Al Gore coming to Toronto

Memorandum

“This is not a political issue: it is a moral issue”

* Al Gore






On Wednesday February 21st, Toronto citizens will unite in

a peaceful display of solidarity in response to Al Gore’s message delivered in AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

Al Gore is scheduled to speak at 7:00pm at Convocation Hall. As 900 tickets sold in 1 minute, and the website crashed due to more than 20,000 hits in 3 minutes, it is apparent that many in Toronto are in agreement that we are suffering climate change.

Please show your support for his crucial message by attending an hour long candlelight vigil to symbolize that you are willing to become Carbon Neutral and recognize your ecological footprint.

Meet in front of Convocation Hall from 6pm – north of College and west of University Ave. Walk through the main gates of the U of T campus and you will find King’s College Circle. Convocation Hall is on the left. Carry a small light which we will turn off at 7:00pm when Al Gore begins his lecture inside the Hall.

Families are encouraged to attend.

Contact: etcag@sympatico.ca East Toronto Climate Action Group

Nuclear Iran

Dropping a bomb
French prez blows West’s cover on Iran using nukes first – it’s not going to happen
By GWYNNE DYER

For more than two years, all the big Western powers have insisted that Iran's nuclear power program is secretly intended to produce nuclear weapons, and that the minute it gets them it will launch them at Israel.

But on Monday (January 29), French president Jacques Chirac said something very different. He said Iran would never use them first.

"I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of [Iran] having a nuclear bomb," Chirac said in reply to a journalist's question.

"Where will it drop it, this bomb?'' Chirac asked scornfully. "On Israel? [The missile] would not have gone 200 metres into the air before Tehran would be razed."

He spoke as if deterrence would work even against Iran. As if the country were run by sane human beings who don't want their children burned, crushed and vaporized by Israeli and American nuclear weapons.

He's not supposed to talk like that in public.

"Chirac gave us a moment of honesty,'' said Alireza Nourizadeh, chief researcher at the London-based Centre for Arab-Iranian Studies. "His comment was basically what I believe to be the position of Britain, the United States and much of the West: if Israel is attacked, there will be no hesitation to bring retaliation and destruction to Iran."

And that, Chirac concluded, meant that Iran would not use its nuclear weapons to attack Israel should it ever acquire them.

In Chirac's view, the danger is not that Iran would use its nuclear weapons, but that they would lead to a general proliferation of such weapons in the Middle East.

"Why wouldn't Saudi Arabia do it?" he asked. "Why wouldn't it help Egypt to do it as well? That is the real danger."

But he's not supposed to say that either.

Those are the West's allies, the very countries that the United States is currently trying to mobilize to lead an anti-Iranian alliance of Sunni Arab states.

Chirac was simply stating the truth as he (and many others) see it, but his comments completely undermined the joint Western position, so the following day he was forced to retract them. He didn't say he was wrong, however, just that he'd thought he was speaking "off the record" when discussing Iran, as the interview was originally about climate change.

France is clearly very worried by the drumbeat of anti-Iranian propaganda in Washington, which sounds alarmingly similar to the campaign of misinformation waged by the Bush administration before it attacked Iraq.

Last month, Chirac was forced to cancel a planned visit to Tehran by his foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, because his allies did not trust France to stick to the party line. They were doubtless right in their suspicions.

But France is also right to argue that Iranian nuclear weapons, if they existed, would be primarily defensive in nature and would not be used to attack Israel, because nuclear deterrence still works and Iranians do not want their country to commit suicide.

It is also right to worry that an Iranian bomb would create pressures for further proliferation, as Arab countries that have lived under the threat of Israeli nuclear weapons for 40 years decide that living under the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons as well, with no means of deterrence or retaliation, is simply intolerable.

Certainly, France is utterly hypocritical to worry about Middle Eastern countries owning nuclear weapons when it has had them itself for almost half a century, but that is equally true of all the other great powers.

And it is jumping to conclusions when it assumes that Iran's stated (and quite legal) desire to enrich uranium for nuclear power generation conceals a drive to get an actual nuclear weapon as soon as possible.

