Transcript
Reflections from the cement coffin world transformation through rehabilitation what is the key? Receive the messege Transmit the messege Give Little Explanation The above thought I received one night while writing in my journal - so excited I didn't think to mark the date and time. I stopped writing - relaxed, laid back on my bunk and observed within the beautiful emotional impulse I was allowed to experience. Reflections from the cement coffin World transformation through rehabilitation What is the key? The key to world transformation through rehabilitation is the higher power. And what I mean by the higher power is not a system of religious belief but the intelligence of inner-peace. That is greater then our individualized selves. Why do we look for a plan of action from any other source? Is there any other source from which the vision and practical plan of action to help us facilitate the experience of world peace and unity desired should be expected to come. Does it make sense that we, as a collective body, accept the reality of a higher power that is greater then our individualized selves (i.e. one nation under God) yet don't seek our solution/truth from the higher power accepted as reality? Nobody seems to speak about a vision and practical plan of action for peace and unity from the higher power because it is something that can't be lied about. For instance, the Black Panther Party galvanized inner city communities across the country with their messege in a little over a year's time after becoming organized. Additionally, the free love hippie movement reverberated throughout the nation and parts of the world in a relatively short period of time. As a result of these lessons, it is difficult for somebody to claim having a vision to share from the higher power without also having been given to share a practical plan of action to generate sustainable movement; a plan of action inclusive of everyone who desires peace and unity. It is something you can't lie about. This is why nobody seems to talk about it. There are those who have a vision for just waiting until the next life to experience collective peace and unity, but the resolve to do so is betrayed when these same people organize candle light vigils and moments of silence in hope of a answer to the generational suffering that appears to be unanswerable. This is indicative of maybe not understanding the experience of collective peace and unity now is the next life many are waiting for. Why wait for the experience of heaven when a vision and practical plan of action from the higher power can show us the way to experience right now? I remember as a young boy my mom giving me a note and sending me to the corner liquor store to buy her a pack of Kool cigarettes. The note of course verified to the person working the cash register on whose behalf I was conducting my business. I believe it is the same way with the higher power. The one sent with the vision and practical plan of action is sent along with a note to verify on whose behalf the business is being conducted. Somebody might argue that as a little boy being sent to conduct my mom's business I can easily forge the note verifying my mission, especially if my intentions are selfish and I really want the cigarettes for myself and not my mom. Such a argument is not untenable and maybe the point it raises is even the crux of the problem when it comes to peace and unity. What I mean by this is it appears somebody is forging the notes used to verify on behalf of who they say they are conducting their business. What is the vision? The plan of action? These are the questions I ask. And, if it is from the higher power, I know the vision and plan of action is against no one and nothing in this world. Otherwise, to create a family and then hate the family created, I would have to diagnose the higher power as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Either the higher power suffers from it or we project this disorder onto the higher power. Either way it needs to be treated. But, on the other hand, hateful negative judgmental members of the family being temporarily exiled out of the house until they look within and find their way back home to inner-peace through rehabilitation, this makes sense. And maybe when the time comes for members of the family to return home this is when the one with the note from the higher power is sent. The note I am talking about from the higher power can't be forged because it is not a note written on paper or spoken with the language of flowery words. It is spoken with the simple clear practical language of life experience. It's this life experience I speak of that illustrates prison's place in society being a reflection of collective transformation through rehabilitation. I am talking about a experience such as the one embodied by the excerpt from the poem "voices" below: ...In the back of the police car I heard voices Telling me Forget about it all Seek Truth Of Voices The ending of the beginning One voice Love Nineteen years of incarceration being humbled by the prison system in order to receive a vision and messege from the higher power is something that can't be forged or lied about. Or a experience such as having to run and hide from