Avatar - The Word for World is Forest...

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“The important thing is not the finding, it is the seeking, it is the devotion with which one spins the wheel of prayer and scripture, discovering the truth little by little. If this machine gave you the truth immediately, you would not recognize it,”

- Ursula K. LeGuin
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When I was a young man I was stationed in Thailand in 1973, serving with the Air Force. I lived in the small town of Takhli, north and a bit east of Bangkok. I arrived in March of '73, not knowing quite what I was getting into. I was a GI. I went where I was told and pretty much did what I was told.

I worked as a photo lab technician, running film processors, printers and doing copy work of the images produced by the F-111 pilots flying missions over Cambodia. We worked 6 days a week, 12 hour shifts - and there wasn't a lot of down time. When there was time off it was spent sleeping, maybe going to town for a Chinese movie (Bruce Lee!) or if Sunday was the day off we could go to the Takhli Gardens (Tahkli Ga-den) where local bands played rock and roll (sometimes good, usually mediocre to bad) and dance, drink and hang out.

In December of '73 we stopped bombing Cambodia. Suddenly my work went from 6 days on to 2 days on and 5 off. I went native. I rented a small bungalow in town for $25 a month (I think I was making about $200/mo) and spent my time reading, going to Bangkok or taking the bus east into the hills and visiting monasteries, or going to the ruins in Ayutthaya or hiking out into the local rice paddies with my camera and a few of the local dogs (snake alarms).

I spent a great deal of time laying in my front porch hammock, eating and sleeping while I was reading. Just out front of my complex was a kwiteau (Thai noodle soup) stand run by a woman by the name of Nit. Nit made the best kwiteau... I'd eat at least 2 bowls, maybe 3 and I had to be her best customer. I could send one of the little kids down with some money, give them a baht and Nit would bring my soup plus the spices in their little jars, fish sauce and a soda (orange spot!). The traditional kwiteau comes with luk chins, little pork meatballs. The slang for kwiteau with luk chin was monkey ball soup. Made with flat noodles, bean sprouts, green onions and shredded bamboo shoot - and of course monkey balls- it's ubiquitous and pretty standard street fare. And I love it.

But I digress... (again)(still, always)(I think I think and talk with a lot of digressions too...)

Anyone with a television couldn't miss the previews for the new Sci-fi flick Avatar. I went and saw it today with my kids. Wow. Don't miss it if you have a love for good movies.



Before the release of the movie the previews I saw made me think of Ursula K. Le Guin's wonderful classic novella, The Word for World is Forest.



I read the story (a Hugo Award winner) in a copy of Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions, a wonderful and challenging collection of science fiction and speculative fiction. Ellison is a master and his Dangerous Visions collections were great introductions for me to many authors of the genre. More importantly were the ideas entering my head. Politics, environmentalism, religion, spirituality, science, love, hate...

But Le Guin's story was a standout. It struck a note in me I had never heard. Well, at least didn't recognize...

Life is sacred... it is what is. I mean physics tells us that none of this... this whatever is around each of us, our space, our home, our environment... none of it exists. There is no matter, there is electricity and lots of space - what Michio Kaku calls the cosmic foam (or Custard as some I know prefer to call it) - that seperates molecules in their spinning and whirling dervish existence. But, here we are, tapping on keys on our qwertys, making sense or not. Life is all around us and I'll be damned if it ain't, 'cause it is. And I think we treat our home like shit. And that is the message of Le Guin's tale and of Avatar, the movie.

"We don't get it."

And we are the poorer for that. A disconnect like we have manufactured for ourselves away from the natural world is a dangerous thing. Especially if, as a culture, we are incredibly immature.

In reading reviews today I was looking for others who saw the Le Guin connection. And there are plenty. But there are other influences as well. Avatar is the epic tale, the iconic hero story, with a happy and good ending. If you were cheering for the tall blue folks and their big trees, of course.

