Fruits are a most wondrous creation. They are the breakfast of beginning, packed with love, by Unci Maka. They are the creation of the last, and the creation of the next.
Fruits nurture the nature within. They burst with vibration, as they resonate to the core. They are the incubators of tomorrow’s children.
Fruits are gifts of energy given freely. They are the hand-me-downs of the ancestors. They nourish the seeds of the soul, as they bring life into light.
Fruits provide the essence of existence. They are the manifestation of spirit, and the mechanism of connection. They are the pathways into the eyes of the creator.
The fruits of life contain the knowledge of living, and they hold the necessary nutrition for sprouting new growth. They are the eggs through which seeds develop, as the Earth is to our own evolution. The planet is the ripened fruit of the universe as she encourages our seeds to bloom, yet we are also the fruit of her labor as we blossom from her soil, and upon our own path to maturity, we rediscover the fruit of the universe as it grows within.
*******
Speaking of fruit, Dean had this one-year-old jar of Buffalo meat, that we were hoping hadn’t started sprouting life of its own. He’d been given this sacred gift of the Tatanka Oyate, preserved in its own fat, on the final day of camp last year. A year ago today. And now we find ourselves here again, circled around the sacred fire of the inipi, as we offer this spirit food back to the ashes through which it arose.
The energy of the Earth empowered the Buffalo, and its essence was taken in a sacred manner, with prayer and reverence. The two-leggeds prepared the animal with love, the gift exchange to Dean multiplied the heart vibrations, and his alter where it sat for a year, collected the prayers of the many who passed through. And now we stand around this sacred circle, on a sacred land, on a sacred day, energized by the commitment to prayer, and to the planet, and to those dedicated to her health with every step they take. We offer this gift of sacred energy back to the ground from which it came, with prayers of healing this union of vibration between heaven and Earth, through the conduit of man.
This flow of energy is real, the planet is powered by the vibrations of our being, prayer and song and dance and art and ceremony all provide the love she needs to operate. There has been a shift in the energetic relationship between us, it began thousands of years ago as prayer to our planet began to disappear from her surface. She was no longer able to be sustained by the healing powers of love, and was left only with the global energy of war, of fire, and as they continued to burn those who prayed for her healing, she continued to become sick with the vibrations of hatred.
We live in a world who has forgotten about the planet, who has forgotten that we are the planet, who has become so self-involved that we no longer hear the prayers of anyone outside of our own head. Outside the ego of humanity. The survival of humanity is all that matters to those who seem intent on its destruction.
This world of celebrated disconnection is not by chance, it is by design, it is the fruition of malevolence by those who feed from the cycles of negative energy. Those who reap the vibrational profits of a world at war, a planet divided, an existence lived in fear and scarcity and the continuation of ancestral trauma. And still today, they continue their attempted eradication of those who hold this energetic connection to the Earth sacred. They oppress all those who pray into her soil, as they erase the roots paganistic language. They demolish sacred spaces, as they try to crush any hope of rebuilding her vibrational strength. They are overtly committed to the destruction of her essence, as they continue to pour death into the veins of her being. They have convinced the followers to relish in the devastation, to no longer believe that the purpose of life can be found in the reflections of her water, but to hold sacred the very conduit of her demise.
The greed of those who have seized control, has enslaved ninety-nine percent of life on Earth, but we are the untouchable one percent. We cannot be bought. We cannot be brainwashed. We have already begun the rebuilding of her power, and as she regains the consciousness of connection, there is not a cage in this world that will be able to contain her glory.
We breathe life into her being, as we pray into her soil. We spread the seeds of inspiration, as we share ceremony with our brothers and sisters. We walk a path committed to healing her water, as we are reminded that she is watching over us as well. We give her Tobacco, as it facilitates the transfer of energy between us. And today, we offer her this sacred spirit of the Buffalo, along with prayers of gratitude for all that she provides. Through our constant efforts of repairing the interconnectedness of life, she is beginning to rise up, as she awakens from the nightmare that has held her captive for so long.
The dawn of a new world is upon us. We are entering an era of regrowth. The forces who oppose this transition will not give up easily, but they will have no choice, as her might overwhelms the material grip that has allowed them to hold the planet hostage for millennia. They will deny their upheaval for as long as they can, in a desperate attempt to retain power. They will increase their efforts of illusion, as they struggle for their own survival, often to the detriment of yours.
