Charles Manson Now (17 page)

The first letter I got from Manson, a lot of our conversations center around music.

Charles Manson. Photo taken during a visit. June 2010.

Kenny Calihan, an inmate at Corcoran Prison and close friend of Charles Manson. Corcoran Prison. June 2010.

David Hooker, an inmate of Corcoran Prison and close friend of Charles Manson. Photo taken during a visit. June 2010.

The first piece of artwork Manson sent to me, it's a coy fish.

Artwork created by Charles Manson, from my collection.

Close up photo of the vest Charlie is wearing in the photo with the crow. Very vibrant and colorful. Once he was arrested, it was cut into pieces, and divided amongst his friends.

Recent artwork by Charles Manson. It is made out of acrylic paint and pencil on paper. From the collection of Graywolf.

Artwork created by Manson using various pens and markers.

Manson when I started talking with him on the phone, a few months later he would shave his head. From the collection of Graywolf.

VIII
ATWA

That vision of which Graywolf spoke is, of course, ATWA. I sat with Graywolf for hours, discussing his attraction to Charlie’s ideas and his passion for Charlie’s philosophy. He explained that ATWA is a concept coined by Charlie and given to the world. But, he says, the world at large is conditioned not to recognize the problems pollution has caused in what Graywolf calls our “life support systems”: air, trees, water, and animals.

“With the experiences I’ve had with Charlie in the last few years, I’m seeing the word ATWA as a tool, a focus. You could say it’s a tool to grow understanding. It’s an awareness tool. It’s like a lens or a mantra. A lot of cultures and traditions have tools like that to focus the mind, and from Charlie helping with this process, I’ve come to understand that we have to be aware of the problem and the extent of the problem before we can basically focus our lives to solve the problem…to slow ourselves down enough.”

Graywolf made it clear that eradicating the pollution has been Charlie’s predominant push since the late ‘60s, when he started the rebirth movement. “There is a balance,” said Graywolf, “an equation consisting of water, air, and the ratio of clean recourses verses pollution.” Graywolflamented the condition of the world’s oceans and its biggest, most beneficial forests. “Beneficial,” he qualified, “from the standpoint of providing medicine, food, cover, and carbon sinks.” He spoke of China’s industrial revolution, its
overwhelming population. “They have so many people. And they have technology with which they can build dams and factories in almost a virtual instant. But they’re polluting on such a grand scale, that it’s affecting the entire planet.”

Graywolfis deeply concerned that the planet is being pushed to its brink, while its people maintain purely materialistic priorities. As he emphasized the destruction of our natural resources-the damming of our rivers, the pollution of our oceans, the failure of our agriculture from the obscene amount of chemicals used to grow genetically engineered crops, devoid of natural diversity-Graywolf asserted that the only way to free ourselves from a bleak and bloody future is by ceasing to entertain ourselves with luxuries like sports, and ending the destructive process by which we fill our lives, our space, with material goods. “None of those things will matter in the near future, because we’ve gone so long without listening to the truth.”

Graywolf believes that a lot of people, especially those his age, have been aware of a pending environmental catastrophe since the ‘60s. But there are many agents “programming people” to disregard even that which stares them blatantly in the face: parents, schools, and especially the media, which he sees tied to the corporate organizations running the planet. But Graywolf sees Charlie as an exception: “I feel like Charlie, growing up on the other side of the tracks, so to speak, and inside the system of oppression, or at least inside the justice system, ‘behind the robes of the courtroom,’ as he says, was ‘deprogrammed’ because he never was programmed.”

“We see the shit in the rivers, we see the shit in the oceans, and the only thing we do is add to it for a paycheck. Everybody
feels trapped, everybody’s confused, everybody’s frightened, and the TV just sells more shit right back to us.” Graywolf pointed out that over the years the media has deliberately and grossly misrepresented Charlie’s essence and turned his ideology on its head. “They’ve thrown blood at it, they’ve made it a horror story; they introduce him as a serial killer, which he is not, they introduce him as a mass murderer, which he is not, and then they let things spin out of control from there.” This, he says, is because Manson’s philosophy requires people to stop spending money on things that don’t matter. Manson’s solution to pollution is to stop, and start all over again. Graywolf declared, “We have to stop cutting down so many trees everyday and using them for toilet paper and toothpicks. It doesn’t make any sense. Unless you happen to be a banker.” Graywolf assured me that if we continue as we are, at the pinnacle of the world’s wealth the world’s people will have nothing left to breathe.