Living free in a so-called “free society”? Ah, there is no such thing, except to live freely in constant evasion of the forces which try to keep us all “under wraps”, and good little sheeple consumers, ready at a moment’s notice to hate and kill whoever our massas Tell us to hate and kill. At home and abroad.

Anyway, the spiritual aspect (all of it is, for me at least) is beyond words. Oh, i have written up some, here and there, and may share, while trying to surph within the fine line of security culture (don’t wanna give too much info to the surveillers…).

Mostly it’s going pritty fair. Here in Calyforny-uh, it’s as expected, apparently more controlled than other states i’ve explored these past months. (Actually, this adventure has 4 parts, beginning in Lakota/Dakota country, and going South and East, and winding up out on the West Coast; yep, i’m on Part 4) But i know my ‘rights’ and invoke them when i have to, and it’s worked out pritty surprisingly well, so far.

And i’m testing all of my lifelong knowledge of survival in diverse weather (on the coast last winter in Orygun was a major challenge at times!), and re-honing and getting back in touch with skills i’ve spent a lifetime getting in touch with.

The bottom line? It’s a strengthening. “What doesn’t kill you, strengthens,” as the old saying goes. The strengthening is spiritual, physical, psychological. It is also moving beyond theory, as with my involvement in several Occupy’s up north. (see coughcity.wordpress.com for a sample) Those Occupy’s forced me to move beyond mere theory with my ideals and reflections, and come to the realization that it’s a lot harder (re: the way things are set up, generally, including in the Left, anarchist, and post-colonial) than i wish it was. But i ain’t quitting just ‘cuz it’s gonna be hard!

Don’t know where i’m “ultimately” headed, except that i made a promise to a certain farmer that i’d be back his way by spring.

What’s the power of this kind of action? Well, i’ve been explaining it to various locals from northern WA to CA, and basically the angle is to build informal community beyond the strictures of what’s been built (and usually needs large amounts of funding to keep from perrenially sinking). And back up the idea that if informal community were to build itself beyond such boundaries, there are major openings, including building on the idea that public forests could be defended (to become patches of oldgrowth) just by the level (and meaningful depth) of informal community put into such places.

Note that such projects won’t work and won’t be allowed to work if they are commandeered by formal structures, including their “well schooled” representatives. Want to discuss the pros and cons?

The next item is part of the gallery/altar, and sought to bring attention to Grace Llewellyn’s excelling book _The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How To Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education_ (Lowry House Publishers, Eugene). i basically did alternate cover art for the book and LEFT the original art at the gallery! That’s right!

i also did another alternate cover–of Fogler’s “Adult Liberation Handbook” on Unjobbing! But the art didn’t come out as bright as i had hoped (good ol’ cheap-o phone camera, argh!). Maybe you can brighten the art photo up and send it back to me? i’d love to put up a better set of examples! But i don’t have access to such programs these daze.

At least the stones that i found in the local riverbed (Eel River) show up half-way decently (?). Here’s the version that is especially way too dark:

In a future edition of this blog i’ll probably share other places i’ve left original art (and prints) in similar intentions.

Shout-out especially to unsettling america community!

Note that the HSU occupy folks itself did not formally agree with my show, tho they (including various anonymous movers of the art) didn’t take it down for at least a week. The way of the Occupy movement, of course, is that everyone gets to “have a say”…to a limit; which i may discuss on another blog (unsettlesoccupy.wordpress.com, forthcoming)

Below are more general art pieces honoring indigenous folks:

(notice: all art is ANTI-COPYRIGHT, which means that informal use is free (as opposed to corporate use); use it any way you wish, but if you make some cash with it, i want a percentage, okay?!)
{:

“…We must not become confused and deceived by their illusions. There is no such thing as military power; there is only military terrorism…That is all that it is. They try to program our minds and fool us with these illusions so that we will believe that they hold the power in their hands…All they know how to do is act in a repressive, brutal way…They want us to believe in them and depend on them, and we have to assume these consumer identities, and these political identities, these religious identities and these racial identities [not to mention sexual ones]. They want to separate us from our Power…from who we are…

“…We must consider the Spiritual genocide that they commit against us. The spiritual genocide that the white people have been victimized by for thousands of years…

“We must move to the time when we truly understand our connection to real power because these people who deal with illusions and imitations…they want to keep us confused with [the self-limiting concepts of?] sexism and ageism, racism, class. They want to keep us in a confusion so that [we] will continue to believe in one lie after another as they programmed them into our minds and into our society…The ruling class…are going to lie to us and they are going to create the illusions of change…

