Dreamtime!

Just started researching Aboriginal art!

Intrigued by the idea of an upper and lower self, an id/ego/superego, an above and below mountain, above and below consciousness sort of concept.

Also comes from the unusual and repetitive nature of the dreams I've been having, and how they have consistently been telling me things of substance.

Thinking about creating more narrative pieces of art following the storyline of these dreams.  Seeing how I can work in an audio element as well.

Some interesting concepts to explore:

• continuity of life--before birth and after death, among fellow humans, between humans and landscape
• culture heroes travel through formless land and by their travel create their sacred sites--giving shape to the shapeless, meaning-making, order to chaos.  Signage
• "Every event leaves a record in the land" ...in this case, the land is like the mind
• Songlines: paths across the land or SKY! they help people navigate, listening to the rhythm of the land! "A labyrinth of invisible pathways", "Singing the world into existence"

More to discover:

• Darling Scarp
• Wagyl
• Swan River
• "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin
• http://www.aamu.nl/museumcollectie

And now, some glorious images from da web!

Sweden in Wilmington!

If all goes well, I might have the opportunity to help facilitate a pretty astounding community art project about the landing of the Swedes in Delaware.  Some images from my first round of research:

Art/Vision/Voice

Some food for thought from a set of community art case studies I picked up at my MICA tour.  I was really intrigued by how my time with TFA helped me predict the pitfalls some of these students fell into, and how quickly I came up with other solutions.  Yay for transferrable skills!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

"When cultural boundaries break down, creativity comes pouring through in a burst of energy." 3

"Culture concerns everyone and it is the most essential thing of all, as it is culture that gives us reason for living, and sometimes for dying." UNESCO conference 4

"It often takes a while for ideas to permeate institutions" 7

"'Cultural Democracy' denotes an approach to cultural policy and development characterized by pluralism, participation, and equity in a many-to-many framework, as opposed to the approach that seeks to 'democratize' established culture by improving distribution systems from the center to many." 9

"The key distinction  between CCD and art works that employ some of its methods lies in the role of the artist: when the individual artist's vision--that person's aesthetic ideas, structural choices, and cultural vocabulary--control the work in which community members take part, the work--however powerful, beautiful, or moving, however valid as art--is not community cultural development, because it doesn't honor CCD's underlying principle of equality of participation and its underlying aim of collective expression.  This difference is not a matter of technique, style, or skill, but of core purpose.  This distinction illustrates both the challenge and potential pitfall of CCD's translation into an academic discipline: institutionalizing insurgency without domesticating it." 9

"Authentic CCD must be fluid and improvisatory" 9

"What gives [CCD] special merit is that its mean and ends are inseparable...to use the expressive gifts that are uniquely human to convey the special contributions of each cultural community to our existential task of understanding an repairing the world we share." 10

"Individual and communal 'voice' is at the heart of both the form and function of CAP programming." 15

"Community is a complex and dynamic living entity" 17

"Every group member is both a 'teacher' and 'learner' 17

"They (the youth) felt heard and understood--and recognized as equal partners in all the learning and teaching that went on." 29

"A true partnership [is when] knowledge flows both ways" 31

"All the participants expressed more interest in the process than the product, they cared more about the journey than the destination."  That's what's wrong with formal assessments, standardized testing!

"They (the students) need to be in a space where there's no judgement, or if there is, they can handle it.  That's the kind of space we create with these exercises, it underlies the whole process.  They need to be released while they're writing as well, so there's less chance they'll edit themselves, so it's quality writing." 37

On teaching: "You can't just regurgitate something you've read from a book.  You've got to truly understand what you're teaching, and believe in it heart and soul.  Teenagers will leave if you don't. They can't be bored, they can't be embarrassed.  They have to learn something real." 38

"If its a soulless exercise, the youth will feel it.  If you don't really believe in what you're doing, they'll know.  They won't know why, but they'll know you're not teaching quality to them, you're just teaching.  And they already get enough of that." 38

Artistic statements: "What do you believe is creativity? And how are you going to pass that along?" 38

"As young teachers (or anyone), when they get nervous, they get tunnel vision, and instead of looking at the situation and reacting to it, they just plow through whatever they're doing, whether it's working or not, trying to get to the end.  But the end result flows from the process--you can't take those steps away and still have it work." 41