your mom in a old camper shell because she is suffering from a high degree of paranoid schizophrenia. I can still hear the voices in my head as if the moment occured yesterday. "[redacted]! [redacted]!" It's my Aunt Michelle yelling for me. I'm six years old and she's eleven. "Come on! It's your mom! Your mom's coming!" I'm in the hallway of my grandparents home paying next to the bathroom door not too far away from the door leading out to the backyard. Her frightened voice means no drill and my panic stricken eyes - big as two yellow swirl boulder marbles become blind to army men and toy forts left forgotten in the condition the sound of her voice hitting my ear drums found them in. I'm running as fast as my little legs can keep up - out the back door through the backyard gate into the alley and then backyard of our next door neighbors underneath the brush of tree limbs hanging over the ..." Old dusty spider web infested infested camper shell back yard next door I was running... voices." My Aunt Michelle locks me in and promises to come back once my mom is gone. It smells like what I imagine the tomb of a Egyptian pharoh to smell like old moth balls in a closet full of clothes mildewed. The air so still and quiet inside my heart can hear the world of sub-atomic particle reality discussing the future uncertainty beginning to enslave my mind. I'm hot and sweaty from nerves and trepidation, nudging my body down as low as possible in between the miscellaneous collection of things collecting dust and spider webs. My heart is racing a thousand beats per nano second. What if she finds me? What then - look her in the eye and watch her cry when I tell her, "No!?" She's looking for me. I hear her yelling, "Shawn! Shawn! You don't love your mom! You gonna let them take you from me! You don't love me no more! The piercing sound - the screaming, crying, sobbing tears tormenting me ripping my heart wide open and I don't even know it. Those same voices had me out in the streets of L.A. and Hollywood in the late night early morning hours cold - tired - hungry sleeping from place to place observing strangers and fighting with kids I didn't know because I was still foreign to myself. Sleeping crunched up nose plastered against a second story apartment window on the top bunk crowded by two other kids yet alone gazing at the stars into the night time sky wondering about nothing I could understand so I hid underneath this hard shell. I'm frightened - afraid of the spiders around me yet more afraid of my mom finding me. It feels like a prison inside not being able to love my mom as freely as I desire to, so I ran farther and farther inside away from it all. I was suppressed, repressed, compressed, digressed, confined and imprisoned - like the clock on a ticking time bomb sequence initiated. Did I negatively judge my mom? No! Love is greater then negative judgment. I didn't understand why, but I knew it was the voices controlling her influencing her to act in a way she wouldn't normally act. But it was in that dusty camper shell that my mom bestowed upon me the greatest gift ever; that is the desire to love. It was then that she planted the seed. What does the above experience have to do with the key to world transformation through rehabilitation being the higher power? I can tell you no better then Emmanuel Kant does in his essay, "An answer to the question: What is enlightenment?" He writes, "When nature as under this hard shell (i.e. civil restrictions) developed the seed for which she cares most tenderly - namely the inclination and the vocation for free thinking. This works back upon the character of the people (who thereby become more and more capable of acting freely) and finally even on the principles of government, which finds it to its' advantage to treat man, who is now more then a machine, in accord with his dignity." The seed of free thinking working its' way back upon the character of the people, as Kant describes it, I believe parallels prison's role in my transformation and therefore its' place in our society. My path of rehabilitation began under the hard shell of mother nature and my transformation is now occurring in the prison cell of San Quentin State Prison. Another way of looking at this symbiotic relationship between prison and society is to think of prison as the belly in the beast. Clearly, a dysfunctional belly (to whatever degree the dysfunction is) equals a dysfunctional body, which if not cured, eventually impairs the health of the entire bodily system. And maybe the ebb and flow of budget deficits is indicative of this symbiotic relationship. I continue with this metaphor by looking at one possible understanding for the biblical story of the prophet Jonah in the belly of the whale. I see the prophet Jonah as being symbolic of us all, both as individuals and as a individual collective. I mean this in the sense that I believe we are all potential messengers with a messege of peace and unity to share with each other. But before Jonah is cast into the ocean and swallowed up into the belly of the whale, he is fearful and reluctant to become who he is - a messenger. It isn't until in the belly of the whale that the process of rehabilitation begins to unfold. Jonah says, "... I cried