Marking the passing of Pete Seeger with his songs and stories as well as many of our own, singers and musicians gathered together at the Deer Lagoon Grange on South Whidbey Island, March 30, for many hours of song-swapping, sharing food and warm community feeling.
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Friday through Monday
Folklife Commons
"The SingPeace! Wagon is the realization of a lifelong dream of Pushkara Sally Ashford to have a traveling symbol of communal tranquility and musical harmony. It has traveled to events and gatherings all over the Pacific Northwest and was hand-lovingly constructed by a community of volunteers. Ashford will eventually live in the wagon as she pulls it along throughout the journey she calls 'Sing Peace! Earth Pilgrimage for Peace and Global Harmony.' ”
The SingPeace! wagon was one of 7000 entrants in the 2010 NW Folklife Festival. Now in its 39th year, the festival attracts anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 visitors each Memorial Day weekend. A full-time staff now administers the festival and 1300 volunteers are on the grounds to support the event.
The concept of the festival is to provide a high-quality public forum where the traditional and ethnic communities and artists of the Northwest Region of the National Park Service (Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Western Montana) can present their music, dance performances and crafts. All performers were asked to contribute their participation in an event with no admission charge as an opportunity for community celebration and sharing. As such, it is the largest such festival in the country.
As one of the founders of Seattle Folklore Society, the first producer of Folklife, I performed and conducted workshops in the 70's. When I lost my voice in 1979, I dropped out of the "folk scene." Except for the "25th Coffeehouse Singers Reunion" in 2003, I'd not been on hand for over 30 years.
The inspiration in 2008 to share "Songs for a Culture of Peace," put me in mind of a lifetime of singing and performing folk music. I enrolled in the course in "How to Build a Gypsy Wagon," at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking in May 2009, where I designed and commissioned the building of the vardo or gypsy wagon. At the same time, a team of singers and song weavers from around the region began forming around the SingPeace! Earth Pilgrimage. Some spoke of it as a "movement." I was reassured by their response that this journey would not have to depend upon my singing voice for its success. Emailing old friends still active in the Seattle Folklore Society, I was greeted by a warm welcome. They bridged the gap for my application to NW Folklife.
Laurence Cole and Deborah Shomer, both from Port Townsend, WA, Rob Tobias from Eugene, OR, Sara Tone from Portland, OR, and myself formed the core of our team. These folks generously shared a repertoire of songs that powerfully reflect the culture of peace that we wish to see and be in the world, songs that honor Mother Earth and reminding us of our essential unity and commonality. Mick Dodge, the Barefoot Sensei, added the dimension of the "Earth Pilgrimage," pointing the way to activism: walkable communities, land and old growth conservation, tree planting, barefooting, exuberant play and Earth Gym activities.
A pilgrimage is a quest. It begins with a question. It assumes an attitude of innocence, of not knowing. Indeed, life itself is a pilgrimage. Undertaken consciously, with humility, honor and humor, a pilgrimage is a process of revelation and discovery.
I wondered: "What is a culture of peace? Is it attainable? Is it inevitable?" During my lifetime, the world has seen many wars. Armed conflict as a way of life is intensifying in every corner of the globe. Collectively, we have arrived at the brink of annihilation. With the potent impressions of war, violence and abuse written on the mitochondria, the cellular memory of the body, of nearly every being on the planet, would we recognize and respond to a different drumbeat?
The "Singing Revolution" that took place in war-torn Estonia, occupied during WWII by both the Germans and the Soviets, suggested to me that we may also have an ancestral memory of peace and that singing may be a way to access it. The Estonians had not forgotten their cultural heritage. Without raising a fist or aiming a weapon, they took back their country and their lives, even after decades of violent oppression.
Neuroscience tells us that music and singing stimulates the hemisphere of the brain that recognizes the joy and unity in all things. Words - the songs' lyrics - we know, form sentences and outlooks that shape our attitudes and life experience. Our team's shared a vision of local and regional gatherings - "singing villages" - could, perhaps, bring communities together to collaborate and co-create "Songs for a Culture of Peace."
In the months leading up to the NW Folklife Festival, the SingPeace! gypsy wagon became a meeting place and staging area for such gatherings. Though distant, at times, in hours and miles, we moved in tandem toward learning and strengthening a common repertoire that we would share when we met at Folklife. Our efforts gained momentum as we met in Cosmopolis at Singing Alive, in Port Townsend for the inaugural of the SingPeace! wagon, at the Seattle Folklore Society Song Circle and at Seattle's Interfaith Community Church, at the SFS Song Circle's Rainy Camp in Carnation, at the Yoga Lodge, on Earth Day and for the "Trees and Memories" Trillium Land Purchase arts gala produced by butoh dancer,Maureen Freehill, all on Whidbey Island.
By the time we reached Folklife, our numbers had increased and were enhanced by Melanie Rios and Janice Medvin, Eugene, Yana Viniko, Seattle, Sharon Abreu and Mike Hurwicz, Orcas Island, Dinah Stinson, Seattle, Rick Aydelotte, somewhere up north, as well as, several members of the Port Townsend Songlines Choir, among them, Laura Martin, Gretchen Sleicher and Deanna Pumplin. They are pictured in the NW Folklife Festival photos at the SingPeace! website, along with other folks who happened along - including Dr. Peter Keating and his children who played fiddle and cello on a Russian gypsy song.
At each location, the SingPeace! wagon has seen a steady stream of visitors. This "tiny green home" piques the imagination and brings smiles to everyone's faces. Its small footprint, 12-volt solar voltaic panel, LED lighting, composting toilet and on-demand propane water heating systems suggest a simple, yet, gracious way of life. I keep the names and contact information for those who want to stay in touch and in some way contribute their support to the mission of the SingPeace! Earth Pilgrimage. They will be hearing from me, soon.
I wish to honor and thank Jim Tolpin and Steve Habersetzer, who taught the course, and Steve, who beautifully crafted the wagon to my specifications, Laurence Cole who did the carving, Don Tiller who did the painting, Stan Price and his team at Covenant Glass for the stained and etched glass art, and to Susan Leinbach, seamstress, and Jeanne Moore, Potpourri, both of whom helped with the interior furnishings.
The challenge of towing and moving the SingPeace! wagon about the region has been willingly met by several friends, folks with big trucks who are also competent drivers. Offering a low and grateful bow to Steve Habersetzer, Richard Epstein and his crew person, Gary, to Kevin Rio Kipur and to Steve Swalwell. Hugs, too, to friends Rob Adamson and Jan Swalwell for their loving and playful support!
The SingPeace! wagon awaits alternative technology in a tow vehicle consistent with its "green" message. This is doubly and triply true since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As I mentioned, for the time being, we are concentrating locally on foot camps and walkable communities. More of this focus in future blogposts.
The SingPeace! website is a place where we can meet and share songs, photos, videos, blogs and event information. I encourage you to join us there and participate in future events.
4/7/10
Gifts of Grand Mother Maple
In late March I gathered with Mick Dodge, Pushkara Sally Ashford & her son, David, for a singing celebration just before her maiden off-island voyage of the new SingPeace Gypsy Wagon.
There is an immense grandmother maple tree in Pushkara's front yard that
I was immediately drawn to dance with. Mick filmed and pointed out a
huge dead branch hanging on its last limb over our heads. Mick was
musing happily for the day when "Maple would gift this beautiful staff
in her own time."
Well, with last Friday's crazy wind storm, the time came and Mick salvaged the limb and began fashioning staffs, including one for me. When I went to visit him today, I was feeling cold, stiff and in need of motion and building heat. He started a fire in his tent wood stove exclaiming how much he loved "freeing and receiving the gifts of sunshine, wind and rain from the burning wood."
