Stone Circle Press - BLOG ► Rejecting Empire

Settler Song

12/17/2020

PEGI EYERS

Driven by notions to fulfill some great “Manifest Destiny” on “Terra Nullius” (lands proclaimed empty by religious decree), tolerance for cultural diversity or peaceful co-existence were never the policies of the Settler Society. Beginning with genocide and the theft of Indigenous lands, whitestream Canada has gone on to enact racism, oppression, relocation, residential schools and assimilation on First Nations. And to top it off, our Canadian society was built with an attitude of white supremacy.

Today, in the process of dismantling colonialism - examining our own “whiteness” and being complicit with the hegemony of Empire - it may be useful to envision other ways of being. What could have been different in the beginning, in our “first contact” interactions with First Nations? With the poem “Settler Song,” my intent is not to simplify, derail, essentialize, romanticize, adore, trivialize, whitewash, move to innocence, make a colonial alibi or perform a Settler Sidestep, but to present a worldview that is less arrogant, less domineering, less paternalistic, more kind, more humble, more heart-focused, and more aware of being a newcomer to a land already inhabited by a magnificent diversity of sophisticated societies.

Settler Song

We touch the earth through you
You are this land
Your blood, the rivers
Your hands, the rocks we rest upon
Your breath, the sacred flame on distant hills ~
Your life-spark, a warmth the Firekeepers know
Your strawberry heart drums the living earth
Your dance, the survival of us all

Storm-born, new moon, new world rising
We wander west, émigré but free
We swim your sacred waters, woman-blessed

And in the forest, pitiful, we are the “other” you find
Markers of wampum, renewal of life,
Fatherland fades away ~
You teach us respect
How to conquer with love
Your kind voice, our home
Your arms, the circle
Our trees and animals heal each other

Anishnaabe, take us back to common ground
May we find Mino Bimaadiziwin - the Good Life, again

Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
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Stone Circle Press

The Rainbow Tribe Fallacy

9/2/2020

PEGI EYERS

The Rainbow Tribe Prophecy/Legend of the Rainbow Warriors is an urban myth, and certainly did not arise from First Nations! Since the early 1970's, the hippies, New Agers and creators of the environmental movement began referring to the “Rainbow Warriors” as the fulfillment of a Native American prophecy, with provenance that alternated between Hopi, Lakota and Cree. The work usually referred to as the primary source for the story - The Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters (1963) - actually makes no reference to it. Also attributed to Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt (1932), Black Elk’s wonderful visions do have some elements of multicultural inclusivity, and reference rainbows as having meaning specific to Lakota people, but there is no actual “Rainbow Warrior” story.

The actual origin of the "prophecy" is not Native American at all (!) but is from a 1962 book entitled Warriors of the Rainbow by two white men, William Willoya, a Christian Preacher, and Vinson Brown, the owner of Naturegraph Publishers. The book was an evangelical Christian tract, and an attack on First Nations by attempting to evangelize within Native American community. In the book, the legend says that Native Americans will be joined by their light-skinned brothers and sisters, who are in fact the reincarnated souls of Indians killed or enslaved by the first settlers. It is said that the dead souls of the first people will return - in bodies of all different colors: red, white, yellow and black. Together and unified, like the colors of the rainbow, these people will teach all of the people of the world to cultivate love and reverence for Mother Earth. Warriors of the Rainbow relates these fictitious "Indian" prophecies to the Second Coming of Christ, and has a covert anti-Semitic tone, while evangelizing against traditional Native American spirituality.

This story - misrepresented as ancient prophecy - is an example of modern "fakelore." The Warriors of the Rainbow myth inspired the naming of the Greenpeace ships; has been used in countless environmental protests; and is the namesake for a still-thriving hippie group, the Rainbow Family. While there are variations on the theme - especially as it has been popularized by New Age books, websites and internet memes - the common thread in all versions is that a time of crisis will come to Earth, people of many races will come together to save the planet, and is credited as being a First Nations prophecy. "It is said that in a time of great devastation when the trees are dying, people will unite and create a new world of justice, peace, and freedom, and they will be named the Warriors of the Rainbow. They will reteach the values and the knowledge that was lost to time, and demonstrate how unity, harmony, and love is the only way forward."