The truth may be that Iran is for the moment seeking only a "threshold'' nuclear weapons capacity: a level of technological expertise from which it could, in an emergency, develop actual nuclear weapons in only six months or so. Such a position is entirely legal, and some 40 countries currently hold it.

The truth may also be that the nuclear-armed neighbour Iran really worries about is not Israel but Pakistan, whose 1998 nuclear tests scared Iranian strategists half to death. They don't worry about the intentions of Pakistan's current dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, but they know it is a one-bullet regime and they worry a great deal about what kind of fanatics might succeed him in power.

So maybe Chirac's gaffe wasn't as accidental as it seemed. Maybe he wants people to re-examine all the lies and half-truths we are being told about Iran as Washington seems to be gearing up for another attack.

And maybe we should. the end
news@nowtoronto.com

Green Party releases biodiversity plan on anniversary of UN Convention

Ottawa, Dec. 29 - On the fourth day of Christmas, the Green Party of Canada issued an urgent call to action to protect partridges, pear trees, calling birds, French hens, turtle doves and Canada's endangered species from the threat of extinction.

Fourteen years after the UN Convention on Biological Diversity went into force, the federal government has yet to pass effective Species At Risk legislation and complete Canada's network of national parks and marine protected areas, said Green Party leader Elizabeth May.

Today the Green Party responded with the release of Investing in Biodiversity - a comprehensive blueprint for protecting Canada's natural capital. The plan calls for $500 million to be added to existing 2003 and 2005 budget commitments to complete the national parks and marine protected areas system.

"Every prime minister of Canada for the last 20 years has committed to completing the network - except the current prime minister," said Ms. May. "Canada desperately needs a bold new campaign to protect biodiversity but the Harper government insists on looking the other way."

"Biodiversity" is a complex word for a simple concept. It means nature itself - everything from micro-organisms to landscape diversity, from partridges and pear trees to forests and oceans.

Other urgent issues addressed in Investing in Biodiversity include the need to overhaul the failed Species at Risk Act and provide the research and logistical support to ensure that legislation prevents adverse impacts on habitats and ecosystems.

Investing in Biodiversity is a follow-up to the Green Party's Green Plan (GP2) released earlier this year, which condemned the federal government for systematically undermining the role of scientific research in supporting ecologically protective legislation.

According to the report released today, knowledge of species and the ecosystems in which they live must be the foundation of an effective national biodiversity conservation strategy to protect vital ecosystems like natural prairie, old-growth forests, un-trawled ocean floors and freshwater habitats.

"Not only has the federal government been gutting research agencies created to understand biodiversity, it is also ignoring the recommendations of its own scientists on how to protect species and their habitats," said May. "Without scientific knowledge guiding our decisions, we will continue to over-exploit resources and suffer the economic and social consequences."

In April 2006, Fisheries and Oceans minister Loyola Hearn ignored the advice of Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientists and blocked the listing of the Interior Fraser Coho salmon as a "species at risk." The listing would not have reduced the commercial fishery but the minister's decision was an extinction order for the coho.

The Green Party will continue to put pressure on the federal government to live up to its obligations under the UN Convention on Biodiversity to prevent species loss and habitat destruction while fostering a holistic and humble view of our place in nature through public education and awareness.

Changing the way we place economic value on the natural world through full-cost accounting and taxation and fiscal incentives to conserve valuable land will also help Canada protect its dwindling biodiversity.

The Convention on Biological Diversity, negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program, has three goals: to promote the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.

Contact:
John Chenery
416-532-8218
416-452-6016 (cell)
jchenery@greenparty.ca

Touch the Sun

I've been away for awhile, sucked into the vortex of the physical world, busy working, creating, learning, and manifesting--and this space has been quiet. After being away from Torontoland for quite sometime, I've returned and have been reconnecting with old friends, while also meeting new ones, who will all play a pivotal role in the future of Touch the Sun.

I've just finished a training program for Film/ TV industry professionals here in Torontoland. It was an intensive ten weeks of in-class lectures, guidance, panels, and seminars. Part of the program was the development of a company and a 'first' project to launch through that company, and as a result of the program, I've received much insight into Touch the Sun, where the idea was lacking, and how to finally birth this juggernaut. I've also just finished Directing and Producing my first feature film and am currently developing three TV series and a handful of feature films.