"But I don't find that moment of conflict, the emotional moment, to be the real moment of learning.  The turning point is when everything is calm again and we examine the emotional moment, and then we deconstruct it.  That's the important part of the process." 42

"What it means to be an artist citizen..."48

On participation: "You either participate or you leave.  We don't have spectators here, so either you get in the game or you find another team to play on...you can't watch an education." 51

"[Education is a] vehicle [for getting peoples'] mindsets to change and to begin to understand what culture is, the importance of culture, the importance of being connected to something that enriches their lives, makes they healthy, so that they learn to be committed to what it is they are capable of producing.  Exposing them to resources that may aid them in their quest." 52

"I think that in terms of community arts, you can go all the way back to Egypt, come up through Egypt, and back through to Thailand, back to the pagoda and India, coming through the Russian icon, the great cathedrals in Europe, all the way down to the Incas, the Aztecs, all the way across the Aztecs...All of that art created by these cultures had a purpose, it was community-based." 52

"The thing that's significant about all of that work is that it was designed for people who were visually, but not necessarily verbally, literate." 52

"I think education is simply making people literate to the iconography of the visual life." 52

"I think it is our responsibility to make young people understand that.  You have to help them learn the grammar [of art].  The grammar is actually life itself." 52

On students: "You know, they can speak it now.  If they can speak it and if they can demonstrate it in their work, then they can also teach it.  So I try to make teachers of them immediately.  One of the best things I got from Xavier was that you're your own best teacher." 53

"there are creative ways to motivate them to want to know and want to seek it out.  There are different formulas for each kid." 53

"I think education is nothing more than making people aware of their tools for living and life.  To me, the only way of approaching the whole deal is improvisation." 53

"There's no way to teach individuals collectively" 54

"I think talent is nothing more than having a bent toward doing something so you're going to spend a lot of time with it." 54

"A big part of my ob is teaching that student the responsibility of holding up his end of the job.  It's creating a contract." 54

"Every student who walks in that door has to realize that this education is not a right, it's a privilege." 54

"I was becoming a person, a human being, I wasn't just becoming an artist.  I may have had that as my focus, but what I think is that it shaped the whole person.  It shaped a personality." 55

"If they handed me something, and I'd say 'thank you', they didn't say 'you're welcome', they'd say 'pass it on'." 56

"It's not giving back to the community, it's passing on to the community what's theirs." 56

"What we're trying to build collectively, and what community arts is about, is somehow trying to reestablish the extended family culture." 57

"Use your pride to teach you...the only thing that we can teach you is, nothing about art, but about being an emissary, and that was the bottom line." 57

"We are all prepared for a certain journey in life and you're getting those kids ready for that journey." 57

"They're all doing their own thing, absolute diversity, and they're all dancing on the exact beat.  Complete unity.  That's what I think this community is about.  And it's an improvisational thing." 59

"We are not culturally deprived.  The way its been presented, they don't need anybody to bring them the culture, they are part of a culture, and they've just got to recognize it.  Our job is to create recognition of this." 60

"Challenges and tensions between established practice and innovation, ...the dynamic potential inherent when participants are allowed to create new programming for generations to follow." 63

"Her sketchbook became the bridge between the world and her artwork, a tool connecting learning with life." 69

"The most important part of art, of culture, is to share it" 71

"School taught me to isolate myself, do amazing things but not connect with my family, community, or the values that ground me, I wanted something different for my students." 71

"Writing was the zipper that meshed everything together...Recitation is like music, rhythm, chanting...Even the quiet ones caught fire." 75

"Once you've started challenging things you keep observing and challenging.  You have the opportunity for a different type of life." 76

"When you are truly empowered you are responsible to share learning.  It's not just a question of kindness.  In the times we live in, it's a responsibility." 77

"An art practice doesn't begin and end in an art studio.  The ideas go beyond the walls, battling segregationist and hierarchical systems that limit ideas of cultural authority to a few.  Who at our institutional table is missing?  If you are present, you are responsible for change." 77

"Art is a transformative practice that arises from people's struggles to make sense of the world." 81

"An artist is capable of creating work that activates, propels, and gives vigor to people's daily lives." 82

A great project: "I remember one high school student writing about anger...he shared that he is working hard to clear away that cloud when he feels angry.  That same day in the lab, the student who wrote about foggy anger posed for some pictures with the digital camera.  The pictures were manipulated in the computer adding different elements and lots of fog." 87

And from it arose this questionnaire and the project of "windows"

"What weather are you?

