Imagine

"George Monbiot, in his Guardian article, asks some important questions about living without industrial electricity: “How do we drive our textile mills, brick kilns, blast furnaces and electric railways—not to mention advanced industrial processes? Rooftop solar panels?” But he reaches an illogical conclusion: “The moment you consider the demands of the whole economy is the moment at which you fall out of love with local energy production.” Actually, no. The moment you consider the demands of the whole economy is the moment you fall out of love with the whole economy, an economy that is systematically exploitative and destructive, an economy that is killing the planet. "

Derrick Jensen making thoughtful, soul scouring points.

Shadow Work For The Planet

You sometimes wonder, don’t you, if Mother Gaia can handle the problems humans cause all on her own? And you see stuff like this , where tons and tons of heroic jellyfish shut down nuclear power plants in Scotland and Israel, and stuff like this, where turtles shut down a major airplane runway for whole minutes at a time(and although that was due more to human sensitivity to the turtles’ presence, who’s to say that humans’ sensitivity to non-human life is not also a guerrilla tactic of the mother? ) and think, hmm, AIDS, superbug gonorrhea , multi-drug-resistant TB….is the planet fighting back on Her own after all?



Well, apart from the fact that the Earth is a complex living system made up of so many interlocking cycles, rhythms and states of being that we can’t parse them all let alone see how exactly they all work, she is also a larger Being who is part of Us, the All, and so Her fighting back, or separate human groups and individuals fighting on her behalf, is really only Us fighting with Ourselves after all.

Note that this does not mean that everything is OK. Competition and cooperation go on all the time within the life which is the Cosmos, and we fight or cooperate with different parts of ourselves all the time – it’s what makes it all go tick- tock. But if you see a woman being raped around the corner, you don’t go “Oh that’s alright then, it’s just part of the All”..no indeed, you intervene on the woman’s behalf, even paying with your life if need be.

It’s about the fight within Us, and We need to continue to struggle for the best benefit of All. If that means we kill the polluters, hang the corporates and blow up the dam builders- then that’s what we do. Hanging back in a kind of transcendental bliss is not what Life is about. We fight. With ourselves. And we die, all the time. Because nothing is fore-ordained. It can all still end in tears, you know.



So I draw the parallel of ecosphere struggle with my own recent and ongoing shadow work.

I don’t tolerate all my demons and love them to death, you know. The five year old little girl full of rage at being a girl- her I let live, and love her into integration with my individuated self. But other demons which constitute the multi-voiced entity I do drag kicking and screaming into the light, and stake to death. I’m sorry, but I’m unable to deal gently with some of my shadow selves.After recognising them and dialoguing with them long enough to, hopefully, understand who they are and where they came from - I kill them dead.

And so should we with some of the shadow beings who make up the totality of this Gaian system – or even wider, this cosmic self – tolerance and loving kindness is not, I suggest, the way to deal with them.



Like the compassionate jellyfish, I think we should consider intervening with violence if necessary, in this struggle within Us for everlasting Life or fairly sudden and equally everlasting Death.

Fukushima's Fallout on My Soul

...an essay by GreenRevolutionary


For two months now massive plumes of radiative particles have been spewing into the atmosphere from the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima. These particles have been carried through the jetstream across the northern Pacific ocean, to the west coast of north america, to the east coast and then finally across the Atlantic to Europe and eventually, if it hasn't already, the atmosphere of the entire global north will be contaminated by the radioactive particles produced by the multiple reactor meltdowns in Fukushima.



The Japanese government and the company responsible for managing the plant; Tepco, have been pouring massive amounts of water onto the nuclear reactors but have been unable to raise the water level at all within the reactors; which are designed to be full of water at all times. The coolant systems which have now failed were supposed to supply 1 million gallons of water per minute to each of Fukushima's six reactors [according to Dr. Helen Caldicott http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITrXVJMKeQ&feature=player_embedded]; apparently they had no backup plan in case they were unable to permanently supply this preposterous amount of water to the reactors.



There has been no real progress made in Fukushima since the beginning of the accident; in fact things have only gotten much worse. Tepco and the government's attempts to raise the water levels in reactors 1 and 2 have totally failed either because there is massive leaking of radioactive water into the ground and surrounding environment, or because they are unable to provide water at the rate necessary to cool the reactors enough for water to exist in their vicinity. Either way, the reactors are still exposed to the air, still releasing massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere, and still at risk of hydrogen explosions.



