoten, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, French, Basque and Chinese by blood. These are the bloodlines of my own children. It is only when my relationships with Indigenous people or white people become intimate that anyone comes to know I am Métis.

I know it everyday. It lurks in the language of white folks (“you half-breeds only want to drink, fuck and fight”) and the language of reservation Indians (“you aren't really Indigenous, are you”) and the language of the Indian government and political tribal councils (“if we are desperate we will hire a Métis”). And we can only have a homeland “at the permission of local tribal councils,” which historically have not granted us that.

When Columbus' antecedents first came, they fathered children. They rarely claimed them. Nowadays, Indigenous men are our fathers. They rarely claim us. Bill C-31 was supposed to resolve this dilemma I am told. It does so for those whose grandmothers were “counted” in the early days of Canada when Indians were still pure-blooded, or at least that is the story. Counting the Indians and “registering” them is a recent historical phenomenon—initiated sometime after 1871. Care and vigour to keep the Métis separate from whites and Indians were applied after the unsuccessful 1885 Métis liberation war. This was also the last time Indians, whites and Métis fought together to realize a dream. That war was initiated by us, and the principles of equality, land protection, and Indigenous democracy for both men and women were articulated jointly by both Métis and Indigenous people. For a short time, we had a homeland. After the rebellion, the moving trail began again.

I was born on the West Coast. It is the end of the trail for me. I cannot and will not consent to be thrown into the sea. As my mother lay dying, I sat in the living room of a dear friend in Toronto, speaking to someone I had just met but about whom I had heard a great deal over the years. A respected man. A sovereignty advocate. “Métis are not indigenous,” he said earnestly, meaning me. I plummeted. A downward spiral began into the world of tears all Métis women have shed each and every time we were cast away, by white men or Indigenous men and now by our own Métis men who are divorcing us at alarming rates. Underneath it all a moment of peace provided by understanding gently rocked. I let the peace and understanding grow in silence.

Columbus came from a “throwaway” world. A “get rid of them” culture. We don't. The Métis trail forced our mothers to steadfastly hold on to the inclusionary culture of our original societies: “Everything, stone, flora, fauna, human, has a perfect right to be.” The words of my mother float about the room. I once told her with a good deal of bitterness in my voice that Indigenous people don't like us and asked her why she worked so hard for their sovereignty and salvation. “I don't,” she said. I thought at the time this was a lie she had persuaded herself of to save face. My mother, you see, worked tirelessly to halt the mad child apprehension program of the state directed at Native families. She worked to keep Indigenous children in their homes, with their original families and, failing that, at least with their original communities. Single-handedly she reduced the Native child apprehension rate in Vancouver from 49% to 10%. She was sad she hadn't done better. She began her mission at a time when Indigenous people themselves were reluctant to take on their relatives' children. For her it was a clear question of sovereignty and cultural integrity.

Mother sat in the oak chair of my kitchen quietly for some time before answering in that rare voice I loved so dearly. With great softness and reverence she answered, “It doesn't change our obligations to humanity and earth one bit. We are responsible for the caretaking of this earth. Not just a tiny piece of it in some remote reservation, but all of it. That no one but ourselves feels this way doesn't change a thing.” When she died I wept, “It isn't enough, momma, it isn't enough.”

Christopher brought with him his “throwaway” culture. When we bought their trade goods, someone should have reminded us not to take the culture along with them. This country was peopled by Europeans who were evicted from their homeland or forced out by economic recession. Today we call such people “refugees.” They come in every colour, race, shape and size. They are the unwanted. We have integrated at every level a distaste for these castaways. “F.O.B.'s” (Fresh Off the Boat), “Chinamen,” “Ragheads,” “Hindus,” “Spics,” “Wops,” “Wogs,” all form a part of our language now.

But these people form just a small part of the earth's children we throw away. We toss “things” away after we have called them into being. We chuck whole forests of trees, what we call paper, into huge dumping grounds. We toss stones welded into new shapes and forms into dumping grounds. We cast oil, earth's energy source transformed into plastic baubles, into these dumping grounds. We rename it all garbage, but these materials all had beginnings as natural beings, as earth, stone, flora, or fauna. The very word “garbage” arises from the culture Columbus was born into and brought here.

Racism, sexism and tribalism are predicated on the existence of another kind of garbage—human garbage. They are rooted in the throwaway culture. There is no place called “away.” Every inch of soil in this world is a place. There is no human garbage either. Every single living human being has a place in this world.

The throwaway culture did not begin with the Métis, nor will it end there. It began with patriarchy in Europe thousands of years ago. The throwing away of women and other individuals who could not conform to the rigors of patriarchy. We know who these “other” people are, and a whole language was developed for them. The “faggots, dykes, queers” were the first to experience being tossed out of their communities eons ago by emerging patrarichal societies far away from here. An entire sector of science is devoted to justifying why these people with their different sexual preference should be “thrown away.”

I used to think that it was a European problem, not mine. But after reflecting on Columbus and the impact his voyage had on Indigenous society, I no longer can afford to be apathetic about those people. I gamble here. I am no different from the next throwaway kid. “Faggot” and “dyke” formed an insidious part of my dictionary when I was young, just as “half-breed bitch” was part of my brother's language. I am forced to take another look. I am forced to reconsider in the light of my own throwaway condition those whom I once threw away or tried to.

It dawned on me one morning while looking at my children. Who gave us the authority to throw anyone away? Who gave them the authority to throw me away? Who gave reservation-defined Indians the authority to re-define me? Who gave us the authority to reduce the natural world to exploitable products to be thrown away once we had no use for them? It wasn't Columbus. It was the people he worked for, those with guns, money and power.

“They are so few in number,” this Indigenous man said to me the other night. “Ah, but they are held up by our internalization of their attitudes.” We, the half-breeds, the dykes, the faggots, the ragheads, the chinamen, honkies, white trash, the gooks, spics, wops, squaws, bucks and niggers, by our silence and our disunity grant them authority—by our acquiescence to divisions among us, we wield the weapons of their authority, we execute the will of a minority, a very small and very sick minority. The same minority who financed Chris' voyage, who threw away their own people, who destroyed the natural environment in their own homelands and pirated the world, buying, selling and murdering life all over this planet. Whole armies of us, the foolish and self-betrayed, girded up our loins and marched about, clear-cutting logs, over-fishing, making war on both human and non-human earth beings. In the end we lost our humanity, we lost a sense of spirit and we inherited the crippled throwaway culture of Chris' bosses.

I return Christopher to those who would adore him. I give him back to those who cling stubbornly to throwaway ways. I return to my mother's ashes, which people and nourish a small scarlet maple in the home she created for us. I hear her sing the anthem of her ancestry, “Red River Valley,” and in my memory I repeat her words: “It doesn't change a thing—we still have obligations to earth and all her children.”

“Come sit beside me if you love me / Do not hasten to bid me adieu.” New meanings are born in the words of her song. A song huge in its social implications.

I have no idea what the world really looked like in 1492. The written accounts were kept by those who would alter our ways, stamp out our cultural connections and annihilate all that was not patriarchal, sexist and racist. It no longer seems relevant. I refuse to throw away life. I grant no one the authority to destroy anyone's life or toss it away. I extend permission to no one to throw away stone, flora or fauna in dumping grounds, which are no longer places. There are a growing number of people in Canada who share this attitude, who sit next to me and push back on the throwaway culture. These people are the harbingers of a new Canada, a nation of people who promise to be 10,000 times more beautiful than anything we have seen before. We are all huddled about in kitchens across the country, separated by distance, unified by sentiment, searching for that small moment of peace; the moment that comes with understanding, trying to figure out how in the world anyone could celebrate the past 500 years of history and the man who initiated it all—Columbus. We all know that some day this half millenium will be referred to as the “Lost Days of Columbus,” and we look forward to that day.

Reprinted from Trivia: A Journal of Ideas 19, Spring 1992

The PS...

The above made me cry for myself which happens very rarely, usually I spill my tears for others. I am not even metis, no convinent box of my racial description is included on government forms, I am just a crazy mix of cultures and continents. My mother was too light for the black community to accept and too brown for all the others, unlike Lee I have only experienced true communal acceptance by indigenous communities most of which here are as culturally mishmashed as I. Unlike those communities though and like the Metis...like displaced peoples every where, I have no place to come home to. My people are scattered far and wide, lost to me and my children. Funny how we can miss most what we have never even had. At least I am here now in a place that calls to my heart that I will MAKE into a home, all that remains is to gather my tribe around me. Which leads into the next post about needing an unarmed army...

Sagittarius Woman

2006-12-20T13:44:00.000-08:00

I was looking through my documents searching for something and re-found this. It really couldn't be more appropriate and I needed to reread it. How arbitrary is the alignment of the universe at the moment we are born? Are our lives shaped by this collusion of planets and people? Questions to ponder on rainy days. Whatever the influence of sun and moon this is as accurate a description of myself as any I could write, does it matter that my astrological chart happens to make me a triple sagittarius with five other planets in fire or is it simple coincidence? Disappointment, failure, pain, death and change have all conspired to temper my impulsiveness yet I grow more joyful rather then less with each year. My joy doesn't prohibit my learning to not just race for dreams without taking the steps neccesary to achieve them, in fact it has helped me to not strike out wildly in fear or distrust of all that I cannot accept but to move forward mercilessly climbing ever UP. Reading this makes me think that my deep need to live life in accordance with 'the inner teachings of my soul' (which echoes the teachings of a huge array of great men and women of both past and present) is predestined. I could not have choosen a life of complicity or mundanity even if I wanted to. I am far too in love with LIFE.

The source of this has been lost...
Never assume that all explorers, mountain-climbers and world travellers are male Sagittarians. The true female Centaur is as restless, as hungry for experience, as eager to explore the fascinating carnival of life as her male counterpart. This woman needs personal freedom to an extraordinary degree, and she's not famous either for her readiness to commit herself or for her enthusiasm about domestic responsibilities. She may be happier spending a lifetime without either. She's as likely to have a child out of wedlock and happily raise it as a travelling companion as she is to ensconce herself behind secure walls.

Walls, for any Sagittarian are like the proverbial red flag for a bull. Any career which allows space, travel, freedom of movement and opportunities for new contacts pleases the Sagittarian woman. And the female Centaur who isn't career-orientated still needs these things. Failing everything else, she'll join an ashram or become a socialite, throwing the best parties and meeting the most exciting people. You'll often find the Sagittarius woman involved in a cause of some kind, because her astute vision and awareness of larger patterns in life give her a strong interest in and concern for human welfare and evolution.

Sagittarian women can be very opinionated. They're always thinking about something, chewing over it, reading about it, discussing it. Convictions are terribly important to this woman, although they may change regularly. This is a fluid, flexible sign. Sometimes you'll see the more spiritual side of the sign in evidence in the Sagittarian woman's predilection for religion, myth, depth psychology, or various assorted esoteric or occult subjects. There's a love of the unknown and the challenging, the magical and the unexplained.

She also has a strong sense of fun and humour. Tact may not be in abundant supply. Don't expect diplomatic flattery. More likely she'll deliver a verbal punch between the eyes, not because she's cruel, but because she has a tendency to speak before she thinks and doesn't register in time that you've collapsed on the floor. She's usually right, too, which can be infuriating. She may not be strong on logic, but her sharp intuition sees right through posturing and hypocrisy.

This romantic, high-spirited woman can be pretty skittish about being tied down. If she's been badly hurt when young, she may spend a lifetime pursuing a romantic dream, forever seeking the future and avoiding the present. More often, disillusionment will mature her and help her to accept the limitations of human reality.

Don't try to possess her. And don't tell her to do something. Ask. Nicely. The dramatic exit and the slammed door aren't just for effect. She probably already bought her flight tickets weeks before. Sagittarian women need to communicate, and they need to be listened to. If you're after the quiet, docile type, forget it. Many Sagittarian women are great talkers. Some go on too long and become bores. But more likely she'll be fascinating and inspiring. She's a conversational animal who needs an interested, communicative partner. Most important, she needs to be in love. Without a belief in love, her spirit will wilt.

The Sagittarius woman is in love with life itself. Life is to be lived, not nailed down, and although she's likely to take quite a few romantic knocks (not least because her independence and craving for freedom may drive away a few frightened partners), she never loses her faith in the future. This woman is an optimist, and a believer in life's fundamental goodness and meaning. Sagittarian faith is infectious. But unlike most infectious things, it isn't harmful. Quite the opposite: it enriches life.

the birthday blues

2006-12-19T22:40:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been an exhausting week for a multiplicity of reasons. The biggest being that I am learning to want less and some times expectations can be hard things to let go of. Suffice to say that there was no money, nothing to open, a honey at work, no power and a cranky post-party baby on my birthday this year...I am not prone to self-pity but I did have a few sighs and boo-hoos...had put it behind me today and had a fun time decorating the preschool for our holiday party tomorrow when my partner came home with a package FOR ME! My heart got all excited and I opened it up to find christmas gifts for Ila...sigh...Ill get over wallowing tomorrow. I can't be a cheerful, chipper, free for all, all the time dammit. I made myself a present anyhow, the nicest writing book yet with a picture of the ark, a raven and a dove, all symbols that take up a lot of space in my thinking. I was going to wait to get back to blogland until tomorrow and post pictures of our lovely birthday party when I was feel more up to it but I can't pass the day without a few moments for one of my greatest heroes. Words fill up my mental landscape, a random collection of snippets, paragraphs and thoughts comprising my own mosaic of a holy book. Phil Ochs has a whole chapter in that volume and it is only too fitting for his birthday to follow mine. If I could distill my life into 10 words they would be his...