We are at the precipice of a battle for the freedom of our planet, this chaotic world of minor catastrophe is merely the calm before the storm, they have no limit to the collateral damage that they are willing to sacrifice in order to maintain control. The time has come to choose your destiny, will you wake up and join us as we return our mother to the throne, or will you simply sleep through the greatest adventure in the history of the world? No pressure or anything, but you should probably decide sooner than later, the bus leaves at sunrise.
*******
Uncle asked me to sing a prayer song as we began our family’s ceremony, then we each took a turn offering a pinch of the Tatanka to the grandfathers of the peta wakan. Only I remained to pray, most of the jar was still full, as it was only missing a handful of pinches, so Uncle asked me to empty the remainder into the pocket we’d made between the stones. He said that I had prepared our food out here all winter long, that I had prayed over every meal, and that it only seemed right that I prepared this sacred offering of nourishment, as we exchange energy with the ancestors. I knelt down and held a pinch in my hand, as I poured gratitude from my heart.
Wopila tanka for my own personal path of awakening that began here, for the year of incredible journey that has unfolded since, and for the many paths that endlessly interconnect to create the unbreakable strength of this movement. We are grateful to have been called to action, to have been given this purpose in life, and we are honored to carry the responsibility of inspiring great change in this world. We are in awe of the miraculous intricacies through which you provide us with overwhelming abundance, and I pray that we are able to take in your loving vibration and pour it back out in a good way, as we bring healing to the wounds of separation between your energy and ours. Please accept this gift of sacred medicine as a token of our gratitude, and a symbol of our undying commitment to protecting your kingdom of life. Thank you for every ray of sunshine, and every drop of water, and every single breath that you have given us in this most incredible Earthly experience. Aho, mitakuye oiyasin.
Then I used a knife to scrape the rest of the meat into the stones, and shifted them back into place. The prayer walk was over. It was time to go home. It had been magical to return here and once again see the glimmer of hope in the snow covered prairie, but now that magic is inside each of us, and it is our duty to spread it out into the world as we follow the pull of our heart vibrations. And my heart had only one thing to say, “taste it”, so I licked the knife and put it away, as we once again escaped the icy tundra of Standing Rock north dakota. And this time, it didn’t taste like chicken.
*******
We drove straight through, well, Dean did, I mostly slept, though I did wake to hear, “At 4:20, do Buffalo turn into... Puffalo?” And the next time I opened my eyes, I saw a sign that we had successfully escaped the land of seven year sentences, as we found ourselves in a state where there are billboards for marijuana.
It was nice to be back in a space where you don’t have to be paranoid of catching a buzz, where you can openly talk to an honest cop, and not be worried about him taking a peek in your medicine bag, but it was also a bit excessive at times. It was fun to celebrate, for a month, as I even heard the announcement that we had officially crossed the threshold between medicine and recreation. And it’s all good, but I got stuff to do. Not that we weren’t productive, it’s the first rule of power tools after all, but I’d sit down to write and some of this mess you’ve been reading would come out. And while I do love to recreate, I love to create more, and I also want to believe what I write.
Marijuana is a medicine, without a doubt, a gift of the Earth that treats a plethora of ailments, including cancer, and it provides a direct connection to the song of the planet. Your endocannabinoid system is one of the most vital for your health, and is intertwined with every other system and organ as it increases their functionality, in a way that no other system in the human body has evolved to be, or God gave to be, and it is powered by the cannabinoids found in cannabis. Humans have a fully integrated processing system for this specific plant, and no other, coincidence?
But as with any medicine, it can be overdone. You’re not gonna overdose, except maybe on pizza, but the more you partake, the more tolerance you build, and the less effective the treatment becomes. And soon you find yourself taking to excess, what was already a potent plant when used in moderation.
Again, no judgements, I’m generally the last in the room to pass, and this was really the first I’d ever considered a path of stepping out of rotation. But I want to be taken seriously about the medicine plant, by myself as well, and I also know that an overconsumption of it, only puts more burden on the agricultural practices of the edible flower. If I have a limited supply, I can make a little go a long way, but when there’s a seemingly endless surplus, it becomes far more difficult to rationalize the one-hitter.
It is a powerful tool for creation, for inspiration, for connecting to the streams of consciousness that give you insight into the universe, and a plant with those incredible abilities, should most certainly be held sacred. And that is where I’m at with it now, I do not partake daily anymore, but only when my heart compels me to do so. I prepare it with intent, and I pray to Unci Maka as I hold the unlit sacrament, and I treat it as such. Through this cutting back of recreation, the spiritual connection to nature has become intensified, and my ability to gain understandings outside of my own faculties, has been greatly increased. I no longer need to smoke to feel normal. Who wants to feel normal anyway? I am now free to experience the power of this medicine at its full strength.