That immaturity I speak of? It's plain and simple. We're spoiled. We have too much. We don't share and we don't play well with others much anymore. To those who would say "of course we care you hippie moron!" I can only say that in a world where 30,000 people die each day not from old age but from starvation and malnutrition, we obviously don't care. At least not enough as far as those 30,000 people go.

In Avatar we cheer for the natives and dislike the human invaders. We go against our own.

But not really. What we do by cheering the natives in Avatar is acknowledge humanity's indigenous roots. We have been humanoid for a long time. Like... a realllly long time. We've been civilized (and I truly do use the term loosely) for just a blink of time in our long existence as humanoids.

I've never really understood this arrogance we display... like this... this stuff we have, makes us any different than the us we were when we slept in caves and huts. And that's a scary thought. Not that we're like our native selves but that may have been like we are. Yuck...

Personally, I think we're devolving. I think we used to care more, before we discovered stuff. I believe we once loved sunsets more than mirrors, that we knew and respected the beauty, bounty and power of the natural world.

My images of nature are just that for me. For me trying to capture the raw, eternal beauty of this earth, our sole sustenance, is a duty. I remember well the day I stood for the first time in a crowd and spoke on bealf of the wild. I haven't turned back.

I will be reducing the prices on my prints from RedBubble in the next week or so. I'll post a new blog when I do.






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“To be matter of fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy -- and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.”

- Robert A. Heinlein

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Holidays, holy days and everyday days...

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“For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life”

- William Blake
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For those of us in poverty, Christmas is not an easy time. Expectations and pressures to produce gifts can and do depress many.

This season has many faces. One of those faces was found dead on the street here in Eugene last December: Major Egan... why'd you do it? There are around 250,000 homeless veterans in the U.S. Many suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Deaths like that of Egan's touch me, they infuriate me and they help to feed my skepticism that humanity is salvageable as a specie.

On the other hand there are those who do act humanely, who give and share and make these winter holidays special. There are those who go about their lives and share Christmas with friends and family, give gifts to the kids and make the holidays special for those around them.

Whatever your perception and level of participation during this season's activities, remember that every day around our solitary blue water planet 10s of thousands of our fellow humans - our family of man - starve to death. We neglect those with the least and too often celebrate those whose riches are beyond boorish. We need a serious reprioritization of where our efforts and resources are aimed. We need to care and this time of year especially is the season to show that care. If you can, give. If you are needy, accept help. If you are just folk, celebrate and love your family and friends. Enjoy life. But always keep those with lives of tragedy in mind and maybe this year... leave an open seat and setting at your Christmas table as a reminder that there are far too many Major Egans falling asleep on our streets and back alleys, cold and often drunk, never waking again.

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My daughter Robin's choirs have been performing a lot this fall/winter. It's enjoyable doing my photographic thing for them. I know the choir director, Mike McCornack, appreciates it. One of my pleasures is watching the interactions between the teachers and the kids. Truly the best teachers love their students and in turn are loved in return. Teachers are a big part of our children's lives and should be a positive influence on them. Which is what I see watching Mike and Willamette HS' band director Bart Ellis direct their students. The kids smile, they enjoy (although you know what? there are young curmudgeons! I was shocked...) producing their music and they become better people for the doing. They work hard and it shows.

These images are from their performance last week of the WHS Winter Festival, a combined effort of the schools bands and choirs.




(this image is all bands, all choirs - and a few alumni who came on stage and joined the group for a great and wonderful performance of Handel's The Hallelujah Chorus, directed by Bart Ellis)

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Many years ago when I lived in California near the coast I used to spend a lot of time at the Guadalupe Dunes and Perfix Beach (I've blogged about that special place here. Why I mention it now is because during one of my camping trips to the Dunes and Perfix Beach (full moon, great weather) as I was walking at night along the beach I wanted some music other than (or to go with) the rythmic roar of the ocean's waves. At certain times of year the Bull Kelp "whips" that wash up on the beach dry out with the air bladder drying round and gourd-like. There are plenty of driftwood sticks and lots of small pebbles - the basic ingredients for a handmade rattle.