Some versions of the story specifically state that the new tribe will inherit the ways of Native Americans, or that the Native ways will die out, to be replaced by the new ways of the "Rainbow People." So we see how a narrative that claims to support unity, is in reality an example of the white savior complex, and a device for cultural genocide. Native American author and poet Sherman Alexie has called this syndrome of native displacement the "inner Indian," and describes how white people have co-opted Indigenous culture, most notably in his poem How to Write the Great American Indian Novel.

“In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written, all of the white people will be Indians, and all of the Indians will be ghosts.”

Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
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Stone Circle Press

We Are Those People

4/20/2020

PEGI EYERS

We cannot deny the fear and frustration of many people right now, especially millennials who are finding these times of lockdown traumatic. And yet, some of us have already had similar experiences of restriction. Not too many years ago I spent 12 weeks tethered to an IV in two different hospitals. And yet as dark as that time was, I discovered a silver lining. I was able to find comfort, solace, healing, respite, and inspiration by going deep within, and exploring the imaginal spaces.

Not to bypass the stark realities and protocols happening right now, but this is also an excellent time to daydream, time-travel, drift, walk aimlessly, go inward and create something new (music - paintings - a book) that will blow people's minds when the crisis is over. All these inward-directed activities are portals to happiness and balance, and the magical realms of Earth Community.

Find a place out on the land, where the ancient energies are vibrant and alive. The natural world is a miracle and a mystery, and everything is unfolding exactly as it should. The birds are singing, the trees are budding, the watershed is flowing, the clouds are endlessly changing, the night sky is eternal, and love is the currency of Gaia. As Thoreau would say, don't read "The Times" - read the eternities.

"As both observer and participant in the luminous healing power and ultimate joy of the green realm, you will be ensouled with the deep knowing of being intrinsically linked to Mother Earth, and the interconnectivity of all creation." Ancient Spirit Rising (Ecodigenous, Page 167)

Days of uncertainty are good for summoning up gratitude for what we CAN do, and all the things that we DO have. Obviously we were born at exactly the right time to witness this global pandemic - at the apogee of western civilization - and there is no point in not accepting it. After all, if apocalyptic events have been predicted for years now, and we've already wrapped our brains around that possibility, why should we be surprised or inconvenienced?

WE ARE THOSE PEOPLE, and our task is to SURRENDER, and to be grateful that we are alive at all, to witness this unfolding of global destiny. We are face-to-face with what is real, what is essential and what is crucial, to be one unique being of many, dwelling in the Sacred Circle of All Life.

Pegi Eyers is the author of Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community. >Amazon.com< >Stone Circle Press<
With 420 pages, full colour, extensive notes, live links & exhaustive references, the >PDF Download< of Ancient Spirit Rising is “A Compendium for Change!” Join our >FB Group< for sharing on social justice,
nature spirituality and the Ancestral Arts.
ANCIENT SPIRIT RISING

RIGHT NOW - In a Time of Global Pandemic

3/27/2020

PEGI EYERS

Are you, like me, feeling that the mythology of your life is now divided between the eras of pre-Covid-19 and post-Covid 19?

(C) Gemma Schiebe Fine Art

RIGHT NOW – the future is totally uncertain.

RIGHT NOW – let’s be honest, the stress and terror we are experiencing from the total disruption of our daily lives, is worse than the worry about falling ill.

RIGHT NOW – we know that the virus will run its course – some will catch it, others never will; some will die and others recover – these are plain truths we can deal with, and not that difficult to accept.

RIGHT NOW – it is impossible and incredibly hard to know what to say, or do - as most of our usual habits and conversations seem tone-deaf to the reality that is unfolding.

RIGHT NOW – except for those with savings galore, everyone is suffering an economic hit, and the ability to keep a roof over our heads is in jeopardy.

RIGHT NOW – we are being stripped down to the essentials of refuge, food, medicine and other basic needs.

RIGHT NOW – the mobility of our aesthetics, education and pleasures have been stripped away – café culture, dining out, bookstores, pubs, theatre, concerts, browsing in second-hand stores, speciality shops, art galleries, academia, conferences and spiritual gatherings have all closed their doors.