I’ve also been able to discover the true magic of the plant, what it is that makes the world seem to come alive around you, it is simply a shortcut to a state of mind that is fully achievable without a lighter. It creates an instant pathway to mindfulness, it puts you in the now, it melts away the blockages that keep you distracted, and you are able to experience the miracles of the universe as they unfold around you. You can see the trees breathe, or the infrastructure of the infinite in the rippling energy of the water, and I now understand this to be the same path of connection, found with the least mild of the psychedelic flow chart. And it’s all in your mind, which is under your control, and with practiced mindfulness, you can enter this dream state without external stimulant.
I will not knock those whose treatment of this medicine reflects that of mine for over half my life, but I will simply suggest an experimental cutting back and practice of intent, and if that doesn’t fit into your schedule one, then do whatever feels right. But just consider that as good as it makes you feel to smoke, every time you do, you are removing your mind’s need to flex that muscle on a clear head. If you don’t always take the easy way out of the cages of the mind, then you will continue to build your ability to climb out all on your own. So the less you get high, the easier it is to get high, plus it’s cheaper.
*******
And I picked a curious place to begin my cutting back, this has been the most abundance I have ever experienced, but luckily I was moving into my own place up the hill. Now that the month-long reunion was over, as well as the snow shoe ice-capade, it was time to settle into some sort of groove around here. I craved a tipi, for obvious reasons, but I’d have to settle for a camper behind the shop. No concrete foundation, plus a table for writing, inflated wheels to insure my ego’s temporary residency, yeah, I think this’ll do just fine. A grounded bedspread would be preferred, but it was warm enough to stay barefoot on my many commutes for coffee, and I was now able to get back in the flow of philosophizing. Had the proper space to get into my head, and out of it, but this new setup had one little dilemma attached to it - I had to pay rent.
The nerve. Who in the world would charge water protectors rent as they commit their lives to saving our planet? Well, another water protector, because he’s got to pay the bank, or the police will show up here and evict us, again. Well, when you put it that way...
This was a magical ride that no one wanted to let go of, but the only way to keep it going was to grease the wheels, and it wouldn’t be fair to put that burden completely on Dean. He wasn’t out to profit at our expense, he just wanted to be able to keep the dream afloat, as he also tried to save the world, plus it was by far the lowest rent payment I’d ever considered paying.
I didn’t have a job of course, and was unwilling to sacrifice my heart for paper products, but I’d throw up an ad for music lessons and leave the rest up to the universe. Maybe this was the mechanism of introducing me to a new student of more than binary beats, or maybe a new teacher, or I might stumble into an odd job or two, I’m certainly odd enough. I’d give it a month and see what my heart had to say about it, he by no means wanted me to rush out and become a capitalist, and he agreed to not call it rent, but just a tax deductible donation to the community fund of living expense.
I got online and made a craigslist post with a flyer I’d used before, and immediately I felt icky. I’ve always charged $100 for a two hour lesson, it’s the industry standard rate, and I was always met with satisfaction of the price for knowledge, as I helped aspiring producers learn to use the thousands they’d already spent on their gear.
So I make the ad, and obviously I put a hundo as the cost. I could go cheaper to try to get my foot in the scene of a new city, but I know I’m worth the bill, and now I’ve found myself in the once familiar position of having to put a price tag on my time. Having to determine how many paper scraps an hour of my life is worth. A disposable income, that moments ago held negative interest in my mind, and now I can feel its grip creeping in as I start to believe that it holds value. If I charge more, I can work less, but if I charge less, I can get more clients, and because of my unwillingness to sell out, I find myself raising the price of a service that I would happily provide to any stranger for free.
I felt gross. I felt the capitalist that I used to be, coming back into power, and not because I was greedy, it was just because I didn’t want to be a bum. A burden. I didn’t want my family to work harder so that I didn’t have to. I may not agree with a world built on building an empire, and all in exchange for some empirical measure of self-worth, whose only value is in its ability to purchase the fundamentals of family life, from the empire, but what else is there?
I got through it with a compromise, I listed my list rate, but then a clear disclaimer that I hated money and would prefer some kind of trade for something cool, tools or toys or gear or food or something that I could rationalize as an exchange of gifts, while I made a new friend, and my obvious off-gridness might even connect me with a fellow Earthling.
I tried to put the money market out of my mind, I’d done my part and the rest was up to the universe. I knew that I would not compromise my beliefs for a paycheck, so if that meant moving on, so be it. I’m already pretty much packed as it is. I got into a pretty good flow of writing in the morning, but then I felt extra weight to work around the commune. Since I wasn’t bringing in any bacon, the least I could do was cook it. And those that did work, weren’t around to be a part of the family. So I focused on the one thing I could do for everyone, a priority that obviously superseded snacktime. Prayer.
