Indigenous Voices…

Trudell The Movie…

Mary rented “Trudell” from Netflix… we watched it last night. I have seen John perform a couple of times, and have long loved his poetry. Sadly, his poetry and lyrics are not easily available on the net, so we will not have the pleasure of sharing them with you at this time. (Hopefully John will put some of his stuff out there so people can get a taste of his work….)

His story is a strong one, with many twist and turns. Much is tragedy, and I ask you to rent or buy this film and share it with friends. It is very moving.

I have never met John but I did know his first music partner, Jesse Ed Davis. I met Jesse in Venice Ca, back in the 70′s, and talked to him off and on over several years. A gentle soul, and a wicked guitar player.

Lots of good stuff this time around,

Gwyllm

On The Menu:

The Links

Trudell Speaks

Super Kim!

The War on Drugs is a War on Consciousness

Navajo Country Poetry..

(All Photos of John Trudell from TrudellTheMovie.com)

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The Links:

Indigenous Environmental Network

Free Leonard…

Axis of Justice

link tv

Trudell the movie…

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John Trudell Speaks…

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A little game being played…

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The War on Drugs is a War on Consciousness

by Carol Moore

I believe that a prime motivation of those waging the current “war on drugs” is to discredit and destroy any “counterculture” before it becomes the dominant culture. Religious fundamentalists have not forgotten the religious upheavals of the 1960s when millions of young people, often after using marijuana and other psychedelics, reading Timothy Leary or Alan Watts, or listening to “psychedelic” music by the Beatles or the Jefferson Airplane, rejected Christianity and Judaism. Even ministers, priests, nuns and rabbis abandoned their callings! Consciousness, altered consciousness, and higher consciousness rather than obedience, duty, and sacrifice became the prime concern of the new spirituality.

The response of Catholic, conservative and fundamentalist religious groups was to feverishly expand their efforts to enforce more fundamentalist views among their members and to gain greater political influence. While fundamentalists have lost many battles over abortion, prayer and pornography, they have found the government a willing ally in the “war on drugs”. For just as drugs, the counterculture and “consciousness” undermine faith in hierarchical religious authority, so do they undermine faith in political authority.

John Lennon’s “Imagine”, an anthem of the counter culture, asks us to imagine “no religion” and “no countries”. Lennon, a drug use advocate, was murdered by a fundamentalist Christian, a former fan, who knew how subversive and powerful this message is. In 1990, on Lennon’s 50th birthday radio stations worldwide played “Imagine” simultaneously to a billion people. All heard Yoko Ono say, “The dream we dream alone is just a dream, but the dream we dream together is reality.” The message is that we are not subjects of an authoritarian god or even natural law, but that we consciously co-create reality. Implied is the possibility of a diversity of realities.

Despite the crackdown on drug use, the belief that consciousness is not only the purpose, but perhaps even the very nature, of reality has spread through writings and practices of “new physics” aficionados, humanistic psychologists, and the new age, eastern religion, wiccan, and eco-spirituality movements. Their millions of advocates still lack a coherent and motivating philosophical synthesis or organizational focus. And while many of these individuals have used drugs, and still do, decriminalization of drugs is not yet a major focus of their thought or action.

However, as the horrors of the drug war mount and the injustices spread to all of us, the uneasy feeling that there is some hidden agenda behind the “war on drugs” grows among more aware and conscious individuals. Some of these agendas are scapegoating drug users for larger ills, excuses for racial repression and expanding government power, an outlet for militarism, and the desire of tobacco and liquor producers to squash potential competition.

However, a prime hidden agenda remains the suppression of an alternate religious view—that consciousness is the nature and purpose of reality, that humans freely create their realities. Because psychoactive drugs are a means of quickly and effectively initiating individuals into this view they must be suppressed—even if it means punishment, incarceration and death for hundreds of thousands of people. But such is the nature of all religious wars.

Excerpts from Intoxication The “Fourth Drive” by Dr. Ronald K. Siegel. Article in the September/October 1990 Humanist magazine. (Later made into a book.)

