folk forum September 2006 You take my hand, I’ll take your hand, together we may talking about and thought how important it is for people to have get away. This much madness is too much sorrow, it’s those experiences and to continually be able to renew them. We are losing much of the generation of people who have memories of impossible to make it today… yeah…she could drag me over growing up on the farm and of all those deeply satisfying “ecstasy” the rainbow…and send me away… experiences in the midst of the challenges and hard work. It frightens me to think that for many kids today those experiences Hello Fellow Travelers, may be replaced with computer games and Nintendo. My life has I hope your journey this summer has been kind to you. Mine been intimately connected with nature. Even while going to school has been a mix of both ends of the spectrum. I have been finding on the north edge of Chicago in Evanston, I sought refuge on the solace in Neil Young’s music a lot this summer, returning to the old shores of Lake Michigan and in the parks. I didn’t live in town as a stuff where I used to dwell when I was feeling … well … “Helpless, child and spent most of my time in the woods or roaming fields, helpless, helpless.” I am enjoying his new overtly anti-war stuff of hills and barnyards near the Blue Earth River. I frequently admit late, it takes one back to times when the music became part of the that words were not my first language and humans not my most movement to stop a crazy war. Falling in love several times this frequent companions. My brother and I had a trap line and sold summer carried me for short periods of time… over the rainbow. mink, muskrat and coon furs for spending money. We hunted, raced Mostly I’ve been dreaming of building a gypsy wagon or listening thru hills and woods on horseback, and pretty much spent all of our to Israel Kamakauiwaole’s version of Somewhere Over the time outdoors. I hated like hell having to stay inside to practice the Rainbow… “way up high… blue birds fly”….wishing upon stars piano or the French horn. I went to school in Chicago in '68 and hoping to wake up where the clouds are far behind and trouble melts though it was an exciting life changing experience to be involved in like lemon drops. Thank you Joanne for that great CD of a bunch of anti-war, earth-day, liberation movements that were rising up and Hawaiian favorites. It has saved me a thousand times in the past raging…the human condition seemed to be chaotic and lost without year. a connection to planet earth and the "ecstatic experience with It is easy in the world today to feel beaten down and nature". It may seem a bit deranged to relate the ecstatic experience overwhelmed. Hearing news from Iraq or Lebanon alone is too of nature with ripping the beautiful soft furs off of little critters to much to bear. Seeing pictures of the bombed out neighborhoods in clothe the naked humans for winter. I always felt inner struggle and Lebanon with banners stretched across destroyed buildings that read empathy for the creatures and asked silent prayers for forgiveness “Made in USA,” or the constant stream of reports that confirm our from them, trying to make their journey as quick and merciful as predictions the Bush/Israeli plan for a “New Middle East” would possible. I feel the same empathy for each creature that falls to the turn into a “New Middle Beast” unleashing chaos. The “War on predator, and yet have come to see the beauty in the design, the Terror” is a war of terror and has plunged the region into chaos and hawk, the cat, the dragonflies, swallows, the wolves…and their immense suffering. We are not close to peace and stability. Huge prey. We have choices and sometimes I have intervened and amounts of capital have been squandered and the image of America rescued...and sometimes aided the predator. Somehow it was in the eyes of most of the world has free-fallen to lows that may always easier to understand those relationships in nature than the take generations to repair. We have not begun to address the predatory relationships that happen in the human world with the underlying problem in this global disaster, namely our nation’s senseless, soul-less, greedy quests for power and excess or gluttonous dependence on oil. Pipeline leaks, toxic spills, climate dominance of ideology. I know some of that ecstatic experience change, increasing natural disasters and a bankrupt national with nature. It is like love for me. Once having experienced it, you treasury, the home-guard off in Iraq or Afghanistan, a contracting can't live without it. When it turns and the struggle for soul and economy that is increasingly being globalized and survival comes upon you...you can feel helpless, angry. Somehow it marginalized…and ‘this much madness is too much sorrow.” is easier to forgive nature than a love that has turned cold or In an email from Ruth McKenzie, as we were lining up her vengeful, and yet living without love can be like living without April 15 Oak Center debut, she told me her new stuff was about the reason for living. Living without nature...well is that what humanity ‘human ecstasy experience with nature’. I pondered that for a is trying to do? Have they become hardened to nature and not moment trying to keep cynicism from creeping in about the nature having experienced that love, that nurture, that ecstasy...is that why experience for the many we see having it in luxury motels on they pave it, fill it with artificial lights and colors and synthetic wheels or buying 10 acres to build a starter castle. I’ve seen a lot of surfaces, while filling their lives with electronic inputs and rolling romantic notions about life in the country or the idyllic life on the over it in mechanical beasts belching foul gases and changing the farm. And yet, even after the realities set in…life on a farm is good. climate? Having people buy 10 acres and move to the country is a good thing Gosh, here comes another from Neil Young: if they are thinking of the big picture and not trying to “live in the Oh mother Earth, your fields of grain city” from their place in the country. We need good neighbors out here with some ecologically sound intentions. I was anxious to hear Once more laid down by the hungry hand. about Ruth’s ecstatic experience with nature. I knew what she was 1 Winter/Spring 2006 How long can you give and not receive? 1992, we need to stop being afraid and live the answers.” Don’t And feed this hungry world, ruled by greed. forget to plant your truffula seeds. See you in the big room… Love and Peace, Oh ball of five, in the summer sky You’re healing light, the parade of days… Maintenance and Repair. Are they betrayed by the men of power/ Who hold this world, in their changing hands. They hold this world… In my heart I’m hearing “THEY’RE CHANGING HANDS”. Let’s hope certain ones of them are changing jobs. Elections are coming. Don’t forget to vote peace, justice and environment. Try to make sure your vote is counted correctly. (Vote Mark Ritchie secretary of state!). Then begin voting every day with your actions. Friends, that’s Democracy! It is an everyday event. Our civilizations are camped around a shrinking pool of oil (most of which should be saved underground to buoy up and insulate the outer-shell of our good Earth from the molten core), with cold-blooded sharp toothed reptiles pacing the perimeter trying to stake their claim on it. Wherein lies our hope? We can pray for and hope for favorable elections… and the impeachment and trial of the guys and gals in Washington who hi-jacked our country. Dare to set your dreams high!!! But most importantly, we must focus our attention on uniting with others in the healing process, to rise up together all around Earth and heal this world. God, the Creator, Allah, Wakan, the Universe… will give us what we need. Draw An Appeal from your source of power and turn it into love-light. If we look and Folk Forum can use your help. Folk Forum has touched many lives listen it is already happening. There is a steady murmur coming over the years. The magic that has been happening at Oak Center from people everywhere. “Enough! Enough! This past week saw has created many fond memories for all ages, inspired many numerous events reclaiming 9/11 with vigils and peace walks to friendships, and helped many find direction in a complex and often celebrate a more constructive anniversary on that day, the 100th chaotic world. It would not have been possible without the anniversary of the beginning of Gandhi’s non-violent resistance contributions of time and money by many dedicated volunteers and movement. September 11th, 1906 Gandhi and early followers met supporters. We have a full schedule planned with some exciting evil with patient but steadfast refusal to cooperate. We must not let performers and presenters coming. I am counting on you, the Folk those with evil or greed in their hearts set the agendas for our lives.