THE LAST QUESTION by Isaac Asimov © 1956

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov © 1956

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:

Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.

Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough -- so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac's.

For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.

But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.

The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.

Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.

They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.

"It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."

Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.

"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."

"That's not forever."

"All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"

Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Twenty billion years isn't forever."

"Will, it will last our time, won't it?"

"So would the coal and uranium."

"All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me."

"I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."

"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up. "It did all right."

"Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for twenty billion years, but then what?" Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."

There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.

Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"

"I'm not thinking."

"Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."

"I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too."

"Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."

"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.

"The hell you do."

"I know as much as you do."

"Then you know everything's got to run down someday."

"All right. Who says they won't?"

"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'"

"It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.

"Never."

"Why not? Someday."

"Never."

"Ask Multivac."

"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."

"Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?

Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.

Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

"No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.

By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.

------------------------------------------------------

Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright marble-disk, centered.

"That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.

The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've ----"

"Quiet, children," said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"

"What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.

Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspacial jumps.

Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.

Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for "analog computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.

Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."

"Why for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded."

Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."

"I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.

Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world."

"I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.

It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.

Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.

"So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now."

"Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase."

"What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.

"Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"

"Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"

"The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units."

Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."

"Now look what you've done, " whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.

"How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back.

"Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."

"Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)

Jarrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."

He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer."

Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."

Jerrodine said, "and now children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."

Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.

-----------------------------------------------------------

VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so concerned about the matter?"

MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."

Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.

"Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."

"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."

VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."

"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --"

VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."

"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."

"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."

"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"

"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"

"I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we'll have another filled in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?"

VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."

"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."

"Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."

"Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."

"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."

"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.

"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."

VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.

"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."

He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.

MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite it's sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.

MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"

VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."

"Why not?"

"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."

"Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.

The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

VJ-23X said, "See!"

The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.

------------------------------------------------------

Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity - but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.

Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.

Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.

"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"

"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"

"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"

"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"

"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."

"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."

Zee Prime said, "On which one?"

"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."

"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."

Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the originals Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.

Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"

The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.

Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.

"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.

"Most of it, " had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."

Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.

The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.

A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."

But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.

Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And Is one of these stars the original star of Man?"

The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF."

"Did the men upon it die?" asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.

The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME."

"Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.

Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"

"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."

"They must all die. Why not?"

"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."

"It will take billions of years."

"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"

Dee sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."

And the Universal AC answered. "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.

Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

--------------------------------------------------------

Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.

Man said, "The Universe is dying."

Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.

New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars build, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.

Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."

"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum."

Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."

The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and Nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.

"Cosmic AC," said Man, "How many entropy be reversed?"

The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man said, "Collect additional data."

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT."

"Will there come a time," said Man, "when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"

The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."

Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"

"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."

Man said, "We shall wait."

------------------------------------------------------

"The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.

One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.

Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"

AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in
hyperspace.

--------------------------------------------------------

Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

And there was light----


http://www.multivax.com/



TARA

TO BE ALONE IS ESSENTIAL ~ K

To be alone is essential for man to be uninfluenced,for something uncontaminated to take place. For this aloneness there seems to be no time, there are too many things to do, too many responsibilities and so
on. To learn to be quiet, shutting oneself in one’s room, to give the mind a rest, becomes a necessity.

Love is part of this aloneness. To be simple, clear,and inwardly quiet, is to have that flame.

JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===


PEACE
TARA

EARTH THIS WAS ~ ONE EARTH ~ ONE PEOPLE ~ FOR ALL LIFE

Indigenous Leaders Bring Eco-Sense to UN

UNITED NATIONS, (OneWorld) - If one is serious about addressing the climate change crisis, it might be wise to listen to those who have close and intimate knowledge of the lands and waters.

"Mother Earth is crying," says Carrie Dann, an elder of the Western Shoshone indigenous people of the United States. "She is crying because she is wounded."

Sharing Dann's concerns about the continued abuse of natural resources for commercial gains, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a leader of the native peoples of the Philippines, adds: "It's time to stop this senselessness."

Both Dann and Tauli-Corpuz are currently attending the sixth annual meeting of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples, which has brought together more than 1,000 indigenous representatives from as many as 70 countries.

The indigenous leaders say their communities are least responsible for the destruction of the Earth's natural environment. Yet, whether living in the high Himalayas or on the shores of the Caribbean, in the snow-covered Arctic region or in the Pacific islands, native populations are disproportionately affected by climate change.

The loss of land and natural resources, they explain, has forced many communities to move to urban areas where they find it increasingly hard to engage in their traditional practices and live according to their belief systems.

"Removed from our land we are already removed from ourselves," says Mick Dodson, an Australian aboriginal leader and member of the UN Permanent Forum.

Experts on science and biodiversity now widely acknowledge that indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge about plant and animal species is vital to scientific understanding of how to preserve natural resources.

"Nature conservation is at the heart of the cultures and values of traditional societies," says Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biodiversity.

The biodiversity treaty, which has been signed or ratified by 190 countries, not only recognizes the significance of traditional knowledge, but also asserts the need to respect and maintain indigenous innovations.

Though appreciative of the objectives laid out in the treaty, indigenous leaders say they lament the fact that the world body has failed to recognize their right to exercise full control over their traditional lands and resources.

"Although in recent decades some progress has been made in the area of legal recognition of indigenous peoples' right to the protection of their lands, territories, and natural resources," notes Tauli-Corpuz, "in practical terms, this recognition has not translated into reality."

Threats to indigenous peoples' lands and territories, according to Tauli-Corpuz, include such things as mineral extraction, logging, toxic contamination, privatization, and development projects, as well as the use of genetically modified seeds and technology.

Last year, when the UN General Assembly met in September, many had raised hopes that it would unanimously endorse the draft declaration on the universal rights of the world's indigenous peoples, but that did not happen.

Though already approved by the UN Human Rights Council, the United States, Canada, Australia, and some other nations refused to accept the text because it included a clause calling for the recognition of indigenous peoples' right to self-determination.

Indigenous leaders say unless the world body recognizes their peoples' right to self-determination, international efforts to reverse the loss of biodiversity and overcome the challenges of climate change will remain futile because their resources will continue to be exploited by private businesses.

Most of the world's natural resources are found within indigenous peoples' traditional territories, where multinational corporations are allowed by governments to engage in logging, mining, and other operations that contribute to environmental degradation and climate change.

In most cases, according to indigenous leaders, such operation take place without the prior and informed consent of the native communities who are most knowledgeable about their immediate environment and the animal and plant species that surround their lives.

A recent UN study points out that since appearing on Earth, human beings have never destroyed the web of life as much as during the past 50 years, substantiating the concerns raised by indigenous leaders here.

In fact, according to the 2007 UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report, which involved more than 1,300 scientists from 95 countries, before the industrial era, nearly 47 percent of the Earth's land surface was covered with forests; today the planet is left with only 10-percent forest coverage.

The report shows that every year at least 10 million hectares of the world's forest are lost to unsustainable modes of economic development.

These forests are home to about 80 percent of plant and animal species. Most are also home to a significant population of indigenous people, who have intimate knowledge about other forms of life around them.

"The link between biodiversity and traditional knowledge is evident," says Djoghlaf, in whose view the Earth is a "spiritual mother who not only gives life and therefore food, but also provides the cultural and spiritual identity of its occupants."

Believing that indigenous peoples' dependence on the sustainable management and use of biological sources "can protect and enhance" biodiversity, he adds: "Their cultures and cosmo-visions are therefore essential in the global effort to halt biodiversity loss and natural habitat destruction."

Haider Rizvi, OneWorld US May 18, 2007

~LISTEN~
~MAKE A DIFFERENCE~TAKE THE LEAP!

