To function as a collective brain.  Synapses connecting to synapses, the more censorship, the less useful the result. The more connections, the greater the fertility and likelihood of utility.

"What nourishes me best?" That was from a nutrition class over the phone I took years ago with Russell Mariani. (Not sure if he got if from somewhere else...) It guides me time and again, in many circumstances.

Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breath'd forth the sound that said "I hate"
To me that languish'd for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that toung that, ever sweet,
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
"I hate" she altter'd with an end
That follow'd it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away:
  "I hate" from hate away she threw,
  And sav'd my life, saying "not you."

I wasn't much into particular "toys," rather, I was constantly facinated and enraptured by various animals. Lizzards were frequent "toys," in that we would catch one after the other. My dad once helped us set up a bird trap, and I was completely enthralled with the  whole process, and beside myself when he actually caught a blue jay. (The blue jay was not, to say the least, very happy about that.) My dog, Buffy, was the greatest friend/toy/pet/companion a girl could want.  And I had this facination with frogs, but the frogs for some reason always managed to eluded me...

What that means about me now...? Well, Samuel Sagan comments in one of his recorded talks that when you are approached by a wild animal, "...it makes your heart shine!"  While I was only willingly approached by domestic animals, and ran after wild animals, I think the same principle holds, then and now...

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=entertainment&id=5042740

Britney Spears shaves her head?

Interesting. Seems to me like someone is healing :)  But maybe that's just me...

f.c.

 

Green Fest 2006  --  John Trudell

(I purchased a copy of the talk below from http://www.conferencerecording.com/.  It was a talk John Trudell gave this evening at the Green Festival in San Francisco. You can learn more about Trudell at http://www.johntrudell.com/.  The movie "Trudell" is an excellent documentary about a powerful, unique human being. I wrote out the notes from the talk below as a way to unpack the very packed speech from this evening. I take full responsibility for the many errors, and possible...mistranslations.  The parts in quotes are just little bits of his poems he shared.  Lots to think about. My critical thinking teacher would probably endorse many elements of what he says in relationship to building what she calls "a culture of thinking."  Your sustained curiosity will be richly rewarded. Let me know what you THINK ;)

"...an obedience to always wanting more, and there is always more to want."

"...there's love that doesn't care, and hate that does."

"The love of mankind hates evil, but evil loves mankind. For without mankind evil doesn't exist."

So we have a mutual understanding that I'm crazy...And I think we'd be better off that we all acknowledge that you're crazy...

To me, everything is about energy. Everything that goes on in this reality is about energy. We are units of energy. Everything.

Our bones, flesh and blood is made up of the same minerals, metals and liquids of the Earth...

Our being comes from the relationship to the sun, sky, universe.

Our access to the reality of power...is in our relationship to human beings.

We manifest our power through how we use our intelligence.

Sunlight is literally the sperm that brings life to the water-bearing womb that is the Earth. So our relationship to the reality of power is in this relationship to who we are in the larger energy that is the universe. Our relationship to power is there.

They can take the being of the DNA of the Earth-the bone, flesh and blood that is called uranium-they can take the being from that bone, flesh and blood and through a mining refinement process convert it into a form of energy, a mutation of power, a form of energy that they can use to run another electrical system...They do it with the fossils...do this very same process...convert it's being into a form of energy to run another electrical system...The purpose of technological industrial civilization is to mine the being part of human through how they program the intelligence of the human to perceive reality. To mine the being part of human-eat the spirit of the human-mine the being part of human to run another...electrical energy system. It's called authoritarianism, submission, exploitation, violence, aggression and anti-life. And they use our spirit, they use our energy, they feed us into it by the way we have been programmed to believe and perceive reality by their definition. Now see, as a Native Person, I don't want to step on any toes, right, but I think they're all lying.  And I think they've always been lying, they've never told the truth, because they don't how to tell the truth, they don't understand the truth, they don't recognize the truth, and they've told that lie to us. And we are very, very close to getting swallowed completely into that lie. And how does that lie live? Because the core of that lie is telling us that there is something wrong with us. That there's something wrong with us. The mining process, when they take the uranium, or the fossils out of the earth and mine it though its process, it leaves behind poison and toxic waste. When they mine the being part of human, it leaves behind poison and toxic waste, and that poison and that toxic waste, these are the fears, and the doubts and the insecurities that now become a part of our perception of reality. And once the mining process starts taking place, we begin to perceive reality based upon our perception of our inabilities rather than the reality of our abilities.

