I have so much to say about the changing tides, and the rising seas that are starting their upward movements within the society, no, across the world. We are stepping off into uncharted territories and we should do this together. Regardless of political, spiritual, national, racial, tribal familial persuasions, we are all brothers and sisters. This cannot be denied, no matter what the differences may appear to us. Cut us, we bleed, hurt us we cry, hold us, we relax, we all laugh and we all love.
The future is opening up. We have all come here to this place and time for deeper reasons than we can imagine, or have aspired to. We must do it together it seems. Together, or not at all.
This is about the dialog, first the inner and then the one between us all, all of whom are all equal to each other, no higher, no lower, but equal. We meet at this juncture, and we must now engage for the greater good, and for the potential yet to be released in us all. No longer can we or should we view “the other” as outside of ourself… this dialog is not the I-It, but the I-Thou. None above, none below, none alone, none separate.
If we are to change, and change we must, as the pressure of the new world being birthed is upon us, we must do it in deep compassion, and deep cooperation. Not for the nation state, the corporation, but for everyone, here, now, and those that are to come.
Love, is the answer and the path. Opening, dilating ourselves, releasing of strictures.
I had a discussion with a young friend who is a member of the Black Brigade. She has stated that she feels the violent approach to change is as valid as the non-violent, and perhaps that non-violence, or pacifism is Pathology… but I beg to disagree. If this change is to occur, it cannot be patterned on the changes of the past which in the end regurgitated up the same old patterns. Those times have come to their end, surely as the end of slavery came. I wrote this to her:
“On Non-Violent Civil Disobedience… I would not consider Gandhi’s or MLK’s efforts to be anything close to a failure. By exiting out of the I-It dialog to the I-Thou, we can transform the world. I would not consider Non-Violence or as you term it Pacifism as Pathology, anything but. To step outside of the historical content, and consider other options other than violence meeting violence, a fundamental rift occurs. Watching the application of Non-Violent resistance in The West Bank etc., shows that even in the most dire circumstances, change can and does occur without going to combat. The police love nothing more than to have resistance, you are speaking their language. By following the dialog they have set in motion, you are co-opted. It is that simple.”
I ask you all to join together for a different world, a different way, a change, finally a change. I ask you to join in creating the Bodhisattva as a collective soul, that no being be left behind. I ask you to join in transforming ourselves, our world, our dreams.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
~~~~~
On The Menu:
We Are The Many – Makana
The Links
Michael Hughes: Some Thoughts for the Occupy/99% Movement in the Face of Evictions
Dale Pendell at Occupy Nevada County
Pretenders – Revolution
Fatima the Spinner and the Tent
Patti Smith – Changing of the Guards
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Thanks To Nima For Sharing This:
We Are The Many – Makana
Lyrics by MAKANA
We Are the Many
Ye come here, gather ’round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage
From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won’t withdraw
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight
They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none
So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest
We occupy the streets
We occupy the courts
We occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You can’t divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can’t buy
Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
We are the many
You are the few
~~~~~~~~
The Links:
The New Progressive Movement
Prehistoric Men Scarred, Pierced, Tattooed Privates
Take The Test!
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Dale Pendell at Occupy Nevada County
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Some Thoughts for the Occupy/99% Movement in the Face of Evictions
by Michael Hughes
Perhaps it’s time for the Occupy Wall Street/99% movement to adopt some new tactics. From the brilliant poet/philosopher Hakim Bey, originator of the “Temporary Autonomous Zone” (TAZ):
In short, we’re not touting the TAZ as an exclusive end in itself, replacing all other forms of organization, tactics, and goals. We recommend it because it can provide the quality of enhancement associated with the uprising without necessarily leading to violence and martyrdom. The TAZ is like an uprising which does not engage directly with the State, a guerilla operation which liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen, before the State can crush it. Because the State is concerned primarily with Simulation rather than substance, the TAZ can “occupy” these areas clandestinely and carry on its festal purposes for quite a while in relative peace. Perhaps certain small TAZs have lasted whole lifetimes because they went unnoticed, like hillbilly enclaves–because they never intersected with the Spectacle, never appeared outside that real life which is
(Michael Hughes!)