As I listened to his orally transmitted teachings, I began a daily dance to
explore and train with the gifts of grandmother maple's staff and the
fire's heat. I had never so consciously attended to receiving the
elemental gifts of heat & light from the stored energy of the sun as
they were released though wood burning. My body and soul were warmed by
the physical heat as well as the living poetic story of it all. I felt
my connected place in a larger context and community of all life. Mick
showed a manuscript from his friend's book-in-progress about how
changing our bodies can change the world. He told me that he never
trusts the written word or "talk" of an author till he can see the life
and "walk" that s/he lives. I was honored that he continued to say my
blog writing worked well for him because he sees that it arises from the
way I LIVE and share directly from this embodied experience and not
from disembodied LOGOS--intellect, logic and rational ideas from the
thinking mind alone.
In the film below, you can listen to some of the teaching he delivered in the
way he prefers-- directly, spontaneously and orally. He is also
sometimes called "the barefoot bard" because he naturally exudes and
transmits poetic expression of his inner life and wisdom derived from
decades of practice and experience of inner and outer wilderness
landscapes. I am grateful for our growing collaboration, understanding
and support of one another's gifts and intentions to walk our talk
because this path can be a challenging and sometimes isolated one.
I look forward to seeing the carved maple wood staff emerging as an empowered
object over time and practice with it. Much as indigenous people have
done for ages with their sacred tools, this training object will contain
and reflect the lessons and gifts I receive while working with it and
eventually it will be passed on to the next generation full of this
wisdom. There is a clear grace and rightness to this natural progression
of passing on gifts.This practice has been lost in much of our modern
social life and education if we forget to honor elders and ancestors for
their profound contributions-we are literally living extensions and
transmissions of them. I hope I can continue to remember and receive
inspiration from grandmother maple, Sense Say Mick, Kazoo Ohno, and all
my relations that have truly walked their talk before me.
The theme sentence of the upcoming event sponsored by MomoButoh Dance
Company and LiveEdge Woodworks
upcoming event is "Ask not what the trees can do for you, but...." You are not what you think say or do...you are the sum total of your actions, ideas and words that come TRUE. What are YOU doing for the trees? If you are going to be anywhere near S. Whidbey Island on Friday May 7 do not miss the amazing benefit for Whidbey Camano Land Trust's Trillium Land Purchase at Woodland Hall. Contact Momo TODAY --entry by reservation only through MomoButoh info at maureenfreehill dot net!
music: rachels
8/4/2010 8:28:00 AM Remembering Lolita (Tokitae - Salish name) |
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Examiner Staff Writer Forty years later, the plaintive cries of young orca whales reverberating across Penn Cove is still vivid for John Stone of Coupeville. “You could hear the whales squealing when they pulled them out,” Stone said. “It drove my cat crazy.” Working a summer job at the Captain Whidbey Inn, Stone became an intimate witness to an infamous event: the 1970 capture of orca whales in Penn Cove by entrepreneurs engaged in the then-legal business of Stone transported newspaperman Wally Funk out to the whale hunters’ raft to photograph the capture. His parents owned the inn and the site where the whales were trapped was just a third of a mile away. “My gut reaction was this was the wrong thing to do,” he said. “I was not alone, but I was not in the majority. These were ‘killer whales.’” On Aug. 8, 1970, Stone was scheduled to work the evening shift in the restaurant, but was off during the day. He remembers the noise, airplanes and high-speed boats that arrived in the cove, driving about It was a superpod of the combined family groups or pods, named “J,” “K” and “L,” belonging to the Southern Resident orcas whose home range is the Salish Sea. The area encompasses Puget Sound and the Northwest The whale families, which normally are separate, congregated for genetic diversity in mating, Stone believes, when Seattle Marine Aquarium owner Ted Griffin and Don Goldsberry of SeaWorld, ensnared them “The fact that the whales were here was a fluke,” said Stone. The hunters had first tried to herd the superpod into Holmes Harbor, but they escaped, according to Stone, and headed up Possession Sound. “They were able to corner them in Penn Cove,” said Stone. “They got a net around half the whales and a smaller net inside of it, trying to isolate the adolescents. They isolated whales and then hauled them out That’s when the new little captives issued their cries, heard all across Penn Cove, with answering calls from the adults. The roundup took place over about a week, Stone said. Of the approximately 90 whales, One of the bodies was netted by a fisherman in November 1970, while the others washed up on the beach. They were found to have had their bellies slit, then filled with rocks and weighted with chains and The whale hunts continued until Washington’s Secretary of State, Ralph Munro, witnessed a 1976 whale roundup and was motivated to urge state legislation outlawing the capture of orcas. It is estimated that the Southern Residents lost between a third and a half of their population during the years trapping was allowed. Most of those were young whales whose reproductive years were ahead of them. Juvenile orcas were preferred by the hunters because they were smaller to transport and thought to be easier to train to do aquatic Of the seven orcas captured that August week 40 years ago, only one, Lolita, whose native name was Tokitae, and who was six years old at the time, is still alive. She has been at Florida’s Seaquarium for 39 years. Six historic hours The most dramatic record of the orca capture is the photographic collection of Wallie Funk. Funk was the owner of two Whidbey newspapers at the time and got around a lot for a local boy. He said he has photographed five U.S. presidents, the Beatles, Mick Jagger and numerous historic events. But Funk arrived in the afternoon of Aug. 8 at the Captain Whidbey, encountered Ted Griffin and Don Goldsberry, and told them he would really like to go out to the walkway raft next to the net pen and do “They were entrapped in a small area, they were flailing in the air,” Funk said. “You could hear a high-pitched squeal and they were communicating with many, many more that were outside the net in Penn “I was the only press allowed on the raft. At the time I was there to record a scene. Every once in a while I would run out of film and one of the Stones would get more film for me. I was out there for about six It was only later as he developed the film that Funk stepped back from his role as a photojournalist to react with outrage at what he had recorded. Killer whales At the time, recalled Stone, the marine mammals were known as killer whales and thought to be extremely dangerous to humans, though there are no recorded instances of orcas in the wild attacking people. While some pods hunt large prey such as seals and sharks, the Southern Residents are fish eaters. Some fishermen considered them pests and unwanted competition. People quickly found out about the hunt and lined the road above the Penn Cove capture site, more out of curiosity than objection, said Stone. Five years before, a male orca had been caught in a fisherman’s net in Namu, B.C. He was sold to Ted Griffin, who named him Namu, brought him in a floating pen to Seattle through Deception Pass and installed Namu and Griffin made headlines, but the orca – the second to live in captivity – died in 1966, a year after it was captured. Free Lolita Forty years later, attitudes have changed. Whales capture is not allowed in the United States and organizations have formed to free captive whales. Lolita is the only captive whale alive from the 1970 Penn Cove trapping. Organizations such as the local Orca Network say that she has served humans long enough and should be repatriated from Miami’s “The awful possibility that plumes of oil mixed with highly toxic chemical dispersants could reach Miami in mid-August, as predicted by NOAA, and be pumped into her tank water, adds urgency to our 15-year John Stone agrees that Lolita should be freed. He had his own close encounter with an orca during that week that still gives him pause. The young man was going out to the raft at the net pen to pick up Funk and he saw the massive male orca known as J1 or Ruffles headed right toward his little skiff. “This huge whale was coming to me on the surface on a collision course,” said Stone. He was not sure what to do, but did not want to confuse the whale by changing his course. So Stone held steady. “Just before he got to me, his huge dorsal fin goes right under me and came up just on the other side of the boat. My heart was in my throat,” said Stone. The orcas were being terrorized and young ones trapped and though J1 might easily have attacked Stone, he did not. Stone has not forgotten. He will pilot his 58’ ketch, the Cutty Sark, out on Sunday, Aug. 8 to the spot where the whales were captured 40 years ago for a commemoration of the capture. The outing is being organized by the Orca Network – people intent on making sure the rest of us don’t forget either. |
Reader Comments |
Posted: Saturday, August 07, 2010
Article comment by: Ralph Munro
My wife karen and many others deserve most of the credit for stopping whale
captures in America. The Penn Cove capture was followed by the Budd
Inlet Capture in 1976. We were less than 100 yards away on a sailboat.
It was gruesome.
Karen Munro, Bill and Penny Oliver, Put Barber and Valerie Lynch , Dr Paul Spong, PI reporter Mike Layton, Attorney
General Slade Gorton, et al all led the charge to stop whale captures
in Washington Waters. They all deserve lots of credit.
