In this final Green Flame episode of 2020, we listen to a discussion between Jennifer Murnan and Trinity La Fey about the love and support of women, resistance, writing, reminders of beauty, performance and people. We are blessed with Trinity’s performances of poetry. Their discussion is woven into a chorus of other poets.
This wonderful new year celebration episode concludes with a medley of music from prior episodes including the lyrical “Shchedryk” by Beth Quist. Thank you all, thank you for listening and Happy New Year.
Special thanks to our editor for this episode, Iona.
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
I lay in my bed
Waiting for the soft lull of sleep to embrace me
To take me to the land where dreams come by
I know it won’t come soon
I know she faces the blockades
Obstacles block her way
I wake up to the low drum of the machine
I sleep to the blaring of the neighbor’s TV
Every moment in between is as loud as the other
The horns of vehicles speeding by
The excavators in their pursuit of development
Violence on my brothers and sisters
The rape of the natural world
Does it pierce my ears alone
Or is it my heart that suffers more?
If sleep finds her way through these
Could she also pass the bright night?
The flood light glowing outside my window
Keeps everyone safe, they say.
What dangerous world do we live in?
To keep one safe, ones must die:
The bugs, the plants, the birds, the frogs.
Don’t they know lights kill these all?
Moonlight and fireflies don’t bother me much
Neither does the beetles’ mating calls
I bet I could learn to sleep through
The mosquitoes buzzing around me
I long for the day when these are the only voices
That pierce the silence and darkness of night.
Salonika is an organizer at DGR South Asia and is based in Nepal. She believes that the needs of the natural world should trump the needs of the industrial civilization.
In this poem taken from her book Dimensions, Shahidah writes about her experience of women; birth, choice of sisters, womankind. Shahidah brings her early life in Pakistan to life for the reader.
Shahidah Janjua (1949 – 2020) was a poet, writer and DGR member in Ireland Europe. This poem was originally published in her book Dimensions in 2014 and is reprinted here with the kind permission of her family.
Jack D. Forbes (Powhatan-Renapé and Lenape) was the author of Columbus and Other Cannibals, one of the most important books ever written. In this writing Jack Forbes offers thanks to those living with awareness of the interconnectedness of all life.
Thank you mother earth, for holding me on your breast.
You always love me no matter how old I get.
This is closely related to having a ‘face.’ Being good is, traditionally, not merely an admonition, but instead, an active principle bringing together good intentions, good actions, and harmony with the universe.
On the whole, the history of the world (prior to the conquest of the cannibal civilization) reveals a land where most human groups followed, or tried to follow, the ‘pollen path’ (as the Navajo people call it) or the ‘good, red road’ (as the Lakota call it). The pollen path and the red road lead to living life in a sacred manner with continual awareness of the inter-relationships of all forms of life.
For some, the good red road includes the necessity of suffering, or of the sacrifice of something which really belongs to us alone such as our very flesh, or, for others, our lives as they are lived in service to others.
Life is an adventure and we should try to be worthy of the gifts bestowed upon us. When death touches, a new path will open up for us, a path faced by most traditional peoples with confidence and beautiful thoughts, as illustrated in this old Wintu song by Jim Thomas:
Above shall go / the spirits of people / swaying rhythmically / swaying with dandelion puffs in their hands.
Jack D. Forbes (January 7, 1934 – February 23, 2011) was an Powhatan-Renapé and Lenape indigenous writer, scholar and political activist, who specialized in Native American issues. He is best known for his role in establishing one of the first Native American Studies programs (at University of California Davis). His book Columbus and Other Cannibals (1978) is foundational to the anti-civilization movement. Forbes analysis of civilization enabled readers, listeners and learners across decades to understand the systems that enable terrorism, genocide, and ecocide.
The coronavirus is a disaster for many. As usual in this morally-backward global empire, the poorest and most vulnerable among us suffer the most. In the midst of this tragedy there are lessons worth learning. This poem from Kim Hill invites us to consider what society and our communities may learn from CoViD-19.
Make sense with our senses, our knowing and feeling
Release the mental blinds.
Burn down the speeding extinction machine
That traps us all inside
While converting vast jungles to money and trash
And selling us on the great ride.
Now return to the forests, the seas, the soils
Who form our breath and bones
And nourish our bodies from the womb of the Earth
And let life carry us home.
Wild beings are speaking: come home to your kind
Yet we slay them to feed our fears
Not feeling or hearing their horror and pain
Or their wisdom of infinite years.
Listen. They are speaking. We are speaking. Hear us.
Your cities don’t serve you, with their concrete and cars
Instead they use you as a tool
They drown out your longings in waves of disease
And madness, repression and school.
If all the world’s beauty can’t be heard
In thousands of years of yearning
Then maybe it takes
The tiniest being,
a microbe, to say
Come home.
This culture is based on a false assumption that humans as superior to and separate from the natural world. This, in turn, is used to justify violence and hatred towards the natural world. Crises like these remind us that, in fact, humans are an integral part of the natural community, not separate from it.
“From birth on—and probably from conception, but I’m not sure how I’d make the case—we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals, hate women, hate children, hate our bodies, hate and fear our emotions, hate ourselves. If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes. If we did not hate ourselves, we could not allow our homes—and our bodies—to be poisoned.” (Premise 14, Endgame, Derrick Jensen)
In this episode of The Green Flame podcast, we speak with Sakej Ward. Sakej (James Ward) belongs to the wolf clan. He is Mi’kmaw (Mi’kmaq Nation) from the community of Esgenoopetitj (Burnt Church First Nation, New Brunswick). He is the father of nine children, four grandchildren and a caregiver for one.
Sakej is a veteran of both the Canadian and American militaries. During his military career, he volunteered and excelled at some of the most demanding leadership courses in the military, including the Special Forces Infantry Leader’s Course. He finished his military career at the rank of Sergeant.
Wanting to pursue academics, he immediately went to university and immersed himself in politics where he graduated from the University of New Brunswick from the Honour’s program with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science with a specialization in International Relations.
Recognizing the value of an academic background, he continued to advance his studies and attended the University of Victoria where he successfully completed the Master’s of Arts Degree in Indigenous Governance.
Sakej has a long history of advocating and protecting First Nations inherent responsibilities and freedoms, having spent the last 21 years fighting the government and industry. This deep desire to bring justice to all Indigenous people has given Sakej experience in international relations where he spoke on behalf of the Mi’kmaq Nation at the United Nations Working Group for Indigenous Populations (WGIP). For his efforts in protecting Indigenous people, freedoms and territory he has received the National Aboriginal Achievement Award.
Having taught, organized, advised and led various warrior societies from all over Turtle Island down into Guatemala and Borike (Puerto Rico) Sakej has made warrior-hood his way of life. He has been on over a dozen warrior operations and countless protest actions. He dedicates all his time to developing warrior teachings and instructing warrior societies from all over.
This show features poetry by the Chickasaw poet, playwright, and novelist Linda Hogan, and the song “Zabalaza” by South African political music collective Soundz of the South (SOS).
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
In this episode of The Green Flame podcast, we speak with Sakej Ward.