Excerpt from "Environmentalism and Revolutionary Energetics: Monadnock, Oxbow and a Very Sad River in Chicago"

"Environmentalism and Revolutionary Energetics:
Monadnock, Oxbow and a Very Sad River in Chicago"

Part One

This is an 'article' (I'm not sure what to call it) I wrote about issues of environmentalism and spirituality. It addresses concepts of indigeny and energetics along with religion, politics and even Ayn Rand. Stay tuned for further excerpts. Comments and feedback are highly regarded. US

"Put "environmentalism" into your search engine and see what comes up.

(long pause.... waiting for you to do as suggested.... ok...do it later...)

As I pondered the relationship of environmentalism and revolutionary energetics in the purview of the information supersidewalk, I was confused, surprised and disappointed considering my assumption of the positive nature of a movement or set of ideas named "environmentalism". Envisioning images of well-written picket sign slogans outside of corporate headquarters, brave and valiant, nay intrepid eco-warriors in Navy Seal-esque inflatables buzzing behemoth high-tech whaling ships on the cold, open seas and quietly powerful women setting up shop in beloved trees, I was summarily smited by such resources as:

"Environmentalism.com home
Links and articles analyzing the destructive religion of environmentalism."

"The Death of Environmentalism
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
In this remarkable report on how environmentalism became a special ...
modern environmentalism is no longer capable of dealing with the world's most serious ..."

"Environmentalism Refuted - George Reisman - Mises Institute
Environmentalism is the product of the collapse of socialism in a world that is ignorant of the contributions of Ludwig von Mises-a world that does
not know ..."

"The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights: Environmentalism and ...
Argues that environmentalism uses false scientific claims to frighten the unwary , has a doomsday mentality reminiscent of Dark Age fanatics, ..."
(electronic search, Google, retrieved 10/25/08 from http://www.google.com/search?q=environmentalism&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)

The above links were not the only ones that came screaming bloody-humanity-murder off of my computer screen, but they were the ones that demanded the most of my attention. As a student of progressive and revolutionary social movements and politics (and physics), I know that there is always a reactionary backlash to any substantial progressive or revolutionary action or set of ideas. The presence of these websites on the first of many pages about environmentalism was a clear statement of the organizational power of these reactionary forces and, unluckily, a tip-off to a possible deficit of organization of the environmental movement, at least on the pages of Google.

I wondered why one of the first links, "environmentalism.com" was an anti-environmentalism page. Had no one in the environmentalist movement thought about, cared enough or had enough money or time to safeguard one of the main portals to information about one of the most dynamic and enlightening ideological thrusts in these modern times? Was the environmentalist movement merely a hodge-podge of under-funded and over-emotional neo-hippies sitting at their Macintosh laptops in their hardwood-floored group-domiciles in Cambridge, Austin, Oakland and Portland? I wasn't sure, but then I couldn't remember the last time I met someone who proudly and expansively bore the moniker of "environmentalist" on their sleeve or in their words (interestingly enough, my experience with "republicans" and "democrats" is much the same).

Perusing environmentalism.com, embarrassed that the ‘bad guys' had outbid ‘us' on ‘our' domain name, I found their reference to the Unabomber as an "explicit environmentalist" akin to the same extreme kookism that marks the globalization movement's characterization of anything or anyone remotely smelling, walking or talking like socialism (peoplism as I like to call it conversationally), a system which focuses primary attention and resources to the needs of humanity. Silly, right? Deep within that kookism reference, the parallel between anti-peoplism and anti-environmentalism was clear.

The nature of that first Google page could have also lent itself to the pernicious move of the capitalist corporatocracy toward the destruction of net neutrality, a real and current effort that threatens the democratic nature of the internet and would render non-tribute-paying (read progressive, socially-responsible and/or peoplist) sites imperceptible or virtually inoperational in the web realm.