With Randy gone, I was in charge of the fire, and more than thrilled to carry that responsibility. We had been depleting the firewood supply, so Uncle and I hatched a plan to outsource our fuel, we could harvest it from the clearcut. There were miles of devastation that offered little hope for humanity, sure, it had opened up a spectacular sunset view, but we’d much rather be lost in a sea of massive Oaks.
But the rubble was actually filled with the perfect size pieces for a sweat fire, three and four inches around and three or four feet long, that way they can cover a stack of forty-two stones. It was damp out there, but where wasn’t it, so we gathered a bunch of bundles and set them in the Sun to dry a bit. We’d sing prayer songs and carry armloads out of the chaos, hoping to heal the land and help its suffering to not be completely in vain. It was such a sad site of massacre, piles of bodies of those who simply got caught in the crossfire of the primary targets, and I pray that including them in our sacred ceremony, somehow helped them along their journey through the spirit world.
*******
I feel such a strong connection to the Green Nation, and I know that I’m just getting started really, but I also know that I didn’t feel this way a couple of years ago. I was a city stepping music producer, far removed from a life without concrete, and I’d even grown up in the middle of the woods. I’d always loved to explore outside, climbing trees and playing in the creek, and was all about eating wild Nuts and Berries and Muscadines, so I was getting those pure Sun vibrations.
Something was keeping me more grounded than most, but I certainly never worshiped the ground I walked on, that would have been pure baptist blasphemy. Just as my first rap cassette was tossed out as the devil’s music, a prayer to any direction but up, would have been as illegal as a sweat lodge in 1977.
I grew up in a true patriarchy, I was a subservient to my father, as we worshiped his father in the sky. We were the descendants of Adam, the most important creation of creation, and although I always heard that God was in everything around us, this is not a concept embodied by the church. We were the sinners of mankind, and it was our sworn duty to hold dominion over all of the lesser creatures of our planet, including the women. Everyone worked for us, and we worked for the church, as we paid the admission of guilt every sunday. But normal old humans can’t talk to God directly, so we hired a preacher man to do it for us. He told us about our sins and our salvation, the kids got to have their own club where we colored the pages of indoctrination, and then we were cleared for work release, as we got to forget about prayer for another seven days. We had extended the lease on our timeshare in heaven. And my dad was far from a weekend christian, he was devout in his belief for sure, but when your prayers are dissipated into heaven, it’s easy to become disconnected from the Earth.
It’s a man’s world, we’re in charge until God returns, and it is our responsibility to show the world the importance of praying to the one true God of invisibility, instead of the quite visible miracles that they’ve been experiencing their entire lives. There is no room on this Earth for dirt worshiping heathens who drum and sing the devil’s music, those living a life of financial poverty, as they rely on the naturally occurring foods of their own bioregion. It is our duty to save them.
We must teach them about the real God, which means teaching them english, because he is unexplainable in their language of unabstraction. We must teach them that God cannot hear you if you pray to the dirt, or to the trees, or to the water, it is only through your right hand on his book that he will hear your testimony. We must teach them that it is ungodly to depend on the natural world for sustenance, we are human, we are supposed to work hard as we shape the land into our own broken image. We must teach them the importance of money, that way they can export the wealth of their land, in order to buy their ticket to heaven. Plus, now they can afford to feed their newfound sugar addiction. And alcohol. We must continue to spread the patriarchal doctrines of our warmongering church, because as long as people worship the Earth, they’ll never let us exploit it.
And on that note, pops and I flew to romania, as I was indoctrinated on the ways of the missionary. We didn’t beat anyone into christianity, not personally at least, but we did do most of our humanitarian work at an orphanage. So we saved kids who had no hope, and no other option but our book, and no one to share their traditional spirituality with them, and knowing what I know now, for all I know, they had been kidnapped from the gypsies and boarded into this school.
*******
The Lakota way is not for everyone, they would never push it on another, and it does not discount the legitimacy of any other ways of connection. It is about humbling yourself to the awesome power of God in everything around you, which enables you to feel her inside of yourself, and to understand that we are all related. The big man’s church, on the other hand, is for everyone whether they like it or not, and he’s super jealous, so we kill any who don’t kiss his ring. But the upside, is that he lets us be in charge of everyone on the planet, at least until we fulfill his prophecy of armageddon.