AWAKEN TO PEACE AND LOVE
TARA

~CHASER OF A DREAM ~

~CHASER OF A DREAM~

ONCE THERE WAS A DREAMER
SHE WANTED TO BE
ALL THERE WAS - WAS SHE
SHE SAW HERSELF AS MANY THINGS
SOMEONE SHE WAS NOT
SOMEONE SHE WOULD BE

I'LL FOLLOW YOU
TAKE ME DREAM
I'LL CLOSE MY EYES

I HEAR THE VOICES IN THE CALLING OF THE NIGHT
I AM NO WHERE YOU CANNOT SEE ME
FOLLOW ME - CHASER OF A DREAM

CHASER OF A DREAM
YOUR JOURNEY IS IN SIGHT
YOU HAVE MY EYES TO DO YOUR SEEKING

COME WITH ME GAZERS OF THE MOON
TO A PLACE YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN BEFORE
YOU'LL ALWAYS BE EVERYWHERE AFTER ME
YOU CAN'T RUN
YOU'RE MOVING TO SLOW

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN BEFORE I DISAPPEAR
KNOWING NOT OF OTHERS THAT MAY FOLLOW ME
YOU'LL ALWAYS BE A CHASER OF A DREAM

INSIDE YOUR EYES
THERE'S SOMEONE ELSE YOU WANT TO BE
ONCE YOU'RE THERE
IT'S NOT QUITE AS IT SEEMS
YOU WANT TO BE MORE
A CHASER OF A DREAM

FOR THE MAN THAT INSPIRED ME
THE MAN ON THE MOON.

AWAKEN TO PEACE AND LOVE

TARA

PURIFY YOURSELF WITH SACRED WATER~FREE YOURSELF AND GO WITH THE FLOW!

=== JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===

You actually have to die to everything you know—to your memories, to your miseries, to your pleasures. And, when there is no jealousy, no envy, no greed, no torture of despair, then you will know what love is and you will come upon that which may be called sacred; therefore, sacredness is the essence of religion. You know, a great river may become polluted as it flows past a town, but if the pollution isn’t too great, the river cleanses itself as it goes along and within a few miles it is again clean, fresh, pure. Similarly, when once the mind comes upon this sacredness, then every act is a cleansing act; through its very movement the mind is making itself innocent and, therefore, it is not accumulating.

A mind that has discovered this sacredness is in constant revolution—not economic or social revolution, but an inner revolution through which it is endlessly purifying itself. Its action is not based on some idea or formula. As the river, with a tremendous volume of water behind it, cleanses itself as it flows, so does the mind cleanse itself when once it has come upon this religious sacredness.

Collected Works, Vol. XV - 244


TARA
____________________________________________

~CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO WORLDS~

AN INDIAN FATHER PLEADS WITH HIS SON'S TEACHER TO RECOGNIZE THE BOY'S CULTURAL TRADITION AND PERSONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