Now the power of our intelligence, the power of being as manifested through how we've been programmed to perceive reality, through your fears and your doubts and your insecurities, how bad can you make yourself feel? It's just between you and you...I don't want to know. I already know. Look at the world we're in so I already know. How bad can you make yourself feel, and how does that affect the people around you? And what I find ironic, simultaneous to that, we're sitting around feeling powerless. While we make ourselves feel terrible, and it affects the people around us, all right? With our terrible feeling of self-doubt and fear...it just spreads. Now, if we were using our intelligence clearly and coherently, and understood the reality of our power, we could use that power in a clear and coherent manner and create the solutions to the problems that we're confronted with. The power of our being.  But we were deliberately programmed.  As this technological industrial thing started to emerge in our reality everything has been a program, alright? Everything has been a program...to remove our ancestral memories. To alter, as human beings...to alter our perception of life so that we participate in this reality basically from a religious perception rather than a spiritual perception. They have programmed us to believe that if we participate in a religious manner then we are fulfilling our responsibilities and as a Native Person I say that they'are lying, all right? Lying, lying, lying. Because if you look at religion fulfilling the responsibilities of God and creator and peace and love, then they're failing, plan and simply put. Plain and simply put. Because religion, besides the words and sounds that that it makes, it does not practice and participate in this spiritual reality in a spiritual manner. And that otherwise, if it did, we wouldn't be going through...the people of Iraq wouldn't be going through what they're going through, the homeless wouldn't be going through what they're going through...nothing would be happening the way that it is if the religions took responsibility to behave in a manner that reflected the spirituality that they say they represent. So as we use and develop the power of the clarity and coherency of our intelligence we should question these things and find our own way. I got nothing against God, but the way I see his kids behaving, he's got something against me. 

I question freedom. The power of our intelligence that we put into this illusion continues to perpetuate our confusion, our chaos and our disorientation. Life is about responsibility, it's not about freedom, it's about responsibly. You want to have the experience of being free then be responsible. Life is not about freedom, because if I say to you I believe in freedom, and I really believe in freedom, then the exploiter has the freedom to be an exploiter, the sexist has the freedom to be a sexist, because if I believe in freedom who am I to tell him? So we keep chasing this chaos because of emotional ra-ra-ism and we've been programmed to behave in this kind of a way, we've been indoctrinated to see reality through chaos rather than coherence. So whatever it is that we're going to get involved in and doing and happening, I'm telling you they're lying, this election, all of this, it's a lie, lie, lie. Just like they told the lie, lie, lie in the last election and the election before that and the election before that and somewhere we have to understand these political entities are here, there're tools, they're not identities, they're not belief systems, they're tools to use, and we need to start using them as tools, not just emotionally because it's devolving down to the situation where...you know there's all the sweet talk and kissy-kissy talk going on here...but that's going to change here, very shortly. Because in my own opinion about this, when I look at the political thing...number one about Democracy.  As a Native person, I don't trust it, alright!  And I'm amazed as to why you do. I just can't get over that one. Because you look at it Democracy...number one, it means the right of the entitled to rule. So who decides entitled? You look at Democracy: every democracy has had sexism, imperialism, class systems, racism, every democracy has had it. You look at American democracy.  In American democracy, which says it's about majority rule, you look at the reality of American democracy. If you were a woman, a white woman, you were mentally inferior and you had no say. This is reality. You were mentally inferior and you had no say. If you were a white male that had no property, you had no taxable value, you had no say. If you were Black you were property, you had no say, and if you were the Indians, the majority, you were the enemy...