And now, I give to you the new Touch the Sun...

Touch the Sun Productions begins through me as a film/ video/ multi-media production company that is already established, staffed, and ready to go. Touch the Sun Productions is a Film and TV Production company focusing on the production of long-form ethnographic and documentary productions for theatrical release and Documentary and Ethnographic TV series that will focus on multi-cultural bridge building, inter-connectivity, Green, Spiritual and forward thinking ideas, and Political and Social reform. These productions may take on the form of the experimental, or poetic, or traditional narrative type productions.

The intention is to welcome other artistic disciplines, healers, and forward thinkers into Touch the Sun Productions to become a multi-disciplinary production collective and to create an intermingling of ideas and art, and the Production company will bring those ideas to life through the disciplines represented in the collective.

Touch the Sun Productions will establish an Artist-Run Centre and I've already gots my sights on an old Vaudeville theatre that's in need of some lovin'. This centre will be a place for the company to work and play together, and will also provide a means of presenting our work to an audience by hosting one-off multi-disciplinary events and by having regular presentation possibilities for film, theatre/ dance, visual arts, music and so on...

As mentioned, I am busy developing film and TV series through Touch the Sun Productions. I will always use the international markets to sell Touch the Sun Production's work, which will bring money into the company, while also promoting the collective. I will always retain educational rights to sell dvds on the Touch the Sun Production's website, which will allow Touch the Sun Productions to become a self-distribution entity for its own work.

Touch the Sun will launch a full-on broadcasting entity within the next year, which will feature the work of the Toronto company through a film, video, and new media channel, internet radio station for music and information, a visual arts gallery and publishing house, which will be run out of the Toronto Artist-Run Centre. Remember, the Artist-Run Centre houses a fully functioning production collective, which enables us to create our own work, hold workshops, training, and healing sessions, for internet broadcast. An open call for user-generated content will also be extended, as long as the work fits into Touch the Sun's mandate. The eventual goal for this webcasting network is to become a self-sufficient producer of original content for the web, and a viable marketing and financing plan is in place to get us to that stage. The most important thing I've learned in the program I just finished is that the future of broadcasting is on the internet--one only has to look at You Tube to understand this BUT no one has figured out a viable way of making money from the internet--until now.

It is still my intention to establish Artist Run Centres, either in-city, or eco-village, around the globe to create a network of venues to present work in, produce work out of, tour work through, and broadcast work onto the web from. I've looked into satellite connectivity and IT IS NOT THAT EXPENSIVE, so even the most remote eco-village can be connected to the network and will be able to broadcast to the web.

On a side note, I've established a development relationship with a web-tv company in San Fran, and will be arriving there in Jan/ February to begin discussions about possible collaborations with them for the future. More details will be available when they are finalized. While in SF, I will also begin developing a film with a new friend, and will be laying the foundation for a SF Touch the Sun Production company there to work in tandem with the Toronto office.

My silence is over. The dance begins now and I am seeking facilitators who would be interested in working with me to help create this network. Even if you think you have nothing to contribute, all voices in this choir will be heard. The only requirement is that, in addition to singing your song, you must love to dance.

Michael

The Godfather of Soul

from BBC News

Obituary: James Brown

James Brown was the self-confessed "Godfather of Soul"

When James Brown styled himself Soul Brother Number One, for once, this was no idle showbusiness exaggeration. His influence on popular music was, quite simply, enormous.

He transformed gospel music into rhythm and blues, and soul music into his own creation - funk - with its driving rhythms and insistent beat.

His performances remain unsurpassed for their urgency of expression and raw physicality, influencing later white rockers like Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop.

Born James Joe Brown Junior in 1933 in a one-room shack in the backwoods of South Carolina, by the age of seven he was boarding at a brothel in Augusta, Georgia.

He helped to pay the rent by shining shoes and tap-dancing in the streets.

