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 16 Aug 2004 @ 00:10
Dancing in Circles [link]
”Once upon a time, they say, we danced our lives through - as we worked, played, ate, slept, fought, and loved. We danced to petition and appease the gods, to help the sun rise, the rivers flow, and the plants grow and thrive. By dancing we understood our power and our place in the universe, and through dance we transmitted this understanding to the next generation. We danced to celebrate life’s rites of passage, from birth to death; through the dance we attuned to and imitated the rhythms, cycles and the awe-inspiring process of nature, and we danced to express our joy, fear, grief and hope. According to Bernhard and Maria Gabrielle Wosien, "Dancing has always been an imitation of the divine mystery in manifestation." To live was to dance. More >
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 9 Aug 2004 @ 21:41
International Indigenous People's Day
"Tomorrow- August 9, the world celebrates International Indigenous People's Day. Yearly rituals of this kind have so far not produced any marked improvements in the life of the world's indigenous peoples, many of them early settlers. Even the UN Decade of Indigenous People has been a failure. There is now a call to declare another decade.
Colonialism and the advancement of capitalism were the cause of the plunder of their wealth and the uprooting of them from their native soils.
Today they are being further marginalized and their cultures are threatened with extinction under fast-track globalization.
A global effort is required to preserve the economy and culture of these peoples. It is especially important to preserve and improve on the vast body of traditional knowledge they possess.
They are also the guardians of rich bio-diversity in their habitats. It is also necessary to prevent these habitats from commercial exploitation by multinationals in the name of development.
Governments should undertake programs that could integrate these peoples into their societies while preserving their economy and culture and guaranteeing them unhindered rights to their lands and ways of living."
[link]
_/*/_*/*
also:
*/_-/*
Bangladesh tribes march for rights
[link]
*****/__-********** More >
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 1 Aug 2004 @ 16:09
“the future of one of the earth's most vital resources is being determined by those who profit from its overuse and abuse. A handful of transnational corporations, backed by the World Bank, are aggressively taking over the management of public water services in developing countries, dramatically raising the price of water to the local residents and profiting from the Third World's desperate search for solutions to the water crisis. The corporate agenda is clear water should be treated like any other tradable good, with its use determined by market principles.”
[link]
/*/*/*/*/*
Blue Gold (Hardback)
The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water
Authors: Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke
[link]
*/*/*/* More >
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 8 Jul 2004 @ 00:31
Sounds to me (Reads to me) like part of what’s going on here amongst the participants of the NCN blog-o-sphere, amongst the necessary preoccupations with global and national political and economic events, and the spirituality, art, and poetry and all that sort of thing that comes through, and the challenging intellectual revelations and go-arounds, are various this-is-what-my-day-was-like kinds of entries, which, within the context of the overall purpose and direction of this community, fits right in. Now and again are posted discussions about who’s participating and who’s not participating (who cares?) and how much these ones or those ones are or are not throwing logs on the fire. Always gotta be somebody prodding at the embers, stirring up another flame, and that is a good thing. From the point of view of someone who is half-in and half-out, I currently don’t feel like I currently have anything particular to say, so here is this little what-my-day-was-like ramble. What is this about? It’s about this is who I am, and I’m in here reading you people, you (hyper) active, to me, participants in this bonfire, and I want you to know that I appreciate you, even if I’ve got not much to say. That book of poetry and pictures was my thing. Whatever comes after that is pot luck. More >
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 4 Jul 2004 @ 18:03
Here is the excerpt from the beginning of a newly published book:
Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother
by Lesley Hazelton
which I recently came across while browsing through the local library.
“Her hair is almost black, and has been folded into a single braid down her back for as long as she can remember. The weight of it raises her chin and makes her walk tall, as she has learned to do when carrying jars of water or bundles of kindling on her head. You don't bend under the burden. You root into the ground and grow out of it, reaching up and becoming taller. The greater the weight, the taller you become: the peasant woman's secret of making the burden light. More >
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 7 Jun 2004 @ 14:47
I first bumped into NewCiv.Org some two years ago on May 25, 2002, and hit the join button, having only the vaguest idea of what a newsblog is, or could be, or how such a thing functions. I bounced around inside for a month, making comments and engaging in exchanges, and finally got around to starting my own newslog on July 2. Decided to publish from a series of poems I had concocted during the previous several years, and Shawa (then Shakti-ma) and I did a collaboration in which the accompanying image for each poem was one of her collages or watercolors. It was a lot of fun, and quite refreshing to see my familiar words alongside Shawa’s sensitive and insightful visual creations More >
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 29 May 2004 @ 11:08
Mayan New year: wajxaqib' b'atz' on friday, may 28th
>Wajxaqib' B'atz' is celebrated as the "Mayan New Year" or the beginning of
>the Cholq'ij calendar by Native Mayan communities throughout Mesoamerica.
>This event occurs every 260 days, or roughly nine months. It is a day when
>ceremonies are held and prayers are made for good things to happen over the
>course of the next 260 days. Wajxaqib' is the number 8 in Kiche and is the
>force of spirituality. B'atz' is the energy of a new cycle, the couple and
>also spirituality. On this day, fires will be lit throughout the region
>with prayers and celebrations being made by the communities. There is
>actually a period of some days prior to this of spiritual preparation made
>by the peoples. You can visit the photo gallery on
>http://www.sacredroad.org to view images from a Mayan New Year celebration
>in Chichicastenango, Guatemala in 2002.
[link]
As the transit of
Venus–Quetzalcoatl
approaches. More >
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