The TAZ is an encampment of guerilla ontologists: strike and run away. Keep moving the entire tribe, even if it’s only data in the Web. The TAZ must be capable of defense; but both the “strike” and the “defense” should, if possible, evade the violence of the State, which is no longer a meaningful violence. The strike is made at structures of control, essentially at ideas; the defense is “invisibility,” a martial art, and “invulnerability”–an “occult” art within the martial arts. The “nomadic war machine” conquers without being noticed and moves on before the map can be adjusted. As to the future–Only the autonomous can plan autonomy, organize for it, create it. It’s a bootstrap operation. The first step is somewhat akin to satori–the realization that the TAZ begins with a simple act of realization.
Nomadic occupations? I like the idea. Appearing and existing just long enough to catch the attention of the state, then slipping back into the shadows. Appearing like a cluster of potent psychedelic mushrooms, only to return to the underground mycelial network before manifesting bursting through the soil on the other side of the forest. Finally, perhaps, a proper use of the often maligned “flashmobs” for something other than simple amusement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pretenders – Revolution
Cats like me and you
Have got laws
That they adhere to
Laws outside the laws
As laid down
By those we don’t subscribe to
The world is getting stranger
But we’ll never lose heart
We can’t just wait for the
Old guard to die
Before we can
Make a new start
Bring on the revolution
(keep the pressure on)
I wanna die for something
Bring on the revolution
I wanna die for something
Bring on the revolution
I wanna die for something
Bring on the revolution
I don’t wanna die for nothing
For every freedom fighter
I wanna hold on tighter
To the hope and will you gave
You were the brave
You were the brave
And one day
When I hear your children sing
Freedom will ring
Freedom!
When we watch the children play
Remember
How the privileged classes grew
And from this day
We set out
To undo what won’t undo
Looking for the grand
In the minute
Every breath justifies
Every step that we take
To remove what the powers that be
Can’t prove
And the children will
Understand why
Bring on the revolution
(keep the pressure on)
I wanna die for something
Bring on the revolution
I wanna die for something
Bring on the revolution
I don’t wanna die for nothing
Bring on the revolution
I wanna die for something
~~~~~~~
(James Fadiman told me yesterday after our talks over the weekend, that perhaps this tale is mine. I think perhaps, it is all of ours.)
Fatima the Spinner and the Tent
– Idris Shah
“Fatima the Spinner and the Tent” from “Tales of the Dervishes – Teaching Stories of the Sufi Masters over the Past Thousand Years”, by Idries Shah
Once in a city in the Farthest West there lived a girl called Fatima. She was the daughter of a prosperous spinner. One day her father said to her: “Come, daughter; we are going on a journey, for I have business in the islands of the Middle Sea. Perhaps you may find some handsome youth in a good situation whom you could take as a husband.” They set off and traveled from island to island, the father doing his trading while Fatima dreamt of the husband who might be hers. One day, however, they were on the way to Crete when a storm blew up, and the ship was wrecked. Fatima, only half-conscious, was cast up on the seashore near Alexandria. Her father was dead, and she was utterly destitute. She could only remember dimly her life until then, for her experience of the shipwreck, and her exposure in the sea, had utterly exhausted her.
While she was wandering on the sands, a family of cloth-makers found her. Although they were poor, they took her into their humble home and taught her their craft. Thus it was that she made a second life for herself, and within a year or two she was happy and reconciled to her lot. But one day, when she was on the seashore for some reason, a band of slave-traders landed and carried her, along with other captives, away with them. Although she bitterly lamented her lot, Fatima found no sympathy from the slavers, who took her to Istanbul and sold her as a slave. Her world had collapsed for the second time.
