[Vision2020] Reinhabitation of Turtle Island: A New Paradigm

[Ted Moffett]

Hi Saundra et. al.

Isn't intruding into the discussion what this list is for?

Indeed, the majority religion of the European invaders and conquerors (I
still look at our occupation of "Turtle Island" as an ongoing injustice) was
employed not only to eliminate other religious practices, but to justify the
displacement and cultural genocide of entire peoples.  After all, bringing
the Godless savages to salvation justifies extreme measures, given the
unfortunate eternal fate of their soul if they were not "saved."  Religious
domination is perfectly logical and ethical from this perspective.  And
converting the savages to God (as Europeans viewed God) was one of the prime
propaganda tactics of the military, cultural and political "settlement" of
North America.

Can we reinhabit "Turtle Island" and correct our mistakes?

http://www.wildlandsprojectrevealed.org/htm/turtle.htm



Turtle Island

In 1969, California poet Gary Snyder published a collection of poems and
essays entitled Turtle Island. Snyder explained this unusual title in the
introduction:

"Turtle Island – the old/new name for the continent, based on many creation
myths of the people who have been living here for millennia, and reapplied
by some of them to "North America" in recent years. Also, an idea found
world-wide, of the earth, or cosmos even, sustained by a great turtle or
serpent-of-eternity." (Snyder, 1969, Turtle Island)

Snyder relays one such myth belonging to the Nisenan and Maidu, indigenous
people who lived on the east side of the Sacramento Valley. According to
Snyder, the story goes something like this:

Coyote and Earthmaker were blowing around in the swirl of things. Coyote
finally had enough of this aimlessness and said "Earthmaker, find us a
world!" Earthmaker tried to get out of it, tried to excuse himself, because
he knew that a world can only mean trouble. But Coyote nagged him into
trying. So leaning over the surface of the vast waters, Earthmaker called up
Turtle. After a long time Turtle surfaced, and Earthmaker said "Turtle, can
you get me a bit of mud? Coyote wants a world." "A world" said Turtle, "Why
bother. Oh well." And down she dived. She went down and down and down, to
the bottom of the sea. She took a great gob of mud, and started swimming
toward the surface. As she spiraled and paddled upward, the streaming water
washed the mud form the sides of her mouth, from the back of her mouth—and
by the time she reached the surface (the trip took six years) nothing was
left but one grain of dirt between the tips of her beak. "That'll be
enough!" said Earthmaker, taking it in his hands and giving it a pat like a
tortilla. Suddenly Coyote and Earthmaker were standing on a piece of ground
as big as a tarp. Then Earthmaker stamped his feet, and they were standing
on a flat wide plain of mud. The ocean was gone. They stood on the land.
(Snyder, 1995, Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, Sessions, ed.)

Turtle Island then is North America. Not present day North America, but the
continent of the past, and of the future. When Snyder looked at modern man's
relationship to the earth, he felt it lacked a spiritual connection once
common among Native Americans, and among eastern religions such as Buddhism
and Taoism. For example, Peter Mathiessen quotes Jimmy Durnam, a Cherokee:

We cannot separate our place on earth from our lives on the earth nor from
our vision nor our meaning as a people. We are taught from childhood that
the animals and even the trees and plants that we share a place with are our
brothers and our sisters. (McLaughlin, 1993, Regarding Nature, Industrialism
and Deep Ecology)

Snyder himself wrote:

Buddhist teachings go on to say that the true source of compassion and
ethical behavior is paradoxically none other than one's own realization of
the insubstantial and ephemeral nature of everything. Much of animism and
paganism celebrate the actual, in its inevitable pain and death, and offer
no utopian hopes. Add to this contemporary ecosystem theory, and
environmental history, and you get a sense of what's at work. One recent
philosophical outcome is "Deep Ecology" which informs the work of the Wild
Lands Project [sic], among others. (Snyder, 1995, Deep Ecology for the 21st
Century, Sessions, ed.)

For Snyder then, Turtle Island became symbolic of his own "back to the
future" sentiment of how man's relationship to the earth should be defined,
and lived. It should be biocentric (nature centered) as opposed to
anthropocentric (human centered), while possessing a keen awareness of
"place". The concept of place is difficult at first, but think of somewhere
special to you. Perhaps it is a forest. Perhaps it is the house you grew up
in, your school, or your church. Now imagine expanding that feeling to cover
the entire biosphere. Once you appreciate the place where you are, Snyder
thinks, you begin to treat life and the earth with reverence and respect,
not to be exploited, as modern man has come to do. Therefore Snyder urges a
reinhabitation of Turtle Island, and a new paradigm for mankind.