Dear teacher,
I would like to introduce you to my son, Wind-Wolf. He is probably what you would consider a typical Indian kid. He was born and raised on the reservation. He has black hair, dark brown eyes, an an olive complexion. And like so many Indian children his age, he is shy and quiet in the classroom. He is 5 years old, in kindergarten, and I can't understand why you have already labeled him a "slow learner."
At the age of 5, he has already been through quite an education compared with his peers in Western society. As his first introduction into this world, he was bonded to his mother and to the Mother Earth in a traditional native childbirth ceremony. And he has been continuously cared for by his mother, father, sister, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and extended tribal family since this ceremony.
From his mother's warm and loving arms, Wind-Wolf was placed in a secure and specially designed Indian baby basket. His father and the medicine elders conducted another ceremony with him that served to bond him with the essence of his genetic father, the Great Spirit, the Grandfather Sun, and the Grandmother Moon. This was all done in order to introduce him properly into the new and natural world, not the world of artificiality, and to protect his sensitive and delicate soul. It is our people's way of showing the newborn respect, ensuring that he starts his life on the path of spirituality.
The traditional Indian baby basket became his "turtle's shell" and served as the first seat for his classroom. He was strapped in for safety, protected from injury by the willow roots and hazel wood construction. The basket was made by a tribal elder who had gathered her materials with prayer and in a ceremonial way. It is the same kind of basket that our people have used for thousands of years. It is specially designed to provide the child with the kind of knowledge and experience he will need in order to survive in his culture and environment.
Wind-Wolf was strapped in snugly with a deliberate restriction upon his arms and legs. Although you in Western society may argue that such a method serves to hinder motor-skill developement and abstract reasoning, we believe it forces the child to first develop his intuitive faculties, rational intellect, symbolic thinking, and five senses. Wind-Wolf was with his mother constantly, closely bonded physically, as she carried him on her back or held him in front while breastfeeding. She carried him everywhere she went, and every night he slept with both parents. Because of this, Wind-Wolf's educational setting was not only a "secure" environment, but it was also very colorful, complicated, sensitive, and diverse. He has been with his mother at the ocean at daybreak when she made her prayers and gathered fresh seaweed from the rocks, he has sat with his uncles in a rowboat on the river while they fished with gill nets, and he has listened to elders as they told creation stories and animal legends and sang songs around the campfires.
He has attended the sacred and ancient White Deerskin Dance of his people and is well-acquainted with the cultures and languages of other tribes. He has been with his mother when she gathered herbs for healing and watched his tribal aunts and grandmothers gather and prepare tradtional foods such as acorn, smoked salmon, eel, and deer meat. He has played with abalone shells, pine nuts, iris grass string, and leather while watching the women make beaded jewelry and traditional native regalia. He has had many opportunities to watch his father, uncles,and ceremonial leaders use different kinds of colorful feathers and sing different kinds of songs while preparing for the sacred dances and rituals.
As he grew older, Wind-Wolf began to crawl out of the baby basket, develop his motor skills, and explore the world around him. When frightened or sleepy, he could always return to the basket, as a turtle withdraws into its shell. Such an inward journey allows one to reflect in privacy on what he has learned and to carry the new knowledge deeply into the unconscious and the soul. Shapes, sizes, colors, texture, sound, smell, feeling, taste, and the learning process are therefore functionallly integrated - the physical and spiritual, matter and energy, conscious and unconscious, individual and social.
This kind of learning goes beyond the basics of distinguishing the difference between rough and smooth, square and round, hard and soft, black and white, similarities and extremes.
For example, Wind-Wolf was with his mother in South Dakota while she danced for seven days straight in the hot sun, fasting, and piercing herself in the sacred Sun Dance Ceremony of a distant tribe. He has been doctored in a number of different healing ceremonies by medicine men and women from diverse places ranging from Alaska and Arizona to New York and California. He has been in more than 20 different sacred sweat-lodge rituals - used by native tribes to purify mind, body, and soul-since he was 3 years old, and he has already been exposed to many different religions of his racial brothers: Protestant, Catholic, Asian Buddhist, and Tibetan Lamaist.
It takes a long time to absorb and reflect on these kinds of experiences, so maybe that is why you think my Indian child is a slow learner. His aunts and grandmothers taught him to count and know his numbers while they sorted out the complex materials used to make the abstract designs in the native baskets. He listened to his mother count each and every bead and sort out numerically according to color while she painstakingly made complex beaded pelts and necklaces. He learned his basic numbers by helping his father count and sort the rocks for a medicine sweat, say, or 13 for the summer solstice ceremony. (The rocks are later heated and doused with water to create purifying steam.) And he was taught to learn mathematics by counting the sticks we use in our traditional native hand game. So I realize he may be slow in grasping the methods and tools that you are now using in your classroom, ones quite familiar to his white peers, but I hope you will be patient with him. It takes time to adjust to a new cultural system and learn new things.
He is not culturally "disadvantaged," but he is culturally "different." If you ask him how many months there are in a year, he will probably tell you 13. He will respond this way not because he doesn't know how to count properly, but because he has been taught by our traditional people that there are 13 full moons in a year according to the native tribal calendar and that there are really 13 planets in our solar system and 13 tail feathers on a perfectly balanced eagle, the most powerful kind of bird used in ceremony and healing.
But he also knows that some eagles may only have 12 tail feathers, or seven, that they do not all have the same number. He knows that the flicker has exactly 10 tail feathers; that they are red and black, representing the directions of east and west, life and death; and that this bird is considered a "fire" bird, a power used in native doctoring and healing. He can probably count more than 40 different kinds of birds, tell you and his peers what kind of bird each is and where it lives, the seasons in which it appears, and how it is used in a sacred ceremony. He may have trouble writing his name on a piece of paper, but he knows how to say it and many other things in several different Indian languages. He is not fluent yet because he is only 5 years old and required by law to attend your educational system, learn your language, your values, your ways of thinking, and your methods of teaching and learning.
So you see, all of these influences together make him somewhat shy and quiet- and perhaps "slow" according to your standards. But if Wind-Wolf was not prepared for his first tentative foray into your world, neither were you appreciative of his culture. On the first day of class, you had difficulty with his name. You wanted to call him Wind, insisting that Wolf somehow must be his middle name. The students in the class laughed at him, causing further embarrassment.
While you are trying to teach him your new methods, helping him learn new tools for self-discovery and adapt to his new learning environment, he may be looking out the window as if daydreaming. Why? Because he has been taught to watch and study the changes in nature. It is hard for him to make the appropriate psychic switch from the right to the left hemisphere of the brain when he sees the leaves turning bright colors, the geese heading south, and the squirrels scurrying around for nuts to get ready for a harsh winter. In his heart,in his young mind, and almost by instinct, he knows that this is the time of year he is supposed to be with his people gathering and preparing fish, deer meat, and native plants and herbs, and learning his assigned tasks in this role. He is caught between two worlds, torn by two distinct cultural systems.
Yesterday, for the third time in two weeks, he came home crying and said he wanted to have his hair cut. He said he doesn't have any friends at school because they make fun of his long hair. I tried to explain to him that in our culture, long hair is a sign of masculinity and balance and is a source of power. But he remained adamant in his position.
To make matters worse, he recently encountered his first harsh case of racism. Wind-Wolf had managed to adopt at least one good school friend. On the way home from school one day, he asked his new pal if he wanted to come home to play with him until supper. That was OK with Wind-Wolf's mother, who was walking with them. When they all got to the little friend's house, the two boys ran inside to ask permission while Wind-Wolf's mother waited. But the other boy's mother lashed out: "It is OK if you have to play with him at school, but we don't allow those kind of people in our house!" When my wife asked why not, the other boy's mother answered, "Because you are Indians, and we are white, and I don't want my kids growing up with your kind of people."
So now my young Indian child does not want to go to school anymore (even though we cut his hair). He feels that he does not belong. He is the only Indian child in your class, and he is well aware of this fact. Instead of being proud of his race, heritage, and culture, he feels ashamed. When he watches television, he asks why the white people hate us so much and always kill our people in the movies and why they take everything away from us. He asks why the other kids in school are not taught about the power, beauty, and essence of nature or provided with an opportunity to experience the world around them firsthand. He says he hates living in the city and that he misses his Indian cousins and friends. He asks why one young white girl at school who is his friend always tells him "I like you, Wind-Wolf, because you are a good Indian."
Now he refuses to sing his native songs, play with his Indian artifacts, learn his language, or participate in his sacred ceremonies. When I ask him to go to a powwow or help me with a sacred sweat-lodge ritual, he says no because "that's weird," and he doesn't want his friends at school to think he doesn't believe in God.
So, dear teacher, I want to introduce you to my son, Wind-Wolf, who is not really a "typical" little Indian kid after all. He stems from a long line of hereditary chiefs, medicine men and women, and ceremonial leaders whose accomplishments and unique forms of knowledge are still being studied and recorded in contemporary books. He has seven different tribal systems flowing through his blood; he is even part white. I want my child to succeed in school and in life. I don't want him to be a dropout or juvenile delinquent or to end up on drugs and alcohol because he is made to feel inferior or because of discrimination. I want him to be proud of his rich heritage and culture, and I would like him to develop the necessary capabilities to adapt to, and succeed in, both cultures. But I need your help.
What you say and what you do in the classroom, what you teach and how you teach it, and what you don't say and don't teach will have a significant effect on the potential success or failure of my child. Please remember that this is the primary year of his education and development. All I ask is that you work with me, not against me, to help educate my child in the best way. If you don't have the knowledge, preparation, experience, or training to effectively deal with culturally different children, I am willing to help you with the few resources I have, or direct you to such resources.
Millions of dollars have been appopriated by Congress and are being spent each year for "Indian Education." All you have to do is take advantage of it and encourage your school to make an effort to use it in the name of "equal education." My Indian child has a constitutional right to learn, retain and maintain his heritage and culture. By the same token, I strongly believe that non-Indian children also have a constitutional right to learn about our Native American heritage and culture because Indians play a significant part in the history of Western society. Until this reality is equally understood and applied in education as a whole, there will be a lot more schoolchildren in grades K-2 identifed as "slow learners."
My son is not an empty glass coming into your class to be filled. He is a full basket coming into a different environment and society with something special to share. Please let him share his knowledge, heritage, and culture with you and his peers.

Robert Lake (Medicine Grizzlybear) A member of the Seneca and Cherokee Indian Tribes.
From Teacher Magazine, September 1990
He was an associate professor at Gonzaga University's School of Education in Spokane, Washington; when this was written.


A special thank you goes out to my teacher and mentor Dr. Henrietta Mann (Full Blooded Southern Cheyenne)for a copy of this essay. Peace to you always.

AWAKEN TO PEACE AND LOVE
TARA

ENTER INTO THE UNKNOWN

=== JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===

A mind which is a light to itself needs no experience

What an extraordinary thing meditation is. If there is any kind of compulsion, effort to make thought conform, imitate, then it becomes a wearisome burden. The silence which is desired ceases to be illuminating. If it is the pursuit of visions and experiences, then it leads to illusions and self-hypnosis. Only in the flowering of thought and so ending thought does meditation have significance. Thought can only flower in freedom, not in ever-widening patterns of knowledge. Knowledge may give newer experiences of greater sensation but a mind that is seeking experiences of any kind is immature. Maturity is the freedom from all experience; it is no longer under any influence to be or not to be.

Maturity in meditation is the freeing of the mind from knowledge, for knowledge shapes and controls all experience. A mind which is a light to itself needs no experience. Immaturity is the craving for greater and wider experience. Meditation is the wandering through the world of knowledge and being free of it to enter into the unknown.

Krishnamurti's Notebook - 213


TARA

RAINDROPS ~ OUR PRECIOUS WATER & MEDITATION

=== JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===

That drop nourishes the earth and man

It’s curious how all-important meditation becomes; there’s no end to it nor is there a beginning to it. It’s like a raindrop: in that drop are all the streams, the great rivers, the seas and the waterfalls; that drop nourishes the earth and man; without it, the earth would be a desert. Without meditation the heart becomes a desert, a wasteland.

Krishnamurti's Notebook - 91

You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim

Meditation is one of the most extraordinary things, and if you do not know what it is you are like the blind man in a world of bright color, shadows and moving light. It is not an intellectual affair, but when the heart enters into the mind, the mind has quite a different quality; it is really, then, limitless, not only in its capacity to think, to act efficiently, but also in its sense of living in a vast space where you are part of everything.

