Derrick Jensen has been Rescued!

Well, if you haven't heard, Derrick Jensen was kidnapped a few days ago. But thanks to heroes like Urban Scout he was rescued. And someone was lucky enough to capture the rescue on film. Check out this video.

New Hero: John Trudell

A few days ago my friends took me up to Duluth, MN. to a viewing of the documentry Trudell: The Movie. Afterwards we got the chance to hang out with John and ask him questions about anything ranging from his past activism, what he thinks about the powers that be, and his music and poetry. I'm really glad that I went. John has a lot of knowledge and wisdom to share when it comes to talking about this mess (Global warming, overpopulation, species extinction, spritual crisis, etc.) that we are in.

I highly recommend checking out the documentry about John and the fifteen minute talk about clear and coherent thought. I'll post the trailor to Trudell: The Movie and a video of the short talk below.

Trailor for Trudell: The Movie.

And here is the video link to the fifteen minute talk about introducing coherency into the reality of energy : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6571339670615446379

Derrick Jensen's Talk on YouTube

For those of you who aren't familiar with Derrick Jensen's books these two videos are an excellent primer. A few years back I attended one of his talks in Minnesota. The videos and his talk were very similar.

Endgame Video One

Endgame Video Two

If you haven't read Endgame, I highly recommend it! Derrick puts forth a really good argument on why we need to take down civilization as as possible.

Kurt Vonnegut Dies At Age 84

The amazing human being and author Kurt Vonnegut died today at the age of 84.

Here is a really good essay titled: Cold Turkey, that he wrote in 2004.

The Trap

It IS possible to get out of a trap. However, in order to break out of a prison, one first must confess to being in a prison. The trap is man's emotional structure, his character structure. There is little use in devising systems of thought about the nature of the trap if the only thing to do in order to get out of the trap is to know the trap and to find the exit. Everything else is utterly useless: Singing hymns about the suffering in the trap, as the enslaved Negro does; or making poems about the beauty of freedom outside of the trap, dreamed of within the trap; or promising a life outside the trap after death, as Catholicism promises its congregations; or confessing a semper ignorabimus as do the resigned philosophers; or building a philosophic system around the despair of life within the trap, as did Schopenhauer; or dreaming up a superman who would be so much different from the man in the trap, as Nietzsche did, until, trapped in a lunatic asylum, he wrote, finally, the full truth about himself—too late. . ..

The first thing to do is to find the exit out of the trap.

The nature of the trap has no interest whatsoever beyond this one crucial point: WHERE IS THE EXIT OUT OF THE TRAP?

One can decorate a trap to make life more comfortable in it.

This is done by the Michelangelos and the Shakespeares and the Goethes. One can invent makeshift contraptions to secure longer life in the trap. This is done by the great scientists and physicians, the Meyers and the Pasteurs and the Flemings. One can devise great art in healing broken bones when one falls into the trap.

The crucial point still is and remains: to find the exit out of the trap. WHERE IS THE EXIT INTO THE ENDLESS OPEN SPACE?

The exit remains hidden. It is the greatest riddle of all. The most ridiculous as well as tragic thing is this:

THE EXIT IS CLEARLY VISIBLE TO ALL TRAPPED IN THE HOLE. YET NOBODY SEEMS TO SEE IT. EVERYBODY KNOWS WHERE THE EXIT IS. YET NOBODY SEEMS TO MAKE A MOVE TOWARD IT. MOIRE: WHOEVER MOVES TOWARD THE EXIT, OR WHOEVER POINTS TOWARD IT IS DECLARED CRAZY OR A CRIMINAL OR A SINNER TO BURN IN HELL.

It turns out that the trouble is not with the trap or even with finding the exit. The trouble is WITHIN THE TRAPPED ONES.

All this is, seen from outside the trap, incomprehensible to a simple mind. It is even somehow insane. Why don't they see and move toward the clearly visible exit? As soon as they get close to the exit they start screaming and run away from it. As soon as anyone among them tries to get out, they kill him. Only a very few slip out of the trap in the dark night when everybody is asleep. [pp. 470-471. From The Murder of Christ, 1953.] Wilhelm Reich

How do we get out of the trap? Do you know anybody that is?

The Heroes Journey

This is going to be sort of a vent and journal entry.

The Heroes Journey: I don’t want to follow the prescribed paths that have been laid out for me by this culture. And I’m really surprised more people don’t feel this way.

Reading other peoples accounts (missionaries, anthropologists, pioneers) of how other cultures lived it’s pretty obvious this culture is pretty pathetic. Most of us have to pay taxes just to live on land. Most of us spend 13 years of our life in a school building learning information we don’t need or want to learn. Most of us work at a job that is so monotonous and mind-numbing that we have to drug ourselves just get through the process. Most of us have to buy and eat foods that have been poisoned with pesticides and herbicides that will eventually give us cancer. Most of us contribute to an economic system that is making the planet uninhabitable for future generations. Most of us will have to use all the assets we accumulated at the job we hated to pay for medicines and housing in our old age (Hell, some of us won’t get the chance to watch out assets dwindle away in our old age. We’ll die before that happens).

This culture really is a death trip. Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

There I said it. It’s documented for the world to see. Most people won’t allow themselves ever to say it.

It’s going to be a tough journey. But I won’t go down those prescribed paths. And this isn’t going to be a selfish journey. I would like to see as many people as possible take the heroes journey and reject the prescribed paths too.

Ran Prieur writes: For me, the point of dropping out is not just to selfishly escape while others are still suffering. The point is to get myself in a position from which I can fight better and build the foundation for a society where everyone's free. This world is full of people with the skills and knowledge to build paradise, but they can't even begin, because they would lose their jobs. The less money you need, the more powerful you become.

Ishmael was the catalyst for this journey. It showed me there are other ways to be outside this cultural prison’s walls.

See you on the other side.

Reading This Morning

I usually wake up around 5:00 AM in the morning. What I usually do before everyone gets up is read, journal for the Kamana program, and sometimes go sit quiely in the woods to listen to the birds greet the sunrise with their songs.

This morning I ran across a few interesting things that I know I'll eventually use. So I want to write them out here for future use.

Right now I'm reading Animal Tracking Basics , by Jon Young and Tiffany Morgan. This is really an amazing book for anyone that wants to get started in tracking and naturalist skills. It's full of exercises, stories, quotes by experienced naturalists and trackers, and neat facts like the one I'm going to post below.

Here is the fact by Daniel Gray: "Did you know that kestrels can spot voles while flying over a field by using an infrared scope mechanism in their eyes to pick up the lines of the animals' urine along their most used tunnels."

And also this quote by Tom Brown Jr. out of Animal Tracking Basics: "Not only is an animal a instrument played by the landscape, but the landscape is an instrument played by the animal. Thus the spheres of animal, plant, and land come together to form a whole."

While journaling the Nightshade plant family for the Kamana program I ran across this little tid bit of information out of Tom Elpel's book, Botany in a Day: "Our European heritage of witches flying on broomsticks comes from these hallucinogenic plants. An ointment containing Atropa and Hyosyamus was rubbed on the broomstick then absorbed through the vaginal tissues by 'riding' the broom"(Emboden)