Come on all you SHIFTers and Cascadians…Check it out!

Come on all you SHIFTers and Cascadians…Check it out!

SHIFT with us at Irving Park, NE 7th and Fremont, upper baseball field.

SHIFT with us at Irving Park, NE 7th and Fremont, upper baseball field.

Come play and learn at SHIFT; meeting in Irving Park, NE 7th and Fremont, upper baseball field.

DOUG HONOURS CEREMONY 7/7/07

The Activism for a better Cascadia begins 7/07/2007:

Join us for the Doug Honours Ceremony were we will gather to honour local/northwest activists and philanthropists by awarding them Doug Flags.

This event is the start of the movement, and where else than where it all started 164 years ago at Champoeg (pronounced sham-POO-ee), Oregon. Champoeg features a unique combination of history, nature, and recreation. This is the site where Oregon’s (i.e. Cascadia) first provisional government was formed by a historical vote in 1843.

At the event we will discuss future goals and initiatives, networking, participate in history tours, enjoy a potluck picnic, and enjoy a wonderful ceremony.

Reservation is for Riverside lot #3 and our event begins at 8am and ends at 8pm.

Discussion will begin at 11:30am
History Tour will begin at 1pm
Potluck Dinner at 5pm
Ceremony will begin at 7pm
Reservation ends at 8pm.

For those who wish to come to the park early you can enjoy swimming, disc golf, biking, hiking, bird watching, etc.

Directions:

Take I-5 South if traveling form North Cascadia, or take I-5 North if traveling from South Cascadia to exit 278, and then follow these directions:

1. Take exit 278 toward Donald/Aurora National Historic District 0.2 mi
2. Turn right at Ehlen Rd NE 2.5 mi 3 mins
3. Continue on Yergen Rd NE 1.0 mi 1 min
4. Turn right at Case Rd NE 1.4 mi 2 mins
5. Slight left at Champoeg Rd NE 0.9 mi 2 mins
6. To: Champoeg State Heritage Area: 7679 Champoeg Rd NE, St. Paul, OR 97137.

Where would you rather be on a Saturday Afternoon? Come to Champoeg Park on 7/7/07 for the Doug Honours Ceremony. If you wish to attend please send an email to savepac17@yahoo.com. Please RSVP ASAP as space is limited! Please bring food and drink (beer in cans or bottles– no kegs!) for the Potluck. Everyone is responsible for their own lunch. Again, please RSVP ASAP!

Onward Cascadia!

SHIFT with us at Irving Park, NE 7th and Fremont, upper baseball field.

Come play and learn at SHIFT; meeting in Irving Park. NE 7th and Fremont, upper baseball field.

Come play and learn at SHIFT; meeting in Irving Park. NE 7th and Fremont, upper baseball field.

Some more examples of the universality of the “wise compass” – the indigenous model of the world that incorporates the orientation of the compass and all the implications thereof.

A Mayan one…

Tibetan Buddhist…

A Basque one (a tribal culture, the oldest in Europe), known as the Lauburu (‘four summits’)…

Native stone medicine wheels, aged up to 4,500 years old, found in Alberta, Canada…

The ‘classic’ North American medicine wheel that many will recognize, perhaps based on the Lakota version…

I’ll include the Celtic Cross in this list, though no evidence exists (that I know of) that points to its use as a compass, or its existence before the arrival of Christianity among the Celts. Whatever its meaning before the christian era, it has certainly taken on new meaning in the cultural and spiritual rennaissance of faiths such as neopaganism, druidry, and so on.

Check out an intriguing essay on a primary act of imperial (and therefore civilized) violence, that of closing the map, and the quest of the colonized to reclaim their native geography and cultural imagination. An excerpt:

If there is anything that radically distinguishes the imagination of anti-imperialism, it is the geographical element. Imperialism after all is an act of geographical violence through which virtually every space in the world is explored, charted, and finally brought under control. For the native, the history of colonial servitude is inaugurated by the loss of locality to the outsider; its geographical identity must thereafter be searched for and somehow restored. Because of the presence of the colonizing outsider, the land is recoverable at first only through imagination.

— Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (1993)

The foregoing is drawn from Said’s consideration of 20th-century Irish literature, particularly the poetry of W.B. Yeats, as exemplary of global postcolonial resistance culture. Though most often subsumed into a “de-politicized” modernist canon, Yeats emerges for Said a study in the conflicting tensions which characterize the struggle for decolonization. Yeats recognizes British imperial domination of Ireland and seeks to counter assimilation by exploring and reifying an indigenous Irish cultural heritage…

…Successive Irish artists are indebted to Yeats as they inventively subvert imperialism and reclaim the geographical, political, and imaginative regions held by the colonizer…

Another plus to the essay – it substantially references a favorite movie of mine, Into the West, concerning two young Irish Travellers escaping the clutches of modern society on the back of a possibly magic horse.

As you may or may not know, Urban Scout has created the world’s first open source field guide. The subject? Rewilding. And I’ve added my first page – Body Skills. An excerpt:

Body Skills

Rewilders can easily overlook the importance of training their body, in favor of the technological skills of wilderness living. In fact, many cultures see the intimate knowledge of how to use one’s body effectively as a technology in and of itself. Modern humans have the overwhelming excess of calories to make moving inefficiently and carrying constant tension an option. A person with an efficient body will find the vast array of wilderness skills far easier and pleasant, even with little or no actual change in “technique”.