Ah, but in such times the true protest is beauty

Thank you Phil more then words can say. Happy Born Day wherever you are.
I couldn't find a vid. of Phil singing When Im Gone but Ani does a damn fine job..'tis the words that matter any way.
Slideshow of Phil to "I Aint Marching Anymore"

I also have to thank my lucky stars for new connections and yes, this box too. If for no other reason then being graced with 'meeting' you...oh you know who you are:) Three cheers for friendship no matter the form. Damn, I got optimistic without even trying I guess I am the colour-me-happy girl after all.

adventures in one dimension

2006-12-13T13:42:00.000-08:00

I am going to have to take a few days off from typing and thinking about blogland because I have a huge party to pull together by the 17th to celebrate my birthday and my partner's (he's the 16th and I'm the 18th) our housewarmingfinallydonepainting, holiday and handfasting/engagement party...over the top, me, never! So instead of writing new posts I will be putting up pieces of my journals from different years. My thoughts on the holidays and this crazy mutating post that was sparked by a combination of this post, this post, but most especially this one, the singularily most moving thing I have yet to read on the internet which all ties into and reinforces what I have been working on about an essay called "The Evil That Men Think-and Do" by Philip Hallie, its taking on a life of it's own. If you havent done so already read the incredible call to arms of thefuturewasyesterday and prepare yourself, if you feel so inclined read these little snippets of my life and adventures as a stickgirl, for I am thinking some heavy thoughts friends and am not sure what the end result might be.

Looking for a holiday favour on Commercial Drive

2006-12-13T13:34:00.000-08:00

If there is anyone out there reading from around the Commercial Drive area in East Vancouver I am looking to find someone willing to recieve and deliver a package to a woman named Patty who panhandles in that area. She is in her mid-40's but looks to be mid-50's with blonde hair usually cut shortish, around 5 ft, she is missing a few teeth and has a boyfriend of a similar age who is around 4'9/5' ft. If you are familiar with people in the area you will most likely have seen her. We used to talk quite often when I lived in the city and while my mother was still there I got regular updates just to know she was still alive. I would like her to know there is someone out there thinking of her who thinks she is wonderful. While it would be great to do this at some point during the holiday season any time would be wonderful. I can forsee no reason to confront the concrete any time in the future. Either post a reply here or email me if you can help out.

Are you ready to change everything?

2006-12-13T00:55:00.001-08:00

I just found this great new site and am very excited as it totally relates to something I wanted to use this whole blog space for...check it out, you'll be hearing more soon.

what's your number?

2006-12-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

Where are you in the political continuum? Here is something fun to feep you entertained for a few moments, the political compass project, answer a series of questions and get an approximation of where you are politically in relation to major figures/political ideologies.

My political index rating ?...As if you have to ask.

Economic Left/Right: -8.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.46

I always knew I was off in left field but at least Im keeping good company with Ghandi and Mandela. Find out how the mass of bloggers rate and post your own at the zoo
and get yer very own dot. Its a lonely little world being an 8 apparently, it seems that most people are .6 or 2 or some other moderate number. You can scroll through and check out other blog by people with similar or wildly different leanings.

About The Political Compass™
In the introduction, we explained the inadequacies of the traditional left-right line.
If we recognise that this is essentially an economic line it's fine, as far as it goes. We can show, for example, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot, with their commitment to a totally controlled economy, on the hard left. Socialists like Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Mugabe would occupy a less extreme leftist position. Margaret Thatcher would be well over to the right, but further right still would be someone like that ultimate free marketeer, General Pinochet.
That deals with economics, but the social dimension is also important in politics. That's the one that the mere left-right scale doesn't adequately address. So we've added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.

Both an economic dimension and a social dimension are important factors for a proper political analysis. By adding the social dimension you can show that Stalin was an authoritarian leftist (ie the state is more important than the individual) and that Gandhi, believing in the supreme value of each individual, is a liberal leftist. While the former involves state-imposed arbitary collectivism in the extreme top left, on the extreme bottom left is voluntary collectivism at regional level, with no state involved. Hundreds of such anarchist communities exisited in Spain during the civil war period

You can also put Pinochet, who was prepared to sanction mass killing for the sake of the free market, on the far right as well as in a hardcore authoritarian position. On the non-socialist side you can distinguish someone like Milton Friedman, who is anti-state for fiscal rather than social reasons, from Hitler, who wanted to make the state stronger, even if he wiped out half of humanity in the process.
The chart also makes clear that, despite popular perceptions, the opposite of fascism is not communism but anarchism (ie liberal socialism), and that the opposite of communism ( i.e. an entirely state-planned economy) is neo-liberalism (i.e. extreme deregulated economy)

The usual understanding of anarchism as a left wing ideology does not take into account the neo-liberal "anarchism" championed by the likes of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and America's Libertarian Party, which couples law of the jungle right-wing economics with liberal positions on most social issues. Often their libertarian impulses stop short of opposition to strong law and order positions, and are more economic in substance (ie no taxes) so they are not as extremely libertarian as they are extremely right wing. On the other hand, the classical libertarian collectivism of anarcho-syndicalism ( libertarian socialism) belongs in the bottom left hand corner.
In our home page we demolished the myth that authoritarianism is necessarily "right wing", with the examples of Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot and Stalin. Similarly Hitler, on an economic scale, was not an extreme right-winger. His economic policies were broadly Keynesian, and to the left of some of today's Labour parties. If you could get Hitler and Stalin to sit down together and avoid economics, the two diehard authoritarians would find plenty of common ground.
A Word about Neo-cons and Neo-libs
U.S.neo-conservatives, with their commitment to high military spending and the global assertion of national values, tend to be more authoritarian than hard right. By contrast, neo-liberals, opposed to such moral leadership and, more especially, the ensuing demands on the tax payer, belong to a further right but less authoritarian region. Paradoxically, the "free market", in neo-con parlance, also allows for the large-scale subsidy of the military-industrial complex, a considerable degree of corporate welfare, and protectionism when deemed in the national interest. These are viewed by neo-libs as impediments to the unfettered market forces that they champion.

International Chart
A diverse professional team has assessed the words and actions of internationally known contemporary leaders to give you an idea of how they relate to each other on the political compass.
We regret the present exclusion of some major leaders, especially in the developing world. This is due to our inability so far to contact independent experts.

The dark side of the moon

2006-12-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been a heavy two days in bloglandia. On the 10th I posted about my choice to have an abortion at 17 and how that choice was a catalyst for the radical redefinition of myself as a person. A reader felt compelled to write her own post inspired by mine that paralleled my decisions with those of Bush. Her line of reasoning was that the murder of my unborn child enabled my current happy life and that was fundamentally the same as Bush killing in Iraq to enable the American way of life. They were both the ends justifying the means. I have to say that being compared with Bush is a first for me. The reader's post generated alot of concise commentary and may have ended a few friendships. While I feel a slight bit responsible for creating all this conflict and intensity if only because I just seem to make things happen even when I am doing something as innocuous as typing into the great vastness of cyberspace I do not think it was really my post that created the whole situation. It was just a catalyst. I find it crazy, wonderful and terrifying that we can affect each others lives on a material level through this little box. The world of bits and bytes seems to take on more dimensionality every day. Until now my tentative steps in blogland have been almost entirely positive and in many cases truly rewarding as this was in a different sense entirely.
Unfortunatley, the poster has changed their site to 'invite only' so there can be no further dialog on the subject, damn I wish I had cut and pasted it while I had the chance, I get the feeling that meaningful dialog wanst really on this person's agenda regardless, cest la vie. Anyway I did save the commentary and was going to post it but as much of it was personal and not related really to me I will protect the writer's privacy. Instead I will just show my responses to the missing post mainly because I spent so much time thinking about it all today when I should have been making peace decorations for my home and our preschool...Irony strikes again. Perhaps this will serve to prevent any further neo-liberal comparisons to my definite bleeding heart. It's also got me going on a Philip Hallie essay on the ethics of evil some time soon I have preschool Las Posadas crafts to make...weird fucking combination.

I just was forwarded a copy of the original comparison post, I am sticking it in here....

I received this link in my comments section. I loved it so much I wanted to comment on it.

What I loved the most about the thoughts expressed there was the honesty. The author muses upon an abortion she had at age 17, and the life that the sacrifice of that unborn child enabled. So ---

*anticipatory flinch*

How is it that the sacrifice she chose to make is different from the sacrifices we demand in war? Why is Bush a godless, repugnant evil beady-eyed man for killing people in the name of 'democracy'? Is he not, essentially, sacrificng lives in order to enable the life we are living?

Or let's break it down even further - even if Bush is not killing for the 'good of America', but he's killing for his own (and Cheney's) greedy pockets. Is this the same thing that the author did with her unborn child? Are these, at their core, stripped of poetry, the same actions?

Ends justifying the means.

I feel compelled to say that I do not judge the author for her decision. I know many people won't believe me when I say that. As I said before, I love the honesty of the post... she doesn't mince words, and despite the poetry, she doesn't make excuses. I not only love that, I admire it greatly. My rose-colored glasses fell away a long time ago, too.

islandamazon said...

Thank you for both reading and thinking about my reflections.
I guess I did not communicate clearly enough that the ends DO NOT justify the means. A life that demands the sacrifice of another life is no life at all. I think I might have used the wrong wording in my post when I wrote that I felt I needed to justify my decision by working towards a higher vision of myself. Not justify but to pay for it, to not indulge in my own wallowing but to do deal with it. I will live every moment of my life paying for that choice with my every action, that is my form of prayer, and my asking forgiveness. Can we say the same for Bush, or any of those in his league across the world? Do they see those they kill as people? I think on a moral, spiritual and emotional level what I chose was inexcusable for myself. Though at 17 I did not value life as I do now at almost 24. Those in power excuse, ignore and deny their actions and the consequences, they do not ever seek to atone for them or seek redress.
I fail to see the parallel between my choices and theirs.

12/12/2006 4:31 PM
islandamazon said...

First off, there are no hurt feelings on my part nor do I either like or dislike the comparison between my choices and Bush's, I simply don't agree. I am my own Socrates out here in the bush and I poke into all my sore places on a routine basis just to evaluate where I stand. I welcome debate and dissention for how else am I to fully know that I am telling myself the truth? Bring it on!
You wrote that you 'keep hoping that someone will give me some answers, or at least ask further questions, but it never happens.'
I didnt think that the comments section was the place to let my fingers fly but as this commentary originated around my post I am happy to raise some questions, because though I have thought on your points long and hard attempting to view them from your perspective I am not gaining any clarity myself and it seems at odds with the rest of what I have read here so I want to understand.
"Exceptions, always exceptions. This exception is okay, this one isn't..."
I wonder where in my post I made an exception for my own actions? If I did please elaborate. My actions were unquestionably morally wrong for ME, I cannot speak for anyone else. I chose to learn from my actions so as to never put myself in that position again and to help others avoid similar situations by providing them with the support I did not have. We can not know Bush's (or replace his name with any number of people/corporations)inner dramas but we can judge the fact that he continues to make mistake after mistake after mistake. He and his administration are not only killing children in Iraq and in a multitude of other countries,they are also poisoning the earth, violating basic human rights, oppressing people within their own country and worldwide, supporting a huge destructive corporate empire and lining their own pockets at the expense of the loss of life and joy for millions I could go on let me know if you want a bigger list. Not only have they done these things in the past bringing us to a rapidly declining environment socially and physically but they CONTINUE to do so, additionally they show no signs of ceasing to do so in the future. Perhaps if I continued to use drugs, have unprotected sex, get pregnant over and over and over again like many sex trade workers I have known and never learn until the day I die from any number of unpleasant endings you could draw a shaky comparison. Though I think you would be ignoring some fundamental differences in social class and situation. Does a woman who has been beaten her whole life, lived in poverty, been degraded and abased by her society and viewed as a pariah by most and ignored by even more have the same awareness of her choices/ability to change her situation that Bush from his long line of upper class luxury has or posesses the same ability to maneuver within the context of this society? Does that not relate to what you were writing about the war widow on the bliss post? That her ability to follow her 'bliss' was dicated by her environment, are our choices not also limited by the tools that we have at our disposal or at least our ability to percieve those tools. If what you are saying is that there is no hope for redemption, that our lives are cursed from our bad decisions and no amount of introspection and humility will change who we are fundamentally, then you condemn most of us perhaps yourself included. We can judge a person not by their interior but by how they choose to live in this world. Do we care about the inner torment of Hitler when compared to the results of his actions? If Bush repents on his death bed after a lifetime of inflicting damage on others will he be forgiven? Not by me. What if he woke up tomorrow to the massive realization of all he is doing to himself and others and used all his influence until the day he left the earth to make amends, while I would not forgive his prior actions, I would have to judge him based on the totality of his choices and whether he chose to be accountable for the consequences. While perhaps an unlikely scenario I insist on still holding out hope on the possibility of transformation and growth and in the power of compassion to change conciousness.

For the record on the more personal comments...
The responsibilty for all the possible ramifications of my decision are mine and all the lives I affected, that is the point I have been making. No, at 17 I had no concept of what would happen in the future, I was reacting to the experiences I had up to that point just as I am reacting to the experience I have accumulated since then I am more capable now of understanding how I affect others then and I would expect someone of Bush's age to be even more capable of self-reflection. At the time I was living with my boyfriend who was 10 years older then me who had already been married and had a 2 year old child, he wanted me to have an abortion as did my granfather who we had been living with in the house he let my grandmother starve herself to death in a year before. My partners parents wanted nothing to do with him or a possible child, my estranged father wanted me to have an abortion as did my mother who was 3000 miles away...despite all this I was determined to have that baby and make it work until my grandfather (i call him shithead now) made a pass at me and my boyfriend beat me half to death and I was in serious physical pain,when I was hospitalized all the doctors pushed me to have an abortion and counselled me to make that decision. As I wrote in my original post had I percieved another choice, an option that seemed viable, someone to help me I would have probably made another choice. I could not even begin to consider doing similarily now. I have offered to other women in my situation as it was then that I would help and care for them through their pregnancy and beyond if they wanted to keep the child but felt they were all alone, so far only one woman has taken me up on it but the offer stands. I would also adopt and care for any child in a similar situation with no hesitation.
As to the talking to spirit babies, I was simply quoting something I had read that felt true to me, while I remain open to the the fact that there is more on heaven and earth then is contained within my philosophy and though I would love to speak to the many I love who are dead I have yet to see any concrete manifestation of the supernatural.