Additionally, we know that Tepco and the government have been intentionally dumping massive amounts of radioactive water directly into the ocean; because they simply have nowhere else to store it all. This radioactive water will travel the major ocean currents of the Pacific and eventually will flow down the west coast of North America. In the center will be the Great Pacific Garbage Gyre being bathed in radioactive rain. All ocean systems are ultimately connected and it is possible that the dumping of so much nuclear waste into the ocean could contaminate the seas worldwide.



And the radiation won't stop coming out of the reactors for an estimated 6 to 9 months according to Tepco and the government; a timetable which many scientists seem to think is extremely optimistic. So radiation will continue to pour out of the plant until then.



But wait a minute, I'm not sick yet. What does exposure to radiation actually do to the human body?



Well, radiation exposure can effect one in a few different ways depending on the type and amount of exposure. Let's explore what the future holds for our species.



First, there is Acute Radiation Syndrome. This occurs when a person is exposed to a source of ionizing radiation, and refers to health effects which appear quickly [within several months of exposure] rather than over the long term [years or decades after exposure]. This is when someone is exposed to an external source of radiation, rather than ingesting a radioactive particle into one's body through the lungs or digestive tract. In other words, this is what people in Japan and nearby the plant have to worry about. The speed of the onset of symptoms usually indicates the severity of the dose.



Acute radiation sickness normally indicates a large dose. The average dose of radiation administered to a person by a medical x-ray device is something like 0.1 Gy, and people begin to get acute radiation sickness at doses of 1-2 Gy. Though there have been exposures of more than 30Gy, 8 Gy is more than sufficient to kill 100% of those exposed, whether they receive medical care or not.



An exposure of 6-8 Gy kills between 95-100% of those who do not receive care, an between 50-100% of those who do. Exposures of 2-6 Gy kill between 5-50% of those who receive care and between 5-100% of those who do not.



Now the fun part; the symptoms!



1. Nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite

2. Bleeding from Orifices

3. Massive infections

4. Anemia

5. Loss of white blood cells (Leukopenia)

6. Hair loss

7. Central Nervous Systems ranging from cognitive impairment to seizures, tremor and ataxia (severe lack of coordination of muscle movements)

8. Etc.



Furthermore, if you are lucky enough to have a small enough exposure to survive the Acute Radiation Syndrome, you also have to deal with the long-term cancer risks associated with accumulated radiation exposure. Every particle of radioactive dust or fallout you breath in or ingest adds to your risk of getting cancer and will irradiate you from the inside out until it is removed, expelled or decays. This causes cancer. Exposures are cumulative; so every dose one gets adds to one's chance of getting cancer.



Fallout comes down in the rain. It has been raining where I live for six days, and at first I was mostly avoiding it and staying inside. I looked on in sadness as the radioactive rain fell down on the plants and animals and the soil outside. I have no Gieger counter, but I have a basic understanding of the interconnectedness of all things. I know the jetstream is bringing radioactive fallout down in the rain where I live. I know this will be happening for a very long time. They won't have the situation even remotely under control until next year at the earliest.



Sitting in the garden the day before yesterday I came to this realization; there are over 440 nuclear reactors in the world. There are over 100 in my own country; the majority of which seem to be concentrated in the Northeast, where I live. There will be more accidents. Eventually, as the grid comes down, there will be no one left with the ability to entomb reactors and there will be massive radiation leakage, almost certainly, whatever we do.



I sat down on the wet grass under a small peach tree and surrounded by flowers and plants yet to bloom. The pair of cardinals who've built their nest in an evergreen next to the house used the time in between rain showers to gather food. The robins who are moving in to an adjacent shrub shuttled in and out of their new home, each time returning to the nest with a beakful of small twigs. Pollinators swarm the flowers during the lull in the rain.



And then, the rain began to fall again. Lightly at first, and I did not move. Why should I. What is the point? I'm virtually guaranteed cancer at this point anyway, even before this accident. All this does is help me let go of the denial. If I live long enough, I will get cancer. I guess in my heart I've always sort of known we'd reach that point in my lifetime; the point at which the environment is so contaminated with carcinogens that virtually 100% of humans will get cancer in their lifetimes.