Posted: Friday, August 06, 2010
Article comment by:
Connee Robertson
She must be released. She is desperately needed by her pod, being one of the only
breeding aged females left. She has a little sister that is too young to
breed and many in her family disappeared a couple of years ago. Her
captivity and continued captivity is panamount to a human living in a
bathtub for all of those years. This is horrific abuse and cannot be
tolerated anymore. Orcas are becoming very endangered because of the
huge amounts of pollutants in the ocean. Let her go!!
SingPeace! songweavers came together for a transformatiional, (nearly) all-night, 2011 February full moon song-crafting event at the home and "museum" of artist, Jerry Wennstrom and the beautiful and multi-talented, Marilyn Strong. Since a picture is worth at least a thousand words, a video of the setting and work that we were surrounded by will go some distance to illustrate even more vividly the richly symbolic, archetypal and thoroughly amazing environment we came together in
There's no way to convey the magnitude of this work on a computer screen. We're fortunate that a feature film of Jerry's life and art is in the making. My intention, here, is to honor Jerry and Marilyn for their generosity of spirit and genuine hospitality. We sang and played together in this place and did such deep and meaningful work, here, that I imagine none of us will soon forget the experience.
Most rewarding for me, personally, is the confirmation of the power of music to engender peace and healing, for nowhere was this more evident than in the company of the beautiful souls who came together to share their heart's desire for "peace in our lifetime." through song. My hope for the future is in our co-collaborative efforts to encourage others to participate in SingPeace!
Please enjoy the web links below to a youtube series of three videos entitled: In the Hands of Alchemy: the Life and Art of Jerry Wennstrom.
In the Hands of Alchemy: the Art and Life of Jerry Wennstrom:
1/1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG0Wil3YKK0&NR=1
1/2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Hn_Bv9mwc&feature=related
1/3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk_DyxFFT_k&NR=1
Peace & blessings,
pushkara
I have had the great good fortune to see
Pete Seeger play up close numerous times,
Sometimes with Arlo Guthrie side by side.
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone" is a
Haunting song I remember from my earliest
Days of music awareness on this planet.
I had heard vague whisperings of its origin,
And today I become aware of more, much more
Thank I knew before.
All because of a response I received
Related to the post on the mining disaster.
Some people learn, and it's usually a slow
Process or a lightning bolt to the head.
I love this version of Pete Seeger performing the song...
Does not fail to bring a chill and tears every time.
Hope you enjoy it...
Thanks to....:
Thespadecaller — February 18, 2008 — On July 26, 1956, the House of Representatives voted
373 to 9 to cite Pete Seeger and seven others (including playwright Arthur Miller) for contempt,
as they failed to cooperate with House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their attempts to
investigate alleged subversives and communists. Pete Seeger testified before the HUAC in 1955.
In one of Pete's darkest moments, when his personal freedom, his career, and his safety were in jeopardy,
a flash of inspiration ignited this song. The song was stirred by a passage from Mikhail Sholokhov's novel
"And Quie Flows the Don". Around the world the song traveled and in 1962 at a UNICEF concert in
Germany, Marlene Dietrich, Academy Award-nominated German-born American actress, first performed
the song in French, as "Qui peut dire ou vont les fleurs?" Shortly after she sang it in German.
The song's impact in Germany just after WWII was shattering.
It's universal message, "let there be peace in the world" did not get lost in its translation.
To the contrary, the combination of the language, the setting, and the great lyrics has had a profound effect
on people all around the world. May it have the same effect today and bring renewed awareness to all that hear it.
To that I add my voice and hope.
Barefoot and exuberant — Mick Dodge comes to Bayview
By PATRICIA DUFF
South Whidbey Record Arts & Entertainment, Island Life
Feb 19 2011, 9:11 AM · UPDATED
Lose the shoes and your blues.
So says Mick Dodge, who shows folks how to step out of their shoes and connect to the earth through the bare soles of their feet.
He is known as the Barefoot Sensei, and promotes barefoot-movement practices to help people find what he calls their natural exuberance.
“Tender souls/soles need to step out and start paying attention and stop denying what is around them,” Dodge said.
“We need to ground our mind into the reality of our primal body, that which equals our animal, spirited self.”
In order to do that, Dodge said, one needs to know how to step out into nature and embrace the sensorial joys of the world.
He will talk about “The Earth Gym,” or his Exuberant Animal Rhythmic Training Hall from 6 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 22 at the Chiropractic Zone at the Sears House in Bayview. The talk is part of Craig Weiner’s series of Transformational Dialogues held the last Tuesday of each month at the clinic.
Dodge walked 1,000 “smiles” across Washington in 2009, from the drenched and verdant Hoh Rain Forest of the Olympics and through the back alleys of small towns and along the railroad ties of the cities.
He’s been without shoes for more than 20 years, and lives mainly outside in various parts of the state using a tent for shelter. During that trek, he was often mistaken for a homeless person, rather than just a person who was walking barefoot through the terrain and living without walls. Police have often tried to move him along, he said.
“I use my exuberance to break down the tension of those who view me as homeless,” Dodge said good-naturedly.
The 60-ish Dodge is decidedly articulate and is the opposite of what he may appear to be to those who might size him up on the spot: a drifting, hippie with no clear purpose. Instead, he is passionate, organized and methodical in his quest to live closely connected to the land.
To those who ask him to teach survival skills, he balks. Survival is not what it’s all about for Dodge. He tells them he’s into passionate living, not simply surviving; he becomes uncomfortable if he can’t hear the wind, because of some unnatural noise such as traffic or airplanes.
“I’m interested in finding the integration point of fitting into the natural world,” he said.
“To build exuberance without walls and electronics, and to sit down and practice using both the inside and the outside to get into the flow.”
There are three kinds of terrains in this life, Dodge said. They include the wasteland — those places where there are walls (buildings), machines (computers and cell phones) and traffic — and where one is trapped from the natural sensory flow of the world.
There are also the open-fenced lands, such as the spaces of Whidbey Island, which Dodge calls the “middle island” — where he currently lives in a tent — central as it is between the Olympic National Park to the west, the Cascade Mountains to the east and the San Juan Islands to the north. Finally, there is the gated wild lands, such as the national parks, for which one is required to pay to get into the most pristine areas of natural land, he says, hinting at the injustice and unnaturalness of being kept out by a gate.
As a former Marine Corps sergeant and longtime martial artist, Dodge said he has learned to take what he has learned inside, and bring it outside. He takes his lead from fellow advocate Frank Forencich, the author of “Exuberant Animal, The Power of Health, Play and Joyful Movement.” The book explores the totality of human health and promotes an integrated approach to living that spans culture, biology, psychology and animal behavior. It talks about ideas for movement and living that are meant to stimulate one’s vitality, creativity and enthusiasm.
Dodge’s Earth Gym follows the principles of using movement within the natural world to truly feel oneself in the world and to release passion and creativity. The fundamental methods of the Earth Gym are gathering, storing and releasing.
“I try to keep it real simple,” Dodge said.
Everyone has two hands, two feet and four soles with which to get a grip on movement and the moment, he said. Body gestures speak louder than words.
In the Earth Gym practices, he teaches people to ground themselves with the largest sensory organ of the body — muscle — through the use of simple tools that include sticks, ropes and stones.
The Earth Gym Training Quest, which he hopes to offer to whole families and not just individuals on Whidbey Island, uses practices that cut a path back to the earth. It is a connection between mind, body, spirit, land, ancestors and tribe, he said.
It has to include everyone, even if the elder members of the tribe must be carried on a stretcher or a pharaoh-like chair to the mountain or the forest. It is for all members of the tribe both young and old, Dodge said.
“It’s about changing your body to change the world. Connecting to that flow; that thing that excites us and inflames our passion. It comes and goes,” he said. “It is a force you cannot own, but it is a force you can channel. It is your chi.”
To learn more about the Earth Gym, click here and here.
The Chiropractic Zone is at 2812 E. Meinhold Road in Langley.
Transformational Dialogues
The Barefoot Sensei: 6 -7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 22.