Nefarious machinations of the capitalist corporatocracy (thank you, John Perkins, for a perfectly concrete and functional buzzconcept) notwithstanding for the purposes of this communiqué, there is an element of our human experience that is deeply missing from the somewhere-over-the-radar work of environmentalism and the steadfast legions of reducers, reusers and recyclers. The contemporary environmental/green movement is missing a major power dynamic in its attempt to bring balance back to our natural world. We find ourselves doing material things in relationship to our desire to "save the earth". We find ourselves doing political things, all be they rocks against a brick wall (not pessimism, but a reminder that if the rocks are numerous and big enough, brick walls can be reduced to dust) in the interest of creating a world free of rampant pollution and animal (including human) extinction. We find ourselves doing physical things, biking instead of driving fossil fuel vehicles, taking stairs instead of elevators, building green buildings instead of status quo office complexes to help cool a warming globe.

And we still find ourselves in the lurch of wholism and functional completion in our efforts to live in harmony, in balance with the very physical and naturo-spiritual reality that gave us birth."

The sad river in Chicago.

Copyright 2008 Ukumbwa Sauti

Condor and Eagle Prophecy - youtube

The prophecy of the Condor and Eagle is a powerful message become real as we look upon the imbalance in the science and industry overdrive of the Eagle north and the nature/heart/spirit/mind/body orientation of the Condor south. I submit to you this youtube video that puts it in perspective. There are more like it there and many places to find out about this prophecy.



Many important issues are raised with this prophecy. Many discussions are yet to be had, especially in the USAmerican culture. The ramifications of this prophecy are not limited to the western hemisphere. There are global implications as the world moves through this challenging period of the faltering of industrial globalization in the face of climate change and environmental destruction and the promise of an indigenous-led spiritual/social/political renewal that marks the period of unified indigeny and revolutionary energetics.

Legal Rights for Nature!

On Sept. 11, 2008 the Matter Network posted an article written by Erica Gies entitled "Legal Rights for Nature". Gies detailed the yet to come ratification of a new constitution that would include legal consideration for the needs of nature and its elements. Gies wrote:

"Ecuador has played host to major environmental offenses -- such as Texaco’s almost three decades of dumping toxic waste into waterways that sustain indigenous people – and, as a result, is primed to adopt such legislation. In a political reorganization designed to correct inequality and exclusion in government, the country is currently redrafting its constitution, which contains language granting nature rights.

These proposed laws seek to limit the economic activity of corporations and the state in favor of the common good, saying that no human activity will be allowed to endanger the regenerative processes of nature.

The Pachamama Alliance, a U.S.-based NGO that works with native Ecuadorans on protecting indigenous rights, suggested the language, which gained support from the indigenous and environmental movements, artists, media figures, and political sectors."

It is a joy to report that Ecuador has since ratified that constitution. As reported by Lynne Twist, co-founder of Pachamama, at a November 22 fund-raiser at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist church in Cambridge, MA, the completely new constitution now states clearly the need for anyone within Ecuador's borders to adhere to these laws. This adherence now includes Texaco which, as Twist noted, will now have to deal with this new, nature-empowered constitutional law after stalling for so long since the beginning of its legal wranglings. Sweet justice even before Texaco enters the court room.

Twist further reported that "legal rights for nature" amendments were being considered in Peru, Columbia and Bolivia, the latter of which is now headed by an indigenous president, Evo Morales.

This is an important move in the interest of indigeny as it formalizes in modern legal structures perspectives and practices concerning nature that indigenous people have been holding dear since the period of sovereign indigeny. Modern society, culture and political practice have moved markedly and dangerously away from the essential view of nature as key to the physical, social and spiritual culture of humanity. This move away from this essential viewpoint is the hallmark of the disintegrated indigeny/devolutionary energetics period in which humanity now struggles for clarity. The people of Ecuador, including, and importantly, the indigenous people of Ecuador, have made a powerful statement in the interest of nature in an era of climate change and backward capitalist cultural practice. They are to be applauded for this bold and necessary action.

Clearly, it would seem an ethical mandate that every constitution be changed to include such natural legal rights. One might only ponder for a moment to understand the sheer bedlam that would be created in the soiled ivory towers USAmerican corporate offices if the same were to be seriously proposed by a USAmerican electorate.