Nine years later he was harshly punished for trying to steal a car. Sent to prison for between eight and 16 years, he eventually served only three years and a day.

James Brown on the stage in the 1960s
Brown was a charismatic frontman
On his release, he joined a gospel group. While pursuing a promising but ultimately abortive career as a semi-professional boxer, he rose to become the leader of the James Brown Revue.

Audiences were delighted and outraged by the group's tight R&B sound, fronted by the charismatic Brown, whose stage antics caused him to shed up to seven pounds a night.

In 1956, Brown wrote the song Please, Please, Please. It sold one million copies and propelled the singer to stardom.

Other hits followed as Brown worked up to 350 nights a year, earning himself another reputation, as the hardest-working man in showbusiness.

Though the financial returns were scant - Brown and his band members earned a derisory $150 each for Please Please Please - he refused to compromise on the quality of his performances.

His reason was simple: "When you're on stage, the people who paid money to get in are the boss, even if it cost them only a quarter. You're working for them."

The success: James Brown in the 1970s
He treated his band like an army, imposing fines for lateness, scruffy costumes and poor playing. By the early 1960s his growing reputation saw him play to packed crowds at the Mecca of black music, Harlem's Apollo Theatre.

In 1961, realising that the essence of his music could only be captured live, Brown personally financed the recording of an album at the theatre.

The result, the mould-breaking James Brown Show Live at the Apollo, was a sensation. Establishing his reputation throughout the United States, it remains one of the most critically-acclaimed live albums ever recorded.

His status was enhanced by a succession of worldwide hits like Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, I Got You (I Feel Good) and Get Up (I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine).

Artistically, James Brown was breaking new ground with a whole new musical form, funk.

Songs like Cold Sweat, where the brass section and guitars drove the rhythm, exemplified the stylistic change which Brown wrought.

Success brought great wealth. James Brown owned radio stations, fast food restaurants and a private jet.

He embraced "black capitalism" even before the phrase was coined, urging his fellow countrypeople to live the American Dream.

He gave back, too, sponsoring food stamps for the poor and giving money and land to those in need, especially in Africa.

Some radicals, though, criticised him for his patriotism and he received death threats after playing to US troops in Vietnam.

Such was James Brown's influence that when Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, the order went out to broadcast Brown's show in Boston live across the United States.

Punctuated by his pleas for calm, the show helped to stem the tide of anger and Brown earned the personal thanks of President Lyndon Johnson.

Living in America
The 1970s were bad times for James Brown. His son Teddy died in a car accident, he himself was beset by tax problems and disco music threatened to eclipse his career.

Sheer hard work on the club circuit brought him back from the brink. A cameo role as a singing preacher in the cult 1980 film The Blues Brothers brought his music to another generation.

James Brown performing in 1999
Brown was still strutting in his sixties
His song Living in America, a paean to the American Dream, was chosen as the theme music to Rocky IV and James Brown was among the first group of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But James Brown's capacity for self-destruction was a constant danger. In 1988 an incident with a shotgun led to a high-speed police chase and he spent two-and-a-half years in jail.

His release coincided with a huge upswell in rap and hip-hop music, both of which borrowed freely from Brown's work. His role as a pivotal musical innovator was recognised as never before.

Even with his faults, James Brown was an important role model to a whole generation of African Americans.

Triumphing over poverty and racism, his outlook is best summed up by the title of one of his greatest hits - Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.

stargate

From cosmicpath.com

Stephanie's Daily Forecast:
This is a very special day on planet Earth, because there is a cosmic trigger event taking place with a StarGate (or Cosmic Download)... This is a heart chakra event that is also taking place have been receiving pages andpages of data on the event. I will try to get most of it up in the next few days. Today I am incuding a piece of mail I received entitled the 1017 Mission Explained. It has what I believe is very relevant information that we have not seen yet about the phenomenon taking place today: Please don't ignore it. We Lightworkers are being called to action today. Finally there is something we can do to help speed things along.