As it began to pour harder I looked at all of the living things around me. The living world in the place where I live and love enduring baptism by nuclear fallout. Large heavy drops fall on my head, my shoulders, my back, my arms, my legs. My shoulders and back are soon wet through my now moist shirt. The robins continue shuttling. The male cardinal hops from branch to branch low to the ground in the woods, hunting. I do not see the female. I lift my face to the sky and open my mouth, and tears escape from the corners of my eyes to run down my cheeks and mix with the radioactive rain on their way down to the ground.



And there was peace. There was calm. This is where I live. This is my landbase. This is my rain. Our fates are fused. If there is fallout in the rain, and there may not be today but there certainly will be plenty of times before they get this disaster under control, then there will be fallout in my body. So be it. That makes it all the easier to fight for this place while there is still some fight left in me. The years go on; entire ecosystems die - last year the Gulf of Mexico. The year before the discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Gyre. This year the entire north Pacific Ocean.



A personal future in this world becomes easier and easier to sacrifice. A personal future filled with low white blood cell counts, dying of massive infections in a similar manner to aids patients. Or a personal future with low platelet counts; which are responsible for the clotting of blood and without which the body may bleed profusely and unexpectedly from the nose, rectum or the simplest of skin abrasions. Or dying of bone cancer - or perhaps bone necrosis; where the bone inside a part of one's body dies; and the dead tissue decomposes and causes surrounding tissue to die. Tissue necrosis often leads to gangrene. A personal future watching everything I love die. That's what waiting leads to. That's what the kind of denial that would have me go hide inside from the rain leads to.



I'd rather a personal future spent fighting fiercely for that which is left of what I love; fighting fiercely for life. I don't want to witness the death of the world. I don't want to witness the total and complete unraveling of the web of life. I won't be one of those left at the end who can only leave the house in protective gear for ten minutes at a time to look at the last remaining tree in town before it too dies of radiation poisoning.



No, instead I'll fight for what's left of the web of life, while anything at all still remains of it. I will put everything I am into this fight while I still can. I will fight because there's no better future I'd rather hold out for. I will fight for the right of future generations not just of human beings but of all species to exist on this planet, our home, if we can defend it from those who would participate in omnicide in exchange for a little cash in their pocket. It's time to wake up to reality, time to wake up to responsibility and time to kick the rabid, psychopathic leaders of government and industry off of the fucking planet once and for all.

Death By Murder

I know I haven't said anything about the Copenhagen debacle. What is it that I could say?

Well, I could say that personally, I don't believe that Climate Change-or-Global-Warming is a conspiracy theory - I tend to think that all conspiracy theorists are wishing for is for someone, anyone, to know what's going on and be in charge, even if they are evil.

No, I think that the scientists whose job of work is to try to know what's going on with the planet's climate are non-malicious, largely well-meaning people who are putting together the data as best they can, without an ulterior motive.Or much of one outside of their civilised self-interests, of course.

But what mass media has to say about the whole thing is another matter entirely. The popular press has made much of Global Warming - well, there' so much pomp and ceremony, so much political drama to cover, isn't there? But the thing I see very little about in the mass media of communications is the plethora of ways in which civilisation is hacking and poisoning to death our only planet.

Pthalates and dioxins in food and water and air. Seas of deadness and of floating masses of plastic. Human and non-human beings altered chemically by the by products of civilisation, maimed, dying and grossly distorted. Whole mountain tops being hacked off. Clearcuts. What on Earth could ever be the rationalisation for clearcuts, for gods' sakes?

The Earth is not dying - it is being murdered. Soil layer by soil layer, stratum by stratum, ocean by ocean. Our effluents are doing a thorough job of making our entire environment fucking toxic.

It needs to come down. It needs to come down now. And all the while, the mass media would have you believe that climate change is the one thing we need to focus on. Not a conspiracy. A fucking mind-blowing display of civilised thinking. Don't focus over there. Focus over here. With the perpetual holding out of hope that l the governments of the world can do something about it.

While we slash and burn and toxify our planet, with no end in sight as the population grows and the demand for food and fuel increases. Entire countries have been invaded for this demand, I remind you.

It's the Machine which needs to be clearcut. And right now.

With Friends Like These..

How's this for a bizarre article?

"Biologists have shown that it's a natural tendency of living creatures to fill up all available habitat and use up all available resources"

says William Rees, who is apparently an ecologist.

Now, pardon me while I scratch my head, here.
When did you last see salmon using up all the available water in a river?
Pied Crows using up all the available air? Or trees? Or even food, for that matter?
And the last time you saw a pride of lions slaughtering all the available game in its area was....?