This is the third year that the Chiropractic Zone has hosted monthly dialogues with local South Whidbey authors, artists, healing art
practitioners and innovators in the field of transformation.
Events are always from 6 to 7 p.m. on the last Tuesday of the month, and help to support local nonprofits.
All events are by suggested donation of $10-$15, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Talks take place at the Chiropractic Zone, at the Sears House in Bayview, unless otherwise noted. The events are audio recorded and are available for listening; here.
Proceeds from February’s event will go to Langley Community Garden to help pay for the construction of a hot house.
South Whidbey Record Arts & Entertainment, Island Life Patricia Duff can be reached at pduff@southwhidbeyrecord.com or (360) 221-5300.Pushkara went in today (Friday) to stay the weekend. The wagon made a foray into the area today to circle Occupy Seattle and be a “presence” there. Pushkara has been in the park talking to the Occupy folks while the wagon circles. We’re basically harmonizing with Occupy AND the police, getting them used to seeing us and the wagon down there. We do have a permit for Sunday, so both groups should be helping us to get into Westlake Park.
Pushkara posted a notice on the Occupy Seattle forum, receiving two emails back from people who love music and really want to sing with us. One contributed a song. We will have a few copies of that song, as well as Sharon Abreu’s “Give the People Back Their Homes.” (Maybe we could do a whole “Occupy Songbook” !) We also heard back from the Raging Grannies, who are interested in joining us. No other choir has responded, but we have hopes that we’ll have more singers.
We’ll be marching on Saturday, but we’re not taking the wagon down. Chances are the streets will be cordoned off. The sleeping situation for Occupiers at Westlake Park is very dicey. They are defying the order to move and encouraging 500 tents for Saturday night.
A heads up: there’s a game at the stadium on Saturday where they anticipate 60,000. Occupy Seattle is working out plans to be there. There may also be thousands in the march. Traffic may be at a standstill for hours.
Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees us from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies lest they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.
Byrd Gibbens
I not only want to describe the imagination figured in the trickster myth, I want to argue a paradox that the myth asserts: that the origins, liveliness, and durability of cultures require that there be space for figures whose function is to uncover and disrupt the very things that cultures are based on.
Trickster Makes This World: How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture
Lewis Hyde
Without the laugh, there is no Tao.
Lao-tzu
In 2006, former Vice President Al Gore gave us some compelling language with his landmark presentation, An Inconvenient Truth. As we all know, this was the centerpiece in his campaign to educate citizens about global climate change. The documentary was a critical and box-office success, winning an Academy Award for best documentary feature. It has had a powerful impact all around the world.
The central message in Inconvenient Truth was troubling enough in its own right, but becomes even more so when we realize that climate change is only one planetary-scale inconvenience looming over our heads. The expanded list is both grim and familiar: population growth, habitat destruction, species extinctions, water shortages, topsoil erosion, destruction of fisheries and rainforests, social injustice and expanding militarization. All are threatening and all are growing with each passing day. And so, given the long list of afflictions that we now face, the documentary of our times really needs to be called Inconvenient Truths.
activists and revolutionaries
Gore laid down the challenge, but it is up to us to take it to the next level. His title suggests a strategy and an attitude: in a world of inconvenient truths, what we need more than anything else are inconvenient people. Inconvenient people are those who are willing to step up and challenge the dominant cultural paradigm that supports ill health, environmental destruction and social injustice. Inconvenient people ask hard questions and tell hard truths. Inconvenient people are not content to receive their culture passively and without dissent. Inconvenient people speak, create and act.
There are several varieties of inconvenient people in our midst. The first are known as activists. These people set up non-profits, sign a board of directors, raise money and start a campaign. Much of their work consists of signing up volunteers to do research, lobby and persuade, and to raise more money. Activists may be inconvenient thorns in the side of established powers, but they are generally polite. They work hard, but their progress tends to be incremental. Over time, many activists become “grinders,” working immense number of hours, dedicated to the cause, fighting over detail, policy and procedure. Victories, when they come, are important, but rarely spectacular.
The activist’s work is honorable and must be done, but it’s also a sad fact that the activist’s labor is often ineffective. The power structure is stacked against change and non-profits are in a weak position to make things happen. Unfortunately, “dot org” is often synonymous with “weak, powerless and irrelevant.”
When activists and non-profits run out of steam, some of us become frustrated and call for a more active form of activism. We come to the conclusion that what we really need not activists but revolutionaries.
Revolutionaries are people who are willing to stand directly in the path of social injustice and environmental madness. They take on high levels of personal risk and challenge established hierarchies with direct language and in-your-face action. Revolutionaries are not patient people. In fact, they are extremely inconvenient.
Given the state of our predicament, this form of action is both appropriate and vital. Revolutionaries are essential; their work is often inspiring and meaningful. Nevertheless, there is danger here: by the time passions get to this level, revolutionaries sometimes cross the tipping point into extremist ideology, felony offenses and in a paradoxical turn, ineffectiveness. Being a strident, passionate and in-your-face revolutionary is great–when it works. But entrenched powers police their territories with great vigilance and are well-equipped to stamp out revolutionary ideas and revolutionaries themselves.
Revolution, especially in a paranoid, post-911 world, is an extremely high-risk proposition and the consequences of miscalculation are immense. Revolutionaries run the risk of hard time and in turn, the abrupt termination of their activism. You won’t be much good to anyone if you’re doing 10 to 20 in an orange jump suit. Suddenly, you’re no longer inconvenient; you’re just a statistic.
There is another option here, of course and that’s to make a distinction between overt and covert rebellion. The overt revolutionary challenges power directly: he chains himself to the bulldozer or sets up camp in trees that are slated for logging. He sinks whaling ships and pulls up survey stakes. He talks loudly and carries a big monkeywrench.
The covert rebel meanwhile, turns his efforts inward and makes a personal statement to the world at large. In this style, health itself becomes an act of rebellion. In a culture that drives people relentlessly towards mindless destruction of nearly everything, physical vitality included, personal health stands out as a glaring act of defiance. “I am an animal and I will not submit to a media-driven culture of passive consumerism. I am an animal and I will not waste my health in the service of environmental and social destruction. I am an animal and I will not lie down while we destroy the last living shreds of the biosphere.”
This approach adds an entirely new dimension to our study of healthy living. What is normally cast as a mainstream, harmless and thoroughly bland lifestyle practice now becomes a potently disruptive force. In this light, health has nothing to do with longevity, smooth skin and tight abs. Instead, it’s about living in protest and derailing the pathologies of a earth-hostile culture. In this context, health is no longer neutral or safe. Rather, it is a statement of rebellion.
tricksters
Of course, activists and revolutionaries are not the only players in our game of personal and planetary transformation. There are other ways that we might craft effective, inconvenient and meaningful lives. One of the most promising, I believe, lies in the path of the trickster.
The trickster has played a role in almost every culture; the archetype is almost certainly a human universal. He or she appears in thousands of stories with various roles: he scandalizes, disgusts, amuses, disrupts, chastises, and humiliates yet he is also a creative force transforming the world, sometimes in bizarre and outrageous ways, with his instinctive energies and cunning. In Native American culture, coyote plays the trickster and is known for his inventiveness, mischievousness, and evasiveness. He is a practical joker, always playing with meaning, assumptions, prejudices, roles, hierarchies and power relationships.
In our modern world, many of us would describe the trickster as a “cultural creative.” This is a person who refutes the standard narrative, pounded into our heads by our so-called “educational system,” that culture is a static thing, carved into stone by the ancients. She rejects the assumption that culture is a thing to be received and replicated, but not questioned and certainly not transformed.
Many people are content to simply accept and receive the culture that is handed to them. And so, they spend their lives in dutiful replication of cultural memes, photocopying the rituals of former generations onto their offspring. The trickster on the other hand, sees culture as a canvas, a lump of clay, a process to play with. Think of the raw material! So many memes to work with! Ideas, stories, song, books, movies, theatre, language: all ripe for recombination, revision and regeneration.