RIGHT NOW - here we are, spending our days in our homes; humble or palatial as they may be.

RIGHT NOW – this is an era we have never experienced before. Covid-19 has disrupted modern society on a scale that most living people have never witnessed.

RIGHT NOW – How surreal it is to go for a walk, and think a deadly virus is waiting just around the corner to contaminate our lives, and that the people, places and objects of our desire may carry a deadly contagion.

RIGHT NOW – we are feeling the terror of being a statistic, a member of the Covid-19 case count that doubles or triples every day.

RIGHT NOW – we watch in mounting disbelief as the cognitive dissonance continues; as the majority of us carry on with the same beliefs, opinions, consumer behavior and activities we have always had, thinking the quarantine will be just a temporary blip in our lives.

AND YET KNOWING FULL WELL how capitalism is designed, without the intake of daily profits, countless businesses will NEVER rise from the ashes. Without a miraculous reserve to keep them afloat, most businesses and services in the retail, gastronomic, cultural and entertainment sector will likely collapse after 2-3 months without money coming in.

WHAT WILL the world look like in 6 months?

ARE THESE OUR NEW WORDS? Austerity. Being alone is good. The new normal. The basics. Online reality. Shelter in place. Ground Down.

AND YET WE HAD SO MUCH TO BEGIN WITH. Are you feeling the irony of living in what seemed to be a time of cultural renaissance, when western civilization is actually collapsing under its own weight? In reality, we have been comfortable with the “sky falling” for decades now. We are already in an era of apocalypse. A civilization that destroys the natural world to live, will destroy itself. Altering the balance of nature by massive deforestation and the annihilation of natural habitat will unleash viruses like Covid-19 on the world. It’s a given.

SO HOW DO OUR LOVELY modern lives of mobility, fashion, adornment, décor, jet travel, restaurants, café culture, fine living and entertainment fit into “the new normal?” Millions of us work in these industries – how many of them will actually revive post-corona? These pursuits are not negative in themselves, and yet capitalism has enslaved art and creativity, and created the commodification of natural human expression that is competitive, inflated and beyond all natural limits. With the apogee of “economic success” as our ruling principle, we have normalized a hierarchy of celebrity that is akin to an abuser/abused relationship – both toxic to the narcissist “have” and the pre-judged “have-not.”

AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME we need to be thinking - what is actually ESSENTIAL to human life?

Perhaps our new habits of social distancing will change these industries and niches forever.

"Isolation" (C) Sam Palmer

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY FORWARD? The stress, terror and loss we are feeling is real. And yet, we need to hang tight, keep our spirits up and stay positive~! Isolation has a silver lining, as it offers us the gift of time, and the space to retreat from the world. We can make the most of this opportunity by honing our craft, singing, dancing, crying, laughing, and telling the stories of our lives. And each of us are linked together in community, by virtue of our individual relationship to Covid-19.

THE NATURAL WORLD REMAINS the foundation of all life, and the ancient wisdom of re-wilding and re-landing has not wavered. For the first time in many years, Mother Earth is flourishing from reduced emissions and pollution, and the portal is open wide to animist connections and nature bonding. And as they always do, new initiatives will manifest in tough times as we rise to the challenge, and at some point in the not-too-distant future, the human impulse to experience beauty will bring us back to each other again.

HOPE HOPE HOPE HOPE

Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
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Stone Circle Press

How to Challenge Deceptive Imaginings

10/18/2019

PEGI EYERS

Recently I was in the position to help a young person who had a pattern of "hypochondria," or creating dangerous situations that did not exist. This syndrome can arise from embedded trauma associated with life-long health issues such as a peanut allergy, or the very real fear of deadly exposure. This type of threat in combination with irrational thinking, can make life difficult, both for self and others. Here are some ideas and actions for addressing the issue ~!

We can have a thought about something or react to something, and it can be totally IRRATIONAL.

The trick is, to not let irrational thoughts become our reality~!

Humans have a habit of infusing a thought with overwhelming feelings, but we can also control those thoughts. Soon it becomes second nature - and we don't let our irrational thoughts ruin our day~!