Dear Friends,
I have received several emails about an upcoming Cosmic Light event and a dear friend of mine researched and compiled all the information she could find about the UV Beam coming to our planet on Tuesday,October 17, 2006. Whether it is "real" or not I am going to join in this moment of planetary opportunity to receive, give and spread more love and joy. I thought you would be interested and might want to send it on to other friends. Love, Virginia

Mission 1017 Explained

In the great game of creation you are a Way shower. In this position you are contracted by higher intelligences to manifest constituency. Way showers are to integrate one million followers into the space of the fifth dimensional awareness upon the Solar Alignment of Arcturus.

The Arcturian Alignment is the first major move of the Way showers in the game to create the new world of the Fifth Sun. At this point of time and space Ultraviolet is the most powerful cosmic energy stream of the Galaxy. The highest intelligences of this Universe through our twin universe record that an Ultraviolet beam of energy will enter this planet through the Arcturian Doorway. At this Libra 24 point in alignment with Arcturus this stream will invoke a massive increase in fifth dimensional light transmission. The planet will experience and pass through a highly charged membrane of photons, which will expand, intensify and increase all thoughts, feelings and actions.

Way showers are asked to seek to be in exact alignment and flowing with this stream in unity, harmony, balance and grounding is required to activate this increase in charge and to activate the collective hologram. The ultraviolet fluorescent blue magenta beam radiating from the galactic heart chakra of our twin universe clears the control patterns of old polarized beliefs. The high frequency energetic vibration streams out in spectral rays from the central universe’s heart chakra energetic new soul codes and programs as it enters the crystalline sacred geometries of the incarnated souls.

In linear third dimensional time at geocentric 24 Libra gateway, the activation point, the Arcturians launch the transformation in universal realities. On the Solar Alignment with the Star Arcturus it is important for humanity to balance and clear its present world views, programs, points, morphogenetic fields and karmic agreements. Once this point passes the slow evolutionary controlled temporal spatial framework will be replaced with a new framework of intense rapid progression.

The Arcturian guidance during this empowerment brings the immediate transformation to the new group of paradigms and provides inflow of innovative evolutionary resources for economic, political, social, religious, scientific and interpersonal realities.

The galactic changes of this momentous manifestation of the Family of Light the Teachers of Light speak to you with a greater awareness of the coming changes. These changes will hit a crescendo through the third dimensional temporal spatial alignment of one million souls to trigger a fifth dimensional unification that will bring forth the transformation for this constituency fullness of power and creativity. This is the beginning of the flow for the next seven solar cycles.

On the Arcturian Alignment the effect will be to amplify by one million times every thought and emotion of the Way showers. Every thought, every emotion, every intent, every will, no matter if it is good, bad, ill, positive, negative, will be amplified one million times in strength.

We are moving into the Light of the Fifth Sun. The magnification of our collective will be accelerated a million times faster into manifestation. This beam of high ultraviolet light will create a new reality for the planet. The Black Alliance is unaware of this powerful beam which when it arrives will increase energies to such a high vibration so if there is misdirection the reality will shatter and disintegrate quickly into chaos.

In awareness of this beam of Ultraviolet light which is being invoked by the Arcturians humanity needs to steward the energy through the power of one million Way showers who have focus and the ability to keep focus as this energy is included into the third dimension. Clearing blocks and linking with the one million is the crucial play of the game and upon the Arcturian Alignment the beam of violet will integrate the acceleration.

Reality is a viewpoint and is dependent upon the perceiver. As a Way shower you are one who is multi-dimensional and can see and be part of many realities. The outer or objective empirical reality of the physical body’s senses is only a small part of your world. In your new reality of this Great Game of the Gold Ring a Way shower is one of a spiritual universe, which means that which is non-physical and exists in the invisible. In this vast realm you are the player who lives within the full light spectrum.

Your realm as a Way shower is the Realm of light, the Fifth Dimension. From the Infrared to the Ultraviolet you are connected to the universe and all the stars, the Teachers of Light. Your eyes open up to the vast expanse through deeper connections within your nervous system, which are the flowering of your higher chakras.

