Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with grief and anger that I happened to be born during this time and place in and in a human body. Other times I feel blessed to have this experience, to fight this fight. I don’t know. Today I’m in the middle.
It isn’t grief and anger for me - it’s fear. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed with the fear that I won’t be capable of keeping my grandchildren alive. I am terrified of having to watch them die of starvation, or seeing them hauled off into a government slave camp, or being hurt in even worse ways.
Then I think about the adventure of starting a whole new world and that’s what I try to keep my focus on.
Snowflower
It is a tough tough question. I too have had many “damn, 200 years ago would have been so much better”. But you are right Scout, we are here now, and fighting this fight. At some point you “have” to stop with the “coulda beens” and work with the “ares”. Too much to do and not enough time to meander mentally through visions of a HG paradise. build one.
does that make sense?
all in all, it is fucking fantastic to be alive, any time, any where.
Thanks for the reminder R and for the thread Scout.
I was regretting something very strongly last night and yor words have brought me peace…
Tony
It’s funny I used to wish I was an Indian - maybe Tolowa or Gitk’san - in N. America pre-contact, but then I realized the only thing I could to then would be to try and tell everyone what was coming, to create some enormous military union among all the tribes of the continent against the white man. Really if i lived in any un-civilized society, I would have to spend all my time building guards against the inevitable encroachment of civilization. Might not be soo bad.
Tony,
Welcome to this site! Glad to have you here, and glad the words moved you in some way that felt good.
I sometimes wish the indian thing too. But I’ve always dreamed of being like old school celtic, or some siberian thing. Don’t know why.
Maybe I should share some of the irony I am experiencing.
When I was 17 I gave the opportunity to the the Order of the Arrow guide and what I would now call shaman for some stupid job chasing tail as a lifeguard.
Fucking money and pussy blinded the young version of TonyZ, and I wish i could take it all back.
I had good reasons. back then I was awakening to the paramilitariness of the Boy Scouts. I was exploring my bisexuality, a scarlet letter in the scouts, plus I had a hottie of a girlfriend who wass encouraging me to be a lifeguard and make money rather than isolate myself for no pay and help young boys awaken their spiitual potential.
I think at that time, almost 10 years ago, I was having qualms about ‘playing indian’ too. I had heard a lot at a National pow wow that might have influenced my thoughts, but seriously, it was all about the vag.
Now I wonder, how I can recreate where I was headed 10 years ago, before I read Ishmael, without giving in to the patriarchical Boy Scouts and without feeling like I’m ‘playing indian’
Our inipi ceremony in Lousiana flipped a switch in my head.
I felt like saying “Great Spirit, it’s been nine years since my last inipi ceremony…”
And now, what do I do? my mind is re-awakened, but I seek an authentic channel, are my intentions enough???
200 years ago we were struggling to forge a more forgiving and comfortable way of life. maybe we were thinking ‘in 200 years things will be so much better’
i spent a year studying buddhism around the world. living in monastaries and meditating and thinking i’d become a monk. took a year and a half to save up and do it. for those previous 18 months i was completely consumed with the upcoming trip and inevitable wisdom i would touch. i totally alienated myself because working to that goal was more important than anything. the days that would come were way more valuable than the days i was in. and i did it. i got to nepal and met with a monk outside of bodnath. we sat down to talk and nt even 5 minutes into our convo he asks if i can help him get to america. dumbfounded. i did not spend a year and a half to get this monk to the foundation of all that is vile, corrupt and used. i figured he was an exception, not so. he was not the norm either. some monks were content, some were not. some taught me stuff, some asked me stuff. shit is off everywhere and anytime.
get down with where you’re at. the anger and melancholy and anxiety is fuel. fuel to better your position, therefore, the position of others as well. smile lots and track more. break something and laugh about it.
i’m not sure what the other options are but its great to be alive
Tony,
Haha. Boy Scouts. You know, I recieved my Eagle Scout, and got voted into the Order of the Arrow. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. Even in the ceremony I couldn’t get past the cheapness of their outfits; plastic bead necklaces, cheaply made turkey head dresses, and tailored buckskins. They looked like they had bought their outfits at K-mart. And they read all the shit from a piece of paper and talked with a stilted accent. HOW WHITE MAN. Haha.
Animal Hands,
So much of what you say resonates with me.
Yuck I’m sorry to hear that happened to you. I don’t think I would have been so conflicted if our lodge was reduced to that bullshit. We handmade all our ceremonial dress and had rewritten for us a lot of the Mohican mythology (what most OA lodges regurgitate) in favor for the local Miami of Indiana boy-man rituals. There were plenty of elder tribe members involved with our group to make sure we were making a fool of their traditions and ourselves.
We were really different because in our council we also had the honor of Firecrafter, which is similiar to OA but you have to earn it rather than get voted in. To earn membership in the Firecrafter Brotherhood, you have to do a weekend survival, make a fire by friction, write stories, identify plants, animals, and stars, and then host an evening campfire ‘show’.
the most fun I ever had breaking shit was this time in Maine when I was cleaning out this house that had been infested by nasty people. They left a lot of their shit there, and two of us went out back, took and entire stone dinnerware set and played frisbee baseball. we would get on top of the “mound” of crap, and take turns throwing stoneware plates at each other while smacking them with an aluminum baseball bate. The resonant sounds was ever so sweet, and breaking that much alf-way decent shit was extremem cathartic. It was a public housing house and I was just kind of pissed that day that people could treat a gift like that so poorly – so we broke all their shit and makde a huge mess. Later, some city came by in a dumpster and a front loader, and wodnered how all this shit got broken (chairs, lamps, etc.) we just shrugged and said some neighborhood kids must have done it. Man, would it be nice to just have some crappy house you can totally fuck up every once an a while…
Whenever I start to think “gee… the bullshits bubbling over the edge…” and spend an excessive amount of time dwelling on everything I wish did not turn out such and such a way, whether on a private or global level - I remind myself my situation could have been sooo much worse.
all in all, it is fucking fantastic to be alive, any time, any where.
&
its great to be alive
fantastic? great? for you. not to sound contrary, but rather to remind you…
somewhere a starving child begs for change to purchase something toxic to huff in an attempt to take the pains in their stomach away and satisfy their brain dissolving addiction.
sound fantastic? need I go on? what about war atrocities? actually, fuck human life - should we speculate on how acid rain feels to a plant?
despite all the modern iniquities - I feel immensely fortunate. Here the chains seem a bit thinner… here the fetters snap much more easily…
could be soo much worse.
two different quotes from two different poems from two different poets:
“We are Born like this Into this”
yet…
“admidst the clanging banging crashing inside this too long machineclanging nightmare a dream whispers sweet strong screaming listen”