what are you, some kind of pioneer, or sumpin?

Yes, or sumpin. Not back to repeat the past but forward to create a future for ourselves. Souls out, hands to help, mind to dream and guide. We're spirit beings in a spiritual world. We're also made of dirt, and eat dirt and sunshine and rain. We're pioneers, venturing into spaces unknown, in cities and suburbs and farmtowns across america. We're blazing new paths, recreating our constellations, getting to know ourselves, getting used to being alive again. It's new. We don't always know what to do, and mistakes, sure they get made. And we learn.

We continue to dream, and awakening from each dream, another veil is lifted. We may never know how clouded our vision is, but always we are in search of the clarity of delerium. Surely, gobbling prozac and sitting in cars and in front of computers is not the way to keep a soul alive. The path well-worn, the rut of working Americans, working their way between shopping, slavery, and mortgage (the literal death-pledge), has lost its appeal. Surely, there has got to be another way, or many other ways.

Are our human brains smart enough to figure this one out? We have found the cave of treasures, the black iron prison. They are the one and the same. Can we let go of the delight in our grasp in order to remove our hand from the irresistible trap? Maybe we could if we were monkeys.

My monkey brain knows it would rather carry wood and haul ashes than to work in a gas station to earn money for natural gas central heat that leaves me cold. I know I'd rather spend some time and energy in using my body to plant my own food rather than work in a grocery store to pay for illnutritious food from far far away. I know I'd rather spend my days hanging out with my kid, my spouse and my friends than with coworkers I don't enjoy. I'd rather spend time in joy, taking care of my self and my community and the jardin zomba. That's so much more fun than going to work and the mall!

So, are we pioneers, or sumpin? You got it, a pioneer, a race traitor, an uncivilized ill-mannered well-fed quarter-drunk loving mother who imbibes this life in the garden of eden.

sharqi

john trudell

the land is ours, our heritage. She belonged with our ancestors, to our great grandparents. Our families belonged to the earth, with the plants and animals. how strange to think of plants killing other plants for no reason but to be alone on the earth, without "competition." Redwoods emit toxic substances to clear room to grow, but the massive redwood only takes up enough room to grow. It does not clear the forest. Animals may compete for resources, for room to roam, but they do not cross oceans to secure those resources. We have allowed a minority to trick us, to convince us with manipulated light (that has only been under control for a hundred years), to fabricate an illusion of scarcity. We do not Need oil. We do not Need a fascist regime to tell us what "must be done." We do not need to be told what our bodies can more simply and effectively help us understand. We are alive, not dead, so let us live and not be consumed by our own progressive consumption.

We Will overcome the brutal oppressiveness that has continued to eat our souls from within. We will recover from this sickness and release this land from domination. Our spirit is strong, and we Not be hollowed out forever.

***

I have been entirely delighted to study patterns, repeated, recognizable systems that are tried and true. I seek them out in all things. If we can't pass on this basis of ideas, and if we can't share the coherent understanding we have gained through our personal experiences and those we have shared with others, then we have lived a sort of selfish life, an unsustainable life pattern. Our humanity lies in these common patterns being passed on into a future of children and the continued stream of our grandchildren. We are the future grandparents of ourselves as a whole. May we always spend our time better understanding, for the good of our progeny (because we know how delectable and supremely enchanted this little life can be).

My motive is the happy, smiling face of the child I will feel pleased to help create. My joy is knowing birth is going on all the time, while I'm looking at the new buds and blossoms in whichever season I happen to visit.

the entire earth is a womb. our bodies have been formed into its magic image. our genitals are like flowers, our blood like the oceans. we are like baby earthships!