“We have to understand our role as a Natural Power. We have to understand that when our oppressor treats us this way and does these things to us, that we allow him to do it as long as we accept his lies…We have been allowing it for too long…

“When I go around in America and I see the bulk of the white people, they do not feel oppressed; they feel powerless… We see the physical genocide that they are attempting to inflict upon our lives, and we understand the psychological genocide that they have already inflicted upon their own people…

“We must be willing in our lifetime to deal with reality. It’s not revolution; it’s liberation. We want to be free of a value system that’s being imposed on us… Liberation –we want to be free. But in order for us to be free we have to assume…our responsibility. We are going to have to struggle for it. Wer are going to have to work [and be] committed to it. We must never underestimate our enemy. Our enemy is committed against us 24 hours a day. They use 100% of their efforts to maintain their …status quo. 100% of their effort goes into deceiving us and manipulating us against each other…

“…We are going to have to start working more realistically with a
resistance consciousness
, a resistance, something we can pass on as strength to the coming generations–a resistance where organizational …[and] individual egos don’t get in the way, a resistance where the infiltrators and the provacateurs and the liars and the betrayers…do not get in the way. We will not get our liberation if we do not seriously analyze the experiences of our own lifetimes.

The other side …has studied. They understand what we were up to in the 1960′s. They understand what we wanted in the early 1970′s…They create certain events, and they manipulate the economics, and they manipulate circumstances because they want us to react the same way that we did in the 1960′s so that they can come in and they can smash our movements. We must become of a resistance consciousness. We must say that we will not allow you to smash us. Even if it means that we have to deal with the part of you that you have planted in me…

“…It takes more than good intentions. It takes committment. It takes that in some point in our lives we are going to have to decide that we have a way of life and we are going to live that way of life. Even when our enemies totally surround us, even when [they] act against us with brutality and harshness, with lies and bribes, we are going to have to stand with our way of life. …We cannot reach a point in our lives [where] we’re going to sit back and say: “Well, we will make this compromise with the other side…”

(….)

“…We must always deal with reality. They have been able to use the element of fear to control their masses of people… We must not be drawn into their traps… It is time for us to think…We have to learn to put up and deal with the hard times just like the good times… We have to learn and underderstand that they want us to be lazy in our minds and lazy in our spirit and lazy in our body. They want us to be able to give up hope easily. They want us to quit thinking. (just obey, work, consume, and fear and hate when told) But the nature of the People on Earth has always been one of struggle…If they stop us one way then we must find another way… We have to take the initiative. We can no longer become and remain reactionary…”

(….)

See the entire text, with some comments: https://www.angelfire.com/psy/intheheart/TrudellJohn/tdell1.html

See videos of John and his depth charging here:

http://johntrudellarchives.com/

Here’s some color peices i added to this coloring book, which i bought somewhat uncritically not long ago. I wanted to send this to a leading voice of indigenous governance but my email suddenly stopped working! (first time for that!)

Note: the copyright notice on the coloring book explicitly allows for up to 4 pages of their book to be used in independent projects.

Why does Dover/writer focus on such emotively negative topics in a kids' coloring book?

The accompanying text tells us how to think about those who wore more finery in clothing, while most went nude into war.

What has to be hurled must also be gone thru championishly!

A sharing from the outback of the “Yakama Indian Nation”

Good words for today. After getting permission to camp in the Yakama Nation, i wake up to find both my tires flat. i pump them up and only one, the “impermiable” front one, with the “Mr.Tuffy” inside, the tire which has stood up to the toughest off-road tests so far, is flat with an apparent poke in it. Slow leak, anyway. Maybe it was just the local spirits wanting to put “a fly in the eye” of the “bad” so-called decolonizing settler (i got a few of those at curious times yesterday while riding in this rez), and see how i dealt with it. i figure it’s a mix. Maybe kids (not much for them to do, and any perceived slight….).

Realities versus romantics
Then i was able to see some realities about rez life. The fences around the homes (on the main drag, anyway), the bars on the windows and doors! Whoa, very much like the inner city in so many places. The reflection of frustrations. The arting being done.

The possibly perceived slight? Possibly many. A white man showing up, asking a b.i.a. fellow (didn’t know that when i asked tho) to stay on his land (next to his home, as not much else room; tho outside the fence), claiming to not be able to afford the $20 cost for a tent space at the nearby RV camp. Probably had their defenses up–who was this white man snooping around? i certainly feel the vibe.

i’m forced to recall the powerful words from unsettlingminnesota.org’s manuscript. About how we settlers (and their descendents) just take it for granted that we can even ask for things like camping for free. That i can even venture into the Unknown here! And not be messed with? The affrontery!