The two main realities a Way shower understands is the Individual and the Collective. The individual is yours alone and no other has the same set of core beliefs, which create your worldview and perceptions. In the collective reality we are one and in this shared belief system our connection is the world we live within and our society. In the collective reality we are moving to expanded awareness where the Way showers are connecting to the ultimate reality wherein the pure essence of self, the soul is allowing the connection to higher intelligences of the over soul and the spirit of universal cosmic consciousness. This engages the higher mind to empower the rational ego into direct manifestation of will towards physical creation.

In moving through the dimensions and the densities Way showers are able to see the levels of creation and the layers upon layers. Densities are vibratory levels of light as it manifests. Dimensions are worlds within worlds. Way showers must know where they are in the game to know how to stay in alignment with the impulses of transformative energy being channeled into this system.

The Teachers of Light are invoking the ceremony of ascension, which is bringing forth a new paradigm for the planet. The great move of the game in the Third Dimension is occurring on a cosmic time line. The cycles of transformation align through a macrocosmic microcosmic interaction. These cycles happen through universal agreement of the Teachers of Light and the Grand Universe.

The timeline of the transformation is based upon the Grand Cycle of 225 million years, which is called Grand Precession. Day and Night result from the planetary spin on the axis. The Year results from the orbital motion around the Sun. The precession of the equinoxes is called the Grand Cycle of approximately 25,920 years and then the movement of the movement of this region of space around the central sun of the Milky Way Galaxy, which occurs every 225 Million years, and then around the Great Central Sun of the Universe, which occurs every 20 Billion years. These are all spirals in their movement.

In this spiral progression into future timelines there are points at which the lower densities or dimensions of existence can be compressed by beings of higher intelligences able to operate at much higher vibratory rates. They can channel in messages that allow for collective changes in linear time.

All time intersects in the eternal now and from this Now there are what can be termed horizontal and vertical times. The eternal now can be thought of as a vertical plane that intersects countless past, present and future probability lines of horizontal time. A soul is in full awareness of this eternal now this soul becomes free from singular identity in time and space. They become multidimensional and can move up and down through the horizontal timelines, experiencing past, present and future probabilities at will.

In the vast expanse of time and space this universe has been limited by the universal controls. We are at the completion of a grand cycle, a 20 billion year trek through space, a progression, the transition or ascension is occurring so that we are becoming one again in the ocean of spirit. The influx of light that is providing for the evolution is the reenergizing of the network which installs and reconfigures all the programs to a higher level of activation.

The Arcturian Alignment will gather this energy together and bring it into form. The game is ending with the completion of the circle, the Gold Ring. We are playing the final moves and there is the necessity to achieve the completion of the great gathering of the collective. The Way showers are the ones who are to play and build upon the eons of time and finish the game.

I have also added another very important article to the ones already listed on the link below. Please go to the last entry, called Cosmic Rays, a Galactic Times edition from Philip Sedgwick. Philip's words speak to those of us who have a certain amount of skepticism about this event, but they validate it at the same time. I couldn't have said it better myself. Also, please note that the channeling printed above is not my own, it was send to me and the owner of it is not clear. Please Click here to view this information. All of these articles will be available to everyone today and then can be found in the member’s ezine for the rest of the month. As always, I welcome your comments.

When we wake up each morning intent on making this day our happiest day ever, it is amazing how often the day molds itself to our intention. Happily ever after is not a fairy tale. It's a state of mind.

Today's Numerology Report:
By Julian Michael at JulianMichael.net

October 17th 2006 = 10 + 17 + 8 = 35/8 Universal Day

Embrace this 17th day of three “8’s and open up the portals of “Star Gate.” These “8’s hold amazing power and potential. Meditate a few minutes today and acknowledge the magnitude of you. You are unique, a gift and treasure. Enter these portals of infinity and expand your consciousness, open your heart and go out and elevate others and dance in the wisdom of the universe. In your 35/8: appreciate, be moved and support the global community and help it grow.

Damn my luck!!

When I was 28, I made the transition from being an executive chef and caterer to film school in Toronto--film for me being a hybrid of my main three loves--photography, writing, and music/ audio.

The film scene in Toronto is kind of dry lately--as our dollar rises, US productions are staying South, or going to Winnipeg to shoot because they offer better tax incentives--Pay attention Onterrible.