Meditation is the movement of love. It isn’t the love of the one or of the many. It is like water that anyone can drink out of any jar, whether golden or earthenware; it is inexhaustible. And a peculiar thing takes place, which no drug or self-hypnosis can bring about; it is as though the mind enters into itself, beginning at the surface and penetrating ever more deeply, until depth and height have lost their meaning and every form of measurement ceases. In this state there is complete peace—not contentment which has come about through gratification—but a peace that has order, beauty and intensity. It can all be destroyed, as you can destroy a flower, and yet because of its very vulnerability it is indestructible. This meditation cannot be learned from another. You must begin without knowing anything about it, and move from innocence to innocence.

The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order, then that very order will bring about its own limitation, and the mind will be its prisoner. In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore or how to cross the river. You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is.

Meditations 1969 - 1

PEACE
TARA

THE GENTLE TOUCH ~

Eventually, we all receive the gentle touch.

PEACE
TARA

AN INNOCENT MIND HAS NO FEAR ~ J KRISHNAMURTI

=== JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===

An innocent mind has no fear

What brings freedom from fear—and I assure you the freedom is complete—is to be aware of fear without the word, without trying to deny or escape from fear, without wanting to be in some other state. If with complete attention you are aware of the fact that there is fear, then you will find that the observer and the observed are one: there is no division between them. There is no observer who says, “I am afraid”; there is only fear, without the word which indicates that state. The mind is no longer escaping, no longer seeking to get rid of fear, no longer trying to find the cause, and therefore it is no longer a slave to words. There is only a movement of learning, which is the outcome of innocence, and an innocent mind has no fear.

Collected Works, Vol. XIII - 250

NO FEAR ~ ...

KRISHNAMURTI ~ AWAKEN YOUR ENERGY ~ NO MOTIVE NECESSARY

=== JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===

To awaken this energy, the mind must have no resistance

Now, how do we awaken in ourselves an energy that has its own momentum, that is its own cause and effect, an energy that has no resistance and does not deteriorate? How does one come by it? The organized religions have advocated various methods, and by practicing a particular method one is supposed to get this energy. But methods do not give this energy. The practice of a method implies conformity, resistance, denial, acceptance, adjustment, so that whatever energy one has is merely wearing itself out. If you see the truth of this, you will never practice any method. That is one thing. Secondly, if energy has a motive, an end towards which it is going, that energy is self-destructive. And for most of us, energy does have a motive, does it not? We are moved by a desire to achieve, to become this or that, and therefore our energy defeats itself. Thirdly, energy is made feeble, petty, when it is conforming to the past—and this is perhaps our greatest difficulty. The past is not only the many yesterdays but also every minute that is being accumulated, the memory of the thing that was over a second before. This accumulation in the mind is also destructive of energy.

So, to awaken this energy, the mind must have no resistance, no motive, no end in view, and it must not be caught in time as yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Then energy is constantly renewing itself and therefore not degenerating. Such a mind is not committed, it is completely free, and it is only such a mind that can find the unnameable, that extraordinary something which is beyond words. The mind must free itself from the known to enter into the unknown.

Collected Works, Vol. XIII - 337

AWAKEN YOUR ENERGY ~ NO RESISTANCE ~ NO MOTIVE
PEACE
TARA

VIBRATIONAL CALLING

Law of Attraction says, "That which is like unto itself is drawn." Which means vibrations are always matched. So as you experience the contrast which inspires the new idea within you, this new idea --this desire -- whether it is a strong one or a soft one, is summoning unto itself proportionately. And as it summons, it is always answered. It is the basis of our Universe: When it is asked, it is always given. The confusion that humans feel is that they think they are asking with their words -- or even with their action -- and sometimes you are. But the Universe is not responding to your words or your action. The Universe is responding to your vibrational calling.

Excerpted from a workshop in Cincinnati, OH on Saturday, July 15th, 2000 ©1997-2006 Abraham-Hicks Publications.


All Is Well

Peace
Tara

GO WITH THE FLOW~

No Security Risk(s)

Be like the mountain
Be like the stream
Become like the river, the lake, the ocean and all living things.

Peace
Tara

KARUK WOMAN

Of the Earth, but from the stars, we honor and protect the Earth for future generations.....and so it is.
Women of the Karuk Tribe, in beauty we live.

PEACE
TARA

OBSERVER OR THE OBSERVED?

JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===

If you can look . . . without the observer, a totally different action takes place.

Questioner: If we are all that background, the past, who is the observer who is looking at the past? How do we separate the past and the entity who says, “I am looking at it”?

Krishnamurti: Who is the entity, the observer that is looking at the past? Who is the entity, the thought, the being—whatever you call it—who says, “I am looking at the unconscious”?

There is a separation between the observer and the observed. Is that so? Is not the observer the observed? Therefore, there is no separation at all! Go slowly into this. If you could understand this one thing it would be the most extraordinary phenomenon that could take place. Do you understand the question? There is the unconscious as well as the conscious, and I say that I must know all about it; I must know the content and also the state of consciousness when there is no content, which is a step further, which we will go into if we have time.

I am looking at it. I say, the observer says, that the unconscious is the past; the unconscious is the race into which I was born, the tradition—not only the tradition of society but of the family, the name, the residue of the whole Indian culture, the residue of all of humanity with all its problems, anxieties, guilt, and so on. I am all that, and that is the unconscious, which is the result of time, of many thousands of yesterdays, and there is the ‘me’ who is observing it. Now, who is the observer? Again, find out for yourself; discover who the observer is! Don’t wait for me to tell you!

Collected Works, Vol. XVI - 199

Peace
Tara

THE ART OF LISTENING ~ KRISHNAMURTI

The beauty of listening . . .

The beauty of listening lies in being highly sensitive to everything about you: to the ugliness, to the dirt, to the squalor, to the poverty about you, and also to the dirt, to the disorder, to the poverty of one’s own being. When you are aware of both, then there is no effort, that is, when there is an awareness which is without choice, then there is no effort.

JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote
Collected Works, Vol. XV - 61

Peace
Tara

INNER PEACE ~ BALANCING ACT

AS HUMAN BEINGS WE ALL WANT TO BE HAPPY AND FREE FROM MISERY.
WE HAVE LEARNED THAT THE KEY TO HAPPINESS IS INNER PEACE.
THE GREATEST OBSTACLES TO INNER PEACE ARE DISTURBING EMOTIONS
SUCH AS ANGER AND ATTACHMENT, FEAR AND SUSPICION,
WHILE LOVE AND COMPASSION, A SENSE OF UNIVERSAL RESPONSIBILITY
ARE THE SOURCES OF PEACE AND HAPPINESS.

DALAI LAMA


Peace
Tara

KRISHNAMURTI

When one gives one’s heart, it is a total action. And when you give your mind, it is a fragmentary action. And most of us give our minds to so many things. That is why we live a fragmentary life—thinking one thing and doing another; and we are torn, contradictory. To understand something, one must give not only one’s mind but one’s heart to it.


Peace
Tara

CHANGE IS CONSTANT AND CHANGE WE MUST

TIME FOR A COOL CHANGE

Man is in the process of changing,
to forms that are not of this world;
grows he in time to the formless,
a plane on the cycle above.
Know ye, ye must become formless
before ye are one with the light.

Adapted from the Emerald Tablets of Thoth


PEACE
TARA

RUMI

OPEN YOUR HEART
TO THE MYSTERY OF YOURSELF
AND YOU SHALL FALL HEADLONG
INTO AN OCEAN OF LOVE
FROM WHERE THERE IS NO RETURN.