Dr Rees is obviously mistaking all living creatures for humankind.

Ah, but we get a glimmering of understanding as to where he's coming from in his next utterance:

"That's what underlies Darwinian evolution, and species that do it best are the ones that survive, but we do it better than any other species"

Well, given a certain reading of the word better,I might be inclined to agree with him there.

The article's author continues ploughing on with this alarming statement:

Although we like to think of ourselves as civilised thinkers, we're subconsciously still driven by an impulse for survival, domination and expansion.

Is this truly how some people still think and write?
That we're 'subconsciously' driven by an impulse for survival (!) and that one can include the words domination and expansion in the same sentence?

Talk about slipping your assumptions past the reader!

As if it's nothing more than our instincts which causes these symptoms of Wetiko disease.
The expansion and domination symptoms have been displayed by humankind in the last few thousand years - and not all humans, just the civilised ones. There have been, and still are, populations of humans living in cultures which do not have hierarchical control of everything natural as their prime objective. But the author doesn't seem to be aware of these facts, preferring the picture he has in his mind of civilisation as the apex of all humanity - just as most of us were brought up to believe.

Expanding the Present

Sickness and recuperation are great times for practising new spiritual modalities.

I've almost finished David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous, and I was motivated enough by his description of a method for expanding the Present to try it out for myself.

Abram recommends doing this outdoors, preferably in a non urban setting, but I started it inside, in a suburban setting, being the contrary cuss that I am at times.

His method is to stand (sit in lotus in my case) and imagine the full weight of all your years of personal past extending behind you in a sort of balloon-like structure, while all your years to come - your personal future - inflates a similar balloon in front of you.
You are thus standing at the confluence of the two balloons - past and future - in a pinched funnel meeting somewhere in your body. Around your third chakra, or solar plexus, would be about right.

Fairly slowly, start collapsing the two balloons of past and future time. Feel the mass of all this temporality flow into the space where you stand. Faster and faster, deflate the balloons, as the time-space immediately around you....expands.

I can't explain the feeling this engenders. You're going to have to try it for yourself to see what I mean. It's a rush of Presence so intense it can take your breath away. But breathe.

With practise, I can do this almost anywhere now, and it's a very handy tool when the Machine threatens to envelop me during my day-to-day living.

I'm still looking for the right words to describe this feeling. Umm. Intense 'hereness' as well as 'nowness'. A sense of Reality quite a bit more persuasive than the normal mode we tend to live in. Deep. Comforting. Strong. Reassuring.

Nope - I was right, I don't have the words. Maybe the words are...not.
Maybe you have to go out there and do this.

Pic: Found Here

Refineries Shut in Nigeria

This is the way you do it.

"it is the people of Niger Delta that ought to offer amnesty to the Federal Government of Nigeria for years of occupation, environmental degradation" and other economic hardship that had brought "poverty to the entire Niger Delta."

(Alhaji Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, detained by the state's goons until yesterday)

Don't Do It, MEND

The current president of Nigeria,Umaru Yar'Adua, has offered amnesty to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.

"I hereby grant amnesty and unconditional pardon to all persons who have directly or indirectly participated in the commission of offences associated with militant activities in the Niger Delta" Yar'Adua proclaimed from Abuja yesterday.

Don't do it, MEND. Don't take up any phony offers from the ruling elite.
You're doing just fine, harassing the oil companies and frankly, I believe they're running scared of you right now.

And I wouldn't trust that bugger Yar'Adua as far as I could throw him, anyway.

The existence of a group like MEND - who are actually winning in the anti-wetiko wars - warms my heart on a day when the freezing wind is numbing my fingers and the ice in the air is bringing strange, and somehow evil scents to my nostrils.

Resist, Do Not Comply

Thanks, Misko!



Nikki Craft, Lierre Keith and Derrick Jensen collaborating on a music video about catastrophic climate change, arctic animals, and militant direct action.

You can help by passing this information on:

Nikki Craft, Lierre Keith, and Derrick Jensen are collaborating in this music video about catastrophic climate change, arctic animals, and militant direct action. This ten minute video is a call on activists to discuss and seriously consider militant tactics and direct action in defense of all life on the planet.

If you find the link to this video is broken or if you need more information go to www.resistdonotcomply.org and/or join the Facebook group Resist Do Not Comply at Facebook Group
Read the two-volume book, Endgame, by Derrick Jensen if you want specific ideas for strategy and activism.