Weep Mother Weep

Weep Mother Weep

For all the lies that
Try your soul
No promises to keep
Weep Mother weep

Rain Sister Rain
For all your tears
That wash her clean
Ravaged harvests
Sunken seeps
Savaged forests
Rain Sister Rain
Balm her weary pain

Pour Mother pour
Let your waters flow
O’er silting soils
Flood well your plains
Where waders wade
And peepers peep
Fill your aquifers deep
Welled sullen and sour
Pour Mother pour
Cleans your stores
Flush your springs
Life will we restore

Strike Father strike
Your lightning
From the skies
Crash through hearts
Turned dull as rock
Their deadlines to demand
Sink as moving sand
Through hours glass
Sealed from Brother Air
Refreshed with truth
Trust falls there too
As they just turn again
Tongues and fingers wag
Taunting plans void
Temporal shams

Strike Father strike
Ignite our hearts again

Is real the mind of man
Without your loving hand
To guide our living with
Her waters gifted all
Her land

The time is ours
At hand
To shift and take
Our stand
With Her
Or without
All right here
On
Our spot

Grow Mother grow
With Brother’s breeze
To clear and ease
The static sticking thoughts
That grow seethingly more taut
And as a bubble breaks
Into countless sparkling drops
Will sink into the soil
No inkling of toil

Rest Parents rest
While your grasses test
Brother Wind to blow
Last years seeds to sow
From standing stems
Birds too will fend
Awaiting green to grow
Rest Parents rest
While Children give
Their best
GMFH 04/18/06

Two Legged’s Dream

Two Legged’s Dream

Dripping splitting from rusted door
No other on the prowl will explore
I’ll take some shelter on this seat
No windows left to slow my leap

In the morrow I’ll move on
This rain will not outlive the dawn
I’ll try my haunts along the stream
See who’s lurked there in between

Junkyards, old cars left behind
Lost to two-legged’s nimble mind
Fall between the culture’s cracks
Making room for Life’s come back

How’d they loose the hunter’s way
Aware of all, the gentlest sway
Busily they move, consumed like ants
In desperate mood and rigored pant


Many waft the fearful smell
In their packs constrained, unwell
They roar the roads out of touch
Thinking so and so and such and such

So many there are about here now
The world beyond they’ll not allow
It’s good for us we’ll not be found
Ghosts that slip between their ground

Their world is fixed and locked in blocks
Their out of sync and chained to clocks
They do not hear the passing prey
And live blind to Life each passing day

I suppose it will stay their loss
Their trap need not be my cost
Until they take Life, in their way
Building things to slow decay

Much like us they’re built to impress
To climb in rank their stature stress
It would not matter to me their haste
If they would not lay so much to waste

But at least they do forget
Forget their toys and their pets
When all they touched is laid to waste
I’ll still find plenty to my taste

As time winds on Life finds its way
Sun will set and rise next day
Rain will fall and Wind will blow
And through it all we’ll come and go

So for now I’ll just rest
No other’s power need I test
I need not strain or like them toil
Or worry what next they will spoil

I am Life’s and Life is mine
What I need I will find
In every step and every mess
I will find my wilderness

GMFH

"Labyrinth Renewed"

Labyrinth Renewed

On this Summer Sunday morn
we wandered the centering way
of the labyrinth
cyclically weaving
my hands languid for langsyne
raked along the seed
long relayed
enpatterned smooth
in rippled groove
and billowed rise
along their rythymed stems
leaving free the chaff
The tyranny of the typical,
the constraining constructs
topically were shed
to float as loam
to find the gaps
of blanket thatch
and coat for winter warmth
where freeze and thaw
heave for seed
and haw to swell
scarified in acrid gut
to deeply cut and dig
and break into
the sacred home
where Life begins
enthroned
again

Seed bearers all
we lost our way
into circling step
and restful breath
drinking in
the growing glow

Our paths wound
to and fro
encircling round
and through
the corners of our globe
through the seasons
journey of our sol
weaving free our souls
egos intertwine
fine web refined
as sunrise divined the clouds
edges shined as
silver lined
whirling trails like
leaf minors eating doors
seeking sustenance cell to cell
safe within their green
and living host
so we as guests to her
her land holy waters and sky
contemplated Her
Our mother O-hi-o
and her ageless beauty here