And NOW i want to share something about the spirituality that i experienced earlier by Mount Yakama???? I HAD BETTER KNOW MY PLACE AND GET BACK IN MY CATEGORY OF BEING A G’DAMN WHITE MAN WHO STAYS IN HIS TERRITORY! That’s the undercurrent. And tho it could be my racism (i subscribe to Charles H. King’s view that we ARE ALL racist, a.k.a. afraid of the different in the context of a rigid society, but it DEPENDS on what we DO with that knowledge. Or, how we wish to utilize our response ability!).

My knee-jerk response is that it couldn’t be racism on my part because indigenous folks (or at least part-so) have reached out to me since i was a kid. i’ve systematically been befriended, and thus i actually feel more at home amongst “them” than with “my fellow whites”, so i claim. Racist!?? How to explain? It’s like with other kinds of folks, say, younger; there’s a heart-string being automatically pulled. Not that i want to Tell Them What and How To Be; not at all!

Anyway….wanted to share some of the experiences i had up on Mount Yakama (which i’m going to call “Mt. Adams” in lieu of not knowing what local folks call it), during the two nights i spent, at first not realizing i was actually on the Yakama Rez.

Very unique cloud formations up on that 4,000 foot (or so) elevation. Two pine-tree-shaped (youngish) clouds went by consecutively. And three bird shapes, one with a phoenix head. The third was human-looking at the shoulders, and i saw it “fly” by three times over a few hours! As though it was soaring around there! (the Hopi say, i have heard, that clouds are the spirits of the recently dead; maybe the more wispy are those who are the more confused entities?)

A neighbor ghost!
The first day was pretty typical and without my spiritual medicine (for a week by then) i didn’t really tune in at all. i did cool off in the snow-cold water of Bird Creek. And i did find out that the neighbor i thought i saw down the hill from me, about a hundred yards away (sitting in one of those chairs that has hurt my back in the past) was apparently a ghost! He even waved at me! Hot damn!

And i yelled out that i was sorry that i didn’t know he was there until after i had already set up my camp. So i went about being quieter and didn’t explore that area for the time being.

Then, on the eve of my second night, i got a strong intuition that i should use my spiritual medicine. i had already gone biking that day around in the “pass” area, and also gone through some spiritual connecting (in the nude) that i feel moved to often do, and the sun was going down. So i used it. And then began wanting to speak loudly and play-work through my crazy energy, especially as i contemplated my journey here as i looked at my arte that’s about jumping into the Unknown while spiritually nude; but then i also felt obligated to first ask the permission of my “neighbor”: Did he want silence and his privacy? i asked, loud enough for him to likely here.

A 5-direction walke
When he didn’t respond, i began sharing some of my crazy (riding large trees as surph boards on the ocean at great speeds, with sails!), until i got the notion that i should go on a walke. And save the direction of my neighbor for last (i was curious about him a little, sitting out there all alone; maybe he was a traditional elder, or something like that!).

So i began gazing, naturally towards the volcano at first. Tho i soon realized i didn’t want to seek energy/input from such a place–a fiery hellish promise place like a VOLCANO. So then i was looking out at the space to the left of “L” Road, and i saw one tree move. A small tree amongst small trees. And my playful side felt it might be someone over there, watching me go through my crazy. And so i consciously chose to walke beyond the paths (why do settlers always stay on paths?!?) towards this tree. On the way, i found a curious peice of wood (i think it was a goose head and neck) and i put it on that path-of-sorts (can you find it?). Next, intuition drew me to another tree in the distance; and older, dead tree, with interesting shapes to it.

So i walked across “L” Road towards it. Well, pretty soon i stood on the corners of two semi-burnt trees and let myself go into that vibe. What happened here? To make a longer, hazey story short (it made sense at the time), i decided to leave a gift: the hemp necklace i had been given in a trade for my arte. It had gotten slightly broken on the wingtip of the glass butterfly, and now i knew that it was a “wounded butterfly” and just rite for “a wounded forest”. (Tho i would later realize that both the burning and the dying of the trees –via beetles– may be a good thing in the bigger picture, since when first logged, not loggers kept maps of what kind of trees they cut and where they grew; and that Nature may well be rectifying that off-balance!

