A Language Older Than Words (53 page)

Where our dinner came from was derived mostly from George Draffans phenomenal
Directory of Transnational Corporations.
Find it on the internet. Or better give George a call. He's got lots more information in his head than in the directory.

"1 have a ..." is from the "Zapatista Posters Series" put out by
Resistant Strains.
The posters creator is Nick Jehlen.

"There are those .. ." is from the "Second Declaration of La Realidad: Words of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in the closing act of the First Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism (read by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos)," August 3, 1996.

If you want to help get Shell out of Ogoniland, probably the best place to start would be with the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People.

A good place to get started on issues surrounding the U'wa is with the U'wa Defense Working Group. The following October 27,1997, open letter to the presidents of Occidental and Shell from U'wa traditional authority Roberto Cobaria is worth quoting in full for the straightforward wisdom it reveals, and for the sad story so often heard that it represents: "I write to you asking that you hear my peoples request and stop your oil project on U'wa ancestral lands. We hope that you will comply with the request that the U'wa send in this letter. At this point, there is nothing else for you to do.

"The U'wa have always had a law that existed before the sun and the moon. We have always taken good care of our land, because we have always followed this law. Our law is our culture, our song, and our dance. In this world there are many laws, but Mother Earth also has
her laws. Before, these laws were respected. Are Occidental and Shell
going to respect these laws or not? Occidental and Shell must hear these laws and leave U'wa territory please.

"Today I speak for the first time in public of the threat and beating I have received by hooded men in the night, demanding I sign an authorization agreement or die. Can you see how the U'wa are already suffering from oil exploitation? The war that spreads throughout Colombia will spread to U'wa land if your oil project starts. Can you see how it is already arriving? Oil may be good to sell, but it causes war.

"You speak of negotiation and consultation with the U'wa. My people say that they cannot negotiate. Our Father has not authorized it. We cannot sell oil, the blood of our Mother Earth. Mother Earth is sacred. It is not for negotiation, so please do not try to confuse us with offers. Please hear our request, a request that comes from our ancestral right by virtue of being born on our territory: Halt your oil project on U'wa ancestral land.

"The U'wa people need your sign of respect."

As this book goes to press, 5,000 U.S.-backed Columbian troops have invaded U'Wa territory to facilitate further drilling.

The Plants Respond

"The body's carbon
..."
is from Jung's
The Archetypes and the Collective
Unconscious.
The full quote is: "The deeper 'layers' of the psyche lose their individual uniqueness as they retreat farther and farther into dark
ness. 'Lower down'—that is to say, as they approach the autonomous
functional systems—they become increasingly collective until they are
universalized and extinguished in the body's materiality, i.e., in the chemical bodies. The body's carbon is simply carbon. Hence 'at bottom' the psyche is simply 'world.'"

Death and Awakening

"In the middle ..." is from Dante's
Divine Comedy.

"A man may ..." is cited in James Moore's
Gurdjieff: A Biography.

A Time of Sleeping

"The part of. . ." is from Griffin's
Pornography and Silence.

Rollo May retells the story in
The Cry For Myth.

"They find it . . ." and "their contempt for . . ." and "the principle work ..."
are all from Raven-Hart,
Cape of Good Hope.
The first is citing
Boiling, the second de la Loubere, and the third Shreyer.

I couldn't track down the original source for "the significant problems.
..." Either ol' Al Einstein, the aphorism king, said this one about thirty different ways, or the saying is twisted even more than most to fit locutional needs (neither of which is necessarily bad). Here are a few versions I've seen: "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." "The problems of the world will not be solved with the level of thinking that created them." "The problems of the world cannot be solved with mechanisms, but only by changing the hearts and minds of man and speaking courageously." And, "We can't solve the problems of the world from the level of thinking we were at when we created them." Not being wildly anal-retentive, and because these all mean basically the same thing, the differences don't bother me. But I'll tell you what does: a good portion of the Internet sites where I found these were promoting seminars where corporate
managers will learn how to better solve problems in their businesses. I
doubt that these seminars will ask the managers to question corporate dominance of the world, the profit motive, private property, or human (read Euroamerican male) supremacy.
That's
a problem.

"It seems to ..." is from Carl Rogers'
On Becoming a Person.

Out of Mourning, Play

"The Great Way ..." is from Mitchell's
Enlightened Heart.

Trauma and Recovery

"I 'he struggle of. . ." is spoken by one of the characters in Milan Kundera's
novel,
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

"It is wrong ..." is from Kahlil Gibran's
The Prophet.

"For most cultures . . ." and "The universe is . . ." are from my book
Listening to the Land.

Connection and Cooperation

"The future of. . ." is from Vine Deloria's
God is Red.

"After flogging him ..." is from Tom McHugh's
The Time of the Buffalo.

"The buffalo culture . . ." is from Richard Manning's
Grassland.

The story about the ancient tree calling the beetles is from Richard

Manning's
The Last Stand.
"When you make . . ." is from a speech given on August 26, 1995. "Die while you're ..." is from Mitchell's
Enlightened Heart.
"Do you have . . ." is from Stephen Mitchell's translation.

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