Fundamentally, the trickster is a questioner. She questions authority, expertise, power structures, culture and of course, herself. She question categories and assumptions about what is possible. She questions the status quo and business as usual. She won’t sit still when told that something is impossible or that transformation “just isn’t realistic.” Instead, she is always ready with the question “Why?” and “Why not?”
Above all, the trickster is an athletic multi-disciplinarian who refuses to get bogged down into any one camp, box or pigeon hole. Her identity is fluid and her interests dynamic. Never one to get trapped in a single point of view or a single field of inquiry, the trickster always has one foot…somewhere else. Both a bridge-builder and a destroyer of bridges, her philosophy is dynamic and holistic. She pulls us out of our entrenched, boring, specializations and gives us a glimpse of a world of connection and relationship.
Tricksters do their work on several scales, from the audacious to the microscopic. You might see them hanging banners on large buildings or painting a “crack” on the face of the Glen Canyon Dam. You might hear about them dressing up as trees and animals at corporate shareholder meetings. You might read about them bidding up the action at government timber-sale auctions, buying up land to protect it. And you might see their subvertising in print and on billboards: corporate memes visually altered to reveal alternative meanings.
This is all honorable work; it is highly visible trickery in action. But small-scale trickery is vital as well. A good trickster is an opportunist who looks for any chance to transform a dead meme or attitude into something more life-promoting. A conversational trickster can transform a simple phrase and bring new meaning to mundane moments of life; these “tricks” may be invisible to almost everyone, but their power can be immense.
In philosophy and action, the trickster strikes a delicate balance of gravity and levity. She has no illusions about the severity of today’s challenges, but refuses to be crushed under their weight. She is not naïve; she understands the state of the biosphere and the challenge to the future. But she also knows the danger of self-absorption and chronic seriousness. Yes, the situation is dire. Yes, the dangers are immense. And yes, the amount of suffering in this world staggers the imagination.
But none of this stands as reason for abandoning our exuberance or our vitality. On the contrary, it stands as reason for redoubling our enthusiasms, our humor and our levity. Our exuberance is the source of our creativity and in turn, our effectiveness. When faced with immense and compelling challenge, we need more of this joyful living, not less. And so the trickster keeps a balance: the greater the gravity, the more she dances, laughs and plays. The more she feeds her body and spirit with joy, the more she can bring to the predicament at hand.
And so we begin to see the immense and surprising power in trickery. Even if it “fails” in the grand scope of activism and planetary-scale transformation, it still succeeds in giving life to the trickster herself and those around her. Even if completely ineffective on one level, it can still succeed on another. If all trickery does is to maintain the outrageous health and exuberance of the trickster, then that may be enough. And, one never knows how far the ripples of trickery might extend. One good trick tends to inspire more of the same.
look at this!
Ultimately, tricksters are visionaries and senseis. They have journeyed the land of the ordinary and quested to the distant horizon. They have traveled far and thus they see ahead. And because they see ahead, they are in a position to direct and shape our attention. They bear witness to the dangers and challenges of our time. They draw attention away from the familiar, the conventional and the habitual. They show us alternatives. They point to human vitality. They point to the human bond with habitat, the land, the animals and the earth. They point to joy and love.
If you can see the way, become a trickster.
If you can’t, seek out a wise trickster and look where she’s pointing. Follow the trick and you’ll find the path.
Thanks For TREES & MEMORIES, a blog post by Maureen Freehill
This was an evening to remember always; a day of great challenge, adventure and triumph for all participants and patrons at the "For TREES & MEMORIES" gala benefit and MomoButoh Dance Company. We gathered to raise funds and awareness for Whidbey Camano Land Trust's effort to purchase and save from 664 acres of Whidbey's last contiguous forest land forever. We raised just shy of 4K, just about 1% of what is needed to buy it. It feels great to have gathered with such a strong positive energy and intention for highest good and give it our all in the face of some very challenging circumstances.
I had to do the majority of the cleaning and preparation of this wood mill on my own (many thanks to my mom and student Evan who helped!). The sound guy cancelled a day before, the video guy got the flu and could not do it. The dressing room just about killed us; we had nearly no time left for rehearsal and some performers
decided to make directorial decisions at the last minute adding a touch of spicy chaos to an already interesting techno soup. More audience members showed up than expected and they all participated with such enthusiasm and respect. The abundant and delicious food & drink were prepared and served with such care and generosity by my mother and her partner.
The SingPeace! folks with Pushkara, Laurence Cole and Mick Dodge, along with Harmonica Pocket's Keeth Apgar and Nala Walla, gathered and built our community spirit by giving birth to new songs to honor the trees under the blue sky before we entered the hall. Dennis Zimmerman the DJ showed up at the last minute to save the day and was amazing at jockeying both the sound and film projection as it illuminated all over the wood filled hall, even though he had never been a VJ before. Wow! Christine Tasseff helped with much needed equipment and took up the task of documenting the event on video. Here are some of the results to give you a little peek into highlights of the festivities.
The most amazing thing for me was the Live Edge Woodworks space itself donated by Kim Hoelting and adorned by Deborah Koff-Chapin's drawings that surrounded us in wooden slabs and magical images inspired by the trees and forests. We were all reminded of how the trees are not only important for our physical survival but also to nourish our souls.
Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
Reflections on the Spirit and Legacy of the Sixties
December 1, 2002
The 1960s were the period of my life during which I experienced the most profound and most radical personal transformation. For those of us who identify with the cultural and political movements of the sixties, that period represents not so much a decade as a state of consciousness, characterized by "transpersonal" expansion, the questioning of authority, a sense of empowerment, and the experience of sensuous beauty and community.
This state of consciousness reached well into the seventies. In fact, one could say that the sixties came to an end only in December 1980, with the shot that killed John Lennon. The immense sense of loss felt by so many of us was, to a great extent, about the loss of an era. For a few days after the fatal shooting we relived the magic of the sixties. We did so in sadness and with tears, but the same feeling of enchantment and of community was once again alive. Wherever you went during those few days — in every neighborhood, every city, every country around the world — you heard John Lennon's music, and the intense idealism that had carried us through the sixties manifested itself once again:
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one.
I hope some day you'll join us
and the world will live as one.
In this essay, I shall try to evoke the spirit of that remarkable period, identify its defining characteristics, and provide an answer to some questions that are often asked nowadays: What happened to the cultural movements of the sixties? What did they achieve, and what, if any, is their legacy?
expansion of consciousness
The era of the sixties was dominated by an expansion of consciousness in two directions. One movement, in reaction to the increasing materialism and secularism of Western society, embraced a new kind of spirituality akin to the mystical traditions of the East. This involved an expansion of consciousness toward experiences involving nonordinary modes of awareness, which are traditionally achieved through meditation but may also occur in various other contexts, and which psychologists at the time began to call "transpersonal." Psychedelic drugs played a significant role in that movement, as did the human potential movement's promotion of expanded sensory awareness, expressed in its exhortation, "Get out of your head and into your senses!"
The first expansion of consciousness, then, was a movement beyond materialism and toward a new spirituality, beyond ordinary reality via meditative and psychedelic experiences, and beyond rationality through expanded sensory awareness. The combined effect was a continual sense of magic, awe, and wonder that for many of us will forever be associated with the sixties.
questioning of authority
The other movement was an expansion of social consciousness, triggered by a radical questioning of authority. This happened independently in several areas. While the American civil rights movement demanded that Black citizens be included in the political process, the free speech movement at Berkeley and student movements at other universities throughout the United States and Europe demanded the same for students.
In Europe, these movements culminated in the memorable revolt of French university students that is still known simply as "May '68." During that time, all research and teaching activities came to a complete halt at most French universities when the students, led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, extended their critique to society as a whole and sought the solidarity of the French labor movement to change the entire social order. For three weeks, the administrations of Paris and other French cities, public transport, and businesses of every kind were paralyzed by a general strike.
In Paris, people spent most of their time discussing politics in the streets, while the students held strategic discussions at the Sorbonne and other universities. In addition, they occupied the Odéon, the spacious theater of the Comédie Française, and transformed it into a twenty-four-hour "people's parliament," where they discussed their stimulating, albeit highly idealistic, visions of a future social order.
