Editor Donna Ladkin, of GreenSpirit: The
Association for Creation Spirituality in the Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#1990 -
Highlights Home Page and Archive: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm
Letter to the Editors: Click 'Reply' on your email program,
compose your message, and 'Send'. All the editors will see your
letter.
Native Americans
Editor Donna Ladkin, of GreenSpirit: The
Association for Creation Spirituality in the
In short,
Native Americans believe man is not above nature; man is one with
nature.
The Storm Wind Web site, part of Tapestry: The Institute for
Philosophy, Religion and the Life Sciences Inc., reports that all
Native American religions involve rituals that gather the
community together. Among the Iroquois of the Eastern Woodlands,
each spring and fall, community ceremonies are led by the
"false faces," wooden-masked impersonators of the
spirit who protects the people from disease.
 |
At the Niman Kachina rituals of the Hopi,
men put on wooden likenesses of the spirit-kachinas and enact
their return to their homeland, where the kachinas watch over the
Hopi.
Doak Heyser, of
Of the drawings on Legend Rock in central
"The 'Holy Ghost and Attendants' panel is part of the Great
Gallery in
Native American religious art, like all the other religions, was
not limited to paintings, music and dance. Poetry also played its
role. A writing that makes this abundantly clear is one of the
Seven Sacred Prayers, The Great Spirit Prayer, used here with
permission of Martin Shutt of the Indigenous People's Literature,
a part of the American Indian Resource Directory.
The Great Spirit Prayer (origin unknown)
"Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind,
Whose breath gives life to all the world.
Hear me; I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and
purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp
to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught
my people.
Help me to remain calm and strong in the face of all that comes
towards me.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf &
rock.
Help me seek pure thoughts & act with the intention of
helping others.
Help me find compassion without empathy overwhelming me.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight
my greatest enemy—Myself.
Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight
eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to
you without shame."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2004/11/28/RVG5V9TLD91.DTL
Snail slime may mark the fast route
to ecological salvation
Reviewed by Claire Hope Cummings
Nature's Operating Instructions
The True Biotechnologies
Edited by Kenny Ausubel with J.P. Harpignies
SIERRA CLUB/UNIVERSITY OF
A lot of ink has been spilled over the
biotechnology debate. The basic arguments haven't changed much in
20 years: Recombinant DNA technology is unproved and risky, or
it's saving lives and the environment. The controversy rages on,
as passionate and polarized as ever. The more interesting and
dynamic part of this discussion is its subtext: the
interrelationship between science, nature and society.
"Nature's Operating Instructions: The True
Biotechnologies" dives right into that issue and unabashedly
declares that science today is stuck in the industrial paradigm.
This compelling collection of essays eloquently lays out an array
of imaginative and practical solutions for some of the most
perplexing environmental challenges of our time. The book both
captures the spirit of Rachel Carson's "Sense of
Wonder" and calls for a new, engaged, ecological vision for
technology. It suggests sustainable solutions for how we feed
ourselves and for environmental restoration that are both
grounded in solid science and deeply respectful of the natural
world. As contributor John Todd put it, this work weds
"human ingenuity with the wisdom of the wild."
The fascinating complexity and innate
intelligence of the natural world shines through all five
sections of the book, which cover a wide range of topics, from
the art of using nature to heal nature, indigenous science, the
perils of genetic engineering, the economics of ecological design
and natural capitalism, to storytelling in the service of
cultural and biological survival. Where else can you read about
soft energy paths, plant sex, African spirituality and political
consciousness all in one slim volume?
What is most remarkable about these ideas is
that they are so immensely practical. When Andy Lipkis suggests
that the city of
Still, it's surprising to find out that
there are grasses that gobble up heavy metals or that cows can be
used to reclaim mining wastes. Or that a biochemist named Randall
von Wedel brewed a special bacterial smoothie in a blender and
used it to clean up old gas station sites and truck terminals.
And some day soon, the brilliant Wes Jackson, who has been out in
the
The sheer breadth and audacity of some of
these ideas make for fascinating reading, while others are
essential reminders about what must be saved, like heirloom
seeds, such as Malcolm Margolin and Dennis Martinez's essays on
the need to preserve what remains of traditional medicinal plant
knowledge and indigenous land conservation practices in
Janine Benyus, the lead contributor, has a
flair for using the most telling and dramatic details to
illustrate her points. She doesn't just say that nature can be
relied on to spell out "a pattern language for
survival." She describes how the humble garden snail can
instantly spurt out a "highway of slime with a lubricant
than can absorb 1,500 times its weight in water," which gets
it across hazards unharmed. Her lucid book "Biomimicry:
Innovation Inspired by Nature," published in 1997, made her
one of the first to describe these eco-friendly design ideas. She
and other contributors claim that these are the "true"
biotechnologies, while genetic engineering is a more limited
industrial technique fixated on patentable products.
The book's content comes from speeches given
at the Bioneers Conference, held each October in the Bay Area.
While the enthusiastic tone of these presentations is
understandable in that context, it does mean that the arguments
are less tightly reasoned and the language of the book suffers
occasionally from the assumption that it is addressing a friendly
audience. Readers who are unfamiliar with Bioneers, which means
"biological pioneers," may understandably wince at the
occasional lapse into hyperbole.
"Nature's Operating Instructions'' will
appeal to anyone interested in an engaging mix of great
storytelling, nature's wisdom, spirituality and commonsense
solutions to complex problems. It probably won't resolve the
debate about biotechnology, but it should inspire a more nuanced
discussion. The book's real contribution, though, is in
articulating a persuasive vision for how science and technology
can serve both the public interest and the natural world.