RUMI


PEACE
TARA

SEEING WITH YOUR HEART

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a
green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and
deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the
man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.
- William Blake, 1799, The Letters

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
- Kahlil Gibran

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection
of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.
- Gandhi

Learn to see, and then you'll know that
there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.
- Carlos Castaneda

Your vision will become clear only when you look
into your heart. ... Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens.
- Carl Jung

When there's nothing to see, look.
- Dakota Indian saying

The heart has eyes which the brain knows nothing of.
- Charles H. Perkhurst

If you gaze for long, the abyss also gazes into you.
- Nietzsche

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
- Thoreau

KNOW THAT WE COULD ALL LEARN TO "SEE" BETTER...
IMAGINE MORE...
FEEL IT WITH OUR HEARTS...
PEACE
TARA

CREATE A NEW WORLD ~ J KRISHNAMURTI

Krishnamurti

CREATE A NEW WORLD

If you have to create a new world, a new civilization, a new art, everything new, not contaminated by tradition, by fear, by ambitions, if you have to create something anonymous which is yours and mine, a new society, together, in which there is not you and me but an "ourness," must there not be a mind that is completely anonymous, therefore alone? This implies, does it not, that there must be a revolt against conformity, a revolt against respectability, because the respectable man is the mediocre man because he wants something, he is dependent on influence for his happiness, on what his neighbor thinks, on what his guru thinks, on what the Bhagavad-Gita or the Upanishads or the Bible or the Christ says. His mind is never alone. He never walks alone, but he always walks with a companion, the companion of his ideas.

Is it not important to find out, to see, the whole significance of interference, of influence, the establishment of the "me," which is the contradiction of the anonymous? Seeing the whole of that, does not the question inevitably arise: Is it possible immediately to bring about that state of mind that is not influenced, which cannot be influenced by its own experience or by the experience of others, a mind that is incorruptible, that is alone? Then only is there a possibility of bringing about a different world, a different culture, a different society in which happiness is possible.

The Book of Life - December 6
JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote

TARA

THE KINDNESS OF SLEEP~WINGMAKERS

In the Kindness of Sleep

I visited you last night when you
were sleeping with a child's abandon.
Curled so casual in sheets
inlaid by your beauty.
I held my hand to your face
and touched as gently
as I know how
so you could linger with your dreams.
I heard soft murmurs that only angels make
when they listen to their home.
So I drew my hand away
uneasy that I might wake you
even as gentle as I was.

But you stayed with your dreams
and I watched as they found their way to you
in the kindness of sleep.
And I dreamed that I was an echo of your body
curled beside you like a fortune hunter
who finally found his gold.
I nearly wept at the sound of your breath,
but I stayed quiet as a winter lake, and bit my lip
to ensure I wouldn't be detected.

I didn't want to intrude
so I set my dream aside
and I gently pulled your hand from underneath
the covers to hold.
A hand whose entry into flesh
must have been the lure that brought me here.
And as I hold it
I remember why I came
to feel your pulse
and the beating of your heart in deep slumber.
And I remember why I came in the
kindness of sleep --
to hold your hand, touch your face
and listen to the soft breathing
of an angel,
curled so casual in sheets
inlaid by your beauty.

WingMakers' Chamber Poetry Twenty-Two

NOTE: All of the materials contained on this
WingMakers website are copyright protected.
© Copyright, WingMakers LLC 1998-2001.

wingmakers.com/poetry/poetrychamber22.html



PEACE
TARA

FROM THE STARS~WE CARRY THE LIGHT

ANGELS OF THE LIGHT

THERE WAS ONLY LIGHT
AND RADIANT WAVES OF LOVE
WE WERE THE LIGHT
WE WERE THE LOVE
AND WE WERE ONE
WE WERE A MAGNIFICENT,
GLOWING,
LOVING SUN
SENDING FORTH OUR LIGHT TO ALL
SO THE UNIVERSE WOULD KNOW
ETERNAL TRUTH
HELD BY THE WISDOM OF LOVE,
THE LOVE THAT I AM
THE LOVE THAT WE ARE,
LIGHT FROM A GLOWING, LOVING STAR

THE POWER OF OUR LOVE
BLAZED INTENSE AND BRIGHT
OUR STAR COULD NO MORE CONTAIN
THE LOVE AND LIGHT,
AND WE WERE MANY
WE WERE MAGNIFICENT,
GLOWING
LOVING ANGELS
CARRYING FORTH TO ALL, OUR STAR
SO THE UNIVERSE WOULD KNOW
ETERNAL WISDOM
EMBRACED BY THE TRUTH OF LOVE,
THE LOVE THAT I AM,
THE LOVE THAT WE ARE,
LIGHT FROM A GLOWING, LOVING STAR

IN THE DEPTH OF LOVE WE CAME
TO SAVE THIS WORLD FROM INNER DEATH,
TO TRANSMUTE MATTER INTO LIGHT,
TO LIFT ITS LOW VIBRATION
BEYOND THE DARK OF NIGHT
AND SPARE THIS ICY, DENSER REALM
ITS PLUNGING, HOPELESS FLIGHT

IN GIVING SO MUCH LIGHT AND LOVE
WE'VE NEARLY ALL FORGOT
OUR MAGNIFICENT, GLOWING, STARRY PAST
BELIEVING WHAT WE'RE NOT
AND NOW WE MUST REMEMBER
THE TRUTH OF WHO WE ARE-
ANGELS BEINGS CO-CREATING,
SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF A STAR
WE ARE MAGNIFICENT,
GLOWING,
LOVING CHILDREN
OF A NEARLY FORGOTTEN SUN
WHOSE LIGHT GOES FORTH TO BRIGHTEN ALL
SO THE WORLD WOULD KNOW IT'S ONE,
ENFOLDED BY THE POWER OF LOVE,
THE LOVE THAT I AM,
THE LOVE THAT WE ARE
LIGHT FROM A GLOWING, LOVING STAR

Unknown


REMEMBER WHERE YOU CAME FROM
AND REACH FOR THE STARS ONCE AGAIN

PEACE
TARA

IMAGINE

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

John Lennon




Peace
Tara

PERFECT SENSE

PERFECT SENSE

[HAL]: Stop Dave
Will you stop Dave?
Stop Dave
I'm afraid
I'm afraid
Dave, my mind is going
I can feel it
I can feel it
My mind is going
There is no question about it
I can feel it
I can feel it
I can feel it
I'm afraid

The monkey sat on a pile of stone
And he stared at the broken bone in his hand
Strains of a Viennese quartet rang out across the land
The monkey looked up at the stars
And he thought to himself
Memory is a stranger
History is for fools
And he cleaned his hands in a pool of holy writing
Turned his back on the garden and set out for the nearest town
Hold on hold on soldier

When you add it all up
The tears and the marrowbone
There's an ounce of gold
And an ounce of pride in each ledger
And the Germans kill the Jews
And the Jews kill the Arabs
And the Arabs kill the hostages
And that is the news
And is it any wonder that the monkey's confused
He said Mama Mama, the President's a fool
Why do I have to keep reading these technical manuals
And the joint chiefs of staff
And the brokers on Wall Street said
Don't make us laugh, you're a smart kid
Time is linear
Memory's a stranger
History is for fools
Man is a tool in the hands
Of the great God Almighty
And they gave him command of a nuclear submarine
Sent him back in search of the Garden of Eden
-----------------------------
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents,
Pounds, shillings and pence
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense

Little black soul departs in perfect focus
Hold on soldier
Prime time fodder for the News at Nine
Hold on, hold on soldier
Darling is the child warm in the bed tonight

[Marv Albert:] "Hi everybody I'm Marv Albert
And welcome to our telecast
Coming to you live from Memorial Stadium
It's a beautiful day
And today we expect a sensational matchup
But first our global anthem"

Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents,
Pounds, shillings and pence
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense

[Marv:] "And here come the players
As I speak to you now, the captain
Has his cross hairs zeroed in on the oil rig
He's at periscope depth
It looks to me like he's going to attack
By the way did you know that a submarine
Captain earns 200,000 dollars a year"
[Edward:]"That's less tax Marv"
[Marv:]"Yeah, less tax
Thank you Edward"
[Edward:]"You're welcome"
[Marv:]"Now back to the game...he fires one...yes
There goes two; both fish are running
The rig is going into a prevent defense
Will they make it? I don't think so"
Look out!
Look at that baby burn!

Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Expressed in dollars and cents,
Pounds, shillings and pence
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense
Can't you see
It all makes perfect sense


ROGER WATERS

THINK PEACE
TARA

CELTIC HERMIT

CELTIC HERMIT
WANDERS ALONE
WITH NO ONE TO CONVERSE WITH BUT CROWS.
SHE IS BRANDED BY A BIRTHMARK
OF A CROW ON HER CHEST.


By deaddolliecandy


And so it is...and was
Peace
Tara

GUARDIANS OF THE FOREST~EARTH & SKY

ON THE WOODS OF ANCIENT DAYS
LIVED THE BEAUTIFUL, THE FAE
GUARDIANS OF THE EARTH AND SKY
FORESTS RAZED AND TEARS THEY CRIED
DEEP WITHIN THE TREES THEIR KEEP
BANISHED FROM THE WORLD THEY SLEEP
UNTIL THE DAYS OF NOW ARE OLD
WITHDRAWN FROM THE HUMAN'S HOLD

By phnxprmnt021

TARA

J.R.R. TOLKIEN & THE ELVEN WORLD

I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring there is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago,
and people who will see a world that I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think of times there were before
Sit-and-Think listen for returning feet and voices at the door.

JRR TOLKIEN


SUCH BEAUTY
PEACE
TARA

THE FIRST MEDICINE LODGE

THE FIRST MEDICINE LODGE


The chief god of the Blackfeet is the Sun. He made the
world and rules it, and to him the people pray. One of
his names is Napi—old man; but there is another Napi
who is very different from the Sun, and instead of
being great, wise, and wonderful, is foolish, mean, and
contemptible. We shall hear about him further on.

Every year in summer, about the time the berries ripen,
the Blackfeet used to hold the great festival and
sacrifice which we call the ceremony of the Medicine
Lodge. This was a time of happy meetings, of feasting,
of giving presents; but besides this rejoicing, those
men who wished to have good-luck in whatever they might
undertake tried to prove their prayers sincere by
sacrificing their bodies, torturing themselves in ways
that caused great suffering. In ancient times, as we
are told in books of history, things like that used to
happen among many peoples all over the world.

It was the law that the building of the Medicine Lodge
must always be pledged by a good woman. If a woman had
a son or a husband away at war and feared that he was
in danger, or if she had a child that was sick and
might die, she might pray for the safety of the one she
loved, and promise that if he returned or recovered she
would build a Medicine Lodge. This pledge was made in a
loud voice, publicly, in open air, so that all might
know the promise had been made.

At the time appointed all the tribe came together and
pitched their lodges in a great circle, and within this
circle the Medicine Lodge was built. The ceremony
lasted for four days and four nights, during which time
the woman who had promised to make the Medicine Lodge
neither ate nor drank, except once in sacrifice.

Different stories are told of how the first Medicine
Lodge came to be built. This is one of those stories:

In the earliest times there was a man who had a very
beautiful daughter. Many young men wished to marry her,
but whenever she was asked she shook her head and said
she did not wish to marry.
"Why is this?" said her father. "Some of these young
men are rich, handsome, and brave."
"Why should I marry?" replied the girl. "My father and
mother take care of me. Our lodge is good; the
parfleches are never empty; there are plenty of tanned
robes and soft furs for winter. Why trouble me, then?"

Soon after, the Raven Bearers held a dance. They all
painted themselves nicely and wore their finest
ornaments and each one tried to dance the best.
Afterward some of them asked for this girl, but she
said, "No." After that the Bulls, the Kit-Foxes, and
others of the All Comrades held their dances, and many
men who were rich and some great warriors asked this
man for his daughter, but to every one she said, "No."
Then her father was angry, and he said, "Why is this?
All the best men have asked for you, and still you say
'No.'" Then the girl said, "Father, listen to me. That
Above Person, the Sun, said to me, 'Do not marry any of
these men, for you belong to me. Listen to what I say,
and you shall be happy and live to a great age.' And
again he said to me, 'Take heed, you must not marry;
you are mine.'"
"Ah!" replied her father; "it must always be as he
says"; and they spoke no more about it.

There was a poor young man. He was very poor. His
father, his mother, and all his relations were dead. He
had no lodge, no wife to tan his robes or make his
moccasins. His clothes were always old and worn. He had
no home. To-day he stopped in one lodge; then to-morrow
he ate and slept in another. Thus he lived. He had a
good face, but on his cheek was a bad scar.
After they had held those dances, some of the young men
met this poor Scarface, and they laughed at him and
said, "Why do not you ask that girl to marry you? You
are so rich and handsome."
Scarface did not laugh. He looked at them and said, "I
will do as you say; I will go and ask her."
All the young men thought this was funny; they laughed
a good deal at Scarface as he was walking away.

Scarface went down by the river and waited there, near
the place where the women went to get water. By and by
the girl came there. Scarface spoke to her, and said,
"Girl, stop; I want to speak with you. I do not wish to
do anything secretly, but I speak to you here openly,
where the Sun looks down and all may see."
"Speak, then," said the girl.
"I have seen the days," said Scarface. "I have seen how
you have refused all those men, who are young and rich
and brave. To-day some of these young men laughed and
said to me, 'Why do not you ask her?' I am poor. I have
no lodge, no food, no clothes, no robes. I have no
relations. All of them have died. Yet now to-day I say
to you, take pity. Be my wife."
The girl hid her face in her robe and brushed the
ground with the point of her moccasin, back and forth,
back and forth, for she was thinking.
After a time she spoke and said, "It is true I have
refused all those rich young men; yet now a poor one
asks me, and I am glad. I will be your wife, and my
people will be glad. You are poor, but that does not
matter. My father will give you dogs; my mother will
make us a lodge; my relations will give us robes and
furs; you will no longer be poor."
Then the young man was glad, and he started forward to
kiss her, but she put out her hand and held him back,
and said, "Wait; the Sun has spoken to me. He said I
may not marry; that I belong to him; that if I listen
to him I shall live to great age. So now I say, go to
the Sun; say to him, 'She whom you spoke with has
listened to your words; she has never done wrong, but
now she wants to marry. I want her for my wife.' Ask
him to take that scar from your face; that will be his
sign, and I shall know he is pleased. But if he
refuses, or if you cannot find his lodge, then do not
return to me."
"Oh!" cried Scarface; "at first your words were good. I
was glad. But now it is dark. My heart is dead. Where
is that far-off lodge? Where is the trail that no one
yet has travelled?"
"Take courage, take courage," said the girl softly, and
she went on to her lodge.

