"If you hold the talking stick in any community meeting then you can talk for as long as you like about whatever you like and in any way you want. No one can interrupt. You can go for seconds or for days - and some people have - never letting go of the Talking Stick. When you feel you are finished you hand it on to the next in line." ~ Warren Feek *
Update: 01 Februrary 2011 My vision for Georgia and Dawson County Democrats: it has been proven that an agenda of avoiding upsetting the conservatives and Republicans is not working to restore our traditional Democratic principles in governing. Full text at Talking Stick News
Update: 20 October 2010: The Promise of Fall
Update: Aug. 15, 2010: A relatively long hiatus from writing seems to be remitting and I am planning to taking the
task of communicating as widely as possible information on some of the ways our government continues to abuse and torture prisoners who are alleged to be associated with Al Quaeda. My particular concern lies with the corruption of the psychologists and other members of the professional caring community. I am particularly interested in finding ways to apply pressure on the professional organizations which set the policies and ethical standards; and as well to arouse a hopefully outraged citizenry to demand changes in the behavior of this government that represents us all.
That will be the work. I also hope to soon return to my daily diary http://firefliesandbonfires.com/weblog/blog1.php with some good positive and aesthetics.
April 2010: If you are put off by lengthy self analysis feel free to stop reading and start clicking the links on the left. Enjoy the potpourri of creations and opinions, personal favorites preserved through the years..There has been a lot of living, mostly richly satisfying and personally rewarding, since I began began to publish Talking Stick and Lorraine's Talking Stick News. I began from hope others might share in the discovery of the majesty of Humility and Peace as verbs. For me, it has been a process that comes late in life and began during the weeks leading to the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
Gathering is a page containing a Java applet of images celebrating my first coming together with the wonderful citizens of North Georgia. We have since fallen into disparate niches, each cultivating and supporting the work of democracy, in our own way working for justice and for peace and preparing for the tasks of reconciliation. My outlook and confidence in peacemaking remains.
I am not certain which is proving more important; the clarification and consolidation of a long held world view or the discovery of the satisfaction and power of participation in community. People whom I came to know, in particular those who for years had been out there in the arena of peacemaking, remain an uplifting and affirming force in my life, .
You will note the links on the left are to creative material as well as some papers regarding health care, climate change, economics, the political process and more.
My impulse to co-mingle the creative and the beautiful with the serious and the grim comes from my experience of my father's love for and work with flowers. He truly recognized man as a generative and generous being and that beauty was an essential element in that. He held a profound understanding that investment in nourishing other life is not creation nor ownership.
In November 2007 I wrote: The life I have so far lived has been mostly in service to others -- "out there." Investment in the well being of all life and understandings derived over the years assure me that the world does not end when my life does." In humility, I know I am an accidental recipient of grace, derived from ancient parental commands to "be aware" and fortuitous decisions too often made impulsively and "accidentally."
I am certain much of this was fired in the kiln of having been called upon at too young an age to choose to intentionally practice his beliefs as he coped with the Great Depression. And through the Great War he held firmly that the only sustainable response to barren darkness and tragedy is not violence nor competitive acquisitiveness; but to replant and to empower the creative..
This is a world view I have aspired to and taken for granted for most of the years of my life, never giving recognition to its source nor to the existence of alternative views. I do so now.
Our government lies in ruins with such diminished capacity to defend or attend to the most basic rights of its citizens there are those who doubt recovery is possible. We have a new president in hope who has promised to heal our nation. I hope he understands the distinction between redemption and enabling. - wlw
"It 's the strength that you share when you are growing." - J. Baez
(I am Less than the Song I am Singing)
**The is a quotation from an article which may be found at Drumbeat and the Communications Initiative web pages at Communications Initiative.
The author Warren Feek is an inspiration in his commitment to facilitating communication among the diverse cultures and nations of the world.
* Warren Feek March 2004 Drumbeat the E-Mail voice of Communications Initiative. It was inspired by The New Yorker, March 3, 2003, page 58. an article based on an interview with Kofi Annan.
Photographs by Talking Stick and Sue H.
Text & Graphics by Talking Stick © 2003-2007
© 2010