1968 was also the year of the celebrated "Prague Spring," during which Czech citizens, led by Alexander Dubcek, questioned the authority of the Soviet regime, which alarmed the Soviet Communist party to such an extent that, a few months later, it crushed the democratization processes initiated in Prague in its brutal invasion of Czechoslovakia.
In the United States, opposition to the Vietnam war became a political rallying point for the student movement and the counterculture. It sparked a huge anti-war movement, which exerted a major influence on the American political scene and led to many memorable events, including the decision by President Johnson not to seek reelection, the turbulent 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, the Watergate scandal, and the resignation of President Nixon.
a new sense of community
While the civil rights movement questioned the authority of white society and the student movements questioned the authority of their universities on political issues, the women's movement began to question patriarchal authority; humanistic psychologists undermined the authority of doctors and therapists; and the sexual revolution, triggered by the availability of birth control pills, broke down the puritan attitudes toward sexuality that were typical of American culture.
The radical questioning of authority and the expansion of social and transpersonal consciousness gave rise to a whole new culture — a "counterculture" — that defined itself in opposition to the dominant "straight" culture by embracing a different set of values. The members of this alternative culture, who were called "hippies" by outsiders but rarely used that term themselves, were held together by a strong sense of community. To distinguish ourselves from the crew cuts and polyester suits of that era's business executives, we wore long hair, colorful and individualistic clothes, flowers, beads, and other jewelry. Many of us were vegetarians who often baked our own bread, practiced yoga or some other form of meditation, and learned to work with our hands in various crafts.
Our subculture was immediately identifiable and tightly bound together. It had its own rituals, music, poetry, and literature; a common fascination with spirituality and the occult; and the shared vision of a peaceful and beautiful society. Rock music and psychedelic drugs were powerful bonds that strongly influenced the art and lifestyle of the hippie culture. In addition, the closeness, peacefulness, and trust of the hippie communities were expressed in casual communal nudity and freely shared sexuality. In our homes we would frequently burn incense and keep little altars with eclectic collections of statues of Indian gods and goddesses, meditating Buddhas, yarrow stalks or coins for consulting the I Ching, and various personal "sacred" objects.
Although different branches of the sixties movement arose independently and often remained distinct movements with little overlap for several years, they eventually became aware of one another, expressed mutual solidarity, and, during the 1970s, merged more or less into a single subculture. By that time, psychedelic drugs, rock music, and the hippie fashion had transcended national boundaries and had forged strong ties among the international counterculture. Multinational hippie tribes gathered in several countercultural centers — London, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Greenwich Village — as well as in more remote and exotic cities like Marrakech and Katmandu. These frequent cross-cultural exchanges gave rise to an "alternative global awareness" long before the onset of economic globalization.
the sixties' music
The zeitgeist of the sixties found expression in many art forms that often involved radical innovations, absorbed various facets of the counterculture, and strengthened the multiple relationships among the international alternative community.
Rock music was the strongest among these artistic bonds. The Beatles broke down the authority of studios and songwriters by writing their own music and lyrics, creating new musical genres, and setting up their own production company. While doing so, they incorporated many facets of the period's characteristic expansion of consciousness into their songs and lifestyles.
Bob Dylan expressed the spirit of the political protests in powerful poetry and music that became anthems of the sixties. The Rolling Stones represented the counterculture's irreverence, exuberance, and sexual energy, while San Francisco's "acid rock" scene gave expression to its psychedelic experiences.
At the same time, the "free jazz" of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, and others shattered conventional forms of jazz improvisation and gave expression to spirituality, radical political poetry, street theater, and other elements of the counterculture. Like the jazz musicians, classical composers, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen in Germany and John Cage in the United States, broke down conventional musical forms and incorporated much of the sixties' spontaneity and expanded awareness into their music.
The fascination of the hippies with Indian religious philosophies, art, and culture led to a great popularity of Indian music. Most record collections in those days contained albums of Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, and other masters of classical Indian music along with rock and folk music, jazz and blues.
The rock and drug culture of the sixties found its visual expressions in the psychedelic posters of the era's legendary rock concerts, especially in San Francisco, and in album covers of ever increasing sophistication, which became lasting icons of the sixties' subculture. Many rock concerts also featured "light shows" — a novel form of psychedelic art in which images of multicolored, pulsating, and ever changing shapes were projected onto walls and ceilings. Together with the loud rock music, these visual images created highly effective simulations of psychedelic experiences.
new literary forms
The main expressions of sixties' poetry were in the lyrics of rock and folk music. In addition, the "beat poetry" of Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, and others, which had originated a decade earlier and shared many characteristics with the sixties' art forms, remained popular in the counterculture.
One of the major new literary forms was the "magical realism" of Latin American literature. In their short stories and novels, writers like Jorges Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez blended descriptions of realistic scenes with fantastic and dreamlike elements, metaphysical allegories, and mythical images. This was a perfect genre for the counterculture's fascination with altered states of consciousness and pervasive sense of magic.
In addition to the Latin American magical realism, science fiction, especially the complex series of Dune novels by Frank Herbert, exerted great fascination on the sixties' youth, as did the fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and Kurt Vonnegut. Many of us also turned to literary works of the past, such as the romantic novels of Hermann Hesse, in which we saw reflections of our own experiences.
Of equal, if not greater, popularity were the semi-fictional shamanistic writings of Carlos Castaneda, which satisfied the hippies' yearning for spirituality and "separate realities" mediated by psychedelic drugs. In addition, the dramatic encounters between Carlos and the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan symbolized in a powerful way the clashes between the rational approach of modern industrial societies and the wisdom of traditional cultures.
film and the performing arts
In the sixties, the performing arts experienced radical innovations that broke every imaginable tradition of theater and dance. In fact, in companies like the Living Theater, the Judson Dance Theater, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, theater and dance were often fused and combined with other forms of art. The performances involved trained actors and dancers as well as visual artists, musicians, poets, filmmakers, and even members of the audience.
Men and women often enjoyed equal status; nudity was frequent. Performances, often with strong political content, took place not only in theaters but also in museums, churches, parks, and in the streets. All these elements combined to create the dramatic expansion of experience and strong sense of community that was typical of the counterculture.
Film, too, was an important medium for expressing the zeitgeist of the sixties. Like the performing artists, the sixties' filmmakers, beginning with the pioneers of the French New Wave cinema, broke with the traditional techniques of their art, introducing multi-media approaches, often abandoning narratives altogether, and using their films to give a powerful voice to social critique.
With their innovative styles, these filmmakers expressed many key characteristics of the counterculture. For example, we can find the sixties' irreverence and political protest in the films of Godard; the questioning of materialism and a pervasive sense of alienation in Antonioni; questioning of the social order and transcendence of ordinary reality in Fellini; the exposure of class hypocrisy in Buñuel; social critique and utopian visions in Kubrik; the breaking down of sexual and gender stereotypes in Warhol; and the portrayal of altered states of consciousness in the works of experimental filmmakers like Kenneth Anger and John Whitney. In addition, the films of these directors are characterized by a strong sense of magical realism.
the legacy of the sixties
Many of the cultural expressions that were radical and subversive in the sixties have been accepted by broad segments of mainstream culture during the subsequent three decades. Examples would be the long hair and sixties fashion, the practice of Eastern forms of meditation and spirituality, recreational use of marijuana, increased sexual freedom, rejection of sexual and gender stereotypes, and the use of rock (and more recently rap) music to express alternative cultural values. All of these were once expressions of the counterculture that were ridiculed, suppressed, and even persecuted by the dominant mainstream society.
Beyond these contemporary expressions of values and esthetics that were shared by the sixties' counterculture, the most important and enduring legacy of that era has been the creation and subsequent flourishing of a global alternative culture that shares a set of core values. Although many of these values — e.g. environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, global justice — were shaped by cultural movements in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, their essential core was first expressed by the sixties' counterculture. In addition, many of today's senior progressive political activists, writers, and community leaders trace the roots of their original inspiration back to the sixties.