I pledge allegiance to the soil
of Turtle Island
and to the beings who thereon dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.

 (Snyder, 1995, Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, Sessions. ed.)

Do we all want to go back/forward to Turtle Island? What will this be like?
Will we be happier? Healthier? These are fair questions to ask. To answer
them, we must know more. For Snyder, Turtle Island became symbolic of the
cultural and ecological rediscovery of North America, but for others Turtle
Island has become the icon for the reinvention of North America: the
Wildlands Project.
-----------------
Ted Moffett

On 8/3/07, Saundra Lund <sslund at roadrunner.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Ted,
>
> Thanks for those links!
>
> I don't mean to intrude into the discussion, but it's interesting to me
> that
> those in power who wanted to limit -- and were successful for many years
> --
> *true* religious freedom for adults were -- and are -- the majority
> religion
> in this country.  Far too many of those who unceasingly scream about
> freedom
> of religion really only care about it as long as that "freedom" mirrors
> *their* beliefs.
>
> You wrote:
> "Applying religious freedom consistently is a very thorny issue that will
> challenge anyones ideas of how the law should control peoples lifestyles,
> especially when the lifestyles in question are well outside the normative
> range of a given society."
>
> Yuppers -- ain't that the truth!
>
>
> JMHO,
> Saundra Lund
> Moscow, ID
>
> The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
> nothing.
> - Edmund Burke
>
> ***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2007 through life
> plus
> 70 years, Saundra Lund. Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce
> outside
> the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the
> author.*****
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
> On Behalf Of Ted Moffett
> Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 2:09 AM
> To: Joe Campbell
> Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Firearms - Dangerous or Useful?
>
> Joe wrote:
>
>
>
>         Few people
>        think that freedom of religion alone allows them to
>        formulate Rastafarian churches so that they can pass
>        out joints to their friends. (Apologies to any
>        Rastafarians in the audience.)
>
>
> Peyote, a far more powerful plant than cannabis in its effects, is now
> legal
> for Native American religious use.  It had previously been illegal, even
> for
> Native Americans, but note the information below giving 1994 as the date
> this changed, passing both the US House and Senate. So religious freedom
> has
> been used as a basis for allowing the religious use of otherwise strictly
> controlled substances:
>
> http://www.lectlaw.com/files/drg25.htm
>
> And with a bit of research, guess what I found?  Cannabis use for
> religious
> purposes by Rastafarian's addressed in the U S Court of Appeals for the
> Ninth Circuit:
>
> http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/news/rfra_rasta.htm
>
> After litigating the case for more than ten years, the Ninth Circuit ruled
> on Tuesday that while the Religious Freedom Restoration Act might protect
> some Rastafarians who possess or smoke marijuana as part of their
> religious
> practices, it does not protect the importation of marijuana, even if that
> marijuana was intended for religious use. According to the Ninth Circuit,
> while the practice of Rastafarianism sanctions the smoking of marijuana,
> nowhere does the religion sanction the importation of marijuana.
> -------
> And note this interesting policy from Hawaii regarding how police address
> claims of cannabis use for religious purposes:
>
> http://www.thc-ministry.org/hawaiipolicerulesreligioususes.html#IX
>
> INVESTIGATIONS INVOLVING THE MEDICAL
> AND RELIGIOUS USE OF MARIJUANA
> PAGE 6
> C. The police shall not decide whether the suspect's claimed religion is a
> recognized religion
> <http://www.thc-ministry.org/ReligionOfJesusChurchBonaFide.html>  within
> the
> meaning of the First Amendment and not just a belief, as this is a legal
> question reserved for the courts.
> <http://www.thc-ministry.org/Court_stipulation.jpg>
> D. The police shall not decide whether the suspect has satisified the
> legal
> requirements espoused in State v. Blake, 5 Haw. App. 411
> <http://www.thc-ministry.org/BLAKE> , 695 P.2d 336 (1985), since these are
> legal questions with respect to the determination of fact and burden of
> proof, specifically reserved for the courts.
> <http://www.thc-ministry.org/Court_stipulation.jpg>
> ---------
>
> It seems every day I discover the world is not what I thought it was...
>
> Applying religious freedom consistently is a very thorny issue that will
> challenge anyones ideas of how the law should control peoples lifestyles,
> especially when the lifestyles in question are well outside the normative
> range of a given society.
>
> Ted Moffett
>
>
>
>
>
>
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