So that night, under the full moon and alone on a beach miles from anyone I created music with only the natural items in my local environment. Later on, after the trip, I was telling Grampa Semu about the rattle making experience. He told me the kelp rattles are indeed old style, once used by California's coastal tribes.

Under the coaxing of a dear friend I am going to begin making rattles again. I really am an artist. It's what floats my boat... I'd rather be creating than almost any other activity. So, I will be offering for sale these handmade rattles, roughly a foot long or so, made with supplies gathered on the coast in Central California, each one a distinct creation, unlike any other. The handles are leather wrapped and small shells are used as decoration. These are true Chumash style creations, based on my experience that full moon eve so many years ago.

They will be priced in the $50 - $75 range. If you want one made for you, contact me at allan_e@efn.org Here is one made for my friend Patricia way back in the '80s:





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While I'm dealing with art and being creative and offering you my artwork I want to show what the photo products from RedBubble (where some of my galleries are) look like. The galleries are here: welcome to the world I see...

I've set the prices so I have a decent margin. If you want tomething different than what is offered there, contact me and let's figure out how to meet your wants. I was real pleased with my RedBubble calendar and so were those I heard from who had purchased one. The prices for these prints framed is about $110. Print size is approximately 8" x 12".





Cards can be made from any of the photos in the galleries and run about $5







And of course I do portraiture:









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And just because there is already so much photography on here today... why not a few more. Enjoy (and thanks for stopping by)!














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And this year... remember that extra setting at your Christmas dinner table. For the Major Egans among us. They may go unseen, but they are here.

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“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

- Elie Wiesel

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Stupid, stupid, stupid...

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“The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.”

- Harlan Ellison
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Ok... a bunch of stuff to cover! Let's get this gig started...

Stupid, stupid, stupid... I wouldn't want the karmic debt this dumb-ass just inherited. Criminy... I've included some relevant news articles below. The fact that these spend-my-way-to-enlightenment folks also fasted, including no water, shows how incredibly ignorant those who ran this were.

Kansas City Star:

Sweat lodge deaths cast negative spotlight on guru

James Arthur Ray led a group of more than 50 followers into a cramped, sauna-like sweat lodge in Arizona recently by convincing them that his words would lead them to spiritual and financial wealth.

The mantra has made him a millionaire. People routinely pack Ray’s seminars and follow the motivational guru to weeklong retreats that can cost more than $9,000 per person.

-snip-

50 people at $9,000 = $450,000

From Indian Country Today
Concerning the deaths in Sedona

Arvol Looking Horse (Chief Arvol Looking Horse is the 19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle.)

-snip-

Our ceremonies are about life and healing. From the time this ancient ceremonial rite was given to our people, never has death been a part of our inikaga (life within) when conducted properly. Today, the rite is interpreted as a sweat lodge. It is much more than that. The term does not fit our real meaning of purification.

Inikaga is the oldest ceremony brought to us by Wakan Tanka (Great Spirit). Nineteen generations ago, the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota oyate (people) were given seven sacred rites of healing by a Spirit Woman, Pte San Win (White Buffalo Calf Woman).

-snip-

What has happened in the news with the makeshift sauna called the “sweat lodge” is not our ceremonial way of life.

When you do ceremony, you can not have money on your mind. We deal with the pure sincere energy to create healing that comes from everyone in that circle of ceremony. The heart and mind must be connected. When you involve money, it changes the energy of healing.

-snip-


At Huffington Post:

What good are the ceremonies if they cannot save a people?

Tim Giago (Lakota)
Founder, Native American Journalists Association

-snip-

I am not going to dance around the consequences of Arthur Ray's stupidity because he was blatantly using a religious ceremony of the Native Americans to enrich himself and what is worse, he didn't know any of the sacred rites that accompany the inipi nor did he know the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota language, an intricate part of the ceremony.