So then maybe democracy is really about the minority rule of the ruling class, and everybody gets to play and pretend that it isn't that way. So you should think about this, because when we talk about our ra-ra's about saving the planet and alternative use of energy...when we talk about all the ra-ra stuff that we're going to use to make ourselves feel good, there's a responsibility here to examine reality, and face reality so we can coherently think of solutions, alright, to get this thing done, without continuing to just go through the motions that don't work. We have a responsibility. Environment? Change? All the spiritual stuff and all the things, our holy-hollies that we chase, I personally thing that we strengthen what we're up to when number one, we acknowledge to our creator every day we give the creator thanks for life, every day we give the creator we give the creator thank you for giving me life. That will just...nothing else that helps us to remember to live. The second thing is we should thank the creator for the gift of intelligence. The gift of intelligence because we were given intelligence to go with this life. And I think if we make those acknowledgements everyday we're starting to activate something. Because when I look at everything being about energy, see because in some way here, I think the republicans won.  Because, ‘scuse my language but the shits about to hit the fan and they're going to put the democrats in there, and the democrats aren't going to be able to solve it because if you really understand the economic reality of what's going on in America, America's in deep, deep, deep economic problems, and all the promises and all the good talks aren't even directed to addressing that reality...and we've got all these other things going on, and what I think what happened in this political election was to create the illusion that something's really going to change because the voters voted, and I'm telling you, it's not really going to change because the voters voted, but if anything is going to change it's these same voters taking responsibility to behave...to act responsibly...to make sure that the follow-through is done, because if that's missing...because in the way that the programming is going at this time, one of the dangers of the polarization that's taking place, it's so easy when we have someone to blame. And when we look...individually...at responsibility, in the end, in the end if we're dealing with the reality of energy, and creating a larger field of coherent energy, alright, to give life, amongst the incoherent energy. If we're truly, truly looking at doing something of that nature, it is our responsibility to understand that we are alternative energy, we are it.  See, everything that we're talking about out there's going on in here, and if we...and if we're are going to get into blaming, I think blame is a way of not taking responsibility because you've got somebody to blame. That bad guys are the bad guys, that's just the way it is, and we can cry...we can cry until we're made of tears. That's not going to change the bad guy. But, the convenience of having a bad guy means that I can go around and be frivolous and not take responsibility to truly think clearly and coherently, I can use my intelligence to continue to emotionally react, because when I look at the whole Bush thing...no disrespect meant to anybody, but...everybody's blaming Bush! But at the same time everybody's talking about how dumb he is and then I think well what the fuck?!...who are you then? If he's dumb, and he got there through us! No offence. I didn't say that...that was...one of the voices...

But my whole point being is we really need to start thinking about things. And a part of that really is this thing about responsibility and blame. Because as long as we have...we're physical entities in a spiritual reality. Life is about the evolution of being; we're just taking a human ride. Life is about the evolution of being and I guarantee you, we cannot escape our responsibility.  In the reality of energy spirit, so to speak, all of it must balance out.  See, so we cannot escape...the responsibility for our participation in this reality, even if it appears on the human level we're getting away with something...because this is about the evolution of being. Being just is.  Human's just temporary.  This is about the evolution of being. And in order for us to really synchronize, to really truly synchronize, then we must bring clarity.  We must really think out what we do. 

Remember what we have in common as human beings.

We should participate in this reality thinking as human beings. I think culture, race, gender, all of that should come second. We should think like human beings. It's important that we think like human beings so we can being to start to remember who we are. Because it's obvious we don't understand who we are as human beings, because we're depending too much on the authoritarian system to recognize us, but it's not going to recognize us as human beings because it goes against its own best interests.  And if you understand the power of our intelligence...

When I was wearing this political identity, you know I accumulated all these pages from...them...and I looked at...all those pages, and I thought, well, I know exactly what I did. I'm a little crazy but I didn't really do anything, you know, extraordinary. But I got 17,000 pages on me, and it happened in a ten-year period of time. But then one of things in there, they remarked that I had the ability to be coherent. And that's one that clicked. They're not afraid of anything. They're not afraid of your political participation, they're not afraid of your political disagreement, they're not afraid of your economic boycotts, they're not afraid that you're going to fight them and overthrow them, they're not afraid of you in any way, shape or form, because they know which emotional buttons to push, dealing with mass, collective psychology, they get people reacting and they start turning against themselves.  I guarantee you, they fear nothing you're bringing to the table now, but what they do fear...he has the ability to be coherent. They fear the ability to be coherent. See, I have a larger ability to be incoherent, but they didn't mention that because they don't fear it!

Excuse me, I'm not in charge.

They sky is falling. The sky is falling. 

"Woman never was God's favorite. And Earth is a woman dominated. A victim of an abusive relationship."

"Memories replaced with an amnesia of fear, where human can't remember being. The being part of being the light."

"We're the glue holding it together, or we're the ticking bomb."

"Extremes I go to to be right might be the same extremes I go to to be wrong."

"There are times it would be good to tell, but then what could I possibly say, that you could call an explanation."

What we all have in common is we're made up of the metals, minerals and liquids of the Earth. What we all have in common, we are shapes of the Earth. What we all have in common, we are the decedents of tribes. Each and every one of us is the descendent of a tribe. What we all have in common, quoted I the ancestral memory...it's encoded in the DNA. Civilization tries to suppress and make faint...but they program us to make it faint so we can't recognize it. But what we all have in common is an ancestral memory...and ancestrol lineage. We are all the descendents of a spiritual reality...