Of course, our upset is usually triggered by, or based on a deep-seated fear or trauma that keeps coming up. We can say, "Hi Fear~! There you are again - I see you - but I choose NOT to respond."

We can also say:

"I choose to focus on a rational response. It might take time, but it will work ~!"

"I know that LOVE is the opposite of fear. Going into my heart, I feel the ever-flowing love that is ALWAYS there, both for myself, other people, and the natural world."

"I sink into my heart, a place of love, I embody that love and protection, and I choose NOT to let irrational thoughts ruin my day."

"I AM SAFE ~ I AM LOVE"

"I feel my true essence, and there is no place for irrational thoughts. "

There are enough dangers in the world, without needlessly creating more dangers that are essentially the work of our own imagination.

When irrational thoughts arise, I:

Don't add fuel to the fire with a bunch of worry, or "what if?"

Look the situation in the eye, and see there is no real danger.

Remember that it is good to have emotions and cycle through them every day, but the overwhelming fear or danger "fight or flight" response is NOT useful (unless you see a bear), and it is probably an insult to your own integrity.

Switch to the other quadrants on the circle of self.

"Feed all four ~ go into each room every day."

                                              MIND
I put my mind to work on a creative or technical problem - online chess, graphic design, writing a novel, or whatever requires immediate cognitive engagement.

                                             BODY
I spend time in the physical by feeling and focusing on each part of my body - toes, ankles, knees, hips, solar plexis, shoulders, arms etc. with my FULL attention; play sports; walk while chanting a mantra over and over (i.e. "I love the world and the world loves me"); sing; have a soaky bath or sex.

                                             SPIRIT
I seek the spiritual by experiencing the wonders of nature; thinking about the immensity of the universe; or wondering about the mysteries of life. I shift to that side of myself that holds synchronicity and dreaming. Be a philosopher~! How did we get here and where are we going? How are the pieces of my life experience fitting so far, into my overall personal mythology? What is the big picture, or purpose of my life?

In other words, you want to derail, distract or shut down the little gremlin in your head (irrational thoughts) and his little sidekick excess emotion.

The little gremlin (what some call the ego) loves drama~! Don't give in to his nonsense.

Other distractions and ways to shut down the over-active mind include tapping and earthing. Get grounded ~!

Drugs or alcohol are a temporary diversion, but we must not evade the imperative to examine our core beliefs. There are no shortcuts for digging deep into who we really are, and what we need, to be content and productive.

GET FOCUSED~! On an essay, cleaning the house, some activism or community work - the fastest way to lose unwanted irrational thoughts is to be of service, and to engage with real issues in the real world.

Over-emotion leads to self-sabotage~!! Learn skills for self-discipline.

And be kind to yourself ~!!

We all have irrational thoughts. Gradually find the best way (for you) to stop your irrational thoughts and over-emotionalized reactions ~!

RESOURCES

A Guide to Rational Living - Albert Ellis

Taming Your Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way - Rick Carson

Outfoxing Fear: Folktales From Around The World - Kathleen Ragan

Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
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Stone Circle Press

(Immaculate) Conception 1955

10/15/2019

Pegi Eyers

Dedicated to all the “illegitimate” children who were born in the 1950’s and given up for adoption, before women obtained sexual and religious freedom and the right to choose a single parent lifestyle.

(Immaculate) Conception 1955

These are the children,
in sound & fury
that have been unleashed upon the world,
the offspring of untapped wombs
that wait at the end of desire.

Father Church & Mother Culture
block all ripe awakenings.

And yet, a new generation appears,
shaped from confusion,
born from discontent,
speaking of all things

under heaven, close to the earth

They have caught a glimpse
a divine spark
held secret
“keep it quiet, keep it safe.”

Sired by a cataclysm of authority
springing from an ova of fear
nurtured by the unaware,
cloaked with the black robe of belief

These children
- reborn as miracles -
are hearing the bells of inner truth.

Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Amazon.com
Stone Circle Press

What is the Motherland, and Do We Even Want It?