History shows that we have always used drugs. In every age, in every part of this planet, people have pursued intoxication with plant drugs, alcohol, and other mind-altering substances…Almost every species of animal has engaged in the natural pursuit of intoxicants. This behavior has so much force and persistence that it functions like a drive, just like our drives of hunger, thirst and sex. This “fourth drive” is a natural part of biology, creating the irrepressible demand for drugs. In a sense, the war on drugs is a war against ourselves, a denial of our very nature…

Legalization is a risky proposal that would cut the drug crime connection and reduce many social ills, yet it would invite more use and abuse…Making some dangerous drugs illegal while keeping others (like alcohol and cigarettes) legal is not the solution. Out-lawing drugs in order to solve drug problems is much like outlawing sex in order to win the war against AIDS.

In order to solve the drug problem, we must recognize that intoxicants are medicines, treatments for the human condition. Then we must make them as safe and risk-free and, yes, as healthy as possible.

Dream with me for a moment. What would be wrong if we had perfectly safe drugs? It mean drugs that delivered the same effects as our most popular ones but never caused dependency, disease, dysfunction, or death?… Such intoxicants are available right now that are far safer than the ones we currently use…We must begin by recognizing that there is a legitimate place in our society for intoxication.

Excerpts from The Natural Mind—An Investigation of Drugs and the Higher Consciousness by Dr. Andrew Weil, 1985.

Human beings are born with a drive to experiment with ways of changing consciousness…The desire to alter consciousness periodically is an innate, normal drive analogous to hunger or the sexual drive…

The root of the drug problem is the failure of our culture to provide for a basic human need. Once we recognize the importance and value of other states of consciousness, we can begin to teach people, particularly the young, how to satisfy their needs without drugs. The chief advantage of drugs is that they are quick and effective, producing desired results without requiring effort. Their chief disadvantage is that they fail us over time; used regularly and frequently, they do not maintain the experiences sought and, instead, limit our options and freedom…

Altered states of consciousness…appear to be the ways to more effective and fuller use of the nervous system, to development of creative and intellectual faculties, and to attainment of certain kinds of thought that have been deemed exalted by all who have experienced them…(They) may even be a key factor in the present evolution of the human nervous system…To try to thwart (their) expression in individuals and society might be psychologically crippling for people and evolutionarily suicidal for the species.

Excerpt from book Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna, 1992.

The suppression of the natural human fascination with altered states of consciousness and the present perilous situation of all life on earth are intimately and causally connected. When we suppress access to shamanic ecstasy, we close off the refreshing waters of emotion that flow from having a deeply bonded, almost symbiotic relationship to the earth. As a consequence, the maladaptive social styles that encourage overpopulation, resource mismanagement, and environmental toxification develop and maintain themselves.

Copyright 1998 by Carol Moore. Permission to reprint freely granted, provided the article is reprinted in full and that any reprint is accompanied by this copyright statement and the URL http://www.carolmoore.net.

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Navajo Country Poetry…

Onion and Fried Potatoes

by Nia Francisco

My grandmother, my Nali

she always made us herd

our sheep and goats

before the sun rose high

over the highest mountain peak

We herd them towards

the mountain slopes

Cool summer mornings

birds chirping

goats nibbling at leaves

along our trail

My grandfather

he would hitch the dark horses

to his working wagon

I remember the dark horses

they were his best working team

They haul wood drag timber for him

He named one horse Bidi

and the other Liil’zhiin

Some summer morning

My nali man he would hitch them

and say we are going to lumber jack

up there in the mountain

where the pines are tall and straight

Those mornings

my grandmother she gathers

her pots and the food

Our grandparents would designate

where they would be

and we’d herd to that place

when we’re getting close

grandfather’s steady chopping

echoed into the mountains

When we’re getting close

the smell of the spicy aroma

of onions and potatoes frying

and in the distance

the cooking fire

would welcome us

My grandmother patting out

goatmilk bread over red hot coal

My grandfather he’d be sharpening

his axe sitting on pine needles

in the lacy shadow of oak leaves

and blue spruce trees

there beside him

he’d have several feet of pine bark

He’d diligently scrape the thin white

lining of the pine tree bark

and give it to me to chew on

the sinew like strings

tasted sweet

I’d chew it herding home

walking behind

the slowest ewes

I’d chew until I fell asleep at twilight

Moonrise, Hernandez

by

Jane Candia Coleman

(For Ansel Adams)

It is not night yet

but we stand waiting

for the moon to come

for the first thin slice

to deepen dark places.

Its quick leap

its sudden light

do nothing to dispel

our solitude.

There are needs in us

for which we have only silence.

If someone would photograph

this moonrise

we would show in the foreground,

head stones, sorrowing,

side by side.