I wonder, in the post-election elation of our Obama love-fest, if said president-elect's administration would be so brave and forward-thinking to embrace just such legislative initiative. For many reasons, the ground for such may be more fertile in the southern climes and populations of this hemisphere, their ethical and political clarity more resolute, bravery in the face of blind, ignorant and purposefully destructive industrial momentum more powerfully - and beautifully - defined.

Indigeny and Energetics - Historical Framework

This table describes the general and fluid timeline for the three main historical periods of indigeny and energetics. Exact years of demarcation are not as important as the ramifications of the functional dynamics of these time periods. The table is provided mainly to illustrate the progression of these periods and to identify the timeline. The table content is provided below for better reading.


.......................................

Sovereign Indigeny:
society internally directed and developed on familial land masses, communalism, organic communications systems Evolutionary Energetics:
spiritual technologies created and developed in tune with natural environment; use of ritual, herbology, vibrational/ energy healing techniques

Evolutionary Energetics:
spiritual technologies created and developed in tune with natural environment; use of ritual, herbology, vibrational/ energy healing techniques

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Disintegrated Indigeny:
society effected by increasingly globalized capitalism, cultural norms and traditions subverted and repressed, the machine age is borne out of capitalist demand for control of resources and over-production, globalization of mass communications technology and sub-cultural dissemination, environmentalism emerges as a political force

Devolutionary,
Revolutionary Energetics:
spiritual technologies supplanted with alien religious/ideological content, radical shifts in relations to natural environment & human health practices;
beginnings of reestablishment of and reeducation to traditional thought and practice, wholism, cultural compositing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unified Indigeny:
Traditional Indigeny resurfaces in newly organized and interdependent, democratic structures, communalism and socialism, organic communications systems aided by digital communications technology;
(Organization of African Unity, International Indian Treaty Council, Organization of American States, Cultural Survival, New England Aboriginal Council – organizational examples of attempts at or movements of or toward unified indigeny and/or socio-political unification)

Revolutionary Energetics:
universal expressions of Indigenous Spiritual Technologies (Some’ et al); cultural compositing; naturo-spiritual/humanist traditions reestablished deepening concepts of wholism, adding external nature dynamic to concept of mind/body/spirit connection

g Definitions of some of the above terms (i.e., cultural compositing) will be provided in a later post. Be free to email me or post questions here. Thank you.

Indigeny and Energetics Definitions 01

indigeny – indigenous thought and practice, ideology and modes of production and distribution that stem from a historical, familial and cooperative relationship with a body of land, the relationship with which gave rise to a set of values and traditions that are pivotal to sustaining the people within that cultural framework

1. sovereign – 1. indigenous socio-cultural reality as defined by the independent, autonomous development of cultural thought and practice, based in a particular geographical container, unencumbered by the degrading qualities of capitalist and colonial ideology, economy and modes of production that would come millions of years into indigenous cultural development, but effect gross and deleterious changes upon indigeny world-wide; 2. period in which indigenous socio-cultural reality/indigeny was defined by autonomous, independent development on familial land masses

2. disintegrated – 1. period in which cultural elements are conceptually devalued and/or physically destroyed, most always creating a condition in which the particular indigenous social structures and socialization patterns are fully or partially destroyed, destabilized and/or conceptually devalued; 2. period in which the values and practices that have sustained a society through sovereign indigeny are removed from or devalued in their state of integration in the lives of individuals and the society as a whole; 3. (disintegration) extraction, destruction of devaluation of traditional cultural elements and dynamics from the human social container that created, developed and refined them, often accompanied by the supplanting of foreign and/or antagonistic values and cultural elements by force or unethical coercion (e.g., Christian missionary schools in Africa, Asia or America); 4. period of indigeny in which ancestral, familial land was/is forcibly or otherwise coercively misappropriated and natural resources were extracted and exploited at ever increasingly phenomenal rates