Scarface was very unhappy. He did not know what to do.
He sat down and covered his face with his robe, and
tried to think. At length he stood up and went to an
old woman who had been kind to him, and said to her,
"Pity me. I am very poor. I am going away, on a long
journey. Make me some moccasins."
"Where are you going—far from the camp?" asked the old
woman.
"I do not know where I am going," he replied; "I am in
trouble, but I cannot talk about it."
This old woman had a kind heart. She made him
moccasins—seven pairs; and gave him also a sack of
food—pemican, dried meat, and back fat.
All alone, and with a sad heart, Scarface climbed the
bluff that overlooked the valley, and when he had
reached the top, turned to look back at the camp. He
wondered if he should ever see it again; if he should
return to the girl and to the people.
"Pity me, O Sun!" he prayed; and turning away, he set
off to look for the trail to the Sun's lodge.

For many days he went on. He crossed great prairies and
followed up timbered rivers, and crossed the mountains.
Every day his sack of food grew lighter, but as he went
along he looked for berries and roots, and sometimes he
killed an animal. These things gave him food.
One night he came to the home of a wolf. "Hah!" said
the wolf; "what are you doing so far from your home?"
"I am looking for the place where the Sun lives,"
replied Scarface. "I have been sent to speak with him."
"I have travelled over much country," said the wolf; "I
know all the prairies, the valleys, and the mountains;
but I have never seen the Sun's home. But wait a
moment. I know a person who is very wise, and who may
be able to tell you the road. Ask the bear."
The next day Scarface went on again, stopping now and
then to rest and to pick berries, and when night came
he was at the bear's lodge.
"Where is your home?" asked the bear. "Why are you
travelling so far alone?"
"Ah," replied the man, "I have come to you for help.
Pity me. Because of what that girl said to me, I am
looking for the Sun. I wish to ask him for her."
"I do not know where he lives," said the bear. "I have
travelled by many rivers and I know the mountains, yet
I have not seen his lodge. Farther on there is some
one—that striped face—who knows a great deal; ask him."
When the young man got there, the badger was in his
hole. But Scarface called to him, "Oh, cunning striped
face! I wish to speak with you."
The badger put his head out of the hole and said, "What
do you want, my brother?"
"I wish to find the Sun's home," said Scarface. "I wish
to speak with him."
"I do not know where he lives," answered the badger. "I
never travel very far. Over there in the timber is the
wolverene. He is always travelling about, and knows
many things. Perhaps he can tell you."
Scarface went over to the forest and looked all about
for the wolverene, but could not see him; so he sat
down on a log to rest. "Alas, alas!" he cried;
"wolverene, take pity on me. My food is gone, my
moccasins are worn out; I fear I shall die."
Some one close to him said, "What is it, my brother?"
and looking around, he saw the wolverene sitting there.
"She whom I wish to marry belongs to the Sun," said
Scarface; "I am trying to find where he lives, so that
I may ask him for her."
"Ah," said the wolverene, "I know where he lives. It is
nearly night now, but to-morrow I will show you the
trail to the big water. He lives on the other side of
it."
Early in the morning they set out, and the wolverene
showed Scarface the trail, and he followed it until he
came to the water's edge. When he looked out over it,
his heart almost stopped. Never before had any one seen
such a great water. The other side could not be seen
and there was no end to it. Scarface sat down on the
shore. This seemed the end. His food was gone; his
moccasins were worn out; he had no longer strength, no
longer courage; his heart was sick. "I cannot cross
this great water," he said. "I cannot return to the
people. Here by this water I shall die."
Yet, even as he thought this, helpers were near. Two
swans came swimming up to the shore and said to him,
"Why have you come here? What are you doing? It is very
far to the place where your people live."
"I have come here to die," replied Scarface. "Far away
in my country is a beautiful girl. I want to marry her,
but she belongs to the Sun; so I set out to find him
and ask him for her. I have travelled many days. My
food is gone. I cannot go back; I cannot cross this
great water; so I must die."
"No," said the swans; "it shall not be so. Across this
water is the home of that Above Person. Get on our
backs, and we will take you there."
Scarface stood up. Now he felt strong and full of
courage. He waded out into the water and lay down on
the swans' backs, and they swam away. It was a fearful
journey, for that water was deep and black, and in it
live strange people and great animals which might reach
up and seize a person and pull him down under the
water; yet the swans carried Scarface safely to the
other side. There was seen a broad, hard trail leading
back from the water's edge.
"There," said the swans; "you are now close to the
Sun's lodge. Follow that trail, and soon you will see
it."

Scarface started to walk along the trail, and after he
had gone a little way he came to some beautiful things
lying in the trail. There was a war shirt, a shield, a
bow, and a quiver of arrows. He had never seen such
fine weapons. He looked at them, but he did not touch
them, and at last walked around them and went on. A
little farther along he met a young man, a very
handsome person. His hair was long; his clothing was
made of strange skins, and his moccasins were sewed
with bright feathers.
The young man spoke to him and asked, "Did you see some
weapons lying in the trail?"
"Yes," replied Scarface, "I saw them."
"Did you touch them?" said the young man.
"No," said Scarface; "I supposed some one had left them
there, and I did not touch them."
"You do not meddle with the property of others," said
the young man. "What is your name, and where are you
going?" Scarface told him. Then said the young man, "My
name is Early Riser (the morning star). The Sun is my
father. Come, I will take you to our lodge. My father
is not at home now, but he will return at night."
At length they came to the lodge. It was large and
handsome, and on it were painted strange medicine
animals. On a tripod behind the lodge were the Sun's
weapons and his war clothing. Scarface was ashamed to
go into the lodge, but Morning Star said, "Friend, do
not be afraid; we are glad you have come."
When they went in a woman was sitting there, the Moon,
the Sun's wife and the mother of Morning Star. She
spoke to Scarface kindly and gave him food to eat, and
when he had eaten she asked, "Why have you come so far
from your people?"
So Scarface told her about the beautiful girl that he
wished to marry and said, "She belongs to the Sun. I
have come to ask him for her."
When it was almost night, and time for the Sun to come
home, the Moon hid Scarface under a pile of robes. As
soon as the Sun got to the doorway he said, "A strange
person is here."
"Yes, father," said Morning Star, "a young man has come
to see you. He is a good young man, for he found some
of my things in the trail and did not touch them."
Scarface came out from under the robes and the Sun
entered the lodge and sat down. He spoke to Scarface
and said, "I am glad you have come to our lodge. Stay
with us as long as you like. Sometimes my son is
lonely. Be his friend."