She Had Some Horses

by Joy Harjo

She had some horses.

She had horses who were bodies of sand.

She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.

She had horses who were skins of ocean water.

She had horses who were the blue air of sky.

She had horses who were fur and teeth.

She had horses who were clay and would break.

She had horses who were splintered red cliff.

She had some horses.

She had horses with long, pointed breasts.

She had horses with full, brown thighs.

She had horses who laughed too much.

She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses.

She had horses who licked razor blades.

She had some horses.

She had horses who danced in their mothers’ arms.

She had horses who thought they were the sun and their bodies shone and burned like stars.

She had horses who waltzed nightly on the moon.

She had horses who were much too shy, and kept quiet in stalls of their own making.

She had some horses.

She had horses who liked Creek Stomp Dance songs.

She had horses who cried in their beer.

She had horses who spit at male queens who made them afraid of themselves.

She had horses who said they weren’t afraid.

She had horses who lied.

She had horses who told the truth, who were stripped bare of their tongues.

She had some horses.

She had horses who called themselves, “horse.”

She had horses who called themselves, “spirit.” and kept their voices secret and to themselves.

She had horses who had no names.

She had horses who had books of names.

She had some horses.

She had horses who whispered in the dark, who were afraid to speak.

She had horses who screamed out of fear of the silence, who carried knives to protect themselves from ghosts.

She had horses who waited for destruction.

She had horses who waited for resurrection.

She had some horses.

She had horses who got down on their knees for any savior.

She had horses who thought their high price had saved them.

She had horses who tried to save her, who climbed in her bed at night and prayed as they raped her.

She had some horses.

She had some horses she loved.

She had some horses she hated.

These were the same horses

Canyon de Chelly – White House Trail

by Donald Levering/ for Chip Goodrich

snow at the rim

but our eyes’ descent

through millenia

of stone

to the river’s thread

below

catches the breath

being beneath the body

the feet can only follow

the steep trail

down

yet gravity

cannot keep Chip’s eyes

from rising

to eddies of sandstone

cliffs

as we achieve

perfect vertigo

at each switch-

back

near the bottom

the trail turns

fearful

melted snow

has muddied the path

through a tunnel

that banishes sunlight

and turns thoughts back

to de Chelly

in the garb of an

unclaimed ancestor

sergeant in Carson’s army

pursuing Navajos

between these steep faces

torching hogans and orchards

but finding no indians

until dusk

when a thousand campfires

mock us from the rim we walk away

from a billion years

of stone overhead

afternoon light

spills onto the canyon floor

cookstove smoke rises

through a survivor’s hogan

a million water-shoots

the winter’s growth

of willows

shimmer

the glint of water

seen from the rim

stretches before us

a frozen stream

imagine a freshet

with the verve

to cut such a canyon

its surface gleams

tenative crystals

winter lightning

in the ice

under feet

sliding above the current

by the grace of the gods

my eyes

people the pockets

of sandstone cliffs

with rooks

impossible

fossils

dinosaur eggs

how surprising

and how natural

the pueblo called

White House

appears

under a massive overhang

of red rock

like the nest

of mud daubers

a thousand years ago

Anasazi women

ground corn here

children played cat’s cradle

with willow withes

men smoked and watched

the falling of the daily

shadow from the south wall

across the plaza

what a place

for a human hive

the snowy rim

a season behind

this sun-facing adobe

my friend

meditates

I peel off layers of clothes

orange rind

and brush away

mid-winter flies

sheep bells

float through my drowse

the Navajo herder’s

clicking tongue

signals his sheep

from this house of ghosts

Chip

seems to

quit breathing

all solar plexus

he leans toward

the convex

overhang

under a hawk

hitching thermals

finally discerning

footholds

in the rock

to the rim

where the ghost

of a Navajo sorcerer

conjured apparitions

before the Spanish captain

camped below

who turned his troops back something calls

shepherd

or

swallow leaving the ruins

by the same trail

of armies

in dazed retreat upstream

past the looming monolith

s

p

i

d

e

r

r

o

c

k

where the weaver’s mentor

spider-woman

dwells

resting at the rim

we enter the long thoughts

of sheer rock faces

where swallow-nesting peoples

have hewn footholds

between worlds

the one a repeating

chronicle

of futile conquest

of the other

hidden in de Chelly’s

stone vaults

glimpsed in petroglyphs

where deer

imps

flute-players

dance

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