Monday, April 4, 2011

Sunday

I got up Sunday morning, brewed some black coffee, opened the windows of my ancient home, and relaxed. I spent some time listening to the breeze and collecting my thoughts. We, as a people, never take time for rest; this is a practice I am adopting.
I loaded Dale, my Australian Shepherd into my station wagon and hit the road. I drove out 3 Locks and parked in the gravel lot, only to be confronted by massive horses and over weight people.
I took some time wondering the parking lot, waiting to see which way these people were heading. Needless to say they were heading the exact same direction as me. I started a few minutes behind them, once I caught them on the trail they refused to let me pass, stating that I would startle their horses. I mouthed off to them, saying something about how I have just as much right to be on the trail as they do, they became angry and mouthed me back. In the midst of our arguing I spotted a side single track trail and thought…what the hell, ill just go on an adventure and see what I can find.
This run ended up being beautiful; it had a ton of climbs and great views from atop the ridges. The valleys of the hills were soaked in water, this made for a fun run. The last 5 miles were on winding single track. I cannot wait for the trees to bloom and I can be swallowed in the canopy of the forest.
The run ended up being around 17 miles. I plan on hitting over 90 this week with a 21 mile trail run on Saturday.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

A Rule of Life.

This comes from Derrick Jensen, a hero of mine, a resister, a lover of the land and a defender of the land.
These are the premises of his two volume work, Endgame. I need to point out that I do not agree with any sort of violence towards other humans, this is where we would part ways. However, his frame work for breaking down pacifism is the best I have ever come across.
Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization. Premise Two: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities. Premise Three: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence. Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims. Premise Five: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice. Premise Six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time. Premise Seven: The longer we wait for civilization to crash—or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier will be the crash, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after. Premise Eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system. Another way to put premise Eight: Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid. Sustainability, morality, and intelligence (as well as justice) requires the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landbase.Premise Nine: Although there will clearly some day be far fewer humans than there are at present, there are many ways this reduction in population could occur (or be achieved, depending on the passivity or activity with which we choose to approach this transformation). Some of these ways would be characterized by extreme violence and privation: nuclear armageddon, for example, would reduce both population and consumption, yet do so horrifically; the same would be true for a continuation of overshoot, followed by crash. Other ways could be characterized by less violence. Given the current levels of violence by this culture against both humans and the natural world, however, it’s not possible to speak of reductions in population and consumption that do not involve violence and privation, not because the reductions themselves would necessarily involve violence, but because violence and privation have become the default. Yet some ways of reducing population and consumption, while still violent, would consist of decreasing the current levels of violence required, and caused by, the (often forced) movement of resources from the poor to the rich, and would of course be marked by a reduction in current violence against the natural world. Personally and collectively we may be able to both reduce the amount and soften the character of violence that occurs during this ongoing and perhaps long-term shift. Or we may not. But this much is certain: if we do not approach it actively—if we do not talk about our predicament and what we are going to do about it—the violence will almost undoubtedly be far more severe, the privation more extreme. Premise Ten: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life. Premise Eleven: From the beginning, this culture—civilization—has been a culture of occupation. Premise Twelve: There are no rich people in the world, and there are no poor people. There are just people. The rich may have lots of pieces of green paper that many pretend are worth something—or their presumed riches may be even more abstract: numbers on hard drives at banks—and the poor may not. These “rich” claim they own land, and the “poor” are often denied the right to make that same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world.Premise Thirteen: Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist. Premise Fourteen: From birth on—and probably from conception, but I’m not sure how I’d make the case—we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals, hate women, hate children, hate our bodies, hate and fear our emotions, hate ourselves. If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes. If we did not hate ourselves, we could not allow our homes—and our bodies—to be poisoned.
PREMISE FIFTEEN: LOVE DOES NOT IMPLY PACIFISM. Premise Sixteen: The material world is primary. This does not mean that the spirit does not exist, nor that the material world is all there is. It means that spirit mixes with flesh. It means also that real world actions have real world consequences. It means we cannot rely on Jesus, Santa Claus, the Great Mother, or even the Easter Bunny to get us out of this mess. It means this mess really is a mess, and not just the movement of God’s eyebrows. It means we have to face this mess ourselves. It means that for the time we are here on Earth—whether or not we end up somewhere else after we die, and whether we are condemned or privileged to live here—the Earth is the point. It is primary. It is our home. It is everything. It is silly to think or act or be as though this world is not real and primary. It is silly and pathetic to not live our lives as though our lives are real. Premise Seventeen: It is a mistake (or more likely, denial) to base our decisions on whether actions arising from these will or won’t frighten fence-sitters, or the mass of Americans. Premise Eighteen: Our current sense of self is no more sustainable than our current use of energy or technology. Premise Nineteen: The culture’s problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable. Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions. Modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the monetary fortunes of the decision-makers and those they serve.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the power of the decision-makers and those they serve. Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are founded primarily (and often exclusively) on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below. Re-modification of Premise Twenty: If you dig to the heart of it—if there were any heart left—you would find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Been a good while.