3. unified – 1. indigeny as expressed during an intra- and post-capitalist period in which indigenous thought, practice and social collectives are in direct control of their own cultural realities and destinies and are supported, framed and enlivened by the essential features of their traditional past; 2. historical period marked by the dynamics of cultural compositing, socio-political reunification and socio-economic reorientation to communalistic modes of organization and production

energetics – naturo-spiritual thought and practice and healing modalities expressed in multiform indigenous frameworks, including,, but not limited to direct body work, ritual technological applications of natural elements, herbology, naturopathic medicine, spiritual healing technologies and invocation of and work with spiritual energies and beings, all of which involve the assumption of the union of the physical and spiritual realms (energetics assumes the oneness of the human and naturo-spiritual worlds)

1. evolutionary – energetics as defined and expressed by indigenous cultures before
   the incursion of the destructive external forces of colonialism, capitalism and Christian-dominated religiosity

2. devolutionary – 1. medical, medicinal and energetic thought and practice that focused on suppression of symptoms, was defined by its exploitation of or separation from its constituent component’s natural qualities or orientation and whose effects (whether in production or application) were deleterious to nature and/or the recipient; 2. physical, emotional and/or spiritual healing modalities that give rise to substantial negative and destructive effects in the human individual body or larger social structure; 3. any medical or religious thought or practice dangerous or destabilizing to the ethics and practitioners of indigeny

3. revolutionary – 1. indigenous energetic thought, process and practice recovered
   from a culture’s traditional past and often marked by new modes of production /or distribution, especially as a progressive response to the ravages of disintegrated indigeny in an effort to usher in new waves of cultural reclarification and reunification and the age of unified indigeny; 2. indigenous energetic thought, process and practice as expressed in the process of progressive projection; 3. Indigenous thought, process and practice that takes place and finds dominant expression during the age of unified indigeny

√ addendum to revolutionary energetics - environmentalism and sustainable agricultural movements are important steps toward and may be included within the framework of revolutionary energetics, but are not in and of themselves complete statements of this concept as they do not, at least in popular communications, include a naturo-spiritual dynamic; the concepts of revolutionary energetics and unified indigeny may find themselves in debt somewhat to the powerful ideological and material forces of the environmentalist and

Indigeny and Energetics Introduction 01

This work around indigeny and energetics seeks to place indigenous thought and practice, including naturo-spiritual dynamics (nature and human spiritual development have always been partners in history), in its correct historical perspective, to empower indigenous people and others through a change in conceptual outlook and an opportunity to move humanity forward in time with the correct vision and intellectual and spiritual motives. Indigeny and energetics seeks to provide a place for the organization of thought and work that has been put into a tailspin by the forces and ideas of modernity/capitalism and the machine/industrial age, which the framework of indigeny puts into a correct perspective as a sub-cultural, functionally-limited and necessarily temporary socio-political dynamic.

Indigeny and energetics concepts are strengthened by the substantial and growing awareness of the relationship of capitalism/consumerism/ materialism to the continuing destruction of the natural environment, the home and sustenance of humanity on both the physical and spiritual planes. Indigeny has existed for thousands, upon millions of years - modernity for about 250 to 500 years at most in its infancy, adolescence and adulthood. Modernity is aging quickly, becoming outmoded, fraught with irreconcilable ideological and material conflicts. These conflicts cannot be mitigated within the offending system due to the nature of its shortcomings.

This blog is offered as a repository of the initial literary developments and writings of indigeny and energetics (concepts developed by Ukumbwa Sauti, M.Ed.) in particular and as a place for discourse on the issues of sustainability, environmentalism, spirituality, religion, media, modern culture and technology in general.

Ukumbwa Sauti is informed and guided by the works of Malidoma Some’, Alwyn Thomas, David Sprague, East Coast Village, Vine Deloria, Jr., Winona LaDuke, Jerry Mander, John Perkins, Kwame Nkrumah, Seku Ture, Malcolm X/El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Ted Andrews, Bernadette McDonald/Douglas Jehl, David Helvarg, George Gerbner, Ben Bagdikian, Don Jorge Tamayo, St. Suzan Baltozer and the millions upon millions of indigenous people who have contributed so beautifully to the great body of knowledge and work and life and living experience that we know as human development.