10/6/2019

PEGI EYERS

Downton Abbey Servants Luncheon, Hutchinson House, Peterborough, ON 09/15/2019

So this is what can come from having a thespian as a partner LOL. Attending a "Downton Abbey Servants Luncheon" held by our local historical society recently with Robert Greenman Hood was a lot of fun, but it also became an opportunity to think about the relationship between Britain and the British diaspora, a monumental divide between those who are essentially the same people. Eight generations in on Turtle Island, my English heritage flows through my fatherline, and Robert has a German father and English mother. Here in our homogenous fast-paced consumer world, heritage has lost importance to the point that Canadians and Americans rarely think about our roots at all.

But whether we have spent time in the UK or not, we can still feel a tremendous longing for "Mother England" and those small touches of a homeland forever gone - circling around the periphery of English mores, language, expressions, customs, foods, social relations and material culture, without ever fully belonging, or knowing the full picture. There is a magnetic pull, and elements of English life can feel nourishing to the soul.

Even within the Downton Abbey servant class, the success of one person became the success of all - which is the remnant of a collective care, cohesiveness, and closeness in tribal life going back millennia. This mutual support in community is long gone, and yet another attractive longing we feel is for the reassuring structure of everyone knowing their place in the social order - a empowering feeling of belonging that has also disappeared in today's world. Is our engagement with these longings and ambiguities also a search for redemption? On a soul level, we really don't know why we left Britain, and there is no real invitation to return.

Downton Abbey Servants Luncheon, Hutchinson House, Peterborough, ON 09/15/2019

Yes, we may be in the diapora, but we are not a people of denial. Britain has been the "eye of the hurricane" - the colonial Empire that enacted genocide and ecocide across the globe to change the world forever. Among other criminal acts, the "British Home Children" of the Industrial Revolution (our own families) were shipped to the "new world" through a child slavery agenda. Why would we want to be part of such an oppressive hierarchal regime? We may be the same people and share the same DNA, but the colonial patterns of harm and trauma, especially in brutal racist policies and socioeconomic hegemonies with "the haves and the have-nots" are ongoing, and are Britain's legacy to the world.

Has our longing for a homeland become just another fantasy - a great meal or an exciting movie - and a cosplay we engage in from time to time, one of a series of entertainments that have no lasting value? And yet the heart has a knowledge of its own that cannot be denied. We ARE cultural orphans, but in our deep knowing we are still embraced and held, by our British Ancestors.

But what is the motherland, and do we even want it?

Downton Abbey Servants Luncheon, Hutchinson House, Peterborough, ON 09/15/2019

Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Amazon.com
Stone Circle Press

Categories for Massive Change and Climate Disaster

10/6/2019

PEGI EYERS

Current information, op-eds and discourse on climate change and collapse continues to expand, and as a scholar and activist I thought that listing the categories I use for storing links on my browser under "COLLAPSE" might be extremely interesting (if not shocking). If you want to see any particular links just let me know ~!