Green politics
In the sixties we questioned the dominant society and lived according to different values, but we did not formulate our critique in a coherent, systematic way. We did have concrete criticisms on single issues, such as the Vietnam war, but we did not develop any comprehensive alternative system of values and ideas. Our critique was based on intuitive feeling; we lived and embodied our protest rather than verbalizing and systematizing it.
The seventies brought consolidation of our views. As the magic of the sixties gradually faded, the initial excitement gave way to a period of focusing, digesting, and integrating. Two new cultural movements, the ecology movement and the feminist movement, emerged during the seventies and together provided the much-needed broad framework for our critique and alternative ideas.
The European student movement, which was largely Marxist oriented, was not able to turn its idealistic visions into realities during the sixties. But it kept its social concerns alive during the subsequent decade, while many of its members went through profound personal transformations. Influenced by the two major political themes of the seventies, feminism and ecology, these members of the "new left" broadened their horizons without losing their social consciousness. At the end of the decade, many of them became the leaders of transformed socialist parties. In Germany, these "young socialists" formed coalitions with ecologists, feminists, and peace activists, out of which emerged the Green Party — a new political party whose members confidently declared: "We are neither left nor right; we are in front."
During the 1980s and 1990s, the Green movement became a permanent feature of the European political landscape, and Greens now hold seats in numerous national and regional parliaments around the world. They are the political embodiment of the core values of the sixties.
the end of the Cold War
During the 1970s and 1980s, the American anti-war movement expanded into the anti-nuclear and peace movements, in solidarity with corresponding movements in Europe, especially those in the UK and West Germany. This, in turn, sparked a powerful peace movement in East Germany, led by the Protestant churches, which maintained regular contacts with the West German peace movement, and in particular with Petra Kelly, the charismatic leader of the German Greens.
When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union in 1985, he was well aware of the strength of the Western peace movement and accepted our argument that a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought. This realization played an important part in Gorbachev's "new thinking" and his restructuring (perestroika) of the Soviet regime, which would lead, eventually, to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and the end of Soviet Communism.
All social and political systems are highly nonlinear and do not lend themselves to being analyzed in terms of linear chains of cause and effect. Nevertheless, careful study of our recent history shows that the key ingredient in creating the climate that led to the end of the Cold War was not the hard-line strategy of the Reagan administration, as the conservative mythology would have it, but the international peace movement. This movement clearly had its political and cultural roots in the student movements and counterculture of the sixties.
the information technology revolution
The last decade of the twentieth century brought a global phenomenon that took most cultural observers by surprise. A new world emerged, shaped by new technologies, new social structures, a new economy, and a new culture. "Globalization" became the term used to summarize the extraordinary changes and the seemingly irresistible momentum that were now felt by millions of people.
A common characteristic of the multiple aspects of globalization is a global information and communications network based on revolutionary new technologies. The information technology revolution is the result of a complex dynamic of technological and human interactions, which produced synergistic effects in three major areas of electronics — computers, microelectronics, and telecommunications. The key innovations that created the radically new electronic environment of the 1990s all took place 20 years earlier, during the 1970s.
It may be surprising to many that, like so many other recent cultural movements, the information technology revolution has important roots in the sixties' counterculture. It was triggered by a dramatic technological development — a shift from data storage and processing in large, isolated machines to the interactive use of microcomputers and the sharing of computer power in electronic networks. This shift was spearheaded by young technology enthusiasts who embraced many aspects of the counterculture, which was still very much alive at that time.
The first commercially successful microcomputer was built in 1976 by two college dropouts, Steve Wosniak and Steve Jobs, in their now legendary garage in Silicon Valley. These young innovators and others like them brought the irreverent attitudes, freewheeling lifestyles, and strong sense of community they had adopted in the counterculture to their working environments. In doing so, they created the relatively informal, open, decentralized, and cooperative working styles that became characteristic of the new information technologies.
global capitalism
However, the ideals of the young technology pioneers of the seventies were not reflected in the new global economy that emerged from the information technology revolution 20 years later. On the contrary, what emerged was a new materialism, excessive corporate greed, and a dramatic rise of unethical behavior among our corporate and political leaders. These harmful and destructive attitudes are direct consequences of a new form of global capitalism, structured largely around electronic networks of financial and informational flows. The so-called "global market" is a network of machines programmed according to the fundamental principle that money-making should take precedence over human rights, democracy, environmental protection, or any other value.
Since the new economy is organized according to this quintessential capitalist principle, it is not surprising that it has produced a multitude of interconnected harmful consequences that are in sharp contradiction to the ideals of the global Green movement: rising social inequality and social exclusion, a breakdown of democracy, more rapid and extensive deterioration of the natural environment, and increasing poverty and alienation. The new global capitalism has threatened and destroyed local communities around the world; and with the pursuit of an ill-conceived biotechnology, it has invaded the sanctity of life by attempting to turn diversity into monoculture, ecology into engineering, and life itself into a commodity.
It has become increasingly clear that global capitalism in its present form is unsustainable and needs to be fundamentally redesigned. Indeed, scholars, community leaders, and grassroots activists around the world are now raising their voices, demanding that we must "change the game" and suggesting concrete ways of doing so.
the global civil society
At the turn of this century, an impressive global coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), many of them led by men and women with deep personal roots in the sixties, formed around the core values of human dignity and ecological sustainability. In 1999, hundreds of these grassroots organizations interlinked electronically for several months to prepare for joint protest actions at the meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle.
The "Seattle Coalition," as it is now called, was extremely successful in derailing the WTO meeting and in making its views known to the world. Its concerted actions have permanently changed the political climate around the issue of economic globalization.
Since that time, the Seattle Coalition, or "global justice movement," has not only organized further protests but has also held several World Social Forum meetings in Porto Alegre, Brazil. At the second of these meetings, the NGOs proposed a whole set of alternative trade policies, including concrete and radical proposals for restructuring global financial institutions, which would profoundly change the nature of globalization.
The global justice movement exemplifies a new kind of political movement that is typical of our Information Age. Because of their skillful use of the Internet, the NGOs in the coalition are able to network with each other, share information, and mobilize their members with unprecedented speed. As a result, the new global NGOs have emerged as effective political actors who are independent of traditional national or international institutions. They constitute a new kind of global civil society.
This new form of alternative global community, sharing core values and making extensive use of electronic networks in addition to frequent human contacts, is one of the most important legacies of the sixties. If it succeeds in reshaping economic globalization so as to make it compatible with the values of human dignity and ecological sustainability, the dreams of the "sixties revolution" will have been realized:
Imagine no possessions,I wonder if you can,no need for greed or hunger,a brotherhood of man.Imagine all the peoplesharing all the world...You may say I'm a dreamer,but I'm not the only one.I hope some day you'll join usand the world will live as one.
By John Sifferman at "Physical Living"
http://physicalliving.com/watch-the-barefoot-sensei-in-action/
Mick Dodge, a former Marine, is someone that we can all probably learn something from. He’s questioned the conventional model of physical living and found it severely lacking, and he has taken drastic action on that. Mick is someone who has a truly unique perspective on health, movement, and fitness, and I think we would do well to listen to him.This is a collection of clips shot at a recent “footcamp” seminar he taught on Whidbey Island, WA. As of a couple weeks ago, Mick is walking through Washington into Oregon and California, “stealing shoes” and talking about getting back into one’s senses through being outdoors and also being barefoot. He’s teaching and distributing the Antidote for our modern predicament, which is a set of general principles for healthy living that will increase your vitality, health and exuberance. Watch
Mick in action…
Mick Dodge – The Barefoot Sensei
Some of what Mick says may sound like mumbo-jumbo – you know, connecting your spirit to the land, and all that. But I’ll tell you one thing. Taking your shoes off absolutely makes you PAY ATTENTION. Your general awareness increases and perception sharpens, and with practice it becomes much more than a physical activity. Nothing is performed in isolation, even fitness training. Our physical health and conditioning has a direct correlation to our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Our entire being is intimately connected – mind, body, and spirit. They cannot be separated, which means they can’t be isolated. I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to say that taking your shoes off will profoundly affect your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. It sure has rocked my world this past year!
