The Voice of Youth: Stories from Idle No More

It was a Friday afternoon. I listened to the video above the morning of my phone interview with Rob Stewart. I had read that Idle No More was quickly becoming a global movement to follow Occupy with equal weight. It was time to dispel my own pipe dreams. I needed to see what may be the greatest current change movement for myself. 

It happened to be one of the coldest days yet in the brutal Calgary winter season when I began to ride my rickety bike south from the downtown core. Not only was it especially cold, but there was record snowfall the day prior. I tread forward, over the blinding snow, into the untended parkland trails ahead. Three hours later, I made it to my previously unknown destination: Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Calgary constituency. As soon as I saw the demonstrators, I was immediately shocked with disappointment. I stared, from my bike, over to the sparse crowd, filled with boredom and teeming with weakness. There were only a handful of people. The only time I attended  a demonstration previously, was when George W. Bush came to Calgary after his term as president. That was an incredible showing, one of the most emotionally exuberant and lively demonstrations I have known in Canada. I left, curiously pondering with a comic bent, "Do Canadians only protest in numbers when the issue is to oppose the States?" 

In the United States, where I'm from, I was a frontline demonstrator in anti-war marches to the Pentagon, "No War" rallies in Boston, and magnificent protests in support of Latin American resistance in New York City. A public demonstration is a place where the old and the young meet, to exchange hearts on a platform of free speech and free assembly with the naked flesh of human freedom. I stayed outside Harper's constituency only for a few moments, to place myself in the crowd, and continue on my way to a Metis friend's house to buy him coffee. The next day, my wife attended the more crucial demonstration. I've posted her brilliant story on Media Co-op.  

My Media Co-op Post: The Yellow Nation Represents At Idle No More

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The true war is now officially being fought in our backyard.

Things are lookin' up by (Kjarvik)

Before it is dark a light will shine through the clouds (Kjarvik)

May All Youth Live Free on Earth (Kjarvik)

There's nothing in your way (Kjarvik)

Heaven on Earth (Kjarvik)

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"Matter disguised as her unfolding paradise,
A genital incision, without

Brewed spawn all quaking and facing heart failure
With thick-rimmed glasses and a paranoiac daze,
A thin glimmer of repose
...

Useless triviality
In the maze of Puritanical property and stubborn consensual heavens
Drowned in blue time
...

Oceanward,
Where the thumb and nose meet at the spun wheeling whys,
Whose greed lurched from above the lily swamp and naked,
Pressed their white head to the diamond name"

excerpts from "Pulp Massage"

Kieran of Ireland and the Sainthood of Dream History

Detail of a stained glass window depicting Saint Kieran
(St. Brendan's Church, Ireland - Photography by Andreas F. Borchert)

"Kieran of Saighir was the first saint born in Ireland...Before she conceived Kieran in her womb his mother had a dream: as it were a star that fell into her mouth; which dream she related to the magicians and to the knowledgeable ones of the time, and they said to her: “thou wilt bear a son whose fame and whose virtues shall to the world’s latter end be great [i.e. notorious].” Afterwards that holy son Kieran was born..." Life of S. Kieran of Saighir. at Celtic Literature Collective

Strangely familiar to the origin stories for Buddha, I first read about this aspect of Irish history in Joseph Campbell's Occidental Mythology. Reflecting, I see similarities to Mexico's Virgin de Guadalupe, who was seen in a vision (see also my post: The Imperial Ethereality of the Christian Cross), to incite the mask of christian history over the indigenous face. I wonder, was the story more brutal, covered up by fables of dream and superstition, to align with dominant perspectives on native irrationality.

See related posts: The Mother of Buddha Had A Dream & To Dream Is To Conceive An Other

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In the penthouse suite version of my tiny apartment, I cavort around the fine art, baby grand piano, clear glass tables and impeccable wood floors with my mother. She is youthful and gay, enjoying the space with matchless ardor. As I look into her face, I begin to call out for my wife. “Where is she?” I ask pleadingly. Strangely, the stars shine clearly outside, entering our dimly lit space through the window. We are high above the smog and pollution, high above the human world of earthly obligation.

Cupid and Psyche in the natural bower by Hugh Douglas Hamilton

As I step down, to visit my grandparents in their New York home, I wait, fixed in place within the center of a foyer condensed by the continuous movement of relatives up and down the stairs. The air is heavy. I embrace each family member longingly, and with a strength characteristic of my waking need. Our grandfather is dying.

Interior by William Gerard Barry

Later that night, my wife and I decide to cross a high river. Our kayaks soon tip in the rushing torrent, flooded with murky water. We swim earnestly to the edge, where my wife quits on me as I gather strength enough to submerge in a second-hand craft to retrieve one of our vessels caught in the shoreline brush. Sitting in a sinking vessel, with only a dilapidated, half-worn paddle, a family of ducks begins attacking with an incessant hunger for my pruned, sore fingers.  

_______

Where am I falling?
Who do I call?
I have fallen, I am getting small.

- excerpt from "I Have Fallen"

Lafcadio Hearn's Akinosuke and the Fleeting Entomology of Youth

Illustration from the original edition

"Akinosuke must have been dreaming," one of them exclaimed, with a laugh. "What did you see, Akinosuke, that was strange?"

