poetry

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1. a poem from "Ceremony" by Leslie Marmon silko
2. East of San Diego by Simon Ortiz
3. a quote by Starhawk

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                       Ceremony
                   
        I will tell you something about stories,
                       [he said]
            They aren't just entertainment.
                    Don't be fooled.
             They are all we have, you see,
                all we have to fight off
                   illness and death.
                   
                You don't have anything
             if you don't have the stories.
                   
                 Their evil is mighty
          but it can't stand up to our stories.
           So they try to destroy the stories
        let the stories be confused or forgotten.
                 They would like that
                 They would be happy
         Because we would be defenseless then.
                   
                 He rubbed his belly.
                  I keep them here
                      [he said]
              Here, put your hand on it
                  See, it is moving.
                  There is life here
                   for the people.
                   
           And in the belly of this story
            the rituals and the ceremony
                  are still growing.
                   
                   
                   
 
  
   What she said:
The only cure
I know
is a good ceremony,
that's what she said.
 
 
            ---Leslie Marmon Silko
                   Copyright, 1977 Leslie Marmon Silko
              from the novel, "Ceremony"

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EAST OF SAN DIEGO
 
 
I tell the bus driver
but he doesn't hear,
"Keep to the hills
and avoid America
if you can.
I'm a fugitive 
from bad, futureless dreams
in Southern California."
 
 
        ---Simon Ortiz
       Copyright 1976 Simon Ortiz
    from "Going For The Rain"

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a quote from Starhawk:

"One of the great disservices a culture of domination has done to all of
us is to confuse the erotic with domination and violence. The God is
wild, but his is the wildness of connection, not of domination. Wildness
is not the same as violence. Gentleness and tenderness do not translate
into wimpyness.
When men--or women, for that matter--begin to unleash that which is tamed
in us, we need to remember that the first images and impulses we
encounter will often be the stereotyped paths of power we have learned in
a culture of domination. To become truely wild, we must not be
sidetracked by the dramas of power-over, the seduction of addictions, the
thrill of control.  We must go deeper."   ---Starhawk, from "The Spiral
Dance"

central nervous system
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