You can help by sharing this information with your friends, all the social networking sites, and appropriate Facebook groups. For more information, or if you would like your own copy of this video to directly upload to sites, please send a friend request to Nikki Craft on Facebook or off FB contact her at nikkicraft@gmail.com. If you share this video, and we hope you will, please include all text herein.

Getting the KhoiSan Goat

Botswana government doesn't like Bushmen's goats.

Apparently, the abusive government of Ian Khama thinks that the Bushmen's goats don't match the decor of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

As if the First People of the Kalahari hadn't had enough rubbish to put up with. Evicted from their ancestral land a couple of years ago, they've recently been allowed to return. They then had their goats confiscated, and returned - and now confiscated once again.

The KhoiSan are the great big finger pointing at this country's Bantu population. They give the lie to Black South Africans claiming indigenous status. Bantu and European both have harassed and abused these hunter-gatherers almost to extinction.

I recommend a visit to the website of the First People.

There's a lot more going on in this neck of the woods than recovery from the brutalising apartheid regime. There's entrenched civilisation at work here, just as it has been for thousands of years.

Yes, thousands.

Pic: BBC

Wetikos Among Us

Not having grown up on occupied Turtle Island, and never having read “Columbus and Other Cannibals", I was struggling to come to grips with the context and meaning of the term wetiko, and it was being discussed in the Derrick Jensen forums recently. I felt unable to understand exactly what was meant by this word which was being used with such ease by the good radicals and activists I love to interact with online.

This evening the partner and I popped in at a local shopping square (not quite a mall- the same shops, but built around the parking lot, facing in to it) for the weekend’s groceries. Just recently, this square has been the scene of a couple of grisly incidents: about a month ago, a young woman was raped and murdered with a hammer almost within sight of pub-goers and sports-television addicts. The perpetrator was arrested by a security guard on duty at a townhouse complex. Then a few days ago a very small girl was in the process of being lured into a strange man’s car when her mother noticed her missing from the ghastly industrial ‘play area’ in the square, and caught the abduction before it was effected.

As we walked through the carpark, partner and I were going over these incidents, and I opined that, wherever high numbers of the civilized are packed together, as in this area of endless concrete and steel ‘security complexes’ and shopping centres, there you will always find these civilized humans tearing insanely at each others’ throats.

“Fucking wetikos” was what came out of my mouth next, much to my surprise. At that moment, I realized that I had found the context in which to understand the term in my own locality.

Wetikos are Black, White, Coloured and Indian – the race is unimportant. They live almost on top of each other, as this enables them to have access to what feeds them – the feelings, fears and life-force of other humans. And also, in more than a few cases, their very lives. Wetikos live on others’ pain and suffering. There they are, stalking the paved-over roads beneath the ‘security’ lights. Zombie life forms seeking the stink of terror to keep themselves alive. Cruising down the tarmac in their ludicrously over-powered vehicles, shopping for the tastiest morsels of human life force to be picked off the streets.

Of course, wetikos also consume non-human lives and life-forces. But their distinguishing mark is, it seems to me, a need for sustenance from others of their own species.

Cannibals, indeed.

But are wetikos confined to men abducting little girls or your neighbourhood rapist-murderer? Of course not. They’re just displaying the qualities they’ve absorbed from the over culture. There are wetikos in government, for sure – the power over other people which the title of President gives is a certain source of wetiko nourishment. The ANC Youth League is, it seems to me, composed entirely of wetikos. Rather dim ones, but there you are. The media is another wetiko gathering place. Emiseration really feeds them. Corporate boardrooms are a natural habitat for these creatures, of course, as are golf courses – and here you see them feeding at more of a remove, as they plan together how best to gather the resources of the world to cram into their rapacious maws.

I’m sure that Columbus was a wetiko. He has thousands of incarnations today, under various names: Chevron, Texaco, Monsanto, CocaCola, Pacific Lumber. And he’s returned to Europe and pitched up in Africa in a more monstrous form. Human slavery, starvation, war and misery continues to vitalize him. Will we stop him?

Image: found at Eskimo.com

The Reaping of a Bitter Harvest

This is a good snapshot of what industrial agriculture wreaks across the planet.

Punjabi farmers were persuaded, by Americans, no doubt backed by Big Agri and with visions of cheaply imported wheat in their eyes, to grow intensive crops of wheat,rice and cotton in place of their customary mix.