You want to talk about energy, see that is that energy. It's just a matter of creating a clarity and a coherency with how we use our intelligence that will create the energy that is needed to really deal with the overall situations, because we've got to deal with the economics, the politics, we've got to go through the mechanisms, but there's something larger needed here, something much larger needed here because they've been having revolutions forever and there's always a need to have a revolution, and...think evolutionary, not revolutionary. What a revolution means, take the romanticism and the nonsense out of it, what revolution means is revolution means is that you go back to where you started, alright? And if you started out with an oppressor and an oppressed, then that's what you get back to, and that's what you get back to, and that's what you get back to, and that's what you get back to. Evolution, then we move. Evolution, then we move. Evolution. So we need to think in terms of evolution. But that ancestral memory has become...the spiritual ancestral memory, they put it into the faint, because they don't want us to understand that. And what happened to you, the descendants of the tribes of Europe, we know what happened to the Indians here, but what happened to the Indians here...was a behavior of what had happened to the tribes of Europe. And what I find interesting, more than about Columbus being what he was, what I find the most interesting about he Columbus thing is that when he got off the boat and he said to us "Who are you?" and we said to him, "We're the human beings," and he said, "Oh, Indians," it wasn't because he thought he was in India, I mean that might be some kind of thing, but in reality what it was really about, by the time Columbus got here the descendants of the tribes of Europe no longer had a perceptual reality of what it meant to be a human being. They didn't know what it meant anymore.  Because they had been owned, they were property, they were victims, they were victimized, they were tortured, they were the hunted, they were the property, they were the lesser things. They did not know what it meant to be a human being anymore.  Whenever the Romans or any of these people started showing up, when religion emerged, when they got together and figured out a nice good ole' industrial god religion...saying, a man owns the Earth and fuck all of you because a man owns the Earth and can do what he wants to do. Once they put that thing into motion, that's what they used against the tribes of Europe to erase that spiritual concept of reality. So, this is why...and they had the inquisitions...in the medieval times. Isn't that an interesting concept? If that was the medieval times, then exactly what part of the evil are we in now?  But by 1100 AD, the decedents of the tribes of Europe had been taken off basically their hunting grounds, their roaming grounds, that tribal relationship to the land had been altered because by then church and state as it was evolving had claimed ownership of all of them. Whoever owned the land owned the human beings that were a part of the land. But the problem they had still--about 1000 AD-the problem they had was they had restricted tribal movement, but they still had this perception of being, spirit. See, they still prayed to ancestors, they still prayed to spirits. So they still were perceiving reality from a spiritual perception. So this couldn't do. So what the church did at that time-it happened to be the Catholic church at that time-but what the church did at that time...was that it declared itself to be god's authority on Earth, and that it had the right to wage war to possess the souls of the godless heathens, that it was its religious obligation to wage war to possess the souls of the godless heathens.  And see, then because...the decedents of the tribes of Europe...see at that time, sexism wasn't quite as ingrained yet so the women still had their role in the society...so when the church created it's inquisitions, the woman was one of the main targets...because they had to erase and alter that connection...and they killed as efficiently as they possibly could. And what was interesting about this religious ritual that no one wants to talk about was that you were accused and then you had to be interrogated, tortured, executed, property seized. Alright, and they killed as efficiently as they possibly could for five-hundred years. So by the time Columbus got here and got off the boat, they didn't have a fuckin' clue what it meant to be a human being!  Reality!  Didn't have a clue!  And excuse my language but it's not my language and you shouldn't a taught it to me.

So we've all been through the common experience...but in all of this, when the decedents of the tribes of Europe got here, then they behaved to us, not because they were...because this was there perception of reality...so this all unfolded in this kind of a way, what we have in common...And when you look at energy...If you look at us as human beings...each one of us is energy...