I hope we can find some common understanding, in any case I thank you for stretching the muscles of my brain and heart.

following that yellow brick road of dreams

2006-12-11T20:33:00.000-08:00

"Think of each of us at our door, turning the door handle and using our inner forces to help us know who we are. If we embrace our six qualities (common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory, reason) and the push and pull of tension which holds them together, they can help us shape our lives, by opening ourselves up to the whole idea of who we are." -John Ralston Saul, On Equilibrium

Wow I just read an incredible post over at musings of a working mom that asked what is your bliss? Are you following it? Then I followed a link in her second 'clarification' post that led to another blog (the inconsistent blogger) about the same topic. When I got there I found a post about one of MINE from yesterday. Whew! Alot of reading and thinking going on here tonight. The original bliss post quoted Joseph Campbell, and as I always think better with a book in my hand off I go to the bookshelf and pull down the Masks of God by Campbell and open to him quoting Jung (Civilization in Transition) on dreams...

"the dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the psyche, opening into that cosmic night which was the psyche long before there was any ego conciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego conciousness may extend...All conciousness seperates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood."

I was just writing on this last night and thought I would post my own response to this topic. here...

What is bliss for me is constantly changing and is totally elusive. For me bliss is a safe world for not only my daughter to grow in but for all children. Until that exists I will never be truly happy. My definition of a safe world is broad and inclusive and though I may never see it's fufillment but I can live this life working constantly towards that goal this is enough for me. My bliss is also that vision of a different world that I hold in my heart and try with every day to make manifest. My imagining of a world without borders where food is plentiful, life is respected, and we are all equal, where the earth and all of her creations (including us) are not raped, robbed and brutalized on a daily basis. Where my simply living in this first world country didnt make my skin tight with priviledge that all are entitled to. Though my beautiful family is blissful and I sometimes wish I could be content with homelovebaby, I am all these other things too.
Many responded to the original post as if the author meant some hedonistic selfish chasing after smoke and mirrors while I didn't get that from the post, bliss and hedonism are mutually exclusive to me. When I lived in the city I couldnt even go out for drinks with my friends and past all the drunks and streetworkers with money burning a hole in my pocket (earned from taking care of children, sometimes even theirs!), I always ended up buying someone on a street corner coffee or a sandwich and talking/playing music/dancing in the streets until the wee hours of the morning instead. My bliss is true connection with others on a real level not the half hearted brushings most people are content with. Bliss is following those moments of synchronicity that have led me through life, when I am not making healthy choices the magic stops, I do not make the right connections, things stagnate, I am unhappy.
I do not have the book on hand as I seem to give away every copy I get but I found this article that describes the part I wanted to relate here:

"In The Fifth Sacred Thing, Starhawk describes two worldviews, represented by two societies: a utopian collective where respect, creativity and spirituality thrive, and a totalitarian government bent on domination. She corresponds these cultures to states of consciousness she calls “el mundo bueno” and “el mundo malo”. As inner beliefs reflected outward, the good world exists to the extent that we remember to choose it. Most of us know the shift from one world to the other. When, on a certain day, we tire of long-held resentment, letting go into forgiveness, we shrug our shoulders and admit we’ve gotten over it. When a luminous sunrise touches our love of beauty and we decide to be done with a bout of depression, we say to a friend, “Life’s too short.” When we break out laughing in the heat of an argument, suddenly seeing ourselves as ridiculous rather than righteous, yet nothing has changed outside ourselves. Somehow, we opened the door to the good world and stepped through. We choose el mundo bueno because it feels so much better, satisfying our longing for freedom and ease. But we generally keep this magic a secret, even from ourselves." Go check out Starhawk's website or the rest of the article by Jessica Montgomery

I first read this book at 11 (thanks be to my mamas amazing library) and it has affected me in many wonderful and profound ways.
I believe that life is a constant balance between polarities, opposing binaries, right/wrong, yes/no, love/hate on and on ad nauseum. I am wobbling on that tightrope thin grey line between the good and bad reality seeking equilibrium. I take pleasure in small things, the feel of my daughters hand in mine, the trust of a sad and lonely person, a perfectly round stone, the sky, the beating of my heart telling me yes, I am still alive. Here. Strong. What more could I ask? This is what comforts me when all I can think about is the pressing sadness of the world.
I think we need to want less for ourselves and more for each other, and then we can find true bliss together and as individuals.

How am I following my bliss?

We have moved to this community that is founded on hope and cooperation to work on creating local community through involvement in peoples lives, organizing programs for children and youth that break down barriers and encourage peace building and community involvement locally and globally. To learn how to survive by our own hands and in cooperation with any who choose to participate, to work towards not being reliant upon a culture I do not feel represents what is bliss for me or for many other people. I want to watch people's children grow up and be able to support them in positive ways. I am doing everything I can think of to live in accordance with what my heart urges me to do whether that means I sleep very little and run around a whole lot is insignificant. I am fumbling, have no idea what i am doing sometimes but I am trying and that is satisfaction enough.

Arundhati says it best,

I wrote this in April last year:

It is much easier sometimes to become overwhelmed and desperate then to hold onto joy. Remember the mass of men live in quiet desperation right?
But this heart of mine must have some special inherent boyancy for even when I feel most powerless my eyes find something to give me hope...a star, a leaf, the curve of a petal is enough to shake me from my indulgence. There is no time for self! I see every one around me consumed by their me.mine.my. thoughts. Everything in nature inspires me, elicits a painful burst of feeling...awe, fear, tenderness, anger, transcendence so many words to tame the unnameable while the machinations of modern man just leave me with a foul distaste...We have sacrificed our bright potential for this reeking mass of crap and dogma? How can we possibly call this a bargain or see it for anything but what it is but rape of our most sacred possession...the future.
We need to take back what is ours.

The eco-revolution down on the farm-By Chris Smaje

2006-12-11T14:24:00.000-08:00

This is a great article about the Pacific Northwest and what we are trying to accomplish here, published in The Independant,24th September 2006.

The eco-revolution down on the farm
By Chris Smaje

An eco-revolution is taking place in the small agricultural communities of the Pacific Northwest, with the return of traditional homesteaders. Chris Smaje spent an extended holiday as a volunteer, helping to transform the land.

Let's not be fooled by the romance of the good earth. When God told Adam and Eve that life after Eden would be one of painful toil, He knew whereof He spoke. In the Pacific Northwest, the homesteading pioneers learned first hand the bold and biblical contrasts of elemental struggle as they tried to bring forth the fruits of the soil. Fighting against the rampant forests, they discovered that nature had the advantage when it came to the riches of the land.

With our modern worries about food miles, carbon footprints and junk foods, the idea of a small-scale local agriculture - the kind practised by those Northwest homesteaders - is gaining favour again. The richness of the region's ecology is matched only by the difficulty in gaining a human livelihood from it, which makes it an excellent testing ground for experiments in local self-reliance. Travelling with my family among the modern eco-homesteaders of the Northwest, we certainly had our share of painful toil, but also learnt new ideas that are helping to make small-scale farming a more eco-friendly way of life.

At the Bullock brothers' farm on Orcas Island, Doug, Joe and Sam Bullock are navigating their way back to Eden with their 10-acre garden of wonders. Conventional farming systems have put humanity's eggs into a worryingly small basket - around 90 per cent of our diet relies on just 20 plant species worldwide. You'd probably find more than that in a square metre at the brothers' place: familiar crops such as corn or apples, half-familiar ones such as quinoa or autumn olives, and plants that you never imagined existed, the product of Joe Bullock's regular botanical odysseys.

The brothers aim to turn problems into solutions, an important precept of permaculture, a powerful ecological philosophy which uses rigorous design to minimise the stresses that nature and humanity place upon each other.

From Orcas Island, the eco-traveller might be tempted northwards, trailing through the islands between the edge of continental Canada and Vancouver Island. Their mild climate and relative isolation have made them a laboratory for post-industrial living. At Seven Ravens Farm on Salt Spring Island, for example, Michael Nichols has mastered the occupations of several lifetimes - forester, gardener, furniture-maker, teacher. He showed us around his farm with a suppressed energy.

Another route heads inland from the coast, where the landscapes change from oils to watercolours. The coastal forests, with their hanging mists and enfolding chills, melt into gravelled, tottering precipices.

Arriving from Europe with an Old World toolkit, the pioneers tried to raise sheep and cattle here. They failed. There are trails scoured by cattle through the brush 80 years ago where the vegetation still hasn't returned. But with irrigation and the railroad, agribusiness eventually found its niche. In the arid Okanagan, fruit is king. Savagely pruned and uniformly watered, the trees are striped across the hillsides.

Orcharding, like any form of farming, can be done mechanistically, with imported energies, or it can be done in sympathy with the landscape, husbanding the resources of sun and rain and drawing on traditions which have produced a locally adapted agriculture.

To the untutored eye, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference. Fortunately, help is at hand in the form of organisations such as World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), which offers listings of farms using sustainable methods willing to take on volunteers.

Finding such a farm is a shortcut to the experimental, the unconventional and occasionally to the downright wacky. With more than 300 to choose from in British Columbia alone, the eco-volunteer need never be short of somewhere to stay. But it can be a hit or miss affair. Memories of WWOOF farms tumble over one another - a week at Trevor Chandler's place in Lillooet, shadowing his spare, deft movements through the orchard as he nurtured his crop to its final perfection, and lingering too long over breakfasts as we put the world to rights.

But also a decrepit farm in the Kootenays, where we stayed for a month to give our children relief from the road, and spent our days amid rows of thistle-choked garlic while the farm community, despite its high ideals, consumed itself with squabbles.

Whichever route the eco-traveller takes through the Northwest they're sure to find a host of ways to learn from the land. But the larger direction of the movement is harder to discern. Is it enough? Can these small-time farmers fussing over nature feed the world as well?

Perhaps it will all unravel in the face of society's indifference, the eco-pioneers selling up to skivvy in the cities like their counterparts a century ago. A trip to downtown Seattle is enough for reassurance. Its gluttonous consumerism surely cannot last. And then the work of the modern eco-homesteaders - fragmented, piecemeal and imperfect as it is - beckons again, as if indeed they're true pioneers, poised on the verge of a great transformation in our relationship with the land.

For information on volunteering on the organic farms contact WWOOF (wwoof.org)

1. Seattle

Where better to start an eco-tour of the Northwest than Seattle, home of Microsoft, globalisation riots and all things post-industrial? "Chief Seattle's Reply", a speech by the eponymous 19th-century Suquamish leader, is widely quoted for its ecological wisdom, but was much adulterated from the original. Are native peoples like the Suquamish really indigenous ecologists? And how ethical is that fair-trade latte in a city of gleaming 4x4s? Scratch beneath the surface in Seattle, and the ecological conundrums begin.

2. Bullock Brothers' Farm

The bucolic landscapes of Orcas Island provide second homes for wealthy Seattlites and a holiday destination for the rest. The Bullock Brothers Farm (permacultureportal.com) showcases much that's good about low-impact living. Pay a visit or take a course to see how carefully its tangle of edible delights has been designed. The brothers' website is a good introduction to the world of permaculture.

3. Salt Spring Island

Study the pioneering lifestyle at old homesteads preserved for posterity, or volunteer at a WWOOF holding such as Seven Ravens Farm (wwoof.ca; organicvolunteers.com). At Salt Spring Seeds (saltspringseeds.com), Dan Jason labours in the cause of biodiversity, keeping heirloom vegetable varieties available to gardeners.

4. Oyster farming

Aquaculture (ecotrustcan.org/ aquaculture) holds much promise but intensive Atlantic salmon farming in the Pacific is an accident waiting to happen. Oyster farming is low on cost and relatively benign environmentally, it may be the key to a sustainable local industry. Discover more from a friendly local oyster farmer: try Desolation Sound, Northern Sunshine Coast and the Discovery Islands.

5. Tofino

Tofino, on Vancouver Island's wild west coast, hit the headlines in 1993 with mass protests against logging old-growth trees. The Pacific Rim National Park (pc.gc.ca) preserves one of the world's few temperate rainforests, its gigantic trees nourished by constant rains. Today, Tofino's attractions can't conceal the uneasy stalemate between loggers and eco-activists, white settlers and Nuu-chah-nulth Indians.

6. Linnaea Farm

Linnaea Farm (linnaeafarm.org), an ecological land trust on Cortes

Island, rambles across 360 acres of field and forest in a stunning lakeside setting. Pay a visit or, if you're in no hurry, apply for an eight-month internship to gain a thorough grounding in sustainable agriculture.

7. Eco-Forestry

Despite the wholesome, plaid-shirt image, Canadian forestry has been an ecological disaster. It doesn't have to be.Eco-forestry is one of the most promising approaches worldwide to sustainable land husbandry. The eco-forestry society on Cortes Island (cortesecoforestry.org) is a pioneer, and its agreement with the local Klahoose people a landmark in white/indigenous relations.

8. Telegraph Cove

The fishermen once thronging the North-west have largely faded into history, but the pretty boardwalk village of Telegraph Cove (telegraphcove.ca) has weathered the fishery's fall and the eco-tour's rise better than most. It's now a hotspot for whale and bear-watching, though conservationists worry that boatloads of gawping homo sapiens are beginning to affect the creatures' wellbeing. To tour or not to tour - another modern eco-dilemma.

