<div>Hi Saundra et. al.</div>
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<div>Isn't intruding into the discussion what this list is for? </div>
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<div>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.
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<div>Can we reinhabit "Turtle Island" and correct our mistakes?</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.wildlandsprojectrevealed.org/htm/turtle.htm">http://www.wildlandsprojectrevealed.org/htm/turtle.htm</a></div>
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<td><p align="left"><font size="+1">Turtle Island</font></p></td></caption>
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<p><font size="-1">In 1969, California poet Gary Snyder published a collection of poems and essays entitled Turtle Island. Snyder explained this unusual title in the introduction:</font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font size="-1">"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)
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<p><font size="-1">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:</font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font size="-1">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.)
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<p><font size="-1">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:
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<p><font size="-1">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)
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<p><font size="-1">Snyder himself wrote:</font></p>
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<p><font size="-1">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.)
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<p><font size="-1">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.
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<center><font size="-1">I pledge allegiance to the soil<br>of Turtle Island<br>and to the beings who thereon dwell<br>one ecosystem<br>in diversity<br>under the sun<br>With joyful interpenetration for all.</font></center>
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<center><font size="-1">(Snyder, 1995, Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, Sessions. ed.)</font></center>
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<p><font size="-1">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.
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<div>-----------------</div>
<div>Ted Moffett<br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 8/3/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Saundra Lund</b> <<a href="mailto:sslund@roadrunner.com">sslund@roadrunner.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Hi Ted,<br><br>Thanks for those links!<br><br>I don't mean to intrude into the discussion, but it's interesting to me that
<br>those in power who wanted to limit -- and were successful for many years --<br>*true* religious freedom for adults were -- and are -- the majority religion<br>in this country. Far too many of those who unceasingly scream about freedom
<br>of religion really only care about it as long as that "freedom" mirrors<br>*their* beliefs.<br><br>You wrote:<br>"Applying religious freedom consistently is a very thorny issue that will<br>challenge anyones ideas of how the law should control peoples lifestyles,
<br>especially when the lifestyles in question are well outside the normative<br>range of a given society."<br><br>Yuppers -- ain't that the truth!<br><br><br>JMHO,<br>Saundra Lund<br>Moscow, ID<br><br>The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
<br>nothing.<br>- Edmund Burke<br><br>***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2007 through life plus<br>70 years, Saundra Lund. Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside<br>the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the
<br>author.*****<br><br>-----Original Message-----<br>From: <a href="mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com">vision2020-bounces@moscow.com</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com">vision2020-bounces@moscow.com
</a>]<br>On Behalf Of Ted Moffett<br>Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 2:09 AM<br>To: Joe Campbell<br>Cc: <a href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Firearms - Dangerous or Useful?
<br><br>Joe wrote:<br><br><br><br> Few people<br> think that freedom of religion alone allows them to<br> formulate Rastafarian churches so that they can pass<br> out joints to their friends. (Apologies to any
<br> Rastafarians in the audience.)<br><br><br>Peyote, a far more powerful plant than cannabis in its effects, is now legal<br>for Native American religious use. It had previously been illegal, even for<br>Native Americans, but note the information below giving 1994 as the date
<br>this changed, passing both the US House and Senate. So religious freedom has<br>been used as a basis for allowing the religious use of otherwise strictly<br>controlled substances:<br><br><a href="http://www.lectlaw.com/files/drg25.htm">
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/drg25.htm</a><br><br>And with a bit of research, guess what I found? Cannabis use for religious<br>purposes by Rastafarian's addressed in the U S Court of Appeals for the<br>Ninth Circuit:
<br><br><a href="http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/news/rfra_rasta.htm">http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/news/rfra_rasta.htm</a><br><br>After litigating the case for more than ten years, the Ninth Circuit ruled<br>on Tuesday that while the Religious Freedom Restoration Act might protect
<br>some Rastafarians who possess or smoke marijuana as part of their religious<br>practices, it does not protect the importation of marijuana, even if that<br>marijuana was intended for religious use. According to the Ninth Circuit,
<br>while the practice of Rastafarianism sanctions the smoking of marijuana,<br>nowhere does the religion sanction the importation of marijuana.<br>-------<br>And note this interesting policy from Hawaii regarding how police address
<br>claims of cannabis use for religious purposes:<br><br><a href="http://www.thc-ministry.org/hawaiipolicerulesreligioususes.html#IX">http://www.thc-ministry.org/hawaiipolicerulesreligioususes.html#IX</a><br><br>INVESTIGATIONS INVOLVING THE MEDICAL
<br>AND RELIGIOUS USE OF MARIJUANA<br>PAGE 6<br>C. The police shall not decide whether the suspect's claimed religion is a<br>recognized religion<br><<a href="http://www.thc-ministry.org/ReligionOfJesusChurchBonaFide.html">
http://www.thc-ministry.org/ReligionOfJesusChurchBonaFide.html</a>> within the<br>meaning of the First Amendment and not just a belief, as this is a legal<br>question reserved for the courts.<br><<a href="http://www.thc-ministry.org/Court_stipulation.jpg">
http://www.thc-ministry.org/Court_stipulation.jpg</a>><br>D. The police shall not decide whether the suspect has satisified the legal<br>requirements espoused in State v. Blake, 5 Haw. App. 411<br><<a href="http://www.thc-ministry.org/BLAKE">
http://www.thc-ministry.org/BLAKE</a>> , 695 P.2d 336 (1985), since these are<br>legal questions with respect to the determination of fact and burden of<br>proof, specifically reserved for the courts.<br><<a href="http://www.thc-ministry.org/Court_stipulation.jpg">
http://www.thc-ministry.org/Court_stipulation.jpg</a>><br>---------<br><br>It seems every day I discover the world is not what I thought it was...<br><br>Applying religious freedom consistently is a very thorny issue that will
<br>challenge anyones ideas of how the law should control peoples lifestyles,<br>especially when the lifestyles in question are well outside the normative<br>range of a given society.<br><br>Ted Moffett<br><br><br><br><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br>