According to the recognized and respected wicasa wakan (holy men) of the Sioux Nation, the Tunka Oyate (Spiritual Grandfathers) know and understand the Native tongues of the Sioux people and any inipi ceremony without this ingredient is no ceremony at all. That should have been the first clue to the new agers attempting to usurp the rituals of the Sioux, rituals that are much older than the Holy Bible.

-snip-

And finally, the NY Times:

Deaths at Sweat Lodge Bring Soul-Searching


-snip-

At least seven other people have died in ceremonial sweat lodges since 1993 in the United States, England and Australia, according to news accounts compiled by Alton Carroll, an adjunct professor of history at San Antonio College who also moderates the Web site Newagefraud.org.

James Arthur Ray, a self-help expert from Carlsbad, Calif., led what was billed as five-day “spiritual warrior” experience at Angel Valley, which concluded with a tightly packed sweat lodge ceremony. Participants paid about $9,000 each for the weeklong retreat, which included seminars, a 36-hour fast and solo experiences in the forest.

The authorities say that at any one time 55 to 65 people were packed for a two-hour period into a 415-square foot structure that was 53 inches high at the center and 30 inches high on the perimeter. Mr. Ray’s employees built the wood-frame lodge, which was wrapped in blankets and plastic tarps. Hot rocks were brought into the lodge and doused with water. Mr. Ray, who conducted the ceremony, left the area on Thursday after declining to give a statement to the police.

-snip-

Dr. Carroll, who is partly of Mescalero Apache descent, said the Angel Valley sweat lodge was the “best example I have seen, sadly, in a long time of why it is extremely dangerous to conduct sweat lodge ceremonies without proper training.”

OK, I put those together soon after this incident occurred. What has our most recent enlightened ego guide encountered in the weeks since this sad, sad (did I mention stupid?) incident?

Well, let's see...

Hmmm... it seems the lawsuits are piling up. No surprise there, he deserves his day (or days) in court. I also know some Lakota fellers that would love to have some time with him, perhaps in one of their "warrior sweats" where they really crank up the heat.

I've participated in big lodges, small lodges, hot ones, warm ones, family sweats and men only sweatlodge ceremonies. The only injury I've ever seen came when someone (non-Indian) used the wrong kind of rocks and they exploded in the fire. As karma goes this was pretty instant because it was the one who picked the rocks that got zapped by flying shards. I think they hurt.

I've written here about the sweatlodge before, so I'm gonna repeat myself (I once was head of the Department of Redundancy Department) a bit.

The sweatlodge ceremony is really, really old. Native American traditions pretty uniformly agree the ceremony is so old know no one knows how old it is and often it is a tribe/nation's oldest ceremony. But sweating is, after all, an international affair. For some it was hot baths in hot springs, for others - like my kin in Scandinavia (hello Lillkrokvik!) - the sweat practice is conducted in the sauna.

The problem Mr. Ray encountered is that he copied the sacred ceremony of the sweat and then ran it as a means to make money. Wrong wrong wrong. The sweat is the most humble of ceremonies and often the most humbling. You sit on the ground in a structure made from sticks and covered with whatever. Again unfortunately, Ray's folks at Angel Valley covered theirs with plastic tarps. Wrong wrong wrong. But in the lodge there is nothing but water, earth, fire and air... on the ground in a dome of sticks... no choirs, no fancy stained glass, maybe some sweetgrass, maybe some sage, cedar... maybe even someone will sing who has a good voice. Even the prayers are humble and pretty generally never for one's self but directed towards those in need - food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, blankets for the cold ones... protection for the voiceless...

Ray's instructions also called for fasting prior to the ceremony, including a fast from water. Duh... hello? A sweat lodge can drain a body, sweat can just pour off a body to the point that the body's sweat is no longer salty. Of course that's one of the health benefits of sweatlodge, a complete flush of the body's water supply.