I've resolved to not join any unions and sit around waiting for a call to work so I've been trying to create my own work, which is tricky enough as it is because, while I have received some very early praise in my new career of filmmaking, I am still very new in this career and I'm just not known yet, but I'm a stubborn scorpion and won't take no for an answer...

To help make ends meet, I've taken a job at an organic market in High Park--weekends only, through until the end of October--GREAT--guaranteed weekly income until I fly South for the Winter...

but yesterday I received an offer to Direct a video shoot (weekend festival) for some new friends in Oshawa (an hour East) who have a farm, forest, and a school adjacent to their land. It looks like these new friends will become the Toronto council within the Touch the Sun Network--and will allow the first Touch the Sun festival to happen on their land next Summer.

I thought I would never turn down an opportunity to shoot a movie--especially when shooting a weekend festival involves all of my loves--especially music--but, as I only have $9 in my pocket after rent, working at the market will allow me to continue on into the future.

Seeds of Tolerance

I am seeking a legal resident of the US to partner with me in order to enter this competition.

Two years ago I made a short film with a group of Ri'fai Dervishes in Toronto, and I feel this film should be entered into this competition but, I AM CANADIAN, so therefore, not eligible (Odd considering two of the judges are from the land of igloos and backbacon).

L'emme know...

www.current.tv/make/sot/rules

Pluto Responds

Micro Virgo Missive Presents:

Pluto Responds -The Pluto Report

Written by Caroline Casey

The god of the Underworld, was amused by being called "Dead as a planet."

“Of course I’m dead, I’m the god of the dead.”

And used to being dissed, exiled, albeit at tremendous cost to cultures that do so.

Of course human dementors would like to stick their fingers in their ears, and say, "no, no, no, we deny the invisible. We deny the dead, the invisible, the principle of power, the abuse of power known as plutocracy, now rampant.” Death is cheap, not valued, marketed wholesale, so that even the god of death is appalled. And if it’s invisible – we’ll ignore it, which is the essence of the ridiculous concept and reality of waste and garbage. (Pluto loves compost, decay in service to new life.)

Let’s remember the astrologer’s witty quip: “there is absolutely no astrological evidence that science is anything but a primitive medieval superstition.”

And also, the Groucho Marxist quip we like to use whenever possible, even when it doesn’t really fit: "I’ve had a lovely evening. This wasn’t it. But I’ve had a lovely evening.” (One can fill in the blank of “evening,” with so many other options, “democracy,” for instance.)

From the sacred text of Terry Pratchett’s profound and funny* novel 'Thief of Time,' (*akin to the genius of reggae music which lies in its rhythmic art : the darker the lyrics – the jauntier the tune) even death recoils at humans undervaluing its enormity, the ending of so many unique experiments and miraculous stories.

In contemplating humans up to no good in messing with time and death, the heroine says, about humans planning unspeakable harm to creation: “they wouldn’t be that stu…”. But then she stopped. “Of course someone would be that stupid. Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it, saying 'End-of-the World Switch.

PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH,' the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry.”

It is the Katrina anniversary.

As the Irish say, “God created the potato blight, but the British created the famine.”

Well humans and their irreverent waste and burning of fossil fuels (more dissing the dead) create cataclysmic climate change, which creates the mega-storms, but then humans really created the ongoing disaster in New Orleans, due to callous indifference.

Any country with a modicum of soul would pull all its resources from war (Iraq etc. and the ridiculous crusade to conquer more oil) and devote everything to alleviating the misery of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, spiraling on out to consider the true art of life – creative, compassionate, ingenious response in recognition of our kinship in this one large pulsing dream.

Martin Prechtel reminds us, “for want of grief – we go to war.” We have allowed our grief to be kidnapped and taken hostage by plutocrats. Until now.

No Scorpio (dedicated to the Underworld) city more honored the dead than New Orleans.