Crane voice
Next i heard a distinct voice in the forest down by Bird Creek. Wow, it sounded very much like the cranes i had heard back in Dakota country! So i responded with my own hand-cupped bird call, and began walking in its direction. Maybe it was merely a tree moving in the wind (?) but it was only one. Or maybe it was a ghost. Or maybe it was the (??) Crane Clan, out doing a spiritual retreat! (“Crazy White Man, won’t you STOP this nonsense!!!” says my programming)

Hoping i’d come across some traditionalists, obviously. Someone who might understand. Someone who wouldn’t defensively judbe me, and actually hear my heart, my “radical’s radical” gift potential; and it all wouldn’t be just a big, nutty solopathic adventure “in my head”; and …. and….

To make a longer story short, other notions and intuitions visited me as i walked in 5 directions. Coming across a grove of hidden Poplar (or Aspen?) saplings which made an enchanting space of their own; experiencing the energy of where the hill came to the flat of the Bird Creek forest; coming upon a cave that looked like a BEAR CAVE (or a Sasquatch Home), and getting a channel that said an angry bear might say:

“Oh, that’s really really great, Stupidized White Man! Now you’re going to go back to your world and ‘report’ about this area and all kinds of other nuts are going to come by and harrass me! Now i’m going to have to move away, all because of your stupidized programming!!!!”

Uh..huh. Could be.

Conclusion
Finally came to the threshold of where i had seen the man sitting, cross-legged, enjoying the serenity of his space (next to three plastic, lidded buckets, and a pile of logs, by the way). A bird, whom i told my Mother would want to listen to and look up in her bird book, seemed to help me go to that place when i stopped at a “gate” of sorts between trees just before the place where i saw what i thought i saw.

The bird flew over to the place, and then i followed. i had already told of my presence, of course.

No footprints, no tent. Just a pile of heavy steel gears arranged as if art. A cart’s (?) tracks showed heavy in the “J” Road, but looked a bit old. So i made a little arte for whomever might see this place in the future, and left it there, secured from blowing away.

Next i went to an old tree i had been taking in already for awhile (near my camp). i found another goose head and neck and decided to put it next to a log which had a carving of a bird shape, made by one of those bugs who carve under the bark. Wow, a bird shape! (in all my years of wanting to see art in those carvings, this was the first time!)

Finally, back at my camp i decided to gift several peices of my original arte (including my “jumping spiritually nude into the Unknown” arte). Maybe you’ll find it if you go looking on “Bird Creek Road”, aka 285. If you do find it, wouldn’t it be neat if you left your own stuff there or around there?

And what if people who feel called to walke between the cultures were to leave powerful spirit in this and other places around Turtle Island? What if we gave oursevles permission? Make altars, or start them, and see if others called might participate. Outside of the permissions, of course, of the formal governance of such places; but well within the organic, intuitive notions we receive from channeled spirit-u-al energies.

HonoriNg traditional indigenous consciousness (we are ALL descendants of such, and we ALL have such spirit within us, usually privately kept and self-censored)! A-Ho! (And, yes, i’m willing to experience the possible challenging consequences for daring to speaque this kind of HEART from a place allegedly as “inappropriate” (unauthorized) as i speaque from!!!!

From the Cultural Center at the Yakama Nation….aNd heading for the Rainbow Gathering
i walke through the Fear,Inc. planted in me, “pushing the limits” of Freedumb, and putting my life on the line. (What value is life is one must hide in fear? Let the stupidized authoritarians come and put me away from such a dumb world if that is what They Must Do!)

“We can’t quit just because it’s going to be hard.”–John Trudell, Lakota wisdom keeper

Been out on the road some 3 1/2 months now..tho just a few weeks out of Pdx. Headed intuitively in the rite direction, for going to the Rainbow Gath ering…tho the SNOW..the SNOW and the WIND, well, have brought me much too far west now, to go!! Oh no!!

Wow, but i have some pictures! And some quite deep depth experiences! Rode uphill towards Trout Lake, WA and then up by Bird Creek Meadows (closed til July, tho); camped by the Yakama Rez 2 nights up thar, and, damng, got some spirit u ality, i did!! All kinds of notes to share soon, but time allotted rite now is not enough; such just a run-down.

My visionary juices are flowing tho now! After all the wild ridin’ up thar by Adams Volcano! i’ll be sure to give y’all a buncha stuff to chew on.

Rite now i just want to say that i left multiple gifts in a certain area (including at least three peices of original art, one color) up that way. i only told one person so far, and until i share with others in the next few days, i’m gonna keep it “secret”!

Kudos to Len and Mystic One for their comments. i WISH it was easier to post comments…i don’t know how to do that so that you don’t have to sign in first…but i’ve seen others with such a contraption on wordpress…maybe ya gotta pay??