The farmers grew rich for the first few decades - and now are scrambling to harvest a decent crop, at three times the price they started with.

The soil has been depleted, the water table to enable these rapacious cereals to grow is dropping by two feet every year, and the farmers are facing poverty. Never mind about the devastated land.

Salt has seeped up with the more deeply retrieved water. The same thing is happening in Australia.

One day, we might wake up and realise that, as much as we'd like to feed the world, we can't really do it without a planet.

Goddess Bless

If:

People from far and wide, sensing that no one could stop them, started dumping nuclear and bio-hazardous waste on your shoreline, causing your family and friends to sicken and die, and you had no cure for what ailed them - would you stand upon the shore and shake your fist at the sky?

And If:

These same predatory people started trawling the oceans off your shores where the poison hadn't yet reached, carrying off the better part of the fish and sea life with them to far countries, and you and your family and friends barely had enough to keep body and soul together - would you mutter darkly into the ground?

Or:

Would you - being a young person and full of anger as your loved ones died of starvation and of strange wasting diseases - hatch a plan to defend your land against these callous strangers? These strangers who barely considered you a human being, who knew the defenseless state of your countrymen and yet, instead of compassion, dealt death; in place of food aid dispensed sickness?

What would it take - if you were the mother of sons and daughters - to encourage them to take to the waters in little boats, carrying all the weaponry they could lay their hands upon, and to avenge the murder of their kin?

I have no two thoughts on this. The Somalian pirates are taking on the world. If I were in their shoes, I would do just whatever it took to defy the cultures of destructive evil and - yes - to kill as many of them as I had it in me to take out.

God-forms and spirits all bless you.

This Culture is Insane

Sometimes, it’s difficult to really appreciate that this civilization is, in fact, truly insane.

Acculturated since birth as we are to accept the dynamics of the social hierarchies, it’s kind of easy to let glaring examples of how the violence flows only one way with impunity pass us by. I know, I do it too. I’m still struggling out of almost 50 years of engrained status quo.

But today I was shocked almost breathless by a prime lesson in how human kind considers themselves the peak and pinnacle of all that is. In an area not too far from where I live, called Hennops River Valley, amongst the low mountains of the Magaliesberg, a leopard has been spotted. Yeah, I know – it’s hardly likely to be striped. Anyway, a driver gave the latest report. He was very sure that he saw the leopard, and called in to alert the authorities. He was so very sure it was a leopard because – and listen with your soul to this – he tried to run it over.

No, he didn’t accidently nearly hit it. He deliberately tried to run it over and, presumably, kill it.

Now certainly a leopard is a large predator. However, how deep have we buried the knowledge that human beings are by far and away the most lethal animal we’re ever likely to come across? Do we spot a man and try to run him down? Well OK, sometimes perhaps. But such an act would draw immediate censure from most of our fellow human beings. The cold-blooded decision to kill the big cat did not draw such ire. I’m sure there are many folk in the area who would not only do the same, but be forgiven and even hailed for this premeditated murder.

A leopard is a pussy cat compared to each and every one of us.

And that’s a small ‘u’, meaning the hilariously named species Homo Sapiens.

Man, you see, can direct his deadly violence towards wild nature and get completely away with it. Some of us fear Her and some of us hate Her. But many, many of us feel justified in controlling Her entirely.

Connected to this notion of Man’s urgent primacy over wild nature – and his self-justified smugness at exercising it whenever the opportunity arises – are a couple of stories making the main stream media today.

In one incident, a Metro (Traffic) cop and his Police Service sidekick pulled over a taxi driver and demanded to see his license.

I know, I know. We all love to hate the taxi drivers – I can be found yelling at them in no very complementary terms any rush hour of the week. But these cops found it expedient apparently to pepper spray the unresisting driver, to handcuff him in a less than gentle manner, and to steal his day’s takings.

We need to think deeply about this, too. The only reason this pair made the news was that their brutality was captured on a CCTV camera. Appropriate outraged squawks from their managers. Yes, at least one of them has now been suspended from duty. But it brings to the forefront the way in which the Police force feel almost above the very law they claim to uphold.

Now this is a good point to ponder: the police in any country is supposed to be a force composed of people sworn to protect and to serve. Ask yourself now – just who are they protecting and serving? I submit to you that it is the non-person of the State who is the object of their tender protection, not the citizen.