Then Akinosuke told his dream,--that dream of three-and-twenty years' sojourn in the realm of Tokoyo, in the island of Raishu;--and they were astonished, because he had really slept for no more than a few minutes."

- excerpt from The Dream of Akinosuke, as compiled in Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

In the Japanese dream narrative recorded and analyzed by Lafcadio Hearn, based in the folklore of Japan, the symbology of insects, which reflect the ephemeral substance of dream as the unconscious imagination, are here abundantly espoused as creative interpretations of archetypal imagery (Butterflies, Mosquitos, and Ants).

Wonder, the life of an insect, so short, from a human mind. Yet with the indiscernible speed of buzzing flight, an eternal instant, witnessed of countless eyes.

(Currently listening to Somei Satoh)

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Backstage, a slight sepia-tone monochrome corridor splits into a labyrinth of doorways. An old acquaintance meets me behind a curtain, in the shadowy nook. “Oh! How are you?” Proudly delighted to have us meet onstage, he announces his part, “This is the play of Arthur.” With equal candor to his showy façade of shiny outlook, I greet him kindly, “That is great!” I walk past, returning to my disoriented grumbling, a burdened mug, stupefied with untenable sorrow. In an underground room, coldly lit with dusty spotlights, a group of Japanese youth greet me with strong affirmation, welcoming and comfortable in their sturdy countenance, an open sound of impromptu community breeds equal recognition for all present, dicing cards and stringing their hats to the unblinking mold of unspoken friendship. One, slightly overweight, fiddles with an obsolete USB converter. Blowing through it, he creates tones of a flute. Placing a wooden object with holes and a plate full of water, he begins to shape harmonies and effervescent rhythms with a strong windpipe coloration. His instrumental play continues to the delight of us all as he sits under a strong light, entertaining with jazz intonation amid the subdued betting ruckus of bargained camaraderie. One man at the cards table looks me straight in the eye with clear intention, a warm regard filters through the depth of his unwavering eyes as he hands me a cloudy glass of thin white water. “Would you like some rice water?” He asks quietly. “I’ve heard of rice milk!” I respond, accepting with spry respect.   

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Rice

"Rice is good to see in dreams, as it foretells success and warm friendships...To eat it signifies happiness and domestic content. To see it mixed with dirt or otherwise impure, denotes sickness and separation from friends...Dreaming about rice means good luck and happy times are coming." (iDream)

Insects

"Insects in a dream always represent obstacles that you must overcome to reach your goals...Insects also represent excessive worry over certain things, meditate to find out what they might mean to you by using all the symbols in your dream for reference." (iDream) 

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oh dreamer in disguise!
who wakes with a call vocalized
from towers disappearing and weary
in the first morning light,

who shocked entranced gazers
pouring pupils over their single-haired tips, fragmented,
reflecting a statue's burned relics, encased in antiquity

surviving the past with trickery in the momentary revelation
from an onlooking sage,
her brown-eyed ghost close above her shoulders,
sunken and twisting with every step
into the shrinking abyss alleyway.

a life written as graffiti
from talented, distended arms
working magic into the obsolete concrete,
courageous youth, who wars
over books and trivia for a mathematical applause
within their minds,
the build up,
cornering her feline sense

in a mundane yet sacrificial wail to another day,
a day after dead thoughts reinvigorate the mind
with careless hauntings that cry and stutter a storm,
made in blood and worn as a headdress
to the laughing and cruel butterfly Asian trust,
in a token object,
insignia drawn with fingernail accuracy

as a tattoo beneath the skin,
warning in wordless heed
to beware for the introspective desire,
most inner and yet most awake,
as host to the world's untamed fire,
a prehistoric urge,
to look above,
walking away from the estranged bellowing
hidden deep inside,
a union with touch,
spirit's shudder
listening to the walled moods that hallow

- excerpt from "misbegotten souls"

How All The Dreaming Began

Cyclical Wordplay

I was first turned on to Jerome Rothenberg through a keen interest in Ethnopoetics. When I stumbled upon "Poems and Poetics," I began to see the credibility behind writing a blog, where in his "prospectus" Rothenberg writes, "In this age of internet and blog the possibility opens of a free circulation of works (poems and poetics in the present instance) outside of any commercial or academic nexus."

JR's specific relation to Dream has been alluded to in his poetry foundation bio where it is written:

"Rothenberg has been particularly interested in the poetry of the North American Indians, both verbal and non-verbal: a poetry that can often be expressed, according to Rothenberg, in "music, non-verbal phonetic sounds, dance, gesture and event, game, dream, etc."

Patricia Monaghan stated: "[He] evokes the dream in, of, and through language more effectively than any other contemporary poet,"

Poem: Dreamwork Three by Jerome Rothenberg

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Eventually, I found a great online supporter, a student of Rothenberg, through "Poems and Poetics" 

This is How All The Dreaming Began, or as Poet Tree writes:

"The angels don't want to listen to your stories, for to them

Dreams are all equal, they are what got you there."

From "Momentary Anxiety"