When we are born into this energy mass as human beings, we are born with living consciousness. Living consciousness, the consciousness of life. And the whole sedation programming thing is to sedate that consciousness, that living consciousness. But the power of our living consciousness is the power we have because of our relationship to reality is we can activate it by freewill. We can activate it when we make the decision that we are going to activate it. And then we all individually figure out how to make it work out...Whatever it is you do in life that you do for a job to make a living, you made a decision at some point in your life to focus your intelligence to learn how to do what it is you needed to do to get the job or do the job or play the sport or acquire the talent. Same process. It's just making the decision within our intelligence that we are going to be more clear and coherent and head in that direction. Question everything. Believe little, question everything. Get the intelligence stimulated and flowing. The thinking process must be flowing, because you know...part of the problem we have going on right now is the believers. We need thinkers, but everybody's a believer. You just listen in you're everyday language...just listen how many times you hear "I believe." And I would feel a lot more comfortable if I heard "I think." Because...do not be confused because the sorcerer...the way the thing works...believing isn't really thinking. Believing is like looping a thought. It's taking thinking and looping a thought, so you're not really thinking even though you believe you're thinking. This is kind's sick.  At least at Disney Land you know when the ride's done.  So we have to be careful because everything they ever did when they wanted to separate the decedents of the tribes to us...when they wanted to separate our spiritual perception of reality, it was all done to make us believe reality the way they wanted us to believe it. So we need to be careful with certain things, and believing...I'd say, let's go to being thinkers, not believers. And the other thing is, we should always be real to ourselves. Define our own reality. And I mean be real to ourselves about who we are and what we're up to, and don't hide behind a bunch of lame self-rationalizations and denials and all this and that.  If we're going to do a thing, be real to our self about what it is that we're doing. And it's a way of learning to take responsibility. And if we be real about ourselves, to ourselves about what we're doing, if it's stuff we can't live with, it will evolve out of our reality. If it's disgusting and you can live with it then live with it. Accept who we are because we have to participate as a whole. See, too many of us have been divided and compartmentalized and we have parts we're not comfortable with and parts we don't like, so we want to be in denial and rationalization, but I'm telling you, for the good that it is that we say we seek, the only way we're going to get there, with it being as solid and focused as it should be, is we have to participate as a whole, not just with the parts. Because whatever change it is, whatever change it is that we want, whether it's in this political manifestation or in the opening up of other areas of awareness...the result we get will be based upon what we bring to the table. So if we bring chaos and emotionalism then that's what we're going to get. It really is time to take the responsibility to think, and I'm going to say, because when we're dealing with the next generation...what can we pass to them that we know is going to look out for them? Which institution? What is it?  What are the institution or authoritarian mechanisms are there here that's going to look out for them? And I think we know that there are none. So, for us to develop our ability to be coherent, so that we can pass that to them, we can let them learn it from us, to be coherent. I guarantee you, if we don't pass on and develop the understanding about the value and power of our intelligence to our children, they will eat them the fastest, and this is the reality of it. How many kids grew up to be like their parents when they didn't want to? So it's not just a matter of telling a child to use their intelligence clearly and coherently, it's a matter of using your intelligence as clearly and coherently as possible. And get away from judgment, don't judge anything. Judge absolutely nothing. It's not your right or your responsibility to judge. Your right and your responsibility is to recognize reality. Recognize reality. Recognize reality. For every trauma, drama, and situation that ever came up, there are circumstances that surround it and show it for exactly what it is, so you must recognize reality. Don't judge reality. Because judging again is like the belief thing. Judging...you can't really recognize because the judging thing is a looping of the thoughts of judgments, and judgment always comes home and hits the hardest.  It always does.  Recognize reality. Define our own reality.

I appreciate whatever you get out of what was said, but it's really about thinking.

"Good deeds live in a parallel of regrets."

"The whole thing has been a struggle to do enough good to balance the good I didn't do." 

"As to good and bad, I'm trying to come out even.  But my multiples have multiples of their own. The skeletons in my closets have their own closets. So sometimes it gets kind of exciting in here."

http://cbs5.com/video 

I just watched a video on-line from CBS5 of Tony Blair at a meeting at Genentech today. He spoke of the importance of the US/Britain collaboration in genetic research, especially with regard to the growing threat of international competition.  Based on this brief address, the collaborative spirit doesn't seem to extend beyond this cozy little alliance.

If these people are really in the business of furthering human health, why on earth would international collaboration--between and within all countries--NOT be a top priority?  Perhaps it is an obvious answer--competition and capitalism--but this surely is not an adequate answer. Human nature seems to lay the groundwork for hoarding one's discoveries and cashing in before anyone else can catch up, but this obviously does nothing to increase the health and well being of those who will be paying for those discoveries as they fight for their lives against a growing variety of illnesses.

How does the human animal grow beyond its hoarding nature in the interest of better health and greater well being for all?  Sure, science moves "forward" despite this attitude of competition, but what immense leaps and strides could science make in an atmosphere of collaboration?  What if scientists working all across the planet input their incremental progress into a central, shared database, and through collaborative exploration, leant their insights and brilliance to one another's dilemmas?

It was through cooperation that the beautiful web of life came into being. What wondrous things could we learn if we followed her example?