9. Sointula

The Northwest is littered with abandoned pioneer settlements. Sointula (island.net/~sointula/) on Malcolm Island was the home of Finnish Utopians trying to establish a self-sufficient farm community. Now it's a museum of dreams ravaged by fire, community discord and the struggle to turn forest into farmland. It's easy to love nature when you can shop at the wholefood store. Sointula is the real thing.

10. Alert Bay

Near Sointula, Alert Bay is the centre of the Kwakwaka'wakw culture. The resource-rich indigenous peoples of the Northwest developed complex, hierarchical cultures, which powerfully invoked the natural environment, until they were ruthlessly suppressed during the 20th century.

The U'mista Cultural Centre (umista.ca) reconstructs their legacy - necessary homage for those coming afterwards to live from the land.

For information on volunteering on the organic farms contact WWOOF (wwoof.org)

questions for discussion

2006-12-11T12:36:00.000-08:00

While I think only a few people are stopping by right now (thank you all for visiting!) I had thought this space could be used for interaction. I am going to start posting questions, ideas, group activities...at the very least I will excercise my own thinking muscles which is never a waste of time....

1. What are the basic we need in order to survive?

2. What are the basics we need in order to thrive?

3. What can we reasonably assert to be fundamental truths?

4. What does it mean to live ethically?

5. What does a good life mean to you?

These are the questions that occupy me most of the time...there are others to be sure, but I feel these are the most vital to my worldview.

1. Besides the obvious (and lacking for most of the world) of clean air, clean water, healthful food, the absence of constant terror or pain, and safe shelter all of which are needed to have anything more then a half-life based on simple survival we also need healthy human contact in order to not be damaged by isolation.

2.In order to thrive as individuals and also as a species we need to be able to explore who we are and define that for ourselves without being molded to suit the needs of those in power. We need to command our own existence while recognizing that all life is inherently valuable. We need to create and be supported in that creation. To actively pursue our dreams. To be free and to recognize that we will never be free as individuals if we are oppressed as a culture. To live in harmony with natural cycles in recognition of the fact that we are part of the whole of creation not seperate or greater in any way. To know our children will inherit a world better then the one we were born into and to know that we are in the process of building that world. Any thing less then this for me is maintaining not true thriving.

3. All of which ties into this question.

Everything is connected by the very nature of symbiosis and mutual interdependance.
No particle of creation is less then every other particle of creation. We are all insignificant and equally valuable.
The purpose of life is life

"Man is a microcosm of the macrocosm. His being is an exact replica in every detail in miniature of the cosmos above him. True, he moves in the physical world, is made up of atoms, molecules, cells, yet he partakes in the subtle realm of forms, can assist in concious creation and has access to the divine"-Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi, from Introduction To The Cabala

4. First we need to have a common understanding of ethics...Encarta defines "ethical" as:
eth·i·cal adj
1. consistent with agreed principles of correct moral conduct
2. relating to or involving ethics
3. used to describe a drug that is available only through a doctor’s prescription

eth·ics n
1. the study of moral standards and how they affect conduct (takes a singular verb)
Also called moral philosophy
2. a system of moral principles governing the appropriate conduct for an individual or group (takes a plural verb)

In true dictionary style, vague and not very helpful. If we accept the inherent value of life as fundamental and self-evident then acting in cooperation with life and seeking to perpetuate it rather then the opposite would be a morally good action. An ethical one. While cultivating death either by action or inaction is a morally bad action. So for me to live ethically is to preserve and protect life in all its great diversity from rock to star to tree to child by not being complicit in actions that mean death to all the above. "Whoever degrades another degrades me...and whatever is done or said returns at last to me, And whatever I do or say I also return".-Walt Whitman-

5. If we accept life and natural process as good and unnatural death as bad then to actively pursue or condone death and destruction of sentient and non-sentient life is to be party to the greatest evil. To deny the teachings of your soul and the world around you, to transform yourself into an aberation of nature and turn from our place within the greater context of the whole of creation. A good life is spent in attempting to find balance within the natural order and rejoicing in life itself, recognizing that every moment we are choosing who we want to be, constantly redefining in search of I AM. I am trying to live that good life, in harmony, in sointula, staying true to these following truths to which I have made the small offering of my life.

Declaration of the Four Sacred Things

The earth is a living conscious being.
In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred:
air, fire, water and earth.

Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood and body of the mother
or as the blessed gifts of the creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life,
we know that nothing can live without them.

To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standards by which our acts,
our economics, our laws and our purposes must be judged.
No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others.
Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy.

All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred.
No one of us stands higher or lower then any other.
Only justice can assure balance: only ecological balance can sustain freedom.
Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit flourish in its full diversity.

To honour the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment,
sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom and beauty can thrive.
To honour the sacred is to make love possible.
To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences and our voices.
To this we dedicate our lives.
-Starhawk, from The Fifth Sacred Thing

I am going to end by letting one of the great rebel prophets of North America provide us with a little direction on how to conduct ourselves in the search for the good life...

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in it's words but in the silent lines of it's lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body...."

A Day in The Life....

2006-12-10T22:37:00.000-08:00

I thought if I did not choose to conciously dwell on it this year the day might pass me by unnoticed. The heart has it's own calendar more ruthless and honest then the one on the wall, those days and numbers that I can never find the motivation to care about. It was almost time to get ready for bed though, I hadnt thought about it remotely all day, when BOOM all of a sudden there it is demanding to be looked at. The major defining decision of my life, the day I paid for my rebirth with the life of another. Eight days before my 17th birthday like many women before me I chose to abort a child rather then accept responsibility for parenthood. I was living in a crackhouse with a boyfriend who beat me and a serious drug problem. I had always adored children and known inside somewhere that things had to change. They did drastically afterward. In order to justify my decision I had to radically reinvision my life. I stopped using drugs almost immediatley and have never turned back. I left my relationship, immersed myself in children and community and again, am still doing so. I do not need this bittersweet anniversary to remember why am I who I am now but I am going to revisit that time through my own words, maybe you will join me or share your own experience...

December 10, 2006

I felt something flutter inside me
the beating of small wings
a spark
a possibility
Inside, I felt movement
Inside, once empty
was life

Each day as the fluttering grew louder
possibilities raged inside my head
too loud
to overwhelming
to think past

Two roads converged in my heart
both well travelled
both uphill
I walked towards the one
that seemed to have some light at the end

Inside the possibility looked at me,
I shook my head
"too much
too soon"
then closed my eyes as my certainty faltered
and my heart was moved

what was once so black and white
is now painted in shades of grey
those truths that came easy
love
consequence
responsibility
pain
now weigh heavy
in that place in my chest where
the beating of wings echoed into now empty rooms

I had not even fully recovered when I was offered an interview through the most miraculous coincidence at a highly praised early childhood education centre. I came to the centre during their afternoon naptime and went to the office to meet with the director as I passed there was a lovely little girl lying on a mat in the kitchen I smiled at her and went in. As I was being interviewed she walked into the room got up on my lap and went to sleep. I got the job. Later as I became friends with the girl I was even more amazed, she was autistic and very slow to warm up to people generally. We adored each other, her mother was very young and had major drug issues like myself only months before and I tried to support her in any way I could. I was truly born then, was fully awake, and that great pain allowed me to recognize that I was worthy of love. The universe offered me a chance at redemption and I was capable of recognizing my chance to change.

December 10, 2001
(song)

three hundred sixty five days and a world away
the sky was flat, the building grey
inside my troubled belly little breaths quickened
it might have been my imagination but I swear
the air around me thickened and held firm
the space became door and desk became intangible and far away
even greater the distance between you and the car, me and my heart

do the ends ever justify the means
from the vantage point of a year away thats not how it seems

in the little green room wrapped in sterlized sheets
I gave myself up for offering to scalpel and d&c
as I counted my way down into an anethsitized blue sea of sleep
strange faces counted one, two, three along with me
I left that room disinfected, hollow and empty
dischordancy resounding in my belly

on the way home I pressed my face against the glass
window cool against my skin water dropping from my chin
watching the monotony of the road's yellow lines
wheels eating up the pavement eating away time
the burden of responsibility for this finality all mine
recompense i guess for the taking of life
despite being so easily justified

do the ends ever justify the means?
from the vantage point of a year away it seems to me
in the aftermath of choices made
the pros and cons of my decision being objectively weighed
in the purgatory "should i" or "shouldn't i" haze
I lay the guilt on thick and heavy like honey up and down my spine
navigate this road I've chosen, this tightrope thin fine line
my womb holding up her pathetic little 'vacancy' sign
resuming normal patterns in hopeful anticipation of a safer time
though I know I did right for her and I
the rose coloured glasses fell from my eyes
beneath that grey december sky.

Every major choice or transition is a little death as a small part of us is left behind, in my case it was a far more literal ending. I believe abortion is murder and that can never be forgotten, I also support a womans right to chose what she is or is not capable of. From this vantage now with my daughter safe in her room with the walls of her parents love all around her I can praise my own 17 year old self for knowing my own weakness. To have become a parent then would have meant two lost childhoods and perhaps another lost child. I am confident that I am capable now of being the best parent I can be because of the fact that I did not become one then. I do regret most bitterly however the fact that we have a world that does not educate, support, respect and encourage both girls and boys to become whole people. That we are forced to do so in spite of our culture not because of it, that I was forced to choose between parenthood, abortion, or sending my child into an unknown beauracratic system, rather then having a community that would help and counsel. If only I had known of Ina May Gaskin's Farm way back then:
"it was widely known on the counter-cultural grapevine in the 1970s that The Farm served as a secure refuge and a supportive birthing environment for young unmarried women. A standing offer had been made to single pregnant women: "Don't have an abortion. You can come to The Farm and we'll deliver your baby and take care of it, and if you ever decide you want it back, you can have it" (Ina May 1975, 375). Between 1971 and 1979, about one hundred unwed mothers gave birth at The Farm, but only three subsequently left their babies. In addition, some three hundred women came to The Farm for natural birthings during this period (Thorndike 1979, 39)."
I am going to leave with an idea from another midwifery book I read while pregnant, the name of which escapes me now (i wonder why) but a passage in it brought me to tears and just felt right. This woman had been a midwife for years and had a few children when she miscarried one late in the pregancy, she was totally devestated and figured she was just done with birthing. Her oldest son asked her when she was having another baby and she told him she wasnt. He told her that each woman has a line up of children that take their turns lining up each month to see who will get born, if a woman looses a baby or something happens to it, that one is a "spirit child" and stays at the front of the line until she gets pregnant again...All I know is that I feel totally complete after having Ila, the guilt is no longer there just an abiding gratefulness for the results of our sacrifice. Perhaps she is my spirit child come back to me but for sure she is my greatest joy.
I am so glad to be alive to count my scars and gifts.

I Know Im Not Alone

2006-12-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

We can bomb the world to pieces but we can't bomb it into peace" -m.franti

If you don't know about Michael Franti and his work take yourself over right away to http://www.spearheadvibrations.com/ then head on over to http://www.iknowimnotalone.com/
I don't really need to write anything about who he is or what he stands for as he does a great job all on his own. I encourage you to track down a copy or find a viewing of his documentary "I Know Im Not Alone"
Then make everyone you know watch it, if you are going to drop your time into a screen it might as well be valuable and soul expanding...are you still here? Go now, run! Fine, I understand, you are skeptical and busy and need some convincing first....

Is your love enough to withstand this?

Mr. Franti and I in Victoria BC's Centennial Square
after being pushed on stage by a group of 20 friends from
Cortes. Kissed and hugged by the sweet man himself...be still my beating heart.
Apparently there is a recording of this out there somewhere...

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

2006-12-09T22:40:00.000-08:00

"Standard Oil (now Exxon-Mobil) and Shell seat and unseat kings and presidents, finance palace plots and coup d'etats, have innumerable generals, ministers and James Bonds at their command…..make decisions about peace or war in every field and every language."
- Eduardo Galleano, Open Veins of Latin America

I encourage you to take the time to watch this film and then take yourself over to the filmaker's website at www.chavezthefim.com which is full of great links and resources about many things including an excellent article about the politics of oil. If you dont have the time to watch the film scroll past it for a review reprinted from the website. This man gives me great hope. He brought tears to my eyes when he showed the photos of dead children in Afghanistan saying that terror cannot be fought with terror. When men and women such as him help lead the way in our "1st" world countries we will be on the way towards peace.

22nd February 2003 Irish Times –
TV Review Section by Shane Hegarty
Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain may have been in the right place at the right time, but they still had to do the right things. The place and time were the Venezuelan Presidential Palace on April 11th last year, when President Hugo Chavez was briefly deposed in a tumultuous 48 hours. The right thing
about it was its humility. While watching, it was easy to be lulled into the lazy presumption that all that was required of them was to point the camera and let history take care of the rest.

Ego, however, has a habit of exercising its power of veto on these matters.
Television is weighted down with documentaries in which the story of the filmmaker eclipses the "story" itself.

On September 11th, for instance, Jules and Gedeon Naudet were on a fire crew dispatched to the World Trade Centre. Their resulting documentary, 9/11, had the temerity to present their personal experiences as a microcosm for a global tragedy. It had the gall to believe that the most powerful story in decades didn't have a decent kick without them as lead actors. It should have been a worthy historical document, but it was a TV-movie disaster matinee.

So, it can go very badly wrong. Not here. In Chavez - Inside the Coup, Bartley and O'Briain tucked themselves away from sight. Their narration was likewise unobtrusive. Yes, they made their sympathies clear, but they saved
their film for the people around them. The plotters. The defenders. The dead. Those crushing up against the gates of the Palace. The soldiers in secret preparation to retake that building. The poor pressing notes into the
hand of the President ("Mr President, I need a bag of cement . . . ). The middle-classes at their meetings ("Keep an eye on your domestic servants").