This point was made again in the second police story of the day. A bare couple of days ago, a known murderer – responsible for the killing of at least five other people in the past – shot and killed two police investigators in Etwatwa on the East Rand.
The police spokesman came on air to declare that this person was well known to the police, and that now they were going all out to get him.

How many times have we seen this? A criminal can have killed, raped or abused any number of common citizens and the investigation will be 'ongoing'. But just let his victim be a member of the armed wing of the state, and suddenly all stops are pulled out, all personnel deployed, all leave cancelled.

The cops surrounded the shack in which this murderer was hiding, today. Surrounded it in force, all heavily armed. They shot the shack full of holes and the known killer was himself killed – whether by the police or by his own hand remains debatable.

This sort of thing is fairly common – I’m sure we can all think of examples. Kill a member of the public, and the case will be investigated. But don’t hold your breath. Kill a member of the violent enforcers of the State, and vendetta is called. You will be immediately hunted down and snuffed. With extreme prejudice. And members of the general public will applaud.

What Do You Want?

“Now my question for you: Do you think that those people who are not willing to take drastic action-whatever action is necessary-in order to make sure the planet remains habitable are reachable by any means? If they will not fight back with all the world at stake-literally, physically, in all truth-when will they ever fight back?”

(Endgame Volume 2 - Resistance. p.526)

I think many people are reachable. It’s all a matter of changing their mindset. I know some people would rather die than change their stance on a certain topic, but I’m encouraged by what I see around me to believe that not too many of us are like that.

I was listening to a podcast interview with the artist and sorcerer Alan Moore this weekend. A magickal practitioner is often worth a listen, as their worldviews are frequently interesting. Unfortunately, Alan Moore’s worldview is also appalling. He’s one of those (and I’m going to use nasty language here) Ceremonial Magicians who seems to have detached himself from the Earth.

Land, Sea and Sky seem to mean nothing to him, as he encourages his listeners to ride the Technological Culture. I wanted to yell at him “Where to, Alan Moore? To the destruction of the world? Because that’s where it's delivering us. ”

I find it’s quite common in this culture for people to be so habituated into anthropomorphic thinking that the word ‘life’ literally doesn’t mean anything other than human life to them. But, since I used to be so deep into this civilisation myself that I tended toward that way of thinking, I hold out some hope that others can be reached.

Our communications with others still wearing the hoodwink and the nosebag should, whenever possible, be designed to shake them out of their well-worn ruts of thought. Perhaps they, too will start to question, start to wonder, and start to agree with us. Even if, as with many Buddhists and Pagans, they have so much invested in their vision of evolving humankind, I believe they can be persuaded to look at the solid foundations of reality as well, and to realise that we’re destroying them very rapidly indeed.



“What do you want?”
(Endgame Volume 2 - Resistance. p.534)

I want a world where the land is not encased in concrete and steel; where fully-grown trees are not transplanted into new shopping malls as prisoners in cement blocks, already dying.

I want a world where air is good to breathe, for those of us who need it, and where water is not poisonous. Where food is not seen as a commodity and human and nonhuman people are not portrayed as property.

I want a world where creature, plant and human interact in a planetary web of existence: sometimes killing and eating each other, sometimes helping and healing each other.

I want a world where trust is not one of the first things we lose as we come into existence; where the race is for the entirety of Life to run, and to win. Where we create together – microbe, songbird and human being – the incarnation which benefits All of Us.

I want a world where immanence is not secondary to transcendence, if it is mentioned as a positive at all ; where mankind is not continually striving to get off-planet, out-of-body and away from Mother.


What Do You Want?

Gardening vs Agriculture

Misko over at Kinoo Doodaym has a good post up about rewilding today.

Written by Daniel Quiray of the Rewild New England group, it synchronistically covers that pro-agri-argument some of you have been posting at me.(I'm looking at you, Braxie, and The Michael).

Or maybe it just says what you've been saying. It's called horticulture, though, I think!

Pic: We Like it Raw

Terri Rethinks the Sabbats

I've not been a supporter of agriculture for a while now, and yet I'm still using the whole slew of NeoPagan Sabbats - which are unashamedly agricultural in nature - to celebrate the turning of the wheel.

Whether or not agriculture was inevitable, it's been our undoing - and that of the planet, too.

Farming and raising crops has arguably been the single biggest contribution to the sedentary population, and the rise of those consummate evils - the village, the town and the city.