Your skin is your body's largest organ and holds toxins that can accumulate. A sweatlodge heats your entire body - in a sense it is an oven - and one's body gets hot all the way thru. It sweats! Lots... and lots. If you don't have water in you, your body will revolt, kind of like a collective "oh no you don't!" from your organs. Add to it the possibility of the wrong rocks or the addition of some "special herb mixture" and you have a recipe for disaster. And of course the proof is in the pudding... 3 dead, dozens injured.

Native people are glad to share, they'll give 'til it hurts. But when you desecrate their sacred things, you've gained a whole lotta people not liking you so much. I've never been chased away from a sweat, never been criticized by indigenous folks for doing my own sweats... but I have been trained, I've participated in hundreds of sweats and every one is a learning experience. I also respect my own indigeneity...

We ALL are indigenous. There is no escaping that little truth. Everything we have (except for those moon rock samples) has come from the earth. We are earth...

James Ray... I most certainly hope you get all you deserve and that no one ever gives you another dime again.

How sad... can you say "cheese"



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And some photographs... I've been away from the blog for over a month, been working on some changes. Here's one of the biggies:



Gone, the moustache I've had for about 15 years since last I didn't have it. Gone, the hair...

I've had my long hair for 35 years. When I got my last haircut in October of 1974 it was my last one because, 1) I was wanting to become a hippie, 2) I had people telling me to get my haircut for 24 years, and 3) I decided I was going to go 24 yers w/o getting a haircut. I've adapted my life, my social/cultural relationships around being a man with long hair. And yeah, I ran into plenty of cultural bigots. Idiots I prefer to call them. But I've always had the option of NOT having long hair. Skin color can't be changed. And if that's what you've got for an excuse to hate... how sad for you...

Bigots suck. We're all bigoted to a point, but most of us work on growing up and acting like adults who live in a world we have to share with a variety of folks. I mean really? I don't like a whole lot of people and am a pretty private person, but I'll be damned if humanity doesn't keep shining through our patina of collective stupidity, displaying wonderful, loving and good hearted acts of grace. And those moments are almost worth all the other shit we put each other through and keeps me from just writing humanity's sorry ass off. Hate is just bad form... and we all benefit the less there is of it.

So... the hair is gone, the 'stache is gone. Why? It was time. Things in my life are changing. I have stuff I need to accomplish in this last decade or maybe two left to me here. My photography is at a level that I have to get out there and sell myself. I can't keep climbing ladders and scrambling on rooftops for too much longer. And I certainly can't make as much money in the building maintenance biz as I can looking through my camera.

So, for a bit, my posts may be spread out a ways. I'll try and get images posted if I don't have time to write.

AND BY THE WAY! Thanks to those who have purchased my calendar. I could stand to sell a few more though, so please, support the arts, support your local artists... buy one of my beautiful, all Oregon images calendars: Allan Erickson's Oregon
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My daughter's choir joined with the high school's Jazz Band to hold a PieFest as a way to raise money for a trip the band plans to make. As always, it was a fun show and I took the camera to provide images to both groups (a funny sidenote here, at 58 I finally get my photographs into the high school yearbook!):












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Went up to Washington for Thanksgiving dinner with my little sis and her family. The trip began with this moment of terror:



my son Alex, has his driver's permit. After some heavy pre-trip trepidation it was the realization that my dad had to teach me freeway driving in L.A. that helped eased my nervous hesitation. He did real well... he even drove thru some fairly heavy rain:


(I even sat in the backseat, thus the, uh, backseat view)

We had a wonderful dinner, some good family time. My grand niece Keira provided a great target for my camera:



I love my rural NorthWest... I-5 may be handy but it's not pleasant for me to drive it. Which is just my distaste for BIG showing through I guess. Once I get a chance to get off the freeway, I do. We caught this scene as we crossed the Chehalis River at Porter after leaving my sister's on our way back to Eugene:



I also have to admit a prejudice for liking Portland. I love its skyline and passing through at dawn or dusk is always a treat. This shot taken from my perch in the backseat:


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And here are a few more just 'cause:
















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- “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

- Albert Einstein

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