They saved it for Chavez, a man from whom charisma drips like the military epaulets. The film had undoubted affection for the president, who had failed to grab power through two coups, before settling for politics and gaining election through a landslide. He became the latest Latin American leader attempting to peel away the layers of the banana republic. He encouraged the setting up of community cells and educational workshops. re-wrote the constitution. He set about re-distributing the money earned from his country vast oil supply, dismantling the corruption of the state oil company.

Of course, a US state department official is trained to hear the sound of an oil well tap turning from several thousand miles away. Chavez is no friend to the US. He went on television to denounce the US bombing of civilians in Afghanistan, brandishing pictures of dead children. He is a public friend to Fidel Castro. It wasn't mentioned here, but he has had his meetings with Saddam Hussein and Gadafy. In Bush's list of those "either with us or against us", he's with the axis of irritants. "We are concerned with some of the things said by President Chavez, and his understanding of what a democratic system is about," said Colin Powell, with the hemmed in anger of a boss who has an employee he wants to sack, but the union won't let him.

This was a battle fought largely through the media, the actual violence a brief punctuation to what was, and remains, a war of words. The state channel, Channel 8, gave Chavez a weekly phone-in show in which he would answer questions from the public. The private channels, meanwhile, allowed oil company chairmen to beseech the military to rise up against the president. One general's call for a coup was filmed in a journalist's house.
Panellists on talk shows mocked Chavez as having a "sexual fixation" with Castro.

It was a poison seeping into the wider world. When the coup was reported in the Western media, it was done using footage broadcast by these private channels, mainly that of pro-Chavez supporters apparently firing on an anti-Chavez march as it made its way to the Presidential Palace. If you panned back, though, you would have seen that there were no protestors on the street below, and that those shooting were attempting to protect themselves from the sniper fire that left 10 people dead. The camera had panned back, but the footage had been edited to remove that bit.

The world's press carried reports that could have been written by the coup leaders themselves, and, because they were based on these pictures, to a certain extent they were. This film punctured every lie. The world accused the pro-Chavez crowd of carrying out the shootings; O'Briain and Bartley's camera proved it wasn't so, filming the victims almost before they hit the ground. The coup leader Pedro Carmona's speech about this "profoundly democratic process" and Colin Powell's parroting of Carmona's lie was inter-cut with film of the police shooting at protestors. As Carmona was on CNN declaring that the "the country is in a state of total normality", the camera was in the palace from which he had just been ousted. It followed the palace guard as they moved to strategic positions, took the building back and reinstated Chavez.

This was a film with extraordinary access. It was not just "Inside The Coup", but wedged into the white heat of its centre. It hovered about the palace grounds no matter who was in charge. O'Briain and Bartley mingled with the Catholic Church leaders and oil men during the brief changeover in power.
Then, when Chavez returned to the palace after a couple of days in captivity, he greeted it like a friend.

On the night of the coup, the camera jostled for position outside the office in which President Chavez was being told to resign by the army high command or allow the building and all his supporters in it to be bombed. One of his ministers emerged to tell those outside that he had agreed to be taken prisoner. She looked at the lens and asked, "Tell the world." O'Briain and Bartley kept their end of the bargain in an exceptional and thrilling way.

Crude Despots
It was dictator Juan Vicente Gómez who set the pattern. Gómez ruled Venezuela between 1908 and 1935 and was perfectly placed to benefit when the country's remarkable oil wealth began to flow in the 1920s.
Gómez used this new wealth to underpin his regime, enriching family, friends and supporters alike - the archbishop who gave a special dispensation allowing the dictator to eat meat on Fridays, was handsomely rewarded with oil shares.

The Gómez regime, a US diplomat wrote approvingly, was characterised by a "benevolent despotism", which the diplomat felt was infinitely preferable to "anarchical democracy."

Unfortunately, that benevolence did not extend to the majority of the Venezuelan populace, which saw little of the country's new found wealth. This pattern was to persist for the next seventy years.

Although the oil industry was nationalised in the 1970s - as Petroleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA) - the vast profits continued to defy gravity and trickle upwards into the pockets of a minority. Today, Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil producer and, crucially, supplies the United States with 14 percent of its oil needs.

Reserves are said to be in excess of 74 billion barrels, along with 146 trillion cubic feet of gas. Oil provides the government with over half its revenues.
But that figure masks a truly corrupt reality. When PDVSA was established in the 1970s, it kept 20 percent of the oil revenue and passed the remainder to the state.

By 1990 the ratio had fallen to 50:50. By 1998, when President Chavez was elected, the process had been reversed: PDVSA kept 80 percent of revenues and passed a mere 20 percent to the state.

It was now little more than a private fiefdom, a vast bloated cash cow for a small, privileged elite.

Redistribute the Wealth
A central platform of Chavez' overwhelming electoral success in 1998 was reform of PDVSA and a redistribution of oil wealth.

Chavez saw the oil income as a natural source of funding for his ambitious social programmes, particularly with regard to health and education.
This ran counter to the plans of those who ran PDVSA. They saw privatisation - for which plans had been laid at least five years previously - as the means to guarantee their privilege in perpetuity.

They were joined by others made uncomfortable by such plans - the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce (Fedecamaras), the union federation CTV, and the privately-owned media.

In 1999, the Chavez government submitted a new constitution to the people. It was overwhelmingly endorsed by popular vote.
A key provision forbade the privatisation of PDVSA.

In the international arena, Chavez also moved to rebuild and revive the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), thereby ensuring Venezuela received a better price for its oil abroad.

As a result, the price of oil virtually doubled to over $20 a barrel and a Venezuelan - Ali Rodriguez - became the new head of Opec.
Washington was less than enamoured by these developments. The
Administration's ties to the US oil industry - in the form of National
Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, vice-president Dick Cheney and President Bush himself - have been well documented.

Washington's hostility towards Venezuela became more pronounced, with senior officials questioning President Chavez' 'commitment to democracy' – this from a US administration that required the intervention of the Supreme Court to enjoy 'electoral' success!

Nonetheless, President Chavez' domestic opponents - driven by the kleptocracy that ran PDVSA - had found new friends abroad.
After the coup, it would emerge that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an agency of the US government, had quadrupled its funding for Venezuelan 'democrats' (the opposition) in the year leading up to the coup. NED funding of the opposition totalled $877,000.

In January 2002, the Venezuelan government gave legal expression to its plans to radically reform PDVSA by passing the Hydrocarbon Law. This law also doubled the royalties charged to foreign oil companies in Venezuela, chief among them US giant Exxon-Mobil. It was to take effect on January 1, 2003.

On December 10, 2001, the Venezuelan opposition launched a 'general strike' as part of their campaign to oust the democratically elected President – a strike in which the employers were the key organisers.

Venezuela's well-heeled elite duly took to their well-appointed barricades.
Whatever plans for a coup were already underway, it is certain they were given added impetus by the Hydrocarbon Law and a reinvigorated Opec.
Indeed, the opposition made it abundantly clear that they would privatise PDVSA, ignore Opec production limits and repeal the doubling of royalties for foreign oil companies.

US Oil Supply Threatened
But it was events in the Middle East that may well have compelled the coup plotters to act when they did. Israeli actions in Occupied Palestine, during the early months of 2002, resulted in widespread international condemnation and anger. Attention focused on the United States – Israel's chief source of financial and political support.

Boycotts of US goods were proposed throughout the Middle East, but never took hold. But what caught the public imagination was a proposed oil embargo of the US, by key Arab countries, a proposal that reportedly panicked the Bush administration. If the embargo became a reality, a steady supply of Venezuelan oil would be vital to the United States. A similar embargo in 1973 had only been broken when Venezuela stepped in to make up the shortfall in the US supply.

Days before the coup, Opec head Ali Rodriguez contacted President Chavez and warned him that the proposed embargo meant his opponents would move sooner rather than later.

Rodriquez said it was likely they would choose April 11, the day the
opposition planned a major demonstration in Caracas. His prediction proved correct.

Would you buy a used coup from these people?
The opposition had failed to overturn the electoral result of 1998, by way of a 'strike' and then the coup of April 2001. However, undeterred by this catalogue of failure, they launched a second 'general strike' in December 2002.

The strike was supported by such luminaries of the democratic process as the local McDonalds franchise, Subway de Venezuela (sandwich franchise), supermarkets and private schools.

The timing was important. On January 1, 2003, the Hydrocarbon Law would take effect, paving the way for the dismantling and reconstitution of PDVSA and the doubling of royalties on foreign oil corporations.

In this instance, the opposition sought to cripple the country economically, by halting output at PDVSA. Venezuela stood to lose $50 million per day, if they succeeded. (To prevent profiteering, President Chavez introduced price controls on basic foods, medicines and rents).

The opposition strategy was similar to that enunciated by then US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, who warned in the early 1970s that the US would "make the Chilean economy scream".

In 1973, following a prolonged period of destabilisation and 'strikes' the elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile was overthrown in a coup, ushering in the brutal regime of General Augusto Pinochet. Up to 3,000 people 'disappeared' or were murdered during his rule. Pinochet has since faced charges for crimes against humanity.

However, despite persistent attempts by the privately-owned media in Venezuela, it was clear from an early stage that the supposed 'general strike' was far from general and a long way short of popular.

At an early stage, workers from a Pepsi plant in Aragua, west of Caracas, ignored the orders of management to close, and occupied the plant.
Their response to the strike was breathtakingly clear: "If you close the factories - We'll take them over!" ("Fabrica Cerrada - Fabrica Tomada").
By January 2003, the 'strike' was dead on its feet.

Update February 27 2003
US State Department brands Venezuela "an unreliable oil supplier."

A judge orders the arrest of seven former PDVSA executives for their role in the most recent 'strike' (5,300 staff at PDVSA were sacked as a result of the strike, including 700 senior executives)

Venezuelan oil production has returned to pre-strike levels of three
millions barrels per day. Ironically, the US push for war in the Gulf has sent the price of oil close to $40 a barrel - almost twice what it was before the April 11 coup.

giving praise for blessings and every day miracles

2006-12-06T20:18:00.000-08:00

Why is it that everything I read or watch lately just tears my heart out?

So rather then dwelling on all that achingness I thought I ought to leaven it with a recounting of blessings...is it thursday yet?

Last thursday we got fully snowed in, two feet of snow in 24 hours, absolutley a no work day. We have no telephone due to many, many frustrations with cell phones (get this- they cant find us on their little map even thought the phones are connected to a satellite so even calling next door is long distance and they cant even hear you when you call) and a total lack of money to pay for a home phone, so Chris goes trudging through the blizzard to use the neighbours phone to call my preschool and tell them we weren't going anywhere and meets him trudging up to tell us the school called their house already to tell him that it was a snow day.

A few hours later one of Chris's co-workers and his partner show up to see if we needed anything and to just check in.
An hour later Chris's boss and another co-worker show up and drop off a full propane tank that we had needed to pick up in town because we were almost out. Our big tank ran out that night.
Today a guy we met through another Sointulan came out to help us chop firewood, we have been in a desperate search to find a chainsaw for awhile hoping to borrow one. People are VERY attached to their saws out here, they name them...Chris was told he would have better luck borrowing some one's jockstrap. But hooray for birthdays! My dad just showed up yesterday with a chainsaw as a birthday gift for Chris and I. Ah minimalism! When a 2nd hand chainsaw and a stack of dry wood are a source of joy. I taught preschool this morning and got home as Chris, Chris, someone I have never even met and my dad were chopping and sawing away. I put Ila to bed and made coffee, sandwiches, cake and other things and came back laden with treats. They stacked two cords of wood and cut another 2, by the end of the week we should be less panicky and mother birdish about keeping the nest warm and dry....Luckily, we could easily live here 5 years and never have to touch a standing tree without making a dent on all the fallen/dead wood.
Sointulans have the most fantastic approach to friendship, a type I have never seen in practice. Since moving here we have been gifted with crab, prawns, plums, eggs, butter, cheese, moose, over 30 lbs of salmon, zucchini, chicken, and many other things, not even mentioning the huge pile of gifts Ila recieved for her birthday. Unlike all the friendships I have had in my mere almost 24 years I almost never see these people, we don't really visit much as Chris is always working and I am always stuck at the end of the road with no vehicle and a 2 year old. Evenings and weekends are not times to rest, that's when we work on the house and I grab time to think about something other then Ila. So we see a handful of people randomly, but obviously we are in their thoughts. Most friends are always there when things are going well, these friends are sort of absent on a social level but appear when you are in need. Since one of the major reasons we moved here because we were disatisfied with the way aquaintances were plentiful but true friends almost non-existent. I can count them on one hand in fact. Since being here I cannot say we have not yearned to have our house packed with youthful faces and a joyous noise but at the same time I am content and satisfied with these new friendships in a way I have never felt. They are safe, slow and steady people. Deliberate. I can say with great assurance having spent my life trying out different places to be poor in, this one for Canada at least is no contest the best.
So while the rest of the world leaves me all raw and aching, I give praise for this community that acts out the holiday sentiment every day regardless of season and I feel utterly blessed to take part in every way I can. Whoever thought utopia could taste so sweet.

Viva Oaxaca! Critical updates + ways to support the people's struggle

2006-12-03T15:29:00.000-08:00

There's nothing I have left to say, but that in a day, that is to say in a God's day, that is to say, who knows how long in human time, there exists the promise of resurrection. -emilie smith, vancouver pastor in Oaxaca

Here are the most recent updates from Oaxaca. This is actually two updates in one because our internet has been out for a few days. I offer up a few words of one of the true great heroes of the pen, Pablo Neruda, in the hope that you feel similarly and read on...

"But these are tainted years, ours; the blood of men far away
tumbles again in the foam, the waves stain us, the moon is spattered.
These far away agonies are our agonies
and the struggle for the oppressed is a hard vein in my nature.