Even the most fearful of God, would still have to admit that abusing children into belief doesn’t sound very christian at all. Definitely not something that would ever happen in modern times, so what do you think it was all about way back then? Obviously some maniacal entity hijacked the church, and used its innocents to unknowingly spread hate as they spread the word. And I guess you could somehow still be in denial about the missionary’s position in america, but the church proudly fought bloody crusades in the name of spreading christianity, and don’t even ask about the inquisition, and the wars keep going back until actual biblical times, it’s right there in the handbook - it is perfectly kosher to kill in the name of the lord.
So this missionary group, they work for the church, led by the father, who reports to his father, and it seems that it links all the way back to the pope. Or the king. Still can’t quite figure out which one’s in charge. But they’re gonna stay in charge, and they’re gonna keep expanding their customer base, that’s just good business. And what’s not good for business, is for people to be able to pray for free to the visible world around them, and to eat for free when their prayers are answered, and this cycle of free energy is gonna make it tough to get them to pledge allegiance to our flag. How are we gonna be able to rule the world, if people are given the fundamentals of life directly from the planet?
And if you think christianity isn’t about ruling the world, then maybe you’re right, but certainly kingships are, that’s the whole point of the monarchy. And coincidentally, the version of the book that we took to romania, was edited by King James himself. The origins of christianity may not have been of malintent, but religion has been used by the forces of tyranny as a way to control the people for thousands of years, quite openly. And only through a religion that keeps God locked away behind an invisible forcefield, does the man at the top with the keys have any type of authority.
So we worship the pope, or we reform that plan a little bit and cut out the middle man, but we still pray to the Empty Space God of fire and brimstone. The one that we are meant to live in fear of, as we fight our wars in his name. And also we should probably start being scared to die, now that we’ll be ejected into the unknown, instead of recirculated into the infinity that we can see unfolding in every direction. When you can feel your ancestors under your feet, and watch the sacred return to the Earth, there's no need to box up your love and bury it six feet under.
And he evicted us from Eden because we are natural born sinners, so now we must cultivate our own sustenance. But at least we have the ultimate knowledge of God through that forbidden taste of paradise, which only confirms that we are in charge of all of the lesser creatures, who are less godly than ourselves, because we were made in his image. “His” image, so God is definitely a dude, he’s the father and the son, but not the Sun. It’s plain english again, our species is called, “Man.” We are his favorite, women were made for our benefit, and our demise, so we’ll be in charge from now on. We’ll pass kingships to the eldest sons, the popeship to another little-boy-lovin uncle, and even when we decide to let the peasants vote, there’s no way we’d allow the women to join in.
And as for all of these tree hugging matriarchal societies around the globe, the ones who find balance between worshiping their Mother Earth and their Father Sky (but not our father in the sky, ours is way different), well, their worldview of a living planet will never work out with our control mechanisms, so we’ll just use our manly firepower to burn the villages to their precious ground. We’ll convince them to be fearful of our God, and of this hell on Earth, plus we’ll just shoot them if they insist on singing their hey’s and ha’s and ho’s.
We’re not complete monsters though, we’ll even reschedule our own hohoho’s to coincide with the winter solstice ceremonies practiced all around the world, by indigenous communities who were actually synced up to the actual cycles of the planet’s revolution, not some silly made-up five day work week. But how could those heathens have any clue about how the universe works? Why, they can’t even speak the king’s english.
*******
Somehow they did though, the ancient knowledge of celestial cycles far outside their timeline of sight, is astounding. It’s like they had some kind of uncanny connection to the stars, some kind of magic language that unlocked secrets that we can’t even figure out with our fancy coperniscopes. Like how the Lakota knew that there were nine stars of the Pleiades, not the seven sisters of colonized astronomy, and only now have we developed the technology to see the other two. We can still laugh if they talk about the Star People though, what do they know about interdimensional space beings, silly savages, and I’m sure that all those other cultures around the globe who acknowledge the significance of these particular stars, are just as lost as Atlantis.
Why would we ever take astrology advice from people who pray to the Sun and Moon and stars and planets? Don’t they know that God isn’t in any of that stuff? He’s got his head in the clouds of a magic kingdom, one that you have to ride the prismatic rainbow up to, and he’s even offered a low introductory rate of ten percent to go on this mission of a lifetime. So of course there’s nothing of importance beyond this world, he created it for our exclusive benefit, white men I mean, and that’s more than obvious when you see that we are in the center of the universe.
Oh, you mean we’re not? You mean that those hippie indians who foolishly believe that the map to the stars is inside their heart, that they somehow wildly guessed the particulars of universal mechanics more accurately than each fallible iterati