Well, til neXt time!

They turned back (across from me) from their position in the woods, and it made me wonder: are they tracking my cell phone? (am i merely paranoid?)

But i was flabbergasted that they apparently didn’t see me.

Not that i have any warrants; but being homeless isn’t easy. i prefer living free, mind you; but, like anyone, i fear The Men With Guns.

Having said all of this, i am posting the following. Maybe you will see me as more than a mere crank, a mere “green-horned” fool?

This insanity should come as no surprise. After reading William Blum’s Killing Hope and recalling the record of impunity in which the u.s. government and its resources are used as “the world’s policeman” (quoting Chomsky); they are simply stepping up to the Armageddon scenario they’ve been planting in everyone’s heads. They are insane, and everything the Left does, including even the ACLU really only perpetuates that insanity, that severe alienation.

You force things via law, that makes sense on the one hand, I grant you that. On the other, you fool yourselves into believing that “law” is respected, when it truly counts.

It’s time that “the Left” and the ACLU wake up to your privilege. Wake up and begin exploring ways to bridge with these severely alienated men and women who believe as they do (i.e. the Machievellian, the extension of feudal projections upon the stupidized and kept-dumb.)

We are stupidized, we are kept dumbed-down.

And the Left and Right farce keep us at odds; it’s a colonial technique!

The Left and Right-wings (whatever that truly means!!) are distractions to keep us divided, where it truly matters.

Radically bridging with the humanity held deeply and privately within even the most alienated of social and cultural manager…how can that be done? Why should they care?? Are they going to trust any of us??? Of course not! But that cannot stop us. We must respond with the bests of our creative intelligence, systematically; not allowing the trampling of human beings (INCLUDING THE WORST PLANNERS AND STRATEGISTS!); a “new”, mutually inspiring solidarity must happen!

This is what i’m putting my life on the line for. My life is nothing. i am a fool visionary given a gift to do art, so i have dropped out of playing the corporate carrot game and am seeking to seed sanity, radical’s radical sanity.

Take a look at what i’ve been up to. And try not to let your knee-jerk reaction knock you out:
visionary4evolution.wordpress.com

to bridge-archy, to all of our most human/great-spirit’d ways of inspiring sanity in this world!

— On Tue, 5/17/11, Laura W. Murphy, ACLU wrote:

From: Laura W. Murphy, ACLU
Subject: Tell Congress: No worldwide war
To: spiritdude4@yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 8:50 PM

Because Freedom Can’t Protect Itself
Dear Charles,

Tell Congress: No blank check for worldwide war.

Do not forward: This link will open a page with your information already filled in.
Did you hear about this? Literally in a midnight session last week, the House Armed Services Committee tucked a dangerous provision into the huge Defense authorization bill. With it, Congress took one more step towards passing a law for endless worldwide war. The new law would use American military forces against terrorism suspects everywhere and anywhere.

If you didn’t hear about this provision, you’re not alone.

It was added to the bill by Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), and it could become the single biggest ceding of unchecked war authority to the executive branch in modern American history.

Outrageously, there have been no hearings on the worldwide war legislation, nor has its necessity been explained by Rep. Buck McKeon or anyone else in Congress.

A House vote could come as early as next week. Tell your representative: Oppose any law for a new worldwide war without end. (Do not forward: This link will open a page with your information already filled in.)

Unlike the legislation that authorized the Afghanistan War and the pursuit of Osama bin Laden, the proposed new and expanded law to go to war does not even require a specific threat of harm to the United States.

In fact, the proposed authorization would allow war wherever there are terrorism suspects in any country around the world without an expiration date, geographical boundaries, or connection to the 9/11 attacks or any other specific harm or threat to the United States.

Please take action right now. Tell your representative: Oppose any law for a new worldwide war without end.

It’s outrageous that, just as the majority of Americans eagerly await the ramping down of our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress is acting under the cover of darkness to pass a new law for a worldwide war.

Make it clear that we won’t stand still for Congress triggering a worldwide war without end. Contact your representative right now.

Thank you for standing with us.

Sincerely,

Laura W. Murphy
Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office

© ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004

Hey, let’s see if it’s really worth doing this blog (as far as getting input from possible readers):

Do you have any ideas for what the main caption (in darker, heavy letters) might be? If your pick of text resonates with me enough, i’ll use it, and it might even get published in Street Roots (and possibly other papers too!)!

Critique and various comments also always welcome! Including heated dissent!

Note: If you can make out the penciled words that were formerly there (?), know that that angle needs to have another peice to go along with it to make “any sense at all”.