"What weather best describes you when you're angry?

"What's the weather like in your home?

"What kind of weather do you experience in school?

"Which of the elements do you feel best describes you: earth, wind, fire, or water?

...hope they also asked why!

"Improvisation brings an authenticity to the exchange, and new forms are realized." 93

"Weight of expectation" 102

"One must ask, are we striving to give the child something that we feel he or she should have...or to draw something out? Respecting children's right and wanting the best for them, we must interrogate our own vision, mission, and goals.  It takes a tremendous amount of effort and practice to critically analyze our own ideas, opinions, and feelings, and acknowledge how they might impact others." 103

"It is important to think intergenerationally" 104

"I'm troubled by terms like 'high' and 'low' art." 104

The participating children should have the right to define beauty for themselves" 105

"We cannot assume that our story is everyone else's story--or the only one worth writing." 106

"The question that arose was whether mainstream higher education institutions can really prepare artists to work beyond the environment of the art world." 108  This goes for any ed institutions--can they go beyond the classroom?

"Structuring projects so that there is a creative tension between certain limitations and the choices participants have to create their own meanings." 117

"Being alert to teachable moments is part of the art of facilitating quality art encounters." 117

"Creating a rhythm of working back and forth between solo and collaborative projects throughout a program can build community along the way while continuing to honor each individual's need to express his or her own ideas." 118

"Community assets, not liabilities, should be stressed" 119

"Oftentimes the expression of a participant's 'voice' can take the form of a disciplinary problem--worse, it could take the form of non-attendance." 120

"You can't discipline a child whom you do not love or at least have respectful relationship with...lack of respect is contagious" 120

"The personal decisions that artists make in their lives shape their work, their audiences, and their unique way of looking at the world...Like life, there isn't just one trajectory to becoming an artist." 124

"When you institutionalize it...you extinguish the potentially radical possibilities." 125

"Community remains a euphemism for poor and working people, for people of color, for people who don't have money or resources and live in poor neighborhoods, usually urban areas." 125

"Parallel universes within the art world." 126

"So many of the young people I worked with were so damaged by the school system that they really did not want to be told how to do something." 126

"Fear of confrontation leads to censorship" 126

"Artists should always ask what's next and try to make something happen that's different and unusual and radical" 127

"Quality is an unavoidable topic because it has to do with how one measures the success of a project.  A discernible lack of 'quality' jeopardizes future funding." 128

"The more radical something is, the more difficult its success will be...this is the energy that drives a project and makes it interesting." 129

Students learned "how to use art as a vehicle for analyzing information about their environment" 129

"Regenerative cycle that encourages young people to venture out into society and return to their communities with new knowledge" 130

"The real successes of a community arts program...are the individuals who are transformed by the experience, and ...are able to give this experience back to others.  But the final challenge will most likely be the juggling act that a life with one foot in the community becomes." 130

_____________________________________________________________

Things to check out:

Wallace Foundation

MacArthur Fellowships

San Francisco's Neighborhood Arts Program

Reciprocal University for the Arts Project CA

Xavier University, Nawlins (and the Junior School of Art)

Free Street Programs (and Ron Bieganski)

Kid SmART

Pieces of Power

Faces of Culture

Youth Inspirational Connection, Inc

Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

Jamaica Center for Art and Learning

Johanna Poethig, artist

CSUMB's digital mural class

Columbia's Vision 2010

Mid Atlantic Artists and Communities: America Creates for the Millennium Project

NEA Visual Arts Fellowship

http://arlenegoldbard.com

Books to read:

Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development, Adams and Goldbard

Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire

Cultural Development: Experiences and Policies, Augustin Girard

Grassroots Theatre, Robert Gard

Toward a Pedagogy of Cases, Lee Shulman

Narrating Cultural Citizenship: Oral Histories and First Generation Latino and Latina Students, Rita Benmayor, New Pedagogies fr Social Change, Social Justice Journal

Thoughts on Community Art in Baltimore

This past weekend I went to an open house for MICA's (Maryland Institute College of Art) grad program in Community Art.  I saw some great art, met some incredible people, and heard some inspiring stories.  One metaphor from a graduating student seemed especially relevant to me.  He said in undergrad he was dating art--they were pretty serious, met the parents, moved in with each other, but were still just dating.  Grad school, he said, was like a marriage.  That explains why I couldn't see myself at UPeace, and why I'm still left with the questions I started with:

-How can an artistic and academic institution of this size, caliber, and reputation, reconcile itself with the ground-up, grassroots approach it advocates?  Is this possible for any institution?