5G
A Green New Deal
AA Apocalypse Studies
AA Apocalyptic Art
AA CLIMATE CHANGE NO ACCIDENT
Affects Those Living in Poverty First
AMAZON FIRES
America Stupid
......Randy Rainbow
......Socialism
ANTHROPOCENE BS
ATTACKS ON NATURE
BANALITY IS TERRIFYING
Basic Income Supplement
BEST
Big Oil Will Die
Canada 150 NO
Canada Resource Colony
......Racism in Canada
......Canadian Solutions
CANCEL CHRISTMAS
Capitalism is the Problem
Christianity STUPID
......Pedophile Priests
Civil Disobedience
Climate Action for Baby Boomers
Climate Change
Climate Change ~ New Terms
Climate Change ~ Solutions
Climate Change ~ ACTION
Climate Change and Violence
Climate Change ~ BOOKS
Climate Change ~ Denial
CLIMATE CRIMINALS
CLIMATE NECESSITY NEW LEGAL DEFENSE
CLIMATE REFUGEES everywhere
......Displacement Worldwide
Collapse Timeline
Consumerism
Declare Climate Emergency
DEEP ADAPTATION
DEGROWTH
Demonizing Nature
Disgusting Space Race
Disinformation and Denial
Doomsday Maps and Billionaires
Doomsday Prep
Earth Remediation
Eco-Extremism
Ecocide
EMPIRE
Environmental Racism
Environmental Sensitivities
EVIL BRITISH EMPIRE
EXTINCTION REBELLION
Failure of Cities
FALSE PROGRESS NARRATIVES
FIGHTING BACK
First Nations Affected
First Nations Solutions
First Nations Warnings
Focus on Individual Instead of Corporation
For Our Grandchildren
FUCKING BABY BOOMERS
Geoengineering HAHAHA
GREENWASHING
GRETA THUNBERG
GRIEF
Guy McPherson
How Humans Became Consumers
How to Talk about CC So People will Listen
Human Population
Deciding NOT to have children
Human Supremacy
Immoral To Be Rich
INDUSTRIAL FARMING FUCKERS
CC KILLS WHITE PEOPLE
LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND
Livestock Taking Over Planet
LOCAL ACTIVISM
Luddite
Mega Fortress Capitalism
Artificial Intelligence
Military Biggest Polluter
My Apocalypse Blog
Nature Decline
Nature Rebound
Save the Last "Scraps"
NEOLIBERALISM
No More Water
Nobody Wants Your Parents Stuff
Normalization of Perpetual Disaster
Nutrient Collapse
ONLY THE SUPER RICH CAN SAVE US
OVERSHOOT
Overtourism Meets Climate Change
Peer Pressure Enables Denial
PLASTIC BANS
PLASTIC EVERYWHERE
Psychological Trauma
......Cognitive Dissonance
......Cult of Celebrity
......Dumbing Down
......Fucking Control Freaks
......Healing?
......Modern Psychology Fucked
......NARCISSISTS
......Overprotected Kids
......Technology Addiction
......Fear is Appropriate
Toxic Masculinity End Stage Cap Patriarchy
Scientist Warnings
SEA LEVEL RISE
SHIFTING BASELINE THEORY
Smokestorm
So Called Green Technologies
Speaking Out Blowback
STOP FLYING
The Case Against Civilization
The End of Capitalism
The Leap
The Long Emergency
The Methane Monster Roars
The Privilege to Travel Wherever You Want
THE RICH WILL SURVIVE
THE RIGHT STUFF
THE WRONG STORY
Transition Town
Underestimating Collapse
VEGANISM?
Water for Life Not Profit
We Are Killing Our Own Planet and for What?
WE NEED AN ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION
Wetiko Windigo
Will Humans Survive?
Would Human Extinction be a Tragedy?

Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for decolonization, rejecting Empire, social justice, ethnocultural identity, Apocalypse Studies, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change.
Amazon.com
Stone Circle Press

Helpful Hints for Dying Well

5/10/2018

PEGI EYERS

It’s time we stopped ignoring, denying or being afraid of death. If we are old enough to die, then we are old enough to be mature about it.

DEATH TIP #1
Once you are gone, no one is going to care about the details, or minutiae, of your life.

DEATH TIP #2
Once you are gone, your belongings will become a burden to the world.

DEATH TIP #3
Once you are gone, your egoic struggles will amount to nothing.

DEATH TIP #4
Once you are gone, the world will not be significantly altered. Let's hope it continues to be the green planet that it was meant to be.

DEATH TIP #5
Once you are gone, your life will be mythologized.

DEATH TIP #6
Once you are gone, your bones will either be dust, or ever-fading, ever-hollowing artifacts.

DEATH TIP #7
Once you are gone, the masks you valued in life will fall away, one by one. And for some mysterious reason, after you are gone the impressions that others held of you, will consolidate into their memory of the "real you."

DEATH TIP #8
While you are still alive, resist the urge to avenge your mortality on others, and be kind to those who care for you in your last days and hours. Do we not all share the same fate? Impending death will lay bare the core of your truest self.

DEATH TIP #9
While you are still alive, instead of worrying about death, why not contemplate the miracle of being born into this place and time? What are the chances of that happening? What is your role in this world? Is it to be a witness, or to leave a mark?

DEATH TIP #10
While you are still alive, consider the possibility that all your trepidation about death is probably for nothing. Chances are, the spirit world is a glorious, comfortable and wonderful place.

DEATH TIP #11
While you are still alive (and as humans have done for millennia) it is our challenge to come to terms with the existential angst of "being here/not being here." The best and most time-tested response to what we cannot comprehend is courage. And grace.