Perhaps this war will pass like the others which divided us,
leaving us dead, killing us along with the killers
but the shame of this time puts it's burning fingers to our faces.
Who will erase the ruthlessness hidden in innocent blood?
-from "the watersong ends", la barcarola 1967

December 3rd.

Hello all.....

President Calderon has been sworn-in (in their "special" midnight inauguration), the city of Oaxaca has been trampled and transitioned into a police state, and solidarity actions are spreading across the globe. But, big media is remaining silent, or skewed towards the far-right military agenda, and so these personally-compiled and accurate updates are an extremely important method for organizing.

Dec. 2 basic update :
All APPO leaders are hunted by federal, state, and paramilitary police; they have been forced into transient hiding –
approximately half have left for Mexico City while half remain in the state of Oaxaca
Still over 100 people disappeared
100 foreigners on a wanted list by the state (on false charges of political involvement)
University Radio of the APPO is still down

It is extremely important that there is an international presence in Oaxaca now, and in the following months. I am heartened by knowing that Building Bridges is sending a delegation to Mexico this week, the Oaxaca Solidarity Network (USA) and Rights Action are also sending a delegation mid December (see Tortured Victim Talks), and CIPO-VAN is organizing a Jan 3-10 delegation as well (see below).

APPO is organizing a national day of action on Dec.10, Int'l Human Rights Day, and has called for international solidarity actions the same day.

CIPO is planning to convene an all-vancouver (all groups, all individuals invited) meeting on Dec.9th, to share updates, photos, strategies, and strengthen support for Oaxaca. There will be more info about where and when soon!

please do extend your support in any way you feel possible, financial donations, contacting others with info, or more!

with my heart, sara kendall 604 253 9294

Organized by the Indigenous People's Council of Oaxaca (CIPO) here in Vancouver and in Oaxaca city, GATO (Grupo de Apoyo y Trabajo por Oaxaca) is a proposal to arrange international presence in Oaxaca via:
a) personal accompanimient to those most threatened and
b) a delegation January 3-10 (the Zapatista Intergalactica meeting is Dec 31 - Dec 2).

The delegation is a team of about ten intersectoral, high-profile and personally politically experienced people meeting for one packed-itinerary week of on-the-ground observation and research, and a subsequent media effort to both sensitize the public in Canada (and perhaps the US) and exhert more international political pressure to stop the violence.

Please read the document for more details, and pass on to anyone interested in accompaniment or the delegation.

2) OAXACA: Torture Victim Talks by John Gibler/ Special to The Herald Mexico

3) REPORT #10 from Vancouverite and Anglican Priest Emilie Smith, personal depiction of the city of Oaxaca right now

4) ATTACHED INVISIBLY : A whole lot of peaceful courageous solidarity =)

Two Links for photos :
(Fiercelight.org - pls ask permission before use) http://www.flickr.com/photos/34966732@N00/sets/
www.indymedia.org

APPO: Popular Assembly of Oaxaca http://www.asambleapopulardeoaxaca.com/

CIPO - Indigenous People's Council of Oaxaca: http://www.nodo50.org/cipo-van/ (ENGLISH)

y en ESPANOL: http://www.nodo50.org/cipo/

----------------

#2

OAXACA: Torture victim talks
December 1, 2006

OAXACA: Torture survivor talks

BELOW: a recent article about torture, disappearances & government
repression in Oaxaca.

EMERGENCY DELEGATION; please consider joining an emergency delegation to Oaxaca, from December 16-22, that Rights Action is sponsoring; it is being
organized and hosted by Oaxacan solidarity and human rights groups. For
more information, contact the Oaxaca Solidarity Network:
info@oaxacasolidarity.org.

If you want on-off this elist: info@rightsaction.org

===

MEXICO: APPO SUPPORTERS ENDURE TORTURE
by John Gibler/ Special to The Herald Mexico, Thursday, 30 November 2006

Rene Trujillo Martínez, a thin 25-year-old lawyer and volunteer radio
announcer with the Oaxaca People´s Assembly (APPO), holds the uncomfortable
distinction of having survived a disappearance. Trujillo was recently
abducted from his apartment by armed men in civilian clothes, brutally
beaten at gunpoint, taken to a safe house and tortured. He says he was then
held incommunicado for two days while being interrogated by federal
authorities, and then, miraculously, released on bail.

According to APPO spokespeople and the Mexican League for Human Rights
Defense in Oaxaca, at least 30 APPO protesters are currently missing,
awaiting a similar miracle.

"Usually the disappearances are not so massive as they are now, 30 in just a
few days," said Florentino López, a spokesperson for the APPO, referring to
the number of protesters who have allegedly been abducted or gone missing in
the past two weeks since the arrival of federal police in Oaxaca. "Like
torture, disappearances are a part of state terrorism against social
movements," he said.

Federal and state authorities denied interview requests for this article.

ABDUCTION
On Nov. 7, at about 2:15 p.m., Trujillo and two friends got out of a taxi
and began walking up Santo Tomás, the narrow, hilly side street that leads
to Trujillo´s rented room. They noticed a group of men following them and
began to run. The men also broke into a sprint, catching up to Trujillo and
his friends just as they were closing the garage door.

The men, at least six of them according to several eye-witness accounts,
forced their way into the garage with pistols in hand, firing and then
beating the three young men, forcing them out into the street. "I don´t
know if they were waiting for him or following him, but they came in with
pistols and everything," said one witness (all witnesses interviewed spoke
on the condition of anonymity). "They were dressed in civilian clothes.
They came in hitting him; they pulled him out violently. They didn´t even
talk; it was pure violence."

Trujillo and his two friends, Mauricio Marmolejo and Benito Pereda
Fernández, were each held down and beaten in the street by two men. But it
was Trujillo they were after, and Trujillo who received the most intense
beating: after being struck repeatedly in the face with the barrel of a
pistol, Trujillo´s assailant stuck his gun into Trujillo´s mouth while
slamming his head against the wall.
Days later Trujillo´s blood was still visible on the rocks outside his
house.

RADIO ANNOUNCER
Trujillo participated in the June 14 takeover of Radio Universidad and
volunteered around the station until a paid saboteur threw acid on the
transmitter and the station went off the air. But Trujillo hung around,
helping maintain the barricade protecting the university station. He then
began as a program announcer on Oct. 21 when the radio went back on the air
with a repaired transmitter.

Trujillo ran the 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. program, known as Barricade Radio,
providing information about police movements around town and barricades that
needed reinforcement. APPO protesters began to build hundreds of barricades
throughout Oaxaca City after gunmen linked to local police opened fire on
their protest camps on Aug. 22, killing one protester.

KIDNAPPED
The gunmen forced Trujillo and his friends into a yellow rental pick-up
truck, which they had called for by cell phone during the beatings,
according to witnesses. The assailants then covered the men´s faces with
their shirts and forced them face down in the back of the truck, knees
pinning down their backs.
After driving for about 20 minutes, the gunmen stopped and switched to a
white pick-up truck, where they placed nylon hoods over the three men and
then took them to a warehouse - they think near the airport.

At the warehouse the gunmen tortured them, sticking needles under their
finger nails (the scars were visible three days later), applying electric
shocks to their feet, beating them on the head, and choking them, according
to the three men, who were later released.

They asked them to identify militants in the APPO, the most active people at
Radio Universidad, and the men who had captured two soldiers, and later
released them, a few days before. The men had Oaxaca, Mexico City and
northern Mexican accents.

BEING FRAMED
After some 10 hours of torture, the gunmen made them hold guns and then took
pictures and filmed them with the guns in their hands. The three men were
then taken to the federal Attorney General´s Office (PGR) complex in Oaxaca
and charged with the federal crime of possession of illegal firearms. They
were held incommunicado at the PGR, where again they were interrogated and
terrorized by threats. On Nov. 9, they were released on bail. Trujillo says
he paid US$4,000 for his liberty.

It is unclear how many protesters have disappeared in the past weeks. With
rumors constantly circulating through town, the number could be
significantly less, or higher, than 30 - the number of known APPO protesters
reported missing by family members.

The involvement of several levels of authorities also complicates the issue,
says Jessica Sánchez, the president of the Mexican League for Human Rights
Defense in Oaxaca. Local, state and federal authorities make detentions
without regard to jurisdiction, she said, and they take prisoners to random
jails across the state. The victims are refused access to lawyers and human
rights workers, making the job of locating and identifying those on the list
of disappeared extremely difficult, Sánchez said. "This is testimony to the
state of suspended guarantees in Oaxaca," she said, "of the lack of
governability and the failure of public institutions."
===

#3

OAXACA REPORT #10 from Emilie Smith

November 30, 2006

Dear Friends,

It is a silent morning, the silence of death and of the end. It is Saturday of Holy Week, even though it's Thursday, I think. God is absent from the world. Yesterday morning the Barricade of Cinco Señores came down, and later, the University Radio station was handed over. The seven times seven blessing is that it all unfolded without greater violence. The chavos of la Barricada de la Muerte just melted away, it was no use to carry on, and so many had been picked up and have now been beaten to a pulp, and disappeared, or at best, revealed to be in some prison. The Radio turned over their encampment to the rector of the University, in the face of an immediate full on assault by the PFP, and then did likewise, faded into grey nothing. There was some hard and difficult negotiation, but I have no idea what happened from the inside out. I wonder about the last puppy, and especially about the street kids, especially the one that had a broken foot, who wouldn't come home with me.

This morning the always-on radio is not on, there is no news, there are no reports, no phone calls from around the corner, warning about police prowling, neither from Indigenous women talking about faith, from Pandita offering critical analysis, calls of support from Arizona or Vancouver, from somewhere in the world where Oaxaca matters. There is no music fueling the resistance, and even though I've heard those same 20 or so songs a thousand times, here in the silent morning, I miss them terribly. I only have to say Huelga Nacional to anyone in Oaxaca and they know, and we all laugh a little at that strange, rough voice, was it from the Spanish Civil War? Hey, I'll even sit through Mi Unicornio Azul again, but no, there is nothing except for the torture music of the mutant Irish Rovers, which we turned off last night, when it was certain at last that nothing else was going to broadcast. First there was Radio Planton, then Radio Universidad, then Radio Cacerola, and finally Radio la ley and all the others that were occupied, and then Radio Universidad, again and to the end. Let me say one last time -- Radio Matters! It was the heart beat of this struggle, and now that heart beat is dead.

The all points bulletin is out for all leaders of APPO. They've gone underground, and some of them have gone to Mexico City, to negotiate yet again. Tomorrow, of course, is the big day when the fraud-accused president-elect takes office. Demonstrations are planned again for the streets of Oaxaca, but there is no way to let people know what's up and so many people are in jail, or hiding, or disappeared, or just plain terrified. Teachers who were active in the union are being pulled from schools – today they called for a 48 hr strike. Many people are just being snatched off the streets, houses continue to be ransacked and burned. I fell asleep in a full house last night, knowing that in the day, almost everyone was going away.

In the first moments of light I lie in the silence, with my ears on edge, and my eyes blurry and open at any odd rustle in the thin light of an odd quiet dawn. There's a flurry in the morning, people are leaving, for the hills, for the city, anywhere else but here. There has been an announcement on Radio Mapache, the illegal government radio (yes, it exists, and is set up mostly to declare who's next on the hit list -- they're the ones who put out the call to get Don Samuel), that there's a list of 100 foreigners who are to be attacked. La Jornada confirms a list of those for whom there are arrest warrants. I think I mentioned this all before, but these threats seem to have sunk in deeply to the international people I know, and they are leaving. This is of course what the powers and dominions want, and I refuse to bend to their tactics of terror. Which doesn't mean I'm not feeling terrorized . . .

It is a very odd situation, however. The people I have come to accompany, are for the most part, no longer here, but have gone into hiding. So I wash their clothes, and think about what else to do, and try my hardest to learn Mixteco with Perico, who's the only one left, but it's so hard. If, however, I have to be under self-house-arrest, he's the CIPOte I'd chose to be with; he's quiet, firm, and unflappable. Again, it's back to the idea that sometimes the best thing to do is just to be, but I'm so sad. When Chayo left I hid in the kitchen. The others have gone so deep into hiding that I can't reach them at all, and my heart is completely carved out. I'm here, but I'm so helpless. There's nothing I have left to say, but that in a day, that is to say in a God's day, that is to say, who knows how long in human time, there exists the promise of resurrection.

emilie

Hello people, here is some of the latest: hundreds injured, hundreds dissapeared, many of the detained actually flown out of Oaxaca in the last few days, 3 killed. The police have siezed the entire city, the radio is down, all APPO leaders (and others) are in hiding, foreigners are being targeted, some are being hunted, most are fleeing (at least for the moment), and the clamp-down before tomorrows inauguration of the extreme-right Calderon as Mexican president has proved rather effective. Temporarily. The people of Oaxaca have endured severe repression before, and are committed with their lives to thier struggle for life, justice and peace.

love to you each, love to Oaxaca, sara

1) An Open Letter from Emilie Smith, Canadian Anglican Priest currently in Oaxaca.

2) Backgrounder/Update Release from The Other Campaign Vancouver
-------------------------------

An Open Letter from Emilie Smith, Canadian Anglican Priest currently in Oaxaca.

"What has happened in the past few days is that Oaxaca has slipped from being a city in a state of siege, to a police state."

November 29: This horrible night is over, and the sun is up in the east (as usual, what a relief). The man who sweeps the streets just went by. I "slept" fitfully, and in my clothes and boots. Dragòn Barricada is curled up in a ball on my blanket. I´m on guard duty, and I've just walked the whole compound, and all out back. All is normal. Whether the phone calls we get late at night are real, or just to scare us, I don't know. Houses around the city are being broken into, or burnt to the ground by PRI thugs, I don't know why we've escaped so far.