Ramblings from a morning spent in the woods with my head lamp. I have been attempting to spend more hours in the forest, liberating myself from myself. I run a good bit out here and have gotten to know the woods a bit better and myself. These are my thoughts after a good little jaunt around Great Seal, alone.
The trail, she is made of ancient earth. The air out here is liberating, such is the gospel. My only desire when surrounded by the oak, poplar, moss, and dirt is to become like it, wild, thus becoming human. I want to take this liberation to the brick and concrete, the tamed world, the world I am part of. I desire for this liberation to over throw the foundation of my made up life, to take it apart, brick by brick until all that exists is “I”.
I want to make this a habit, a ritual, for this is the human way, we must partake in ritual for the Divine to be revealed. We must partake in sitting, in repeating words we care nothing about, in singing songs, drinking crushed grape and devouring stale bread. My ritual is ancient; it is engraved into my bones, for it is the song of the land, the song of the ancients. I will taste of the earth instead of stale bread, I will drink from my cupped hands, fill them with water from the land instead of plastic cups and sour wine, and I will stand in silence instead of singing praises to abrasive music which drowns out the wild divine.
I will do this to be like Christ, to be like the ancients…

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Part 1

“I see and admire your manner of living…In short you can do almost what you choose. You whites possess the power of subduing almost every animal to your use. You are surrounded by slaves. Every thing about you is in chains and you are slaves yourselves. I fear that if I should exchange my pursuits for your, I too should become a slave (Jensen, 259) .”
We live in a post-modern world, a world which bows down and pays tribute without question to oppressive regimens and unholy dictators (Obama). Violence is divinely sanctioned and encouraged in the land of slavery and bones (The USA). Oceans expire while we pray.
Appalachian peoples, indigenous blacks, and others tribal peoples are painted as ill-bred, dumb, lesser then human peoples. This is the land of Empire. This is life. This is your world, a world where the divine is separated from humanity by brick buildings known as churches and a wooden cross with a tortured peasant suffocating upon it .
We live in a world where we are encouraged to stay deeply rooted in our miserable lifestyles. We live in a world where we are encouraged to stay aggressive, to submit to the capitalist model…and to never fight back. What ever you do, do not fight back…do not resist as industrial civilization kills off your land base. Remember my friend, as I cannot stress this enough, do not ever fight back, even as you die or the world around is dying…please don’t fight back… for fighting back is only acceptable when it comes from the top and is directed toward those at the bottom.
Neither you nor I are free beings, if you think are, you are being duped my friend. The radical activist David Edwards once wrote, “There is no greater obstacle to freedom then the assumption that it has already been attained.” Your mind is and will continue to be colinialized by powers that preach “DEMOCRACY IS FREEDOM”. Allusions are and always shall be the most impenetrable prisons.
Life is tough, it is dreadful, however that is life and Jesus, he suffered just like we did and he was rewarded in the end, so shall I! This way of thinking is deeply ingrained into our minds. Suffering is the definition of humanity.
We need to wake the fuck up.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

East of Eden.