-Do I really want/need to go to grad school to do the work I want to do?

The great thing is, I have nothing but time to answer those questions.  And in the meantime, here are some things I took from my tours, sessions, conversations, and from the book of case studies I read afterwards.

Main aspects of their program/things I think are cool:
-30 hour/week "internship" with community organization of students' choice in first year
-Continuing work with the org but greater focus on individual studio practice in second year
-A great network of organizations, especially in Baltimore
-A large percentage of students are hired right out of school by the organization they'd been working with
-A large percentage of them stay in Baltimore
-Learning grant writing and non-profit management
-Focus on consensus building
-Focus on conversation building/dialogue/truly listening to all voices in the community
-Emphasis on cycle of production, documentation, evaluation--collaboratively
-Learning what it means to conduct ethical interviews
-International partnerships (Honduras, Azerbaijan)
-How amazingly welcoming everyone was--felt like a family already
-Thought-provoking conversations with the head of department already

Programs to check out:
-Invite (MICA's exhibition featuring small businesses from the surrounding arts district)
-Breadboard (nonprofit Phila)
-Design Philadelphia
-Hands On Gulf Coast
-Ohr-Okeefe Museum AmbassadOHRs program (Biloxi)
-Baltimore United Viewfinders
-Youth Dreamers
-Baltimore Clay Works
-Luminous Intervention
-House of Ruth
-New Lens Productions
-Community Arts Journal (inactive)
-Community Arts Network (inactive)
-OYE (Org for Youth Empowerment, Honduras)
-The Book Thing (a warehouse of free books in BMore--how did this happen?!)
-Baltimore Free School

Fellowships/Sholarships to check out:
-OSI (Open Society Institute)
-Robert W Deutsch Foundation
-PNC Transformative Art Grant
-PNC Open Walls Project
-Jack Kent Cooke Grants




Incidentally, I saw this pedicab on a studio tour.  She gives rides anywhere for free--but the catch is you have to tell her a story.  Hooray for oral histories!

Wisdom from Jobs

"You can't connect the dots looking forward.  You can only connect them looking backwards.

So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.  YOu have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, karma, whatever.

Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the beaten path.  And that will make all the difference."  --Steve Jobs

Sirens of Titan

A bit of Vonnegut-ing:

"It took us...long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."  (320)

Baby We Were Born to Run

You walk four blocks to a nearby garage concert of a budding singer-songwriter.

You are entranced by the glowing sunset ambiance, the candor with which Paul Baribeau shares his inspiration and obstacles, the raw emotion behind these songs and lyrics--especially when he opens on his thoughts about suicide, life, and death.

You buy his new album--a collection of Springsteen covers in Baribeau's signature rough-cut voice.

You find yourself hoping it's some insane mistake that your friend and travel buddy is reported to have died a sudden and probably never to be completely mystified death in Thailand.

You for the first time really see cover of that album you bought some three days ago:

Everything dies baby that's a fact/But maybe everything that dies someday comes back

You for the first time really hear the words of that now-gut-wrenching song:

All we have is time, time, time

And someday that time will run out

And that's the only thing we can be absolutely certain about.

You for the first time feel this pang of loss for someone you loved...but realize that pang mostly not for your own loss but for the loss of a loved one of your loved ones.

You read a book on the plane to the funeral.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World as Never Seen b Christopher McDougall

This book is about running...

         in a new way, a natural way, 

                about evolution, about roots,

                          about humanity, living in a non-automatic way, embracing each moment of competition, collaboration, collective humanity.

And it happens to also have a title linked to Springsteen and now Baribeau.  Coincidence...I think not.

The thoughts that follow are about running, but also about daoing ideally, about a way to reach a point of virtuosity where doing something (really doing something) becomes easier than not doing it, about truly living and creating.  Running in mind mind is no longer just running--it is a symbol, for what Adil showed us.  Here's to life:

"That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: They'd never forgotten what it felt like to love running.  They remembered that a running was mankind's first fine art, our original act of inspired creation.  Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain.  And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs...a downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle--behold, the Running Man." (92)

"There are two goddesses in your heart--the Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth.  Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come.  So they concern themselves with chasing money.  But they have it backwards.  you have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you." (94)

"...There was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running.  ...We wouldn't be alive without love; we wouldn't have survived without running; maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other." (98)

"Perhaps all our troubles--all the violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can't overcome--began when we stopped living as Running People.  Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way." (99)

"When you run on the earth and with the earth, you can run forever." (114)  Connection, humans and their landscape, humans and each other, and that irreplaceable awareness.