by reason of my affliction until the lord heard me; out of the belly of hell I cried, nd you heard my voice. For you had cast me into the deep ... Then I said I am cast out of your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple. The waters compressed me about even to the soul... I went down to the bottoms of the mountain; the Earth with her bars was about me forever: yet have you brought up my life from corruption... They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy... But I will sacrifice unto you with the voice of thanksgiving... and the lord vomited out Jonah upon dry land (Jonah 1:1-10)." The connection I seek to make between prison's place in society and the story of the prophet Jonah in the belly of the whale is the parallel to world transformation through rehabilitation. Prison's place in society is to help create messengers of peace and unity whose thoughts and actions then become a reflection for society at large. I believe to misuse our prison system for social control, economic benefits and job creation is to ultimately misuse each other because the same solution for transforming our prison system is the same solution for transforming our individual lives and the larger world system which individual lives comprise. This solution is the higher power (i.e. peaceful intelligence). Once we collectively understand the place of our prison system in society is that of a reflection of society at large, I believe then we will come together with sincere eager hearts (i.e. prison officials, government officials, social services, community organizations, inmates) and focus positive emotion on effective rehabilitation as a means for transformation. If first individual lives are transformed and then our nation, the world will eagerly follow the same path. I believe I am a living symbol of this process of transformation unfolding in the belly of San Quentin, just as San Quentin State Prison I believe is a symbol of the process unfolding in the belly of America and America the symbol of this process unfolding in the belly of mother earth. The higher power I know is mother earth. She is making herself known to me as a emotional being with a peaceful intelligence. "She is the tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are all who retain her (Pro. 3:18)." She is personified on Earth as the Statue of Liberty and, by proponents of the Gaia theory (i.e. mother earth is a living organism with intelligent being) she is known as a living organism. But maybe she is most commonly known as that woman who makes the world go around because she herself is the world. Or maybe you know her as that hell who has no fury like a woman scorned by those who choose to follow negative intentions instead of peace. I think we all speak of her, though, as the strongest peace on the board (i.e. the game of chess) and that underlying unifying power equally by the side of every great man. I am, as I believe we all are, in this world to represent the interest of mother earth, which, for me, is the building of the kingdom of heaven first within self. For those of us who desire right now the experience of world peace and unity, the experience of the kingdom of heaven on mother earth is the experience I believe we desire. And why should we not desire this experience, since the experience is known to contain no suffering? This is why I am writing to you about the key to world transformation through rehabilitation in relation to our prison's place in society. Many draw their conclusions based on solely one side of the story (i.e. his-story). The life story I have to tell is her story. It is the note she has given me to verify on whose behalf I speak. My name is Earthvibe. I am nobody. Effective rehabilitation has implications much more encompassing then transforming the lives of inmates behind stone walls and electrical fences. My experience in San Quentin State Prison teaches me that prison's place in society is that of a microcosm. It is the smaller society within the larger society and they are both a reflection of each other, the same path of effective rehabilitation my higher power guides me along I believe is the same path it is now time for us to awaken and consciously travel together. And, as we begin to awaken to our common goal (individual/collective world transformation through rehabilitation) and the thinking in our school system and social institutions begin to reflect this awakening (i.e. President Barack Obama being elected the first black president elected to office in our nation is symbolic of this collective transformation within), the negative judgment and blame toward each other which keep us divided will methodically become a "why was we tripping" relic of the past. The right now living experience of the higher power we collectively accept as being greater than our individualized selves (i.e. one nation under God) having the power to unify incorruptible peace, unity and prosperity through us all will then speak boldly and incontrovertibly for itself. This is the simple message - the essence of the vision and plan of action mother earth is giving us through me. I only have my note to verify who I am and how my higher power has rehabilitated me in the belly of our prison system.