We are living East of Eden.
200,000 gallons of oil per day are being pumped into the ocean; this is what life is like East of Eden.
Human beings are being treated like Lepers in Arizona; this is what life is like East of Eden.
When Christians are at the forefront of oppression towards alien, migrant, undocumented workers, Christians who are supposedly Exiles, who follow an Alien, Undocumented, Migrant Messiah, this is what life is like East of Eden.
We are a people who view the world through the eyes of white privileged men, Aristotle, Aquinas, Plato, and Augustine, instead of through the fathers and mothers of our faith, Ruth, Ester, Mary, Amos, Micah, and Jesus. We see the world through the eyes of conquers and the oppressors instead of through the eyes of those who desire to go back to Eden.
I am fed up.
I am fucking tired.
I am sick and tired of listening to men at church talk about funding colonializing missionaries to reach the people who have not even heard of Jesus…
I am sick of the salmon dying…I am sick of drowning polar bears…. I am sick of buildings…I am sick of airplanes…I am sick of being sick…I am sick of sitting with teenage girls that are addicted to pills…I am sick of life East of Eden.
My sickness is making me wake up…I am angry, I have a holy, a holy prophetic anger against this system, against the narrative that is dominating life in the Empire…
We are in exile, just as our ancestors were, we must as they did work for the radical and all-encompassing vision found in the words of Isaiah, Joel, and Hosea. It is time we like our tribal ancestors begin to resist…it is time we believe…
I want us to now relax and reflect on some readings of scripture. I do not want us to view the words as a far off promise, this is not how our ancestors viewed them, they viewed them as possibly happening in the hear and now. …after this I would like to discuss our experiences…what can we do to get this to take place.

Friday, April 23, 2010

as of late

I have been reading a lot of good material as of late, especially “Against Civilization” which is a collection of essays written by Anarchists. I especially enjoy John Landau’s writing; it is very inspiring and stirs something within.
I am incredibly excited about the way in which followers of Jesus are beginning to read the biblical text as a hole, reading it through the eyes of the oppressed instead of through the eyes of Plato. It is wild, tribal, text that is rooted in liberation, radicalism, and resistance. For so long now it has been used as a weapon or a form of control, opium for the people.
I wrecked my mountain bike really hard last night, nailed a tree and got ripped right off my bike…I think my elbow is dislocated or something, I still cant really sense anything in my fingers. However, other then the wreck I had a great ride. I am really starting to get used to my bike. I rode Barb Wire all the way and I had already climbed Grouse, or whatever it is called without stopping. It is all about rhythm. I have also been getting some good trail run in, I had been super sick for about a week and a half, starting to come out of it.

Friday, April 9, 2010

In the company of prophets.

Today I am anticipating the arrival of my new Trail Running Shoes. I abhor the fact that through the evolution of civilization my feet have become weak, I talk a bit about this with my friend Keegan…humanity was never meant for rubber soles or for anything rubber.
I read a poem about anger, it was written by a Native American. Anger is a good thing, prophetic anger is needed, if you are not angry at the state of society then you are a slave to the fucking system which continues to colonialize your mind. You, as do I, come from the earth and will return to it. I do not need a King or a Democracy to dictate the way I live. I need to listen to the trees more or watch the clouds as the early Israelites did before David fucked up everything with his pursuit of military power and dictatorship.
I was at Great Seal yesterday on top of a ridge looking down upon Chillicothe. I thought of the prophets that used to walk these hills, Logan Elm and Tecumseh, I become filled with a rage, a rage that I am sure does not even come close to the rage they felt when the white men rapped and killed their land base, family, and culture. My skin, my kin’s blood stains this land, my tradition has farmed the shit out of the land around here, so much so that the rivers are not filled with mud, that the run off is suicidal….just so we can buy bull shit food from enormous grocery stores filled with shit. This friend is not life. I am rambling.