"Whenever an art form loses its fire, when it gets weakened by intellectual inbreeding and first principles fade into stale tradition, a radical fringe eventually appears to blow it up and rebuild from the rubble." (148)  Creation out of destruction.  Shiva would be proud.  Also stirs up a good amount of hope for humanity.

About the importance of living in awareness, rather than automaticity:  "Feet live for a fight and thrive under pressure; let them laze around...and they'll collapse.  Work them out, and they'll arc up like a rainbow. ...The barefoot walker receives a continuous stream of information about the ground and about his own relationship to it, while a shod foot sleeps inside an unchanging environment." (177).  Get outside, get dirty, get aware.

"Runners are assembly-line workers; they become good at one thing--moving straight ahead at a steady speed--and repeat that motion until overuse fritzes out the machinery.  Athletes are Tarzans.  Tarzan swims and wrestles and jumps and swings on vines.  he's strong and explosive.  you never know what Tarzan will do next, which is why he never gets hurt." (210)

"When tracking an animal, one attempts to think like an animal in order to predict where it is going...Looking at its tracks, one visualizes the motion of the animal and feels that motion in one's own body.  you go into a trancelike state, the concentration is so intense. ...Visualization...empathy...abstract thinking and forward projection: ...isn't that exactly the mental engineering we now use for science, medicine, the creative arts" (235)

"Running was the superpower that made us human--which means it's a superpower all humans possess." (239)

"you don't stop running because you get old.  you get old because you stop running." (240)

"It's easy to get outside yourself when you're thinking about someone else." (253)

"That head of his has been occupied with contemporary society's insoluble problems for so long, and he is still battling on with good-heartedness and boundless energy.  His efforts have not been in vain, but he will probably not live to see them come to fruition." --Theo Van Gogh (1889)

Sophie's World

A really interesting history of western philosophy told through the perspective of a young girl...complete with existential mystery story...by Jostein Gaarder, a professor from Norway.

"A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little.  That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight." (53)

"Just as certain world religions say that people who do not believe in a personal God outside themselves are athiests, we say that a person who does not believe in himself is an atheist.  Not believing in the splendor of one's own soul is what we call atheism."  --Swami Vivekenanda (107)

"Love thy neighbor as thyself because you are your neighbor.  It is an illusion that makes vou think that your neighbor is someone other than yourself." --Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a former president of India (107)

A SUPER section on the Baroque and the accompanied heightened awareness of mortality and the passage of time--think memento mori--works of art that appear at first to be vibrant still lifes but contain within them some hint of death or decay (rotting fruit, flies, dead flowers), Macbeth's "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" soliloquy comparing life to a "poor player that struts and frets his hour on stage, and then is heard no more; a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"...life as a theatre indicating that life has a definite "curtain call". (17six)

On Hume on the child philosopher: "The child has not yet become a slave of the expectations of habit; he is thus the more open-minded of you two.  I wonder if the child is not also the greater philosopher.  He comes utterly without preconceived opinions.  And that, dear Sophie, is the philosopher's greatest virtue.  The child perceives the world as it is, without putting more into things than he experiences." (213)

"Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end." --Kant on the idea of a categorical imperative as moral law (257)

On Hegel:  "The world spirit reaches the highest form of self-realization in absolute spirit.  And this absolute spirit is art, religion, and philosophy.  And of these, philosophy is the highest form of knowledge because in philosophv, the world spirit reflects on its own impact on history.  So the world spirit first meets itself in philosophy.  you could say, perhaps, that philosophy is the mirror of the world spirit." (285)  ...a recurring motif of the mirror...of subjective vs objective, the envisioner vs the envisioned, perception and reality.