DEATH TIP #12
While you are still alive, just because you love a person, pet or other being, doesn’t mean you can stop them from suffering. It’s astonishing how little control we have over natural processes, such as the breakdown of the body. Isn’t it time we recognized this fact?

DEATH TIP #13
While you are still alive, cultivate your intuitive, dreaming and visionary skills, and practice remote viewing and shapeshifting between the worlds of past, present and future. As all the great mystics have known, these are the aspects of YOU that will move forward into the spirit world.

DEATH TIP #14
While you are still alive, don't wait for your final days to realize that our souls, or spirits, or that ineffable parts of ourselves, are made up of LOVE. And that LOVE is the currency, or vibration of the universe and all of Earth Community, including us. Our society has tried to obscure this sacred fact in countless ways, but that doesn't make it any less true.

DEATH TIP #15
Be grateful that you have had the opportunity to take part in the great cycle of birth, life, death and regeneration. And die well ~!

Skipping Skeletons © Allison Schulnik

Pegi Eyers is the author of Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for neurodecolonization, social justice, ethnocultural identity, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change.
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A Pre-Emptive Kindness and Tarry This Night

4/6/2018

REVIEWS BY PEGI EYERS

A Pre-Emptive Kindness by R.D. Roy (Hidden Brook Press)
Tarry This Night by Kristyn Dunnion (Arsenal Pulp Press)

It's not that difficult to imagine dire scenarios in the future, when the symptoms of collapse seem to surround us each day in societal breakdown, wonky weather patterns, ongoing ecocide, political turmoil, economic riptides and deliberate stupidity. And yet the capitalist machine rolls on, as big oil continues to provide us with every luxury, amenity and consumer good we could possible imagine. Settler Futurity, or the expectation that our way of life will continue unabated for decades (if not centuries more) seems to be at the height of our cognitive dissonance and denial.

That's why looking to fiction can provide us with a much-needed reality check on how the many layers of our personal and collective worldview may play out, in what promises to be an apocalyptic future. The resources required to feed our "endless growth" civilization are not infinite, and among other inevitabilities, when peak oil arrives it will all come crashing down. Are beings from outer space going to save us? Will we all collectively begin to reject capitalism and stop driving cars? Will Mother Earth and her climate disasters such as floods, hurricanes and fires, provide greater smack-downs than those we've already experienced? Will the plague of all plagues arrive to deplete our numbers? Or will the elite New Agers among us achieve "spiritual enlightenment" and somehow "shift" our reality to a golden era of peace and prosperity?

There are no boundaries to the human imagination, and we can just as easily create massive problems for ourselves and Earth Community, as we can access our substantial powers of healing and remediation. And like R.D. Roy and Kristyn Dunnion, some of us are particularly skilled at creating new worlds through speculative fiction. For Roy, tracing the arc after a collapse scenario is distilled into basic human hunger and the imperative for territory and clan in urban wastelands; and the return of tribal wisdom and the re-indigenization of survivors in the forests and ecosystems that remain. Considering how humanity has screwed up the civilizational project, returning to an low-tech archaic hunter and gatherer society is incredibly appealing!

For Dunnion, not only is the ignorance of religious fundamentalism terrifying in its implications today, her projection to a future where religious fanatics have engineered social collapse is a nightmare scenario. Examining the psychosis of a cult leader and his followers from every possible angle, her riveting novel Tarry This Night includes the worst of the human condition - the "Great Father" archetype, blind obedience to authority, subjugation of the weak by the strong, patriarchal dominance, forced polygyny, pedophilia, lateral violence, brutality, victim-blaming, manipulations, greed, delusion, salvationist myths, isolationism, and (wait for it) cannibalism.

Even today we find evidence that the "heavenly scriptures" can be spun to fit the ideology of exceptionalism for any "chosen people," but Dunnion shows us just how far this fantasy can go. There does seem to be a dire sickness that results from blind faith, or adherence to monotheistic dogma and organized religion. One can't help but notice how this cautionary tale mirrors the same freedom from oppression women are seeking today, and that patriarchy has always been at the root of the problem. Beautifully written, both tragic and full of hope, Tarry This Night is a fusion of underground bunkers, bombed out landscapes, dead zones, marauding bands, survivor factions, green forest sanctuaries and the bold resistance of heroes and heroines. By all means stay with this incredible story to the end.