Blossoming forbs and
upright waving blades of blue
rose
to hip,
to heart,
to eyes and on
her dark rich soils dry sands
her waters deep
in rounded gravels grey
aquifers in beds of clay
and limestone rock with
sculpted ancient life
fossils of her limelight days
gone by now await our sight
when all was sea and sky
to lend to bones
strengthened since
from snail to human kin
who walked through these
gentle prairie blades
wooded glades to rich wet fen
dry oak ridge or rocky edge
more barren yet and all
in ancient living ways
just as light in step
tall and straight
strode in strident gate
above the trail
their feet to meet
the gentle beat
up through her loving skin
roots woven within
where her returning stroke
would lift to carry them
blood red with iron
hearts strongly drawn
to knowing well
the way for home
shared by hearth
through tale and dance
in ceremony
in prayer and play
to lift all works
to great
as a newborn laugh
or stubborn wail
or open
present easy
gaze

Measureless in mornings light
like here and now we walk
wandering free
from roaring highway sign
I feel mutations choice
Lend way to compromise
and ponder how do these
allow the interplay
so resonate by fate or chance
but ease to dance
when two or more gather
commune and harmonize
the fabric of our Earth
Being in between
in resonance we sing take wing
the fire that moves the wind
the water steeped within
the movement of the sea
of grass or leaf of tree
and cloud to move the fires
of councils in the skies
together all relates
rise up the swell
flow down the wake
along with the others as vessels
we contemplate

Small flickering flames are we
on ripples of her lake
concentric circles weaving wakes
on her warm and welcoming surf
of her depth
movements
never known before
from her deep
shelter
ever known before
stars that move
reflect in care
of the dark unknown
from which we come
and alas so know as home
where soon in our roaming
we too shall shore
to enter in
not extinguish
but return

Curves bends and turns
all these
allowed our deepening
to personal pathways here
I took to deepening pause
to behold one Indian Grass
whose stamens dangled on
within my eyes
as candles draped
brilliant gold
and glowing danced
in flow
with morning ease

Gold dust hopes aloft
were carried bouyant o'er
air adjoining shores
waving to and fro
admitted rise and fall
from deeper arts unseen
of an interfluent weave
that rose up through
the web so fair and true
and falling low
sought to plunge
to the frighteningly deep
where nurture juggled currents
tussled new and fresh
from learn-ed old and clear

Balanced held I poised
in open full embrace
in mutual healing balm
cast from driven thought
not ours now gone

Onto timeless dawn
we launched our vessel on
with knee to others knee
we carried ancient light
gold to those in need
indigo as received as deed
cognate on waving air
oarless but for trust
in prayerful intent thrust
out we went
into the intimate one

When In circle we met again
we reached out and then within
greeted journers and the directions
we joined hands
we shouldered arms
and stoked the children’s fire
shared ancient mind at hearth
inspired anew to carry through
wisdom of our sacred land
in kind we were renewed
kindred through many faiths
diverse in common place

To heal wealth
to wellness
we celebrate
the all
of each
and every race
all facets
of each face
we share
the beauty
of our
place

At the center
we became
aware
of being same

So uniquely so
from here
as ease
we go
to greet
those
with whom
we sow

we sew

weave
so

ahe ahe

aho
GMFH 8/07

invitation to balance and exhault the human/tobacco relationship

Dear Friends,

Tobacco is one of the most popular plant allies, and is much maligned, managed, loved and misunderstood.

Have you ever wondered if the official propaganda that we hear about Tobacco is not essentailly factual, righteous or true?

I have. The truth is that the government and anti-smoking advocates aren't giving us a whole or accurate picture. I can rightly say that responsible, spiritually beneficial Tobacco use is possible. The best example I can think of are Tobacco shamans in the Amazon who chain smoke and cure people of phychosomatic disease with magick.