The next day the two young men were talking about going
hunting and the Moon spoke to Scarface and said, "Go
with my son where you like, but do not hunt near that
big water. Do not let him go there. That is the home of
great birds with long, sharp bills. They kill people. I
have had many sons, but these birds have killed them
all. Only Morning Star is left."
Scarface stayed a long time in the Sun's lodge, and
every day went hunting with Morning Star. One day they
came near the water and saw the big birds.
"Come on," said Morning Star, "let us go and kill those
birds."
"No, no," said Scarface, "we must not go there. Those
are terrible birds; they will kill us."
Morning Star would not listen. He ran toward the water
and Scarface ran after him, for he knew that he must
kill the birds and save the boy's life. He ran ahead of
Morning Star and met the birds, which were coming to
fight, and killed every one of them with his spear; not
one was left. The young men cut off the heads of the
birds and carried them home, and when Morning Star's
mother heard what they had done, and they showed her
the birds' heads, she was glad. She cried over the two
young men and called Scarface "My son," and when the
Sun came home at night she told him about it, and he
too was glad.
"My son," he said to Scarface, "I will not forget what
you have this day done for me. Tell me now what I can
do for you; what is your trouble?"
"Alas, alas!" replied Scarface, "Pity me. I came here
to ask you for that girl. I want to marry her. I asked
her and she was glad, but she says that she belongs to
you, and that you told her not to marry."
"What you say is true," replied the Sun. "I have seen
the days and all that she has done. Now I give her to
you. She is yours. I am glad that she has been wise,
and I know that she has never done wrong. The Sun takes
care of good women; they shall live a long time, and so
shall their husbands and children.
"Now, soon you will go home. I wish to tell you
something and you must be wise and listen. I am the
only chief; everything is mine; I made the earth, the
mountains, the prairies, the rivers, and the forests; I
made the people and all the animals. This is why I say
that I alone am chief. I can never die. It is true the
winter makes me old and weak, but every summer I grow
young again.
"What one of all the animals is the smartest?" the Sun
went on. "It is the raven, for he always finds food; he
is never hungry. Which one of all the animals is the
most to be reverenced? It is the buffalo; of all the
animals I like him best. He is for the people; he is
your food and your shelter. What part of his body is
sacred? It is the tongue; that belongs to me. What else
is sacred? Berries. They too are mine. Come with me now
and see the world."
The Sun took Scarface to the edge of the sky and they
looked down and saw the world. It is flat and round,
and all around the edge it goes straight down. Then
aid the Sun, "If any man is sick or in danger his wife
may promise to build me a lodge if he recovers. If the
woman is good, then I shall be pleased and help the
man; but if she is not good, or if she lies, then I
shall be angry. You shall build the lodge like the
world, round, with walls, but first you must build a
sweat-lodge of one hundred sticks. It shall be arched
like the sky, and one-half of it shall be painted red
for me, the other half you shall paint black for the
night." He told Scarface all about making the Medicine
Lodge, and when he had finished speaking, he rubbed
some medicine on the young man's face and the scar that
had been there disappeared. He gave him two raven
feathers, saying: "These are a sign for the girl that I
give her to you. They must always be worn by the
husband of the woman who builds a Medicine Lodge."
Now Scarface was ready to return home. The Sun and
Morning Star gave him many good presents; the Moon
cried and kissed him and was sorry to see him go. Then
the Sun showed him the short trail. It was the Wolf
Road—the Milky Way. He followed it and soon reached the
ground.

It was a very hot day. All the lodge skins were raised
and the people sat in the shade. There was a chief, a
very generous man, who all day long was calling out for
feasts, and people kept coming to his lodge to eat and
smoke with him. Early in the morning this chief saw
sitting on a butte near by a person close-wrapped in
his robe. All day long this person sat there and did
not move. When it was almost night the chief said,
"That person has sat there all day in the strong heat,
and he has not eaten nor drunk. Perhaps he is a
stranger. Go and ask him to come to my lodge."
Some young men ran up to the person and said to him,
"Why have you sat here all day in the great heat? Come
to the shade of the lodges. The chief asks you to eat
with him." The person rose and threw off his robe and
the young men were surprised. He wore fine clothing;
his bow, shield, and other weapons were of strange
make; but they knew his face, although the scar was
gone, and they ran ahead, shouting, "The Scarface poor
young man has come. He is poor no longer. The scar on
his face is gone."
All the people hurried out to see him and to ask him
questions. "Where did you get all these fine things?"
He did not answer. There in the crowd stood that young
woman, and, taking the two raven feathers from his
head, he gave them to her and said, "The trail was long
and I nearly died, but by those helpers I found his
lodge. He is glad. He sends these feathers to you. They
are the sign."
Great was her gladness then. They were married and made
the first Medicine Lodge, as the Sun had said. The Sun
was glad. He gave them great age. They were never sick.
When they were very old, one morning their children
called to them, "Awake, rise and eat." They did not
move.
In the night, together, in sleep, without pain, their
shadows had departed to the Sandhills.

~George Bird Grinnell~ "Project Gutenberg"

PEACE
TARA

BEFORE THE WHITE MAN

BEFORE THE WHITE MAN

NO PEOPLES ON EARTH EVER ENJOYED A FREEDOM LIKE WE INDIANS ENJOYED BEFORE THE WHITE MAN CAME TO THIS COUNTRY. EVERYTHING WAS FREE. WE WERE FREE AND SO WERE THE ANIMALS AND THE BIRDS AND THE RIVERS AND THE WHOLE WONDERFUL LAND FROM END TO END. ALL FREE. ALL PURE. ALL HAPPY. THIS WAS THE FREEST AND PUREST AND HAPPIEST PLACE IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE. WE WERE THE GREAT SPIRIT'S FOREST CHILDREN, LIVING FREE ACCORDING TO HIS LAW.

THEN COLUMBUS AND HIS GANG HIT THIS COUNTRY BY ACCIDENT. WE'RE SORRY THAT THEY DID. OUR INSTRUCTIONS DIDN'T TELL US WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE WHITE MAN. WE WELCOMED HIM WHEN HE CAME HERE. WE FED HIM. WE TOOK CARE OF HIM. WE BELIEVED GOD HAD SENT HIM TO HELP US. GOD GAVE THE WHITE MAN POWERS WE NEVER SAW BEFORE-MATERIAL POWERS. HE WAS SUPPOSE TO USE THE MATERIAL POWERS TO MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR ALL OF US. HE WAS SUPPOSE TO USE THE MATERIAL POWER IN THE SERVICE OF THE SPIRITUAL POWER. HE DIDN'T. INSTEAD, HE USED HIS MATERIAL POWERS TO STEAL OUR LAND AND OUR FREEDOM.

NOW THE GREAT CHIEFTAINS ARE GONE. OUR BUFFALO ARE GONE. THE COUNTRY WE LOVED IS LOST. THEY BUILT ROADS OVER THE FADING TRAILS WHERE WE ONCE WALKED. OUR WEAPONS, OUR BOWS AND ARROWS, OUR TOMAHAWKS ARE IN MUSEUMS. THEY SELL OUR ARROWHEADS AND EVEN OUR BONES FOR SOUVENIRS. MAYBE IF WE DIDN'T REMEMBER HOW IT ONCE WAS IT WOULDN'T BE SO BAD FOR US. WE COULD JUST BECOME LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. ONLY ONE THINGS SADDER THAN REMEMBERING YOU ONCE WERE FREE, AND THAT'S FORGETTING YOU ONCE WERE FREE. THAT WOULD BE THE SADDEST THING OF ALL. THAT'S ONE THING WE INDIANS WILL NEVER DO.

~LAKOTA WISDOM KEEPER ~ MATTHEW KING ~

Just a little history.
PEACE AND FREEDOM AGAIN FOR ALL!
TARA

UNFOLDING ~ WINGS OF LIGHT

FOR YEARS
I REMAINED
HIDDEN FROM VIEW
AFRAID TO SHOW MYSELF
OR MY TRUE COLORS...

.....I BEGIN TO UNFOLD MY WINGS,
FINDING THE COURAGE
DISCOVERING MY STRENGTH

SPARKLING
RADIANT
I TAKE FLIGHT

~Kirsti A.Dyer, MD, MS

~~~***~~~

JUST LIKE THE BUTTERFLY,
I TOO WILL AWAKEN IN MY OWN TIME.

~Deborah Chaskin

LOVE TO FLY
PEACE
TARA

WORLD PEACE REQUIRES~ BALANCE~

WORLD PEACE

If there is to be peace in the world
There must be peace in the nations'
If there is to be peace in the nations'

There must be peace in the cities'
If there is to be peace in the cities'

There must be peace between neighbors'
If there is to be peace between neighbors'

There must be peace in the home
If there is to be peace in the home

~There must be peace in the heart~

LAO TSU

~WORLD OUT OF BALANCE~
GO WITHIN ~CENTER YOURSELF~

PEACE
TARA