Looking to R.D. Roy's dystopia in A Pre-Emptive Kindness, we find a brilliant statement on the eternal divide at the root of humanity between the so-called "civilized" and the "pagan," or what the late Daniel Quinn referred to as the "leavers" and the "takers." Our modern fear of "being blasted back to the Stone Age" is a deceit and unfounded (if not out-and-out racist), when we consider the current consensus on how low-impact indigenous societies are the most sustainable way to be living on our particular planet. Indeed, the time-tested worldviews of IK (indigenous knowledge) may be our best way forward! As a projection of both western and tribal worldviews, two very different groups are contrasted in A Pre-Emptive Kindness, as they deal with great changes in their short evolution and move toward an inevitable encounter with one another.

In a time of mega-storms, killing sun, and unleashed biological warfare, Roy offers stunning detail on urban living in a collapsed city. Clans mark territory; the detritus, fittings, and materials of civilization are strangely re-purposed; the "man the hunter" archetype rules; the population has lapsed into illiteracy after a few short generations; many suffer from horrific skin diseases; starvation is looming as all the urban plants and animals have been depleted; and dogs, our loyal companions for millennia, are now a source of food. Operating more from base instinct than formulated thought, the more awake and aware among them realize it's time to leave the city.

Roy makes a powerful statement on indigeneity and resilience by portraying the forest dwellers as intraconnected and thriving in Earth Community. In contrast to the dysfunctional and sick urban dwellers, they find ways to work together, gather in council circles around the fire, reinstate Elder-honoring and storytelling as important to cultural life, and teach the children the Old Ways of hunting, gathering, tracking and plant medicine. Isolated for many years, wary of threat and secretive by nature, members of this tribal group have recovered their animist ability to connect with trees and other beings, and magic occurs in their relationships with the forest creatures and other elements in the wild. As the teachers ask the children, "Can you hear the forest singing?"

Yet after a few generations of putting community ahead of the individual (the tribal way), a rogue element has begun to promote the values of individualism and ownership once again, to plunder from nature instead of acting in reciprocity. Unlikely mentors and leaders step up to provide a moral compass, at the same time the urban scavengers are detected on the perimeter. As the city folk crossed abandoned farmlands on their way to the forest, the opportunity to kill a majestic and magical stag is missed, and somehow the new idea of a plant-based diet begins to take hold. Roy's masterful story of a post-collapse world begs the question of how human groups can evolve so differently, over time and in diverse locations, and hints at the possibility for clashing worldviews to converge. And as the title suggests, the important pre-requisite for a new and hopeful era in human history could be A Pre-emptive Kindness.

Readers of such amazing speculative fiction must of course make the connection to our dire situation today. If the worst indeed comes to pass, how will the human heart, mind and soul respond to such massive change? Will we regret the civilization we left behind, feel nostalgia for what was, and for all that we used to collectively understand? In the present moment, can we even fathom how our beloved habits may be fading, in front of our very eyes? In a time of apocalypse, do we hold on, or do we move on?

A poignant passage from Kristyn Dunnion's Tarry This Night offers a clue. "Their whitewashed log cabin with creaking veranda and garden out back. The purple flowers that flourished each spring. That happy, safe past slams into her. Ruth pushes each picture away, just as she was taught. She clears her mind. Imagines a zero, a sphere of nothing. But the thread of memory is stitched deep in Ruth's body. It circles her bones and pulls, old truths knotted in time." For the survivors of tomorrow, we can only hope they will build a new world from our best memories - a place to heal and live in harmony with all human factions, and especially, with our beloved Earth Community.

_Picture Credits_

"Good Friday" painting © Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri AO and assisted by Milanka J Sullivan, 1994

"Centrist Duo" painting © Andrew Morrow >website<

Indigenous street art in Redfern, Sydney, Australia

Solstice Ceremony Nu York, After Culture

Pegi Eyers is the author of Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for neurodecolonization, social justice, ethnocultural identity, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change.
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