And no Scorpio city currently less honors the dead than Washington D.C., as embodied in the obscene jocularity of a Donald Rumsfeld, as the corporate press corps rolls over and pees in the air as a token of its subservience. And whenever the public gets close to sniffing out the hidden truths, the dementors pull out a bit of distracting pornography – “Look over there, Jon Benet’s killer. Oops, no.” When we know there are people right in front of us, to whom we have surrendered our Saturn, our leadership, who are guilty of the murder of countless little girls (and boys and men and animals and oceans.)

Let’s vow to be undistractable, aided by Neptune stationing at the unmasking degree.

(“An ominous silence falls as the last man is unmasked at a masquerade ball.”)

Here we go, heading into this season of revelation, with so much on the line, let us vow to be agents of revelation.

Pluto and the Mythic News…

February 26, 1993 – as a beautiful snow storm swirled outside, I pondered the Mythic News, how the gods were trying to help us out by staging things in such a succinct symbolic manner that even the most dunder-headed humans would notice, and heed.

I noted that Pluto was stationing (apparent motion stops, the god beams down it’s literalized symbolism) that day, and that this god embodies the principle that whatever is suppressed becomes volatile and toxic due to its disrespectful suppression. One hour after the exact station, the news reported the 1st attempt to blow up the World Trade Towers from the Underworld parking garage. Whoowee…So literal.

I told this story at a speech at Herbfest Iowa in late August of 2001, saying, well Pluto’s now stationing again. Let’s see what we’ve all learned.

Pluto does station often in late August – early September. Last year, on September 1st, 2005, Pluto squared the U.S. Neptune, (where Neptune was when this country was born - representing) the soul of this country. And it was on that day that a British paper published the most apt cartoon, of the Statue of Liberty floating dead, face down in New Orleans, while disinterested troops with guns gazed dispassionately from an overhead bridge.

Well Pluto is stationing NOW, exactly on Labor Day, September 4th at 7:20PM ET.

So team of dedicated democracy-philes, sane and reverent people, let’s work with it.

Pluto says, “planet, schplanet,” in the words of ally Steve Bhaerman, “Sure it works in practice, but does it work in theory?”

The instructions of now, encourage us to be active agents of Pluto, composting death in every imaginative, visualizing, practical manner that synchronicity affords us, to suck the “g” out of “kingdom,” and exhale the energetic chi into the animating of the resulting “kindom.”

Pluto would like us to collaborate in every way, sucking the energy out of any death-dealing up to no good irreverent violent plot, so that it is fully revealed, rendered harmless and collapses like a soufflé.

As Vipassana meditation suggests, inhale the world’s grimy plutocracy, and exhale radiant beauty, now, forever, every day, together, for a few minutes, and especially this strange Labor Day weekend. Inhale death-dealing tyranny, exhale creative democracy.

And Terry Pratchett adds: “When in doubt – choose to live!”

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Addendum: This Virgo season assigns us the task of cultivating Mercury as Hermes, the power of language, wedded to intention and ritual.

Marie Laveau, the great Voodoo Queen of New Orleans was a Virgo, a great Medicine Woman and a collaborator with Pluto.

When faced with against all odds tyranny, it is said that first she’d scrub her steps, then clean her house, set her altars, do her conjure dance, and then go kick butt and set the world to rights. As ally Michael Ventura wrote, “She did not create social movements, but a woman of her substance understood what was at stake. She saw a role to be played and played it to the hilt, helping to coalesce a scattered and oppressed people into a culture. It was a moment of cultural ecstasy.” And may it be so for each one of us.

Marie is the Southern Bureau Chief of Coyote Network News, and is particularly available to guide us through the upcoming Lunar Eclipse, when the earth’s shadow is projected onto the Moon - more revelation - in two weeks on September 7th.

The ensuing Solar Eclipse, pre-Equinox, of September 22nd, takes place at 29+ Virgo whose image is “An emergency call, a woman calmly cleaning the house in the midst of an earthquake.” That would be Marie, and the Marie in us.

P.S. Terry Pratchett adds “Time was a resource. You could learn to let it move fast or slow, so that a monk could walk easily through a crowd and yet be moving so fast that no one could see him. Or he could stand still for a few seconds, and watch the Sun and Moon chase one another across a flickering sky. He could meditate for a day in a minute.” We can do a lot in a little.