Claire Hope Cummings is an environmental
lawyer and journalist.
|
| ANGELICA
Panganiban in the title role doesn’t take the usual
sinner-to-saint route but struggles throughout. |
'SANTA-SANTITA'
In the tradition of all memorable
storytelling
http://news.inq7.net/entertainment/index.php?index=1&story_id=19562
WITH "Alexander," "National
Treasure" and "The Polar Express" currently
competing for the precious
pesos of local moviegoers, homegrown bet
"Santa-santita" would most likely fade away. But if
it's
still in theaters, you might want to see it. It would be a shame
to miss this movie.
"Santa-santita" delivers all that
one could ever hope for in a movie, whether foreign or local, and
that makes it well worth squeezing in between the smorgasbord of
What "Santa-santita" lacks in
physical size and scale, it more than makes up for on an
emotional and spiritual level. This is a movie that's as true to
its own heart as any you're likely to see.
The movie is set in present-day Quiapo,
where the everyday human carnival is immersed in a zesty Roman
Catholic sense of sin and redemption. As the movie opens we are
introduced to Chayong
(Hilda Koronel), a single mother who makes a
living praying for others inside Quiapo church. She prefers to
call it a panata or devotion but nevertheless accepts monetary
donations for it.
Fire in her eyes
Chayong's only child, Malen (Angelica
Panganiban), tries to help out by selling rosaries and scapulars
outside the church but it's obvious she isn't exactly thrilled
about the job. She's a soon-to-be woman who has set her sights
outside the world of Quiapo.
We can read so much from the way Malen
walks, how she talks, how she gets castigated for the way she
dresses by Chayong and she doesn't even care. There's that light,
or maybe fire, in her eyes that says she's desperate for
something to happen to her life. She knows that her self-belief
and native street smarts can take her someplace else, somewhere
her mother's zealot friends can't frown upon her and where there
are no stupid boys to make lewd remarks every time she
passes-which the boys in her neighborhood do, if they're not
gaping open-mouthed at her heaving torso.
One day Malen meets Mike (Jericho Rosales),
a tourist driver who uses his job to hustle for other things and
who is not above prostituting himself in the process.
Mike is hustling for a better life, maybe
for his sick son who's in the care of his uncle (Berting Labra),
but also maybe because he knows essentially he's just strong
enough and unscrupulous enough to earn it. Mike may share the
same yearnings of Malen but it is clear he's operating out of a
different dynamic altogether.
He's a guy who's used to running the show,
accustomed to wielding his grassroots toughness to get what he
wants. Early on in the movie he also shows subtle, startling
glints of poisonous malevolence that tells you his descent, in
time, would be inevitable.
A living out of praying
What Malen sees in Mike, though, is a
kindred soul, someone who can give her a glimpse of that other
world she dreams about. When she goes against Chayong's
admonitions and runs away from home to be with Mike, she
literally breaks her mother's heart, and causing her mother's
death.
Left alone to fend for herself and knowing
no other way to make a living, Malen takes over her mother's
prayer practice inside Quiapo church, much to the dismay of her
mothers' colleagues in the so-called devotion. But she begins to
mysteriously fulfill the needs of everyone with whom she comes
into contact, even though she doesn't really pray for them
seriously. And before long, there's a long line of
salvation-hungry faces pleading for her intercession.
Malen doesn't know what's happening and is
scared, even more so when she starts dreaming of herself
receiving stigmata, the wounds suffered by Jesus when he was
crucified.
In the tradition of all memorable
storytelling, "Santa-santita" entertains, illuminates
and
inspires.
Unlike many of the movies that deal with
religion and spirituality (there is a difference), it does
not patronize or satirize. The movie is not preaching to the
choir, although it did have something
to say about the slavery of some Catholics to dogmatic thought
and about the forces that make
religion more into institutionalized bigotry and less as a path
to healing and understanding.
Gifted and courageous
There aren't many people in the local film
industry gifted enough to make a movie like this, and
fewer still with the courage to deal honestly with a subject both
spiritual and complex. Laurice
Guillen is one of them. She and her writers-the screenplay was
written by husband Johnny Delgado,
Michiko Yamamoto and Jerry Gracio, who also wrote the story-have
done a fine job of putting
onscreen the solid substance of "Santa-santita." And
cinematographer Lee Meily's impressive camera
work and the musical scoring by Vincent de Jesus provide a
starkly realistic backdrop against which
the story can unfold.
Guillen wonderfully accomplished not only a
graphic fleshing of the movie's theme but also got a
truly brilliant and engrossing display of acting from her cast.
As the movie's santa-santita, Panganiban
gives us a protagonist we could watch without ever losing
interest. She goes from being the subject of autoerotic pasttimes
to somebody who shares the
stigmata experience of Francis of Assisi and Padre Pio without
ever quite transcending the nuances
of her true nature. She doesn't take the usual sinner-to-saint
route but struggles throughout, thus
making her character more believable.
The movie also showcases Jericho Rosales in
incendiary form. He gives us a performance here that is
both acting and being. There isn't a scene in
"Santa-santita" that isn't watchable, but the best
one for me is the one Rosales shares with Delgado, an actor so
unaffectedly good it has become
redundant to say so.
Delgado creates yet another quietly
unforgettable character in Fr. Tony, a Catholic priest who's
become something of a flimflam artist because of his alcoholism.
In the scene I mentioned, Rosales'
Mike goes from being Delgado's tentative drinking partner to
become somewhat his diabolical
seducer, tempting and taunting the man of the cloth, indeed
questioning the very cloth from which
the priest is cut. It's a scene that is not easily forgotten, and
when the nominations of local
film award-giving bodies are announced, I suspect Delgado and
Rosales won't be either.