The days after the march, Sunday, Monday and yesterday were marked by fear.

The violence of Saturday was the spark. The Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights (Limeddh) in La Jornada analyses thus:

12:04pm March begins
4:01pm PRI provocateurs are arriving at the Zocalo
Shortly after, March arrives, begins to circle Zocalo
4:30 PFP begins to launch rocks and tear gas from the roof of
buildings on Morelos St. Some protesters armed with rocks, slingshots
and firecrackers respond
5:38 Confirmed that PFP are the initiators
5:45 Protesters dispersed all over the centre of the city with
Tear gas and tanks
6:36 Limeddh sends out urgent appeal and pleads with PFP to
allow medical personnel onto scene
6:46 PFP and Ministerial Police begin house to house searches
6:54 Protesters and provocateurs begin to burn cars, buses and
buildings

Then the violence goes on and on, police begin to sweep city and to make widespread apprehensions. It is a very confusing scene, but basically it breaks down like this: there were hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters, mostly teachers, people come down from the indigenous communities, women, etc. There were some, a very, very small minority of what I would describe as hot-headed youth, who in their frustrated youthful way, really wanted to do battle with the authorities. The APPO error was to not contain this element, though I was witness to many of the older, wiser protesters speaking calmly and firmly to this group. There were several provocateurs in the crowd, who were there precisely to push people on to violence, for which the repercussions were to be horrendous.

There is lack of clarity as to who began the violence, protesters with rocks, or the PFP from the rooftops, which is most often reported.
However the violence began, the police reaction was way out of proportion, resulting in the wounding of several hundred, and the detention, and torture of many more. Anyway, these actions, which perhaps may have involved a small minority of protesters has provided the authorities with exactly the excuse they needed to close down absolutely every site of legitimate protest. And that is what they are doing.

That is why I describe Oaxaca as having moved from a state of seige to a police state. I don't know what to compare it to, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Guatemala in the 70s in the beginning of the repression, before the genocide. The police control the Zocalo, the Plaza Sto. Domingo, the parks, in reality, the whole city, they rove by day and by night in trucks, sometimes in uniform, often not.

Arbitrary detentions are constant, torture is almost universal along with detentions. PRI thugs have free range to do as they will. The priest of Seven Principes, one of the churches that offered first aid to protesters on Saturday night, one of the churches I criticized for not doing enough, was shot at on Monday. Medical students are another particular target. Three people were shot and killed outside the medical building on Saturday night. On Monday, right during a press conference to denounce the shooting, PRI thugs showed up, and right then and there dragged off one youth. The whole affair was captured on camera, and published in the paper, but no sign of arrests, or of the disappeared youth. Human rights groups are being attacked, as are the women's organizations, and as usual, especially indigenous rights groups. It is an absolutely terrifying time in the history of this struggle. The hunt is on for all leaders of APPO elected at the recent Congress.

The University is the only safe spot, but under constant threat of attack. (On Wednesday the barricades protecting the university were taken down). I'm there late on Monday afternoon, and it is a sad, sad place, a place under siege. Night descends and we hear the eerie sound of the conch shell, ancient indigenous way of communicating.

Outside the streets are dark and terrifying, I slink in the shadows and truck after truck of police search the streets. Thank God for the Canadian filmakers Velcrow and Claudia who accompany me in much of this. The next day we take a taxi to the Oaxacan Indigenous Forum, planned long before the situation became an outright crisis. As we get out of the car, a pickup truck pulls up right behind us, and out leap seven men. They are so obviously armed and dangerous. We wait before moving on, and they patrol the street, in front of the church hosting the forum. Others are with them, I count at least 10 or 12. Inside the forum is another secure space.

It seems however that a military block has prevented most of the delegates from the Sierra Juarez. Tatic is here! (Bishop Samuel
Ruiz) It is such a relief to see him, and to feel his calm, faithful presence. Later on the PRI radio, there is a call to attack the Forum tomorrow, and a prize for who can kill the Bishop. My heart aches in the face of such hatred. We hear again and again the story of these months of struggle as part of a much bigger struggle that the indigenous communities have been carrying on for centuries. Again, the focus is on indigenous community autonomy.

We come home before dark, to this chaos, and another night of anxious waiting. We have a plan now, escape routes marked and ready, and basically, just resigned.

----------------------
Nov29, 2006 Release from The Other Campaign Vancouver
As the Other Campaign Vancouver, many of us who have participated in Mexico as part of the Other Campaign and other experiences within the Mexican social movement would like to share a little bit of our analysis regarding the situation in Oaxaca, Mexico, which we understand may contribute to a press release that will be sent out tomorrow:
In response to the repression of June 14, 2006 (www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1896.html ), when the Oaxacan government thought it could quickly end the teacher's strike with violent repression, the people of Oaxaca initiated an important stage in their struggle which was converted into a movement to meet basic needs and call for the resignation of a murderous and illegitimate governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Other sectors of Oaxacan society readily incorporated themselves into this struggle: these were predominantly indigenous peoples which make up the majority of the Oaxacan population. They created an organization which reflects the historic and ancestral forms of organizing of their peoples: the APPO, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (www.asambleapopulardeoaxaca.com ), which is a coalition of more than 350 organizations. Most of the members of this coalition were conscious that the only form to successfully organize was from the grassroots, independent of any of the main political parties (PRI, PAN and PRD) which have historically betrayed the people of Mexico (for example, the betrayal of the San Andres Accords with the new Indigenous law passed by all of the three political parties—www.inmotionmagazine.com/chiapas3.html ), and have represented only the interests of Mexico's elite ruling political class and transnational corporate interests. The Oaxacan people, like many others in Mexico, are fed up with the government's continued response to their demands: killings, disappearances, torture, sexual torture, intimidation, political incarceration, paramilitary, military, and police repression, not to mention further imposition of destructive neoliberal policies. All the while, the mainstream media has acted in collusion with the government and its forces to criminalize a just social movement and to create a media siege around the people's struggle: that is, to not portray the truth of the struggle, but to justify and incite further brutal and vindictive state repression. The Oaxacan social movement has been successful in calling for mass mobilizations and organized resistance, resulting in more than 7 mass marches, many of which included more than 1 million people. Through the heart of the struggle, Radio Universidad, it has countered the lies that the governor and the media have spread against the leaders of the movement by openly calling for their assassination.

Within this context, there have been over 18 deaths including that of independent US journalist Bradley Will (http://mexico.usembassy.gov/mexico/ep061027Will.html), hundreds of detained, and the worst repression is expected before December 1st arrives, when Felipe Calderon, president through electoral fraud, takes power.

Felipe Calderon of the PAN represents a continuation of a move towards more open and blatant state repression in all its forms, a type of fascism. In this year alone, under the rule of PAN President, Vicente Fox, there has been widespread violence throughout Mexico, from Oaxaca, to Atenco (state of Mexico), Guerrero, Michoacan (San Lazaro Cardenas) to the North in Coahuila (Pasta de Conchos). Calderon will include in his cabinet, former governor of Jalisco, Francisco Ramirez Acuña, who was responsible for the brutal repression of May 28, 2004, of protesters in Guadalajara City, Jalisco, during the EU-LAC Summit (European, Latin American and Caribbean) (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/07/15/mexico9079.htm; www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5726 ).

It is important to denounce the Mexican government in its increasing state repression towards just social movements. On the one hand, Mexico occupies the Presidency of the recently formed United Nations Human Rights Council (www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=19056&Cr=rights&Cr1=council ); on the other hand, it sanctions through its military and police (and paramilitary apparatus), the killing, rape, and general repression of its population.

The Other Campaign Vancouver (La Otra Campaña Vancouver) (includes La Surda Latin American Collective, Justicia for Migrant Workers (BC), Group of Relatives and Friends of Political Prisoners in Mexico)

otravancouver@yahoo.ca

Our Year of Reno's

2006-11-29T11:24:00.000-08:00

Okay not a full year, yet. A little recap is neccessary. Last year in December we were living in Fanny Bay, BC, it was just before my 23 and my partner Chris's 22 birthdays, we were stretched so thin financially and emotionally. My mother who had been living with us moved out in a drama of truly epic proporions that even a year later I am no closer to coming to terms with, we were so broke having spent the previous year launching and running my jewellery/design business and Chris working full time as a roofer, we ran out of propane on my birthday so no symbolic cleansing bath which is a yearly ritual. Soak in the tub and write.
I was sick and tired of being sick and tired of struggling so hard against a mountain of bills with only Chris and I holding back the landslide. I want to live, not think about living. I have no patience for debt and $ and generally things just work out. I slide through, sometimes laughing and sometimes by the skin of my teeth. I am not sure if it is that I believe that all will be well, or I tell myself enough that it becomes true, but I always seem to find a solution. I just don't give up. We were in a routine of stasis that neither of us felt spoke to what we felt needed to be done or felt like we had a community of people who held similar values.
We know a great deal of people on this coast and some I love most dearly but we do not share a common vision of our friendships and their evolution. I want to support (and be supported!) with time and energy, in any way I could to help my friends, those that I know now and those I will know, to achieve their goals. I am always willing to help and fully enjoy participating in the lives of those I love on a deeper level then just seeing each other. I love dinner parties and visits but I have a whole life that also needs more then just myself. I want us to accomplish something, anything together. Each of us is so consumed by our own vision that we don't take time to be active in other's and so we all take so much longer to achieve whatever it is we are reaching for. As Robert Frost wrote "men work together whether they work together or apart" it is just so much easier to do so conciously and willingly then resisting cooperation every step of the way. Of what significance are our personal dramas when compared to the whole? And what better way to live then to do so joyfully and in the company of others who support and cherish you. That is what I wish for on shooting stars and eyelashes.
This is why we felt so trapped and alone. I felt this in the city too, surrounded by the pressing of millions, in fact my isolation was most acute there even though I was active to the point of self-exhaustion in my community. My father came up shortly after our bdays with his maps of the coast we were thinking Queen Charlottes or the north coast somewhere, I liked the idea of going TO a place when everyone else was leaving it except those who want to own the property like a prize. We wanted to live somewhere our contributions would be valued, where we could make change and support community in a meaningful way. We started by looking at Graham Island because it is Ila and Chris's last name and I was kind of grasping at straws I didn't know anything really about the area as my interest had not really gone farther then Campbell River. There is this awful stigmatism of Port McNeill and Port Hardy that prevents most people from looking into the islands. Thankfully. Tourism has been very very reluctantly allowed into Sointula's economy a blessing to be sure.
Our eyes fell on Echo Bay because my father's mapbook also included the translations of first nation's place names, I was inevitably drawn to 'place of gathering power' exactly what I had written I needed to do. We had a conversation about the area and truth be told I promptly forgot (I can be pretty flighty when I'm not paying attention). Two days later I was looking for work for my father (he is a salmon/marine biologist) and came across an ad for an island for sale. Clicked on it: ECHO BAY! The Echo Bay Resort is the ideal location for a joint community/non-profit cooperative. I immediatley set about making connections and contacted Alexandra Morton
infamous and remarkable whale researcher, whistle-blower, fisheries agitator, and ocean advocate one and all go visit her website at www.raincoastresearch.org
We also contacted the resort, the owner was distant but encouraging at first and we arranged to go and see the resort in early january. I had resolved absolutley that we were moving, things were changing, I just wasnt sure what it looked like. The night before we were to meet Ron, skipper of the Kvitsoy in Port McNeill he called and said it was way to stormy to even think of going out but he would check back with the coast guard and get back to us. Ira had come up from Victoria to go with us as had my father. I had been friends with Kristi for a long time and really felt that the trip would speak to her and at the very least she would be supporting us in finding a place for our family. Even though she had been really negative and non-commital and I had pretty much decided to not invest any more energy in our relationship she decided she did want to come.
Miraculously Ron called back to say he thought we would make it and we all piled into the subaru...literally piled, Ira was in the trunk with all the stuff! We headed out for the singularly most influential adventure I have yet experienced. It is the forest primeval, alternatley brooding and exhaltant, every where breath taking, even in painted in January monochrome. The soft sage of usnea (old mans beard moss) clung to all the curved pines and lush salal. Sea lions lazed off the side of Stubb's Island.
Entering the Archipelago

Admitedly not much photo taking occured we were too busy making connections. Ron and his four hour trip to Echo Bay are the ferry. Billy Proctor (I am getting to him) also does regular runs for supplies. Claudia the manager of the Scott Cove hatchery and truly fascinating, powerful woman was on the boat too and we learned alot about the area. We all loved Ron instantly, he is too great to simply deal with in this post but suffice to say that Ila was smitten and spent mucho time in his lap babbling to him. We were all very hyped. We passed Gwayasdums as we rounded Gilford Island.

Look a little dismal? It should. This village has no children left because their houses are full of black mold and many were very ill from respitory infections. There is also no clean water, ironic no? One of the wettest places on the continent and not a drop to drink. This tiny community has been importing bottled water from Port McNeill for YEARS (over 6). Globe and Mail reporter Johnathan Woodward wrote this in June of this year:

The wells of Gwayasdums, once branded the sickest village in B.C., have been contaminated with salt water and citizens have been drinking bottled water for eight years.

The village's houses are rundown, with holes, leaky roofs and often-faulty electrical wiring, and the stench of sewage rises from the ground.

I will post that article later but for now: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051111/BCGILFORD11/Health/Idx

The issue of third world conditions in my country and the lack of access to basics like water and housing is something for another day. In the meantime this is how it once was. Edward Curtis 1914

We dropped Claudia off at her floathouse...

This is the logging camp, they dont even live in communities anymore
they sleep/eat on the boat and fly in and out.
Floathouses in Scott Cove. *Note these are for sale check mls.ca*
Here we are on the dock at Scott Cove.

Alex's property is around the corner...

