n a t b s

The Christian church became infected with racism when it entered white Europe. The Christian returned to Africa under the banner of the Cross—conquering, killing, exploiting, pillaging, raping, bullying, beating—and teaching white supremacy. This is how the white man thrust himself into the position of leadership of the world—through the use of naked physical power. And he was totally inadequate spiritually. Mankind’s history has proved from one era to another that the true criterion of leadership is spiritual. Men are attracted by spirit. By power, men are forced. Love is engendered by spirit. By power, anxieties are created.

Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts.  He later wrote of them in his log:

They…brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bell.  They willingly traded everything they owned…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, the took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

-Christopher Columbus, from A People’s History of the United States.

I have thought a thousand times, I guess, about how I so narrowly escaped death twice that day. That’s why I believe that everything is written.

Cloud: …Aerith. This can’t be real!

Sephiroth: Do not worry. Soon the girl will become part of the Planet’s energy. All that is left is to go North. The ‘Promised Land’ waits for me over the snowy fields. There I will become a new being by uniting with the planet. As will this girl……

Cloud: …Shut up. The cycle of nature and your stupid plan don’t mean a thing. Aerith is gone. Aerith will no longer talk, no longer laugh, cry…… or get angry…… What about us…… what are WE supposed to do? What about my pain? My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!

Sephiroth: What are you saying? Are you trying to tell me you have feelings too?

Cloud: Of course! Who do you think I am!?

Sephiroth: Ha, ha, ha…… Stop acting as if you were sad. There’s no need to act as though you’re angry either. Because, Cloud. You are…

Sephiroth disappears and left another Jenova behind. Cloud’s group fights Jenove-LIFE. After Cloud’s group defeated Jenova-LIFE…

Jenova: Because, you are…… a puppet.

I wrote again on my tabletop, scrawled the symbols for the interrelationship between matter and energy as it was understood in my day:

It was a flawed equation, as far as I was concerned.  There should have been an “A” in there somewhere for Awareness—without which the “E” and the “M” and the “c,” which was a mathematical constant; could not exist.

Vonnegut is a genius, not that he’s the first to have this thought, but here’s an excerpt from a great article I read yesterday:

Could the long-sought Theory of Everything be merely missing a component that was too close for us to have noticed?  Some of the thrill that came with the announcement that the human genome had been mapped or the idea that we are close to understanding the “Big Bang” rests in our innate human desire for completeness and totality.  But most of these comprehensive theories fail to take into account one crucial factor: We are creating them. It is the biological creature that fashions the stories, that makes the observations, and that gives names to things. And therein lies the great expanse of our oversight, that science has not confronted the one thing that is at once most familiar and most mysterious — consciousness….In short, the attempt to explain the nature of the universe, its origins, its parameters, and what is really going on, requires an understanding of how the observer — our presence — plays a role.

-‘Biocentrism’: How life creates the universe