"It is ourselves that our dreams are about.  We are the directors, we set up the scenario and play all the roles.  A person who says he doesn't understand art doesn't know himself very well."  On Freud (339)

On the artist and the subconscious:  "(Freud was convinced) that we retain everything we have seen and experienced somewhere deep in our consciousness, and all these impressions can be brought to light again.  When we experience a memory lapse, and a bit later 'have it on the tip of our tongue' and then later still 'suddenly remember it', we are talking about something which has lain in the unconscious and suddenly slips through the half-open door to consciousness..."  interesting ideas of thresholds, the liminal state, borders and edges. (339)

And on creation:  "But then suddenly it's as if all doors and all drawers fly open.  Everything comes tumbling out by itself, and we can find all the words and images we need.  This is when we have 'lifted the lid' of the unconscious.  We can call it inspiration, Sophie, and it feels as if what we are drawing or writing is coming from an outside source." (339)

"All too frequently, reason throttles the imagination, and that's serious because without imagination, nothing really new will ever be created." (340)

Daniel Quinn's Providence

Some thoughts on the biography of the author of Ishmael, one of my top ten most philosophically influential books--mainly centered upon the concept fact that humans in recent history have been enacting a "Taker" story in which they take from the world and attempt to subdue the world, rather than the "Leaver" story of the majority of human (pre)history and the rest of living history, in which all organisms live in interconnectivity and are of the world, rather than over it.  This wasn't my favorite of his books--dwelled overly much, I thought, on mistakes from his childhood--but the last third had some gems:


"The presence of the divine in the universe doesn't necessarily depend on or argue for the presence of gods." (139)


"As I say, the religion of the Leavers if "pre" because it doesn't involve the worship of anthropomorphic gods like these.  you'll find plenty of gods in their mythologies, of course, but these are only local deities, not objects of universal worship or even of local worship, as we use the term.   For example, the Amazulu of Africa say that Unkulukulu made all things, but they don't worship this creator the way Jews worship yahweh or the way Christians worship Jesus.  And if the Amazulu were to run across a band of Ashanti, they wouldn't expect them to acknowledge the primacy of Unkulunkulu over their Onyankopon.  you see what I mean; this is a sign of their religious backwardness.  If the Amazulu were instead to fall upon the Ashanti and slaughter them for refusing to acknowledge the primacy of Unkulunkulu, this would represent a clear step forward on the path of spiritual development, and we'd be forced to acknowledge that the Amazulu now had a true religion." (157)


"Every life in the community is owed to the community--and is paid back to the community in death.  The community is a web of life, and every strand of the web is a path to all the other strands.  Nothing is exempt.  Nothing is special.  Nothing lives on a strand by itself, unconnected to the rest." (1six4)


On consuming an animal (or any food):  "They know very well that, in consuming the deer, they're taking the life of the deer into themselves.  In fact, in a very real sense, the deer hasn't died at all; the deer has simply become them, and in the same sense they have become the deer.  Long before we did, the ancient hunters knew that you are what you eat." (1six5)  Interesting connections to the idea of eating whole foods, holistic health, and the idea of "prana"--every living thing has this energy from the sun.  The fewer steps removed from this sun-derived energy, the more powerful it is--another argument for a vegan lifestyle.


"I think maybe needy people are just people who don't feel needed.  Well, I say to you: Feel needed.  Feel needed, because you are." (175)  One of the most powerful things about Ishmael was its proposal to humans--after spending the large part of the book talking about how humans are decidedly un-special, how humans do not have any sort of unique claim to the earth or control of it, how humans are in great part only contributing to its untimely destruction, the book proposed that humans did have one unique possible contribution--with our powers of critical and creative thinking, we could be the ones to set the example for the rest of the species of life--the ones to set the example of what to do with that power of reasoning, how to use it to better the world.  Another treatise on the importance of education, and inspirational indeed.


And lastly, a sort of paean on the importance of place, and the alive-ness of the natural world, the fundamental sameness and uniqueness of all living things:


"Kindler and Rekindler of universes, the fire of life burns forever.  It is the flame of life that courses through all generations from first to last, that burns without consuming, that is itself consumed and renewed inexhaustibly, life after life, generation after generation, species after species, galaxy after galaxy, universe after universe, each sharing in the blaze for its season and going down to death while the fire burns on undiminished.  The fire is life itself, the life of the universe, of this galaxy, of this planet, of this place and every place; the place by the rock and the place under the hill and the place by the river and the place in the forest, no two alike anywhere.  And in the life of every place if god, who is the fire: the life of the pond, god; the life of the tundra, god; the life of the sea, god; the life of the land, god; the life of the earth, god; the life of the universe, god: in every place unique, as the life of every place is unique, and in every place the same, as the fire that burns is everywhere the fire of life."