So for a while now I've been looking at the Sabbats from a non-agri, earth based standpoint, and I've come up with a few ideas.

Starting from where I'm standing right now, I'm inclined to rename Mabon (Alban Elved) as the season of Rushing Dark Water. That's what it feels like. A black river running fast and smooth through the landscape of our souls.

Next I'm going to be facing Samhain, and on a bit of reflection I'm thinking of this as the time of Exhalation, when the Earth lets out a final, relieved breath, and all Her organs contract a little, releasing something of the captive Spirit which has gathered during the year.

Yule is of course the season of Frozen Earth. Locked down and solid.

Imbolc would be Fire Down Below.

Ostara White Water. If you've ever gone white water rafting you'll be sure to see what I mean. Happy White Water to all in the Northern Hemisphere.

Beltane comes back around to Air - this time the Great Inhalation, as She brings Life force into Herself more fully.

Summer Solstice is Earth on Fire, and Lughnasadh Fire from Heaven.

Which brings us back to Do...err...Rushing Dark Water.

I noticed that these seasons were following the order of elements on the pentacle : Water, Air, Earth and Fire.

The Equinoctial axes are of Water; the Solsticial ones of Earth.
The so-called Cross Quarters take on Fire (Imbolc/Lughnasadh) and Air(Beltane/Samhain).

So far, it's resonating well for me. Well, it would, wouldn't it, since I made it up?

I'll probably have to do some fine tuning, but I've got , as ever, Plenty of Time.

Pic found, surprisingly, at the Daily Kos. Although I notice that those points are incorrectly attributed with the elements! Oh don't be such a fucking fusspot, Terri.

Corporate What?

Sermon from the Corporate Church

This belief, that property is more valuable than human life itself, is the basis of humanity’s current problems

Almost. But not quite, Peter Chamberlain.

The belief that property is more valuable than Life itself is the problem.

Once more, All together:

"Which would you rather have - your car or the planet?"

Not Swallows and Amazons

StompStompStompStomp
Crash.Whirr.

What was this? A ten ton rhino storming past my work station on its way to disembowel lunch? No, 'twas the waif-like female from the next department, asserting her presence in high heeled shoes.

Do so many women do this - this stomping, aggressive walk - because they have so much suppressed anger or rage and it's the only way they can express it? Or do they think, perhaps, that they appear more commanding, more assertive, more...errr..masculine if they walk as though the ground offended them?

I'm not sure. I do know that the House martins were swooping joyously this morning, under a lowering grey sky, and that my Cape Sparrow friends, having ignored me on Monday when I came back from a week's leave, scolded me on Tuesday and gleefully eaten my grain offerings this morning (with many a happy chirp)would consider us mad, the way we dissociate ourselves from our Mother.

Or encase Her in concrete and steel. Or subject Her to continual ploughing, pesticiding and draining of Her nutrients. Or, for that matter, ignore Her completely.

I know that I spent the greater part of my life in the dull-witted paradigm in which only humans matter, have value and can think, feel or create. What a crock of shit. Unfortunately for all of us, it's the same paradigm that the majority of human animals live in, and with. Not so much a wanton cruelty as an almost wilful ignorance. It's not to be excused, even in myself - well, especially not in myself.

How to hand the keys to freedom of being to other humans? I don't know. It could be a gradual awakening, I suppose - but we've not got time for that. It may have to be a shocked rousing from slumber.

In the meantime, I'll try to go easy on the female stompers. It's also not really fair on the rhino.

Derrick Jensen's Star Wars

Love it.


"I have in my hands an extremely rare early draft of the Star Wars film script, never before published. It may surprise you to learn that the early drafts were written by environmentalists.

In this version, the rebels do not of course blow up the Death Star, but instead prefer to use other tactics to slow the intergalactic march of Empire. For example, they set up programs for people on planets about to be destroyed to produce luxury items like hemp hacky sacks and gourmet coffee for sale to inhabitants of the Death Star.

Audience members will also discover that there are plans afoot to encourage loads of troopers and other citizens of the Empire to take ecotours of doomed planets. The purpose will be to show to one and all that these planets are economically important to the Empire and so should not be destroyed.

In a surprise move that will rivet viewers to the edges of their seats, other groups of rebels file lawsuits against the Empire, attempting to show that the Environmental Impact Statement Darth Vader was required to file failed to adequately support its decision that blowing up this planet would cause “no significant impact.” "