You can learn more about Mick’s journey here:
http://exuberantanimal.com/mick/index.php
SingPeace! is stalled. The wagon and journey are in limbo following 4 days at the 2010 NW Folklife Festival over Memorial Day weekend.
No mistaking the intention for the earth pilgrimage for peace and global harmony; it remains strong. The "old woman," grandmother Pushkara Sally Ashford, is keen to carry on.
The hitch, quite literally, is in the hitch.
Locally, we've been challenged to arrange for a tow vehicle and driver every time we want to move the wagon. SingPeace! doesn't have a heavy-duty vehicle that can pull a couple of tons. We've hitched the wagon to four different trucks and drivers in as many events. And we've had to change out the hitch each time we hitch to a different truck.
Globally, we're looking at the sorry situation in the Gulf. The oil spewing from Mother Earth turns a petty "snag" into a "sign." How can we ignore Her message? How can we go on mindlessly, greedily consuming Her life's blood? And immediately in the face of President Obama's declaration about the necessity and efficacy of off-shore drilling! I guess She told us! There is no minimizing the impact; every life form on earth is affected. It's likely that I will not see a satisfactory resolution to the long-term consequences of this catastrophic spill in my lifetime. I wonder, too, about my grandchildren's lives.
Did I say, yet, that I got locked out of the wagon? With the generous-hearted help of a longtime and dear friend, Steve, who responded to my 11th hour SOS, we delivered the wagon to the NW Folklife Festival on Thursday night. I arrived back at my island home at midnight. I discovered the keys were missing the next day as I unloaded my car at the Seattle Center. I put in a call to another friend, Mick, who scoured my house for them. They'd vanished. Today, I called every lost and found number I could imagine to discover where in the world they'd got to. On Friday, of course, I had to call a locksmith who replaced the locks.
Things like the keys slipping away can and do happen when habits and patterns are in flux, especially for an old girl and event planner with too many details cramming her mind. But in the context of the big picture, taken with the other hitches and delays, I'm taking in the cues and biding my time.
At the moment, the wagon is at the garage, awaiting yet another modification to the hitch (electric, brakes, etc.).
Until an affordable, alternative and renewable truck technology comes along, preferably with a competent driver, it seems likely that we will SingPeace! more locally than regionally or in distant localities.
Mick is encouraging "the old woman in the shoe" to step out of it. He suggests parking the wagon in a strategic location - preferably in range of Tokitae! - the land where the solstice gathering will take place. "Let folks come to you, the grandmother," is Mick's advice. He points out the extent of event planning and costs of each as another good reason to rethink the pilgrimage. He's encouraging me to "use my words," to write and post blogs as a way to draw people to the mission of SingPeace! Mick is a clear mirror reflecting certain realities.
There are others. At Folklife, I received an invitation from a Unity minister in Port Angeles. Another man from the Fellowship of Reconciliation invited me to Olympia, saying, "We have a huge peace movement there and the students at Evergreen State University are going to be very interested in the wagon and in what you do." I met two young men and some elderwise women who are candidates for Mick's Foot Camp. How in the world would these folks find me and us if I were not on the road?
Coming up is an entire calendar of festivals and gatherings we could participate in - with the wagon!
Truth is, I don't know what to do. That's got to be okay, for now. I'm in limbo, awaiting surrender to "what is" and/or clear direction for the changes I feel are coming. Calling to mind the old adage: "When fishermen can't go to sea, they mend their nets."
Laurence asked me to transcribe my new song: "It's Songlines Choir material," he told me. I can do that.
Mick is urging me to write to get my message out.
Thank God for the foot and Earth Gym training as I need prospects for action and being in community. The computer and the isolation of the "ivory tower" have their limitations.
Even with the obvious hitches and delays, the SingPeace! wagon has been greeted by warm and loving hearts. Folks are getting it, rapport is there. I will post photos and details of NW Folklife in a future blog.
In the meantime, SingPeace!
So many Blessings to you All, happy New Moon and soon to be Full Moon~Winter Solstice and still, we're all guided by the moonlight :) Give Thanks
I am sending this to you as an offering from this land that has blessed me so much as my home for most of my life. This song is just a beginning. in the offering of thanks I have and wish to give to Cascadia, to Earth and all Creation.
Cascadia Earth is streaming on the website, just click the link above and the song will stream into your life. Please share this with all who you feel called, I believe this song has the power of an anthem to Unify and remind us of common ground, literally Earth!!
May you find inspiration in all you do,
So much Love
SaraTone
PS~
Cascadia Earth~Salmon Nation Stickers are made and wanting to go with you.
info on the website.....
Also, if you really need a copy of this song, I can send mp3 files to those who ask sweetly
SaraTone
~ Mystical Soulstress of Earth Gospel~
saratonehome.org ~ peacefully streaming music
Facebook- SaraTone & the Earth Tribe Gospel
CommUnity through Music
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Hello all at SingPeace!
I guess the best way to introduce ourselves is to post our most recent biography, sorry if it seems a bit business-like, that's not our intention. We are always looking for ways to share our music and this certainly seems like a community of like-minded souls, who may well dig our vibe, so to speak.
So, thank you for having us. We hope we can join you on your pilgrimage for Peace, indeed we are also on that path, how wonderful it is that our paths have crossed.
We may live in the UK but we are willing to travel, and enjoy making connections all over the world.
Wishing you all Peace.
Please enjoy reading our biography ...
Heal the Last Stand – Biography 2013
“The 4 coolest musicians and peace troubadours to emerge from the UK in a very long time, with music that will change the world” – Mike Dooley (Author of “Infinite Possibilities” & “Notes from the Universe”)
From Wales in the UK, Joey, Laura, Stan and Thom make up the peaceful acoustic quartet known as Heal the Last Stand.
This Wrexham-born band, now in the 6th year of their Everlasting Peace Tour, continue to inspire and uplift audiences far and wide; their soaring harmonies and inspirational lyrics have earned them a place on the stages of Glastonbury Festival, Europe and the US.
From the outset Heal knew they wanted to be a force for good in the world and have always gone about business differently to most bands, finding work in the early days by offering their voices to peaceful causes. Pretty soon, Heal were invited to sing at the Global Peace Summit in Costa Rica. Initial apprehension about travel costs kept them from making that trip, but they quickly learned to say yes first and work out how to make it happen later and vowed never to let the odds defeat them again. This determination to ‘say yes and see where it takes them’ has been the catalyst for their subsequent adventures. Ultimately they attribute their success to the kindness and generosity of the friends they’ve met on the road.
After critics compared them to West Coast harmony bands like The Beach Boys and Crosby, Stills & Nash, Heal heard the call and crossed the ocean for a six-week dream tour of California, with a band they met through MySpace called Ecstatic Union. They took their music north on the Pacific Coast Highway stopping in Long Beach, Los Angeles, Venice, Santa Cruz, Big Sur and San Francisco to name a few. As well as the usual tour dates in theatres and bars, Heal reached out that little further, always armed with their guitars they played beach houses, street corners, beaches, roof tops and (the bands' favorite) on the public transport.
Back in Europe, they drove south on their third tour of Catalonia, taking time to record the video for their much loved song “Soul Shanti” over-looking the city lights of Barcelona from the top of Montjuïc, the city’s own Olympic hill (SEE THE VIDEO HERE).
Their efforts for Peace were recognized by the late Mayor of Wrexham, Arwel Gwynn Jones and the band were invited to tea in his parlour; he allowed them to place a copy of their album "What Love Is..." in a display cabinet full of local treasures and memorabilia, between a Ruabon Red Brick and a can of Wrexham Lager.
The band have released 2 CDs so far on their own record label, 'Everybody Wants Peace Records', their debut album, "What Love Is..." (2009) And an E.P called "Peace is the Word" (2010).
"Forgive & Forget" was picked as “Single of the Week” on BBC Wales' morning show.
Summer 2013 brings UK Festival appearances and a European Tour to promote a new single from their forthcoming Album OUT AUTUMN/WINTER 2013.
Contact them via email: office@everybodywantspeace.com