Many people smoke, yet few DIY it. Tobacco seed is hard to come by after all. It's an f-ing government controlled substance! Yet I have some seed for Nicotiana rustica, of the cultivar which Cherokee native people evolved with in Katuah/Southern Appalachian region. I grew some this summer, and smoking a blunt rolled up in a mullein leaf was one of the most amazing rituals I've ever done. I smoked once a week for two months and there was a mutual exchange of TLC between the plants and I. So this isn't hearsay, folks, it's a treasured part of my story. I'm planning togrow another round of this Cherokee variety in the coming months.

Now I have a lead for gettting some SHAWNEE variety, the kind of tobacco that the original peoples of the Cincinnati area grew and smoked. If you are interested in chasing down this seed with me, you will be embarking on an incredible journey of self/other discovery that will probably culminate in a series of workshops, rituals and debaucherous, sultry summer evenings.

Contact werebrock@riseup.net for information on joining the fun.

Yours in loving anarchy,

Badger

Cocoa Puff and Werebrock

Just takin' it easy. Yesterday was Badge Man's *big* surgery, which though quite succesful and rather inexpensive- E-Mac's mentorship on haggling paid off big!- left our digging friend dazed and silly. Thank gawd for this blessed lady of the woods, nurse and lover. They snuggle together, wrapped in a down comforter. They marvel with each other's presences. Werebrock finds this Cocoa Puff (aka Insanenigma) fresh and fascinating, simply delightful as on that never-forgotten evening, when their eyes locked over shared tamarind. Knowing each other, gleefully increasingly and day by day, the goodies they stew up together well up a little bit more, abundantly spilling onto the apartment floor, the forest's duf or the sidewalk, 'pending on where dey at. She sits on his belly and feeds him chocolate; he crouches over and massages olive oil.

We wake up awed to the thawed world, it's 11'oclock and we're ready to not rock. Lay in bed, talk about deep personal things. We've done what feels like so much asskicking. The surgery is justification to rest, which we need anyway after having survived work, Jack Frost, midterm exams and the corrupting influences of this all-consumptive civilization while fermenting revolutions.

But now we're up, it's a warm noon and now's the time for yoga and theurgy... in the woods! The sun beams radiant bright down on plateau past the end of the pavement. There, an ancient, gnarled oak firmly guides a lone traveler to the light. You can feel appreciation from wooded ravine as this human seeks to embody the whole universe, and as its hat bobs on a branch in the wind, you see the invisible one nod the promise- "Arcadia ho! These humans propagate the Fairie Rose, lo! Wel-come-to-this-place!"

When he comes back to the house, Cocoa has conducted the recipe for Hermetic Order of the Golden Scones. This produced praiseworthy morsels that one paradoxically cannot speak of, for they are mouthwateringly delicious, sublime beyond symbolism and dry as a mouthful of smoke. These were shared with our VFD neighbors, Cocoa Puff's Mother, and a few random strangers at the Krohn Conservatory, which is growing chocolate and pomagranate trees under glass. You know we'll be coming back there in a few weeks. The batch is finished on a vernacular stone wall overlooking the Ohio River, and they keep on smiling.

On the way home they back home, they hit up Food Not Bombs. Their friends are happy and seeing them keeps that goin'. "So, how did it go?" Feather puts the question to Werebrock. Tuatara seconds it with an eyebrow wiggle that reminds of spicy sweat and belly dancing. The friends embrace. "Those idiots lazered off my birthmark!" The Maoist with a flower in his hair smiles for the first time ever. "Besides that, I'm fine."

Sacco comes up behind him, chomping on a week of no sleep and a side of fruit salad. "Are you ready to go and pray about this tomorrow?" (Their sleeper cell is trying to infiltrate a Reptilian-backed megachurch with 9/11 Truth.) "I don't know, man. I'm supposed to be healing. These actions can get rough."