Now it chanced that there were few buyers at the market. One of them was a man who was looking for slaves to work in his wood yard, where he made masts for ships. When he saw the dejection of the unfortunate Fatima, he decided to buy her, thinking that in this way, at least, he might be able to give her a slightly better life than if she were bought by someone else. He took Fatima to his home, intending to make her a serving maid for his wife. When he arrived at the house, however, he found that he had lost all his money in a cargo which had been captured by pirates. He could not afford workers, so he, Fatima and his wife were left alone to work at the heavy labor of making masts. Fatima, grateful to her employer for rescuing her, worked so hard and so well that he gave her her freedom, and she became his trusted helper. Thus it was that she became comparatively happy in her third career. One day he said to her: “Fatima, I want you to go with a cargo of shops’ masts to Java, as my agent, and be sure that you sell them at a profit.”
She set off, but when the ship was off the coast of China, a typhoon wrecked it, and Fatima found herself again cast up on the seashore of a strange land. Once again she wept bitterly, for she felt that nothing in her life was working in accordance with expectation. Whenever things seemed to be going well, something came and destroyed all her hopes. “Why is it”, she cried out, for the third time, “that whenever I try to do something it comes to grief? Why should so many unfortunate things happen to me?” But there was no answer.
So she picked herself up from the sand, and started to walk inland. Now it so happened that nobody in China had heard of Fatima, or knew anything about her troubles. But there was a legend that a certain stranger, a woman, would one day arrive there, and that she would be able to make a tent for the Emperor. And, since there was as yet nobody in China who could make tents, everyone looked upon the fulfillment of this prediction with the liveliest anticipation. In order to make sure that this stranger, when she arrived, would not be missed, successive Emperors of China had followed the custom of sending heralds, once a year, to all the towns and villages of the land, asking for any foreign woman to be produced at Court.
When Fatima stumbled into a town by the Chinese seashore, it was one such occasion. The people spoke to her through an interpreter, and explained that she would have to go to see the Emperor. “Lady,” said the Emperor, when Fatima was brought before him, “can you make a tent?” “I think so,” said Fatima. She asked for rope but there was none to be had. So, remembering her time as a spinner, she collected flax and made ropes. Then she asked for stout cloth, but the Chinese had none of the kind which she needed. So, drawing on her experience with the weavers of Alexandria, she made some stout tent cloth. Then she found that she needed tent-poles, but there were none in China. So Fatima, remembering how she had been trained by the wood-fashioner of Istanbul, cunningly made stout tent-poles. When these were ready, she racked her brains for the memory of all the tents she had seen in her travels: and lo, a tent was made.
When this wonder was revealed to the Emperor of Chine, he offered Fatima the fulfillment of any wish she cared to name. She chose to settle in China, where she married a handsome prince, and where she remained in happiness, surrounded by her children, until the end of her days. It was through these adventures that Fatima realized that what had appeared to be an unpleasant experience at the time, turned out to be an essential part of the making of her ultimate happiness.
~~~~~~
Patti Smith – Changing of the Guards
Sixteen years
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves
Desperate men, desperate women divided
Spreading their wings ‘neath falling leaves.
Fortune calls
I stepped forth from the shadows to the marketplace
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down
She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born
On midsummer’s eve near the tower.
The cold-blooded moon
The captain waits above the celebration
Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid
Whose ebony face is beyond communication
The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid.
They shaved her head
She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo
A messenger arrived with a black nightingale
I seen her on the stairs and I couldn’t help but follow
Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil.
I stumbled to my feet
I rode past destruction in the ditches
With the stitches still mending beneath a heart-shaped tattoo
Renegade priests and treacherous young witches
Were handing out the flowers that I’d given to you.
The palace of mirrors
Where dog soldiers are reflected
The endless road and the wailing of chimes
The empty rooms where her memory is protected
Where the angel’s voices whisper to the souls of previous times.
She wakes him up
Forty-eight hours later the sun is breaking
Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks
She’s begging to know what measures he now will be taking
He’s pulling her down and she’s clutching on to his long golden locks.
Gentlemen, he said I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.
Peace will come
With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with it’s pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords.
-(Bob Dylan)
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