Then we headed for the Resort, here we are approaching by water...
The store is ontop of a huge piece of the Lake Washington Bridge (below) that was floated up somehow, it serves as a breakwater and the docks are attached to it.

Here is a picture of Echo Bay from the air, my father ran out of film and so did we...oops! This one is taken from the Echo Bay Resort website echobayresort.com.
If you would like to see my initial proposal for development of this project go to www.echobaysociety.info for that is a whole other entry.

Echo Bay in the 1950's

We toured the property and explored Windsong Resort which is also for sale with the caretakers for both properties, Carol and Jerry. Windsong leases the bluff they are moored up against from the Provincial gov't it is a granfathered lease because the rock face contains old pictographs.

Trudging along the dock. I have problems with my legs and balance at the best of times but I was really unsteady in Echo Bay. You can see Kristi carrying Ila.

The barge/lodge

The loveliest rocks ever

Afterwards we met up with Yvonne Maximchuck http://www.zoombuy.net/searose.html

Billy Proctor coastal legend, friend to fish and the beating heart of Echo Bay. I was awed to meet him while he was terribly shy, I just adored him right off.

Here they are together

We all met at the store on the barge and talked. The store was full of gaudy packaged goods and plastic foods. The conversation was certainly more filling. Alex called on the marine radio and we invited her to have dinner with us that night.

As we were all milling around outside we were blessed with the most incredible sight...

All agreed, it was a good sign.

Then we went to the school and visited the teacher Jillian and her partner. The kids come to school by boat (all 6 of them) and are met at the dock by his flute playing. Need I say more?

Accomodations at the EBR are like midwestern states trailer goes west coast moldy. In need of a major retrofit. The rooms were freezing and heated with kerosene heaters that made us all feel ill but the property has unbelievable potential.

The rooms we stayed in
The lodge

The next day we headed over to Billy's Museum http://www.northislandmuseums.org/Echo%20Bay/Index.htm

Bill

Walking up the dock to the museum

Billy's place is like stepping into the history of the coast from old opium vials from asian loggers/fishermen to jade artifacts and trade beads it's all there. And all found! Billy has just been finding these amazing relics since he was a child and saving them. To learn more about this amazing man and the legacy he leaves all Canadians go on over to backwoodsbibliophile.blogspot.com
and search my library for both Heart of the Raincoast by Alexandra Morton and Billy Proctor and Full Moon, Flood Tide: Bill Proctor's Rain Coast by Yvonne Maximchuck and Bill Proctor

Weather was too rough to get out again so we stayed another day and had dinner with Yvonne and her partner Al. Yvonne is an incredible (and acclaimed) artist/potter and Al is an incredible potter too. It was a very wonderful visit.

The next day we headed home determined to get back there at any cost. I made up the proposal that can be seen on the echobaysociety site and sent many emails and had many phone calls with people in the area while we worked on buying a boat. We decided on a boat because there are only 2 ways to live in Echo Bay aboard or in a floathouse. Additionally we could but a boat in a much shorter time frame then a house without the ethical issue of buying land no one owns. The banks had okayed everything at first, we found and hauled the Con Dios out of the water to get it surveyed it cost us over $800 and it turned out that the sellers were trying to squeeze over 30 grand out of us. Luckily I had connected with a surveyer who VOLUNTEERED his time to examine the boat. He saved our asses.

the Con Dios

We gave our notice for our house in Fanny Bay in Febuary because we were sure we would have a boat in no time as there were so many on the market. We drove up and down the island looking for a boat, during that time we packed and had a marathon 3 week garage sale and liquidated most of our stuff. As move out date approached it looked like a few more weeks would be needed, the guy who was moving into our house offered for us to stay until we got it worked out. So we moved the remainder of our stuff into the shed and all three of us (plus the dog and cat) slept in a 10x10 room for what ended up being almost 3 months. I had heard nothing back from Echo Bay, people were waiting for me to make it happen and then they would get on beard. Unfortunately a project of that scope requires a group of committed people working together in order for it to be viable. Chris and I drove all over the island looking for our boat and spent countless hours searching them on the net. We travelled down to Everett, Washington to look at the Clupea

1929 52'. Clupea is a former Canadian Fisheries Patrol Boat,
Built in the Boeing Shipyards, Vancouver BC

I loved the idea of buying a boat built by the company that has gone on to do unlimately evil things http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing .The true legacy of the ameriCAN dream or of the western way rather. What is simple and humble and beautiful is transformed into something monolithic, terrifying, ruthlessly imperial. I loved the Clupea, she had served out of Port Hardy as a observation/science station and did many wonderful things. The trip to see her was an epic driving spree, the border guard on the way back into Canada was unimpressed when we told her we had not spent even a penny in the country. I was my first time leaving Canada since I was 10. I cannot forsee another reason to leave.
We finally found the JH Todd in Campbell River only 45 minutes away, a true DOH! moment. All that driving! The boat was in our price range and we started working to get her out of the water so it could be surveyed etc...we did an in-water survey but the insurance companies/banks demanded a out of water survey and it is not easy to haul out a 56 ft boat. We would have had to pay the owner of the boat to take it to a ways, pay the haul out, pay the surveyers travel and $20-50 per foot of survey. Despite our seriously desperate financial situation we started the ball rolling until we were finally dead ended by the fact that after ALL that no one would insure us. No insurance, no boat. Back to square one.

The JH Todd

During this time we had been in contact with Ron (remember our skipper way back in this tale) he invited us for a visit and we totally adored his partner Kathleen (the public health nurse here) and totally fell for Sointula, as we pulled away in the ferry the first time I knew our relationship had only just begun. It wasnt until this point that I started really looking into Sointula and found the story of it's founding and it's history. We started looking for houses to rent there before we even started to look for a boat but you have to be here before anyone would even think of allowing you in their houses. Things back at the house in Fanny Bay were getting tense the relationship the person we were living with was in got more serious and his girlfriend started being there alot more. She was in a very different space then us and the whole energy in the house changed we had to get moving. Additionally, I dont do patience well. So we bought Casa Aloha for $900, a 1969 12 foot Aloha Travel trailer that had been misused and used for hunting and other apparently very dirty activities. We towed it to the house and proceeded to gut it. Everything came out. During this activity friends of Chris's from his high school days in Alabama showed up for a record short visit of 21 hours! Here is a series of trailer reno photos...

We piled a bunch of our stuff into our roomates van and Casa Aloha and headed off to Sointula! Hooray finally on the move. We stayed in Ron and Kathleen's carport for a lovely 3 weeks then moved into a house right around the corner. Chris had found full time work learning about/building houses within a week of our arrival. We knew from the start our new house was short term but we didnt realize how quick we were going to have to get out of there we should have said no to it from the start because they asked us for $800 a month when the same house with anyone else owning it would have been about $500...anyway, we jumped for the illusion of stability without feeling out the ground and agreed to paint the house in return for $100 off the rent. It took us about 80 hours all together and we basically spent our summer fixing their house for free.

We didn't take many photos this time we just wanted to get it done. Finally this house found us, it had been waiting for us all along it was just our timing that was a bit off. Our other landlords made a big stink about our moving out and it was a generally nasty scene all around. Why is it that people are all fine until they overstep your boundaries and you assert yourself, especially landlord's its like some bizarre feudal lord past life takes over...you must OBEY ME SERF. Right, see ya!

Freeman Farmhouse, Meynell Point
Meynell Point in the way back. The house here is the kitchen and l. room of our house only 1/4 mile from where is was.

Our new house had been neglected since the Freeman's left over 10 years ago. It's almost 3000 sq. feet was floor to ceiling filthy covered in spiderwebs, dust, decay, debris, mold, mouse shit and assorted other nastinesses. Our deal here was that we get 1.5 months off the rent, when we complete the painting. Before anything could be painted everything had to be cleaned vigorously, I have been cleaning non-stop since mid-August. We started painting/drywalling the second week of September. Every room had hundreds of holes to be patched before painting too. The Freemans were emphatic about using only enamel paint so we have to wait a minimum of 16 hours between coats...plus we can only paint while Ila is asleep or both of us are home. The finished interior photos are on the way as we just put the first coat of paint on the last room (our room of course!) while the snow blizzarded about in a snowish kind of way. So expect finished Freeman Farmhouse pic's/slideshows within the week. I can not wait to be done at least the painting aspect of this whole year. Breathe a deep breath free of mineral spirits.
There is still so much to be done, we havent even begun on the garden...or the bus...
Like Seldom Seen Smith from the Monkey Wrench Gang would say: We're working from can't see to can't see.

But is sure feels good to chase your dreams and have them made manifest.

the sky is falling!!!

2006-11-29T10:45:00.000-08:00

The school is closed today because the wet coast is doing some serious east coast copycatting and snowing so I do not teach preschool today. White stuff from the sky brings out the ultimate humbug in me, I can handle 6 months of rain without blinking but when the temperature drops below freezing I become uncharacteristically grim. I dont dig being cold. I'm working on it. I just need to keep in mind a line from an old (now defunct) band from Montreal, Perpetuum...

"Don't blame the weather for your sorrows today
It was sunny on Friday now it's a dark and rainy day
If I always let the sky bleed the light from my soul
I'd be the slippery wet pavement and the rain in a broken bowl."

I'll admit it is lovely in a do-not-want-to-go-outside kind of way, but I would rather trudge through a monsoon. I never did understand the allure of willfully seeking out the white powder for sport's sake. While I love to kayak, walk, trudge, beachcomb and explore I have a major resistance to snow sport of all kinds. I am sure it is because the first time I ever went skiing on Grouse Mountain when I was 8 my out of school care forgot me on the mountain because I was SO slow. They found me four hours later freezing and irate. Today though I am going to just enjoy it, and let Chris take Ila out to cavort in the cold while I try to get stuff done in my nice cozy house. I don't know if this classifies as getting stuff done but it is cathartic in it's own way. I am heading off to paint our bedroom in a few moments which prompted me to pull together a little snapshot of our year of moving, should be up in a few hours.

Eastside Blues

2006-11-29T00:31:00.001-08:00

Home sweet home...

Pro-White Commercial

2006-11-29T00:24:00.001-08:00

This youtube thing is doing a good job of rendering me speechless with anger and sadness. I am going to have to lay off soon.

My Opinion on Prussian Blue (AKA The Nazi Twins)

2006-11-29T00:17:00.001-08:00

This is too good. I will post more on Prussian Blue a terrifying topic to be sure.

Echo Bay slide show

2006-11-28T23:59:00.001-08:00

Jacob's Well, Vancouver BC

2006-11-28T19:27:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting group. The are drived by faith in a more Christian god then mine to live very similarly to how I did while in the city. I just copied and pasted their Values and Vision section of their website which can be seen at: www.jacobswell.ca . I sent an email inquiring about the movie which I would like to see. This is what christianity ought to look like instead of the hulking oppressive force that it is.

Jacob's Well, Values and Vision

Life-giving relationship is our highest goal. Through friendship we seek to encourage and strengthen residents and workers in the downtown eastside in practical and spiritual ways. We recognize that Jesus was a friend of the marginalized, not a friend to them. Like Jesus, we desire to be real in the way we relate to one another - therefore we treat everyone with value, desiring to build sincere lasting relationships. We believe that through loving friendship with our neighbours there is life-giving hope that is imparted and this can result in healing and new life.

We deeply value the truth that every person is created in the image of God. We believe therefore that everyone has something to offer other people. We want to create opportunity for people to reflect the image of God through using creative gifts they have, through serving in some way, or a through sharing a kind word or their possessions with one another. Everyone needs to have the opportunity to be known and through being known people are able to be generous with their lives. As each of us endeavors to do this the gifts we share enable more of God to be seen in and through everyone in our community. It is to this end that as we live our lives together we try to give every person who is a part of our community a chance to participate meaningfully.

We also have a passionate commitment to equip people to understand God’s bias toward the poor and marginalized. Scripture demonstrates that God desires that the marginalized receive justice and compassion. This particular bias however sometimes does not show up in the lives of people who claim to follow God. Our hope is that through teaching and modeling God’s heart for the poor others will begin to discover ways they can engage their lives with marginalized people around them.

Commercial Drive Fest 2006

2006-11-28T19:09:00.001-08:00

The street I grew up on in Vancouver started an annual car free festival. When I was still an urbanista I worked with a group dedicated to shutting down the drive to traffic permanently called "Green Spaces" I was at Drive Fest in 2005 with my booth and had a grand exhausting time. Too many bodies in one place for me but I love to see people dancing in the streets!!!Last year people continued to walk in the streets in casual protest for hours after. Us too.

Classical theatre of Agraba

2006-11-28T18:57:00.001-08:00

A little comic relief. Can you even dare to imagine a conversation between those...people? You think of an appropriate label for them words fail me when I try.

heart and home:inner city

2006-11-28T18:14:00.001-08:00

this is where we dump them but they won't stay down.
I grew up here, in this fortress of glass and concrete. My childhood friends were street workers and reeling drunks and they sure know how to love. They might not remember your name but the recognition is joy enough. My dreams were filled with the unnatural orange city light and the lingering old urine smell of bus and corner. I live in paradise now but dont think for a second that my heart does not live there with the broken glass and dreams that bide their time beneath the neon. We shall be released.

occupation iraq

2006-11-28T17:55:00.001-08:00

The people united can never be defeated, let's say it every morning when we awake, before our heads hit the pillow, a constant throbbing wailing yelling for change.
Come on people sound your barabaric yawp over the rooftops of the world.

Iraqi Kid Runs For Water

2006-11-28T17:54:00.001-08:00

"Do you see them?"
"I can see them sarge"
Really what words are there to refute this sickness. This power over the powerless. I found this over at melissamsw.blogspot.com
I suggest you check her out. I would say a good read but I will be more honest and say a heart searing one.